Steve,

Why not also pose the question to the CIA? You know the group of people who actually apprehended this innocent man and dumped him in the forest. It seems they have been talking a lot recently.

Eli

Why not also pose the question to the CIA?

well, mostly because you won't get an answer.

But Condi Rice is on her Magical Tragedy Tour of Europe at the moment, and has publicly said that although the US may make mistakes in the "war on terror" it will do everything possible to "make things right."

The el-Masri story practically screams the question for Rice "Is holding an innocent detainee for two additional months, them dumping him blindfolded in the Albanian wilderness without ID or money, how the US defines "everything possible?"

Steve,

Hope you’re having a good time. I just finished reading Sid Blumenthal’s piece. Thanks for the recommendation. Of course all Europe knows, as Blumenthal says, that Condi Rice is lying through her teeth when she says “the United States does not torture.” I’m afraid her tour, which was meant restore American credibility in Europe, is undermining it further. I never expected anything from her trip. She’s one of the most vacuous secretaries of state in American history, just Bush is one of the most ignorant. But, as I said before, the problem isn’t really with these phony people, but with our much-too-corrupted democratic process, which our special interests use to put them there. I can’t believe, and much of the world can’t figure out, how a nation with the world’s largest pool of talents can end up with these buffoons as its leaders! Later today I’ll be on a conference call with John Bolton on U.N. reforms (Do you have any questions?). I asked my NCEW friend who set this thing up when she was going to arrange a conference on political reforms at home. She asked me to find a sponsor. Maybe I should ask you if you know of any.

Come back in one piece – and with good stuff!

Anti-terrorist measures are greatly dependent on the goodwill and willingness of other people to cooperate? This type of abuse will discourage people with useful information from sharing it with the US and encourage people to give disinformation to the US in hopes of having the US take care of their enemies for them. Can someone who understands the dynamics please explain this to the people making this short-sighted policy?

Given its history, the MSM isn't going to follow up on this any more than it has really dug into the Dowing Street memo, or the ideas of bombing al jeezra.

And it's not only because they are scared. It's because they're "connected" to the "system" and the owners and publshers are damned afraid of being cut off financially (if not physically).
This corruption of government is big assed stuff, and those who are playing are playing for keeps.

Anyone wanting to take a peek at just how big might stroll on over to today's Talking Points Memo.

Thanks, Steve, for what you do. Hope your current mission is successful.

It's freaky that Rice "flees" to Europe just as Khaled el-Masri's case against the US surfaces, the Canadian government is holding a public inquiry into the Maher Arar rendition ( that one started in New York of all places ) and the Sami el-Arian court case results in acquittals and a hung jury. Another rendition victim has been speaking to the BBC recently - can't recall his name offhand, but he was pulled off a bus in Pakistan whilst in the company of 2 German tourists - and today the law lords destroy the UK government's basis for holding 8 foreign internees at Belmarsh, on the basis that information obtained under torture is inadmissible in SIAC tribunals.

This is unravelling very rapidly now.

Just to update - the guy I was referencing in the prior comment was Mamdouh Habib, and Australian citizen.

Steve,

You leave out one pertinent fact here: he was picked up originally while crossing into Macedonia for Serbia. (Was he really 'vacationing' there? Skopje is a very odd place for a vacation.) So their logic to return him there was likely because that's where he was 'found.'

I agree that this was a shitty thing for the CIA to do. But this detail is pertinent to understanding their thinking.

old habits:

the pakistani journalist, Hayatullah Khan, who photographed the missle fragments of the takeout of Abu Hamza Rabia, has been kidnapped.

Pakistani Journalist Abducted From Northern Tribal Area
He had taken photos of the remains of an apparent missile, said to have been used to kill a militant who officials say died by accident.
By Zulfiqar Ali and Paul Watson
Special to The Times

December 8, 2005

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A Pakistani journalist has been kidnapped after photographing the metal remnants of what appeared to be a U.S. missile that killed a senior Al Qaeda leader last week, his family said Wednesday.

A day before his disappearance Monday, Hayatullah Khan had expressed fears that intelligence agencies might take action against him for sending his photos to Pakistani and international media organizations, said Ihsanullah Khan, the journalist's elder brother.

Five masked men with AK-47 assault rifles abducted Hayatullah Khan in the town of Mir Ali, about 18 miles north of Miram Shah, administrative capital of the North Waziristan tribal area that borders Afghanistan, witnesses said.

The journalist was headed toward a checkpoint east of Mir Ali to cover a student protest when the gunmen stopped his car. They took him away in another vehicle. ...

A witness to Khan's abduction said his kidnappers looked like Taliban fighters, but his brother and local journalists said it was impossible that members of the fundamentalist Muslim militia that once controlled Afghanistan and still operates in the area had carried out the abduction.

"We have been assured by the Taliban that they have nothing to do with the kidnapping of Hayatullah," his brother said by phone from Mir Ali. Ihsanullah Khan added that he could not blame a specific group or agency for the kidnapping.

The Pakistani military's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency is frequently accused of harassing journalists and detaining Pakistanis without charge. But senior government officials in Peshawar denied that intelligence agencies were involved in Khan's disappearance.

"We understand the situation in the tribal territory is not very favorable for journalists, but it doesn't mean that any secret agency is involved in his abduction," said Shah Zaman Khan, spokesman for the governor of North-West Frontier Province.

One of Hayatullah Khan's friends said the journalist had been arrested by U.S. and Afghan forces a year and a half ago near the border and interrogated for two months. The man, who spoke on condition he not be named, said he negotiated a deal with Afghan authorities for Khan's release.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan8dec08,1,7102373.story?coll=la-headlines-world

Steve keeps commenting in a manner that, although intellectually powerful, and certainly well informed, is remarkably naive of the true nature of this administration, and the terribly evil lengths they are willing to go to.

ASK THE CIA???? What, are you KIDDING ME? Yeah, OK, well lets ask Rummie for the missing two thousand pages of the Taguba Report while we are at it. Or hey, where the hell is Phase two?? Lets ask that piece of shit Robertson. Hey, I know, lets ask Bush whether or not he thought we should bomb the Qatar offices of Al Jazeera. Or hey heck, lets get REALLY gutsy and ask the Mossad who REALLY lopped off Berg's head.

Need I go on?

Ask the CIA....good lord. Yeah right.

Forget the McCain Amendment. It won't erase what we've already done. Examples like this story are going to come back to haunt the U.S. for generations to come.

I'm sick and tired of hearing about how "Iraq is the central point in the war on terror" and "fight them there or fight them here." Well, guess what, now the Jihadists are even MORE determined to strike us at home because of our inept leadership.

I applaud your efforts Steve. However, in addition to asking the specific question about this rendition, please let our government officials know that many Americans are not idiots and know full well that they have used their power to place us in more danger than we were in pre-9/11.

If we continue pointing out the excellent work the C.I.A. is doing, G Dub's likely to drape another medal around Tenet's neck.

One wonders what Porter Goss is ordering the CIA to do if so many experienced professionals are quitting.

