A Word of Explanation....

Folks, welcome one and all.

Most interesting having a cursory look at our recent visitors. People from all over the world are cruising by for a look-see. Looks to be about 30 countries around the globe. Thanks for the visit. Hope to make it worth your while.

A word of explanation though. In addition to studying Japanese and PC networking, I've taken on a part-time job at an engineering firm, so the contributions to the site will have to be limited to about once or twice a week.

Look for an update on our history of international and domestic American intelligence and governmental abuses by the end of the week. Compared to the first installment, it's a corker, as they say in Hollywood.

The purpose of the series is to show just how outrageous the past abuses have been, so as to alert the non-initiated as to the duplicitous depths to which we have sunken and are likely to again, barring adequate civilian vigilance.

Today, our liberties hang by a slender thread indeed -- a thread sorely stretched. Remember the tremendous sacrifices and courage of our forebears. Don't let it all be for naught.

Quote of the Day: Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal. -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Gotta be Seen to be Believed....

"Mr. Bush, do you have anything to say to the American people?" (Click me)

Quote(s) of the Day: "It’s time to restore honor and dignity to the White House." -- George W. Bush

"Go fuck yourself." --"Dick" Cheney, on the Senate floor

Rape and Murder for Democracy

Whoops; looks like the cat's out of the proverbial bag. From General Taguba's report to the Pentagon:

"I saw [name redacted] fucking a kid; his age would be about 15 - 18 years. The kid was hurting very bad, and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then, when I heard the screaming, I climbed the door, because on top it wasn't covered, and I saw [name redacted], who was wearing the military uniform, putting his dick in the little kid's ass.... And the female soldier was taking pictures."

And among the 87 Abu Ghraib photographs and four videos the White House blocked from release, even worse abuses were recorded; as Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina explained it, "The American public needs to understand we're talking about rape and murder here. We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience. We're talking about rape and murder -- and some very serious charges."

At the ACLU 2004 America At A Crossroads conference, Pulitzer laureate Seymour Hersh, who helped uncover the scandal, got a little more specific:

"I can tell you it was much worse, and the government knows it was much worse....

"Some of the worse that happened that you don't know about, ok? Videos, there are women there. Some of you may have read they were passing letters, communications out to their men....The women were passing messages saying 'Please come and kill me, because of what's happened.'

"Basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys/children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror it's going to come out."

But Donald Rumsfeld's 2004 testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee makes the Bush Administration's view on the matter abundantly clear: "If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse."

He was patently not speaking of matters getting worse for the PRISONERS -- after all, it's impossible to do worse than imprisoning, torturing, raping and murdering. It thus becomes transparently obvious that he was referring to a public backlash against the Administration and the senior military officers involved.

Which is why, as the New York Times reported two days ago, the White House is doing everything it can to prevent Americans from seeing what is in those photos and videos, arguing absurdly that by not showing the prisoners in the act of being raped and murdered, they are "protecting them from humiliation".

In response to his horror at the content of the images, Senator Graham, along with torture survivor Senator John McCain and Virginia Senator John W. Warner, is drafting new laws to prevent the White House from engaging in further war atrocities.

Their legislation would prohibit hiding prisoners from the Red Cross; prohibit cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners; and allow the use of only a very limited and specific set of approved Army interrogation techniques.

According to officials, the draft legislation covers four specific topics, including standards for military interrogations. It would prohibit not just physical abuse but mental torture and humiliation, such as forcing male Muslims to wear womens's underwear or engage in simulated (or real) homosexual rape.

A second provision would require all detainees to be registered with the International Committee of the Red Cross, to prevent holding "ghost detainees", the military euphemism for undocumented prisoners.

The Senators are also considering how to prohibit "rendering", the sending of prisoners for interrogation to countries known to practice torture, a practice which has caused mounting criticism across the globe, including among American allies.

They are reportedly also considering an independent commission to examine POW abuse, to more clearly define the term "enemy combatant" and to regulate the upcoming Guantanamo Bay military tribunals.

The senators planned to attach the legislation to the $442 billion Pentagon authorization bill for fiscal 2006, due to be debated in the Senate next week.

True to form, the White House has stepped in to prevent any hindrance of their asserted right to anally rape little boys and beat shackled, hooded prisoners to death -- even if 70% to 90% of them are known to have been ARRESTED BY MISTAKE and INNOCENT -- as admitted by senior American military officers.

"Dick" Cheney has taken control of the effort to hamstring the anti-torture legislation before it's even out of the gate. In a moment that smacks of Omerta, the vice-rat-bastard-in-chief held a closed-door meeting with the three senior Republicans, reportedly warning "...their legislation would interfere with the president's authority and his ability to protect Americans against terrorist attacks", and that the White House would respond to any Senate approval of such an amendment with a veto.

What are the consequences likely to be for OUR side's POWs if we continue to engage in this horrific, ineffective, soldier-endangering and illegal activity?

Well, it won't be pretty. Just ask Senator McCain.

Quote of the Day: "From my experience as a physician, the Abu Ghraib images are not an exception to the rules. They represent the rules, I believe, by which the U.S. government and military exercise power over a non-servile population to optimize the economic and political interests of an elite few in the U.S. and abroad. What is not the norm, what is exceptional, is the graphic revelation to the world of these horrors. In his book A Miracle, A Universe, New Yorker writer Lawrence Weschler crystallizes the torturer's message to the tortured: 'Scream. Scream as much as you like. It doesn't matter. No one is listening. No one will ever hear you. No one will ever know.' The torturer, like the state sponsoring him, depends on the obscurity of the victim and silence of witnesses to continue his crimes.

We are all witnesses now."

Dr. Miles Schuman, documentarian, Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture.

