Random Thoughts On September 11 2011

Ten years. It is an curious number. For most citizens of the US, something that happened ten years ago is “history;” that is, it happened so long ago as to be irrelevant. But for someone who lives and breaths the historical narrative, ten years past is current events.

So what to make of the ten years since September 11, 2001 and now? Anniversaries are always fraught.  Anniversaries that fall on a Sunday, when there is little else to divert our attention, are even more drenched with melodrama. There are important considerations that should be reviewed a decade after 9/11/01; unfortunately they are getting drowned out by maudlin overacting by the usual suspects. It will be an extended wallow in schlock journalism, long on sloppy heart tugging, short on substance.  This is a shame because we really do need to look how 9/11/01 allowed bad actors to change our nation for the worse. By exploiting September 11, 2001, these bad actors were able to pass a slew of laws that stripped away many civil rights. For years the Police State enthusiasts were proposing changes in statues that shredded the protections of the 4th , 5th , 6th, 7th, and 8th Amendments of the constitution.  By using fear, Dead Eye Dick Cheney and incurious George set up a new Union, conceived in authoritarianism, and dedicated to proposition that the President of the US is an elected king; a king with more power and less accountability than Louis XIV, the Sun King.

With these new powers, Dick And George  went on a not-so excellent adventure of breaking and entry (sneak and peek, warrantless wiretapping, FISA,) perjury (the case for the Iraq War), kidnapping (extraordinary rendition), assault and battery (enhanced interrogation / torture), and murder (the Iraq War.)  What is even more galling is that not only were the duo of Bush and Cheney never held accountable for their rampant lawlessness; their policies were continued and “normalized” by the next President.

I wonder if any of the numerous remembrances of 9/11/01 will ever get around to mentioning how the tragedy was used to pervert the very essence of what the US stands for?

Before our nation was even a nation, George Washington made it clear that torture was not acceptable. This was a huge statement of moral and ethical substance. The nation that was not born yet, that was, in fact, desperately fighting for its very existence, refused to accept the standards of the day. Washington was going to show not only the British, but the whole of Europe, that a higher standard of ethics was not only possible, but was going to be part of the warp and woof of the nation he and others proposed to create. For over 200 hundred years the US stood by the standard that Washington set. Even in the Hobbesian struggle that was WWII, the US refused to allow torture to become standard military policy.

That record was tossed away like rotten garbage after 9/11/2001. What was once done on an ad hoc basis, and only in dire need, became set policy. Persons with only the most tangental connections to the hijackers were whisked away to foreign lands to be abused, beaten, tortured, and broken. Sometimes these peoples only connection was to be in wrong place at the wrong time. Often, they were just ratted out by people holding a grudge against them. Time after time, interrogators found out that supposed “high value targets,” were just poor shlubs, who had no connections what-so-ever with any terrorist organization. Sometimes these people died in captivity because no jailor wanted to admit that they had made a grievous error.

Some may try to excuse the Cheney-Bush-Obama torture regime by claiming that 9/11 changed everything. In way they are correct. 9/11/01 changed the level of degradation, corruption, perversion, and degeneration ordinary US citizens permitted in their government. We drank deep from the waters of fear, brutishness, ignorance, and folly.  We allowed our Democracy to degrade further into an unaccountable authoritarianism. We covered ourselves with shame. How do we reverse this? How do we find our democratic soul again? How do we do follow Washington again, instead of mau-mauing him?

There are no easy answers. In point of fact,we got in this mess by accepting facile answers to difficult problems. Far too many tried to cover their fear by the pretense of being “hard boiled,” “tough,” and “unsentimental.” Cowards torture; fools torture; knaves defend torture; bullies revel in the vicarious thrill of knowing we torture. But even worse are the human jellyfish that allow torture to continue because they don’t want to deal with the political blow-back that returning to our former humane standards would incur. Nothing points out the deterioration of our political class than when a Constitutional scholar and law professor continues the barbaric policy of his predecessor out of political convenience and cowardice.

For Barack Obama, the Constitution is an intellectual play thing. It is debating tool and utterly plastic in its meaning. By seeing all sides of a Constitutional issue, Obama accepts none. Obama’s brilliant mind can alway find a justification for the most heinous and unconstitutional of acts. Thus, the Constitutional Law Professor is shipping out “high value targets” to the tender mercies of Somali guards at black site gulags in Mogadishu. Not to worry, it is all out-sourced by the CIA, so it really doesn’t count. Besides, Barack is much more careful about the people who get sucked into these prisons to be horrifically abused, honest injun.

That is the depressing state of affairs ten years after 9/11/2001. I again wonder if anyone will bother to mention how deep we have drifted into the rabbit hole. It is possible that when Freedom Tower is finally completed, it will be a ironic marker in how much freedom we have lost. OBL may be resting with the fishes, but his dark legacy lives on.

Caught Between Scylla and Charybdis

The news about President Obama's Guantanamo decision is not at all surprising. Yet again we see the price of dawdling and delay. Obama's cool, calm, and measured response to, well damn near everything, is a two-edged sword. Sometimes it is a good thing; it prevents the type of "leadership" that a John McCain or a George W. Bush indulges in. When your default is to think from the gut and/or run around like your hair is on fire, bad decisions will happen. McCain campaign was fatally damaged by the gut decisions of Sarah Palin as V.P. and the attempt by the McCain campaign to postpone the first debate. It looked less than an example of deliberate leadership than an example of a poorly run Chinese Fire Drill.