America seeks, but fails, to quell the uproar in Europe over CIA shenanigans

The Economist Global Agenda

The European left has long treasured the myth that CIA agents snatch people off the streets and whisk them off to covert prisons around the world for harsh interrogation. Now, for the first time, America has admitted that at least part of this is true. For decades, the United States—and other countries—have used “renditions” to transport terrorist suspects from the country where they were captured to third countries “where they can be questioned, held or brought to justice”, Condoleezza Rice declared this week.
However, the secretary of state insisted at the start of a five-day trip to Europe, that the United States “does not permit, tolerate, or condone torture under any circumstances”. It is American policy to comply with its treaty obligations, including those under the UN Convention Against Torture, of which it is a signatory. America is a “country of laws” and believes in the rule of law, she said. It has always respected, and will continue to respect, the sovereignty of other countries co-operating with it in its war on terror.
Ms Rice’s aim was to reassure America’s European allies, still fuming over reports that their own airspace and territory had been used by the CIA for its covert operations, including secret prisons. Alas, such is the suspicion about America and its treatment of terrorist suspects following Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib that her hosts immediately scoured her meticulously crafted declaration for loopholes. Worse, they found plenty of them.
Ms Rice said, for example, that America does not use other countries’ airspace or airports to transport detainees to a third country where they “will be tortured”. But the Convention Against Torture makes it unlawful to transport anyone to a country where there are “substantial grounds” for believing they might be tortured.
Ms Rice refused to confirm or deny the existence of secret CIA prisons for interrogating terrorist suspects in Europe. It might compromise the success of intelligence, law enforcement or military matters, she explained. But, given her admission that detainees have been transported to third countries for interrogation, the presumption must be that undisclosed detention centres do exist—or have done in the past—where such interrogations take place. Why else place them outside America and keep them secret?
The uproar was provoked by a report on November 2nd in the Washington Post. It claimed to have evidence of covert CIA camps in at least eight countries, some of them in eastern Europe. Poland and Romania, the likeliest suspects, both deny the charge. ABC News, citing past and present CIA officials, say those camps, allegedly containing 11 top al-Qaeda suspects, have now been moved to north Africa.
Under the Geneva Conventions, a country involved in an international armed conflict must notify the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) of anyone it is holding prisoner and allow it to visit him. But as the “war on terror” is not classified as an international conflict, the organisation can only “offer its services” to monitor American camps—it has no right of access. The Bush administration has let the Red Cross into Guantánamo and prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq, but it has refused to reply to repeated requests for notification of, and access to, undisclosed detention camps.
Ms Rice insists that the United States always respects the “sovereignty” of other countries. Where a foreign government chooses to co-operate in a rendition, this is perfectly permissible under international law, she says. This is correct, provided that the detainee has not been illegally abducted, and that he is not being sent to a country where he may be maltreated. Helping another nation to violate international law is itself a violation of the law.
European allegations of “hundreds” of CIA “torture flights” to a new “Gulag Archipelago” in eastern Europe are “so ludicrously overblown as to be laughable”, American officials protest. Privately, they imply the Europeans are hypocrites: many of those now grousing about America’s anti-terrorist policies have acquiesced in CIA operations on their territories.
All this is probably true. But snatching people off a foreign country’s streets and holding them incommunicado in an undisclosed place without charge for months, even years, without even their families’ knowledge, is unlawful, whether or not torture is involved. Such hidden detentions are explicitly banned under a new Convention on Enforced Disappearances, now being drawn up by the UN. They would also be outlawed under American law in Senator John McCain’s proposed bill prohibiting torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment by American military personnel or intelligence agents wherever they are.
Some administration officials have argued that the Convention Against Torture applies only to acts carried out within America’s territorial jurisdiction. Critics allege that this explains why so many of America’s interrogation centres—including Guantánamo—are beyond its borders. Dick Cheney has fought hard against Mr McCain’s amendment, it seems, precisely because it would remove any doubt, banning the use of cruel and inhuman techniques everywhere and by everyone.
This week, Ms Rice seemed to change course: she said that the UN ban on the torture or cruel treatment of detainees applies to all American personnel (including the CIA) throughout the world. The White House insisted this is “existing policy”. But if the secretary of state is right, why on earth is the vice-president fighting to keep the CIA out of the McCain ban?
During Ms Rice’s visit to Berlin, Angela Merkel, Germany’s new chancellor, announced that the United States had “accepted” that it had “erroneously taken” a German citizen to a jail in Afghanistan. Khaled al-Masri, who is now suing the CIA for wrongful imprisonment, claims to have been abducted by American agents while on holiday in Macedonia with his family in 2003. In Afghanistan, he says, he was held for five months and tortured, before being released without charge after it was discovered that he had been confused with an al-Qaeda suspect of the same name. While refusing to comment on Mr Masri’s case, Ms Rice confessed that “any policy will sometimes result in errors”.
The Europeans are not the only ones who need convincing. This week, Louise Arbour, the UN’s high commissioner for human rights, warned that the absolute ban on torture could become a casualty of the “war on terror”. Without naming the United States, she criticised “governments in a number of countries” who were claiming that the world had changed and that the old rules no longer applied. No credible case for this had been made, she insisted. Ms Rice has work to do.

The events you describe this chap went through *should* strain credulity. But, given the context, it doesn't. As I read it, I kept thinking I was reading about plot pitch for the movie "The Game" meets an Oliver Stone movie.

What a rabbit hole we've gone down. We're finding new depths to it everyday to it.

Any suggestion/idea who will be named the defendant in a case like this?

Well, well, well.

It finally looks as if Steve is finally beginning to get it! And of course kudos to his efforts.

to pissed off American: (who seems to get it more, as does Fitzgerald and others in DOJ):

Neither the CIA, FBI, NSA, etc are monolithic. There are very good people in all agencies. Despite the periodic effort to purge dissenters, technical skill cannot be totally divested.

The way military power (and what Max Weber, and schools such and Univ. of Chicago, UCLA define as government) works is NOT (in practical terms) through elected officials. Real power is defined in terms of the probability that one’s desired state will be realized. The “elected official process” is more of a placebo, to give legitimacy to that process and something Leo Straus (co-author of a book with Karl Schmidt – the John Ashcroft/John Roberts of the 3rd Reich) understood and taught.

To those naive enough to believe foreign policy is controlled by elected officials, one place to start is with Seymour Hersh's reposted 1993 article in the NYorker, A Case Not Closed

Yesterday Harold Pinter received the Nobel Prize in Literature. His superb speech speaks truth to power and should be read by all of us.

If you are interested, here it is:

http://tinyurl.com/bcffw

I ditto susan's suggestion.

Sorry for not checking the link in my recent post. It is:

A Case Not Closed

Folks,

If I may digress from this topic for a moment, I followed up on your postings on the other threat about the Zia al-Haq assassination during a conference call today with John Bolton. He was complaining about Syria not cooperating enough on the investigation of the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. I asked Bolton if he thought the United Nations should investigate whether Mossad killed then Pakistani president Zia al-Haq, now that a former American ambassador suspects it did and is calling for the investigation.

Bolton said that there need not be an investigation “just because John Ganther Dean says there should an investigation;” there’s “no evidence” against Mossad’s involvement.

“Why not?” I asked, “Unless you investigate how would you know if there is evidence. Ambassador Dean was after all an American ambassador, and he suspects that Mossad killed Zia.”

Bolton replied that Dean is “not a credible person.”

Mustafa:

On Oct. 3, 2001, Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, boasted at a Cabinet meeting, "I want to tell you something, don't worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it."

I think Sharon is right and, therefore, Bolton's position does not surprise me in the least.

OT:

Here's another guy who is not afraid to speak truth to power: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/

"HOWARD DEAN'S TRACK RECORD....Was Howard Dean wrong to say that we can't win the war in Iraq? John Judis says that although it might not have been the most politic thing to say, we ignore Dean at our peril:

During the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq, and during the invasion and occupation, Dean has been almost consistently correct in his statements. He has been the Democrats' and the nation's Cassandra — willing to reveal bitter truths about which Republicans and his fellow Democrats would prefer that he remain silent.

If you don't believe him, he's got a little list."