More on White House Spy Leak Link to UK Bombs

There is no longer any doubt that the Bush Administration is endangering all of our lives. Here's more proof positive -- how their politically-timed leak outed Britain's only Al Qaeda mole -- now linked to the bombings of two weeks ago:

Thanks to our Gaelic friend Daithi, a 9-11 survivor, who forwarded us this story from his blog:

http://gaelicstarover.blogspot.com/

...from the Press & Sun Bulletin (Binghamton, NY):

"Americans felt the shockwave of the July 7 and 21 attacks on Britain's subway and bus systems. What's interesting about the attacks in London is that they appear to be linked to an ethnic Pakistani al-Qaida wing. And on that topic, enter Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, stage right.

In March 2004, the British conducted a massive terror investigation that netted eight citizens of Pakistani heritage. Months later on July 13, the British captured Khan -- a Pakistani computer wiz and communications chief for al-Qaida -- during a joint operation in Pakistan. On his computer was 3-year-old information about financial institutions in New York and Washington. Khan 'flipped' and began providing Britain and Pakistan with information on an al-Qaida cell in Britain.

Meanwhile, back in the States, the Democratic National Convention was in full swing. Despite swift-boated character attacks against him, John Kerry was gaining momentum in the polls. Geez, sounds like a good time for a Homeland Security alert.

On Sunday, Aug. 1, the Bush administration pulled a 'Novak' again. Secretary Tom Ridge issued an orange alert for financial institutions in New York and Washington based on the old information in Khan's computer.

There is some discrepancy on how Khan's identity was disclosed -- Pakistan insists it came from U.S. sources and it's interesting to note it never announced his initial capture. But there he was Aug. 2 in the New York Times.

The British had to make a premature swoop on the cell suspects the next day. Five of the 13 caught had to be let go. Brits were further infuriated when the U.S. government named some of the suspects caught. Some thought their road might lead to bin Laden.

Was Ridge's alert a way to steal thunder from Kerry's campaign? If so, was it worth the cost? Unfortunately, that cost might include British lives. ABC News reported there may be a link between one of the July 7 bombers, Mohammed Sidique Khan, and the cell Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan was tracking for the Brits.

Whose side is our leaky government on, anyway?"

That's a good question. The American, British and Pakistani people deserve to know!

More corroboration here, here, here and here. Oh, and here and here.

So this outing had more direct, attributable and deadly consequences than the outing of Valerie Plame's identity -- as dangerous and foolish as that was.

Please click here and sign this petition, so that, together, we may learn the answer!

Quote of the Day: "It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation." -- William Tecumseh Sherman

The Sequel: Rush Limbaugh is a Big, Fat, Cowardly, Lying Asshole

If you haven't seen these "humorous" photos on Sir Assboil's site, you haven't missed much.

He and his smarmy pals are promoting t-shirts that refer to Camp X-Ray as "Club Gitmo", as if to say the inmates there aren't shackled, hooded and tortured but are instead enjoying some odd sort of Disneylandesque vacation.

Meanwhile, the Center for Constitutional Rights is fighting in court for the right to show the public the real videos and photos from our other luxury torture spa, Abu Ghraib, where officers have admitted that between 70% and 90% of the detainees are in fact innocent. The White House blocked their public release with the perversely twisted defense that, by not showing Iraqi prisoners being tortured and/or raped, they are thus "protecting the physical safety" of the men, women and children being tortured and/or raped in Saddam Hussein's former -- now our -- infamous torture prison.

The courts had already ruled the photos and videos were to be released by today, but at the last minute the government successfully filed their motion to oppose the release. The argument itself shows a clearly sociopathic black humor and the obvious intent of the feds to keep stonewalling the issue indefinitely.

Congress and Herr Rumsfeld have already confirmed that the unreleased images are far, far worse than the pictures and videos of dead bodies, dog attacks, beaten, feces-covered, hooded prisoners with electrodes attached to their bodies and buckets of blood already released and shown initially by ABC.

An excerpt:

Today’s move is the latest in a series of attempts by the government to keep the images from being made public and to cover up the torture of detainees in U.S. custody around the world.

Joseph Darby was the U.S reservist who turned over the photos and videos to U.S. Army officials and touched off the Abu Ghraib scandal in April 2004.

“This is absolutely unacceptable,” stated Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights. “We can not move forward from this scandal until we have a full public accounting and independent investigation into what happened at Abu Ghraib. The government cannot continue to hide evidence of torture. The time to release these photos and videos was a long time ago.”

Expectations are that the FOIA request will release more than 100 photos and 4 videos, all believed to document deplorable human rights violations by U.S. military personnel against Iraqi civilians.

Barbara Olshansky, Deputy Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, stated, “The public must be informed of what is being done in our name. It is this Administration that has put our troops at risk and caused world-wide anger by fostering policies that promote torture and refusing to hold those responsible publicly accountable.”

The Center for Constitutional Rights once more calls for a complete, transparent independent investigation into the torture and abuse of detainees that goes all the way up the chain of command and demands that the Administration apply the Geneva Conventions to every detainee being held in U.S. custody around the world.

This is part of the request under the Freedom of Information Act filed by the the Center for Constitutional Rights, the ACLU, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans for Peace. The FOIA lawsuit is being handled by Lawrence Lustberg and Megan Lewis of the New Jersey-based law firm Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione, P.C.

Our allies are growing less and less tolerant of this vile pattern of behavior by the day.

History will not judge men of Limbaugh's stripe -- or his followers -- kindly.

Quote of the Day:"When I visited Auschwitz I was horrified. And when I visited Iraq, I thought to myself, 'What will we tell our children in fifty years when they ask what we did when the people in Iraq were dying.'" -- Nobel Peace Prize Winner Mairead McGuire

A Roaring Success

I must have landed on someone's UnAmerican Activities list.

