US Special Forces Spy Teams Operating In Europe

US Seeks to Rein in Its Military Spy Teams
By Greg Miller
The Los Angeles Times
Monday 18 December 2006

Washington - U.S. Special Forces teams sent overseas on secret spying missions have clashed with the CIA and carried out operations in countries that are staunch U.S. allies, prompting a push for tighter rules for military units engaged in espionage, according to senior U.S. intelligence and military officials.

The spy missions are part of a highly classified program that officials say has better positioned the United States to track terrorist networks and capture or kill enemy operatives in regions such as the Horn of Africa, where weak governments are unable to respond to emerging threats.

But the initiative has also led to several embarrassing incidents for the United States, including a shootout in Paraguay and the exposure of a sensitive intelligence operation in East Africa, according to current and former officials familiar with the matter. To date, the effort has not led to the capture of a significant terrorist suspect.

Some intelligence officials have complained that Special Forces teams have sometimes launched missions without informing the CIA, duplicating or even jeopardizing existing operations. And they questioned deploying military teams in friendly nations - including in Europe - at a time when combat units are in short supply in war zones.

More in link, but how much more do you need to know that our President is a fucking madman who sees enemies every direction he looks, whether they exist or not?

Colin Powell = Surrendermonkey

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell broke his long-held silence on the issue of Bush's handling of the military when he declared yesterday that the U.S. Army "is about broken" and he doubts an increase in the number of troops in Iraq would help resolve the current situation. Instead, he said the United States should work to transfer security responsibilities to Iraqi forces and American troops should begin withdrawing next year.

One is tempted to call him a coward for advocating a withdrawal from Iraq, but I'd have to say that he's a coward for not having the guts to go directly to the media about the fact that Bush's entire case against Iraq was bullshit from word one. Colin Powell was too cowardly to go behind George Bush's back before the war and now that Bush has fucked it up, I'm supposed to think Powell's some sort of hero for speaking out? F--- that and F--- him for being a coward.

Europeans Helped CIA Kidnap Squad

So much for the "But we had No Idea this was happening to our citizens" defense.

Also, note that these are only the cases which this report could PROVE. There are quite a few more, I would guess, that they know about but can't prove, or sadly, don't even know about.

Once more, WHEN did America become the world's jailer?
---
Testimony Helps Detail CIA's Post-9/11 Reach
By Craig Whitlock
The Washington Post
Saturday 16 December 2006

Europeans told of plans for abductions.

Milan - A few days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the CIA station chief in Rome paid a visit to the head of Italy's military intelligence agency, Adm. Gianfranco Battelli, to float a proposal: Would the Italian secret services help the CIA kidnap terrorism suspects and fly them out of the country?

The CIA man did not identify which targets he had in mind but was "expressly referring to the possibility of picking up a suspected terrorist in Italy, bringing him to an airport and sending him from there to a foreign country," Battelli, now retired, recalled in a deposition.

This initial secret contact and others that followed, disclosed in newly released documents, show the speed and breadth with which the CIA applied in post-9/11 Europe a tactic it had long reserved for the Third World - "extraordinary rendition," the extrajudicial abduction of Islamic radicals overseas for interrogation in friendly countries.

A year after the first contact, the CIA officer held another meeting with his Italian counterparts, this time sharing a list of more than 10 "dangerous people" the agency was tracking in Italy, Belgium, Austria and the Netherlands, according to a deposition from Gen. Gustavo Pignero, another high-ranking Italian military intelligence official. "It was clear that this was an aggressive search project, that their willingness to employ illicit means was clear," Pignero said, adding that the list was later destroyed and he could not recall the names.

U.S. spies drew up suspect lists with the help of European intelligence agencies and chased some of the men around the globe before putting a brake on the operations in early 2004, about a year after the invasion of Iraq, according to documents unearthed in criminal investigations, lawsuits and parliamentary inquiries.

All told, the U.S. agency took part in the seizure of at least 10 European citizens or legal immigrants, some of them from countries not cited in that list of "dangerous people" received by the Italian spies. Four renditions occurred on European soil: in Sweden, Macedonia and Italy. Six operations targeted people who were traveling abroad or who had been captured in Pakistan; European intelligence agencies provided direct assistance to the CIA in at least five of those cases, records show.

Each prisoner was then secretly handed over to intelligence services in the Middle East or Africa with histories of human rights abuses. Some remain imprisoned in those countries; others have been taken to the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. One man was later released after being taken from the Balkans to Afghanistan, the victim of an apparent case of mistaken identity.

In the early stages, the CIA had prepared even more ambitious plans, according to the depositions from the Italian intelligence officials, who testified last summer during a criminal investigation into a CIA- sponsored kidnapping of a radical Islamic cleric in Milan.
###
more in linked story...