Tenet should be forced to give Kahled his "Medal of Freedom".

Susan,

I’m not surprised by Sharon’s statement, either. I recall reading (I think in the New York Times or Washington Post) that President Jimmy Carter had a fight with Prime Minister Menachem Begin in Tel Aviv over Begin’s refusal to open talks on Palestinian autonomy. Carter (and Anwar Sadat) believed that Begin had given them a commitment to follow up on the Camp David Accords with negotiations on Palestinian autonomy, and he infuriated Begin and American Likudniks by insisting on it. After the stormy session in Tel Aviv, a Begin aide was arranging Carter’s ride to the airport.

The reporter asked the Begin aide if the president was heading straight to Washington or would stop in Cairo.

“Or,” snapped the aide, fuming from Carter’s confrontation with him boss, “should he be sent back to Georgia?”

As you know, several pro-Israeli groups worked furiously to defeat Carter in his bid for reelection a few months later. Reagan was elected and Carter did go back to Georgia.

I don't think Israel would have anywhere near the influence they have now (and they've ignored almost everything Bush has suggested on handling the Palestinians) if it weren't for the Christian religious right.

I remember reading that the Christian Conservatives started a huge mail campaign when the Roadmap was released, pretty much stopping any progress.

Both groups have hated both Carter and Bill Clinton for their policies. And Howard Dean certainly took a hit when he proposed being "even handed".

It's really the Arab and muslim population boom that's forcing Sharon and the US to come to terms with their policy towards muslims, which may override any past goals.

Someone who uses the name susan writes: On Oct. 3, 2001, Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, boasted at a Cabinet meeting, "I want to tell you something, don't worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it."

Oh, and yeah, he Jews control the banks an Wall
Street too. Yeah, and Soros, he's Jewish too...

I don't know that Sharon said or what the context
was, but the purpose of the quote here seems to me
to be an instance of the old anti-semetic canard
that the Jews control the US or the world or
have secret meetings where they plot world domination
in between sips of the blood of gentile children.

Isreal enjoys almost blank check support these
days not because the Jews control the US but
because the millenial Christian Right is a huge
force in US politics, not the least through
George W. Bush. It is the Christian Right that
has been supporting Israel's actions to annex
the West Bank. Some of them believe that when
Isreal occupies the lands ascribed to Isreal in
the Old Testament, there will be the second
coming of Jesus. There was a recent New York
Times magazine article about the author of the
"Left Behind Books" running tours for in Israel.

I'm not carrying any torch for Israel's policies.
But people who go on about the secret or overt
control of the Jews in the US are not simply
critics of Israel or US policy toward Israel.
They are stepping from criticism of policy toward
a claim that Jewish people somehow compose a
dark and odeous force.

At most "the Jewish lobby" is just one faction
in US politics. Because of the historic canard
"the Jewish lobby" is credited with far more power than
it actually has. Compared to the Christian Right,
Grover Norquist's lobby of tax cutters, Tom DeLay
and even the NRA, or for that matter MoveOn.org,
they simply pale by comparison.

Ian, who is only Jewish when it comes to
anti-semites, Kaplan

I don't doubt the pro-Israel lobby carries some serious sway in the U.S. And they do find the religous right over here to be extremely useful idiots.

But conjecturing/suggesting, as Mustafa has, they cost Carter the 1980 election? Carter had other problems, no? Not all of Carter's problems can be laid at the feet of Israel. That is simplicfication in the extreme. But, I'm always willing to entertain contrary positions, so lay some data on me, in regards to the Carter v. Reagan election.

Hey Ian, what magic did you use to get your carriage return/line feeds to cooperate in this here thread window? thanks...

Has anyone here read James Bamford's "A Pretext For War"? He goes into some depth on the background and linkages between the architects of the Iraq war, PNAC and Israel. Pretty interesting stuff. I think the US People would be more than alarmed if they understood the background, afilitations and past stated positions of these people. And before someone trys to throw out the old you-know-what, I could care less about someone's religion or ethnicity. I'm only interested in understanding their goals, motivations, and where their allegiance lies.

The second coming notion is a bit of a misnomer. More popular is that they believe whoever supports Jews will be blessed, though they're in a bit of a quandary as they also believe Jews are going to hell.

Try
an
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Line Break
‹br›
Ace

Here's a little background on PNAC. And, Ian(if you are Ian), I have nothing but respect for Georget Soros. In addition, finding much to dislike and distrust about Ariel Sharon and the Likud does NOT make one an anti Semite.

The Project for the New American Century, or PNAC, is a Washington-based think tank created in 1997. Above all else, PNAC desires and demands one thing: The establishment of a global American empire to bend the will of all nations. They chafe at the idea that the United States, the last remaining superpower, does not do more by way of economic and military force to bring the rest of the world under the umbrella of a new socio-economic Pax Americana.

The fundamental essence of PNAC's ideology can be found in a White Paper produced in September of 2000 entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses:
Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century." In it, PNAC outlines what is required of America to create the global empire they envision.

According to PNAC, America must:
* Reposition permanently based forces to Southern Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East;
* Modernize U.S. forces, including enhancing our fighter aircraft, submarine and surface fleet capabilities;
* Develop and deploy a global missile defense system, and develop a strategic dominance of space;
* Control the "International Commons" of cyberspace;
* Increase defense spending to a minimum of 3.8 percent of gross domestic product, up from the 3 percent currently spent.

Most ominously, this PNAC document described four "Core Missions" for the American military. The two central requirements are for American forces to "fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars," and to "perform the 'constabulary' duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions." Note well that PNAC does not want America to be prepared to fight simultaneous major wars. That is old school. In order to bring this plan to fruition, the military must fight these wars
one way or the other to establish American dominance for all to see.

Project for the New American Century

September 20, 2001
The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States
Washington, DC

Dear Mr. President,

We write to endorse your admirable commitment to “lead the world to victory” in the war against terrorism. We fully support your call for “a broad and sustained campaign” against the “terrorist organizations and those who harbor and support them.” We agree with Secretary of State Powell that the United States must find and punish the perpetrators of the horrific attack of September 11, and we must, as he said, “go after terrorism wherever we find it in the world” and “get it by its branch and root.” We agree with the Secretary of State that U.S. policy must aim not only at finding the people responsible for this incident, but must also target those “other groups out there that mean us no good” and “that have conducted attacks previously against U.S. personnel, U.S. interests and our allies.”

In order to carry out this “first war of the 21st century” successfully, and in order, as you have said, to do future “generations a favor by coming together and whipping terrorism,” we believe the following steps are necessary parts of a comprehensive strategy.

Osama bin Laden
We agree that a key goal, but by no means the only goal, of the current war on terrorism should be to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, and to destroy his network of associates. To this end, we support the necessary military action in Afghanistan and the provision of substantial financial and military assistance to the anti-Taliban forces in that country.

Iraq
We agree with Secretary of State Powell’s recent statement that Saddam Hussein “is one of the leading terrorists on the face of the Earth….” It may be that the Iraqi government provided assistance in some form to the recent attack on the United States. But even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. Failure to undertake such an effort will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism. The United States must therefore provide full military and financial support to the Iraqi opposition. American military force should be used to provide a “safe zone” in Iraq from which the opposition can operate. And American forces must be prepared to back up our commitment to the Iraqi opposition by all necessary means.

Hezbollah
Hezbollah is one of the leading terrorist organizations in the world. It is suspected of having been involved in the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Africa, and implicated in the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. Hezbollah clearly falls in the category cited by Secretary Powell of groups “that mean us no good” and “that have conducted attacks previously against U.S. personnel, U.S. interests and our allies.” Therefore, any war against terrorism must target Hezbollah. We believe the administration should demand that Iran and Syria immediately cease all military, financial, and political support for Hezbollah and its operations. Should Iran and Syria refuse to comply, the administration should consider appropriate measures of retaliation against these known state sponsors of terrorism.