After suggesting folks bring Karl Rove a memento of their regard, I received some of the strangest visitors on my site. I installed a visitor statistics counter last week -- prior to Kurtz's Post mention of my story -- and found some -- ODD -- folks had come to call.

While it's no secret the crazies in the Ann Coulter and World Net Daily forums weren't happy with my piece, I was a little more surprised to see visitors from various government agencies, including the Headquarters of the US Army Corps of Engineers, a Naval Base in Virginia, the Unified Court System of the State of New York, the Humboldt City Courthouse in Eureka, California, the Chief Information Officer of NASA, and the headquarters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.

You might say it's been getting downright spooky.

Ever mindful of Secretary Rumsfeld's warning that "People need to be very careful about what they say, just as they need to be careful about what they do", I'd like to share some history with you.

While a climate of paralyzing fear and silence would suit the White House just fine, unfortunately, there are just too many of us out here who won't willingly or easily shut up.

So, Mr. Rumsfeld, if by some wild chance you come across this, here's a hearty "Go fuck yourself" from an American patriot whose voice you won't silence.

Make no mistake folks, this Administration considers silencing dissent a top priority. And they play very, very rough, as we shall see. Now hold on tight, because the ride's about to get a little scary. And if you find yourself feeling skeptical, I urge you to check the links provided. Everything that you're about to read will be backed up with the most airtight of documentation -- Congressional and police reports, crime scene photographs and declassified National Security Archives documents.

Today we'll start with a little background.

When I first read about some of these activities, I was thunderstruck; I wouldn't have believed them possible of any government, let alone ours, but they've been well-documented and are now accepted history.

Today we'll begin with the story of Mamá Yunay ("Mommy United"), more widely known as the United Fruit Company.

The Boston firm began with an 1899 merger of the fruit export company of Captain Lorenzo Baker & Andrew Preston with that of Costa Rican railroad tycoon Minor C. Keith, widely known as the "Uncrowned King of Central America".

Through a transport monopoly, cheap labor, tax exemptions and exclusive contracts, aided by the economic leverage of the US market, United Fruit grew into an economic and political juggernaut in Central America, owning vast swaths of land, controlling the transport and telecommunications infrastructure and even owning entire cities. It came to be known among the locals as "El Pulpo" ("the Octopus"), and was the largest tropical fruit exporter in the world.

UFCO's primary method of maintaining its monopoly was through its land holdings; while claiming the threat of natural disasters dictated the need for reserve land holdings, UFCO could prevent government distribution of arable land to peasants who could reduce its market dominance.

If a government or official disagreed with the company or refused its terms, UFCO would have the government undermined, discredited, or even outright removed. Thus, UFCO evolved into a political force that thwarted social and political reform in the interest of preserving its dominance in the banana trade.

Nowhere was this more evident than in Guatemala, which UFCO held in a vicelike grip.

20-year former UFCO employee Thomas McCann explained:

"at the time we entered Central America, Guatemala's government was the region's weakest, most corrupt and most pliable. In short, the country offered an 'ideal investment climate,' and United Fruit's profits flourished there for fifty years. Then something went wrong: a man named Jacobo Arbenz became President."

Since the Spanish invasion, Guatemala had been subject to domination and repression at the hands of foreigners for two hundred years. Under the 13-year reign of dictator Jorge Ubico, exempt from taxation and duties, UFCO acquired nearly half the country's land, and controlled the country's two other major enterprises -- International Railways of Central America and Empress Electrica.

Spurred into action by Roosevelt's New Deal radio speeches, the people of Guatemala rose up, forced Dicator General Jorge Ubico to resign and held the country's first free election in two hundred years.

A new constitution was written, modelled after that of the United States, and the president built over 6,000 schools, encouraging progress in education and health care. Sweeping reforms were undertaken; censorship was forbidden, and fair wage, labor, union, voting and antidiscrimination laws were instituted.

As the country's largest employer, United Fruit was forced to make extensive concessions to workers and to begin paying taxes. It denounced the changes as "Communistic" and threatened to pull out of the country.

When Jacobo Arbenz was elected, he also proposed building highways and a power plant -- further threats to UFCO's regional dominance. For years UFCO had prevented Guatemala from building highways because it would break the company's lucrative transportation monopoly.

Seeking independence from foreign corporate control, the government next began expropriating and nationalizing unused portions of major plantations, paying for them at their declared taxable worth. Arbenz's plan was to buy up and redistribute UFCO's uncultivated land among Native American peasants. At the time, United Fruit owned 42% of Guatemala's 4 million acres, and 80% of their holdings were unused.

The company had been undervaluing its land to reduce tax payments, so the Guatemalan goverment's offer of $600,000 for the unused land -- the value UFCO had stated as its worth -- was declared outrageous, and the company owners demanded $16,000,000.

Two of the company's stockholders were US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his brother, CIA Chief Allen Dulles. John Dulles had long represented United Fruit Company at his former law firm, and his brother had been on its board of trustees.

With the added expertise of a public relations firm, they began lobbying Congress, and after an aggressive media campaign, succeeded in convincing Congress and the American public that the spirit of free enterprise was being stifled by a growing Communist power in Guatemala.

On April 20, 1954, Secretay Dulles sent a letter to President Arbenz declaring the calculated idemnification of the land to be unfair, but Arbenz continued with his plans. In response, Dulles prompted Ambassador John Peurifoy to compile a detailed summary of the Guatemalan situation.

As Peurifoy put it "...if Arbenz is not a Communist, he will certainly do until one comes along."

