1. The AP reports CIA used waterboarding at least three times. For the first time, CIA Director Michael Hayden publicly confirmed the names of three people whom the United States tortured. “Hayden said that Khalid Sheik Mohammed – the purported mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States – and Abu Zubayda and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri were subject to the harsh interrogations in 2002 and 2003. Waterboarding is an interrogation technique that critics call torture… ‘Waterboarding taken to its extreme, could be death, you could drown someone,’ McConnell acknowledged. He said waterboarding remains a technique in the CIA’s arsenal, but it would require the consent of the president and legal approval of the attorney general.” Which I think means Bush approved the use of torture.

   TPMmuckraker weighs in with some analysis: “Hayden’s testimony is part of a bid to beat back a bipartisan attempt by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Chuck Hagel (R-NE), and others to pass legislation that would force the CIA’s interrogation policy to conform with the Army Field Manual. And rather than continuing to refuse to publicly discuss these issues, the administration seems to have adopted a change in tactics. Waterboarding was used only under extraordinary circumstances, Hayden’s saying. And as Attorney General Michael Mukasey disclosed last week, it’s not part of the current array of interrogation techniques deemed lawful. So it’s not worth legislating to prevent its use.” TPMmuckraker also has a fuller transcript of Hayden’s response.

2. The Los Angeles Times reports Federal judge overrules Bush’s Navy sonar exemption. “A federal district judge in Los Angeles on Monday rejected the Bush administration’s attempt to exempt Navy sonar training from key environmental laws, ruling that there’s no real emergency to justify overruling court-ordered protections for whales and dolphins. U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper also suggested that President Bush’s effort to maneuver around an earlier federal court order was ‘constitutionally suspect,’ although she made no ruling on that issue… After reviewing the law and regulations, Cooper concluded that the Navy had no real emergency on its hands. The move to invoke these alternative arrangements, she wrote, appeared to be an attempt to get around the law after more than 10 months of litigation and losing several court battles.”

3. The Guardian reports Scientists isolate areas most at risk of climate change. “A team of climate experts has ranked the most fragile and vulnerable regions on the planet, and warned they are in danger of sudden and catastrophic collapse before the end of the century. In a comprehensive study published today, the scientists identify the nine areas that are in gravest danger of passing critical thresholds or ‘tipping points’, beyond which they will not recover.” The Independent has a succinct list of the Irreversible changes:

   • Arctic sea ice: some scientists believe that the tipping point for the total loss of summer sea ice is imminent.

   • Greenland ice sheet: total melting could take 300 years or more but the tipping point that could see irreversible change might occur within 50 years.

   • West Antarctic ice sheet: scientists believe it could unexpectedly collapse if it slips into the sea at its warming edges.

   • Gulf Stream: few scientists believe it could be switched off completely this century but its collapse is a possibility.

   • El Niño: the southern Pacific current may be affected by warmer seas, resulting in far-reaching climate change.

   • Indian monsoon: relies on temperature difference between land and sea, which could be tipped off-balance by pollutants that cause localised cooling.

   • West African monsoon: in the past it has changed, causing the greening of the Sahara, but in the future it could cause droughts.

   • Amazon rainforest: a warmer world and further deforestation may cause a collapse of the rain supporting this ecosystem.

   • Boreal forests: cold-adapted trees of Siberia and Canada are dying as temperatures rise.

Below the fold, yet another story about a steam locomotive in peril and a bonus story about satellite spotters.

4. The Arizona Republic reports Mesa has 2 months to save its old steam locomotive. “A half-century ago, as the age of the great steam locomotives chugged into oblivion, railroads had a problem: what to do with the belching old monsters? One solution was to just give them away, usually to cities for display in public parks. And so it was that Mesa came to own Engine 2355, a Southern Pacific Railroad workhorse for decades after its construction in 1912, the year Arizona was born. Its arrival in 1958 ignited a municipal celebration, and it became the centerpiece of Pioneer Park…

   “What once was the railroad’s problem is now Mesa’s. The train is rusting rapidly; the city’s environmental engineer says you can poke a finger through some parts of the decrepit boiler housing, and there’s a danger that asbestos could begin falling out. Lead paint also is a concern because the engine sits right next to the park playground. But it’s not just an aesthetic or a safety problem. It’s a financial one. Based on an expert’s diagnosis, Mesa thinks it could cost $335,000 to mitigate the health hazards and administer a ‘cosmetic’ restoration.”

