Erich "Mancow" Muller Waterboarded, Admits It's Torture

Levin: Memos don't show what Cheney says they do

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Levin says ex-VP Cheney's claims that harsh interrogations worked are wrong

Ed Hornick
May 29, 2009 - CNN

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Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, says former Vice President Dick Cheney's claims -- that classified CIA memos show enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding worked -- are wrong.

Former VP Dick Cheney has been a vocal defender of Bush-era interrogation techniques.

Levin, speaking at the Foreign Policy Association's annual dinner in New York on Wednesday, said an investigation by his committee into detainee abuse charges over the use of the techniques -- now deemed torture by the Obama administration -- "gives the lie to Mr. Cheney's claims."

The Michigan Democrat told the crowd that the two CIA documents that Cheney wants released "say nothing about numbers of lives saved, nor do the documents connect acquisition of valuable intelligence to the use of abusive techniques."

"I hope that the documents are declassified, so that people can judge for themselves what is fact, and what is fiction," he added.

Justice Department documents released in April showed that Bush administration lawyers authorized the use of techniques such as sleep deprivation, slapping, stress positions and waterboarding, which produces the sensation of drowning.

President Obama formally banned the techniques by issuing an executive order requiring that the U.S. Army field manual be used as the guide for terror interrogations. Watch Obama discuss the torture debate »

"I can stand here tonight and say without exception or equivocation that the United States of America does not torture," he told a joint session of Congress in February.

Cheney, who has become a vocal public defender of the Bush administration's controversial interrogation policies, had asked the Obama administration to declassify the documents so there can be a more "honest debate" on the Bush administration's decision to use them on suspected terrorists.

He argued that those techniques provided valuable intelligence that saved American lives, but critics say they amounted to the illegal torture of prisoners in U.S. custody

On May 14, the CIA rejected the former vice president's request.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano, in a written statement, said the two documents Cheney requested are the subject of two pending lawsuits seeking the release of documents related to the interrogation program, and cannot be declassified.

A former State Department official has told CNN that the main purpose of the Bush-era interrogations was finding a link between Iraq and al Qaeda.

Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff for then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, said that the interrogation program began in April and May of 2002, and Cheney's office kept close tabs on the questioning.

"Its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at preempting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al Qaeda," Wilkerson wrote in The Washington Note, an online political journal.

Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel, said his accusation is based on information from current and former officials. He said he has been "relentlessly digging" since 2004, when Powell asked him to look into the scandal surrounding the treatment of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

Speaking before the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, on May 21, Cheney said only detainees of the "highest intelligence value" were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques. He said only three detainees were waterboarded.

Bush administration lawyers have said the interrogation tactics did not violate U.S. laws against torture as long as interrogators had no intent to cause "severe pain."

With thousands of lives potentially in the balance, Cheney argued, it didn't make sense to let high-value detainees "answer questions in their own good time."

Obama, speaking on the same day as Cheney, said his administration is trying to clean up "a mess" left behind by the Bush administration. He defended his plan to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba, his ban on torture, the release of Bush-era interrogation memos and his objection to the release of prisoner photos.

Levin backed up Obama's "mess" claims, and said the enhanced interrogations have hurt America's image.

"Cheney's world view, which so dominated the Bush years and dishonored our nation, gained a little traction last week -- enough to persuade me to address it head-on here tonight," Levin said. "I do so because if the abusive interrogation techniques that he champions, the face of which were the pictures of abuse at Abu Ghraib, if they are once more seen as representative of America, our security will be severely set back."

On Thursday night, former President George W. Bush, who has remained virtually mum on the torture debate, said his administration's enhanced interrogation program was legal and garnered valuable information that prevented terrorist attacks.

Bush told an audience in Benton Harbor, Michigan, that after the September 11 attacks, "I vowed to take whatever steps that were necessary to protect you."

In his speech, Bush did not specifically refer to Obama's decision to halt the use of harsh interrogation techniques; he also didn't mention Cheney by name.

Bush described how he proceeded after the capture of terrorism suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in March 2003.

"The first thing you do is ask, 'What's legal?' " Bush said. " 'What do the lawyers say is possible?' I made the decision, within the law, to get information, so I can say to myself, 'I've done what it takes to do my duty to protect the American people.' I can tell you that the information we got saved lives."

The latest charge by Levin comes as another top Democrat -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- continues to defend claims that the CIA never briefed Congress on the specific interrogation methods, such as waterboarding, that were being used.