"Worst Of The Worst" Set Free

Majority of Gitmo Detainees Freed in Other Countries
By Andrew O. Selsky
The Associated Press
Friday 15 December 2006

The Pentagon called them "among the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth," sweeping them up after Sept. 11 and hauling them in chains to a U.S. military prison in southeastern Cuba.

Since then, hundreds of the men have been transferred from Guantanamo Bay to other countries, many of them for "continued detention."

And then set free.

Decisions by more than a dozen countries in the Middle East, Europe and South Asia to release the former Guantanamo detainees raise questions about whether they were really as dangerous as the United States claimed, or whether some of America's staunchest allies have set terrorists and militants free.

The United States does not systematically track what happens to detainees once they leave Guantanamo, the U.S. State Department says. Defense lawyers and human rights groups say they know of no centralized database, although one group is attempting to compile one.

When the Pentagon announces a detainee has been moved from Guantanamo, it gives his nationality but not his name, making it difficult to track the roughly 360 men released since the detention center opened in January 2002. The Pentagon says detainees have been sent to 26 countries.

But through interviews with justice and police officials, detainees and their families, and using reports from human rights groups and local media, The Associated Press was able to track 245 of those formerly held at Guantanamo. The investigation, which spanned 17 countries, found:

Once the detainees arrived in other countries, 205 of the 245 were either freed without being charged or were cleared of charges related to their detention at Guantanamo. Forty either stand charged with crimes or continue to be detained.

Only a tiny fraction of transferred detainees have been put on trial. The AP identified 14 trials, in which eight men were acquitted and six are awaiting verdicts. Two of the cases involving acquittals - one in Kuwait, one in Spain - initially resulted in convictions that were overturned on appeal.

The Afghan government has freed every one of the more than 83 Afghans sent home. Lawmaker Sibghatullah Mujaddedi, the head of Afghanistan's reconciliation commission, said many were innocent and wound up at Guantanamo because of tribal or personal rivalries.

At least 67 of 70 repatriated Pakistanis are free after spending a year in Adiala Jail. A senior Pakistani Interior Ministry official said investigators determined that most had been "sold" for bounties to U.S. forces by Afghan warlords who invented links between the men and al-Qaida. "We consider them innocent," said the official, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

All 29 detainees who were repatriated to Britain, Spain, Germany, Russia, Australia, Turkey, Denmark, Bahrain and the Maldives were freed, some within hours after being sent home for "continued detention."

Some former detainees say they never intended to harm the United States and are bitter.

"I can't wash the three long years of pain, trouble and humiliation from my memory," said Badarzaman Badar, an Afghan who was freed in Pakistan. "It is like a cancer in my mind that makes me disturbed every time I think of those terrible days."

Overall, about 165 Guantanamo detainees have been transferred from Guantanamo for "continued detention," while about 200 were designated for immediate release. Some 420 detainees remain at the U.S. base in Cuba.

Clive Stafford Smith, a British-American attorney representing several detainees, said the AP's findings indicate that innocent men were jailed and that the term "continued detention" is part of "a politically motivated farce."

"The Bush Administration wants to be able to say that these are dangerous terrorists who are going to be confined upon their release ... although there is no evidence against many of them," he said.

When four Britons were sent home from Guantanamo in January 2005, Britain said it would detain and investigate them - then released them after only 18 hours. Five Britons repatriated earlier were also rapidly released with no charges.

Murat Kurnaz, a German-born Turkish citizen, was also quickly freed when he was flown to Germany in August, bound hand and foot, after more than four years at Guantanamo.

U.S. officials maintained he was a member of al-Qaida, based on what they said was secret evidence. But his New Jersey-based lawyer, Baher Azmy, said he was shown the classified evidence and was shocked to find how unpersuasive it was.

"It contains five or six statements exonerating him," Azmy said.

In October German prosecutors said they found no evidence that Kurnaz had links to Islamic radicals in Pakistan or Afghanistan and formally dropped their investigation.

The United States insists that the fact that so many of the former detainees have been freed by other countries doesn't mean they weren't dangerous.

"They were part of Taliban, al-Qaida, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners," said Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman.

But Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, a lawyer representing several detainees, says the fact that hundreds of men have been released into freedom belies their characterization by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as "among the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth."

"After all, it would simply be incredible to suggest that the United States has voluntarily released such 'vicious killers' or that such men had been miraculously reformed at Guantanamo," Colangelo-Bryan said.

Mohammed Aman, a 49-year-old Afghan who describes himself as a former low-level member of the Taliban, said he initially wasn't worried when U.S. troops detained him.

"I was relaxed because I was innocent," he said. "I was sure I would be freed. I was always thinking that today or tomorrow I will be free."

He spent three years at Guantanamo until he was finally put on a plane at the base, blindfolded and with headphones covering his ears. When he made it back to his home in Malaik Khail, Afghanistan, villagers streamed out to greet him, many weeping.