   Southern Pacific No. 2355 under steam more than a half century ago.

5. There is an interesting story in The New York Times about Satellite spotters and the secrets they glimpse and share with the world.

   When the government announced last month that a top-secret spy satellite would, in the next few months, come falling out of the sky, American officials said there was little risk to people because satellites fall out of orbit fairly frequently and much of the planet is covered by oceans.

   But they said precious little about the satellite itself.

   Such information came instead from Ted Molczan, a hobbyist who tracks satellites from his apartment balcony in Toronto, and fellow satellite spotters around the world. They have grudgingly become accustomed to being seen as “propeller-headed geeks” who “poke their finger in the eye” of the government’s satellite spymasters, Mr. Molczan said, taking no offense. “I have a sense of humor,” he said.

   Mr. Molczan, a private energy conservation consultant, is the best known of the satellite spotters who, needing little more than a pair of binoculars, a stop watch and star charts, uncover some of the deepest of the government’s expensive secrets and share them on the Internet.

   A hero for our time?

We’re talking here about that sunny bright goodness, the very nobility of corporations, that dear, quaint eagerness which just might fade if they were to act legally, and for pay.  Aspects of the AG’s “New Justice”–Lawbreaking Without Consequences–meaning no disrespect or disapprobation, I promise! –will be parsed. (I’ve been watching too much Jane Austen or can’t you tell? – Heh.)

In this corner:

We have the dad, Michael Mukasey, a powerful

figure in charge of JUSTICE in this country,

defending the telecoms, going to bat for the

corporations, for their retroactive immunity

for spying illegally on us.

In the other corner:

We have the son, Marc Mukasey, a young warrior,

defending the telecoms, seeking immunity for

corporations that illegally spy us, turning

over our calls and emails to the government

without warrants.

I’m wondering if it bothers you.

Crossposted on the orange board.

Friday I wrote a diary on kos, a diary about a conflict of interest,  the fact that Michael Mukasey’s son happens to be an attorney for Bracewell & Guiliani. Marc Mukasey

Marc Mukasey is in charge of the white collar crime division. Marc Mukasey is charged with defending Verizon, one of the telecoms at risk of law suits for illegal spying.

The father, new Attorney General Michael Mukasey is speaking out. He, like his son, wants immunity for the telecoms, including Verizon, which  passed along without any legal basis the phone records and emails of all of their customers– that would be us.

Mukasey, rather than recusing himself, as he promised to do before confirmation in cases involving Guilian, speaks out FOR his son’s firm’s position. He telegraphed his position FOR IMMUNITY for telecoms in this speech @ ABA Security Law Breakfast. Tell me how his son’s job and his own role as AG are not a conflict of interest. Is there any daylight between the father and son positions?

It’s critical that Congress provide retroactive liability protection for telecommunications companies, as a bipartisan bill from the Senate Intelligence Committee does….

He goes on to say that all the telecoms are at huge financial risk now:

….all because they are alleged to have helped the government in obtaining intelligence information after 9/11.

They just “helped the government.” He omits the lawbreaking part.

He concentrates on the economic and reputational fallout for the telecoms. That’s the important thing, not enforcing the law, not upholding the Constitution.

Why, “it’s enough,” says Mukasey:

…enough to send any company into bankruptcy. These companies face lawsuits, they face bankruptcy, they face loss of reputation, they face millions of dollars in legal fees …the prospect of having to defend against these massive claims is an enormous burden for the companies to bear.

Not only is the litigation itself costly, but the companies also may suffer significant business and reputational harm…

“Simply because these companies are believed to have assisted…”  This is not true. Their assistance is not the problem, the illegality is. But our AG is more interested in being a Defender of Corporations than an upholder of the Consitution and Defender of the People. Mukasey switches course in his speech, going down another familiar path–fear:

As you might imagine, these companies and others may decide that it’s too risky to help the Intelligence Community in the future, no matter how great our need for their assistance may be.

….(the Senate Intelligence Committee) said in its report-that, “without retroactive immunity, the private sector might be unwilling to cooperate with lawful Government requests in the future,” resulting in a “possible reduction in intelligence.”

Some SENATORS– SUCH AS THAT BOOB I heard on Friday, oh, yes, that was Sen. John Warner R-VA–are portraying the TELECOMS AS VOLUNTEERS(!!) just ever-so-eager to help the government–these same corporations are going to not help anymore if they do not get immunity– when required to– legally, according to the FISA laws?

