New twist in tug of war over terrorism detainees: "January 31, 2005 at 9:49 PM | Esther Schrader, Los Angeles Times | February 1, 2005 GUAN0201
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Foreign terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay may go to U.S. courts to challenge their confinement because tribunals set up by the Pentagon to handle their cases don't protect their rights, a federal judge ruled Monday.
U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens Green said the tribunals created to determine whether the detainees are 'enemy combatants' violate the Constitution and in some cases the Geneva Convention governing treatment of prisoners of war. She rejected the Bush administration's request to throw out lawsuits filed by 54 detainees protesting their imprisonment at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.
...
Her decision conflicts with a ruling two weeks ago by another judge in the same court who heard arguments by a different group of detainees.
Supreme Court cited
Green said that the Supreme Court made clear in a ruling in June that the prisoners have constitutional rights and that lower courts must enforce them. The high court found that the prisoners could seek judicial review of their imprisonment.
The tribunals have been criticized by civil rights groups because detainees are not represented by lawyers and are not told of some of the evidence against them, including some information that Green said might have been obtained by torture or coercion.
Monday, January 31, 2005
Saying nothing is torture in itself: Are Americans OK with using religious humiliation as tools of war?
Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / Saying nothing is torture in itself: "By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | January 30, 2005
THE LATEST allegation of prisoner abuse by the US military comes from Erik Saar, a former Army sergeant and translator at the American naval base at Guantanamo. In a forthcoming book, Saar describes the use of female sexuality as a tactic against Muslim detainees, for many of whom modesty between the sexes is a deeply ingrained religious requirement.
...
Are Americans OK with using religious humiliation as tools of war?
How about religious torture?
In Abu Ghraib, the cruelties inflicted on prisoners by Specialist Charles Graner and his little band of sadists weren't limited to the sexual. Inmates told investigators they were forced to swallow pork and liquor -- both are forbidden to Muslims -- and to denounce Islam.
''They stripped me naked," said a detainee named Ameen Saeed Al-Sheik. ''They asked me, 'Do you pray to Allah?' I said yes. They said, '[Expletive] you. And [expletive] him.' They ordered me to curse Islam and because they started to hit my broken leg, I cursed my religion. They ordered me to thank Jesus that I'm alive. And I did what they ordered me. This is against my belief."
...
But none of that justifies the administration's apparent willingness to countenance -- under at least some circumstances -- the indecent abuse of prisoners in military custody. Something is very wrong when the Justice Department advises the president's legal adviser that a wartime president is not bound by the international Convention Against Torture or the US laws incorporating it. Or when that legal adviser tells the Senate, as Alberto Gonzales did last week, that ''there is no legal prohibition under the Convention Against Torture on cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment with respect to aliens overseas."
If this were happening on a Democratic president's watch, the criticism from Republicans and conservatives would be deafening. Why the near-silence now? Who has better reason to be outraged by this scandal than those of us who support the war? More than anyone, it is the war hawks who should be infuriated by it. It shouldn't have taken me this long to say so.
THE LATEST allegation of prisoner abuse by the US military comes from Erik Saar, a former Army sergeant and translator at the American naval base at Guantanamo. In a forthcoming book, Saar describes the use of female sexuality as a tactic against Muslim detainees, for many of whom modesty between the sexes is a deeply ingrained religious requirement.
...
Are Americans OK with using religious humiliation as tools of war?
How about religious torture?
In Abu Ghraib, the cruelties inflicted on prisoners by Specialist Charles Graner and his little band of sadists weren't limited to the sexual. Inmates told investigators they were forced to swallow pork and liquor -- both are forbidden to Muslims -- and to denounce Islam.
''They stripped me naked," said a detainee named Ameen Saeed Al-Sheik. ''They asked me, 'Do you pray to Allah?' I said yes. They said, '[Expletive] you. And [expletive] him.' They ordered me to curse Islam and because they started to hit my broken leg, I cursed my religion. They ordered me to thank Jesus that I'm alive. And I did what they ordered me. This is against my belief."
...
But none of that justifies the administration's apparent willingness to countenance -- under at least some circumstances -- the indecent abuse of prisoners in military custody. Something is very wrong when the Justice Department advises the president's legal adviser that a wartime president is not bound by the international Convention Against Torture or the US laws incorporating it. Or when that legal adviser tells the Senate, as Alberto Gonzales did last week, that ''there is no legal prohibition under the Convention Against Torture on cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment with respect to aliens overseas."
If this were happening on a Democratic president's watch, the criticism from Republicans and conservatives would be deafening. Why the near-silence now? Who has better reason to be outraged by this scandal than those of us who support the war? More than anyone, it is the war hawks who should be infuriated by it. It shouldn't have taken me this long to say so.
Chertoff [Bush nominee] and covering up US Torture: demanded Lindh swear he had "not been intentionally mistreated"
The Nation | Comment | Chertoff and Torture | Dave Lindorff: "January 27, 2005 by Dave Lindorff
Back on Friday, June 12, 2002, the Defense Department had a big problem: Its new policy on torture of captives in the 'war on terror' was about to be exposed. John Walker Lindh, the young Californian captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 and touted by John Ashcroft as an 'American Taliban,' was scheduled to take the stand the following Monday in an evidence suppression hearing regarding a confession he had signed. There he would tell, under oath, about how he signed the document only after being tortured for days by US soldiers. Federal District Judge T.S. Ellis had already said he was likely to allow Lindh, at trial, to put on the stand military officers and even Guant�namo detainees who were witnesses to or participants in his alleged abuse."
The Defense Department, which we now know had in late 2001 begun a secret, presidentially approved program of torture of Afghan and Al Qaeda captives at Bagram Air Base and other locations, had made it clear to the Justice Department that it wanted the suppression hearing blocked. American torture at that point was still just a troubling rumor, and the Bush Administration clearly wanted to keep it that way. Accordingly, Michael Chertoff, who as head of the Justice Department's criminal division was overseeing all the department's terrorism prosecutions, had his prosecution team offer a deal. All the serious charges against Lindh--terrorism, attempted murder, conspiracy to kill Americans, etc.--would be dropped and he could plead guilty just to the technical charges of "providing assistance" to an "enemy of the U.S." and of "carrying a weapon." Lindh, whose attorneys dreaded his facing trial in one of the most conservative court districts in the country on the first anniversary of 9/11, had to accept a stiff twenty-year sentence, but that was half what he faced if convicted on those two minor charges alone.
But Chertoff went further, according to one of Lindh's attorneys, George Harris. Chertoff (now an appeals court judge in New Jersey) demanded--reportedly at Defense Department insistence, according to what defense attorneys were told--that Lindh sign a statement swearing he had "not been intentionally mistreated" by his US captors and waiving any future right to claim mistreatment or torture. Further, Chertoff attached a "special administrative measure," essentially a gag order, barring Lindh from talking about his experience for the duration of his sentence.
Back on Friday, June 12, 2002, the Defense Department had a big problem: Its new policy on torture of captives in the 'war on terror' was about to be exposed. John Walker Lindh, the young Californian captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 and touted by John Ashcroft as an 'American Taliban,' was scheduled to take the stand the following Monday in an evidence suppression hearing regarding a confession he had signed. There he would tell, under oath, about how he signed the document only after being tortured for days by US soldiers. Federal District Judge T.S. Ellis had already said he was likely to allow Lindh, at trial, to put on the stand military officers and even Guant�namo detainees who were witnesses to or participants in his alleged abuse."
The Defense Department, which we now know had in late 2001 begun a secret, presidentially approved program of torture of Afghan and Al Qaeda captives at Bagram Air Base and other locations, had made it clear to the Justice Department that it wanted the suppression hearing blocked. American torture at that point was still just a troubling rumor, and the Bush Administration clearly wanted to keep it that way. Accordingly, Michael Chertoff, who as head of the Justice Department's criminal division was overseeing all the department's terrorism prosecutions, had his prosecution team offer a deal. All the serious charges against Lindh--terrorism, attempted murder, conspiracy to kill Americans, etc.--would be dropped and he could plead guilty just to the technical charges of "providing assistance" to an "enemy of the U.S." and of "carrying a weapon." Lindh, whose attorneys dreaded his facing trial in one of the most conservative court districts in the country on the first anniversary of 9/11, had to accept a stiff twenty-year sentence, but that was half what he faced if convicted on those two minor charges alone.
But Chertoff went further, according to one of Lindh's attorneys, George Harris. Chertoff (now an appeals court judge in New Jersey) demanded--reportedly at Defense Department insistence, according to what defense attorneys were told--that Lindh sign a statement swearing he had "not been intentionally mistreated" by his US captors and waiving any future right to claim mistreatment or torture. Further, Chertoff attached a "special administrative measure," essentially a gag order, barring Lindh from talking about his experience for the duration of his sentence.
Chertoff [Bush nominee] and covering up US Torture: demanded Lindh swear he had "not been intentionally mistreated"
The Nation | Comment | Chertoff and Torture | Dave Lindorff: "January 27, 2005 by Dave Lindorff
Back on Friday, June 12, 2002, the Defense Department had a big problem: Its new policy on torture of captives in the 'war on terror' was about to be exposed. John Walker Lindh, the young Californian captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 and touted by John Ashcroft as an 'American Taliban,' was scheduled to take the stand the following Monday in an evidence suppression hearing regarding a confession he had signed. There he would tell, under oath, about how he signed the document only after being tortured for days by US soldiers. Federal District Judge T.S. Ellis had already said he was likely to allow Lindh, at trial, to put on the stand military officers and even Guant�namo detainees who were witnesses to or participants in his alleged abuse."
