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?"

Obama Wants $736 Million Colonial Fortress in Pakistan

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Critics say the White House wants to use the new "embassy" for "pushing the American agenda in Central Asia."

Jeremy Scahill - Rebel Reports

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Ah, good thing the US quest for violent global domination was brought to a screeching halt with the November presidential election. Without Obama's election, we'd still have an occupation of Iraq, mercenaries on the US payroll, torture of prisoners, an unending and worsening war that kills civilians in Afghanistan, regular airstrikes in Pakistan, killing civilians and an embassy the size of Vatican city in Baghdad, which was built in part on slave labor. Not to mention those crazy "Bush/Cheney" neocons running around trying to become the "CEOs" of foreign nations. Wow, glad that's all over. Whew! And, it's a really good thing Bush is no longer in power or else the US would come up with some crazy idea like building a colonial fortress in Pakistan to defend "US interests" in the region.

From McClatchy:

The White House has asked Congress for — and seems likely to receive — $736 million to build a new U.S. embassy in Islamabad, along with permanent housing for U.S. government civilians and new office space in the Pakistani capital.

The scale of the projects rivals the giant U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which was completed last year after construction delays at a cost of $740 million.

Other major projects are planned for Kabul, Afghanistan; and for the Pakistani cities of Lahore and Peshawar. In Peshawar, the U.S. government is negotiating the purchase of a five-star hotel that would house a new U.S. consulate.

In Pakistan, however, large parts of the population are hostile to the U.S. presence in the region — despite receiving billions of dollars in aid from Washington since 2001 — and anti-American groups and politicians are likely to seize on the expanded diplomatic presence in Islamabad as evidence of American "imperial designs."

"This is a replay of Baghdad," said Khurshid Ahmad, a member of Pakistan's upper house of parliament for Jamaat-e-Islami, one of the country's two main religious political parties. "This (Islamabad embassy) is more (space) than they should need. It's for the micro and macro management of Pakistan, and using Pakistan for pushing the American agenda in Central Asia."

White House Press Secretary Attacks ... British Media

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Jeremy Scahill
May 28, 2009 - Rebel Reports

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Hey Gibbs: Instead of attacking the 'British media' why don't you go after Gen. Taguba, who lost his job for confronting Bush-era torture?

Wow. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs is really embodying the idea that when the message is devastating, you attack the messenger. Except in this case, Gibbs is not even attacking the messenger, but rather the newspaper that quoted the messenger.

In a major story today, London's Daily Telegraph quoted Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba describing photos (that the Obama administration is fighting to keep secret), which allegedly depict U.S. personnel raping prisoners, other sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube. "These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency," Taguba said. Put that statement against this one from the president: In defending his decision to fight the ACLU in its efforts to have the photos publicly released, Obama said on May 13, "I want to emphasize that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational."

At the White House press briefing today, Gibbs lashed out -- not at Gen. Taguba, who made the allegation on the record, and not even specifically at the paper that quoted Taguba. Instead, Gibbs went after the entire British media, saying "I think if you do an even moderate Google search (heh) you're not gonna find many of these newspapers and 'truth' within say 25 words of each other:"

"I want to speak generally about some of reports I've witnessed over the past few years in the British media and in some ways I'm surprised it filtered down," Gibbs said. "Let's just say that if I wanted to look up, if I wanted to read a writeup today of how Manchester United fared last night in the Champions League Cup, I might open up a British newspaper… If I was looking for something that bordered on truthful news, I'm not sure that would be the first stack of clips I picked up."

No, instead perhaps Gibbs would pick up one of those stellar U.S. papers with spotless track records on "the truth." He could start with The New York Times, which was basically a conveyor belt for the lies of the Bush administration during the lead up to the Iraq war. Or he could turn to any number of U.S. lie factories masquerading as media outlets.

This is pathetic. Really. Hey, Gibbs, here's a suggestion: go after Gen. Taguba, a 34 year, decorated military veteran whose career was brought to an end for battling Rumsfeld and the torture machine at the Pentagon. Go after the General who last year (when Bush was still in power) called for prosecutions of the torturers. "There is no longer any doubt that the current administration committed war crimes. The only question is whether those who ordered torture will be held to account," Taguba wrote in June 2008. Go after him, Gibbs. Call him a liar. Say he is a dirty propagandist that wants to hurt U.S. troops. Oh, right, you can't. Taguba actually agrees with Obama on this issue, as he told the lying, evil British media:

"I am not sure what purpose their release would serve other than a legal one and the consequence would be to imperil our troops, the only protectors of our foreign policy, when we most need them."

I'll wait to see if the Telegraph produces a tape of the interview (they should) or for Gen. Taguba to say he was misquoted before I would even mildly question the veracity of this story. Everything about it rings true to everything Sy Hersh has written, every torture document and photo we have seen thus far and every testimonial we have heard from those former military/intelligence and other government officials with the guts to speak out. As Raw Story pointed out today, this allegation of rape of prisoners is not new:

"The American public needs to understand, we're talking about rape and murder here," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), telling reporters in 2004 why the Abu Ghraib photos should not be released as former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld faced calls for his resignation. "We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience. We're talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges."

As for the Pentagon's statement today (reiterated by Gibbs as the official U.S. line on this story) that the Telegraph "demonstrated an inability to get the facts right," here is what I say: the Pentagon, whose personnel allegedly commited the torture described by Gen. Taguba, is not an independent observer here to say the least. In fact, the Pentagon has "demonstrated an inability to get the facts right."