That shiny bright goodness of corporations, that dear, quaint eagerness fades does it, if they were to be required by law to perform such a service, for pay? What he is arguing here is nothing less than retribution. Nice. In the land of Corporations Over All, we cannot have them paying a price for breaking the law. It’s not fair.

In an age where we need to use every possible advantage to understand an enemy that may seek to exploit and hide **within the vast expanses of the internet,** we simply cannot afford to discourage the private sector from helping us to detect and prevent the next terrorist attack.

And not only is immunity in the best interest of our Nation’s security, it’s also a fair and just result. -Mukasey [emphasis added]

It’s hard to know where to begin. All I know is that Bracewell & Guiliani are going to get a hefty fee from Verizon, and former prosecutor Marc will be moving up the ladder no doubt. Thanks, step-dad.

Look at the implications of AG Mukasey’s “New Justice”.

     —  It is “fair and just” for corporations to break the

         law and not be punished in any way.

     —  It is not “fair and just” for citizens to break the

         law and not be punished in any way.

     —  It is “fair and just” for corporations to do whatever

         they damn well please because corporations come first.

     —  If corporations are punished for lawbreaking at the

         behest of government we can reasonably expect that

         they will in the future refuse to obey the law.

     —  Economic interests of corporations come before the

         law of the land.

     —  It is “fair and just” for us to endure being spied upon.

         After all, we have nothing to hide.

     —  It is not “fair and just” for the administration,

         for Bush/Cheney/Gonzo to have their communications

         made public! Their communications are sacred and secret,

         ours an open book.

     —  Because the corporations were responding to “the

         President himself” they deserve immunity, because,

         well, it’s a sacred thing.

     —  Because of 9/11, we need cooperation of the private

         sector “to prevail” –and immunity is needed to

         maintain cooperation from corporations.

     —  WWII cooperation from corporations was “voluntary”

         and the equivalent to the telecoms patriotic

         “volunteering” to “assist” the government illegally.

     —  The people are not trustworthy, but the administration is.

     —  There is no “conflict of interest.” Ever.

“Voluntary” action by corporations during WWII was legal and for profit. You see, there is voluntary and there is voluntary. One is more free will and for profit, and the other is choosing to do something for no profit. But Mukasey made it sound otherwise.

One could extrapolate Mukasey’s “New Justice” argument to a hypothetical war situation:

   —  A corporation which “volunteers” (read: decides) to help

       in a war effort–for profit–no matter how unethical,

       immoral and illegal its behavior, is inherently good and

       should be rewarded, never punished or held accountable.

       Umm. Kind of like Blackwater, perhaps?

Then there’s the Senate. It’s as Glenn Greenwald said:

Can someone please tell Jay Rockefeller that we don’t actually live in a country where the President has the definitively dictatorial power to “compel” and “require” private actors to break the law by “ordering” them to do so? Like all other lawbreakers, telecoms broke the law because they chose to, and profited greatly as a result. That telecoms had an option is too obvious to require proof, but conclusive proof can be found in the fact that some telecoms did refuse to comply on the grounds that doing so was against the law.

There is a branch of Government that does have the power to compel and require behavior by private actors. It’s called “the American people,” acting through their Congress, who democratically enact laws regulating that behavior. And the American people enacted multiple laws making it illegal… for telecoms, in the absence of a warrant, to enable Government spying on their customers and to turn over private data. Rockefeller’s claimed belief that we live in a country where private companies are “compelled” to obey orders to break the law is either indescribably authoritarian or disgustingly dishonest — probably both.

Yes. Both. Bush/Cheney and are parroted by Mukasey. Break the law and you won’t get punished. The concept of responsibility or accountability is anathema to this administration. Bush/Cheney have had no consequences for breaking laws and promised the corporations they wouldn’t either.

Mukasey, rather than recusing himself, as he promised to do before confirmation in cases involving Guilian, speaks out FOR his son’s firm’s position.

The WH and GOP, as ever on the side of the corporate, the powerful, the wealthy, will portray Democrats who fight immunity as soft on national security, a tried and true weapon whose cache is lessening even as we speak. They argue that we need to pass an immunity for the telecoms to “keep the country safe.” We know however that the two things are not connected.

Legal Spying vs. Illegal Spying. That’s what it is about. Without legality there is no oversight, no just action.