Pelosi told reporters in May that she was briefed by the CIA on such techniques once -- in September 2002, when she was the ranking Democrat on the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee -- and that she was told at the time that techniques such as waterboarding were not being used. She said she learned that waterboarding had been used after other lawmakers were briefed in 2003.

CIA spokesman George Little, however, said the agency's records indicate Pelosi was briefed on the techniques.

The claim by Pelosi, D-California, created a firestorm on Capitol Hill, with Republicans -- who have been mostly supportive of the Bush administration's policy -- blasting Pelosi and demanding she back up the allegation.

Pelosi has urged the CIA to release information on the meetings, though the CIA admits that no detailed memos, only outlines, exist.

Intervention

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Stephen Pizzo
May 29, 2009 - News For Real

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What's the right thing to do when a long-time friend becomes more trouble than you can tolerate?

What do you do when that friend returns your friendship only so long as you support everything he does, even the things you've repeatedly asked him not to do?

And, what's the right thing to do with a friend, like the one described, whose behavior and your support of it, poisons your relations with scores of other friends and potential friends?

This is the very question President Barack Obama is struggling with this month. And, if he gets it right, he will be the first post-war president ever to do so.

That friend, by the way, if you have not already guessed, is Israel.

Repeatedly we, and almost every other country on earth, have asked, even pleaded, with Israel to stop building settlements on Palestinian land and to stop expanding those already built.

And just as repeatedly one Israeli government after another have thumbed their nose at those pleadings.

Now, don't get me wrong. I've always supported Israel and Israel's right to exist, and still do. What I have never supported though is Israel right to use 5000-year old biblical title reports to expand beyond its 1967 borders in order to lay claim to real estate that does not belong to them.

Yet this naked thievery continues apace. Yes, I said thievery – a strong word indeed, and one that is certain to outrage my Jewish and Israeli friends. But, just as Americans had to accept the hard truth that "enhance interrogation techniques" really meant toture, I can no longer pretend that what Isreal calls "settlements" are anything but thievery.

Believe me, I understand all the arguments Israelis use to justify the unjustifiable; the holocaust, never again, hostile neighbors, terrorism, etc. But the strategic situation has changed remarkably since Israel's formative years. Israel is a nuclear-armed nation with the strongest and most efficient military in the region – as it has demonstrated to its hostile neighbor's chagrin more than once.

Should Israel's survival ever be really threatened she could wipe that threat away – once and for all – with the push of a button. Even Israel's most ardent foes have no illusions about that. Should they ever genuinely threaten Israel's existence, there'd be a holocaust, and this time it would not be the Jews on the receiving end.

As the years have passed it's become harder and harder to accept Israel's stated justifications for it's expansionist policies as anything other than cynical obfuscations. By expanding West Bank settlements and creating new ones Israel has been, piece by piece, preemptively dismembering any would-be Palestinian state.

And, by expanding these settlements Israel is also hoping they can push into the next century a loudly ticking demographic time bomb. Palestinian birth rates far outstrip the much slower Jewish population growth. Even within Israel's original borders, Israeli Arab voters will, at some point down the road, outnumber Jewish voters. What then? Disenfranchise any citizen with Israel who is not Jewish? Deport all non Jews? Create an system of apartheid for only true democracy in the Middle East?

None of those solutions are realistic or acceptable in modern times. So, by expanding settlements and establishing new ones, Israel hopes Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe and elsewhere can at least for the a while, hold off the day when Israeli Arabs become Israel's new voting majority.

Look, here's the bottom line. In the weeks ahead President Obama needs to make it perfectly clear that America's friendship with Israel is about to be rebalanced. We will still support Israel, but no longer on long-standing,"Israel, right or wrong," status quo. Like America, Israel faces very real dangers from very real foes. And both nations will continue facing those dangers for the foreseeable future. But that fact is not a greenlight to break the law or commit human rights offenses under cover of national security. We just got done learning that hard lesson here in America and nows the time to communicate it to our friends in the Middle East, including Isreal.

Now it's time to lay down the law for the other hooligan in this never-ending pissing match. Israel needs to:

• Stop all settlement construction and expansion. Dead stop. Not another nail, not another brick.

• Except for the large settlements right on or within stones throw of the West Bank/Israel border, Israel must begin dismantling of all settlements deeper within West Bank territories. Sure that's going to mean uprooting tens of thousands of Jewish "settlers," but the wages of sin are rarely pleasant.