Peurifoy testified to Congress that Guatemala was spreading "Marxist tentacles" in Central America, and chief UFCO shareholder Samuel Zemurray organized a media campaign which included the publication and distribution to Congress of "Report on Guatemala", claiming Arbenz's reforms had originated in Moscow and that this was the start of a Soviet expansion into the Americas.

The UFC and its financiers eventually convinced the President and Congress that Arbenz and his reforms were the work of the Soviets. Mass firings and even quiet assassinations in Latin America began to generate little attention or sympathy in the US.

Then the CIA stepped in.

Of the 15,000 CIA files about "Operation Success", one percent were declassified in 1997. They reveal that in 1952, the United States government authorized the covert training and the shipment of guns and money for a mercenary army to remove Arbenz and his government.

The CIA compiled a list of 70,000 "questionable individuals" and a second special "disposal list" of 58, targeted by CIA-trained assassins. Intelligence officials say the agency never carried out the assassinations, but the targets were subjected to psychological warfare, including death threats, framing, and intimidation.

Colonel Albert Haney was given a budget of $20 million and began recruiting mercenaries and looking for a suitable leader for the coup. His plan was to bribe Arbenz into resigning, and if it didn't work, to execute a coup d'état. He assembled 300 mercenaries at a military base in Nicaragua under the command of Guatemalan Colonel Castillo Armas.

An expert in psycological warfare, Colonel Haney then set about the task of convincing the Guatemalans that a much larger force was at work.

On June 18, 1954, the CIA jammed Guatemala's radio airwaves with a pirate radio signal announcing a major invasion, and American planes planes strafed the National Palace and bombed strategic parts of the city. After a bribed commander surrendered his troops and twelve of his men were killed at the hands of Armas' mercenaries, Arbenz fled into exile.

"Ambassador [Peurifoy] furnished Armas with lists of radical opponents, and the bloodletting promptly began."

The U.S. replaced the freely elected government of Guatemala with a much more pliant, brutal dictatorship under the control of Colonel Castillo Armas, and Guatemala was plunged into 40 years of repression, civil war, forced disappearances, systematic rape, torture and murder, and the extermination of entire villages of Mayans.

"...The coup unleashed one of the most brutal military regimes in the hemisphere. Some 140,000 people have been killed and another 45,000 disappeared in a U.S.-backed scorched earth campaign to wipe out dissidents, rebels and activists for peace and social justice in Guatemala. The abuses by the Guatemalan military and its death squads were so horrific that even Amnesty International reported that they 'strained credulity'."

It gets worse. More on US covert operations tomorrow, and a focus on the Bush Administration.

Sources:
Howard Zinn, "A People's History of the United States"
The United Fruit Historical Society, "Chronology"
P. Landmeier, "Banana Republic:
The United Fruit Company"
Wikipedia, "United Fruit Company"
Virtual Truth Commission, "United Fruit Co"
Manu Saxena, "United Fruit and the CIA"
Declassified CIA Documents

Quote of the Day: "Lord take my soul, but the struggle continues."
Ken Saro-Wiwa, before being hung in 1995 for peacefully protesting Shell Oil's environmental destruction in the Niger Delta

Smacked Down by the Post! I'm Honored! ;-)

Imagine our surprise when, logging onto our wee little blog we find it getting hit at a rate of about one new reader every ten seconds since this morning.

Seems the esteemed Mr. Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post ran a blurb on our Roberts story. His implication is that we were somewhat hasty in rushing to a negative assessment about Judge Roberts, and he may well be right. We hope to be proven wrong, but the biggest caveat for us was that he was Kenneth Starr's right hand man, so, if you'll pardon the pun, the jury's still out on that point.

Still, however humble the mention, gracing the pages of the titan of journalism is an unparalleled honor. Thank you, Mr. Kurtz; we will take your point to heart as an important lesson. By all accounts Judge Roberts is kind in person, if misguided on the bench. And thus, for our satirical photoart, we apologize if Judge Roberts proves to indeed be innocent of making a bloodpact with the lords of darkness that positioned him for the gig.

***

Now, while you're here, kind reader, I urge you to take a moment to read the much more urgent topics that follow, in particular this and this and this.

And, as always, thank you for your time.

-- New American Patriot

Quote of the Day: "...The statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception." -- Mark Twain

Why Does John G. Roberts Hate Our Soldiers?

What do we know about Bush's shiny new Supreme Court nominee? We know he's Bush's top pick to replace the swing votes of Sandra Day O'Connor, who proved to be a wild card over her tenure.

Aside from that, apparently not much. We do know he was a previously unsuccessful elder Bush nominee and has only been a judge for the two years since Junior appointed him.

Aside from subordinate positions in the White House for five years, Roberts clerked for William H. Rehnquist in 1980 and was tobacco-interest pitbull Kenneth Starr's principal deputy from 1989 to 1993, helping formulate White House Supreme Court strategy.

We also know he's certainly conservative, having "unhappily" upheld the arrest and detention of a 12-year-old girl for the heinous crime of eating french fries on a Metro train, and that he has actively solicited overturning Roe vs. Wade. And in Rust v. Sullivan, he convinced the Supreme Court that the government could force doctors and clinics receiving federal funds to remain silent about abortion options for patients.

In Lee v. Weisman (1992), Roberts argued (unsuccessfully) on behalf of the federal government that forcing students to be present during prayers at graduation was not coercion, because the students could always choose not to attend their own graduation ceremonies.

But it's a safe bet he's much better known to Gulf War veterans.

In Acree v. Republic of Iraq (2004), 17 American soldiers who had been tortured as POWs during the Gulf War filed suit against the Republic of Iraq, the Iraqi Intelligence Service, and Saddam Hussein.

Generally, under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), other countries are immune to lawsuits seeking money for injuries, but there is an exception when personal injury or death have been caused by torture or "...other acts of terrorism".