The reverse side of the coin is that sometimes, actually quite often, Obama has a deer-in-the-headlights moment. While he ponders the possibilities and muses about the best possible outcomes, the opposition runs over him like a big rig rolling over a hapless armadillo on a Texas highway. Gitmo is just one example.

Obama was handed an epic mess on Gitmo. It was a shop of horrors. It was illegal on various different fronts. It was a violation of our obligations as laid down by the Geneva Accords. It was a possible violation of the Fourth Amendment and other portions of the Constitution of the United States. The word "possible" is only used because the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to fully weigh in on Gitmo. The Court has had a few chances to step into the breach but has so far has artfully dodged the invitation. As a violation of common sense and morals Gitmo has few equals.

Gitmo was the Bush-Cheney hair-on-fire response to 9/11. Having been caught napping by Osama Bin Laden's not-so-happy campers, W and friends went on epic hunt for Al Qaeda types in the badlands of Afghanistan. The Bushies vacuumed up any male that vaguely resembled a terrorist. The operating parameters where imprison/snatch first, ask questions later.

The second problem with the operation was that the questions were asked much later. Not only was there a problem with the timing, there was a problem with the method. Charming methods like waterboarding, sleep deprivation, vicious dogs, temperature extremes, and others were used. The intelligence gathered by these methods was less than fabulous.

Even worse, the tactics looked very much like torture; this despite a get-out-of-jail memo written by a hack lawyer in the government's employ. The legal reasoning of John Yoo was straight out of opposite land. http://www.justice.gov/olc/warpowers925.htm . Yoo's memo was an argument that owed more the philosophy of the Divine Right of Kings, than to anything based in the constitution. It was a bad faith document designed to cover epic lawlessness, and set up a legal limbo on the island of Cuba.

That legal limbo was incredibly effective. For almost eight years many detainees rotted in prison, with absolutely no legal recourse to speak of. Bush was able to run out the legal clock, and hand over Gitmo, as is, with no warranty, to Barack Obama. Candidate Obama thought he had the solution to the clunker he was given; President Obama soon discovered that there was no such easy solution.

The major problem for the new President was that some of the detainees were honest-to-goodness bad guys. They were men whose whole reason for being was to harm the government of the United States of America, and its citizens. They could not just be set loose to cause grave harm. Thanks to Bush and Cheney, they could not be tried either. No self-respecting court in the land would hear the case. Unlike John Yoo, real lawyers know what constitutes torture; they know what constituted a perversion of justice. They would have no choice to dismiss the charges, with extreme prejudice. They would have no choice but to release the detainees due to governmental misconduct.

Such a result would be a disaster. It would release some seriously bad actors into the wild. Who knows what death and mayhem they would be able to commit before we could capture them again? Who knows if they could be captured again? There a lot of lawless places in the world where they could go to ground. So there is a legitimate concern for not letting them go—the protection of lives.

The legitimate concern of protection of lives also neatly dove-tails with the political protection of Obama's backside. Cynics may claim that this was the primary consideration of the Administration. If it was a consideration, it could not have been played any worse. Obama managed to enrage his left-wing base, and give the right-wing a treasure-trove of brickbats to toss at his head. His cautious and considered deliberations about the prisoners left the door wide open for Republican fear mongering. Gitmo was held up as the only facility that could possibly hold these nefarious, death-dealing, Islamic terrorists (be afraid, be very, very afraid.) Never mind that the Government has plenty of facilities that could securely hold these men. Never mind that it would be rather hard for these men to just blend in with the local populous, even if they managed to escape. Never mind that they would have an even harder time of getting out of the U.S. to join up with their fellows. No, the only place that could hold them was the P.R. disaster and legal black-hole of Gitmo.

Sad to say, but after a year of cautious plodding by the Obama Administration, and their utter failure to provide any pushback to the Right-Wing noise machine, almost 60% of the electorate now believes that Gitmo should remain open. Thus, once more, is the plodding Armadillo of Obama overtaken and crushed, by the tractor-trailer of the Republican Party. Caution and deliberation where overmatched by nimbyism and fear mongering. It only gets worse from here.

It gets worse because the Obama Administration has come up with an epically awful solution to the Gordian Knot that is the detainee issue. The solution that was worked out was to gather some more line, and add some half-hitches, a passel of tug-boat hitches, a Yosemite bowline or two, and nice hang man's noose to the mass. Such is the legal legerdemain that is the Obama proposal. Some detainees will be "tried" in New York City. It will be a wonderful bit of spectacle, worthy of Joe Stalin's efforts during the purges. It will be quite the gathering of Kangaroos. Other detainees will be delivered into the tender mercies of the Military Justice system, as further amended by a railroading construction known as the Military Tribunals. It is a form of justice so suspect, that Military Prosecutors have deserted the process in protest. No small feat that. But the lowest level of this legal hell will be occupied by forty some detainees. They will continue to be held without charge, without possibility of release, without any recourse whatsoever. So much for habeas corpus, so much for the Fifth, Fourth and Eighth Amendments, so much for the rule of law for these men; and so long to our legal protections as well.