• As for those settlements straddling that border, they can stay in Israeli hands, but only if Israel provides Palestinians an acre for acre swap for those lands. These in-kind lands must be adjacent to Palestinian lands on the West Bank border or Gaza.

• Israel must begin serious negotiations with Palestinians on the final status of the historically blood soaked "holy city" of Jerusalem. That final status must include a genuine possibility of Arab control of a portion of the traditionally Arab sector of Jerusalem.

Now none of this will be either easy or painless for Israel. In fact it could spark an armed rebellion from Israel rabid right wingers who, all the holocaust rhetoric aside, simply hate Arabs, all Arabs. Israel's right wingers are that regions equivalent of our southern crackers during the civil rights years of the 1960s, or Afrikaners during apartheid in South Africa. They can't be changed, only controlled and contained and, when they act out, imprisoned. (The exact same goes for members of Hamas and Hezbollah. Ignorant, racist, crackers, one and all.)

To make matters even more complicated Israel's new leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, can best be described as Dick Cheney in yamaka. His power is derived through creating and maintaining fear – fear of Arabs, fear of terrorism. Now no one in their right mind would suggest that Israel is not Target One for every Middle Eastern terrorist, the USA being Target Two.

But neither the US or Israel face anything even close to an strategic threat from terrorism. Neither country is going to be defeated, occupied and taken over by al Qaida, et al. It just ain't gonna happen – ever. But like Dick Cheney, Netanyahu would have Israelis and the rest of the world believe that that's precisely the threat his nation faces. It worked for Cheney – if not for his nation. Because, when belligerency is peddled as the only alternative to death and destruction, belligerency becomes, not just policy, but policy married to patriotism. The last remaining element needed to create a full-blown disaster is an ambitious demagogue. (H. L. Mencken defined a demagogue as "one who will preach doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.")

Anyway, by now it should be clear to any sane person that, when it comes to Palestinians and Israelis there's never been a shortage of either demagogues or idiots to follow them. It's long past time for the rest of the world to draw red lines in the sand.

But this time it's gotta be TWO lines, not just one. There' has to be one clear line for Hamas and their ilk, and, for the first time, another clear line for Israel.

Because when a friend becomes self-destructive and more trouble than he's worth, there's really only two choices; desert your friend, or organize an intervention. Real friends intervene.

P.S. Okay, now you can email me and accuse me of being an anti-semite. (Which of course, I am not. I'm just fed up, right up to here, with both sides. I'm not anti-anything except anti-prick. So, an aside to both sides: Stop being such giant, swaggering, unrepentant pricks.)

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Stephen Pizzo is the author of numerous books, including "Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans," which was nominated for a Pulitzer.

If Iraq was a Mistake, Why are We Still There?

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Camillo Bica
May 29, 2009 - CommonDreams.org

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However one frames the debate, it is apparent to any fair minded and rational person that the invasion of Iraq, based as it was on misinformation at best, lies and deceptions at worst, was a mistake and should never have occurred. Certainly President Obama has made this claim on numerous occasions as well as many who had previously supported (and voted for) the war. After having acknowledged this fact, however, President Obama and others would have us forget the past as it serves, in their view, no practical purpose to rehash and moralize over things that cannot be undone. It will be the work of future historians, legal scholars, and philosophers, they argue, to untangle, interpret, and make judgments regarding the complex events and decisions that led to the invasion and characterize the occupation of Iraq. They warn that it is imperative at this crucial juncture that we deal with the matters at hand, that we act quickly and decisively in our national
interest to ensure that our Country remains safe, that our goals in Iraq and Afghanistan are achieved, and that our sacrifice in blood and treasure is not for naught.

What President Obama and others who advocate such a position fail to appreciate is that we live in a Nation that understands and accepts the importance of the Constitution and the rule of law, both moral and International. Accordingly, we determine our behavior, how we conduct ourselves as a Nation, not only by what is in our national interest but also by what is right, not only by what we CAN do, but also by what we OUGHT to do. This is what we stand for as a people, the values we hold sacred as a nation. Consequently, to focus exclusively on "practical considerations" – present conditions and problems – considered in isolation and apart from the causal chain of events that led to the situation as it exists today is morally and legally unacceptable and incoherent and counter to the principles and values we believe must guide and determine our future course of action not only in Iraq, but in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere in the world as
well.