When the defendants failed to appear in court, the D.C. district court judged against them by default and awarded damages of more than $959 million to the 17 soldiers. But the federal government contested the jurisdiction of the district court and argued that the Emergency Wartime Supplemental Appropriations Act (EWSAA) “made the terrorism exception of the FSIA inapplicable to Iraq".

The EWSAA, while generously sprinkled with pet porkbarrel projects, in the main allocates tax revenue to various activities, mostly military.

Two sections in the Act address Gulf War veterans: Sec. 1701 limits the total amount of FEDERAL US temporary assistance to U.S. citizens harmed or impoverished from the war "or similar crises" to less than $1 million a year, and Chapter 8 grants additional money to the Department of Veterans Affairs for processing Persian Gulf veterans claims. Thus it was tangentially related to the case.

The DC court denied the US government's motion based on timing, but the government appealed and in the DC Circuit Appellate Court the three-member panel unanimously decided the district court erred in using the technicality to deny the federal government's intervention.

However, Judges Harry Edwards and David Tatel held that the district court did indeed have jurisdiction over the case. Bush's shiny new nominee Judge Roberts disagreed, arguing on behalf of the Feds that the EWSAA “deprived the courts of jurisdiction over suits against Iraq” for damages resulting from torture and other terrorist acts.

Had his (and the Bush Administration's) position carried the day, American soldiers tortured in Iraq would have become permanently unable to seek restitution in federal court.

Judges Edwards and Tatel concluded there was nothing in the EWSAA or its legislative history “to suggest that Congress intended [it] to alter the jurisdiction of the federal courts under the FSIA.”

They further pointed out Judge Roberts' and the federal government's position would grant Iraq immunity from damages “...even for acts that occurred while... still considered a sponsor of terrorism.”

They also found “little sense” in such a "bizarre" interpretation of the EWSAA, considering the sunset provisions of the Act would theoretically deprive the courts of jurisdiction only from May 7, 2003 till September 30, 2004 “based on events that occurred while Iraq was designated as a state sponsor of terrorism.”

More is sure to emerge in the upcoming weeks. Expect a heated battle.

Update: Slate's Emily Bazelon
brings up an even more disturbing issue with serious implications for all Americans.

Sources:
Washington Post, "Similar Appeal, Different Styles", 07/16/05

Washington Post, "John G. Roberts", 07/01/05

People for the American Way, "The Record of John G. Roberts, Jr.: A Preliminary Report"

Quote of the Day: "It is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society." -- J. Krishnamurti (1895-1986)

Doin' the Don't

The most entertaining job I ever had was as a croupier in a Mississippi riverboat casino. Craps, for those of you who don't know, is an extremely complex, fast-paced dice game, involving dozens of simultaneous bets on the outcome of the next roll of the dice.

I remember one of my instructors very vividly; "Jeff" was one of the hardcore Vegas and Reno veterans who taught us for the six months prior to our casino's grand opening. His crass humor and outrageousness reminded me of Van Halen singer David Lee Roth. He'd come in and bellow out bawdy stick calls, shouting off-colour reminders in our ears if we forgot to collect a bet or miscalculated.

I can still hear him shouting "DON'T COME ERIC!" into my ear and laughing. I had forgotten to collect the bets in the blind spot of my peripheral vision.

"Doin' the Don't" in the casino world means placing a bet in the "Don't Come" corner of the table -- betting the shooter won't roll a winning number.

So in fond tribute to my foul-mouthed mentor of yore, today I'm Doin' the Don't.

I'm betting Rove walks.

Here's why:

Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, was a Bush appointee. Although he appears to be going after Rove with a deserved tenacity, White House appointees have an uncanny knack for exonerating anyone and everyone connected to the White House -- witness the 9/11 Commission, the WMD Commission and Schlesinger Commission's um... "failures" to hold anyone in the Administration responsible for, well ANYTHING really.

Tie that in with Karl Rove's propensity for providing diversionary red herrings -- seemingly damning information that turns out to be false -- so as to discredit the real charges, and I think we're about to see a last minute surprise that will result in everyone walking and the scandal being defused.

And while it's fun to watch that ventriloquist's mannikin McLellan squirm as it's publicly humiliated (BTW, how does Rove fit his hand up its ass?), the running White House "let's wait and see" gambit has a sinister ring to it. I'm betting either Fitzgerald's really just another domesticated White House pet, or some of the "evidence" he's going to conveniently be furnished with is going to blow the whole case. And in the end, in the long-standing tradition of recent Republican "Presidents", Bush is likely to pardon anyone found guilty anyway.

However, there is indeed a silver lining to this particular cloud. Just by keeping this mess firmly in the face of the public for the last two years, those hoping the Golden turdboy will get his comeuppance have ensured that even the most damned of the Republican cult no longer believe the words of their dark overlords -- and that's going to lead to some serious soul-searching, and possibly even redemption.

You can bet on it.

Quote of the Day: What luck for rulers that men do not think. -- Adolf Hitler

The Raw, Ugly Truth

People, contary to what you're hearing -- and posting in the comments section -- we're not running happy summer camps in the name of freedom and light:

Under the explicit direction of the White House, Albert Gonzales, George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld have rewritten or ignored federal and international law, seized and permanently imprisoned thousands of civilians without trial; they are tortured at the whims of their captors in a network of two dozen international prison camps, half of which are operated in secrecy.

Because a number of military personnel have become horrified at the unrestrained brutality they've seen, a small fraction of the abuse has been revealed -- though there is far worse being withheld from the public, according to Congress.

Secret detention facilities have been reported in "...Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Jordan, and aboard U.S. ships at sea.