Israel and the Palestinian Authority
Israel has been and remains America’s staunchest ally against international terrorism, especially in the Middle East. The United States should fully support our fellow democracy in its fight against terrorism. We should insist that the Palestinian Authority put a stop to terrorism emanating from territories under its control and imprison those planning terrorist attacks against Israel. Until the Palestinian Authority moves against terror, the United States should provide it no further assistance.

U.S. Defense Budget
A serious and victorious war on terrorism will require a large increase in defense spending. Fighting this war may well require the United States to engage a well-armed foe, and will also require that we remain capable of defending our interests elsewhere in the world. We urge that there be no hesitation in requesting whatever funds for defense are needed to allow us to win this war.

There is, of course, much more that will have to be done. Diplomatic efforts will be required to enlist other nations’ aid in this war on terrorism. Economic and financial tools at our disposal will have to be used. There are other actions of a military nature that may well be needed. However, in our judgement the steps outlined above constitute the minimum necessary if this war is to be fought effectively and brought to a successful conclusion. Our purpose in writing is to assure you of our support as you do what must be done to lead the nation to victory in this fight.

Sincerely,
William Kristol,Richard V. Allen, Gary Bauer, Jeffrey Bell, William J. Bennett,
Rudy Boshwitz, Jeffrey Bergner, Eliot Cohen, Seth Cropsey,
Midge Decter, Thomas Donnelly, Nicholas Eberstadt, Hillel Fradkin,
Aaron Friedberg, Francis Fukuyama, Frank Gaffney, Jeffrey Gedmin,
Reuel Marc Gerecht, Charles Hill, Bruce P. Jackson, Eli S. Jacobs,
Michael Joyce, Donald Kagan, Robert Kagan, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Charles Krauthammer, John Lehman, Clifford May, Martin Peretz, Richard Perle, Norman Podhoretz, Stephen P. Rosen, Randy Scheunemann, Gary Schmitt William Schneider, Jr. Richard H. Shultz, Henry Sokolski,,Stephen J. Solarz, Vin Weber, Leon Wieseltier, Marshall Wittmann

I can understand the lowball figure this man has asked for.

It's not a matter of money. Any survivor of such brutal and inhuman treatment knows that mere money cannot right the wrong that has been done to this man.

Any perps who would do such a brutal thing, or who would condone or acquiesce to this viciousness have already dehumanized this man in their own narrow eyes. They offer money because that is what matters to them. What also matters to them is their "good name".

That is the reason for the lowball figure. It's not about money.

Khaled El-Masri is saying in litigation, the only forum that has been left to him, that he is a human being and that he matters. He is asserting his humanity. He is demanding that those who did this injustice recognize, in public, that he deserves to be treated with all the rights that a human deserves. He is demanding that those who treated him so injustly admit, in public, that they did him wrong. He is asserting, in public, that those who have done these horrible things to him, be held accountable, in the hopes that, therefore, they will not be as free to reoffend.

Khaled El-Masri is, in public, taking the first steps he needs to take to heal. Khaled El-Masri is, in public, standing up for the rights of all humans. Khaled El-Masri is, in public, trying to prevent this from happening to another human.

Khaled El-Masri deserves our support. Khaled El-Masri deserves the support that we didn't give him when he needed it.

I have no problems with criticism of Israel (I find
many of their policies abhorrant). Nor do I have
any problem with criticism of PNAC or other lobbying
groups. But the original quote suggested that
the US is basicly run by the Jews. This is
obviously untrue and is a classic liable. It
would be reasonable, however, to say that US
policy has been hijacked by "neo-cons". Some
of these people seem to believe that a right
wing hard line policy in Israel goes hand in hand
with good policy for the US. Again, I reject this
and think it is more than reasonable to criticize
these policies.

As to my identity, no one else could possibly
immiate my spelling and typos. Even I'm constantly
surprised.

Ian

Steve,

There seems to be a contradiction in the details of Masri's release between what you posted from Fouda and what Dana Priest reported in the WP on 12/4. Here's the excerpt:

"Several intelligence and diplomatic officials said Macedonia did not want the CIA to bring Masri back inside the country, so the agency arranged for him to be flown to Albania. Masri said he was taken to a narrow country road at dusk. When they let him off, "They asked me not to look back when I started walking," Masri said. "I was afraid they would shoot me in the back."

He said he was quickly met by three armed men. They drove all night, arriving in the morning at Mother Teresa Airport in Tirana. Masri said he was escorted onto the plane, past all the security checkpoints, by an Albanian."

Who do you think is more accurate? I'm leaning toward Dana.

Craig

Had El-Masri asked for more money the NeoCons would be screaming "he's just doing it for the money" in a New York minute. That is SOP spin when they smear someone.

"But the original quote suggested that
the US is basicly run by the Jews. This is
obviously untrue and is a classic liable."

If Sharon actually said what I quoted (and I have not been able to ascertain that he didn't), isn't the statement rather revealing? (Or, by my standards, shocking.)

Rather than attacking me for posting the quote (and thereby shifting the focus away from the statement itself), wouldn't it be better to consider the implications of what Sharon said?

If it is true, shouldn't we be concerned that a prime minister of ANY country can make such a statement without being swiftly rebuked by our administration?

Susan,

You want to discuss the implications of a statement attributed to Sharon, but for which you provide no sourcing. Don't you think that it would be helpful to first establish the facts before you discuss their implications?

The Sharon comment was reported by Israel Radio, (Kol Yisrael).

OK, here's a web link to Susan's quote:

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/10/1654251.php

However, I noted that all of the Google hits
on this quote were from Arab news media. Just
as the US has a certain bias in it's reporting
(how much have you read from US sources about
Iraqi civillian deaths), the Arab media has
a bias as well. So just because I found the
quote on the Web does not mean that I necessarily
believe that this is what Sharon said.

Sharon is an odeous figure. At the very least
he turned a blind eye to the slaughter of
non-combatants in Lebanon. He has been the
leading figure in the hard right in Israel.
As far as I can see, his policy of giving up
Gaza was simply a way to make sure that
Israel can annex the West Bank. There are many
issues to criticize Sharon on without digging up
quotes that may or may not be incorrect.

Even if Sharon did, in fact, say this, it does
not mean that he's correct. It does not
mean that "the Jews" have any more influence in the
US than the NRA. And anyone with a clue would
realize that "the Jews" have far less influence
than, for example, the credit card issuers who
got congress to pass a consumer unfriendly
bankruptcy measure recently.

Just because many of the neo-cons are ethnically Jewish
and some seem to believe that the interests of
Israel are the same as those of the United States
does not mean that they represent any sizable
fraction of people in the US with Jewish backgrounds.

Ian

Despite the intensive debate here and on other blogs on the credentials of the main stream media, this story was broken by the Washington Post, one of the evildoers of your usual MSM suspects, recently being held accountable for having a mole - i.e. Mr. Woodward - within the Bush administration venting the White House's opinions. Let me, in brief, explain just how good even the American main stream media are compared to most of their European counterparts.

Apart from the Italian reports on the Niger forgeries, no leading European newspaper has come close to the amount, depth and criticism broadcasted by the American main stream media. Over 400 secret CIA flights were recorded over German soil. No German journalist ever saw the significance of these flights ... until someone at the Washington Post connected some dots and suddenly the story gained momentum in Europe.