Iraq Faces the Mother of all Corruption Scandals

People clamour for food in Baghdad - around 25 per cent of Iraqis live below the poverty line (Photo: the Independent)

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Allegations of kickbacks rock key government department as 1,000 officials face arrest and Trade Minister is forced to resign

Patrick Cockburn
May 29, 2009 - Independent/UK

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BAGHDAD - Iraq plans to arrest 1,000 officials for corruption after a scandal which has forced the resignation of the Trade Minister and is threatening the food supply of millions of Iraqis.

Corruption at the Trade Ministry is an important issue in Iraq because the ministry is in charge of the food rationing system on which 60 per cent of Iraqis depend. Officials at the ministry, which spends billions of dollars buying rice, sugar, flour and other items, are notorious among Iraqis for importing food that is unfit for human consumption, for which they charge the state the full international price.

The scandal first erupted in April when police, entering the Trade Ministry in Baghdad to arrest 10 senior officials accused of corruption and embezzlement, were greeted with gunfire by the ministry's own guards. The shoot-out allowed several officials, including two brothers of the Trade Minister, Abdul Falah al-Sudany, time to escape out the back gate.

The political crisis over corruption has escalated after a video surfaced showing Trade Ministry officials at a party, apparently drinking alcohol, cavorting with prostitutes, and deriding the Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki.

The voice of the man shooting the video, widely viewed and sent from phone to phone in Baghdad, is heard shouting to the dancing girls: "You before Maliki". Guests at the party who were captured on the video are said to include one of Mr Sudany's brothers and the ministry's spokesman.

"We have the video of Trade Ministry officials hosting a party that is unethical and out of control," said Sabah al-Saadi, the chairman of the Commission for Public Integrity. "This party represents the impact of nepotism on the government and wasting of funds by senior officials' family members."

Mr Sudany, who has not been charged and denies all wrongdoing, resigned on Sunday soon after his brother and aide Sabah Mohammed, who had earlier escaped from the police, was arrested with his bodyguards when his car was stopped at Samawa, 140 miles south of Baghdad. Security and police officials said cash, gold and identity cards were found in the car.

Iraq is deemed the third most corrupt country in the world after Burma and Somalia, out of 180 countries, according to the corruption index compiled by Transparency International.

Although it is an important oil producer, many Iraqis are on the edge of starvation; 20-25 per cent of Iraq's 27 million people live below the poverty line on less than $66 (£41) a month.

Amid claims that Mr Sudany's relatives had made millions out of kickbacks from sugar purchases, Mr Maliki visited the leaderless Trade Ministry this week saying that his office would take over its functions. A committee is to take charge of Iraq's large import programme for grain and foodstuffs. "We will not keep silent about corruption after this day and we will chase all the corrupt and bring them before the judiciary," Mr Maliki said.

The Integrity Commission says it issued 387 arrest warrants in April, including warrants for 51 officials who are department heads. In addition, it has 997 arrest warrants not yet issued and Mr Maliki has told the security forces to arrest all those named.

The committee in charge of food purchases will draw its members from the Prime Minister's office, the cabinet secretariat, the corruption watchdog and the audit department. "It will buy foodstuffs in a swift and proper manner and sign agreements with the world's big companies to buy essential foodstuffs without the use of intermediaries," Mr Maliki said.

Iraqis will be sceptical about the anti-corruption campaign until they see senior officials convicted and punished. It is not only the Trade Ministry which is corrupt but the entire government system. Officials have often purchased their jobs, which they see as a way of making money through bribery or payment for awarding jobs and contracts. The last anti-corruption boss in Iraq was forced to flee the country.

And supply of tainted goods is not confined to the Trade Ministry. Refugees living in Sadr City, the great Shia slum with a population of two million in east Baghdad, were expecting food and clothing from the Ministry of Displacement and Migration but when the shipment arrived, the refugees were enraged to discover that it consisted of scratchy thin grey woollen blankets smelling of mould which were useless in the torrid heat of the Iraqi summer. There were also an assortment of children's shoes and 25 boxes of canned tuna. Locals suspect that officials had pocketed most of the money intended to help them.

The breakdown of the rationing system, started in 1995 under Saddam Hussein, threatens millions of Iraqis with malnourishment. The rations consist of items sold for a small sum of money at retail outlets on production of a ration card. They include rice (3kg a person), sugar (2kg), flour (9kg), cooking oil (1.25kg), milk for adults (250 grams), tea (200g), beans, children's milk, soap, detergents and tomato paste.

A survey by the Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation found that 18 per cent of people had not received the full food ration for 13 months and 32 per cent had not received it for seven to 12 months. When rations do come, they are often of poor quality and Iraqis say that the tea supplied tastes disgusting.

Marijuana and Cocaine Should Be Legalized, Says Latin American Drugs Commission

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Duncan Campbell
May 28, 2009 - The Guardian/UK

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Marijuana and cocaine for personal use should be decriminalised because the "war on drugs" has been a disaster, according to some of Latin America's most powerful politicians and writers.

The current international policy on drugs encourages corruption and violence that is threatening democracy throughout the continent, according to the former president of Brazil, Fernando Enrique Cardoso, who is a co-president of the Latin American commission on drugs and democracy. As well as politicians, the commission includes the writers Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru, and Paulo Coelho of Brazil.