This is the ultimate result of not understanding the difference between pragmatism and prudence. It is the result of not understanding the difference between what can be done, and what should be done. It is what happens when you let a convenient compromise cloud an inconvenient truth. Sometimes there is no "third way;" sometimes there is only the devil and the deep blue sea. The strictures of the exclusionary rule of the U.S. Constitution, and the precedent set by the Geneva Accords lead to only one correct solution to the issue of the detainees—release on their own recognacense. But what the law demands, neither domestic security nor political reality can abide. Thus the creation of a totally bogus process that gives the lie to the words "legal proceedings." As it is now constructed, it is a process that only a small coterie of Washington insiders see any value in. Everyone else holds the process in contempt. The right sees no need for the process in the first place. The accused are utterly evil, and should be left to fester in the hole they now find themselves. The guilt of these people is self evident, no trail is needed. The left sees the process as both pointless and evil. The rest of the unwashed middle wonder why the Administration is making such a fetish of a legal procedure that is obviously designed for the sole purpose of convicting the accused. They sympathize with the right wing mostly, if the end result is going to be conviction. "Why bother?" is the question they ask. It is a good question; what exactly is the point of Obama's fastidious procedure? What is the need for this thin white-wash of legal mumbo-jumbo, if the results are preordained? Is this just some pointless bureaucratic exercise so that some nameless Government drones can place a tick mark on some obscure check list? Are we doing this to provide cover for few functionaries deep in the bowels of the National Security Apparatus? Sure looks like it. Sure looks like a typical D.C. exercise in covering posteriors. It sure looks like a pointless, grubby, amoral and ultimately degrading farce.

File Under "No Duh!"

Mancow Waterboarded, Admits It's Torture "It is way worse than I thought it would be"

RYAN POLLYEAUpdated 12:11 PM CDT, Fri, May 22, 20009

And so it went Friday morning when WLS radio host Erich "Mancow" Muller decided to subject himself to the controversial practice of waterboarding live on his show.

Mancow decided to tackle the divisive issue head on -- actually it was head down, while restrained and reclining.

"I want to find out if it's torture," Mancow told his listeners Friday morning, adding that he hoped his on-air test would help prove that waterboarding did not, in fact, constitute torture.

The debate over whether waterboarding constitutes torture reached a fever pitch this week as re-ignited claims that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) knew as early as 2002 about waterboarding techniques being used, and former Vice President Dick Cheney and President Barack Obama gave "dueling speeches" Thursday.

Listeners had the chance to decide whether Mancow himself or his co-host, Chicago radio personality Pat Cassidy, would undergo the interrogation method during the broadcast. The voters ultimately decided Mancow would be the one donning the soaked towel and shackles, and at about 8:40 a.m., he entered a small storage room next to his studio that was compared to a "dungeon" by Cassidy.

"The average person can take this for 14 seconds," Marine Sergeant Clay South answered, adding, "He's going to wiggle, he's going to scream, he's going to wish he never did this."

With a Chicago Fire Department paramedic on hand, Mancow was placed on a 7-foot long table, his legs were elevated, and his feet were tied up.

Turns out the stunt wasn't so funny. Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop. He only lasted 6 or 7 seconds.

Snip

Very typical results, a manly man gets all Rambo on the air talking about things he has no clue about and writes a a check with his mouth that his body can cash. A trash-talking tough guy gets humbled by the liberal bias of reality. So it goes. Waterboarding is torture people only a fool or a liar would say differently.

Yet Another Bush Scandal- Torture Edition

The US justice department told the CIA in 2002 that its agents would not be prosecuted for carrying out harsh interrogations if they believed they would not cause "prolonged mental harm", according to a memo written by a senior official.

The memo, released on Thursday by a civil rights group, approved the CIA's harsh interrogation techniques method by method.

The August 1, 2002 legal opinion, signed by Jay Bybee, the then assistant attorney-general, was obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union along with other documents.

The heavily censored document specifically approved proposed interrogation techniques that were devised for use against al-Qaeda suspects who were resistant to other questioning methods.

However, it also warned that if circumstances changed, interrogators could be prosecuted under anti-torture laws.

The standards used to judge how physically rough an interrogation was were censored.

"The healthier the individual, the less likely that the use of any one procedure or set of procedures will result in prolonged mental harm." Jay Bybee, assistant attorney-general who wrote memo

But interrogations that stressed a detainee psychologically or emotionally were not allowed to cause "prolonged mental harm".

The memo suggested psychiatrists or psychologists should be consulted prior to interrogations to assess the likely mental health effect on the prisoner.

"The healthier the individual, the less likely that the use of any one procedure or set of procedures will result in prolonged mental harm," the memo stated.

Bybee wrote the memo the same day he wrote one for Alberto Gonzales, the then-White House counsel, that defined torture as only those "extreme acts" that cause pain similar in intensity to that caused by death or organ failure.

The Bybee legal opinion defining torture was withdrawn more than two years later.

Snip

More at the news organization that Republicans love to hate Al Jazeera.

McCain and Torture

“‘Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British Army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren who have fallen into their hands,-- George Washington at the battle of Trenton.

On that cold December day in New Jersey the future president of the United States set a standard that lasted through the long Revolutionary struggle and to well beyond. The policy saved lives in many wars. For over 200 years the official policy that forbade torture stood as a guiding American principle. While there were exceptions to this rule; official policy was to punish people who tortured. All that changed with the presidency of George W Bush. Thanks to freedom of information releases we now know that torture was routinely used and routinely authorized at the highest levels of the Bush White House. Of course no one actually called it torture; it was called aggressive interrogation techniques.

Of all the people in American Politics no one has a more intimate knowledge of how those techniques work than John McCain. His Vietnamese prison wardens very aggressively interrogated him. They were so aggressive that they broke his legs. They were so aggressive that McCain cracked and signed a false confession. This was before the John Yu memo gave legal cover to such actions.