The Defense Department, which we now know had in late 2001 begun a secret, presidentially approved program of torture of Afghan and Al Qaeda captives at Bagram Air Base and other locations, had made it clear to the Justice Department that it wanted the suppression hearing blocked. American torture at that point was still just a troubling rumor, and the Bush Administration clearly wanted to keep it that way. Accordingly, Michael Chertoff, who as head of the Justice Department's criminal division was overseeing all the department's terrorism prosecutions, had his prosecution team offer a deal. All the serious charges against Lindh--terrorism, attempted murder, conspiracy to kill Americans, etc.--would be dropped and he could plead guilty just to the technical charges of "providing assistance" to an "enemy of the U.S." and of "carrying a weapon." Lindh, whose attorneys dreaded his facing trial in one of the most conservative court districts in the country on the first anniversary of 9/11, had to accept a stiff twenty-year sentence, but that was half what he faced if convicted on those two minor charges alone.
But Chertoff went further, according to one of Lindh's attorneys, George Harris. Chertoff (now an appeals court judge in New Jersey) demanded--reportedly at Defense Department insistence, according to what defense attorneys were told--that Lindh sign a statement swearing he had "not been intentionally mistreated" by his US captors and waiving any future right to claim mistreatment or torture. Further, Chertoff attached a "special administrative measure," essentially a gag order, barring Lindh from talking about his experience for the duration of his sentence.
Back on Friday, June 12, 2002, the Defense Department had a big problem: Its new policy on torture of captives in the 'war on terror' was about to be exposed. John Walker Lindh, the young Californian captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 and touted by John Ashcroft as an 'American Taliban,' was scheduled to take the stand the following Monday in an evidence suppression hearing regarding a confession he had signed. There he would tell, under oath, about how he signed the document only after being tortured for days by US soldiers. Federal District Judge T.S. Ellis had already said he was likely to allow Lindh, at trial, to put on the stand military officers and even Guant�namo detainees who were witnesses to or participants in his alleged abuse."
The Defense Department, which we now know had in late 2001 begun a secret, presidentially approved program of torture of Afghan and Al Qaeda captives at Bagram Air Base and other locations, had made it clear to the Justice Department that it wanted the suppression hearing blocked. American torture at that point was still just a troubling rumor, and the Bush Administration clearly wanted to keep it that way. Accordingly, Michael Chertoff, who as head of the Justice Department's criminal division was overseeing all the department's terrorism prosecutions, had his prosecution team offer a deal. All the serious charges against Lindh--terrorism, attempted murder, conspiracy to kill Americans, etc.--would be dropped and he could plead guilty just to the technical charges of "providing assistance" to an "enemy of the U.S." and of "carrying a weapon." Lindh, whose attorneys dreaded his facing trial in one of the most conservative court districts in the country on the first anniversary of 9/11, had to accept a stiff twenty-year sentence, but that was half what he faced if convicted on those two minor charges alone.
But Chertoff went further, according to one of Lindh's attorneys, George Harris. Chertoff (now an appeals court judge in New Jersey) demanded--reportedly at Defense Department insistence, according to what defense attorneys were told--that Lindh sign a statement swearing he had "not been intentionally mistreated" by his US captors and waiving any future right to claim mistreatment or torture. Further, Chertoff attached a "special administrative measure," essentially a gag order, barring Lindh from talking about his experience for the duration of his sentence.
Torture Chicks Gone Wild: Bush to speak respectfully of Islam and claim Iraq is not a religious war if the Pentagon denigrates Islamic law?
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Torture Chicks Gone Wild: "By MAUREEN DOWD | Published: January 30, 2005 | WASHINGTON
By the time House Republicans were finished with him, Bill Clinton must have thought of a thong as a torture device.
For the Bush administration, it actually is.
A former American Army sergeant who worked as an Arabic interpreter at Gitmo has written a book pulling back the veil on the astounding ways female interrogators used a toxic combination of sex and religion to try to break Muslim detainees at the U.S. prison camp in Cuba. It's not merely disgusting. It's beyond belief.
...
What good is it for President Bush to speak respectfully of Islam and claim Iraq is not a religious war if the Pentagon denigrates Islamic law - allowing its female interrogators to try to make Muslim men talk in late-night sessions featuring sexual touching, displays of fake menstrual blood, and parading in miniskirt, tight T-shirt, bra and thong underwear?
It's like a bad porn movie, "The Geneva Monologues." All S and no M.
The A.P. noted that "some Guantánamo prisoners who have been released say they were tormented by 'prostitutes.' "
...
A female civilian contractor kept her "uniform" - a thong and miniskirt - on the back of the door of an interrogation room, the author says.
Who are these women? Who allows this to happen? Why don't the officers who allow it get into trouble? Why do Rummy and Paul Wolfowitz still have their jobs?
By the time House Republicans were finished with him, Bill Clinton must have thought of a thong as a torture device.
For the Bush administration, it actually is.
A former American Army sergeant who worked as an Arabic interpreter at Gitmo has written a book pulling back the veil on the astounding ways female interrogators used a toxic combination of sex and religion to try to break Muslim detainees at the U.S. prison camp in Cuba. It's not merely disgusting. It's beyond belief.
...
What good is it for President Bush to speak respectfully of Islam and claim Iraq is not a religious war if the Pentagon denigrates Islamic law - allowing its female interrogators to try to make Muslim men talk in late-night sessions featuring sexual touching, displays of fake menstrual blood, and parading in miniskirt, tight T-shirt, bra and thong underwear?
It's like a bad porn movie, "The Geneva Monologues." All S and no M.
The A.P. noted that "some Guantánamo prisoners who have been released say they were tormented by 'prostitutes.' "
...
A female civilian contractor kept her "uniform" - a thong and miniskirt - on the back of the door of an interrogation room, the author says.
Who are these women? Who allows this to happen? Why don't the officers who allow it get into trouble? Why do Rummy and Paul Wolfowitz still have their jobs?
Saturday, January 29, 2005
Herald Sun: US denies sex torture [29jan05]
Herald Sun: US denies sex torture [29jan05]: "29jan05
SEXUAL torture may have been used to try to break Muslim detainees at the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Female interrogators sexually touched inmates and wore miniskirts and thong underwear, according to an insider.
The account, from a book draft by a former translator at the camp, is classified as secret pending a Pentagon review.
It details how the US used women in physical and psychological interrogation tactics to get terror suspects to talk.
'I have really struggled with this, because the detainees, their families, and much of the world will think this is a religious war, based on some of the techniques used -- even though it is not the case,' said the author, former army Sgt Erik R. Saar, 29."
...
He writes that one female civilian contractor used a special outfit including a miniskirt, thong underwear and a bra, during interrogations, mostly of Muslim men who considered close contact with women other than their wives taboo.
From April 2003, "there hung a short skirt and thong underwear on the hook on the back of the door" of one interrogation team's office, Saar writes in his book. "Later I learned that this outfit was used for interrogations by one of the female civilian contractors . . . on a team which conducted interrogations in the middle of the night on Saudi men who were refusing to talk."
...
"His female interrogator decided that she needed to turn up the heat," Saar writes, saying she told him he could co-operate or 'have no hope whatsoever of ever leaving this place or talking to a lawyer'." The man closed his eyes and began to pray.
The female interrogator, wanting to "break him", removed her uniform top to expose a tight-fitting T-shirt and began taunting him, rubbing her breasts against his back. ...
SEXUAL torture may have been used to try to break Muslim detainees at the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Female interrogators sexually touched inmates and wore miniskirts and thong underwear, according to an insider.
The account, from a book draft by a former translator at the camp, is classified as secret pending a Pentagon review.
It details how the US used women in physical and psychological interrogation tactics to get terror suspects to talk.
'I have really struggled with this, because the detainees, their families, and much of the world will think this is a religious war, based on some of the techniques used -- even though it is not the case,' said the author, former army Sgt Erik R. Saar, 29."
...
He writes that one female civilian contractor used a special outfit including a miniskirt, thong underwear and a bra, during interrogations, mostly of Muslim men who considered close contact with women other than their wives taboo.
From April 2003, "there hung a short skirt and thong underwear on the hook on the back of the door" of one interrogation team's office, Saar writes in his book. "Later I learned that this outfit was used for interrogations by one of the female civilian contractors . . . on a team which conducted interrogations in the middle of the night on Saudi men who were refusing to talk."
...
"His female interrogator decided that she needed to turn up the heat," Saar writes, saying she told him he could co-operate or 'have no hope whatsoever of ever leaving this place or talking to a lawyer'." The man closed his eyes and began to pray.
The female interrogator, wanting to "break him", removed her uniform top to expose a tight-fitting T-shirt and began taunting him, rubbing her breasts against his back. ...
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Boston.com / News / Nation / Washington / As Texas judge, Gonzales heard donors' cases
Boston.com / News / Nation / Washington / As Texas judge, Gonzales heard donors' cases: "Practice legal, but still faces criticism | By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | January 27, 2005
WASHINGTON -- When White House counsel Alberto Gonzales was a Texas Supreme Court justice running to stay in office in 2000, he took thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from companies that had business before him and he did not recuse himself from voting on their cases.
The practice is legal in Texas, and Gonzales was not the only judge to benefit from it. But his record in 2000 -- when he raised $539,000 for the Republican primary, outraising his opponent by a 1,047-to-1 ratio -- drew special criticism from an Austin-based group that tracks the influence of money on government.
...
Both cases involved whether insurance companies had to pay interest to plaintiffs whose final awards were delayed because the case went to court. The watchdog group said the decisions were ''a costly slap in the face to Texas consumers."
The group sarcastically called the donations ''prejudgment premiums" collected by Gonzales and another justice who voted in favor of the insurance industry. ...
WASHINGTON -- When White House counsel Alberto Gonzales was a Texas Supreme Court justice running to stay in office in 2000, he took thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from companies that had business before him and he did not recuse himself from voting on their cases.