Detainees are held at Guantanamo Bay because a military panel classifies them as an "enemy combatant," which refers not only to armed fighters but to anyone who aids enemy forces. Every year, each gets a hearing to determine whether he remains a security threat to the United States or has intelligence value.

Using those hearings as guidance, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England decides whether to keep the detainee at Guantanamo, release him, or send him to another country for detention.

This year, through Nov. 20, he had ruled on 149 prisoners. He decided that 106 should be held, 43 should be transferred to custody of other countries and none should be released outright.

Azmy, the New Jersey lawyer, said the distinction between release and transfer is largely a fiction because recipient countries are under no obligation to imprison the returnees. The United States doesn't even ask them to.

A senior U.S. State Department official acknowledged that "We do not ask countries to detain them on our behalf, so when a decision is made by a country to move forward with an investigation for prosecution, that is something they have decided to do pursuant to their own domestic law."

Requesting anonymity because she is not authorized to speak on the record, she said about 15 former detainees returned to the battlefield after being freed. The Pentagon was unable to provide details.

"That's the risk that goes along with transferring people out of Guantanamo," she said. "It's not foolproof."

Some former detainees still face the justice systems of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and France.

Six Kuwaitis returned from Guantanamo stood trial on terror-related charges. Five were acquitted, and on Dec. 5 an appeals court overturned the conviction of the sixth, Nasser al-Mutairi.

In France, the trial of six transferred Guantanamo detainees has focused as much on the U.S. prison camp as on their prosecution on charges of "criminal association with a terrorist enterprise."

Prosecutor Sonya Djemni-Wagner has requested light sentences, saying she took into account the defendants' "arbitrary detention ... at a facility outside all legal frameworks."

She is seeking one year in prison plus suspended sentences for five suspects and no sentence for the sixth, all of whom are currently free.

Their time already served behind bars in France should be counted toward their sentences, she said, meaning that even if convicted, none would be locked up.
###

So... over half of the "worst of the worst" were no so bad that they could be released. Nice! This comes in addition to the news that several dozen of the detainees were under the age of 17 when first captured in 2002, and that many have undergone torture since being imprisoned at Gitmo.

Those of us on the "Commie Traitor Left" said from the beginning that paying cash money for "Al Qaeda" captives would result in nothing more than kidnap for bounty among hostile Afghan tribes. We were jeered at and told that the men in Gitmo had ALL been captured "on the battlefield."

Then we said that using torture as a routine questioning tactic was immoral because several hundred of them HAD to be innocent of all charges. We were sneered at and told that these men were "the worst of the worst" and deserved whatever they got.

Then we said that without trials, these men were being held illegally by a President out of control. We were laughed at and the GOP slammed Bush's "Torture Enabling Act" through a willing Congress.

Now we find out that everything we said was true: torture, underage kids, innocent tribesmen, and much much more. America's reaction? More sneering, jeering & ignoring the fact that their government has set aside all Rule of Law in its pursuit of this Gitmo Gulag.

I'm now of the opinion that the people of the US are a complaisant lot who deserve the Imperium that's coming. One day soon they'll wake up and realize that their country is broke, that their jobs have disappeared, and that they're in a political re-education camp...

and then they'll blame it on the Democrats.

The Incredible Shrinking Presidency

Americans are overwhelmingly resigned to something less than clear-cut victory in Iraq and growing numbers doubt the country will achieve a stable, democratic government no matter how the U.S. gets out, according to an AP poll.

At the same time, dissatisfaction with President Bush's handling of Iraq has climbed to an all-time high of 71 percent. The latest AP-Ipsos poll, taken as a bipartisan commission was releasing its recommendations for a new course in Iraq, found that just 27 percent of Americans approved of Bush's handling of Iraq, down from his previous low of 31 percent in November.

Still... that's 27% approval which still seems high to me. What's his bottom number? And how many soldiers have to die before he gets there? I read once that hardcore Right-Wing Theocratical Evangelicals are 18% of the population (and therefore an astonishing 36% of that party... no wonder they can't nominate good candidates). I'm assuming that 18% of Americans is Bush's ground-floor... where everyone of every stripe except those who think BTK Bush is the second coming of Christ has abandoned him.

What will it take for that last 9% of non-nutso-Evangelicals to peel away from Bush's War On Iraq? And who are these people?

US Settles Nuisance Lawsuit By Domestic Terrorist

U.S. Settles Suit Filed by Oregon Lawyer
$2 Million Will Be Paid For Wrongful Arrest After Madrid Attack

The U.S. government agreed yesterday to pay $2 million to settle a lawsuit filed by an Oregon lawyer who was arrested and jailed for two weeks in 2004 after the FBI bungled a fingerprint match and mistakenly linked him to a terrorist attack in Spain.

Under the terms of the settlement filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Portland, the government also issued an unusual apology to Brandon Mayfield for the "suffering" caused by his wrongful arrest and imprisonment. It acknowledged that the ordeal was "deeply upsetting" to Mayfield and his family.