Earlier in the Republican campaign John McCain did not see the wisdom of the Yu memo and flatly equated waterboarding as torture. He took a contrarian stand against the Republican herd and stood against Gitmo. There was the much ballyhooed McCain-Graham-Warner bill that “forbade torture.” The bill was very weak tea to begin with and President Bush’s signing statement negated any attempt to limit his ability to torture whenever, wherever he liked. McCain did not utter a peep when the signing statement was released. John McCain talked a good game; he even “forced” the president to “compromise” in a made for T.V. event. However, in the end he rolled over and gave Bush everything he wanted. George W Bush got his own private Gulag. In Gitmo and other places Bush reigns like oriental despot. His writ is law and his power is untrammeled.

The final degradation of McCain happened just recently. The CIA was just given carte blanche by legislators to be as bad as they want to be. The proposal that they follow rules, the proposal that they should be held accountable to the standers set by George Washington, was killed by John McCain’s vote. It was an amendment requiring that the CIA adhere to the Army Field Manual when they questioned suspects. McCain marched in lock step with his fellow Republicans and voted against that amendment. McCain voted to let the CIA continue to use torture and abuse on suspects that it detains.

From being a victim of torture John McCain has now become an enabler. He has given his seal of approval to Waterboarding, sleep deprivation, electric shock, and physical pain up to that experienced in organ failure. The CIA and its contractors can continue to repeat the methods exposed at Abu Ghraib. It is full speed ahead on sending suspects to Syria and Egypt for a little “softening up.” After 231 years we are now the just like the Revolutionary war British. We even have our own Hessians: Blackwater USA., KBR, and others. John McCain is just fine with this.

We are a long way from the man who spoke out against these excesses in February. There has been a long, slow, slide away from the core values that McCain once swore to uphold and defend. We are a long, long way removed from the man who stood in solidarity with his fellow detainees in the “Hanoi Hilton.” That John McCain served bravely and honorably. That John McCain was an exemplar of a 200 year military tradition of honor, valor, courage, and country. That John McCain understood the gross violation of torture. He knew in his bones how torture soiled everything it touched. He understood how torture degraded every one involved in it. He could hold his head up high and know that his nation was better than his captors; that his country stood for higher principles. McCain knew that the USA objected to torture, that it prosecuted people for the type of behavior his Vietnamese guards indulged themselves in. That John McCain is long gone; he has been replaced by a smarmy politician who will pander to the worst instincts of the Wing-nut right. Just like Mitt Romney he has”doubled down” on Gitmo. In doing so he has disgraced the uniform he once wore. In doing so he has besmirched the high ideals set by George Washington and dishonored the outstanding record of military service his family has provided. More to the point, McCain has proved himself unworthy of the highest executive office of the land.

“Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause… for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country.” - George Washington, charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force, Sept. 14, 1775

For the love of all that is holy- Impeach the man.

The latest bomb-shell from ABC news just did not register with the general public. If it did there would be mobs of angry citizen converging on Washington with torches in hand and murder in their hearts. Maybe the general public is just too shell-shocked to take it in. Maybe they are too worried about the coming economic melt-down to worry about torture and abuse in foreign lands. Maybe they are too wrapped up in Big Brother house or Dancing with the Stars or American Idol to care that our nation has become a lawless state.

For those who do care Thursday’s revelation about the principals meeting was another punch in the gut. The very highest officers of the Executive Branch of the United States of America signed onto a regime of torture and abuse. Sometime in the spring of 2002 we literally decided to use Gestapo tactics to gain information from “High Value Targets” Decisions were made on the tactic and were micro-managed to the nth degree.

To cover this gross breach of tradition and law Justice Department lawyers were called into provide legal cover. Thanks to the likes of John Yu a “golden shield” was fabricated from suspect ideology. Simple put John Yu sees George W Bush as the Sun King; the state is W. In his role a commander in chief George W Bush is even more absolute than Louis XIV. Bush is the law; the constitution, the Geneva accords, the Magna Carta are just pieces of paper; they hold no sway over the Unitary Executive.

Not that this is any real surprise to people who saw those awful pictures from Abu Ghraib. Anyone who understands the Military Chain of command knows that Garner and England did not dream up all that depravity by their lonesome. No, they were trained to become sub-human. They were directed to those actions. Systematic abuse dose not happen in a vacuum, there has to be support for it from higher authority. The culture of abuse started all the way at the top of the civilian leadership. Of course when the cat jumped out of the bag, the lowly enlisted grunts were left holding that same bag. We now know that Specialist England was only a bit player in a drama written up by the Principals in Washington.

And what about those Principals, why are they still walking the streets free men and women? Lynndie Rana England served 521 days in the Miramar Brig for her role; meanwhile Rumsfeld and Powell enjoy easy lives and easier consciences. The only crimp in their gentile lives is they can not enjoy any European vacations. That is because those weak as soggy milk toast Frenchmen and Germans would arrest either one of them for war crimes if they were stupid enough to alight on the continent. Make no mistake, Powell, Rice, Cheney, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Tenant, Cheney and Bush are war criminals. The willfully and knowingly violated the Geneva accords. They used the Office Of Legal council as a Mafia type Consigulari to cover there tracks. They turned the government of the United States of America into a criminal racket.

Will the timorous and feckless Democratic “leadership” do anything now, now that this particular cat is now rubbing up against their leg? They have been studiously ignoring the other felines that have jumped out of Bush woodwork. Last we heard from Pelosi impeachment is still off the table. Got to love Nancy Pelosi; she is so consistent when it comes to avoiding her constitutional duty.