By accepting that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was a mistake we must accept all that such an admission entails. According to Just War Theory and International Law, the illegal and immoral use of violence and deadly force against a sovereign nation and its citizenry, constitutes aggression. Aggression is morally wrong and a war crime under International Law. Aggressors violate the rights of the aggressed to life, self-determination, and to live in a nation that enjoys political sovereignty and territorial integrity – sometimes referred to as the "rights of nations." Aggressors are Unjustifiable Combatants. The victims of aggression have the privilege to assert their rights – to act in self and national defense. As such, they are Justifiable Combatants. Consequently, our invasion and occupation of Iraq is aggression, members of our military are aggressors – Unjustifiable Combatants – and those that struggle against us, the
"insurgents," are Justifiable Combatants asserting their right of self and national defense.

This is the reality of our involvement in Iraq, a reality entailed and implied by a recognition that our invasion was a mistake and should never have occurred. The "fact" that we may have had good intentions does not alter the moral and legal value of our involvement. "Mistaken" aggression is no less aggression, no less a war crime. "Mistaken" aggressors are no less liable to be resisted – warred against in self and national defense.

Yet despite the realization that the invasion and occupation in Iraq is aggression and despite our economy bordering on collapse, President Obama, and many of our fellow citizens, argue that we cannot just stop the killing and destruction and walk away. One important reason, they offer, is national security. We must end the chaos created by our aggression and restore stability in Iraq to ensure that it does not become a training ground and sanctuary for terrorists who wish us harm. A second reason, interestingly enough, is a moral one. Paradoxically, we cannot stop the killing and destruction in Iraq because we recognize our moral culpability and responsibility for our aggression. That is, we cannot just abandon the Iraqi people to the endless civil war and sectarian violence that would "inevitably" occur in the power vacuum created by our departure. Consequently, we are morally obligated to continue the killing and the destruction in Iraq for at
least a few more years, in order to save the Iraqis from themselves and so they may enjoy the gift of freedom and democracy as recompense for our aggression. While the initial use of violence and deadly force against the Iraqi people may have been aggression, now, however, we are on solid moral and legal ground, as the continued killing and destruction entailed by our remaining, is humanitarian intervention. (General George Casey, the Army Chief of Staff, by the way, said recently that his strategic planning envisions combat troops remaining in Iraq and Afghanistan for as long as ten years).

This argument for the continued occupation of Iraq is clearly incoherent. It is as though our political leaders have accepted that the American public is incapable of rational thought and will accept any reason and justification for war as long as it is presented as furthering our national interest and feeds our national ego regarding our benevolence and moral superiority in the world.

It is time, therefore, long past time, that we show President Obama and the Congress that we will be duped no longer, that we are not a nation of sheep, and that we possess the ability to reason and think critically. It is time, therefore, long past time, that we accept the reality of what we have done and continue to do in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere in the world. We must stop the killing and the destruction now, not later. We must understand that bringing stability to the region is not about escalating violence, increasing the number of troops, or dropping more and larger bombs. Nor is it about searching out and destroying al Qaeda or the Taliban, or even capturing or killing bin Laden. Rather, it is about inclusiveness, diplomacy, understanding and dialogue. It is about doing the difficult work of reconciliation and of addressing the grievances that nourish radicalism. Most important, I believe, should we at long last recognize that the
days of US unilateralism and imperialism are over and realize the necessity of involving and soliciting the assistance of area powers such as Iran, Russia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, China and India, not only will the world be a better and safer place, but perhaps for the first time in many years, we will begin to live according to the principles and values that we claim characterize our nation and of which we are so proud.

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Camillo "Mac" Bica, Ph.D., is a professor of philosophy at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He is a former Marine Corps Officer, Vietnam Veteran, long-time activist for peace and justice, and the Coordinator of the Long Island Chapter of Veterans for Peace.

Countries Destroying Cluster Bomb Stockpiles

A soldier from a bomb disposal unit inspects a dismantled CB-250k cluster bomb at the military base in Marandua May 7, 2009. Colombia destroyed its last 41 cluster bombs in accordance with the Oslo Pact, the army said on Thursday. (REUTERS/John Vizcaino)

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Cluster bombs destroyed before treaty ratification * Ratification likely this year, hopes U.S. will sign

Jonathan Lynn
May 29, 2009 - Reuters AlterNet

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GENEVA - Several of the 96 states that have so far signed a treaty to ban cluster bombs have started to destroy their stockpiles of the deadly weapons even before the treaty is ratified, an advocacy group said on Friday.

Supporters of the ban on the munitions that have killed or maimed tens of thousands of people said they hope the United States, which remains outside the pact along with Russia, China and other powers, will shortly sign up.