The practice is legal in Texas, and Gonzales was not the only judge to benefit from it. But his record in 2000 -- when he raised $539,000 for the Republican primary, outraising his opponent by a 1,047-to-1 ratio -- drew special criticism from an Austin-based group that tracks the influence of money on government.
...
Both cases involved whether insurance companies had to pay interest to plaintiffs whose final awards were delayed because the case went to court. The watchdog group said the decisions were ''a costly slap in the face to Texas consumers."
The group sarcastically called the donations ''prejudgment premiums" collected by Gonzales and another justice who voted in favor of the insurance industry. ...
DOD runs secret missions with no oversight: Seymour Hersh broke the story: Pentagon dogs strike back: NY Times & CNN confirm its all true
The Nation | Blog | The Daily Outrage | Annals of National Secrecy | Ari Berman: "01/26/2005 @ 09:58am permalink
Last week in The New Yorker, Seymour Hersh broke one of his most revelatory stories to date, alleging that the Pentagon is running secret intelligence missions free from Congressional restraints on the CIA.
According to Hersh, these "black reconnaissance" operations--as the Pentagon calls them--are now active in as many as ten countries in the Middle East and South Asia, including Iran. In an effort to infiltrate terrorist organizations, the teams are doing CIA-type work without CIA restrictions or Constitutional checks. ...
...
Instead of denying the existence of the secret teams outright, the Pentagon and its attack dogs struck back with an extraordinary smear campaign. "Mr. Hersh's article is so riddled with errors of fundamental fact that the credibility of his entire piece is destroyed," wrote Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita in a sharply worded statement. Washington Times columnist Tony Blankley accused Hersh of espionage. Former White House speechwriter (and "Axis of Evil" originator) David Frum said Hersh had endangered US lives. Michael Ledeen, a tireless Iranian conspiracy theorist, called the article "plain crazy," and "classic Hersh incoherence." Richard Perle--who famously dubbed Hersh "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist" in March 2003--told Charlie Rose: "It was a typical Sy Hersh piece. That is to say it was full of inaccuracy." ...
...
The next day, The New York Times and CNN ran follow-up confirmations and DiRita quickly changed his tone. "It is accurate and should not be surprising that the Department of Defense is attempting to improve its long-standing human intelligence capability," DiRita said in a classic non-denial denial. John McCain called for Senate Armed Services Committee hearings. And Senator Chuck Hagel worried that the Pentagon had once again concentrated too much power in too few hands. "That's when a country gets into a lot of trouble, when you brush back the Congress and you don't have oversight and you don't have cooperation, and I see too much of that out of this Pentagon," Hagel said.
So Hersh was right. Now the Pentagon owes Congress an explanation, while Mssrs. DiRita, Blankley, Frum, Ledeen and Perle owe Hersh an apology.
Last week in The New Yorker, Seymour Hersh broke one of his most revelatory stories to date, alleging that the Pentagon is running secret intelligence missions free from Congressional restraints on the CIA.
According to Hersh, these "black reconnaissance" operations--as the Pentagon calls them--are now active in as many as ten countries in the Middle East and South Asia, including Iran. In an effort to infiltrate terrorist organizations, the teams are doing CIA-type work without CIA restrictions or Constitutional checks. ...
...
Instead of denying the existence of the secret teams outright, the Pentagon and its attack dogs struck back with an extraordinary smear campaign. "Mr. Hersh's article is so riddled with errors of fundamental fact that the credibility of his entire piece is destroyed," wrote Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita in a sharply worded statement. Washington Times columnist Tony Blankley accused Hersh of espionage. Former White House speechwriter (and "Axis of Evil" originator) David Frum said Hersh had endangered US lives. Michael Ledeen, a tireless Iranian conspiracy theorist, called the article "plain crazy," and "classic Hersh incoherence." Richard Perle--who famously dubbed Hersh "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist" in March 2003--told Charlie Rose: "It was a typical Sy Hersh piece. That is to say it was full of inaccuracy." ...
...
The next day, The New York Times and CNN ran follow-up confirmations and DiRita quickly changed his tone. "It is accurate and should not be surprising that the Department of Defense is attempting to improve its long-standing human intelligence capability," DiRita said in a classic non-denial denial. John McCain called for Senate Armed Services Committee hearings. And Senator Chuck Hagel worried that the Pentagon had once again concentrated too much power in too few hands. "That's when a country gets into a lot of trouble, when you brush back the Congress and you don't have oversight and you don't have cooperation, and I see too much of that out of this Pentagon," Hagel said.
So Hersh was right. Now the Pentagon owes Congress an explanation, while Mssrs. DiRita, Blankley, Frum, Ledeen and Perle owe Hersh an apology.
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Neo-Con Torture Rhetoric Alarmingly Mirrors Nazi Counterparts
Neo-Con Torture Rhetoric Alarmingly Mirrors Nazi CounterpartsWatching the Watchers | January 26 2005
This so-called ill treatment and torture in detention centers, stories of which were spread everywhere among the people, and later by the prisoners who were freed… were not, as some assumed, inflicted methodically, but were excesses committed by individual prison guards, their deputies, and men who laid violent hands on the detainees.
Can anyone tell me who said that? Was it:
A) George W. Bush
B) John Ashcroft
C) Donald Rumsfeld
D) Someone else
If you answered “someone else", you’d be right. It was Rudolf Hoess, SS Kommandant of the infamous Auschwitz death camp where over 2.5 million people were murdered.
Conservatives, who love to call Liberals whiny, get whiny as hell when the Bush administration is compared to Nazi Germany, or to fascism in general. Guess what, though? The comparisons are beginning to come through more and more.
Scott Horton wrote in the LA Times:
Consider the memorandum written by Alberto Gonzales – then the president’s attorney, now his nominee for attorney general. He wrote that the Geneva Convention was “obsolete” when it came to the war on terror. Gonzales reasoned that our adversaries were not parties to the convention and that the Geneva concept was ill suited to anti-terrorist warfare.
In 1941, General-Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, the head of Hitler’s Wehrmacht, mustered identical arguments against recognizing the Geneva rights of Soviet soldiers fighting on the Eastern Front. Keitel even called Geneva “obsolete,” a remark noted by U.S. prosecutors at Nuremberg, who cited it as an aggravating circumstance in seeking, and obtaining, the death penalty. Keitel was executed in 1946.
...
This so-called ill treatment and torture in detention centers, stories of which were spread everywhere among the people, and later by the prisoners who were freed… were not, as some assumed, inflicted methodically, but were excesses committed by individual prison guards, their deputies, and men who laid violent hands on the detainees.
Can anyone tell me who said that? Was it:
A) George W. Bush
B) John Ashcroft
C) Donald Rumsfeld
D) Someone else
If you answered “someone else", you’d be right. It was Rudolf Hoess, SS Kommandant of the infamous Auschwitz death camp where over 2.5 million people were murdered.
Conservatives, who love to call Liberals whiny, get whiny as hell when the Bush administration is compared to Nazi Germany, or to fascism in general. Guess what, though? The comparisons are beginning to come through more and more.
Scott Horton wrote in the LA Times:
Consider the memorandum written by Alberto Gonzales – then the president’s attorney, now his nominee for attorney general. He wrote that the Geneva Convention was “obsolete” when it came to the war on terror. Gonzales reasoned that our adversaries were not parties to the convention and that the Geneva concept was ill suited to anti-terrorist warfare.
In 1941, General-Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, the head of Hitler’s Wehrmacht, mustered identical arguments against recognizing the Geneva rights of Soviet soldiers fighting on the Eastern Front. Keitel even called Geneva “obsolete,” a remark noted by U.S. prosecutors at Nuremberg, who cited it as an aggravating circumstance in seeking, and obtaining, the death penalty. Keitel was executed in 1946.
...
Hitler said:
“The German people are not a warlike nation. It is a soldierly one, which means it does not want a war, but does not fear it. It loves peace but also loves its honor and freedom”
Bush said:
We’re pursuing a strategy of freedom around the world, because I understand free nations will reject terror. Free nations will answer the hopes and aspirations of their people. Free nations will help us achieve the peace we all want.
Black voters in United States disproportionally disenfranchised: 2 million votes are cast and never counted: overwhelmingly African American
Black voters in United States disproportionally disenfranchised: "Wednesday, January 26, 2005 | JESSE JACKSON AND GREG PALAST | GUEST COLUMNISTS
The inaugural confetti has been swept away and with it, the last quarrel over who really won the presidential election.
But there is still unfinished business that can't be swept away. After taking his oath, the president called for a 'concerted effort to promote democracy.' The president should begin with the United States.
More than 133,000 votes remain uncounted in Ohio, more than George W. Bush's supposed margin of victory. In New Mexico, the uncounted vote totals at least three times the president's plurality -- and so on in other states.
The challenge to the vote count is over, but the matter of how the United States counts votes, or fails to count them, remains.
The ballots left uncounted, and that will never be counted, are so-called spoiled or rejected ballots -- votes cast by citizens, but never tallied. This is the dark little secret of U.S. democracy: Nationwide, in our presidential elections, about 2 million votes are cast and never counted, most spoiled because they cannot be read by the tallying machines.
Not everyone's vote spoils equally. Cleveland State University Professor Mark Salling analyzed ballots thrown into Ohio's electoral garbage can. Salling found that, 'overwhelmingly,' the voided votes come from African American precincts."
...
The inaugural confetti has been swept away and with it, the last quarrel over who really won the presidential election.
But there is still unfinished business that can't be swept away. After taking his oath, the president called for a 'concerted effort to promote democracy.' The president should begin with the United States.
More than 133,000 votes remain uncounted in Ohio, more than George W. Bush's supposed margin of victory. In New Mexico, the uncounted vote totals at least three times the president's plurality -- and so on in other states.