How do she and the Senator from Nevada manage it? How does Reid go to sleep at night knowing that Cheney and Bush are raping the republic? How can Pelosi keep ignoring the only tool she has to put a stop to Executive overreach? The framers of the constitution invented Impeachment for just this kind of scenario. It was a way to rid the republic of an overreaching, tyrannical, and imperial President. Bush and Cheney authorized torture, is that not a high enough crime or misdemeanor for you Madam Speaker? Not only did they authorize torture, Bush and Cheney delved into specific details of how that torture was carried out. Time after time the Principals delved into specific details with specific subjects on multiple occasions. This was a massive violation of the law and everything the USA stands for.

John Ashcroft allegedly said that history would not be kind to the Bush Administration. He was allegedly worried that the discussions about torture were even occurring at the Principals meeting. Madam Speaker do you think history will be any kinder to you and Harry Reid? It is no longer about the votes to convict; it is about getting the message out that Congress does not approve of lawlessness. It is about Congress drawing the line and holding the Executive Branch accountable. What is the point of being the first woman Speaker of the House if all you accomplish is relegating your branch of Government into meaninglessness? What is the honor in being just a rubber stamp for evil?

The Tragedy of Colin Powell

ABC news revealed that top Bush Administration officials not only signed on to torturing “high value suspects” but were micro-managing the details of the “enhanced interrogation.” The usual Bush subjects were all in on the decision Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Ashcroft, and George Tenant. One other name was on the list; Colin Powell. As Secretary of State he was part of the “National Security Council's Principals Committee” where the decision to violate over 200 years of national practice was made. Some time in the spring of 2002 Colin Powell went over to the dark side.

Many people think that Powell’s performance at the United Nations is where he lost his soul. We now know that her acquiesced to evil long before that awful day. Of all the people in George W Bush’s administration, Powell was the one who knew about the evil and stupidity of torture. As a military man he knew that torture gave rotten intelligence and put American service members in harms way. He also knew that torture was corrosive to good order and discipline and violated core military values. Despite this he signed on to the “findings” of the committee.

Apologists for Colin Powell have stressed have stressed two things in his defense; that he was a good soldier following orders and he believed that he could change the direction of the administration from the inside. They made the plausible argument that Powell thought he could still do good by remaining in the administration. They claim that Powell just did not understand how hard line Cheney and Rumsfeld were and what a rear-guard an loosing battle he was fighting. The news release puts that argument to rest.

Powell as a member of the committee was given a cornucopia of facts about what “enhanced interrogation” was. Such details as hitting, slapping, hot and cold abuse, sleep deprivation, and waterboarding were not only covered but the actual amount in minutes were discussed. Maybe Powell objected to the treatment, maybe he did not. It is only said that he was worried about the impact on our reputation abroad. What he did not do was resign when this program was first floated.

We talk about how Powell could have, should of resigned when Bush and Cheney launched their ill conceived war in Iraq. If only the good general had threatened to resign, the whole Iraq mess might have been avoided. We fault him for his speech in the UN. We call it a blot on his sterling record. How much more of a deep stain is the revelation that Colin Powell might just be a war criminal?

We know of Powell’s history, his rise from the hard-scrabble poverty in New York City to become the very first black Joint Chief of Staff. For many his was the All-American story. So many Americans both black and white took pride in his accomplishments. He even had a Military doctrine named after him. That doctrine was the result of all the things he learned in his military career, mostly it came from the hard lessons of his tours in Vietnam. Before his contact with the Bush Administration Powell was role model, an exemplar of American Dream. Through hard work and dedication he had come from humble roots to the very pinnacle of power. His can do attitude and ambition became his undoing. Powell just was not prepared to cope with the evil that is Bush/Cheney.

Powell knew the score; he understood the Geneva conventions and the need to put some limits on the horrors of war. He had witnessed what happens to an Army when it looses all track of decency and honor. Where did he loose those core commitments? How did he rationalize away the stark depravity of what Cheney was favoring? He better than most people should have understood that Osama Bin Laden’s organization was not an existential threat to then nation like the old Soviet Union was.

He better than most people should have understood how tactics like torture were counter-productive. He had actually fought in COIN operations, he knew how important winning (and loosing) hearts and minds was. He spent decades in the military. He did not hide out in the National Guard nor did he get deferments from Vietnam. He was there on the ground in Southeast Asia. Why did he not put his foot down? Even after graphic details of the abuse the CIA was dishing out was given to Colin Powell he did not speak out in public. By not speaking out he acquiesced to torture. By acquiescing to torture he violated the Geneva accords- laws that the US mostly recently approved in 1992. In short Colin Powell should be in jeopardy of legal prosecution for War Crimes.

Powell stayed a loyal soldier to Bush. Even after Abu Ghraib he stayed on. Even after he knew that the secret program was no longer secret. At what point does loyalty become a fault? Where does loyalty to the man or office end and loyalty the founding ideals of the nation begin? We now know that the UN speech was mere coda to Powell’s failure of conscience. Sometime after 9/11 Powell crossed the line; he stayed loyal to George W Bush and the Republican Party but betrayed the nation. What an awful state of affairs. Powell sold his soul for a few cheep trinkets offered up by Cheney. He massively compromised the core principles of a soldier to stay in a fixed game, a game that he kept loosing. He was like gambler who kept tossing in chips in a crooked poker game. The house of Cheney took him for everything he had. The house of Cheney was playing with a marked deck; they stripped Powell of his good name. They morally bankrupted Powell.

There is no rehabilitation for Colin Powell now; he is wedded to Condi Rice and to Cheney and to all the rotten Bush crew. He has fallen down in to the mire and muck of the worst presidency ever. Like Cheney and Bush and the others he will become a cautionary tale. He will be held up as an example of what not to do, of what not to become. He, most of all .will be held up as an example of how good men fail to oppose what is evil and wrong. He, most of all, will be held up as an example of a singularly moral failure. His is a great American tragedy.