Please, be happy with such a disfunctional main stream media. Most of the European investigative journalism has fallen silent. Whether it is on the inner workings of our respective governments, the charade in Brussels or European relations with the US, there is zip investigative juornalism here. And there are hardly any blogs to compensate for this lack of interest in finding out what happened, to whom, where and especially why?

"Even if Sharon did, in fact, say this, it does
not mean that he's correct."

No, he's not correct; he should have immediately been taken to task by the Bush administration for even making such a comment.

And you, Ian, whom I respect, should apologize for calling me an anti-Semite.

Don, Ace, Ian:

As you may have noted, I didn’t quantify Israel’s influence on American governments or politics. No, I didn’t mean to say or imply that Israel or pro-Israeli groups alone brought on Carter’s defeat. I covered the 1980 presidential race as a reporter and saw the devastating effects of the layoffs in Detroit, inflation and the Iran hostage crisis on the Carter campaign and, in fact, wrote an op-ed predicting Reagan’s victory without mentioning the Israel factor (which, in any case, would have been edited out if I did!). Yes, I know about the tremendous support Israel enjoys among American Christian Conservatives.

The neo-cons have indeed “hijacked” U.S. foreign policy, and Middle Eastern policy in particular. I’m glad I didn’t mention the word “Jews,” which, as an Indian-born Muslim I could well have inadvertently. I grew up in cultures in which people are insensitive about race or complexion but hypersensitive about religious symbols. You can’t excite a Muslim calling him or her “brownie,” “black” or “yellow,” but watch out if you make any disparaging remarks about Islam or the Prophet Muhammad.

I mention this because I'm alarmed to see that Islam in America has become fair game for media and the intelligentsia. I am a secular, non-practicing Muslim (can’t recall the last time I said a prayer!), and the demonization of Islam doesn’t bother me; but I'm really concerned over the devastating effect it’s having on U.S. relations with Muslim societies. Some do it intentionally for strategic reasons, but most American journalists and scholars aren’t just aware of its consequences.

In any case, I hope we don’t take our disagreements or misunderstanding personally.

OT:

Whatever will Condi has to say about this?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4512192.stm

US blocks ICRC access to suspects

The US has admitted for the first time that it has not given the Red Cross access to all detainees in its custody.

The state department's top legal adviser, John Bellinger, made the admission but gave no details about where such prisoners were held.

Correspondents say the revelation is only likely to increase suspicion that the CIA has been operating secret prisons out of international oversight. The issue has dogged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's tour to Europe.

Mr Bellinger made the admission in Geneva.
He stated that the group International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had access to "absolutely everybody" at the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which holds suspects detained during the US war on terror.

When asked by journalists if the organisation had access to everybody held in similar circumstances elsewhere, he said: "No". He declined to explain further.

Until now the US administration has been careful in its language, says the BBC's state department correspondent Jonathan Beale. It has always said that the ICRC has access to all prisoners held at US defence department facilities - leaving open the question of whether there are CIA prisons elsewhere.

Allegations 'ludicrous'

Mr Bellinger's comments will raise suspicions that high-profile terrorist suspects are being held out of international view, our correspondent says. Mr Bellinger said some of the allegations of secret prisons were "so overblown as to be ludicrous".

The ICRC wants access to all foreign terror suspects held by the US "in undisclosed locations".

"The dialogue continues on the question. We would like to obtain information and access to them," ICRC spokesman Florian Westphal said on Thursday.
Human rights groups say there is no way of knowing whether detainees being held in secret are being tortured.

On her visit to Europe, Condoleezza Rice has repeatedly denied that the US tortures prisoners.
On Wednesday, Ms Rice stressed that all American interrogators were bound by the UN Convention on Torture, whether they worked in the US or abroad.
Nato and EU foreign ministers, after meeting Ms Rice in Brussels on Wednesday evening, declared themselves satisfied with her assurances that the US does not interpret international humanitarian law differently from its allies."

Mustafa,
My response was to the statement attributed to Sharon, not to your post. I sited Carter and Clinton as evidence that Israel doesn't control the executive branch.

While Sharon may have believed he controlled the US, my belief is that he just had strong influence and even that temporarily, as most of it was bestowed by the Christian Right. He certainly ignored Bush as if Bush couldn't do anything about it. Seeing Israel gets a large amount of funding from the US, you'd think we could influence a few things, like placement of the fence. But other than in a few exceptional situations (firing missiles into an apartment building), Bush couldn't push Israel without alienating a large part of his base.

Susan, first you said "I think Sharon is right and, therefore, Bolton's position does not surprise me in the least.", then "No, he's not correct; he should have immediately been taken to task by the Bush administration for even making such a comment.". Which is it?

The "Jews control the US" is an emotional hot button for many American Jews, or at least the ones I met in Southern California. I think the belief is that it would lead to blame and accusations against Jews, hence anti-semitism.

The activism of Jewish groups in elections is fairly well documented, as is their dislike of Jimmy Carter. So I wouldn't be at all surprised at their efforts to unseat him. But I don't think they could have controlled the outcome. That election was pre-Diebold.

"Susan, first you said "I think Sharon is right and, therefore, Bolton's position does not surprise me in the least.", then "No, he's not correct; he should have immediately been taken to task by the Bush administration for even making such a comment.". Which is it?"

What I should have said is that the comment sounds like something Sharon might say. Who has the Bush administration treated with greater deference than Arial Sharon? What ever happend to the Road Map? If Bolton says that Mossad does not need to be investigated, Mossad very likely will not be investigated regardless of what an American ambassador recommends.

I do not think that Sharon or the Likud Party should influence American foreign policy. However, I am not naive enough to believe that it doesn't happen.

Ian's contention that American Jews concerned about Israel are, like the NRA, simply another interest group is correct. And, just as Bush caters to the NRA, I believe that his administration had Israel's security in mind when it decided to invade Iraq.

One of the most distressing aspects of this war is that it has made Israel (along with the US) far less safe. I hope the hawks (American and Israeli) are happy.

Mustafa, I meant to post this response earlier, but was side tracked by Life. Bummer.

Anyway, I meant to climb down off my high horse tone of "okay, prove it." I waited much too long to get my first coffee infusion today and the numb hadn't kicked in.

I enjoy your posts, as all the posting on this blog. Thank you though for the clarifying remarks.

My gut tells me that the lobby scene in D.C. between the U.S. power elite and the external/internal lobbies are a pantheon of diversity. There are probably different weights-of-influence/access applied to/by the different players. Moreover, I don't think anyone could reasonably enumerate all the players or the quantify these weights accurately. They are certainly going to be very dynamic. Dons Blog says this much better than me.

Trying to peer into this morass is pretty damn difficult from my vantage point out here in the frontier. I do think lone-gunman type theories that explain all behavior of the U.S. policy is somewhat limited (absolutely not accusing anyone here, but it's rampant at other venues).

Response to susan per the following:
""Even if Sharon did, in fact, say this, it does
not mean that he's correct."

No, he's not correct; he should have immediately been taken to task by the Bush administration for even making such a comment. "

I believe this is called a woodshed moment.

I had a bit of a thought experiment: if the roles were reversed and Bush was caught popping off about owning Israeli policy making, then I imagine Sharon would probably give Bush a thorough public dressing down. Wouldn't he? It would be entertaining to watch the congressional folks grapple with this scenario. A definite squirm moment for them and various U.S. contractors. That would be a difficult genie to put back into the bottle.

'He quoted the historian Sir William Holdsworth, who wrote in 1945 that "once torture has been acclimatized in a legal system, it spreads like an infectious disease" and "hardens and brutalizes those who have become accustomed to it."'