The election of Barack Obama has opened up the best opportunity for decades to address the failure of the "so-called drugs war", Cardoso told the Guardian today on a visit to London. He said he was hopeful that the international community would acknowledge that the time had come for a "paradigm shift" in the debate on drugs. "The war on drugs has failed in spite of enormous efforts in places like Colombia - the area of coca crops is not reducing," he said.

The current system of prohibition encouraged corruption among police officers, politicians and even judges. "It poisons the whole system, it undermines democracy," Cardoso said. "The war on drugs is based on repression ... How can people believe in democracy if the rule of law doesn't work?" Users should be offered treatment rather than jail, he said.

"The starting point has to be the United States," he said. "Now we have a new American administration, which is much more open-minded than before." He said he had held talks with the US state department in the later years of the Bush administration and found that, privately, many of the officials there shared his views.

Cardoso said that the changes would have to be co-ordinated. "We need an international convention, otherwise you will have different countries doing different things," he said. "But the climate is changing for the first time for many years. Even in the US, they recognise we are in deadlock now." Obama had already made it clear that the idea of a "war on drugs" was not workable. The need for change is urgent, said Cardoso, because of what is happening in Latin America. "There is a very grave situation in Mexico," he said. "More people are being killed there (through the drugs war) than in Iraq." He said that it was easier for former presidents who were no longer in office or running for election to speak out on such a controversial issue. He added that ending the war on drugs would be not be a signal that drugs were acceptable but a recognition that current policies had failed.

"You have to show that drugs are harmful, even light drugs, like marijuana - it is better not to use drugs - but tobacco is harmful also yet its use is being reduced by education," said Cardoso. He added that the vast quantities of money being used to enforce "repressive" policies on drugs could be put into treatment and education. Hundreds of thousands of people were being unnecessarily criminalised and sent to prison, "which are schools of crime."

The previous UN drugs policy that aimed to eliminate all drug use by this year was ill-conceived, he said. "You can never stop drugs use," he said, likening it to some of the failed policies in the past over HIV/Aids. "You can't have zero drugs any more than you can have a zero sex policy but you can have a safe sex policy." He said that Brazil's success in halting the HIV/Aids epidemic, which meant promoting the use of condoms in a Catholic country, was an example of how people's behaviour could be changed by education rather than repression.

Scientists identify new lethal virus in Africa

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Mike Stobbe
May 28, 2008 – Ap

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Scientists have identified a lethal new virus in Africa that causes bleeding like the dreaded Ebola virus. The so-called "Lujo" virus infected five people in Zambia and South Africa last fall. Four of them died, but a fifth survived, perhaps helped by a medicine recommended by the scientists.

It's not clear how the first person became infected, but the bug comes from a family of viruses found in rodents, said Dr. Ian Lipkin, a Columbia University epidemiologist involved in the discovery.

"This one is really, really aggressive" he said of the virus.

A paper on the virus by Lipkin and his collaborators was published online Thursday on in PLoS Pathogens.

The outbreak started in September, when a female travel agent who lives on the outskirts of Lusaka, Zambia, became ill with a fever-like illness that quickly grew much worse.

She was airlifted to Johannesburg, South Africa, where she died.

A paramedic in Lusaka who treated her also became sick, was transported to Johannesburg and died. The three others infected were health care workers in Johannesburg.

Investigators believe the virus spread from person to person through contact with infected body fluids.

"It's not a kind of virus like the flu that can spread widely," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which helped fund the research.

The name given to the virus — "Lujo" — stems from Lusaka and Johannesburg, the cities where it was first identified.

Investigators in Africa thought the illness might be Ebola, because some of the patients had bleeding in the gums and around needle injection sites, said Stuart Nichol, chief of the molecular biology lab in the CDC's Special Pathogens Branch. Other symptoms include include fever, shock, coma and organ failure.

Genetic extracts of blood and liver from the victims were tested at Columbia University in New York, and additional testing was done at CDC in Atlanta. Tests determined it belonged to the arenavirus family, and that it is distantly related to Lassa fever, another disease found in Africa.

The drug ribavirin, which is given to Lassa victims, was given to the fifth Lujo virus patient — a Johannesburg nurse. It's not clear if the medicine made a difference or if she just had a milder case of the disease, but she fully recovered, Nichol said.

The research is a startling example of how quickly scientists can now identify new viruses, Fauci said. Using genetic sequencing techniques, the virus was identified in a matter of a few days — a process that used to take weeks or longer.

Along with Fauci's institute, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and Google also helped fund the research.

Mancow Says No Mas

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/30951130#30951130

Abu Ghraib Abuse Photos 'Show Rape'

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May 28, 2009 - The Telegraph/UK

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Photographs of alleged prisoner abuse which Barack Obama is attempting to censor include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, it has emerged.
by Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent and Paul Cruickshank

At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.

Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.

Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.

Detail of the content emerged from Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.

Allegations of rape and abuse were included in his 2004 report but the fact there were photographs was never revealed. He has now confirmed their existence in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.

The graphic nature of some of the images may explain the US President's attempts to block the release of an estimated 2,000 photographs from prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan despite an earlier promise to allow them to be published.

Maj Gen Taguba, who retired in January 2007, said he supported the President's decision, adding: "These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency.