Sources: Top Bush Advisors Approved 'Enhanced Interrogation'

Detailed Discussions Were Held About Techniques to Use on al Qaeda Suspects

By JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG, HOWARD L. ROSENBERG and ARIANE de VOGUE

April 9, 2008—

In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News.

The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of "combined" interrogation techniques -- using different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time -- on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.

Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.

The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

The advisers were members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

As the national security adviser, Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by most of the principals or their deputies.

Contacted by ABC News today, spokesmen for Tenet, Rumsfeld and Powell declined to comment about the interrogation program or their private discussions in Principals Meetings. Powell said through an assistant there were "hundreds of [Principals] meetings" on a wide variety of topics and that he was "not at liberty to discuss private meetings."

The White House also declined comment on behalf of Rice and Cheney. Ashcroft could not be reached for comment today.

Critics at home and abroad have harshly criticized the interrogation program, which pushed the limits of international law and, they say, condoned torture. Bush and his top aides have consistently defended the program. They say it is legal and did not constitute torture.

"I can say that questioning the detainees in this program has given us the information that has saved innocent lives by helping us stop new attacks here in the United States and across the world," Bush said in a speech in September 2006.

In interview with ABC's Charles Gibson last year, Tenet said: "It was authorized. It was legal, according to the Attorney General of the United States."

But this is the first time sources have disclosed that a handful of the most senior advisers in the White House explicitly approved the details of the program. According to multiple sources, it was members of the Principals Committee that not only discussed specific plans and specific interrogation methods, but approved them.

The discussions and meetings occurred in an atmosphere of great concern that another terror attack on the nation was imminent. Sources said the extraordinary involvement of the senior advisers in the grim details of exactly how individual interrogations would be conducted showed how seriously officials took the al Qaeda threat.

It started after the CIA captured top al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah in spring 2002 in Faisalabad, Pakistan. When his safe house was raided by Pakistani security forces along with FBI and CIA agents, Zubaydah was shot three times during the gun battle.

At a time when virtually all counterterrorist professionals viewed another attack as imminent -- and with information on al Qaeda scarce -- the detention of Zubaydah was seen as a potentially critical breakthrough.

Zubaydah was taken to the local hospital, where CIA agent John Kiriakou, who helped coordinate Zubaydah's capture, was ordered to remain at the wounded captive's side at all times. "I ripped up a sheet and tied him to the bed," Kiriakou said.

But after Zubaydah recovered from his wounds at a secret CIA prison in Thailand, he was uncooperative.

"I told him I had heard he was being a jerk," Kiriakou recalled. "I said, 'These guys can make it easy on you or they can make it hard.' It was after that he became defiant."

The CIA wanted to use more aggressive -- and physical -- methods to get information.

The agency briefed high-level officials in the National Security Council's Principals Committee, led by then-National Security Advisor Rice and including then-Attorney General Ashcroft, which then signed off on the plan, sources said. It is unclear whether anyone on the committee objected to the CIA's plans for Zubaydah.

The CIA has confirmed Zubaydah was one of three al Qaeda suspects subjected to waterboarding.

After he was waterboarded, officials say Zubaydah gave up valuable information that led to the capture of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammad and fellow 9/11 plotter Ramzi bin al-Shibh.

Mohammad was also subjected to waterboarding by the CIA. At a hearing before a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay on March 10, 2007, KSM, as he is known, said he broke under the harsh interrogation.

COURT: Were any statements you made as the result of any of the treatment that you received during that time frame from 2003 to 2006? Did you make those statements because of the treatment you receive from these people?

KSM: Statement for whom?

COURT: To any of these interrogators.

KSM: CIA peoples. Yes. At the beginning, when they transferred me...

Lawyers in the Justice Department had written a classified memo, which was extensively reviewed, that gave formal legal authority to government interrogators to use the "enhanced" questioning tactics on suspected terrorist prisoners. The August 2002 memo, signed by then head of the Office of Legal Counsel Jay Bybee, was referred to as the so-called "Golden Shield" for CIA agents, who worried they would be held liable if the harsh interrogations became public.

Old hands in the intelligence community remembered vividly how past covert operations, from the Vietnam War-era "Phoenix Program" of assassinations of Viet Cong to the Iran-Contra arms sales of the 1980s were painted as the work of a "rogue agency" out of control.

But even after the "Golden Shield" was in place, briefings and meetings in the White House to discuss individual interrogations continued, sources said. Tenet, seeking to protect his agents, regularly sought confirmation from the NSC principals that specific interrogation plans were legal.

According to a former CIA official involved in the process, CIA headquarters would receive cables from operatives in the field asking for authorization for specific techniques. Agents, worried about overstepping their boundaries, would await guidance in particularly complicated cases dealing with high-value detainees, two CIA sources said.

Highly placed sources said CIA directors Tenet and later Porter Goss along with agency lawyers briefed senior advisers, including Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and Powell, about detainees in CIA custody overseas.

"It kept coming up. CIA wanted us to sign off on each one every time," said one high-ranking official who asked not to be identified. "They'd say, 'We've got so and so. This is the plan.'"

Sources said that at each discussion, all the Principals present approved.

"These discussions weren't adding value," a source said. "Once you make a policy decision to go beyond what you used to do and conclude it's legal, (you should) just tell them to implement it."

