Sunday, June 27, 2004
Yoshie's continually high-quality blog (montages) links a story from the Washington Post about an Iraqi woman struggling to get by after her husband was killed.
The Cost of Liberty: In a Chaotic New Iraq, A Young Widow Turns to Prostitution Her experiences are incredible, and the story is particularly well reported in evocative events and surroundings (without obtrusive moralization). Bold photos accompany the online version. In part because of the clear depitction (and scriptural themes), I have an overriding sense of the story operating as parable.
The Cost of Liberty: In a Chaotic New Iraq, A Young Widow Turns to Prostitution Her experiences are incredible, and the story is particularly well reported in evocative events and surroundings (without obtrusive moralization). Bold photos accompany the online version. In part because of the clear depitction (and scriptural themes), I have an overriding sense of the story operating as parable.
Thursday, June 24, 2004
An interesting idea to host a Bruce Springsteen concert on the same night as the Republican Convention's nomination. The idea is to rally support to get Springsteen on board. It's called Draft Bruce.
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
U.S.: Released Documents on Torture Not Sufficient: Commission Needed to Probe Treatment of Detainees says Human Rights Watch in the title of its article today.
The documents "raise more questions than they answer... stop in April 2003 and do not cover practices at Abu Ghraib and other military prisons in Iraq."
The organization called for special commission to conduct an investigation, distrusting the "independence" and "breadth" of the Pentagon and Justice Dept. investigations. "Two weeks ago, Human Rights Watch published a 36-page report, “The Road to Abu Ghraib,” which examined how the Bush administration adopted a deliberate policy of permitting illegal interrogation techniques – and then spent two years covering up or ignoring reports of torture and other abuse by U.S. troops, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq."
The documents "raise more questions than they answer... stop in April 2003 and do not cover practices at Abu Ghraib and other military prisons in Iraq."
The organization called for special commission to conduct an investigation, distrusting the "independence" and "breadth" of the Pentagon and Justice Dept. investigations. "Two weeks ago, Human Rights Watch published a 36-page report, “The Road to Abu Ghraib,” which examined how the Bush administration adopted a deliberate policy of permitting illegal interrogation techniques – and then spent two years covering up or ignoring reports of torture and other abuse by U.S. troops, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq."
Memo on Interrogation Tactics Is Disavowed
At several points, formal legal opinion was written for the Administration saying The President is legally able to give illegal orders, including orders to torture, kill and commit other crimes, since he is the Commander In Chief, operating in the interests of National Security. Now, however, many of the institutions where the opinions were generated have renounced the documents and opinions therein.
"Bush's aides yesterday disavowed an internal Justice Department opinion that torturing terrorism suspects might be legally defensible.... derided the August 2002 legal memo... calling parts of it overbroad and irrelevant and saying it would be rewritten.... In a highly unusual repudiation of its department's own work, a senior Justice official and two other high-ranking lawyers said that all legal advice rendered by the department's Office of Legal Counsel on the subject of interrogations will be reviewed.
As part of a public relations offensive, the administration also declassified and released hundreds of pages of internal documents that it said demonstrated that Bush had never authorized torture against detainees from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In doing so, the administration revealed details of the interrogation tactics being used on prisoners, an extraordinary disclosure for an administration that has argued that the release of such information would help the enemy."
At several points, formal legal opinion was written for the Administration saying The President is legally able to give illegal orders, including orders to torture, kill and commit other crimes, since he is the Commander In Chief, operating in the interests of National Security. Now, however, many of the institutions where the opinions were generated have renounced the documents and opinions therein.
"Bush's aides yesterday disavowed an internal Justice Department opinion that torturing terrorism suspects might be legally defensible.... derided the August 2002 legal memo... calling parts of it overbroad and irrelevant and saying it would be rewritten.... In a highly unusual repudiation of its department's own work, a senior Justice official and two other high-ranking lawyers said that all legal advice rendered by the department's Office of Legal Counsel on the subject of interrogations will be reviewed.