"I am not sure what purpose their release would serve other than a legal one and the consequence would be to imperil our troops, the only protectors of our foreign policy, when we most need them, and British troops who are trying to build security in Afghanistan.

"The mere description of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it."

In April, Mr Obama's administration said the photographs would be released and it would be "pointless to appeal" against a court judgment in favour of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

But after lobbying from senior military figures, Mr Obama changed his mind saying they could put the safety of troops at risk.

Earlier this month, he said: "The most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to inflame anti-American public opinion and to put our troops in greater danger."

It was thought the images were similar to those leaked five years ago, which showed naked and bloody prisoners being intimidated by dogs, dragged around on a leash, piled into a human pyramid and hooded and attached to wires.

Mr Obama seemed to reinforce that view by adding: "I want to emphasise that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib."

The latest photographs relate to 400 cases of alleged abuse between 2001 and 2005 in Abu Ghraib and six other prisons. Mr Obama said the individuals involved had been "identified, and appropriate actions" taken.

Maj Gen Taguba's internal inquiry into the abuse at Abu Ghraib, included sworn statements by 13 detainees, which, he said in the report, he found "credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses."

Among the graphic statements, which were later released under US freedom of information laws, is that of Kasim Mehaddi Hilas in which he says: "I saw [name of a translator] ******* a kid, his age would be about 15 to 18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn't covered and I saw [name] who was wearing the military uniform, putting his **** in the little kid's ***.... and the female soldier was taking pictures."

The translator was an American Egyptian who is now the subject of a civil court case in the US.

Three detainees, including the alleged victim, refer to the use of a phosphorescent tube in the sexual abuse and another to the use of wire, while the victim also refers to part of a policeman's "stick" all of which were apparently photographed.

Damaged Ecosystems Not Lost Forever

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Marina Litvinsky
May 27, 2009 by Inter Press Service

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Most polluted or damaged ecosystems worldwide could recover within a single lifetime if societies commit to their cleanup or restoration, according to researchers at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.

The report, 'Rapid Recovery of Ecosystems,' states that biotic and biophysical conditions of ecosystems become degraded from exploitation by humans to meet rising demands for resources and environmental services, or from accidents.

In theory, ecosystems could recover gradually at a rate proportional to the degree to which the problem is abated. However, it is speculated that such recovery would take centuries if not millennia given the scales of current human impact.

Researchers found that forest ecosystems recovered in 42 years on average, while ocean bottoms recovered in less than 10 years. When examined by disturbance type, ecosystems undergoing multiple, interacting disturbances recovered in 56 years, and those affected by either invasive species, mining, oil spills or trawling recovered in as little as five years.

Most ecosystems took longer to recover from human-induced disturbances than from natural events, such as hurricanes.

"The damages to these ecosystems are pretty serious," said Oswald Schmitz, an ecology professor at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and co-author of the meta-analysis with Yale Ph.D. student Holly Jones. "But the message is that if societies choose to become sustainable, ecosystems will recover. It isn't hopeless."

The Yale analysis focused on seven ecosystem types, including marine, forest, terrestrial, freshwater and brackish, and addresses recovery from major anthropogenic disturbances: agriculture, deforestation, eutrophication, invasive species, logging, mining, oil spills, overfishing, power plants and trawling and from the interactions of those disturbances.

Major natural disturbances, including hurricanes and cyclones, are also accounted for in the analysis.

"We recognise that humankind has and will continue to actively domesticate nature to meet its own needs," said Jones. "The message of our paper is that recovery is possible and can be rapid for many ecosystems, giving much hope for a transition to sustainable management of global ecosystems."

The researchers analysed data derived from 240 peer-reviewed studies conducted over the past century that examined the recovery of large ecosystems following the cessation of a disturbance. The studies measured 94 variables that were grouped into three categories: ecosystem function, animal community and plant community.

The recovery of each of the variables was quantified in terms of the time it took for them to return to their pre-disturbance state as determined by the expert judgment of each study's author. The findings "show that there may be much hope to restore even heavily degraded ecosystems."

The analysis found that 83 studies demonstrated recovery for all variables; 90 reported a mixture of recovered and non-recovered variables; and 67 reported no recovery for any variable.

Schmitz said 15 percent of all the ecosystems in the analysis are beyond recovery. Also, it was determined that 54 percent of the studies that reported no recovery likely did not run long enough to draw definitive conclusions.

In addition, the analysis suggests that an ecosystems recovery may be independent of its degraded condition. Aquatic systems, the researchers noted, may recover more quickly because species and organisms that inhabit them turn over more rapidly than, for example, forests whose habitats take longer to regenerate after logging or clear-cutting.

Recovery following agricultural activities and multiple perturbations was significantly slower than all other perturbation types

The researchers pointed out that a potential pitfall of the analysis is that the ecosystems may have already been in a disturbed state when they were originally examined. Many ecosystems across the globe that have experienced extinctions and other fundamental changes as a result of human activities, combined with the ongoing effects of climate change and pollution, are far removed from their historical, natural pristine state. Thus, ecologists measured recovery on the basis of an ecosystem's more recent condition.

Because historical reference sites are often not representative of ecosystem states that humans aspire to restore, many restoration projects have moved away from the idea of restoring back to 'natural' or pre-human states and instead use contemporaneous reference systems as restoration targets.