Mayfield will be able to continue pursuing his legal challenge to the constitutionality of the USA Patriot Act anti-terrorism law, which was used to obtain his personal records while he was under investigation.

The payment is a clear embarrassment for the FBI, which arrested Mayfield as a material witness in May 2004. FBI examiners had erroneously linked him to a partial fingerprint on a bag of detonators found after terrorists bombed commuter trains in Madrid in March, killing 191 people. The bureau compounded its error by stridently resisting the conclusions of the Spanish National Police, which notified the FBI three weeks before Mayfield was arrested that the fingerprint did not belong to him.

Mayfield's lawsuit alleged that his civil rights had been violated and that he was arrested because he is a Muslim convert who had represented some defendants in terrorism-related cases. In a statement Mayfield said that he was threatened with the death penalty while in custody, that he and his family were targeted "because of our Muslim religion," and that he looks forward "to the day when the Patriot Act is declared unconstitutional."

On March 11, 2004, terrorists later linked to al-Qaeda detonated bombs on several commuter trains in Madrid. The FBI assisted Spanish police by comparing latent fingerprints found nearby on a bag of detonators against its massive fingerprint database, which includes prints from former U.S. soldiers. Mayfield served in the U.S. Army. Two FBI examiners and a unit chief eventually narrowed the fingerprint match to Mayfield. Spanish police conducted their own analysis and concluded that the print was not Mayfield's. The FBI disputed that finding, dispatching an examiner to Madrid to press its case. Mayfield was arrested three weeks later amid media leaks about the ongoing investigation.

The FBI, which did not comment on yesterday's settlement, has repeatedly said that there were unusual similarities between Mayfield's fingerprints and the one found on the bag of detonators, which was eventually identified as belonging to an Algerian national named Ouhnane Daoud.

A report released in March by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine found that although Mayfield's religion was not a factor in his initial identification, it contributed to the FBI's reluctance to reexamine its conclusions after challenges from Spanish police.

Fine also found that the FBI used expanded powers under the Patriot Act to demand personal information about Mayfield from banks and other companies, and that the law "amplified the consequences" of the FBI's mistakes by allowing other government agencies to share flawed information.

Once more the Bush Administration's War on Terror has blown up in their face. This time leaving you and I to foot the $2.3 Million bill for their fuckup.

But oh, no, we don't need to do away with the Patriot Act, do we? Government NEVER makes mistakes and never tries to ruin innocent people's lives. Government certainly never abuses its powers to detain alleged terrorism suspects under relaxed standards of probable cause... err, scratch that.

The Patriot Act is an abomination and must be repealed. Any parts of it which are truly necessary for law enforcement's use should be separated out and passed individually. The idea of lumping together all sorts of semi-legal and blatantly illegal bullshit together and then demanding that Congress vote on something called a "Patriot Act" three days after 9/11 is typical of Bush's reign of terror. Only one senator and two Congressmen had the guts to even read the thing in advance and all three of them voted against it... what should THAT have told us?

The Bind Torture Kill President -NEEDS- that power, though... how else is he to perpetuate his divide-and-conquer policy of State Terror enforced through fear?

Terrorist Whines to Congress About Torture

Alleged CIA Torture Victim Speaks Out

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Khaled el-Masri, who claims the CIA kidnapped and tortured him, recounted his story on Capitol Hill on Wednesday and said he hoped he could help prevent others from suffering a similar fate.

The Kuwaiti-born German citizen said he had brought his story to Washington to encourage greater oversight of CIA activities and force the U.S. government to acknowledge what happened to him.

El-Masri alleges he was kidnapped while trying to enter Macedonia for a vacation on Dec. 31, 2003. He claims he was flown to a CIA-run prison known as the ''salt pit'' in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he was beaten and sodomized with an object during five months in captivity.

Jeez, this guy AGAIN? Doesn't he know that he's just lucky we let him go the first time? How many times do we have to illegally kidnap and torture this guy before he gets the hint that he's not supposed to complain about us illegally kidnapping and torturing him?

Besides, rape is the sentence that every single American prisoner receives alongside his years in jail (some 25% of prison inmates are raped and America has chosen to ignore this). Why should our foreign terror suspects receive better prison treatment than our domestic forgery and drug abuse convicts? BRING ON THE RAPE!

Bind. Torture. Rape. Kill.

Incidentally, I'm all for "support our troops" and all, but what is it about America's military and intelligence cultures that brings out all the rape and forced sodomy?

What Happened and Why (And Don't Be Fooled)

The outcome of this election is as clear as it gets. Unfortunately, the Mainstream Corporate Media is out there spin, spin, spinning this election, spreading myths about what happened. The stickiest spin is that this election is somehow a victory for Conservatism and Conservative Democrats... the reasoning being that if Democrats want to stay in power, they have to be more like Republicans.

Sorry, no, not buying it.