As part of a public relations offensive, the administration also declassified and released hundreds of pages of internal documents that it said demonstrated that Bush had never authorized torture against detainees from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In doing so, the administration revealed details of the interrogation tactics being used on prisoners, an extraordinary disclosure for an administration that has argued that the release of such information would help the enemy."
Read for yourself some of the Administration documents regarding interrogation, torture, international law and Constitutional authority. 14 PDF and other format documents are now available as Primary Sources @the Post.
Monday, June 21, 2004
Would you believe it? Years of intelligence gathering and analysis were washed away when Bill O'Rielly "established beyond a reasonable doubt that there were indeed ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq." Read for a truly exemplary piece of jingo-fascist creative composition, beginning:
"The Bush administration strikes back against the deceptive media. I hope you were watching The Factor last night, when we established beyond a reasonable doubt that there were indeed ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq, and that newspaper headlines denying that were misleading and/or downright wrong."
"The Bush administration strikes back against the deceptive media. I hope you were watching The Factor last night, when we established beyond a reasonable doubt that there were indeed ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq, and that newspaper headlines denying that were misleading and/or downright wrong."
Sunday, June 20, 2004
At a graduation party yesterday my fortune cookie fortune read:
"BE EXPECTING FULL CONTENTMENT BY THE END OF THIS SUMMER."
Sweet.
"BE EXPECTING FULL CONTENTMENT BY THE END OF THIS SUMMER."
Sweet.
Thursday, June 17, 2004
This story could go on for years. Every day, new material. Today, the New York Times hits with the headline Rumsfeld Issued an Order to Hide Detainee in Iraq. As though that were not enough...
Not only did they hide him (and others) from the Red Cross, holding him in secret by keeping his name off any list, they then forgot about him and didn't even interrogate the guy for 7 months!
"Once he was placed in military custody, people lost track of him," a senior intelligence official conceded Wednesday night. "The normal review processes that would keep track of him didn't.... the C.I.A. inquired about the detainee's status in January, but was told that American jailers in Iraq could not find him."
You can't use the normal processes because the normal processes were intentionally broken! Friggin' geniuses here. Our war for hearts & minds looks more and more like Night of the Living Dead. Miiiiinds... miiiiiinds... AARrrgh!
"In July 2003, the man suspected of being an Ansar al-Islam official was captured in Iraq and turned over to C.I.A. officials, who took him to an undisclosed location outside of Iraq for interrogation. By that fall, however, a C.I.A. legal analysis determined that because the detainee was deemed to be an Iraqi unlawful combatant - outside the protections of the Geneva Conventions - he should be transferred back to Iraq."
Obviously you have to be schizoid to be a CIA lawyer. They say that since this guy is unprotected, they should send him back. What about all the "enemy combatants" in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba? They aren't protected by the Geneva Convention either, in the .mil rationale, but they don't get sent home. They sure ain't from Cuba.
Most striking about this story is that the command to hide (at least) one prisoner is known to have passed from Donald Rumsfeld himself and all the way down the chain of command:
"Mr. Tenet made his request to Mr. Rumsfeld - that the suspect be held but not listed - in October. The request was passed down the chain of command: to Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then to Gen. John P. Abizaid, the commander of American forces in the Middle East, and finally to Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the ground commander in Iraq. At each stage, lawyers reviewed the request and their bosses approved it."
Not only did they hide him (and others) from the Red Cross, holding him in secret by keeping his name off any list, they then forgot about him and didn't even interrogate the guy for 7 months!
"Once he was placed in military custody, people lost track of him," a senior intelligence official conceded Wednesday night. "The normal review processes that would keep track of him didn't.... the C.I.A. inquired about the detainee's status in January, but was told that American jailers in Iraq could not find him."
You can't use the normal processes because the normal processes were intentionally broken! Friggin' geniuses here. Our war for hearts & minds looks more and more like Night of the Living Dead. Miiiiinds... miiiiiinds... AARrrgh!