Three explanations could account for lack of recovery in almost half of the systems and response variables. First, a particular study may not have been conducted over a long enough time scale to detect recovery. To assess this possibility, the researchers compared the average recovery times for those ecosystems that were found to be fully recovered with the duration of those studies reporting that variables had not yet recovered.

Second, systems may have entered into alternative states, thereby precluding recovery. Five percent of the total studies conclusively reported that the ecosystems were irreversibly entrained into alternative states.

Third, while some studies did rely on either a pre-perturbation or undisturbed control as an objective benchmark, this was not universally so. Of the 240 studies, only 20 percent used pre-perturbation data and 58 percent used undisturbed reference sites.

The Yale analysis points out the need for the development of objective criteria to decide when a system has fully recovered.

The analysis rebuts speculation that it will take centuries or millennia for degraded ecosystems to recover and justifies an increased effort to restore degraded areas for the benefit of future generations.

"Restoration could become a more important tool in the management portfolio of conservation organisations that are entrusted to protect habitats on landscapes," said Schmitz.

"Our results are not intended to give license to exploit ecosystems without regard to sustainability," said the report. "But, with even the best sustainable practices unforeseen outcomes and damages can happen accidentally. The message of our paper is that recovery is possible and can be rapid for many ecosystems, giving much hope for humankind to transition to sustainable management of global ecosystems."

Land of the Weak and the Wussy

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May 26, 2009 - Dave Lindorff's blog

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There may have perhaps have been a time when America was a land of at least some brave people. although arguably a nation that celebrates as heroic a history that features lots of people with modern guns and cannons conquering and destroying another people who were living in the stone age and fighting back with bows and arrows, and that built its economy on the backs of men and women held in chains certainly has a tough case to make. What is clear though is that there is nothing brave about modern-day America.

Whatever we were, we have degenerated into a nation that finds glory in deploying the most advanced high-tech, high-explosive weaponry against some of the world's poorest people, that justifies killing women and children, even by the dozens, even if by doing so it manages to kill one alleged "enemy" fighter. A nation that exalts remote-controlled robot drone aircraft that can attack targets in order to avoid risking soldiers' lives, even though by doing so, it is predictable that many, many innocent people will be killed. A nation that is proud to have developed weapons of mass slaughter, from shells laden with phosphorus that burns to death, indiscriminately, those who are contacted by the splattered chemical to elaborately baroque anti-personnel fragmentation bombs that spread cute little colored objects designed to look like everything from toys to food packages, but which upon contact explode, releasing whirling metal or plastic fleschettes which
shred human flesh on contact.

The Marines who battled their way up the hillsides of Iwo Jima, or the soldiers who struggled ashore under withering fire on the beaches of Normandy would be appalled at what passes for heroic behavior in today's American military. But that's not the worst of it.

The worst of it is back home in the USA, where millions of citizens who bitch about their taxes and who pay as little attention as possible to the fact that their nation is deeply mired in two wars, routinely refer to those who do their fighting for them as heroes, but then want nothing to do with the consequences of those wars (or for that matter the people who actually fight them).

One particularly telling consequence of those wars is that the US now has several hundred prisoners, mostly at the prison camp on the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, whom the American people don't want to have moved to their shores. And why won't we Americans accept the responsibility for incarcerating and trying these captives? Because we are so afraid that their comrades will strike back at us with acts of terrorism if we bring them here.

First of all, a moment of rational thought, please. Does anyone seriously think that the radical Islamic groups and independence fighters who are battling American forces in places like Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan are so symbolically obsessed that they would only attack places in America where their fellows are actually being held? Do people actually think that such people would not attack some place in the continental US right now if they could, in retaliation for people being held at the inaccessible base in Guantanamo?

Please. Let's get real.

Moving captives from Guantanamo to prisons in the US, pending trial, would merely make the job of agencies like the FBI easier by narrowing the list of likely terrorist targets in the US from thousands to dozens. But even then, is there any reason to think that a prospective terrorist group would be more likely to bomb Leavenworth Prison or the town of Leavenworth than the White House or the Pentagon to protest the holding of people at Leavenworth? Of course not.

The goal of a terrorist action is to cause as much fear and disruption as possible, and bombing some remote commuity where a federal prison is located isn't going to do that. You want to bomb a transportation or communications hub, or a major population center. So bringing prisoners to the US from Guantanamo doesn't really do anything to raise the risk for anybody.

But we Americans are irrational, panicky cowards. We worry that the terrorists will come and get us.

My guess is that a lot of this is mass guilt. Whether people admit it or not, I suspect most people know on some subconscious level that we Americans have been living off the rest of the world's misery. We know we're stealing oil from the people of nations like Iraq and Nigeria. We know that our toys, our electronics devices and our fancy name-brand running shoes are being made by people who cannot afford to buy them themselves. We know that for decades we have been overthrowing elected governments and propping up fascist dictatorships to keep the exploitation going so that we can buy cheap goods and extract cheap resources (As Marine Medal of Honor hero Smedley Butler long ago admitted, that's what our "heroes" in uniform are generally doing overseas).

The whole thing is sickening--a kind of nausea-inducing feeling that comes on me whenever I hear the last screeched line of the "Star-Spangled Banner"--but there is something particularly pathetic about this latest bout of collective wussiness on the part of the American people.