In the interests of clarity, let's examine EXACTLY what this election meant versus what everyone is claiming:

(1) This is a devastating defeat for the Republican Party. Excuses are being made that this is "standard 6th-year losses for the President's party." If that's true, why did Democrats GAIN seats in the House in Clinton's 6th year in office? The truth here is that the President and his party are deeply unpopular and out of touch with America's desires. This win for the Democrats is a historically humiliating defeat for Bush and his supporters and they know it. We should be proud enough to acknowledge it and to force the Corporate Media to stop regurgitating Republican Talking Points.

(2) These election results are a resounding rejection of the core, defining premises of Bush's Republican Party. While the war was definitely on voters' minds, this election was NOT only about Iraq. The Democrats who won did so by opposing the main tenets of Bush's GOP: unchecked Presidential power, One-Party Rule, warmongering, war profiteering, bloated Federal deficits, tax cuts for the rich and the corruption which has fed the GOP elections machine for the last 12 years. Nine corrupt Republican incumbents were kicked out by the voters, and that's with the Corporate Media generally ignoring their crimes. When the Ethics Rules are tightened come January, and the investigations begin in earnest, another 9 will probably follow.


3) This election does NOT show support for "Conservatism" or for a new "Conservative Democratic Party."

When the Republicans took the House in 1994, their success resulted from picking off vulnerable Democrats in the South. By contrast, Democratic candidates won Tuesday in every part of the country and in the reddest of red states like Arkansas, Kansas and Indiana. The Republicans are rapidly collapsing into the Party of the Racist South... but even there, they lost incumbents and support. As we saw in Kansas where 9 major Republicans switched parties and ran as Moderate Democrats, the GOP has catered to the deranged Theologist Religious Right for so long that they've alienated middle of the road voters from their own party.

Most devastating for the Republicans, Democrats got 30% of the White Christian Evangelical vote. The message is sinking in for religious people: Republicans stand for power not for Jesus. There's no Christian message in fucking the poor and extending the life of Teri Schiavo, only hate-mana thrown to a small and deranged band of religious extremists. There's nothing Christ-like about scapegoating Gays while molesting Congressional pages. There's no message from God about shifting money from the poor to the rich through regressive tax cuts.

Furthermore, Democrats of all stripes and ideologies won... from the first honest-to-god Socialist to ever serve in the House to Jim Webb, former Secretary of the Navy for Ronald Reagan.

Yes, some conservative Democrats were elected. Some of them are pro-Life and some are opposed to gay marriage. Big Deal. Harry Reid is both of those things, but he's still a clear progressive whose stances on those issues kept Karl Rove from running distracting sideshows the real issues, like he has for the last 3 elections. The same goes for guys like Casey in Pennsylvania... I'd rather have a pro-life Democrat than a theocrat like Rick Santorum any day of the week.

Best of all, for the first time in 12 years, Democrats didn't win by pretending to be Republicans... they won because they emphatically and unapologetically vowed to oppose what the Republican Party has become and to put an end to its destructive one-party rule. No one voting thought they were getting Republican Lite. Democrats won by aggressively attacking everything Bush stands for, not by trying to be a slightly modified and duller version of it like they did in 2000, 2002 and 2004.


(4) The Blogs Won This Election. Many of the Democrats who won were candidates who were supported most enthusiastically by the most liberal blogs who raised money for only a handful of challengers, many of whom won against Republican incumbents in previously red districts: Sherrod Brown, Ben Cardin, Chris Carney, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, Nick Lampson, Tim McNerery, Patrick Murphy, Joe Sestak, Jon Tester, Tim Walz and Jim Webb, among others.

Many of those Democratic winners weren't initially supported by the Democratic Party, either... especially McNerey in his race against Dick "I Hate The Earth" Pombo, who got $300,000 or so from the DNC versus the $1.6 million that the GOP pumped into that race. The Blogs and Environmental Movement made the difference in overcoming a corrupt polluter who spent over $7 Million against an expert in Wind Power.

Not every Blog-support candidate won, but that doesn't mean that liberal blogs weren't effective. Bloggers tended to support underdog Democratic candidates who were challenging Republican incumbents... the seats which are the most difficult to win. Most blog-favored Democrats who lost were ones running in extremely red districts against GOP incumbents -- such as Angie Paccione (against the heinous Marilyn Musgrave) and Victoria Wulslin (against the equally disgusting Jean Schmidt) -- and they came very close to winning.

Given those facts, the idea that this election was some great repudiation of the Progressive Blogger Branch of the Democratic Party is wishful thinking by those who wish it were so. The Democrats who won have one thing in common: aggressive opposition to the monstrosities of the Republican Party.

(5) Karl Rove is not All-Powerful and The American People aren't retarded -- or -- You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

For the last six years, Bush and his cronies have run rampant across the political landscape destroying our freedom, limiting our Civil Rights, and fatally wounding the Constitution. They've gotten away with it because they out-strategized their Democratic opponents at every turn.