Evidently the Law Lords of Britain's highest court has delivered quite a slap in the face of the Bush administration concerning their policy on renditions and torture.

I watched a squabble among politicians in a small town affect the attitude of almost everyone in the community. My guess is that brutish behavior at the highest levels of government will spread down likewise.

At least we have Ace and group hugs here. :)

At least we have Ace and group hugs here. :)

Well, Ian still has to say he's sorry! ;>)

That is an old story. First of all though the story has the indvidual set free on the ground. From a 'practical' standpoint dropping the indvidual out of an airplane over Afghanistian would have solved a lot of problems. Second of all there is no question sociopaths are running around under various banners. The White House which has advocated torture is best distinguished from what most of US military and CIA is doing.

Dons Blog that is a very interesting development in Britain. Wonder if it'll kick up any tangible dust. Thanks for the link.

"At least we have Ace and group hugs here. :)"

Steve runs an uplifting blog here! And hugs are office party friendly for the holiday season. You can even regift 'em without penalty.

Related by subject matter to this thread.

This shoe continues to drop:

Qaeda-Iraq Link U.S. Cited Is Tied to Coercion Claim

McClellan better get the kevlar podium reinforced. It's getting much closer to nut-cuttin' time around the bullpen. I do not see a 45 degree angle out of this mess for this crew.

"Which one of you simpletons said that I was no Adlai Stevenson?"™

No bolton thread! What 2 do? What 2 do?

I should note: DIPLOMAT (not) Bolton is denigrating Louise Arbour as a civil servant - she was, after all, a Supreme Court Justice and a justice at the Hague - berating her comments about torture.

"Bolton reiterated that it was inappropriate for Arbour to comment on such issues and accused her of making it harder for the United States to promote reform of "the broken U.N. human rights decision-making machinery.""

"He told reporters that Rice had fully addressed the substance of the allegations and if Arbour wanted more facts about U.S. policy on torture she should have made an appointment to see him."

Http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_UN_US_Human_Rights.html

These two paragraphs are laughable - the joke is on Bolton and the U.S.

Don's Blog: Here is the headline of the New York Times article you linked to, and just beheath it is an article also published in today's New York Times. Interesting, huh?

While reading these articles, I am mindful of Wolfowitz's comment that, "For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."

Today we learn, "Architect Of Iraq War Wolfowitz: Maybe No War If We Had Known There Were No WMDs..." (Global Security Newswire)

War crimes have been commited. When will these monsters be brought to justice?

"Britain's Top Court Rules Information Gotten by Torture Is Never Admissible EvidenceBritain's Top Court Rules Information Gotten by Torture Is Never Admissible Evidence"

December 9, 2005
Qaeda-Iraq Link U.S. Cited Is Tied to Coercion Claim

By DOUGLAS JEHL

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 - The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and former government officials.

The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.

The new disclosure provides the first public evidence that bad intelligence on Iraq may have resulted partly from the administration's heavy reliance on third countries to carry out interrogations of Qaeda members and others detained as part of American counterterrorism efforts. The Bush administration used Mr. Libi's accounts as the basis for its prewar claims, now discredited, that ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda included training in explosives and chemical weapons.

The fact that Mr. Libi recanted after the American invasion of Iraq and that intelligence based on his remarks was withdrawn by the C.I.A. in March 2004 has been public for more than a year. But American officials had not previously acknowledged either that Mr. Libi made the false statements in foreign custody or that Mr. Libi contended that his statements had been coerced.
A government official said that some intelligence provided by Mr. Libi about Al Qaeda had been accurate, and that Mr. Libi's claims that he had been treated harshly in Egyptian custody had not been corroborated.

A classified Defense Intelligence Agency report issued in February 2002 that expressed skepticism about Mr. Libi's credibility on questions related to Iraq and Al Qaeda was based in part on the knowledge that he was no longer in American custody when he made the detailed statements, and that he might have been subjected to harsh treatment, the officials said. They said the C.I.A.'s decision to withdraw the intelligence based on Mr. Libi's claims had been made because of his later assertions, beginning in January 2004, that he had fabricated them to obtain better treatment from his captors.

At the time of his capture in Pakistan in late 2001, Mr. Libi, a Libyan, was the highest-ranking Qaeda leader in American custody. A Nov. 6 report in The New York Times, citing the Defense Intelligence Agency document, said he had made the assertions about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda involving illicit weapons while in American custody.

Mr. Libi was indeed initially held by the United States military in Afghanistan, and was debriefed there by C.I.A. officers, according to the new account provided by the current and former government officials. But despite his high rank, he was transferred to Egypt for further interrogation in January 2002 because the White House had not yet provided detailed authorization for the C.I.A. to hold him.

While he made some statements about Iraq and Al Qaeda when in American custody, the officials said, it was not until after he was handed over to Egypt that he made the most specific assertions, which were later used by the Bush administration as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons.

Beginning in March 2002, with the capture of a Qaeda operative named Abu Zubaydah, the C.I.A. adopted a practice of maintaining custody itself of the highest-ranking captives, a practice that became the main focus of recent controversy related to detention of suspected terrorists.
The agency currently holds between two and three dozen high-ranking terrorist suspects in secret prisons around the world. Reports that the prisons have included locations in Eastern Europe have stirred intense discomfort on the continent and have dogged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit there this week.

Mr. Libi was returned to American custody in February 2003, when he was transferred to the American detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, according to the current and former government officials. He withdrew his claims about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda in January 2004, and his current location is not known. A C.I.A. spokesman refused Thursday to comment on Mr. Libi's case. The current and former government officials who agreed to discuss the case were granted anonymity because most details surrounding Mr. Libi's case remain classified.

During his time in Egyptian custody, Mr. Libi was among a group of what American officials have described as about 150 prisoners sent by the United States from one foreign country to another since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks for the purposes of interrogation. American officials including Ms. Rice have defended the practice, saying it draws on language and cultural expertise of American allies, particularly in the Middle East, and provides an important tool for interrogation. They have said that the United States carries out the renditions only after obtaining explicit assurances from the receiving countries that the prisoners will not be tortured.

Nabil Fahmy, the Egyptian ambassador to the United States, said in a telephone interview on Thursday that he had no specific knowledge of Mr. Libi's case. Mr. Fahmy acknowledged that some prisoners had been sent to Egypt by mutual agreement between the United States and Egypt. "We do interrogations based on our understanding of the culture," Mr. Fahmy said. "We're not in the business of torturing anyone."

In statements before the war, and without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, and other officials repeatedly cited the information provided by Mr. Libi as "credible" evidence that Iraq was training Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons. Among the first and most prominent assertions was one by Mr. Bush, who said in a major speech in Cincinnati in October 2002 that "we've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases."

The question of why the administration relied so heavily on the statements by Mr. Libi has long been a subject of contention. Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, made public last month unclassified passages from the February 2002 document, which said it was probable that Mr. Libi "was intentionally misleading the debriefers."

The document showed that the Defense Intelligence Agency had identified Mr. Libi as a probable fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda involving illicit weapons.

Mr. Levin has since asked the agency to declassify four other intelligence reports, three of them from February 2002, to see if they also expressed skepticism about Mr. Libi's credibility. On Thursday, a spokesman for Mr. Levin said he could not comment on the circumstances surrounding Mr. Libi's detention because the matter was classified."

"Britain's Top Court Rules Information Gotten by Torture Is Never Admissible"

Oops! Sorry for the duplicate headline in my above post.

Lamorial,

John Bolton also had said it was “inappropriate and illegitimate for an international civil servant," the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Louise Arbour of Canada, "to second-guess the conduct” of the Bush administration with regard to “enemy combatants” at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere.