The challenge to the vote count is over, but the matter of how the United States counts votes, or fails to count them, remains.
The ballots left uncounted, and that will never be counted, are so-called spoiled or rejected ballots -- votes cast by citizens, but never tallied. This is the dark little secret of U.S. democracy: Nationwide, in our presidential elections, about 2 million votes are cast and never counted, most spoiled because they cannot be read by the tallying machines.
Not everyone's vote spoils equally. Cleveland State University Professor Mark Salling analyzed ballots thrown into Ohio's electoral garbage can. Salling found that, 'overwhelmingly,' the voided votes come from African American precincts."
...
This racial bend in vote spoilage is not unique to Ohio. A U.S. Civil Rights Commission investigation concluded that, of nearly 180,000 votes discarded in Florida in the 2000 election as unreadable, a shocking 54 percent were cast by black voters, though they make up only a tenth of the electorate. In Florida, an African American is 900 percent more likely to have his or her vote invalidated than a white voter. In New Mexico, a Hispanic voter is 500 percent more likely than a white voter to have her or his ballot lost to spoilage.
Unfortunately, Florida and New Mexico are typical. Nationwide data gathered by Harvard Law School Civil Rights Project indicate that, of the 2 million ballots spoiled in a typical presidential election, about half are cast by minority voters.
U.S. Drops Afghan Opium Spraying Plans [... promoting freedom, the rule of law and resisting interference in other countries internal affairs?]
Yahoo! News - U.S. Drops Afghan Opium Spraying Plans: "Tue Jan 25, 1:59 PM ET | By KEN GUGGENHEIM, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Facing opposition from Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the United States has set aside plans to use spray planes to fumigate opium crops in Afghanistan (news - web sites), the world's largest drug producing country."
WASHINGTON - Facing opposition from Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the United States has set aside plans to use spray planes to fumigate opium crops in Afghanistan (news - web sites), the world's largest drug producing country."
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
American Civil Liberties Union : Newly Released Investigative Files Provide Further Evidence Soldiers Not Held Accountable for Abuse
American Civil Liberties Union : Newly Released Investigative Files Provide Further Evidence Soldiers Not Held Accountable for Abuse: "January 24, 2005 | FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | Contact: media@aclu.org
Special Forces, Including TF 6-26, Implicated in Numerous Incidents; Abuse Not Confined to Abu Ghraib
NEW YORK- Investigative files released today by the American Civil Liberties Union suggest that the Army failed to aggressively investigate allegations of detainee abuse. Some of the investigations concern serious allegations of torture including electric shocks, forced sodomy and severe physical beatings.
"Government investigations into allegations of torture and abuse have been woefully inadequate," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "Some of the investigations have basically whitewashed the torture and abuse. The documents that the ACLU has obtained tell a damning story of widespread torture reaching well beyond the walls of Abu Ghraib."
...
In one instance involving TF 20, an elderly Iraqi woman reported having been sodomized with a stick, but an investigation into the allegation was closed on the basis of a "sanitized copy of the unit 15-6 investigation," which has not been released. In another case involving Special Forces Group ODA 343, investigators found that there was probable cause to believe that three members of the group had committed the offenses of murder and conspiracy and that a commander was an accessory after the fact. However, no action was taken against the commander or two of the soldiers. The remaining soldier received only a written reprimand. ...
...
... U.S. forces barged into Khadim’s house in the middle of the night, dragged him away from his family, killed him, and stuffed his body under some mats behind the refrigerator ..
...
"In Abu Ghraib prison, he witnessed a female soldier he believed to be U.S. Army Military Police make a detainee jump up and down and then roll left to right on the ground in what he believed to be 150 degree Fahrenheit temperature . ...
...
... In sworn statements, private contractors report having witnessed numerous instances of abuse of male and female detainees, including forced sodomy, electric shocks, cigarette burns and beatings. According to one statement, Al-Azimiyah Palace was the site of at least "about 90 incidents" of abuse.
Special Forces, Including TF 6-26, Implicated in Numerous Incidents; Abuse Not Confined to Abu Ghraib
NEW YORK- Investigative files released today by the American Civil Liberties Union suggest that the Army failed to aggressively investigate allegations of detainee abuse. Some of the investigations concern serious allegations of torture including electric shocks, forced sodomy and severe physical beatings.
"Government investigations into allegations of torture and abuse have been woefully inadequate," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "Some of the investigations have basically whitewashed the torture and abuse. The documents that the ACLU has obtained tell a damning story of widespread torture reaching well beyond the walls of Abu Ghraib."
...
In one instance involving TF 20, an elderly Iraqi woman reported having been sodomized with a stick, but an investigation into the allegation was closed on the basis of a "sanitized copy of the unit 15-6 investigation," which has not been released. In another case involving Special Forces Group ODA 343, investigators found that there was probable cause to believe that three members of the group had committed the offenses of murder and conspiracy and that a commander was an accessory after the fact. However, no action was taken against the commander or two of the soldiers. The remaining soldier received only a written reprimand. ...
...
... U.S. forces barged into Khadim’s house in the middle of the night, dragged him away from his family, killed him, and stuffed his body under some mats behind the refrigerator ..
...
"In Abu Ghraib prison, he witnessed a female soldier he believed to be U.S. Army Military Police make a detainee jump up and down and then roll left to right on the ground in what he believed to be 150 degree Fahrenheit temperature . ...
...
... In sworn statements, private contractors report having witnessed numerous instances of abuse of male and female detainees, including forced sodomy, electric shocks, cigarette burns and beatings. According to one statement, Al-Azimiyah Palace was the site of at least "about 90 incidents" of abuse.
Suicide protest at Camp Delta: 23 in mass suicide attempt in 2003 [... only just reported]
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Suicide protest at Camp Delta: "David Teather in New York | Tuesday January 25, 2005 | The Guardian
Twenty-three detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military camp made an apparent mass suicide attempt in an orchestrated protest during 2003, the US confirmed last night.
The captives tried to either hang or strangle themselves in their cells over eight days in August of that year. Ten made an attempt on August 22."
Twenty-three detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military camp made an apparent mass suicide attempt in an orchestrated protest during 2003, the US confirmed last night.
The captives tried to either hang or strangle themselves in their cells over eight days in August of that year. Ten made an attempt on August 22."
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
58% of Americans disapprove of Bush's Iraq policy, 52% believe Iraq a mistake
Yahoo! News - Majority of Americans disapprove of Bush's Iraq policy, polls say: "Majority of Americans disapprove of Bush's Iraq policy, polls say | Tue Jan 18,10:10 AM
...
55 percent of Americans felt the Iraq war was not worth fighting, against 44 percent who thought it was.
Respondents also disapproved of Bush's handling of the situation in Iraq by a 58 to 40 percent margin, and 57 percent of the 1,007 adults surveyed by telephone from January 12-16 were not confident that the upcoming elections in Iraq would lead to a stable government.
Similarly, a USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll published in the nationally distributed newspaper showed that Americans believed it was a mistake sending troops to Iraq by a 52-to-47 percent margin
...
55 percent of Americans felt the Iraq war was not worth fighting, against 44 percent who thought it was.
Respondents also disapproved of Bush's handling of the situation in Iraq by a 58 to 40 percent margin, and 57 percent of the 1,007 adults surveyed by telephone from January 12-16 were not confident that the upcoming elections in Iraq would lead to a stable government.
Similarly, a USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll published in the nationally distributed newspaper showed that Americans believed it was a mistake sending troops to Iraq by a 52-to-47 percent margin
The 34 Scandals of George W. Bush ... compare to Monica and Whitewater
t r u t h o u t - The 34 Scandals of George W. Bush: "The Scandal Sheet | By Peter Dizikes | Salon.com | Tuesday 18 January 2005
Print it out, send it to Harry Reid, or just read it and weep. Here are 34 scandals from the first four years of George W. Bush's presidency - every one of them worse than Whitewater.
...
# Memogate: The Senate Computer Theft
The scandal: From 2001 to 2003, Republican staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee illicitly accessed nearly 5,000 computer files containing confidential Democratic strategy memos about President Bush's judicial nominees. The GOP used the memos to shape their own plans and leaked some to the media.
# Doctor Detroit: The DOJ's Bungled Terrorism Case
The scandal: The Department of Justice completely botched the nation's first post-9/11 terrorism trial, as seen when the convictions of three Detroit men allegedly linked to al-Qaida were overturned in September 2004. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft had claimed their June 2003 sentencing sent "a clear message" that the government would "detect, disrupt and dismantle the activities of terrorist cells."
# Dark Matter: The Energy Task Force
The scandal: A lawsuit has claimed it is illegal for Dick Cheney to keep the composition of his 2001 energy-policy task force secret. What's the big deal? The New Yorker's Jane Mayer has suggested an explosive aspect of the story, citing a National Security Council memo from February 2001, which "directed the N.S.C. staff to cooperate fully with the Energy Task Force as it considered the 'melding' of ... 'operational policies towards rogue states,' such as Iraq, and 'actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.'" In short, the task force's activities could shed light on the administration's pre-9/11 Iraq aims.
# The Indian Gaming Scandal
The scandal: Potential influence peddling to the tune of $82 million, for starters.
# Halliburton's No-Bid Bonanza
The scandal: In February 2003, Halliburton received a five-year, $7 billion no-bid contract for services in Iraq.
# Halliburton: Pumping Up Prices
The scandal: In 2003, Halliburton overcharged the army for fuel in Iraq. Specifically, Halliburton's subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root hired a Kuwaiti company, Altanmia, to supply fuel at about twice the going rate, then added a markup, for an overcharge of at least $61 million, according to a December 2003 Pentagon audit.