Then-Attorney General Ashcroft was troubled by the discussions. He agreed with the general policy decision to allow aggressive tactics and had repeatedly advised that they were legal. But he argued that senior White House advisers should not be involved in the grim details of interrogations, sources said.

According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly."

The Principals also approved interrogations that combined different methods, pushing the limits of international law and even the Justice Department's own legal approval in the 2002 memo, sources told ABC News.

At one meeting in the summer of 2003 -- attended by Vice President Cheney, among others -- Tenet made an elaborate presentation for approval to combine several different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time, according to a highly placed administration source.

A year later, amidst the outcry over unrelated abuses of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the controversial 2002 legal memo, which gave formal legal authorization for the CIA interrogation program of the top al Qaeda suspects, leaked to the press. A new senior official in the Justice Department, Jack Goldsmith, withdrew the legal memo -- the Golden Shield -- that authorized the program.

But the CIA had captured a new al Qaeda suspect in Asia. Sources said CIA officials that summer returned to the Principals Committee for approval to continue using certain "enhanced interrogation techniques."

Then-National Security Advisor Rice, sources said, was decisive. Despite growing policy concerns -- shared by Powell -- that the program was harming the image of the United States abroad, sources say she did not back down, telling the CIA: "This is your baby. Go do it."

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Bush Pays Off His "Torture is Cool" Base

Bush vetoes interrogation limits

US President George Bush says he has vetoed legislation that would stop the CIA using interrogation methods such as simulated drowning or "water-boarding".

He said he rejected the intelligence bill, passed by Senate and Congress, as it took "away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror".

The president said the CIA needed "specialised interrogation procedures" that the military did not.

Water-boarding is condemned as torture by rights groups and many governments.

It is an interrogation method that puts the detainee in fear of drowning.

Track record

Speaking in his weekly radio address, Mr Bush did not mention water-boarding specifically.

"The bill Congress sent me would not simply ban one particular interrogation method, as some have implied," he said.

CIA 'ENHANCED INTERROGATION' TECHNIQUES Water-boarding: prisoner bound to a board with feet raised, and cellophane wrapped round his head. Water is poured onto his face and is said to produce a fear of drowning Cold cell: prisoner made to stand naked in a cold, though not freezing, cell and doused with water Standing: Prisoners stand for 40 hours and more, shackled to the floor Belly slap: a hard slap to the stomach with an open hand. This is designed to be painful but not to cause injury Source: Described to ABC News by un-named CIA agents in 2005

"Instead, it would eliminate all the alternative procedures we've developed to question the world's most dangerous and violent terrorists."

He added: "This is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe."

Correspondents say the slim margin by which the bill was passed means it is unlikely that the Democratic-controlled Congress could gather enough votes to overturn Mr Bush's veto.

The bill would have restricted Central Intelligence Agency officials to using the 19 interrogation techniques outlined by the US army field manual.

It would ban the CIA from using not only water-boarding, but sensory deprivation and other harsh coercive methods on prisoners.

The CIA recently publicly admitted using water-boarding on three people, including high-profile al-Qaeda detainee Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, but not for the past five years.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/7285290.stm

Published: 2008/03/08 15:39:56 GMT

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All Hail The Glorious Comrade Bush's Most Wondrous Justice!

Former Prosecutor to Testify for Guantanamo Detainee
By William Glaberson
The New York Times

Thursday 28 February 2008

Until four months ago, Col. Morris D. Davis was the chief prosecutor at Guantánamo Bay and the most colorful champion of the Bush administration's military commission system. He once said sympathy for detainees was nauseating and compared putting them on trial to dragging "Dracula out into the sunlight."

Then in October he had a dispute with his boss, a general. Ever since, he has been one of those critics who will not go away: a former top insider, with broad shoulders and a well-pressed uniform, willing to turn on the system he helped run.

Still in the military, he has irritated the administration, saying in articles and interviews that Pentagon officials interfered with prosecutors, exerted political pressure and approved the use of evidence obtained by torture.

Now, Colonel Davis has taken his most provocative step, completing his transformation from Guantánamo's chief prosecutor to its new chief critic. He has agreed to testify at Guantánamo on behalf of one of the detainees, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a driver for Osama bin Laden.

Colonel Davis, a career military lawyer nearing retirement at 49, said that he would never argue that Mr. Hamdan was innocent, but that he was ready to try to put the commission system itself on trial by questioning its fairness. He said that there "is a potential for rigged outcomes" and that he had "significant doubts about whether it will deliver full, fair and open hearings."

"I'm in a unique position where I can raise the flag and aggravate the Pentagon and try to get this fixed," he said, acknowledging that he is enjoying some aspects of his new role. He was replaced as chief Guantánamo prosecutor after he stepped down but is still a senior legal official for the Air Force.

Among detainees' advocates, there has been something of a gasp since it was announced last week that Colonel Davis would be taking the witness stand in April.

Mr. Hamdan's chief military lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. Brian L. Mizer, said he would offer Colonel Davis to argue that charges against Mr. Hamdan should be dismissed because of improper influence by Pentagon officials over the commission process. Prosecutors may object, and it is unclear how military judges may rule.

But whatever happens, some advocates for detainees say, officials are likely to have difficulty erasing the image of a uniformed former Guantánamo champion challenging them so directly.

Particularly, some of them said, one who was known for scorched-earth attacks on adversaries, be they terror suspects or lawyers. "He was the attack dog for the military commission system," said Zachary Katznelson, a lawyer for Guantánamo detainees.

Last year as chief prosecutor, Colonel Davis publicly suggested that a Marine defense lawyer for a detainee might be guilty of a crime for using "contemptuous words" about the president when the marine questioned the fairness of the Guantánamo system.