Yesterday I referred Bolton to this comment and asked if Ms. Arbour should decide on complaints about humans rights violations based on official statements of member states. He said she shouldn’t “treat democracies at the same level as dictatorships.”

More on Bolton: http://tinyurl.com/7w7cj

What the Bolton Testimony Tells Us about the Niger Forgeries

December 08, 2005

by emptywheel

"Update Summary for Pachacutec: In this post, I provide background that might be important background for the Niger forgeries. I speculate that the INR analyst who debunked the Niger forgeries worked in the Proliferation division of INR and reported to Beth Frisa. If I'm right, then the testimony Frisa provided in the Bolton nomination hearings--that Fleitz tried to get her INR analysts to report solely on the classification status of information and not the validity of the intelligence--might explain why the INR analyst apparently never shared his opinion that the forgeries were garbage. I also describe some testimony relating to Secure Compartmentalized Information. Apparently, Bolton's office was not following guidelines about logging classified documents when they were removed from the safe. This might be important to both the Plame inquiry and the Niger forgery case, since by not logging the documents, Bolton's people could hide the illicit distribution (or non-distribution, in the case of the Niger forgeries) of classified information..."

Qaeda-Iraq Link U.S. Cited Is Tied to Coercion Claim

McClellan better get the kevlar podium reinforced. It's getting much closer to nut-cuttin' time around the bullpen. I do not see a 45 degree angle out of this mess for this crew.

Posted by Ace Loves TheUnscrambledEggs

In my trade, (high end cabinetry and finish carpentry), I am in the homes of an extremely diverse mix of people, most upper middle class to extremely wealthy. On the blogs one tends to think that the average American is privy to, and interested in, the same level of information that we discuss daily on sites such as this. I assure you, that is NOT the case. It is a RARE household that is informed politically, or up on current events. Those that ARE making an effort to pay attention are doing so by viewing main stream media sources, unaware of how misleading and uninformative those sources are. It is the rare homeowner that has heard of, or cares, about the PNAC. It is a rare household that has heard of, or cares, about the Downing Street Memo. Mention William Rodriguez, and you will NEVER get a knowing look. Mention Sibel Edmonds, and you will strike out 98% of the time. Mention Sistani, Sadr, Allawi, and your odds of getting an informed response are not much better. But if you mention the boogie men, such as Zarqawi, or that nasty mean Chavez character, you'll get a rise.

I keep seeing here, (and on many other blogs), these expressions of hope, with each unfolding scandal, revelation, or breaking news story, that these criminals on the Bush Administration AT LAST, finally, have been exposed, and will be held accountable for their crimes and malfeasance. Well, it NEVER happens. And it won't anytime soon. See, as citizens, we are simply too disengaged, self centered, and engrossed in our own bubbles of existence to pay attention to a process that we have long since disengaged ourselves from. And that disengagement has been NURTURED by a media value system that has been DESIGNED to warp our perceptions of a process that has long since ceased to be what we were taught it was.

Look, heres the deal. These sons of bitches murdered over two thousand Americans on 9/11 to launch a foreign policy, an agenda, that has NOTHING TO DO WITH the best interests of the American people, has NOTHING TO DO WITH the security of the United States. Has NOTHING TO DO WITH human rights, the spread of democracy, the welfare of the Iraqi people, or any altruistic or humanitarian designs. This is about GLOBAL POWER, sought by megalomaniacs and fanatics that believe they have a grand design for the planet earth. These unfolding events as we now see them are minor ripples in comparison to what we are about to experience. As the transgressions and crimes grow in scale, so too must the distractions and deflections. I suspect that soon, as the global machinations and manipulations become unimaginable in their horrors, it will be necessary to place us in an existence that mandates a personal struggle for mere survival, in which we are unable to engage ourselves beyond the pursuit of our daily needs. With the populace in such a state, the pursuit of a global "adjustment" can be administered to without the troubling oversight of moral judgements, international law, or humanitarian consensus.

In short, we are in deep shit here, and minor revelations such as the article you cite are NOTHING compared to the criminal travesties these bastards have ALREADY suffered on our nation, and pale in comparison to what is about to come.

Can't happen HERE, right??? Well, ask William Rodriquez. He might tell you IT ALREADY HAS.

"So you say Syria isn't sending terrorists across the border to Iraq and Iran has no nuclear weapons program? Get the thumbscrews Jethro."

And of course, dictatorships are whoever our State Department report says they are.

It looks like Rice has effectively halted criticism of CIA detetention by threatening to reveal host country's involvement in the extradition.

It's obvious the Bush administration is going to be able to say and do pretty much whatever they want. The US is still the 800lb gorilla in the room and only the voters will be able to halt this train wreck.

With gerrymandering rampant and some serious questions of abuse of electronic voting machines (I am a computer scientist and have seen the problems) there's very little likelihood Democrats will regain control of the House to initiate investigations into some of these abuses unless there's a real grass roots campaign. Or some real pressure is brought to bear on moderate Republicans.

Yepper POA I see your words, they rattle around in my ol' coconut, and I recognize the inherent call for integrity, honor, and valour; and it'll be ignored. My brief encounters working in the homes of adults a few years back brought me to the singularly strange recognition that most people were watching Gilligans Island and Scoobey Do reruns in the afternoons. Not children, adults mind you.

At times, I can imagine we probably sound like a bunch of doomed Old Testament screwballs calling down airstrikes on the great unwashed. Of course, doesn't mean we've lost our minds, just means we're lost in the wilderness.

There's an excellent Sufi parable I once heard. I'll simplify and probably screw it up: Khidr informs humanity that all the old water will be replaced by new water which will make humanity go insane. Everyone ignores this warning except one man(always one man). He stores up an ample supple of the current water in the prescribed way so he wouldn't lose his grip. Things went according to the forecast and everyone lost it. The punchline is that the weight of loneliness became too heavy a burden, so he decided to drink the crazy making water. He and everyone else were much happier. I'm not sure I like thinking about this story given our current climate.

In matters of diplomacy, politics, and hardball negotiations it usually comes down to leverage (perceived or otherwise). Dons Blog is right, the U.S. is the current 800 pound gorilla. With apologies to Joseph Hellman, will this gorilla outlast the frog? It will be an educational ride if we end up going down the slide.

I like to recall, The Dude Abides and The Dervish Whirl.

Roops, I meant apologies to Joseph Heller (Catch 22), not Joseph Hellman. That's a whole different apology

I would hate to get in the way of Susan's group
hug and the singing of Kum-by-ah...

Mustafa is absolutely correct in his observation
that many people of Jewish background (for the
record I'm an atheist who has been to a temple
less than five times) the claims about Jewish
influence raise hackles. Only in the past few
decades have the old canards about secret Jewish
plots left popular culture to live in the lunatic
fringe. A quote from the odeous Sharon, which
can only be found in Arab news sources, does not
help matters.

I do apologize for suggesting, Susan, that you
have anti-semetic leanings. That was not, actually,
my intention. I was trying to attack the statement,
not the speaker of the statement. But I can
see how what I wrote suggested otherwise.

Ian

Oh good, now we've got two world leaders preparing the world for a second coming.

Iran president paves the way for arabs' imam return

His call for the destruction of Israel may have grabbed headlines abroad, but it is President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's devotion to a mystical religious figure that is arousing greater interest inside Iran.

In a keynote speech on Wednesday to senior clerics, Ahmadinejad spoke of his strong belief in the second coming of Shi'ite Muslims' "hidden" 12th Imam.

Evidently he believes he's on a religous mission and not worried about the consequences of the turmoil he's creating because it's a portent of the imam's return.