I mean, even if you bought all the tripe about our soldiers having to kill and occasionally die in Iraq and Afghanistan so we can "fight the terrorists there instead of here," even the charlatans in the White House and the Pentagon are claiming that keeping captives in Guantanamo is generating hatred abroad and putting US troops at greater risk, so you'd think it would be the least that this "home of the brave" could do to close that base and accept some of the added risk--if there even were any--of bringing those prisoners here.

If we can't even handle that, we're simply going to have to write a new ending for the national anthem:

"...Oh say may that Star-Spangled Banner yet flap
O'er the land of the weak, and the home of the sap."

.....

Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. His new book of columns titled "This Can't be Happening!" is published by Common Courage Press. Lindorff's new book is "The Case for Impeachment," co-authored by Barbara Olshansky.

Credit Default Swaps: The poison in the system

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May 26, 2009 - Mike Whitney's blog

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In a little more than a decade, Credit Default Swaps (CDS) have ballooned into a multi-billion dollar industry which has changed the fundamental character of the financial system. CDS, which were originally created to reduce potential losses from defaulting bonds, has turned into a cash cow for the big banks, generating mega-profits on, what amounts to, legalized gambling. CDS are the root-cause of systemic risk which connects hundreds of financial institutions together in a lethal daisy-chain that threatens to crash the entire system if one of the main players goes under.

CDS contracts are not cleared on a centralized exchange nor are they government regulated. That means that no one really knows whether issuers of CDS can pay off potential claims or not. It's a Ponzi-insurance racket of the first order. AIG is a good example of a company that gamed the system and then walked away with millions for its efforts. They sold more CDS than they could cover and then--when the debts started piling up around their eyeballs--they trundled off to the Fed for a multi-billion dollar bailout. Fed chief Bernanke later said that he was furious over the AIG's fiasco, but that didn't stop him from shoveling the losses onto the public ledger and making the taxpayer the guarantor for all of AIG's bad bets. Keep in mind, that AIG was selling paper that had zero capital backing, an activity is tantamount to counterfeiting. Still, no one has been indicted or prosecuted in the affair.

CDS have spider-webbed their way into every corner of the financial system lashing-together banks and other financial institutions in a way that if one defaults the others go down too. This is what's really meant by "too big to fail"; a euphemism which refers to the tangle of counterparty deals which has been allowed to spread--regardless of the risk--so that a handful of banksters can rake in obscene profits. CDS has become the bank cartel's golden goose; a no-risk revenue-generating locomotive that accelerates the transfer of public wealth to high-stakes speculators. If it wasn't for the turbo-charged profits from derivatives transactions, many of the banks would have already gone belly up.

From Dr. Ellen Brown:

"Credit default swaps are the most widely traded form of credit derivative. They are bets between two parties on whether or not a company will default on its bonds. In a typical default swap, the "protection buyer" gets a large payoff if the company defaults within a certain period of time, while the "protection seller" collects periodic payments for assuming the risk of default...

In December 2007, the Bank for International Settlements reported derivative trades tallying in at $681 trillion - ten times the gross domestic product of all the countries in the world combined."
("Credit Default Swaps: Evolving Financial Meltdown and Derivative Disaster Du Jour", Dr. Ellen Brown, globalresearch.ca)

The numbers boggle the mind, but they are real just the same, as are the losses, which will be eventually shifted onto the taxpayer. That much is certain.

Treasury Secretary Geithner has recently sounded the alarm for more regulation, but it's just another public relations stunt. Geithner is an industry rep whose sole qualification for the job as Treasury Secretary is his unwavering loyalty to the banking establishment. He has no intention of increasing oversight or tightening supervision. All the blather about change is just his way of mollifying the public while he tries to sabotage congressional efforts to re-regulate the derivatives market. In the next few weeks, Geithner will probably roll out a whole new product-line of reforms accompanied with the usual claptrap about free markets, innovation and "protecting the public's interest". It's all fakery; just more tedious sleight-of-hand carried out by agents of the banking industry working from inside the administration.

Swaps originated in the 1980s as a way for financial institutions to hedge against the risk of sudden price movements or interest rate fluctuations. But derivatives trading took an ugly turn after congress passed the Clinton-era Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. The bill triggered a sea-change in the way that CDS were used. Industry sharpies figured out how to expand leverage via complex instruments balanced on smaller and smaller morsels of capital. It's all about maximizing profits with borrowed money. CDS provided the perfect vehicle; after all, with no regulators, it's impossible to know who's got enough money to pay off claims. Besides, gambling on the creditworthiness of bonds for which one has no "insurable interest" can be fun; like taking out an insurance policy on a rivals home and waiting for it to burn down. This is the perverted logic of Wall Street, where every disaster becomes an opportunity for enrichment.

There is a solution to this mess and it doesn't require a complete ban on CDS. There needs to be strict regulatory oversight of all issuers of CDS to make sure they are sufficiently capitalized, and there needs to be a central clearing-platform for all trades. That's it. Geithner is trying to torpedo the reform-effort by proposing bogus fixes that preserve the banks monopoly on the derivatives issuance. He's the banks main water-carrier. Now we can see why the financial industry is consistently the largest contributor of any group to political campaigns. They need friends in high places to continue their scams without interruption.