At the time, critics ridiculed Colonel Moe as an administration apologist. But in recent weeks, some of them have described him in nearly heroic terms.

Jennifer Daskal of Human Rights Watch called Colonel Davis the most significant insider to tell what he knew about Guantánamo. "He has put his career on the line," Ms. Daskal said.

Pentagon officials have steamed about the extraordinary role Colonel Davis has staked out. Some people with Pentagon ties say the unusual story started as a power struggle between Colonel Davis and a Pentagon official who has broad powers over the Guantánamo legal system, Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, who has declined to comment.

Brig. Gen. Thomas L. Hemingway, a retired military official who once supervised Colonel Davis at the Office of Military Commissions, said this week that he was surprised Colonel Davis was attacking the system he had once championed.

"That's not whistle-blowing you hear," General Hemingway said. "It's a whine."

In his contentious days at Guantánamo, lawyers who battled him said, Colonel Davis was known for a you're-with-us-or-you're-against-us style of news-conference warfare, delivered in an amiable North Carolina twang.

He is an experienced military lawyer, with years of work both in the prosecution and the defense. He is the son of a disabled veteran of World War II, and he is married with one daughter.

In interviews this week he was in his combative mode, challenging Pentagon officials to take lie-detector tests and asserting that commanders had praised him in the past.

He portrayed himself as battling political appointees. But he said he still believed that a military commission system could work. "It's gotten so tarnished that if we're going to convince the world that this isn't some rigged process we have to bend over backwards," he said. He said the solutions were simple - giving control to military officials. But he suggested darkly that there are "people at key points in the process, that I just don't know what their allegiance is."

There is little question that Colonel Davis's unusual path began with some angry exchanges with General Hartmann last summer. When the colonel resigned as chief military prosecutor, officials disclosed that he had filed a formal complaint asserting that General Hartmann improperly pressed for more war crimes cases and demanded "sexy" cases that would excite the public. An internal report sided with General Hartmann but suggested that he should avoid too much influence over the military prosecutors.

From there, after being reassigned by the Air Force, Colonel Davis found an audience for his accusations.

He told one newspaper that top defense officials discussed the "strategic political value" of putting prominent detainees on trial before the 2008 presidential election. He told another that he had been pressed to hold hearings in closed courtrooms. He wrote op-ed pieces saying General Hartmann had reversed his policy of refusing to use evidence derived through torture.

He told The Nation that the general counsel of the Pentagon, William J. Haynes II, informed him "we can't have acquittals" at Guantánamo.

In a statement Wednesday a Pentagon official would say only, "We disagree with the assertions made by Colonel Davis."

Some detainees' lawyers say they recognize a pattern in Colonel Davis's approach. He once wrote an article in an Air Force journal offering advice to military leaders on how to handle the media. "Take the offensive," it said.

Muneer I. Ahmad, a law professor at American University who fought Colonel Davis in a detainee's case at Guantánamo, said he recognized the strategy in the attacks on Pentagon officials. "It's his way of trying to reshape what the story is," Professor Ahmad said.

If it is, Colonel Davis hinted he is not satisfied yet. "I'm hoping at some point to retire, so I can say what I really think," he said.

It's Official, USA waterboards

CIA admits waterboarding inmates
The CIA has for the first time publicly admitted using the controversial method of "waterboarding" on terror suspects.

CIA director Michael Hayden told Congress however that it had only been used on three people, and not at all for the past five years.

He said the technique had been used on high-profile al-Qaeda detainees including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Waterboarding is an interrogation technique in which the detainee is put in fear of drowning.

Mr Hayden was speaking as National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell presented his annual threat assessment.

We used it against these three detainees because of the circumstances at the time
Michael Hayden
CIA director

Some critics describe the procedure as torture and Congress has been debating banning its use by the CIA.

President Bush has threatened to veto such a bill.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is accused of masterminding the 11 September attacks on the United States.

The two other men Mr Hayden said the CIA had also used waterboarding against are also top al-Qaeda suspects, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.

Catastrophe fears

He told Congress: "We used it against these three detainees because of the circumstances at the time.

"There was the belief that additional catastrophic attacks against the homeland were inevitable. And we had limited knowledge about al-Qaeda and its workings.

"Those two realities have changed."

In his report, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell focussed attention on al-Qaeda and its leadership based in the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"Al-Qaeda remains the pre-eminent threat against the United States, both here at home and abroad," he said.

His report said al-Qaeda enjoyed many of the same benefits from its bases in the border areas as it had when it was in Afghanistan proper, and was able to:

* use the region as a staging area for attacks outside
* maintain a group of skilled operators able to direct operations around the world
* pass on morale-boosting messages from Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri
* improve its ability to attack the US itself.

Despite this, Mr McConnell praised the Pakistani authorities, saying they had done more to "neutralise" terrorists than any of the US's other partners - despite more than 860 members of their security forces being killed by bombs in 2007.

And although al-Qaeda had suffered some reverses, he said, it remained active and dangerous in Iraq, in North Africa, in the Arabian peninsula, Lebanon, East Africa, Pakistan and South- East Asia.

Other worries outlined by Mr McConnell included:

* Russia, China and oil producers using their wealth to advance political goals
* nuclear proliferation, especially Iran and North Korea
* computer system vulnerabilities.

"The threats we face are global, complex and dangerous," he wrote.

"We must have the tools to enable the detection and disruption of terrorist plots and other threats."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/7229169.stm

Published: 2008/02/05 22:15:43 GMT

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