In 2000, voters bought into Rove's talking points of "Compassionate Conservatism," "Clinton Fatigue," and "No Child Left Behind." Rove pointed Bush squarely at the middle, while simultaneously telling Christian Evangelical Theocracy-lovers that once in office Bush would outlaw abortion, evolution, stem cells and make being gay an executable offense. The mainstream Corporate Media refused to see the truth before their eyes, didn't notice that Bush wasn't sending "dog-whistle" code signals to religious voters (such as constantly quoting from the Bible and obscure right-wing Hymns in his speeches) and pretended that Bush's lies about the failure of his policies in Texas were equivalent to Gore's overstatements about the Social Security Lockbox and him personally inventing the Internet (which he didn't even say).

At the same time, Gore's handlers were telling him to run a Republican-Lite campaign. To aid this, Gore brought on Joe Lieberman, who proceeded to make the election about who loved God more, him or Bush. God, god, god, blah blah social security lockbox, god, god, god, earth-toned suits, God, god. Blechhh. Progressive voters stayed home, Gore won the popular vote and then blinked in Florida when confronted by clear voting fraud. His scrambling attempts to only recount Dem-leaning counties made him appear partisan. When the Supreme Court handed down their illegal and unprecedented ruling, Gore blinked again: Democratic "Leadership" advised Gore to step away gracefully to maintain his future electability, despite later recounts which showed that Gore had clearly won the state of Florida.

Having thus won in 2000, Rove and Tom Delay set about establishing permanent One-Party Rule of America. There was no tax they wouldn't cut, no legislation they wouldn't pass, so long as they got a corporate campaign contribution in return.

In 2001, before 9/11, Bush's popularity was hovering around 39%, the lowest for any President that early in his career. The Republicans were headed towards massive midterm losses. After 9/11, the Republicans used the boogeyman of Osama Bin Laden to scare voters into voting against their own economic and political self-interest. As proof of their weakness, the Democrats were even unwilling to challenge the legitimacy of Rove's terror alert issued in the week before the election. Rove made the 2002 elections a referendum on whether Democrats had the stomach to confront Saddam Hussein. Weak-kneed Democratic "Leadership" like Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt were unable to adjust to this new scaremongering reality, unable to rationally prove that Saddam was a paper tiger, express a clear alternative vision for the nation, and voted FOR the President's desired war. Thus, by playing Republican-Lite once again, they were swept from office by the Rove Machine.

In 2004, Democratic "Leadership" decided that instead of a popular progressive Governor who was against the war, the party machinery should instead be rallied behind a career political insider Senator who had voted for the war, a lifetime politician with a career full of procedural votes which could easily be twisted to mean anything the Republicans wanted ("he voted NO on giving our troops body armor"), NO charisma, no ability to speak movingly or clearly to the common man, an excessive love for nuanced speech ("I voted for the bill, before I voted against it), an inability to define his own career successes and a complete inability to fight back when aggressively attacked, either with labels (flip-flopper) or even about his own history (Swift-boats Veterans for Truth).

Faced with The Decider or The Equivocator, America voted for Rove's candidate. It helped that he had anti-gay ballot measures on 24 state ballots to drive his religious hate-filled partisans to the voting booth.

This time around, though, new Democratic Leadership rejected the Republican-Lite theory. Howard Dean, Rahm Emmanuel, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid kept a generally straight line as they marched towards Rove with bayonets lowered: The President is out of touch, the Republicans are corrupt, and the war is probably already lost. Faced with a unified opponent unwilling to play Republican-Lite, Rove's vaunted machine failed; today, he is a rejected loser. Karl Rove's ability to hypnotize zombified Americans with distractions like the New Jersey court ruling on gay civil unions, or John Kerry idiotic comments, or moronic buzzphrases has worn thin. No longer will catchy slogans about how Democrats "support terrorists" and their "San Francisco values" work to divide people like before... so long as Democrats don't allow themselves to stand still and allow the Republicans to define them.

Rovism is dead. Americans see Bush's Republican movement for what it is and have begun the process of smashing it.

(6) The Democratic victory is only one small step towards the restoration of our country, the Constitution and the Rule of Law. This President feels that Congress is irrelevant and has shown a propensity for ignoring any law that it passes and for ignoring any and all rebukes shown him by the Supreme Court. Reversing the damage done by six years of One-Party Rule will take time and concerted effort: there is still accountability to be imposed, subpoenas to be issued, crimes to be uncovered, radicalism to be reversed, and tons of damage to be undone... and none of that will be easy. Democrats still face a dysfunctional and corrupt national media, apathy on the part of some Americans, the potent use of propaganda by the Bush administration, voter suppression tactics, gerrymandering and fundraising corruption.