"The abuses at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib cannot be addressed in isolation," said Deborah Pearlstein, the Director of Human Rights First's U.S. Law and Security Program. "The United States government is holding prisoners in a secret system of off-shore prisons beyond the reach of adequate supervision, accountability, or law."

If you're an American, these operations are being conducted in your name, and you're paying to have them done. And what are some of the activities being carried out with your personal, tacit approval?

First, it's important to remember initially that "...military intelligence officers told the ICRC (Red Cross) that in their estimate, between 70% and 90% of the persons deprived of their liberty in Iraq had been arrested by mistake...."

What's more, from Amnesty International's repeated letters to George Bush, we also know some of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners have been children as young as 13.

According to Congressional US Army testimony, the "widespread abuse" in US prison camps in Iraq and Afghanistan has included over two dozen RECORDED POW deaths. These, of course, do not include what goes on in the secret facilities elsewhere.

Nor is it going away; three months ago the brutal killings of two Afghan POWs was revealed. One was shackled to the ceiling and kicked to death over the space of two days. The other was also kicked to death despite the fact that he was only a taxi driver believed by most of his interrogators to be innocent.

In Afghanistan, another POW was forced to jump from a bridge when he said he couldn't swim. He drowned as his friend watched in horror.

Members of the military who have been horrified at what they've seen have reported of blindfolded prisoners beaten to "bloody pulps", torture by electric shock and burning and "waterboarding", the pouring of water over the face until the point of death.

Then there is the Pentagon report on Abu Ghraib of Major General Antonio Taguba, which found brutal, systemic physical and sexual abuse of prisoners.

It described how "ghost detainees" (unregistered POWs) were brought to several jails in Iraq by government agencies (often the CIA), "...without accounting for them, knowing their identities, or even the reason for their detention." They were moved around within the facility to hide them from visiting Red Cross (ICRC) survey teams, "...in violation of international law."

Among the "systemic problems" and "intentional abuse" the General reported to Congress and the Pentagon were:

"...Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet; A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee (rape, as a prisoner by definition cannot prevent the "sex"); Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee; Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; Threatening detainees with a charged 9mm pistol; Pouring cold water on naked detainees; Beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; Threatening male detainees with rape; Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick.

"...Representative Jane Harman, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said most shocking to her was video of a prisoner, handcuffed, beating his own head against a wall, apparently trying to knock himself unconscious to escape some form of abuse."

The Wall Street Journal reported more:

"...methods of physical and psychological coercion appeared to be part of the standard operating procedures by military intelligence personnel to obtain confessions and extract information.... Hoodings, which impeded proper breathing, used in conjunction with beatings thus increasing anxiety as to when the blows would come.... Handcuffing with flexi-cuffs sometimes so tight they... caused nerve damage... Beatings (sometimes with pistols and rifles)... kicking in the groin..." Holding detainees naked in darkness for days, threats to family members, food, water and sleep deprivation, and being hooded and left in the sun at temperatures reaching 122 degrees Farenheit.

And the Denver Post spoke of Pentagon documents detailing "...the deaths of at least five Iraqi prisoners in war-zone detention camps.... The deaths include the killing in November of a high-level Iraqi general who was shoved into a sleeping bag and suffocated, according to the Pentagon report. The documents contradict an earlier Defense Department statement that said the general died "of natural causes" during an interrogation....

"Another Iraqi military officer, records show, was asphyxiated after being gagged, his hands tied to the top of his cell door. Another detainee died "while undergoing stress technique interrogation," involving smothering and "chest compressions," according to the documents."

"Details of the death investigations, involving at least four different detention facilities including the Abu Ghraib prison, provide the clearest view yet into war-zone interrogation rooms, where intelligence soldiers and other personnel have sometimes used lethal tactics to try to coax secrets from prisoners, including choking off detainees' airways. Other abusive strategies involve sitting on prisoners or bending them into uncomfortable positions, records show."

"Torture is the only thing you can call this," said a Pentagon source with knowledge of internal investigations into prisoner abuses. "There is a lot about our country's interrogation techniques that is very troubling. These are violations of military law."

CBC reported of incidents of forced homosexual sex and Iraqi women commanded to expose their breasts.

But why take second-hand reports at face value? You can see a small fraction of the proof yourself here:

In the final analysis, you either support this horrific behavior or you condemn it. There is no middle ground. And, if you don't actively speak out and oppose it, you're no less culpable than the man smiling as he cracks the bones of his hooded, shackled prisoner.

Quote of the Day: "This crusade ... is going to take a while." -- George W. Bush

CNN: "White House Blew Critical Al Qaeda Mole's Cover" -- Mole now linked to London Bombings

A visitor has posted comments saying that it was Pakistan that leaked Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan's name, not the Bush Administration. Let me post the relevent data from CNN (link here):

U.S. leak 'harms al Qaeda sting'

SPECIAL REPORT -- ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- The effort by U.S. officials to justify raising the terror alert level last week may have shut down an important source of information that has already led to a series of al Qaeda arrests, Pakistani intelligence sources have said.

Until U.S. officials leaked the arrest of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan to reporters, Pakistan had been using him in a sting operation to track down al Qaeda operatives around the world, the sources said.

In background briefings with journalists last week, unnamed U.S. government officials said it was the capture of Khan that provided the information that led Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to announce a higher terror alert level.

Khan is a computer expert who officials said helped Osama bin Laden communicate with his terror network. Investigators found detailed surveillance information on certain targets in the United States, apparently conducted by al Qaeda operatives, on Khan's computer disks.

The unnamed U.S. officials leaked Khan's name along with confirmation that most of the surveillance data was three or four years old, arguing that its age was irrelevant because al Qaeda planned attacks so far in advance.