"Too big to fail" is a snappy PR slogan, but it's largely a myth. No financial institution is too big for the government to take into conservatorship; to put the bad assets up for auction, replace the management and restructure the debt. It's been done before and it can be done again. The real problem is separating healthy financial institutions from insolvent ones now that the whole system is stitched together in a complex net of counterparty deals. Credit default swaps form the bulk of those transactions, which makes them the main source of systemic risk. To fix the problem, current contracts must be either unwound or allowed to lapse, while new contracts must be traded on a central clearinghouse where regulators can decide whether sellers are adequately capitalized or not. The Fed's solution--underwriting the entire financial system to prevent another Lehman Bros.-- doesn't address the fundamental problem. It just puts more pressure on the dollar,
which is already beginning to buckle. The question is whether Congress will do the people's work and pass the laws that are needed to re-regulate the system or wait until there's another massive systemwide meltdown. There is a remedy, but it requires action, and fast. Without course-correction, the prospect of a derivatives Chernobyl gets bigger by the day.

The Silence of MoveOn

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Tom Hayden
May 27, 2009 - The Nation

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The most powerful grassroots organization of the peace movement, MoveOn, remains silent as the American wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan simmer or escalate.

Then he met with Obama in February, Jason Ruben, executive director of MoveOn, told the president it was "the moment to go big," then indicated that MoveOn would not oppose the $94 billion war supplemental request, nor the 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, nor the increased civilian casualties from the mounting number of Predator attacks.
What was MoveOn's explanation for abandoning the peace movement in a meeting with a president the peace movement was key to electing? According to Ruben and MoveOn, it was the preference of its millions of members, as ascertained by house meetings and polls.

The evidence, however, is otherwise. Last December 17, 48.3 percent of MoveOn members listed "end the war in Iraq" as a 2009 goal, after healthcare (64.9 percent), economic recovery and job creation (62.1 percent) and building a green economy/stopping climate change (49.6 percent--only 1.5 percent above Iraq.) This was at a moment when most Americans believed the Iraq War was ending. Afghanistan and Pakistan were not listed among top goals which members could vote on.

Then on May 22 MoveOn surveyed its members once again, listing ten possible campaigns for the organization. "Keep up the pressure to the end the war in Iraq" was listed ninth among the options.

Again, Afghanistan and Pakistan were not on the MoveOn list of options.

Nor was Guantánamo nor the administration's torture policies. ("Investigate the Bush Administration" was the first option.)

MoveOn is supposed to be an Internet version of participatory democracy, but the organization's decision-making structure apparently assures that the membership is voiceless on the question of these long wars.

What if they included an option like "demanding a diplomatic settlement and opposing a quagmire in Afghanistan and Pakistan"? Or "shifting from a priority on military spending to civilian spending on food, medicine and schools?"

This is no small matter. MoveOn has collected a privately held list of 5 million names, most of them strong peace advocates. The organization's membership contributed an unprecedented $180 million for the federal election cycle in 2004-2006. Those resources, now squelched or sequestered, mean that the most vital organization in the American peace movement is missing in action.

What to do? There is no point raving and ranting against MoveOn. The only path is in organizing a dialogue with the membership, over the Internet, and having faith that their voices will turn the organization to oppose these escalating occupations. The same approach is necessary towards other vital organs of the peace movement including rank-and-file Democrat activists and the post-election Obama organization (Organizing for America) through a persistent, bottom-up campaign to renew the peace movement as a powerful force in civil society.

This is not a simple matter of an organizational oligarchy manipulating its membership, although the avoidance by MoveOn's leadership is a troubling sign. There is genuine confusion over Afghanistan and Pakistan among the rank and file. The economic crisis has averted attention away from the battlefront. Many who voted for Obama understandably will give him the benefit of the doubt, for now.

Silence sends a message. The de facto MoveOn support for the $94 billion war supplemental reverberates up the ladder of power. Feeling no pressure, Congressional leadership has abdicated its critical oversight function over the expanding wars, not even allowing members to vote for a December report on possible exit strategies. In the end, a gutsy sixty voted against HR 2346 on May 14, but many defected to vote for the war spending, including Neil Abercrombie, Jerry Nadler, David Obey, Xavier Becerra, Lois Capps, Maurice Hinchey, Jesse Jackson, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Patrick Kennedy, Charles Rangel, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Loretta Sanchez, Rosa De Lauro, Bennie Thompson, Jerry McNerney, Robert Wexler and Henry Waxman. (Bill Delahunt, Linda Sanchez and Pete Stark were not recorded.)

If there were significant pressures from networks like MoveOn in their Congressional districts, the opposition vote might have approached 85.

Appropriations chair David Obey in essence granted Obama a one-year pass to show results in Afghanistan. If the war appears to be a quagmire by then, he claimed, the Democrats will become more critical. Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivered the same message; according to the Washington Examiner, May 6: "There won't be any more war supplementals, so my message to my members is, this is it." Pelosi's words were carefully parsed, saying that the White House would not be allowed another supplemental form of appropriation, which is different from an actual pledge to oppose war funding.

This one-year pass means that the grassroots peace movement has a few months to light a fire and reawaken pressure from below on the Congress and president. In the meantime, here are some predictions for the coming year:

• Iraq: Will Obama keep his pledge to withdraw combat forces from Iraq on a sixteen-month timetable, and all forces by 2011? At this point, the pace is slowing, and the deadline being somewhat extended, under pressure from US commanders on the ground. Sunnis are threatening to resume their insurgency if the al-Maliki regime fails to incorporate them into the political and security structures. The president insists however, that he is only making adjustments to a timetable that is on track. Prognosis: Precarious.