Lastly, let's not ignore the threats that still face us. Just because Karl Rove didn't wheel Osama bin Laden out in the week before this midterm election doesn't mean he's not saving him for 2008. Let's wait and see some serious examinations of the voting machine results in close elections before we admit that Diebold's machines are fine when they clearly are NOT fine. Let's also not forget the mindnumbing panic and fear that 9/11 produced which allowed this cabal of Authoritarian psychotics to gain absolute control of our country for four years. If another attack should happen, we need to be ready to point out that retreat into Despotism is NOT the answer.

Get to work, Democrats. Otherwise you're just part of the problem.

Election Wrap-Up

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The BTK Presidency - Cheney Confirms Waterboarding

Dick Cheney, the black heart of this presidency, has spoken out forcefully for his right to Bind, Torture and Kill people his boss has unilaterally designated as "enemy combatants."

In an interview with conservative talk show host, Scott Hennen, on Tuesday, Vice President Dick Cheney confirmed that U.S. interrogators subject captured prisoners at America's gulag in Guantánamo Bay to the interrogation technique known as "waterboarding:"

Hennen: "And I've had people call and say, please, let the Vice President know that if it takes dunking a terrorist in water, we're all for it, if it saves American lives. [...] Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?"

Cheney: "It's a no-brainer for me, but for a while there, I was criticized as being the Vice President 'for torture.' We don't torture. That's not what we're involved in. We live up to our obligations in international treaties that we're party to and so forth. But the fact is, you can have a fairly robust interrogation program without torture, and we need to be able to do that. And thanks to the leadership of the President now, and the action of the Congress, we have that authority, and we are able to continue the program."

Swell. Our Vice President just admitted to drowning people until they confess to being terrorists... but it's okay, he's assured us, because drowning isn't torture.

Except that it IS torture. In 1947, the United States prosecuted a Japanese soldier for war crimes and sentenced him to 15 years hard labor for using the technique on a U.S. prisoner. The US court described the crime as "torture."

The physical effects of waterboarding can be extreme pain and damage to the lungs, brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation and sometimes broken bones because of the victims struggling against their restraints. The psychological effects of waterboarding can also be longlasting. Dr. Allen Keller, director of the Bellevue/N.Y.U. Program for Survivors of Torture, has treated a number of people who had been subjected to waterboarding. In an interview with The New Yorker, Dr. Keller explained that some victims were still traumatized years later... one patient couldn't take showers, and panicked when it rained.

This brings up an interesting question: What IS waterboarding, exactly? America's TV News has done a very poor job of explaining the technique to the American people, thus giving the impression that it's acceptable behavior, or that "The Terrorists" are only getting "dunked" in some water. See the attached newspaper illustration, which doesn't nearly get across the methodical, vicious and deliberate nature of modern CIA-improved waterboarding.

There are three historical variations of waterboarding:

(1) The Spanish Inquisition Method: the victim is strapped to a board, their arms and legs immobilized, and they are submerged in water until the prisoner believes he or she is drowning. The Inquisition started without the board, but soon realized that using the board prevented the victim from fighting back. Whenever possible since, the board has been used.

(2) The Vietnam War Method: the victim is strapped to a board with a wet towel placed over their face and water is dripped into their nose until they think they are about to drown.

(3) The CIA's Improvement: this is the system currently used in Guantánamo and in the CIA's secret Eastern European gulags. The victim is strapped to a board, the board is inclined about 20 degrees so that the feet are above the head, saran wrap is wound over the face so that it covers the eyes, nose, and mouth (facial hair is shaved to ensure a tight seal), and then, through a plastic tube, water is poured under the saran wrap covering the face, running down from the chin to the forehead, so that water is forced into the nose. Because of the angle of the victim's body, the water fills up the sinuses, then the throat and the mouth in that order. Unavoidably, the gag reflex immediately kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt. Because of the angle of the body, the lungs are NOT filled with water keeping oxygen in the blood and prolonging the victim's sensation that they are drowning. The saran wrap is there as a bonus multiplier. If the victim coughs to try to blow the water out of their throat or mouth, the plastic catches the water and shoves it back. The saran wrap also acts as a one-way valve, opening to let more air out and then closing again to prevent inhalation. Eventually the victim ends up with collapsed, empty lungs, no ability to inhale more air, a throat, mouth, and nose that's still full of water, and no capacity to get the water out since they've already fully exhaled.

Modern CIA-designed waterboarding isn't about asphyxiation (like, say, the Nazi method of merely shoving a prisoner's head into a tub filled with water)... it's much more diabolical. Waterboarding is about the uncontrollable physical response to forced sustained water inhalation. If you've ever accidentally inhaled water you know that even the smallest amount of liquid in the larynx and trachea is an immediate, hardwired hotline directly to the panic portion of the brain that death is imminent. The terror of imminent drowning is the key element of the technique. According to ABC News, CIA officers who subjected themselves to the waterboarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in. They said al Qaeda's toughest prisoner, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, won the admiration of interrogators when he was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess.