"In July 2003, the man suspected of being an Ansar al-Islam official was captured in Iraq and turned over to C.I.A. officials, who took him to an undisclosed location outside of Iraq for interrogation. By that fall, however, a C.I.A. legal analysis determined that because the detainee was deemed to be an Iraqi unlawful combatant - outside the protections of the Geneva Conventions - he should be transferred back to Iraq."
Obviously you have to be schizoid to be a CIA lawyer. They say that since this guy is unprotected, they should send him back. What about all the "enemy combatants" in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba? They aren't protected by the Geneva Convention either, in the .mil rationale, but they don't get sent home. They sure ain't from Cuba.
Most striking about this story is that the command to hide (at least) one prisoner is known to have passed from Donald Rumsfeld himself and all the way down the chain of command:
"Mr. Tenet made his request to Mr. Rumsfeld - that the suspect be held but not listed - in October. The request was passed down the chain of command: to Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then to Gen. John P. Abizaid, the commander of American forces in the Middle East, and finally to Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the ground commander in Iraq. At each stage, lawyers reviewed the request and their bosses approved it."
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
I had an excellent blog post on the topic, but blogspot ate it. Instead, you get a copy of of my equally excellent email to NYTimes:
Dear NYTimes,
I am writing to request clarification regarding the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/15/national/15terror.html
"Somali Is Accused of Planning a Terror Attack at a Shopping Center in Ohio"
By DAVID JOHNSTON
June 15, 2004
Mr. Johnston's article leads off by saying of suspect and detainee Nuradin M. Abdi: "A Somali citizen living in Ohio has been charged in an alleged plot by Al Qaeda to bomb an unidentified shopping mall in Columbus, according to an indictment unsealed on Monday." My question is: has Mr. Abdi in fact been indicted for this alleged plot? Certainly this is the impression left by the sentence.
However, a later paragraph refutes that impression: "The indictment against Mr. Abdi makes no mention of the alleged plot to blow up a shopping mall. That reference was contained in the motion filed by prosecutors to keep Mr. Abdi in custody." Given this, is it still accurate to say he "has been charged in" the plot "according to an indictment"? Apparently not.
The FBI press release mentions only 4 counts: two of "material support", the third of possessing a fraudulent document, and the fourth of using it. I suggest to you that a clarification, if not a correction, is in order. The gap between the government's actual prosecution and the sensational plot (that reportedly Mr. Abdi was incapable of implementing, and never did more than "discuss") continues to interest me.
Thank you for your continued attention to the details of newsmaking.
Dear NYTimes,
I am writing to request clarification regarding the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/15/national/15terror.html
"Somali Is Accused of Planning a Terror Attack at a Shopping Center in Ohio"
By DAVID JOHNSTON
June 15, 2004
Mr. Johnston's article leads off by saying of suspect and detainee Nuradin M. Abdi: "A Somali citizen living in Ohio has been charged in an alleged plot by Al Qaeda to bomb an unidentified shopping mall in Columbus, according to an indictment unsealed on Monday." My question is: has Mr. Abdi in fact been indicted for this alleged plot? Certainly this is the impression left by the sentence.
However, a later paragraph refutes that impression: "The indictment against Mr. Abdi makes no mention of the alleged plot to blow up a shopping mall. That reference was contained in the motion filed by prosecutors to keep Mr. Abdi in custody." Given this, is it still accurate to say he "has been charged in" the plot "according to an indictment"? Apparently not.
The FBI press release mentions only 4 counts: two of "material support", the third of possessing a fraudulent document, and the fourth of using it. I suggest to you that a clarification, if not a correction, is in order. The gap between the government's actual prosecution and the sensational plot (that reportedly Mr. Abdi was incapable of implementing, and never did more than "discuss") continues to interest me.
Thank you for your continued attention to the details of newsmaking.