# Halliburton's Vanishing Iraq Money
The scandal: In mid-2004, Pentagon auditors determined that $1.8 billion of Halliburton's charges to the government, about 40 percent of the total, had not been adequately documented.
# The Halliburton Bribe-Apalooza
The scandal: This may not surprise you, but an international consortium of companies, including Halliburton, is alleged to have paid more than $100 million in bribes to Nigerian officials, from 1995 to 2002, to facilitate a natural-gas-plant deal. (Cheney was Halliburton's CEO from 1995 to 2000.)
# Halliburton: One Fine Company
The scandal: In 1998 and 1999, Halliburton counted money recovered from project overruns as revenue, before settling the charges with clients.
# Halliburton's Iran End Run
The scandal: Halliburton may have been doing business with Iran while Cheney was CEO.
# Money Order: Afghanistan's Missing $700 Million Turns Up in Iraq
The scandal: According to Bob Woodward's "Plan of Attack," the Bush administration diverted $700 million in funds from the war in Afghanistan, among other places, to prepare for the Iraq invasion.
# Iraq: More Loose Change
The scandal: The inspector general of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq released a series of reports in July 2004 finding that a significant portion of CPA assets had gone missing - 34 percent of the materiel controlled by Kellogg, Brown & Root - and that the CPA's method of disbursing $600 million in Iraq reconstruction funds "did not establish effective controls and left accountability open to fraud, waste and abuse."
# The Pentagon-Israel Spy Case
The scandal: A Pentagon official, Larry Franklin, may have passed classified United States documents about Iran to Israel, possibly via the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a Washington lobbying group.
# Gone to Taiwan
The scandal: Missed this one? A high-ranking State Department official, Donald Keyser, was arrested and charged in September with making a secret trip to Taiwan and was observed by the FBI passing documents to Taiwanese intelligence agents in Washington-area meetings.
# Wiretapping the United Nations
The scandal: Before the United Nations' vote on the Iraq war, the United States and Great Britain developed an eavesdropping operation targeting diplomats from several countries.
# The Boeing Boondoggle
The scandal: In 2003, the Air Force contracted with Boeing to lease a fleet of refueling tanker planes at an inflated price: $23 billion.
# The Medicare Bribe Scandal
The scandal: According to former Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.), on Nov. 21, 2003, with the vote on the administration's Medicare bill hanging in the balance, someone offered to contribute $100,000 to his son's forthcoming congressional campaign, if Smith would support the bill.
# Tom DeLay's PAC Problems
The scandal: One of DeLay's political action committees, Texans for a Republican Majority, apparently reaped illegal corporate contributions for the campaigns of Republicans running for the Texas Legislature in 2002. Given a Republican majority, the Legislature then re-drew Texas' U.S. congressional districts to help the GOP.
# Tom DeLay's FAA: Following Americans Anywhere
The scandal: In May 2003, DeLay's office persuaded the Federal Aviation Administration to find the plane carrying a Texas Democratic legislator, who was leaving the state in an attempt to thwart the GOP's nearly unprecedented congressional redistricting plan.
# In the Rough: Tom DeLay's Golf Fundraiser
The scandal: DeLay appeared at a golf fundraiser that Westar Energy held for one of his political action committees, Americans for a Republican Majority, while energy legislation was pending in the House.
# Busy, Busy, Busy in New Hampshire
The scandal: In 2002, with a tight Senate race in New Hampshire, Republican Party officials paid a Virginia-based firm, GOP Marketplace, to enact an Election Day scheme meant to depress Democratic turnout by "jamming" the Democratic Party phone bank with continuous calls for 90 minutes.
# The Medicare Money Scandal
The scandal: Thomas Scully, Medicare's former administrator, supposedly threatened to fire chief Medicare actuary Richard Foster to prevent him from disclosing the true cost of the 2003 Medicare bill.
# The Bogus Medicare "Video News Release"
The scandal: To promote its Medicare bill, the Bush administration produced imitation news-report videos touting the legislation. About 40 television stations aired the videos. More recently, similar videos promoting the administration's education policy have come to light.
# Pundits on the Payroll: The Armstrong Williams Case
The scandal: The Department of Education paid conservative commentator Armstrong Williams $240,000 to promote its educational law, No Child Left Behind.
# Ground Zero's Unsafe Air
The scandal: Government officials publicly minimized the health risks stemming from the World Trade Center attack. In September 2001, for example, Environmental Protection Agency head Christine Todd Whitman said New York's "air is safe to breathe and [the] water is safe to drink."
# John Ashcroft's Illegal Campaign Contributions
The scandal: Ashcroft's exploratory committee for his short-lived 2000 presidential bid transferred $110,000 to his unsuccessful 2000 reelection campaign for the Senate.
# Intel Inside ... The White House
The scandal: In early 2001, chief White House political strategist Karl Rove held meetings with numerous companies while maintaining six-figure holdings of their stock - including Intel, whose executives were seeking government approval of a merger. "Washington hadn't seen a clearer example of a conflict of interest in years," wrote Paul Glastris in the Washington Monthly.
# Duck! Antonin Scalia's Legal Conflicts
The scandal: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia refused to recuse himself from the Cheney energy task force case, despite taking a duck-hunting trip with the vice president after the court agreed to weigh the matter.
# AWOL
The scandal: George W. Bush, self-described "war president," did not fulfill his National Guard duty, and Bush and his aides have made misleading statements about it. Salon's Eric Boehlert wrote the best recent summary of the issue.
# Iraq: The Case for War
The scandal: Bush and many officials in his administration made false statements about Iraq's military capabilities, in the months before the United States' March 2003 invasion of the country.
# Niger Forgeries: Whodunit?
The scandal: In his January 2003 State of the Union address, Bush said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
# In Plame Sight
The scandal: In July 2003, administration officials disclosed the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative working on counterterrorism efforts, to multiple journalists, and columnist Robert Novak made Plame's identity public. Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had just written a New York Times opinion piece stating he had investigated the Niger uranium-production allegations, at the CIA's behest, and reported them to be untrue, before Bush's 2003 State of the Union address.
# Abu Ghraib
The scandal: American soldiers physically tortured prisoners in Iraq and kept undocumented "ghost detainees" in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
# Guantánamo Bay Torture?
Print it out, send it to Harry Reid, or just read it and weep. Here are 34 scandals from the first four years of George W. Bush's presidency - every one of them worse than Whitewater.
...
# Memogate: The Senate Computer Theft
The scandal: From 2001 to 2003, Republican staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee illicitly accessed nearly 5,000 computer files containing confidential Democratic strategy memos about President Bush's judicial nominees. The GOP used the memos to shape their own plans and leaked some to the media.
# Doctor Detroit: The DOJ's Bungled Terrorism Case
The scandal: The Department of Justice completely botched the nation's first post-9/11 terrorism trial, as seen when the convictions of three Detroit men allegedly linked to al-Qaida were overturned in September 2004. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft had claimed their June 2003 sentencing sent "a clear message" that the government would "detect, disrupt and dismantle the activities of terrorist cells."
# Dark Matter: The Energy Task Force
The scandal: A lawsuit has claimed it is illegal for Dick Cheney to keep the composition of his 2001 energy-policy task force secret. What's the big deal? The New Yorker's Jane Mayer has suggested an explosive aspect of the story, citing a National Security Council memo from February 2001, which "directed the N.S.C. staff to cooperate fully with the Energy Task Force as it considered the 'melding' of ... 'operational policies towards rogue states,' such as Iraq, and 'actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.'" In short, the task force's activities could shed light on the administration's pre-9/11 Iraq aims.
# The Indian Gaming Scandal
The scandal: Potential influence peddling to the tune of $82 million, for starters.
# Halliburton's No-Bid Bonanza
The scandal: In February 2003, Halliburton received a five-year, $7 billion no-bid contract for services in Iraq.
# Halliburton: Pumping Up Prices
The scandal: In 2003, Halliburton overcharged the army for fuel in Iraq. Specifically, Halliburton's subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root hired a Kuwaiti company, Altanmia, to supply fuel at about twice the going rate, then added a markup, for an overcharge of at least $61 million, according to a December 2003 Pentagon audit.
# Halliburton's Vanishing Iraq Money
The scandal: In mid-2004, Pentagon auditors determined that $1.8 billion of Halliburton's charges to the government, about 40 percent of the total, had not been adequately documented.
# The Halliburton Bribe-Apalooza
The scandal: This may not surprise you, but an international consortium of companies, including Halliburton, is alleged to have paid more than $100 million in bribes to Nigerian officials, from 1995 to 2002, to facilitate a natural-gas-plant deal. (Cheney was Halliburton's CEO from 1995 to 2000.)
# Halliburton: One Fine Company
The scandal: In 1998 and 1999, Halliburton counted money recovered from project overruns as revenue, before settling the charges with clients.
# Halliburton's Iran End Run
The scandal: Halliburton may have been doing business with Iran while Cheney was CEO.
# Money Order: Afghanistan's Missing $700 Million Turns Up in Iraq
The scandal: According to Bob Woodward's "Plan of Attack," the Bush administration diverted $700 million in funds from the war in Afghanistan, among other places, to prepare for the Iraq invasion.
# Iraq: More Loose Change
The scandal: The inspector general of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq released a series of reports in July 2004 finding that a significant portion of CPA assets had gone missing - 34 percent of the materiel controlled by Kellogg, Brown & Root - and that the CPA's method of disbursing $600 million in Iraq reconstruction funds "did not establish effective controls and left accountability open to fraud, waste and abuse."
# The Pentagon-Israel Spy Case
The scandal: A Pentagon official, Larry Franklin, may have passed classified United States documents about Iran to Israel, possibly via the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a Washington lobbying group.