The White House has redefined "torture" thusly: ""must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." That pretzled, logic was designed explicitly by the president's staff to exclude waterboarding. While Bush and his torture-happy staff might not think waterboarding is torture, experts such as John Sifton of Human Rights Watch disagree: "The person believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law." And it's not just gay liberal terrorist enablers like Human Rights Watch, either... The U.S. Army, senior Republican lawmakers, human rights experts worldwide and many experts on the laws of war also consider waterboarding cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment that's banned by U.S. law and by international treaties that prohibit torture.

Most dishearteningly, not only is waterboarding clearly torture, but it's also pointless as an intelligence gathering tactic. Sure, victims confess... but many experienced intelligence agency and military interrogators argue waterboarding often provides false or misleading information because the victim gets so desperate that he begins telling interrogators what they want to hear in order to make the waterboarding stop. In at least one instance, ABC News was told that the techniques led to questionable information aimed at pleasing the interrogators and that this information had a significant impact on U.S. actions in Iraq.

The CIA's escalating interrogation method is reported this:
(1. The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him,
2. The Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear,
3. The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury like a punch would,
4. Stress Positions: Among the most effective techniques. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions,
5. The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water. and finally,
6. Waterboarding

According to CIA sources, Ibn al Shaykh al Libbi, after two weeks of enhanced interrogation, made statements that were designed to tell the interrogators what they wanted to hear. Sources say Al Libbi finally broke after being waterboarded and then placed in a stress position and forced to stand naked in his cold cell overnight where he was doused with cold water at regular intervals.

His statements became part of the basis for the Bush administration claims that Iraq trained al Qaeda members to use biochemical weapons, which was touted as another rationale for the Iraq War. It was later established that al Libbi had no knowledge of such training or weapons and fabricated the statements because he was terrified of further harsh treatment. Al Libbi does not appear to have sought to intentionally misinform investigators, but rather to please his torturers... but the result is the same: more false "intelligence" which is used as "proof" that the waterboarding was necessary in the first place, thus leading to more waterboarding being used to obtain more "intelligence" which justifies more waterboarding and so on and so on.

Confessions obtained this way are an unreliable tool. There is little to be gained by these techniques that could not be more effectively gained by a methodical, careful, psychologically based interrogation. According to a classified report prepared by the CIA Inspector General John Helgerwon and issued in 2004, the techniques "appeared to constitute cruel, and degrading treatment under the (Geneva) convention." Former CIA office Bob Baer says that waterboard is "bad interrogation. I mean you can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture's bad enough." Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer and a deputy director of the State Department's office of counterterrorism, recently wrote in the Los Angeles Times, "What real CIA field officers know firsthand is that it is better to build a relationship of trust … than to extract quick confessions through tactics such as those used by the Nazis and the Soviets."

It's important for Americans to recognize that noted characteristic... waterboarding is the tool of the Spanish Inquisition, of the Nazis, of the KGB, of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge, of the South American Dictatorship... it's not a technique to gain intelligence, it is a technique designed and used exclusively in the past to gain forced confessions by despotic regimes when knew that the confessions were coerced but didn't care. But now the BTK administration has made waterboarding a key element of their intelligence services, which can ONLY lead to more false confessions and incorrect assesments of the real-world threats facing us. Torture and false confession are now the official voted-on policy of the United States of America and its Bind, Torture, Kill President.





Incidentally, it's also important to note that the individuals who George B.T.K. Bush is torturing have not been convicted of anything. Guantanamo Bay currently holds over 500 prisoners. The Bush administration has repeatedly described these men as "the worst of the worst." Ten have been formally charged with crimes and will someday face military tribunals. The rest wait to learn what they have done wrong. Instead they have been denied the right to a fair trial free of evidence coerced through torture, non-rebuttabal hearsay evidence, and "classified" evidence that the defendant is not able to dispute. They have been denied the right to counsel, they are denied the most basic human rights, and now the BTK Congress has signed off on laws allowing them to be tortured and eventually murdered by their Republican BTK President.

*** a reader wrote in to inform me that one of the key purposes of drenching people with water and making them stand in cold rooms afterwards is to induce a state of Hyperalgesia, which is an extreme sensitivity to pain, which in one form is caused by damage to nociceptors in the body's soft tissues. Hyperalgesia can be experienced in focal, discrete areas (commonly associated with wounds), or as a more diffuse, body-wide form (like that intended at Guantánamo. Conditioning studies have established that it is possible to experience a learned hyperalgesia of the latter, diffuse form... meaning that after doing this to a victim a number of times, the torture victim can LITERALLY feel the all-over-body pain without even being subjected to the cold or water. Neato! Pavlov would be proud. Or sickened. The idea that military doctors are cooperating with this torture bullshit is beyond the pale. First do no harm, scumbags.

The Democrats had better rescind all of this shit, should they take over the House & Senate.