Columbus, back in the big time! How big? Well, how about the Daily Times in Pakistan, the FBI Press Room and the New York Times? Bustown is apparently well known enough after the highway sniper... er, shooter incident that we no longer need to be qualified as "3 hours South of Cleveland." The headline is: Somali Is Accused of Planning a Terror Attack at a Shopping Center in Ohio. Hey, now that's a headline. But is that the story? Cut to the chase.
The mall bombing plot is glitz. It gets mentioned in a filing to prolong the detention of Nuradin M. Abdi... and thereafter in the FBI press room, and most major news outlets in the world. It is remarkably absent from his federal indictment. The meat of the government's claim is that "fraud and misuse" of INS (uh, I mean, "Homeland Security") travel documents. "Mr. Abdi was first arrested by the immigration authorities on Nov. 28, and has been held under a deportation order issued by the Department of Homeland Security. An immigration judge revoked his asylum status on Jan. 28." What this means is that they have sat on his case for more than half a year, a case that had as it's goal to kick him out of the country. Then, when he might be realeased (since he hasn't yet been convicted of anything), they indict him for bad INS docs and "material support".
All this is a tangent from the "Al Queda trucker" conviction whereby an Ohio man is serving 20 years in a Fed Pen for "material support" to Al Queda and the halfass idea to cut cables on the Brooklyn Bridge.
The mall bombing plot is glitz. It gets mentioned in a filing to prolong the detention of Nuradin M. Abdi... and thereafter in the FBI press room, and most major news outlets in the world. It is remarkably absent from his federal indictment. The meat of the government's claim is that "fraud and misuse" of INS (uh, I mean, "Homeland Security") travel documents. "Mr. Abdi was first arrested by the immigration authorities on Nov. 28, and has been held under a deportation order issued by the Department of Homeland Security. An immigration judge revoked his asylum status on Jan. 28." What this means is that they have sat on his case for more than half a year, a case that had as it's goal to kick him out of the country. Then, when he might be realeased (since he hasn't yet been convicted of anything), they indict him for bad INS docs and "material support".
All this is a tangent from the "Al Queda trucker" conviction whereby an Ohio man is serving 20 years in a Fed Pen for "material support" to Al Queda and the halfass idea to cut cables on the Brooklyn Bridge.
Rush's 3rd Divorce
Some news just defies my ability to make intelligent comments about. However, I pledge not to let that stop me. Rush Limbaugh is getting divorced a third time, as reported off the AP wire, e.g. the Tallahassee news. It seems like schlock celebrity news, unsurprising that "It was the third marriage for both Limbaugh, 53, and his 44-year-old wife..." until you finish that paragraph "... who were wed May 27, 1994 at the Virginia home of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Thomas officiated the ceremony." Well, that's another depressing insight to the operations of that body.
If you can't keep the pledge you made in front of a Supreme Court Justice, what, are you holding out for Rhenquist next time?
Some news just defies my ability to make intelligent comments about. However, I pledge not to let that stop me. Rush Limbaugh is getting divorced a third time, as reported off the AP wire, e.g. the Tallahassee news. It seems like schlock celebrity news, unsurprising that "It was the third marriage for both Limbaugh, 53, and his 44-year-old wife..." until you finish that paragraph "... who were wed May 27, 1994 at the Virginia home of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Thomas officiated the ceremony." Well, that's another depressing insight to the operations of that body.
If you can't keep the pledge you made in front of a Supreme Court Justice, what, are you holding out for Rhenquist next time?
Sunday, June 13, 2004
Independent Online (of South Africa) reports that 650 more of the Abu Ghraib detainees are to be released June 14th. If previous figures are correct, this would bring to (correction: more like) 10,000 the number of detainees released since the scandal broke:
May 21: 464 detainees
May 28: 013 busloads
June 06: 009 busloads
June 14: 650 detainees.
May 21: 464 detainees
May 28: 013 busloads
June 06: 009 busloads
June 14: 650 detainees.