"Only a few years ago the destruction of these stockpiled cluster munitions would have been unthinkable, but there has been a sea change of opinion against this weapon," said Steve Goose of non-governmental organisation Human Rights Watch.

"In an incredibly short period of time, many governments have moved from staunchly defending the need for cluster munitions to completely rejecting them," he said in a statement on the launch of a report on efforts to ban the weapons.

Goose said Spain had already completed the destruction of its stockpile, and Colombia was close to doing so. Canada and half a dozen European countries were also in the process.

The treaty was signed in Oslo last December by over 90 countries after a campaign to outlaw cluster bombs.

The bombs contain scores or hundreds of submunitions or "bomblets" that blanket wide areas and which may explode years later, posing lethal danger to civilians especially children.

Campaigners for the ban were pleased 35 former users, producers, stockpilers and exporters of the weapons, including Britain and France, have signed up.

Signatories include 20 members of the NATO alliance as well as countries where the weapons have been used, such as Afghanistan, Laos and Lebanon.

The treaty will come into force six months after it has been ratified by 30 countries.

So far seven countries -- Austria, Ireland, Laos, Mexico, Norway, Sierra Leone and the Vatican -- have ratified the treaty and Goose said he was confident the remainder of the 30 countries would follow suit by the end of the year.

Campaigners hope President Barack Obama will sign up the United States, which has already banned exports of the weapons and currently plans to ban them from 2018.

Of countries staying away, Brazil, which cites the economic benefit of producing and selling the weapons, has been a big disappointment, said Goose. (For a FACTBOX on cluster munitions click on [ID:LT581906]) (For the full report go to: http://www.lm.icbl.org/cm/2009

"Break her and you die"

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Republicans are battling each other over how to attack President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, because of fears that Hispanic voters will revolt against her opponents at the polls.

FoxNews
May 29, 2009

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President Obama announces Sonia Sotomayor, right, as his pick for Supreme Court justice Tuesday in Washington. (Reuters Photo)

Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's nominee to replace Justice David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court, is posing a conundrum for Republicans who are struggling to unite against a woman they presume will be a reliable vote for liberal causes.

The GOP doesn't want to give Sotomayer a free ride, because they believe she is a judicial activist who will legislate from the bench.

But they're also concerned that if they launch a no-holds barred attack on Sotomayor, the first Hispanic to be nominated to the court, they risk alienating a growing minority they want on their side in the voting booth.

The White House warned earlier this week that detractors should be careful as they scrutinize Sotomayor's  record and background.

"It is probably important for anybody involved in this debate to be exceedingly careful with the way in which they've decided to describe different aspects of this impending confirmation," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Elected Republican officials have heeded that warning so far, holding fire as they continue to dig into the judge's past.

But two unelected Republican stalwarts, Rush Limbaugh and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, haven't been as restrained. They have labeled Sotomayor a "reverse racist" for saying in a speech in 2001 that she hopes a "wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

Their comments have drawn pushback from Republican elected officials and other commentators.

"I think it's terrible. This is not the kind of tone that any of us want to set when it comes to performing our constitutional responsibilities of advice and consent," Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told National Public Radio on  Thursday.

"Neither one of these men are elected Republican officials," Cornyn said. "I just don't think it's appropriate and I certainly don't endorse it. I think it's wrong."

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told CNN that he disagrees with Gingrich.

"Frankly, I think it is a little premature and early, because she hasn't had a chance to explain some of these comments that she has made," Hatch said.

"I think we have to be fair. I think we have to do what is normally done, and that is scrutinize the record, look at the opinions, the unwritten opinions, the articles, the speeches, the various comments that have been made and so forth, and do it fairly."

In her Wall Street Journal column on Friday, conservative commentator Peggy Noonan panned Gingrich for twittering that Sotomayor should withdraw because a white judicial nominee would have to if he made a similar statement on race.

"Does anyone believe that?" Noonan wrote. "[Gingrich] should rest his dancing thumbs, stop trying to position himself as the choice and voice of the base in 2012, and think."

She urged Republicans to act like grownups as they challenge Sotomayor's nomination, which she called a "brilliant political pick" because the GOP has struggled to attract and retain Hispanics and women, and because Sotomayor's rags-to-riches story is so moving.

"Politically she's like a beautiful doll containing a canister of poison gas: Break her and you die," Noonan wrote.

Noonan questioned the wisdom of critics who want to use an attack on Sotomayor as a way to excite the base.

"Excite the base? How about excite a moderate, or interest an independent?" she wrote. "How about gain the attention of people who aren't already on your side?"