Also saw a great speech on the freedoms of journalism present by Bill Moyers at the National Seccurity Archives 25th anniversary. Well worth downloading if CSPAN archives it.

To honor the anniversay, the archive has released the recently declassified "Pre-9/11 Warning to Saudis That Osama Bin Laden Might Target Civilian Airliners"

Moyers hit on how budget cutbacks are preventing journalists from doing a lot of field work for articles and that we're losing real investigative reporting.

If you get down this far Mustafa (we've about done these topics to death) I'm wondering as an insider if you think the thousands of political bloggers collectively will be able to pick up the ball on digging out information like the Texas memo on the judicial review of redistricting or clandestine CIA prisons in Eastern Europe and other area countries?

Are any of the conference calls journalists are participating in allowing in major bloggers?

This might be too uninformed and out of left field, but does anybody else wonder if it is only a coincidence that Sec. Rice is out of the country -- so much -- while Mr. Fitzgerald's CIA leak investigation is still under way. She has denied being Woodward's source, apparently, but what about Novak? He said his source was "non-political," which is exactly how she often describes herself. And we know she was very often one of the few people "in the room" and "in the loop" (even if CNN and MSNBC don't include her in their "inner circle" diagrams). Or has Novak already said his source was a male?

Go ahead and call me an anti-Semite (though by the way, Arabs are true Semites, many Jews are European converts, so that's one of the stupidest slurs ever)-- I dare you.

I am not Anti-Jew (again I'm married to one) but that's the inevitable reaction to any criticism of Israel by her supporters and it's getting damn old now when Israel is threatening Iran with our kids caught in the middle.

I have worked in the media and entertainment industry for 20 years. I worked for the heads of studios and for one of the world's largest circulation newspapers, as well as for Turner back when he owned CNN.

But I was trained as a scientist, so let's get the facts: Jews make up between 2-3% of Americans. Do a statistical analysis of who owns the US and UK media (Zuckerman, Redstone, Bronfman, Black, ad nauseam)

Who are the news directors and even anchors on cable networks? Let's take CNN the so called *liberal* news network: Zahn, Kagan, Brown (though he's been booted now), and the mother of all Israel apologists, Wolf Blitzer.

Then crack open the Hollywood Creative Directory and take a gander at the names of the studio heads, the writers, the producers, the directors. Just do it.

And then look at what Hollywood puts out. How many Jewish terrorists have you seen? How many swarthy Arab terrorists? How many films about the Jewish Holocaust? How many about the slow genocide of the Palestinians? The Armenian genocide?

Then let's take that same numerical analysis and apply it to the architects of the invasion of Iraq. Hate to keep making this comparison but not one had strong ties to Sweden, to India, to Honduras, to China, to Russia, to Mali... the list of countries the neo-cons do not have ties to is endless.

Because at the end of the day the only country the neo-cons do have ties to is Israel. This country, OUR country, is Israel's patsy. I would speak that truth if our puppet-master were Thailand, Portugal, or New Zealand.

But it's not, so it's time to acknowledge what's happening and stop it because we are heading towards WW III with a government and a media unabashed by their blatant use of every tool in the PR spin-box to convince America that Israel's enemies are our own.

Israel's enemies are Israel's enemies and I support the Iranian president's comments: why should the Palestinians and Arabs in general have to host Israel and endure brutal occupations and endless war when they had nothing to do with the Jewish Holocaust?

The powerful in Israel are mostly Askenazi, European converts, so even if we take the Bible as a legal land claim, they have no right to Palestine.

If we don't divorce Israel NOW, and force our Congressional representatives to make a choice between another country and ours, our kids will die for our inaction in endless wars, mark my words.

BTW: the Justice Department is now threatening to deport Sami Al-Arian because they couldn't pin any terrorism charges on him.

Feith shouldn't be deported, he should be hanged, along with the rest of the Israel firsters (including Madame Hillary, Kerry, Frist, DeLay etc.) for lying us into a war that will lead to the demise of OUR country, the United States of America.

Re: More unbounded egregious behavior

20 Reported Killed as Chinese Unrest Escalates

Guess there's enough ill wind blowing around for everyone.

Re: "Iran president paves the way for arabs' imam return"

Ahmadinejad should get together and compare notes with Jack and Rexella Van Impe.

Re: "Pre-9/11 Warning to Saudis That Osama Bin Laden Might Target Civilian Airliners"

Is this one more Warren Commission gut check for the 9/11 commission?

On any randomly selected day, various governmental behavior resembles non-guested, confrontational radio formats.

Ian,
Ich dank aych zeyer!

need a chart of bloggers who have
unfortunate "accidents", let's start
with your car accident and continue
with monk getting a whopper bill from
the IRS for stuff years ago. sometimes
paranoia is justified.

Don,

The cutbacks in fieldwork budgets are a sad phenomenon. As you know, these days our news media rely more on “virtual journalism” than on fieldwork.

Our media are less focused on the real-life problems of everyday Americans, which require old-style fieldwork. When was the last time you saw your hometown newspaper reporter chatting with folks on the street corner about prices, crime, your congressman’s position on the Iraq war, and so forth? Now even beat reporters do most of their data collection by phone, e-mail and Google search. The poor TV reporters then have to dash to street to stage the thing on camera.

You’re well-aware that in our hourglass economy, most of the media revenues come from corporations, fewer than two dozens of which also own 90% of our mass media. The upper half of the hourglass, which is the main focus of our media attention, doesn’t require fieldwork.

They should indeed have dynamic bloggers like you on. I’m not much of an "insider" in the trade anymore, having left newspapers more than a decade ago. They’re just too lazy to cut me off some of their networks and kind enough to have me at some of their events.

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml

Anthony Lewis has a great piece entitled "The Torture Administration" in The Nation.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051226/lewis

He begins -- "When the nazis came to power in Germany in 1933 and proceeded to carry out their savagery, manh in the outside world asked how this could have happened in the land of Goethe and Beethoven. Would other societies as ereadily accept tyranny? Sinclair Lewis, in 1935, imagined American sturnign to dictatorship under the pressures of economic distress in the Depression. He called his novel, ironically, It Can't Happen Here.

Hmmm. No surprise really, when John Bolton can shout and bellow, immediately prior to the invasion of Iraq, that "the Germans should just shut up and follow orders!"

The oft-quoted German response/excuse to prosecution for the Holocaust and other crimes, was, of course, that they were "just following orders." That they were "good Germans."

Yet there was no response to Bolton's words. The Dems didn't seem to notice. The press was silent. The punditocracy -- and the blogosphere -- wouldn't touch Bolton's clear message to Germany and to America.

So now, we can all still say that we are all Good Americans. Wouldn't want to cause any trouble now, you know. Wouldn't want to cause a scene.

But that is precisely what's wrong with those who lay claim to the terrain of 'responsible' policy, 'centrist' politics for the sake of compromise alone, and 'reasonable' or 'realist' policies that fail to address the real issues at hand.

The problem is those who hew to that line of ... are afraid to cause a scene or raise a stink, because oooo! -- there might be a political cost; and oooo! -- they might have to actually make their case -- I mean, the case for America.

If you're standing up to defend and insist upon core American and 'Christian' values -- to insist that they be adhered to and lived up to in the conduct of American foreign (and domestic) policy -- then we wouldn't be in this Mess-O'-Potamia right now.

And the bigger stink the better.

It appears we're all Good Americans now. Making a stink? It's not my job -- I'm a journalist. Not my job, I'm a soldier --- I follow orders. Not my job -- I'm a responsible policy analyst. Or a Lutheran minister.