Yesterday brought still more stupidity on the Senate floor. One Democratic senator said that the president had gone against the Consitution by spying illegally. A Republicon argued vehemently that that was untrue. He said that because they had voted to make the spying retroactively legal, that it was not illegal in the past. Retroactive law-making but no justice. Re-writing history. No matter what happens in the Senate now, the fact of lawbreaking is just that, a fact that cannot be changed, or sanitized. They broke the law, they acted against the Consitution and that’s a fact. They will try until they’re six feet under to define “reality” as theirs to decide, to re-write the history books to make themselves look good and righteous.

In the spirit of a popular front against the forces of anti-poniness, the Anarcho-Syndicalist Pony Liberation Front (ASPLF) has allied with more mainstream pro-pony forces to bring you an officially sanctioned Bootleg Pony.

As for your author ? Well, the subject of my Scots roots has come up lately, and ranged from nicknames to the inevitable kilt questions (“Well ?”) to a sporran-and-kilt reunion of sorts with our own outstanding climatologist stormchaser. One thing that comes to my mind is the love-hate relationship Scots themselves have with aspects of their own culture. For example, do you choose to say someone’s “strangling the cat,” (no, not that …) or playing the pipes ? Myself, I love the bagpipes. Never learned how to play but given their skill with wind instruments I have some hopes for my kids (actually I think the youngest will skirl, the middle one’s more of a Highland dancer.) But pipes, hmmm, different things come to mind.

What constitues “good pipes” ? Well, if you want to range a little more broadly, it’s hard to get better pipes than the Divine One had, the Michael Jordan of jazz voices (no — Mike was the Sarah Vaughan of basketball):

Of course, different cultures have their own pipes too. I like the Galician and Northumbrian ones a lot. This ? Ehhhh … not so much. But like my eldest he’s from Romanian stock and you might recognize the tune from a certain Tarantino flick:

The bagpipes themselves of course can be subject to misuse … ’cause, really. Dude :

This is more what I had in mind (sound’s a little poor, but they raaaawk) :

Or, if you want to go old-school as I sometimes do:

But on matters Scottish, I save the final rebuttal to Robin Williams for the pride of Govan, one of Glasgow’s very finest. Yer ladies and lairdships: Mister. Rab. C. Nesbitt.

Wha daur meddle wi’ me, Jimmy ? Awa wi’ yeh, yeh chavvies.

So, knock yourselves out with poniness. Me, best be off, Ahm blawin’ fer tugs.

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

cross posted from The Dream Antilles



Sayed Pervez Kambaksh

A young man has been sentenced to death in Afghanistan for downloading a report from the Internet and distributing it.

The Independent reports:

A young man, a student of journalism, is sentenced to death by an Islamic court for downloading a report from the internet. The sentence is then upheld by the country’s rulers. This is Afghanistan – not in Taliban times but six years after “liberation” and under the democratic rule of the West’s ally Hamid Karzai.

The fate of Sayed Pervez Kambaksh has led to domestic and international protests, and deepening concern about erosion of civil liberties in Afghanistan. He was accused of blasphemy after he downloaded a report from a Farsi website which stated that Muslim fundamentalists who claimed the Koran justified the oppression of women had misrepresented the views of the prophet Mohamed.

Mr Kambaksh, 23, distributed the tract to fellow students and teachers at Balkh University with the aim, he said, of provoking a debate on the matter. But a complaint was made against him and he was arrested, tried by religious judges without – say his friends and family – being allowed legal representation and sentenced to death.

So much for debate and freedom of speech.

The UN, human rights groups, journalists’ organizations and Western diplomats have urged the Karzai government to intervene and free Kambaksh. But the Afghan Senate passed a motion on January 30 confirming the death sentence.  Welcome to the US puppet government and its barbarianism.  

Want to respond to this?

Sayed Pervez Kambaksh’s imminent execution is an affront to civilised values. It is not, however, a foregone conclusion. If enough international pressure is brought to bear on President Karzai’s government, his sentence may yet be overturned. Add your weight to the campaign by urging the Foreign Office to demand that his life be spared. Sign the Independent’s e-petition here

More across the border.

Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised at the severity of the verdict.  You’ll recall that after Salman Rushdie published his novel, Satanic Verses, Ayatollah Khomeni issued a fatwa condemning him to death. It seems that Satanic Verses appropriated the prophet Muhammad as a character and attributed what some thought were insulting things to him. Later, the writer VS Naipaul, one of my heroes, described the fatwah as “an extreme form of literary criticism.”