Dallas News: "The Army hired private interrogators to work in Iraq and Afghanistan despite its policy of barring contractors from military intelligence jobs such as interrogating prisoners. A policy memo from December 2000 says letting private workers gather military intelligence would jeopardize national security."
The article includes quotes from former Secretary of the Army Thomas White and the policy author Patrick T. Henry explaining why intelligence operations must be kept "in-house." Henry writes: "Reliance on private contractors poses risks to maintaining adequate civilian oversight over intelligence operations. Civilian oversight over intelligence operations and technologies is essential to assure intelligence operations are conducted with adequate security safeguards and within the scope of law and direction of the authorized chain of command."
The article includes quotes from former Secretary of the Army Thomas White and the policy author Patrick T. Henry explaining why intelligence operations must be kept "in-house." Henry writes: "Reliance on private contractors poses risks to maintaining adequate civilian oversight over intelligence operations. Civilian oversight over intelligence operations and technologies is essential to assure intelligence operations are conducted with adequate security safeguards and within the scope of law and direction of the authorized chain of command."
Thursday, June 10, 2004
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Continuing coverage of the Justice/Defense Depts. approval of torture and "other crimes" as interrogation methods with Presidential approval, the Salt Lake Tribune notes: "Bush administration lawyers concluded the president can legally order interrogators to abuse or even kill terrorist suspects."
After all, if you're going to the lengths of torturing a *suspect* (not even a criminal!) then you don't want to let having murdered them to hold you up...
After all, if you're going to the lengths of torturing a *suspect* (not even a criminal!) then you don't want to let having murdered them to hold you up...
Tuesday, June 08, 2004
The Post reports on Ashcroft refusing to release the document that provides for "legal" torture under Presidential directives.
Did you know that elements of the US government actually approve of torturing prisoners? No surprise there, you're thinking. But wait, I mean not just a wink/nod, but that they have formally written as legal counsel that torture can be legal. Indeed, the Calgary Sun reports that:
"lawyers in the U.S. administration argued in a paper last year that President George W. Bush has supreme authority over the questioning of terrorist suspects, and can legally order interrogators to torture or commit other crimes against them."
Torture: if W says, we're down with that. And why stop there? Let's allow "other crimes" too! It's time to think outside the thumbscrews. Can anyone still pretend that the same government that appropriates "supreme authority" to itself is in any way representative of conservative principles?
I should also point out that the lawyers who wrote the paper weren't identified by name. Because as much as we like torture, we're even *more* down with Government Secrecy!
"lawyers in the U.S. administration argued in a paper last year that President George W. Bush has supreme authority over the questioning of terrorist suspects, and can legally order interrogators to torture or commit other crimes against them."
Torture: if W says, we're down with that. And why stop there? Let's allow "other crimes" too! It's time to think outside the thumbscrews. Can anyone still pretend that the same government that appropriates "supreme authority" to itself is in any way representative of conservative principles?
I should also point out that the lawyers who wrote the paper weren't identified by name. Because as much as we like torture, we're even *more* down with Government Secrecy!
Thursday, June 03, 2004
Well, it was much longer than I thought it would take but then, with no apparent warning CIA Director George Tenet resigns.
Reference Washington Post,
BBC, or
New York Times who reports Tenet cited "personal reasons":
The official announcement was unconvincing to a former C.I.A. chief, Stansfield Turner, who held the post under President Jimmy Carter.
Mr. Turner said the resignation is "too significant a move at too important a time" to be inspired by nothing more than personal considerations.
"I think he's being pushed out," Mr. Turner said in an interview on CNN. "The president feels he has to have someone to blame."
Reference Washington Post,
BBC, or
New York Times who reports Tenet cited "personal reasons":
The official announcement was unconvincing to a former C.I.A. chief, Stansfield Turner, who held the post under President Jimmy Carter.
Mr. Turner said the resignation is "too significant a move at too important a time" to be inspired by nothing more than personal considerations.
"I think he's being pushed out," Mr. Turner said in an interview on CNN. "The president feels he has to have someone to blame."