Law enforcement sources said some of the intelligence gleaned from the arrests of Khan and others gave phone numbers and e-mail addresses that the FBI and other agencies were using to try to track down any al Qaeda operatives in the United States. Then on Friday, after Khan's name was revealed, government sources told CNN that counterterrorism officials had seen a drop in intercepted communications among suspected terrorists.

Officials used Sunday's talk shows to defend last week's heightened alerts, amid widespread claims the White House disclosed Khan's arrest to justify raising its terror alert level. (Full story)

But some observers have said that Islamabad should not have been compromised by political considerations in Washington.

One senator told CNN that U.S. officials should have kept Khan's role quiet.

"You always want to know the evidence," said Sen. George Allen.

"In this situation, in my view, they should have kept their mouth shut and just said, 'We have information, trust us.' "

Sen. Charles Schumer said he was "troubled" by the decision to identify Khan.

He said the public learned little from reports of Khan's role, "and it seems to me they shouldn't have put this name out."

"The Pakistani interior minister, Faisal Hayat, as well as the British home secretary, David Blunkett, have expressed displeasure in fairly severe terms that Khan's name was released, because they were trying to track down other contacts of his"....

Quote of the Day: "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." -- Blaise Pascal

Previous White House spy leak implicated in London terror deaths!

Oh.

My.

God.

Thanks to Daithí Mac Lochlainn, who pointed out this unbelievable, horrific scandal to us.

It appears that the Valerie Plame leak was only one of the White House's spy leaks that may lead to the deaths of coalition agents and civilians. ABC and the Pakistani government have gone on record saying that last year, timed to coincide with the height of the media hype surrounding the Democratic convention, the White House prematurely leaked news of a Pakistani Al Qaeda capture in order to steal the media thunder of candidate Kerry.

Turns out the prisoner, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, had become a deep cover agent for the UK and Pakistani governments, and HAD ON HIS LAPTOP THE PLANS FOR THE BUS BOMBING THAT JUST OCCURRED IN LONDON! His mission had to be prematurely aborted as a result, and the first Al Qaeda mole was a bust. But Tom Ridge and the Department of Homeland Security got the headline grabbing story and stole the media thunder from the Convention.

And so we see, once again for the sake of political expediency, the Bush Administration jeopardized an agent. And this time with deadly, directly related consequences.

Sign onto the petition to demand a full-scale investigation here.

This, friends and neighbors, is a very, very bad thing.

Update: More here

and here.

Quote of the Day: "The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." -- U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, letter of resignation, 2004.11.09

Why You Should Give a Damn....

CIA agent Jack Rice explains precisely why the Plame outing matters in this video.

And more here.

New Policy....

No more sneaks.

Anybody wants to threaten in the comments, you gotta register and let me know who you are.

And remember kiddies. Death threats are a felony.

:-)

Have a nice day.

Wow... Unbelievable!

Wow!

Boy the woman-beaters and sneak attackers came out in droves to defend turdball... whoops, I mean turd BLOSSOM (Bush's words, not mine!).

All anonymously of course, because that's the modus operandi of the right wing today. Whispered character assassinations. Threats to try to silence dissent.

I got an "eat a bullet" comment and a death threat email from an idiot threatening to lie in wait and, as he so cleverly put it: "...be there to end your wretched breathing". Fortunately, I traced Mr. McGuire's IP address and got his home address, phone number and criminal record.

Whatafuckingidiot.

Houston: We Have a Problem....

You know... It's amazing; the first whiff of...

dissent...

and the crazies come in a buzzing cloud like flies to...

honey.

And they're so angry and full of...

vitriol...

and elementary spelling errors and accusations and hatred.

See here's the deal: the modern Republican party has become the party of the expedient knife in the back, the party of lies, the party of the billion-dollar smash-and-grab, the party of hypocritical depravity, the party of torture, the party of blood-soaked money and callous disregard for humanity and the Earth.

They're morally bankrupt and it eats at them. That's why they get so upset. Deep down they know their hearts are black and they'd sell their own country and neighbors down the river for a second car and a swimming pool. They know they ripped off the election and got away with it and they're frightened of losing their grip on power.

See, the problem with an overwhelming need to control is that it's like a cancer: inside, it spreads fear that can only grow and grow, because reality has this strange habit of not allowing itself to be controlled by mere humans -- at least not for long.

They're scared... shirtless... of the day they have to face up to the horrific mess they've created. This, folks, is the rage of denial.

***

But enough yuck yucks at the expense of the overly-compensated lowbrow set.

It seems Wormtongue has found himself a little wiggle room in claiming that he didn't tell Novak about Wilson's wife being a deep-cover CIA agent, but that Novak told him.
Well, that's all good and fine, until the point at which Rove decided to have a little chat with Matt Cooper and commit a little treason in the name of comeuppance.

And of course we don't need to touch the ridiculousness of the "doh... I didn't say her name" happy horsehoofery, but he also disclosed the CIA front shop, making him doubly liable, it would seem.

Update: Apparently, and this hasn't seen a lot of coverage in light of the present circumstances, but KARL ROVE WAS FIRED BY BUSH SR. FOR LEAKING TO ROBERT NOVAK BEFORE!!!

Un-fucking-believable.

Quote of the Day: "What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?" -- Jesus Christ

While You're in the Neighborhood....