# Gone to Taiwan
The scandal: Missed this one? A high-ranking State Department official, Donald Keyser, was arrested and charged in September with making a secret trip to Taiwan and was observed by the FBI passing documents to Taiwanese intelligence agents in Washington-area meetings.
# Wiretapping the United Nations
The scandal: Before the United Nations' vote on the Iraq war, the United States and Great Britain developed an eavesdropping operation targeting diplomats from several countries.
# The Boeing Boondoggle
The scandal: In 2003, the Air Force contracted with Boeing to lease a fleet of refueling tanker planes at an inflated price: $23 billion.
# The Medicare Bribe Scandal
The scandal: According to former Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.), on Nov. 21, 2003, with the vote on the administration's Medicare bill hanging in the balance, someone offered to contribute $100,000 to his son's forthcoming congressional campaign, if Smith would support the bill.
# Tom DeLay's PAC Problems
The scandal: One of DeLay's political action committees, Texans for a Republican Majority, apparently reaped illegal corporate contributions for the campaigns of Republicans running for the Texas Legislature in 2002. Given a Republican majority, the Legislature then re-drew Texas' U.S. congressional districts to help the GOP.
# Tom DeLay's FAA: Following Americans Anywhere
The scandal: In May 2003, DeLay's office persuaded the Federal Aviation Administration to find the plane carrying a Texas Democratic legislator, who was leaving the state in an attempt to thwart the GOP's nearly unprecedented congressional redistricting plan.
# In the Rough: Tom DeLay's Golf Fundraiser
The scandal: DeLay appeared at a golf fundraiser that Westar Energy held for one of his political action committees, Americans for a Republican Majority, while energy legislation was pending in the House.
# Busy, Busy, Busy in New Hampshire
The scandal: In 2002, with a tight Senate race in New Hampshire, Republican Party officials paid a Virginia-based firm, GOP Marketplace, to enact an Election Day scheme meant to depress Democratic turnout by "jamming" the Democratic Party phone bank with continuous calls for 90 minutes.
# The Medicare Money Scandal
The scandal: Thomas Scully, Medicare's former administrator, supposedly threatened to fire chief Medicare actuary Richard Foster to prevent him from disclosing the true cost of the 2003 Medicare bill.
# The Bogus Medicare "Video News Release"
The scandal: To promote its Medicare bill, the Bush administration produced imitation news-report videos touting the legislation. About 40 television stations aired the videos. More recently, similar videos promoting the administration's education policy have come to light.
# Pundits on the Payroll: The Armstrong Williams Case
The scandal: The Department of Education paid conservative commentator Armstrong Williams $240,000 to promote its educational law, No Child Left Behind.
# Ground Zero's Unsafe Air
The scandal: Government officials publicly minimized the health risks stemming from the World Trade Center attack. In September 2001, for example, Environmental Protection Agency head Christine Todd Whitman said New York's "air is safe to breathe and [the] water is safe to drink."
# John Ashcroft's Illegal Campaign Contributions
The scandal: Ashcroft's exploratory committee for his short-lived 2000 presidential bid transferred $110,000 to his unsuccessful 2000 reelection campaign for the Senate.
# Intel Inside ... The White House
The scandal: In early 2001, chief White House political strategist Karl Rove held meetings with numerous companies while maintaining six-figure holdings of their stock - including Intel, whose executives were seeking government approval of a merger. "Washington hadn't seen a clearer example of a conflict of interest in years," wrote Paul Glastris in the Washington Monthly.
# Duck! Antonin Scalia's Legal Conflicts
The scandal: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia refused to recuse himself from the Cheney energy task force case, despite taking a duck-hunting trip with the vice president after the court agreed to weigh the matter.
# AWOL
The scandal: George W. Bush, self-described "war president," did not fulfill his National Guard duty, and Bush and his aides have made misleading statements about it. Salon's Eric Boehlert wrote the best recent summary of the issue.
# Iraq: The Case for War
The scandal: Bush and many officials in his administration made false statements about Iraq's military capabilities, in the months before the United States' March 2003 invasion of the country.
# Niger Forgeries: Whodunit?
The scandal: In his January 2003 State of the Union address, Bush said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
# In Plame Sight
The scandal: In July 2003, administration officials disclosed the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative working on counterterrorism efforts, to multiple journalists, and columnist Robert Novak made Plame's identity public. Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had just written a New York Times opinion piece stating he had investigated the Niger uranium-production allegations, at the CIA's behest, and reported them to be untrue, before Bush's 2003 State of the Union address.
# Abu Ghraib
The scandal: American soldiers physically tortured prisoners in Iraq and kept undocumented "ghost detainees" in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
# Guantánamo Bay Torture?
Monday, January 17, 2005
Armstrong Williams lashed out at NAACP for sex harassment after settling harassment suit himself
1/10/2005
| By John Byrne | RAW STORY Editor
Conservative columnist who took $240k from Bush criticized NAACP for sexual harassment and economic “improprieties” after settling his own sexual harassment suit
The conservative columnist who was fired after accepting $240,000 to promote Bush’s ‘No Child Left Behind’ law rebuked the NAACP for “charges of sexual harassment and economic improprieties” after settling a sexual harassment suit himself, RAW STORY has learned.
| By John Byrne | RAW STORY Editor
Conservative columnist who took $240k from Bush criticized NAACP for sexual harassment and economic “improprieties” after settling his own sexual harassment suit
The conservative columnist who was fired after accepting $240,000 to promote Bush’s ‘No Child Left Behind’ law rebuked the NAACP for “charges of sexual harassment and economic improprieties” after settling a sexual harassment suit himself, RAW STORY has learned.
The New York Times > National > Inspector General Rebukes F.B.I. Over Espionage Case and Firing of Whistle-Blower
The New York Times > National > Inspector General Rebukes F.B.I. Over Espionage Case and Firing of Whistle-Blower: "By ERIC LICHTBLAU | Published: January 15, 2005
WASHINGTON, Jan. 14 - The F.B.I. has failed to aggressively investigate accusations of espionage against a translator at the bureau and fired the translator's co-worker in large part for bringing the accusations, the Justice Department's inspector general concluded on Friday.
In a long-awaited report that the Justice Department sought for months to keep classified, the inspector general issued a sharp rebuke to the F.B.I. over its handling of claims of espionage and ineptitude made by Sibel Edmonds, a bureau translator who was fired in 2002 after superiors deemed her conduct "disruptive."
Ms. Edmonds, who translated material in Turkish, Persian and Azerbaijani, had complained about slipshod translations and management problems in the bureau's translation section and raised accusations of possible espionage against a fellow linguist.
...
In general, Mr. Fine's investigation found that many of Ms. Edmonds's accusations "were supported, that the F.B.I. did not take them seriously enough and that her allegations were, in fact, the most significant factor in the F.B.I.'s decision to terminate her services."
...
The American Civil Liberties Union joined her cause earlier this week, asking an appellate court to reinstate a whistle-blower lawsuit she brought against the government. The suit was dismissed last year after Attorney General John Ashcroft, invoking a rarely used power, declared her case to be a matter of "state secret" privilege, and the Justice Department retroactively classified a 2002 Congressional briefing about it.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 14 - The F.B.I. has failed to aggressively investigate accusations of espionage against a translator at the bureau and fired the translator's co-worker in large part for bringing the accusations, the Justice Department's inspector general concluded on Friday.
In a long-awaited report that the Justice Department sought for months to keep classified, the inspector general issued a sharp rebuke to the F.B.I. over its handling of claims of espionage and ineptitude made by Sibel Edmonds, a bureau translator who was fired in 2002 after superiors deemed her conduct "disruptive."
Ms. Edmonds, who translated material in Turkish, Persian and Azerbaijani, had complained about slipshod translations and management problems in the bureau's translation section and raised accusations of possible espionage against a fellow linguist.
...
In general, Mr. Fine's investigation found that many of Ms. Edmonds's accusations "were supported, that the F.B.I. did not take them seriously enough and that her allegations were, in fact, the most significant factor in the F.B.I.'s decision to terminate her services."
...
The American Civil Liberties Union joined her cause earlier this week, asking an appellate court to reinstate a whistle-blower lawsuit she brought against the government. The suit was dismissed last year after Attorney General John Ashcroft, invoking a rarely used power, declared her case to be a matter of "state secret" privilege, and the Justice Department retroactively classified a 2002 Congressional briefing about it.
Sunday, January 16, 2005
Some [federally funded] Abstinence Programs Mislead Teens, Report Says
washingtonpost.com: Some Abstinence Programs Mislead Teens, Report Says: "Some Abstinence Programs Mislead Teens, Report Says | By Ceci Connolly | Washington Post Staff Writer | Thursday, December 2, 2004; Page A01
Many American youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person's genitals 'can result in pregnancy,' a congressional staff analysis has found.
Those and other assertions are examples of the 'false, misleading, or distorted information' in the programs' teaching materials, said the analysis, released yesterday, which reviewed the curricula of more than a dozen projects aimed at preventing teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.
In providing nearly $170 million next year to fund groups that teach abstinence only, the Bush administration, with backing from the Republican Congress, is investing heavily in a just-say-no strategy for teenagers and sex. But youngsters taking the courses frequently receive medically inaccurate or misleading information, often in direct contradiction to the findings of government scientists, said the report, by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), a critic of the administration who has long argued for comprehensive sex education.
...
The report concluded that two of the curricula were accurate but the 11 others, used by 69 organizations in 25 states, contain unproved claims, subjective conclusions or outright falsehoods regarding reproductive health, gender traits and when life begins. In some cases, Waxman said in an interview, the factual issues were limited to occasional misinterpretations of publicly available data; in others, the materials pervasively presented subjective opinions as scientific fact.
Among the misconceptions cited by Waxman's investigators:
• A 43-day-old fetus is a "thinking person."
• HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can be spread via sweat and tears.
• Condoms fail to prevent HIV transmission as often as 31 percent of the time in heterosexual intercourse.
One curriculum, called "Me, My World, My Future," teaches that women who have an abortion "are more prone to suicide" and that as many as 10 percent of them become sterile. This contradicts the 2001 edition of a standard obstetrics textbook that says fertility is not affected by elective abortion, the Waxman report said.
Many American youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person's genitals 'can result in pregnancy,' a congressional staff analysis has found.
Those and other assertions are examples of the 'false, misleading, or distorted information' in the programs' teaching materials, said the analysis, released yesterday, which reviewed the curricula of more than a dozen projects aimed at preventing teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.
In providing nearly $170 million next year to fund groups that teach abstinence only, the Bush administration, with backing from the Republican Congress, is investing heavily in a just-say-no strategy for teenagers and sex. But youngsters taking the courses frequently receive medically inaccurate or misleading information, often in direct contradiction to the findings of government scientists, said the report, by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), a critic of the administration who has long argued for comprehensive sex education.
...
The report concluded that two of the curricula were accurate but the 11 others, used by 69 organizations in 25 states, contain unproved claims, subjective conclusions or outright falsehoods regarding reproductive health, gender traits and when life begins. In some cases, Waxman said in an interview, the factual issues were limited to occasional misinterpretations of publicly available data; in others, the materials pervasively presented subjective opinions as scientific fact.
Among the misconceptions cited by Waxman's investigators:
• A 43-day-old fetus is a "thinking person."
• HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can be spread via sweat and tears.
• Condoms fail to prevent HIV transmission as often as 31 percent of the time in heterosexual intercourse.
One curriculum, called "Me, My World, My Future," teaches that women who have an abortion "are more prone to suicide" and that as many as 10 percent of them become sterile. This contradicts the 2001 edition of a standard obstetrics textbook that says fertility is not affected by elective abortion, the Waxman report said.
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Shocking New Videos Shown at Iraq Abuse Scandal: force group masturbation
Yahoo! News - Shocking New Videos Shown at Iraq Abuse Scandal: "Mon Jan 10, 6:14 PM ET U.S. National - Reuters | By Adam Tanner
...
Prosecutors also presented shocking new videos and photos from Abu Ghraib prison, including forced group masturbation.
...
Pictures of the humiliating treatment of the prisoners at the prison near Baghdad further eroded the credibility of the United States already damaged in many countries by the 2003 Iraq invasion.
Apart from saying the methods were not illegal, Graner's defense is that he was following orders. "He was doing his job. Following orders and being praised for it," Womack told the court, adding later that Graner would testify in the case.
The chief prosecutor, Maj. Michael Holley, asked rhetorically: "Did the accused honestly believe that was a lawful order?"
Womack tried to establish that civilian intelligence officers and others wanted the guards to maltreat prisoners to get information. ...
...
Prosecutors also presented shocking new videos and photos from Abu Ghraib prison, including forced group masturbation.
...
Pictures of the humiliating treatment of the prisoners at the prison near Baghdad further eroded the credibility of the United States already damaged in many countries by the 2003 Iraq invasion.
Apart from saying the methods were not illegal, Graner's defense is that he was following orders. "He was doing his job. Following orders and being praised for it," Womack told the court, adding later that Graner would testify in the case.
The chief prosecutor, Maj. Michael Holley, asked rhetorically: "Did the accused honestly believe that was a lawful order?"
Womack tried to establish that civilian intelligence officers and others wanted the guards to maltreat prisoners to get information. ...
Monday, January 10, 2005
Fresh Horrors at Guantanamo
Fresh Horrors at Guantanamo: "Monday, January 10, 2005 by the Inter Press Service | by William Fisher
NEW YORK - A leading civil rights group says that government records pertaining to an investigation of prisoner abuses at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba are still being withheld, and those it has received under a court order are so heavily censored that they 'raise more questions than they answer'.
Still, correspondence handed over to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) recounts what one observer calls 'treatment that was not only aggressive, but personally very upsetting', including leaving prisoners shackled in the fetal position and covered in urine and feces. "
NEW YORK - A leading civil rights group says that government records pertaining to an investigation of prisoner abuses at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba are still being withheld, and those it has received under a court order are so heavily censored that they 'raise more questions than they answer'.
Still, correspondence handed over to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) recounts what one observer calls 'treatment that was not only aggressive, but personally very upsetting', including leaving prisoners shackled in the fetal position and covered in urine and feces. "
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Orwell had rats in 1984: The revelations coming out of Guantanamo are hideous: communists and fascists also ushered the world in torture chambers
Ugly Truths About Guantanamo (washingtonpost.com): "By Richard Cohen | Tuesday, January 4, 2005; Page A15
...
In George Orwell's novel "1984," it was rats, as I recall, that were used to torture Winston Smith. ... This was Orwell's future, our present.
...
Orwell, however, was off by only 20 years. With immense satisfaction, he would have noted the constant abuse of language by the Bush administration -- calling suicidal terrorists "cowards," naming a constriction of civil liberties the Patriot Act and, of course, wringing all meaning from the word "torture." Until just recently when the interpretation of torture was amended, it applied only to the pain like that of "organ failure, impairment of body function, or even death." Anything less, such as, say, shackling detainees to a low chair for hours and hours so that one prisoner pulled out tufts of hair, is something else. We have no word for it, but it is -- or was until recently -- considered perfectly legal.
...
Now we all know. The International Committee of the Red Cross has complained that some of what has been done at Guantanamo -- Guantanamo, not Abu Ghraib -- was "tantamount to torture." The American Civil Liberties Union has complained, but that you would expect. So, though, have the FBI and military lawyers, former and current. Just about across the board, the Bush administration has raised itself above the law. It pronounced itself virtuous, but facing a threat so dire, so unique, that Gonzales found the Geneva Conventions themselves "obsolete." Such legal brilliance does not long go unrewarded. He has been nominated to become attorney general.
...
The revelations coming out of Guantanamo are hideous. The ordinary abuse of prisoners, the madness instilled by gruesome incarcerations, the incessant lying of the authorities, plus the mock interrogations staged for the media, in which detainees and their interrogators share milkshakes -- all this soils us as a nation. It's as if the government is ahistorical, unaware of how communists and fascists also strained language and ushered the world into torture chambers made pretty for the occasion. We now keep some pretty bad company. ...
...
In George Orwell's novel "1984," it was rats, as I recall, that were used to torture Winston Smith. ... This was Orwell's future, our present.
...
Orwell, however, was off by only 20 years. With immense satisfaction, he would have noted the constant abuse of language by the Bush administration -- calling suicidal terrorists "cowards," naming a constriction of civil liberties the Patriot Act and, of course, wringing all meaning from the word "torture." Until just recently when the interpretation of torture was amended, it applied only to the pain like that of "organ failure, impairment of body function, or even death." Anything less, such as, say, shackling detainees to a low chair for hours and hours so that one prisoner pulled out tufts of hair, is something else. We have no word for it, but it is -- or was until recently -- considered perfectly legal.
...
Now we all know. The International Committee of the Red Cross has complained that some of what has been done at Guantanamo -- Guantanamo, not Abu Ghraib -- was "tantamount to torture." The American Civil Liberties Union has complained, but that you would expect. So, though, have the FBI and military lawyers, former and current. Just about across the board, the Bush administration has raised itself above the law. It pronounced itself virtuous, but facing a threat so dire, so unique, that Gonzales found the Geneva Conventions themselves "obsolete." Such legal brilliance does not long go unrewarded. He has been nominated to become attorney general.
...
The revelations coming out of Guantanamo are hideous. The ordinary abuse of prisoners, the madness instilled by gruesome incarcerations, the incessant lying of the authorities, plus the mock interrogations staged for the media, in which detainees and their interrogators share milkshakes -- all this soils us as a nation. It's as if the government is ahistorical, unaware of how communists and fascists also strained language and ushered the world into torture chambers made pretty for the occasion. We now keep some pretty bad company. ...
Monday, January 03, 2005
Government has argued that Padilla’s [US citizen] detention is justified by the president’s war powers [... just trust Bush!]
Lawyer challenging terror policy: "By MARY E O'LEARY | Journal Register News Service
12/26/04 -- 'The Herald' -- NEW HAVEN -- It's the biggest case in his legal career, but attorney Jonathan Freiman has never met his client -- a man held for the past two years in solitary confinement without being charged.
At stake, says Freiman, is the very definition of our basic constitutional rights.
The Yale-trained lawyer will standbefore a federal court in South Carolina early next month and defend someone many people are repulsed by and consider not worthy of constitutional protection.
Freiman, a lawyer with Wiggin and Dana in New Haven, will represent Jose Padilla, a Brooklyn-born man the government has declared an al-Qaida-trained terrorist bent on killing as many innocent Americans as he could. In recently declassified documents, the Justice Department alleges that Padilla, 33, a Muslim convert of Puerto Rican heritage, who has a wife and children in Egypt, was involved in al-Qaida plots to set off a radiological "dirty bomb" or blow up apartment buildings in New York, Florida or Washington.
The government has argued that Padilla’s detention is justified by the president’s war powers and the congressional resolution passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks authorizing him to use "all necessary and appropriate force" against those who planned or aided the attacks.
"I guess my own fundamental beliefs are that if you think someone has done wrong, you have to charge them with that wrong and give them a fair chance to prove that it’s not true," Freiman said. ...
12/26/04 -- 'The Herald' -- NEW HAVEN -- It's the biggest case in his legal career, but attorney Jonathan Freiman has never met his client -- a man held for the past two years in solitary confinement without being charged.
At stake, says Freiman, is the very definition of our basic constitutional rights.