It may be difficult to tell what will insult readers and even make them throw rocks. As Rushdie himself wrote in The Ground Beneath Her Feet,

“Insults are mysteries. What seems to the bystander to be the cruelest, most destructive sledgehammer of an assault, whore! slut! tart!, can leave its target undamaged, while an apparently lesser gibe, thank god you’re not my child, can fatally penetrate the finest suits of armour, you’re nothing to me, you’re less than the dirt on the soles of my shoes, and strike directly at the heart.”

Which brings me to two years ago, and this rock throwing and literary criticism news:

   Demonstrations against the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad by newspapers in Europe spread across Asia and the Middle East today, turning violent in Afghanistan, where at least four protesters were killed and over a dozen police officers and protesters injured.

   The protests gained momentum all over the Muslim world, a day after attacks on the Danish consulate in Lebanon and the Danish and Norwegian Embassies in Damascus, Syria, on Saturday. Muslim clerics led demonstrations in half a dozen cities in Afghanistan, and protesters turned out in Indonesia, India, Thailand, Iran, and even in New Zealand, where local newspapers recently reprinted the offending cartoons.

   A teenager died in Somalia in East Africa today when police fired in the air to disperse stone-throwing protesters and set off a stampede. A crowd of about 200 people stoned and broke the windows of the Austrian Embassy in the Iranian capital, Teheran, and tried to hurl gasoline bombs inside, Reuters reported. Police with riot shields prevented further damage and the crowd dissipated after an hour, the agency reported.

I have worried that not enough people would buy and read my 2005 novel, The Dream Antilles. But that seeming problem, a mix of ego, marketing and personal finance, pales compared with the idea that a few people would read my book and then thousands and thousands around the world would run into the streets trying to maim and kill people because of the affronts they perceived in it. Or that they would react in this way to some cartoons.  Or to the downloading and distribution of an internet report. Or the conferral of a knighthood on an Salman Rushdie whose best work in my view was Midnight’s Children, a remarkable magical realism novel paralleling the birth of India as a nation which won the 1981 Booker Prize and was later awarded the ‘Booker of Bookers’ Prize in 1993 as the best novel to be awarded the Booker Prize in its first 25 years. People here who know or have heard of only Satanic Verses should treat themselves to Midnight’s Children. I just don’t get it.

I will admit that I did smile when Mario Vargas Llosa had crowds attack the radio station in Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter because of insults to Argentinians. I thought that was a riot, and I laughed aloud. But I am not laughing at today’s news from Afghanistan.

I guess I didn’t realize that writing could be so dangerous. Or that criticism could be so extreme.

Updated (2/7/08 9 am ET):  Today it’s reported that Condoleezza Rice has called for Pervez to be saved:

The world’s most powerful woman has added her voice to the campaign to save the life of Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, the Afghan student journalist sentenced to death for downloading material on women’s rights from the internet.

Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, promised yesterday to raise his case personally with the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, which would significantly raise the international pressure for his release.

Ms Rice, who was in London for talks with Gordon Brown and David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, on the West’s Afghanistan strategy said: “I do think that the Afghans understand that there are some international norms that need to be respected. Of course, one has national laws and they’re national laws that are in accordance with traditions and religious practice. But there are international norms, and I’ll certainly talk to President Karzai about this case.”

Pervez is still in big trouble:

Ms Rice also hinted that Mr Karzai was aware of the growing furore over the student journalist’s plight and that he may be willing to use his power of presidential pardon to rescind the death sentence. However, Afghan officials said that the case must first exhaust the judicial process, in line with the country’s laws.



But the support of Ms Rice, who is such a high-profile figure and is a public ally of President Karzai, for Mr Kambaksh’s case may well be the best chance the student journalist has of avoiding execution. However, Mr Karzai’s relations with the West are somewhat fraught at present, and he may not wish to be seen to bow to Western demands.

Boy does that ever echo Codpiece McFlyboy’s remarks when as Governor of Texas he was asked to grant clemency.  And then, as we all know, because the accused had a full appeal, nothing could be done without undermining the courts.  Arrgh.

The bigger problem here is that the focus seems still to be on the sentence of death.  There’ll be no cause for dancing in the streets if this sentence gets commuted to life imprisonment because there was no crime committed.  Pervez needs to be freed.  Sparing him from the death penalty just isn’t sufficient.

I’m putting the creole and the red beans on to heat,

I’m diggin out my beads

I’m heading to the polls

and then I’m going to the Mardi Gras!

Laissez les bons temps rouler!