If you just happen to be passing through, do the considerate thing and bring a small gift. We suggest a special bouquet for our esteemed latter-day Wormtongue:



Here's where to leave your gift package:

Karl Rove
4925 Weaver Ter NW
Washington, DC 20016

And a handy map:


Driving directions:
From 1600 Pennsylvania Ave Nw (0), proceed NW on Pennsylvania Ave Nw 0.32 mi
After 0.32 mi, turn right (N) on 20th St Nw 0.45 mi
After 0.13 mi, turn left (W) on K St Nw (US-29) 1.01 mi
After 0.56 mi, continue (W) on Whitehurst Fwy (US-29) 1.86 mi
After 0.85 mi, turn left (W) on Canal Rd Nw 4.50 mi
After 2.64 mi, turn right (NE) on Arizona Ave Nw 5.21 mi
After 0.71 mi, turn left (W) on Klingle St Nw 5.27 mi After 0.06 mi, turn right (N) on Weaver Ter Nw 5.32 mi Continue N on Weaver Ter Nw for 0.05 mi until you reach 4925 Weaver Ter Nw (1) (on left)

Now wouldn't it be so nice to see Herr Rove's lawn carpeted with such lovely lawn decorations.

Download your printable flags here
Thanks and a tip of the hat to Madeyouthink.org.

Who you gonna call?

Like to see that lying, evil, weasely, slimeball ratfuck Rove locked up? And, really, who wouldn't?

Call and let the White House know:

202-456-1111
202-456-1414

Quote of the Day: "The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent that autocracy, more selfish that bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes."
-- Abraham Lincoln

Speech, Speech

Suppressing an overwhelming urge to kick him in the face, even if only through the proxy of a cathode ray tube, I watched a Bush speech in its entirety for the first time today.

It was both eerie and pathetic.

Everything about the man spoke of vanity, from his initial imperious "please be seated" to the carefully memorized content; from the calculated, empty smiles at the audience to the oddly fleeting eyebrow furrow of concern, the lofty height of his head and slow, regular body turns.

The personal conviction, the emotional investment, was incongruently missing; it was glaringly obvious the man operates on vanity and blinkered ideology; there was no sincere passion, no real empathy. Most telling was his irritated, dismissive shoulder twitch at the mention of his policy's critics.

Overall, the content of Bush's speech seems completely at odds with his facial expressions as he happily talks about death; this isn't a man delivering sobering news; look at his face -- it's the face of a man having fun at his job.

He began speaking to Fort Bragg 's airborne and special forces by referring to himself in the third person as their "Commander in Chief" with a marked sense of entitlement untouched by irony (considering his Viet Nam-era absenteeism). Nor did he seem to appreciate the hypocrisy in his appeal to "those considering a military career". From there, his sales pitch sank into television-commercial hyperbole when he lathered on the "there is no higher calling than service in our armed forces" and "freedom and greatness" rhetoric.

I even felt a wash of embarrassment for Bush as he plunged into his "We'll fight them..." patter; to his immediate audience members, who face a 1 in 100 chance of violent death within days in Iraq, it must have been surprising news indeed that he intended to participate in combat for the first time in his life -- of the sort that doesn't involve sucker-punching opponents in a game or drunkenly mowing down shrubbery.

But say what you will about their career choice, most American soldiers are pretty damned savvy and have sharp instincts. His speech was met with an eerie, dead silence, and it began to unnerve him, as you could see from the display of the whites of his eyes and the rise in his shoulders as the talk progressed. Bush isn't used to his calculated "Yankee Doodle Dandy" song-and-dance routine not eliciting thunderous applause, and it rattled him. I couldn't help but wonder how many in the audience were thinking resentfully about his campaign's smear of real war heroes like John Kerry, Max Cleland and John McCain.

But as ABC chief White House correspondent Terry Moran reported, White House staffers rescued his ego yet again, playing the part of clappeurs, finally goading the soldiers into the first smattering of applause 20 minutes into Bush's speech.

Right wing talking heads dutifully interpreted the lack of enthusiasm as soldiers simply obeying prior orders to show restraint, but such an explanation presumes a rather insulting lack of even elementary judgement on the part of the audience.

Bush's emotional disconnect became most glaringly, scarily obvious when he used such words as "the war on terror" or "our enemies are brutal" with a happy grin. It was what poker experts call a "tell", a visual signal (like a protruding tongue after a lie), that reveals an opponent's inner reality. This war, indeed this OFFICE, is like a game of cowboys and indians to a boy who never grew up. Tragically and fittingly, the day he must grow up is rapidly approaching.

Throughout the speech, you can see Bush's belief in his superiority, his sense of entitlement. It underscores how, centuries past the inception of the Magna Carta, British common law and the Constitution, we still haven't evolved significantly in the arena of social enlightenment: as always, there are those born believing -- or being told to believe -- it is their role to serve their "betters" by tending the lawns, cleaning the bed linens, mopping the floors and dying in agony and fear in strange, hostile lands, while others are born believing it is their God-given destiny to live lives of leisure and ease while sending members of the underclass to their deaths.

But there was desperation too:

"We are prevailing," he lied baldly. And: "the best way to honor the lives that have been given in this struggle is to complete the mission", which of course is just the simple utilitarian rationalization that "since we've already killed so many, it would be a waste if we didn't win."

This was followed up with "there is no higher calling than service in our armed forces." Which is, of course why so MANY in his cabinet served.

"The liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq will be remembered as great turning points in the story of freedom," he continued. At this point, such an outcome looks delusionally unlikely; odds are this period will be remembered as the dark time when America lost its course.

There was, however, one pitiful, damning glimpse of humanity at the very end of his speech, when Bush finally broke down, declaring that, "dammit, they CAIN'T beat our team". His face crumpled and he held back tears, but was rescued at last by glorious, redemptive applause. This is a man who desperately needs America to prevail in Iraq. The consequences of defeat would be horrible for him -- an eternal, unremitting destruction of pride that would follow him to his grave.

For a man like Bush, the Christian vision of roasting in Hell would be a comparative picnic.

Quote of the Day: The surest cure for vanity is loneliness. ~Thomas Wolfe