The Yale-trained lawyer will standbefore a federal court in South Carolina early next month and defend someone many people are repulsed by and consider not worthy of constitutional protection.
Freiman, a lawyer with Wiggin and Dana in New Haven, will represent Jose Padilla, a Brooklyn-born man the government has declared an al-Qaida-trained terrorist bent on killing as many innocent Americans as he could. In recently declassified documents, the Justice Department alleges that Padilla, 33, a Muslim convert of Puerto Rican heritage, who has a wife and children in Egypt, was involved in al-Qaida plots to set off a radiological "dirty bomb" or blow up apartment buildings in New York, Florida or Washington.
The government has argued that Padilla’s detention is justified by the president’s war powers and the congressional resolution passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks authorizing him to use "all necessary and appropriate force" against those who planned or aided the attacks.
"I guess my own fundamental beliefs are that if you think someone has done wrong, you have to charge them with that wrong and give them a fair chance to prove that it’s not true," Freiman said. ...
Sunday, January 02, 2005
Military ... gone to great lengths to portray Guantánamo as largely humane: sensory deprivation, harsh interrogation procedures, pretending to be Egyp
Fresh Details Emerge on Harsh Methods at Guantánamo | By NEIL A. LEWIS | Published: January 1, 2005
WASHINGTON, Dec. 31 - Sometime after Mohamed al-Kahtani was imprisoned at Guantánamo around the beginning of 2003, military officials believed they had a prize on their hands - someone who was perhaps intended to have been a hijacker in the Sept. 11 plot.
But his interrogation was not yielding much, so they decided in the middle of 2003 to try a new tactic. Mr. Kahtani, a Saudi, was given a tranquilizer, put in sensory deprivation garb with blackened goggles, and hustled aboard a plane that was supposedly taking him to the Middle East.
After hours in the air, the plane landed back at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where he was not returned to the regular prison compound but put in an isolation cell in the base's brig. There, he was subjected to harsh interrogation procedures that he was encouraged to believe were being conducted by Egyptian national security operatives.
...
While all the detainees were threatened with harsh tactics if they did not cooperate, about one in six were eventually subjected to those procedures, one former interrogator estimated. The interrogator said that when new interrogators arrived they were told they had great flexibility in extracting information from detainees because the Geneva Conventions did not apply at the base.
Military officials have gone to great lengths to portray Guantánamo as a largely humane facility for several hundred prisoners, where the harshest sanctioned punishments consisted of isolation or taking away items like blankets, toothpaste, dessert or reading material. Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who was the commander of the Guantánamo operation from November 2002 to March 2004, regularly told visiting members of Congress and journalists that the approach was designed to build trust between the detainee and his questioner.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 31 - Sometime after Mohamed al-Kahtani was imprisoned at Guantánamo around the beginning of 2003, military officials believed they had a prize on their hands - someone who was perhaps intended to have been a hijacker in the Sept. 11 plot.
But his interrogation was not yielding much, so they decided in the middle of 2003 to try a new tactic. Mr. Kahtani, a Saudi, was given a tranquilizer, put in sensory deprivation garb with blackened goggles, and hustled aboard a plane that was supposedly taking him to the Middle East.
After hours in the air, the plane landed back at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where he was not returned to the regular prison compound but put in an isolation cell in the base's brig. There, he was subjected to harsh interrogation procedures that he was encouraged to believe were being conducted by Egyptian national security operatives.
...
While all the detainees were threatened with harsh tactics if they did not cooperate, about one in six were eventually subjected to those procedures, one former interrogator estimated. The interrogator said that when new interrogators arrived they were told they had great flexibility in extracting information from detainees because the Geneva Conventions did not apply at the base.
Military officials have gone to great lengths to portray Guantánamo as a largely humane facility for several hundred prisoners, where the harshest sanctioned punishments consisted of isolation or taking away items like blankets, toothpaste, dessert or reading material. Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who was the commander of the Guantánamo operation from November 2002 to March 2004, regularly told visiting members of Congress and journalists that the approach was designed to build trust between the detainee and his questioner.
Sleaze in the Capitol: Republican House leadership remains mute
The New York Times > Opinion > Sleaze in the Capitol: "Sleaze in the Capitol | Published: January 2, 2005
ne of the sorriest chapters of American history, the gulling of native Indian tribes, is continuing apace in Washington, where two Capitol insiders close to the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, are being investigated for allegedly fleecing six tribes of more than $80 million with inflated promises of V.I.P. access. The shameful dealings of Jack Abramoff, a Republican power lobbyist, and Michael Scanlon, Mr. DeLay's former spokesman, are coming to light as Senate and Justice Department investigators follow leads from nouveau-riche tribes whose casino profits spurred a new category of lucre and greed in the hyperkinetic world of Washington lobbying.
Even as the two fast-talking political brokers banked large profits for three years of minimal labor, it was found, they were exchanging gleeful private messages mocking tribal leaders as "morons," "troglodytes" and "monkeys." "I want all their MONEY!!!" Mr. Scanlon exuberantly e-mailed in the midst of one deal.
The outrageous affair includes evidence that the two sought to manipulate tribal elections to ensure their lobbying boondoggles, while dropping the names of Mr. DeLay and other leaders and urging tribal contributions to Republican political funds. In the latest high-roller abuses laid bare by The Washington Post, Mr. Abramoff was found to have prodded the tribes to pay for his luxury skyboxes at Washington sports arenas - yes, even at the home of the football Redskins - so he could impress Capitol politicians, staff members and fund-raisers with swank perches to push causes unrelated to tribal issues. A colleague pronounced Mr. Abramoff a master of schmooze, but sleaze seems a far better word.
While the Senate Indian Affairs Committee is continuing its inquiry, the Republican House leadership remains mute. The gulling of the casino tribes is a blot on Congress and the lobbying industry that cries out for a thorough public vetting. But no one is taking any bets, particularly at tribal casinos, that Capitol politicians can fully face the task.
ne of the sorriest chapters of American history, the gulling of native Indian tribes, is continuing apace in Washington, where two Capitol insiders close to the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, are being investigated for allegedly fleecing six tribes of more than $80 million with inflated promises of V.I.P. access. The shameful dealings of Jack Abramoff, a Republican power lobbyist, and Michael Scanlon, Mr. DeLay's former spokesman, are coming to light as Senate and Justice Department investigators follow leads from nouveau-riche tribes whose casino profits spurred a new category of lucre and greed in the hyperkinetic world of Washington lobbying.
Even as the two fast-talking political brokers banked large profits for three years of minimal labor, it was found, they were exchanging gleeful private messages mocking tribal leaders as "morons," "troglodytes" and "monkeys." "I want all their MONEY!!!" Mr. Scanlon exuberantly e-mailed in the midst of one deal.
The outrageous affair includes evidence that the two sought to manipulate tribal elections to ensure their lobbying boondoggles, while dropping the names of Mr. DeLay and other leaders and urging tribal contributions to Republican political funds. In the latest high-roller abuses laid bare by The Washington Post, Mr. Abramoff was found to have prodded the tribes to pay for his luxury skyboxes at Washington sports arenas - yes, even at the home of the football Redskins - so he could impress Capitol politicians, staff members and fund-raisers with swank perches to push causes unrelated to tribal issues. A colleague pronounced Mr. Abramoff a master of schmooze, but sleaze seems a far better word.
While the Senate Indian Affairs Committee is continuing its inquiry, the Republican House leadership remains mute. The gulling of the casino tribes is a blot on Congress and the lobbying industry that cries out for a thorough public vetting. But no one is taking any bets, particularly at tribal casinos, that Capitol politicians can fully face the task.
Saturday, January 01, 2005
washingtonpost.com: Long-Term Plan Sought For Terror Suspects
washingtonpost.com: Long-Term Plan Sought For Terror Suspects: "By Dana Priest | Washington Post Staff Writer | Sunday, January 2, 2005; Page A01
Administration officials are preparing long-range plans for indefinitely imprisoning suspected terrorists whom they do not want to set free or turn over to courts in the United States or other countries, according to intelligence, defense and diplomatic officials.
The Pentagon and the CIA have asked the White House to decide on a more permanent approach for potentially lifetime detentions, including for hundreds of people now in military and CIA custody whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts. The outcome of the review, which also involves the State Department, would also affect those expected to be captured in the course of future counterterrorism operations.
"We've been operating in the moment because that's what has been required," said a senior administration official involved in the discussions, who said the current detention system has strained relations between the United States and other countries. "Now we can take a breath. We have the ability and need to look at long-term solutions."
One proposal under review is the transfer of large numbers of Afghan, Saudi and Yemeni detainees from the military's Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center into new U.S.-built prisons in their home countries. The prisons would be operated by those countries, but the State Department, where this idea originated, would ask them to abide by recognized human rights standards and would monitor compliance, the senior administration official said. ...
Administration officials are preparing long-range plans for indefinitely imprisoning suspected terrorists whom they do not want to set free or turn over to courts in the United States or other countries, according to intelligence, defense and diplomatic officials.
The Pentagon and the CIA have asked the White House to decide on a more permanent approach for potentially lifetime detentions, including for hundreds of people now in military and CIA custody whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts. The outcome of the review, which also involves the State Department, would also affect those expected to be captured in the course of future counterterrorism operations.
"We've been operating in the moment because that's what has been required," said a senior administration official involved in the discussions, who said the current detention system has strained relations between the United States and other countries. "Now we can take a breath. We have the ability and need to look at long-term solutions."
One proposal under review is the transfer of large numbers of Afghan, Saudi and Yemeni detainees from the military's Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center into new U.S.-built prisons in their home countries. The prisons would be operated by those countries, but the State Department, where this idea originated, would ask them to abide by recognized human rights standards and would monitor compliance, the senior administration official said. ...
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