• Afghanistan: Will the Obama troop escalation deepen the quagmire or become a successful surge against the Taliban by next year? Another 21,000 troops and advisers are on their way to the battlefield. Civilian casualties are mounting, causing the besieged Karzai government to complain. Preventive detention of Afghans will only expand. US deaths, now over 600, are sure to increase this summer. Taliban may hold out and redeploy in order to stretch US forces thin. Prognosis: Escalation into quagmire.

• Pakistan: US policies have driven Al Qaeda from Afghanistan into Pakistan's tribal areas, where the United States is attacking with Predators and turning Pakistan's US-funded armed forces towards counterinsurgency. Public opinion is being inflamed against the US intervention. Prognosis: An expanding American war in Pakistan with greater threats to American security.

• Iran: With or without US complicity, Israel may attack Iran early next year, with unforeseeable consequences in Iraq and Afghanistan. Prognosis: Crisis will intensify.

• Global: The United States will fail to attract more combat troops to fight in Afghanistan and Pakistan from Europe or elsewhere, causing pressure to increase for a non-military negotiated solution. Prognosis: Obama still popular, US still isolated.

• Budget priorities: Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan will deeply threaten the administration's ability to succeed on the domestic front with stimulus spending, healthcare, education and alternative energy. Prognosis: false hope for "guns and butter" all over again.

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Tom Hayden is a former state senator and leader of Sixties peace, justice and environmental movements. He currently teaches at PitzerCollege in Los Angeles. His books include The Port Huron Statement [new edition], Street Wars and The Zapatista Reader.

Israel wipes Palestine off the map

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Jeff Koyen
May, 26, 2009 - True/Slant

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For once, we can properly employ the word "literally." As in: Israel literally wiped Palestine off the map last week. Many UK outlets reported this story, but let's cite The Muslim News, for they are certainly the most unbiased:

Posters showing misleading Israeli maps are being removed from London underground stations following a series of protests made to be Britain's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), which led the complaints with Jews for Justice for Palestinians, welcomed the decision as a "victory" in the face of attempts by the Israeli Tourism Ministry to "deliberately deny the existence of Palestine."

"These adverts wiped Palestine off the map. It was particularly grotesque to use this map in an advert for tourism, given that under the Israeli blockade of Gaza, even humanitarian aid staff are denied entry," PSC said.
In a series of letters, British authorities were warned they would be "complicit" in displaying misinformation that "deliberately wiped Palestine off the map."

The Syrian Embassy in London also threatened to take "necessary legal steps" for the removal of the incorrect maps on the posters, which also excluded the occupied Golan Heights.

The posters, which started to appear last week, were due to go up at 150 sites across London in a campaign costing £40,000, but according to the Jewish Chroncile, they were prematurely withdrawn by the Israeli Tourism Ministry before the ASA made a ruling.

Despite reports and headlines to the contrary, the Israeli Tourism Board actually refused to remove the posters. While they admitted to having made a mistake, the ministry's head of marketing administration told the BBC, "We are not tearing anything down." However, they did agree to "fast-forward" the next batch of posters.

In the meantime, stay out of the tube. You know how bomby things can get when Palestinians and Israelis bicker over borders.

Sarah Palin's Outrageous Hypocrisy on Teen Sex

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Palin knew her daughter was having sex in her own house. What does it take to get discredited as a right-wing "family values" merchant these days?

Matt Taibbi
May 27, 2009 - AlterNet

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So step right up and buy your "I'm SEXY enough… to make you wait!" t-shirts, courtesy of the Candie's Foundation — the pro-abstinence group whose ambassador is now America's most famous "Oh, fuck it, it feels better without the rubber" Supermom, Bristol Palin!

So on a flight to London over the weekend I caught the Bristol Palin magazine cover and was blown away. What does it take to get discredited as a moralizing right-wing "family values" merchant these days?

It was one thing when we found out that super-religious governor Palin was letting Bristol's hunkface beef accessory Levi nail her daughter more or less regularly under the family roof. It was another when we found out that the governor's sister-in-law got popped for a B&E while her little daughter was waiting outside in the car. And it was still another thing when we found out that Levi's Mom was going to eat a bust for dealing Oxycontin (and there's apparently a lot behind the governor's interest in that story).

For the most part, none of this stuff is any of our business — we all have family members with issues, although mine tend to leave their kids at home when they go out to commit burglaries to support their drug habits.

But this abstinence thing with Bristol, to me, is just too much. This sort of thing always grosses me out: this country has way too many people who do stuff like this, dragging their helpless minor kids with them on national media tours or publishing lengthy parenting memoirs in which their unwitting babies play starring roles as props in Mom's narcissistic fantasies.

But this goes even beyond that. This poor little kid is going to grow up someday and find out she's been brand-marketed to the human species by Madison Avenue as The Great Mistake.

Bristol's quote about how girls need to close their eyes and imagine spending the rest of their lives with a screaming baby before they have sex — her daughter is someday going to cough that line up, through sobs, in her fourth or fifth year of very expensive therapy. If this little kid isn't hooked on black baggy clothes and cutting by age 11 I'll be shocked.

But beyond that, Bristol's casual statement about deciding not to get married after all, about how it would have been a disaster, I just don't get how this works, politically. How can a Republican presidential candidate (and let's not fool ourselves, Sarah Palin is already that) publicly endorse unwed teen mothering? Am I missing something?

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Matt Taibbi is a writer for Rolling Stone.