Good morning from mentally ill headquarters located in Vancouver’s sunny Downtown Lower Eastside. Here at MI HQ we do our best to cover the day’s events from the perspective of the mentally ill prior to our mid afternoon tee-off times (and to think there was a time when I was younger that I had a 15 handicap – just ask Salros).

Painting 2 Billion People With A Single Brush

Sheldon Richman of The Future Of Freedom Foundation penned a piece yesterday entitled Why the Peaceful Majority of Muslims Are Not Irrelevant, something that every hack out there that loves to employ the term ‘Islamofascism’ should read (not that it would make a ton of difference)…

“A few years ago, FrontPageMag.com columnist Paul Marek wrote an article titled “Why the Peaceful Majority Is Irrelevant.” His thesis was that even if the majority of Muslims abhor violence, it doesn’t matter because “the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history…. The hard quantifiable fact is, that the ‘peaceful majority’ is the ‘silent majority’ and it is cowed and extraneous.”

For Marek, the upshot is this: “We must pay attention to the only group that counts: the fanatics who threaten our way of life.”

He’s wrong. No, he’s worse than wrong, because his position could be used to justify mass murder.

Marek and those who have applauded his column point out that most Germans and Japanese during World War II were not warmongers, but warmongers controlled policymaking. The implication is that the United States was right to regard the peaceful majority as nonexistent. That’s exactly what the Allies did. Under Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Winston Churchill hundreds of thousands of German and Japanese civilians were targeted and killed in bombings that had no direct relationship to military objectives. Most people consider this morally defensible. It’s regarded as a normal part of war, although it violates traditional just-war doctrine. But why isn’t it understood to be mass murder? Marek’s answer would be that, since the peaceful majority did nothing to stop the warmongering minority, the majority — men, women, and children — were fair game.

This dubious principle has been applied to the Middle East: If the majority are peaceful, why don’t its members speak out — and act — against the radical minority? Since they don’t, “we” have the right to ignore them when “we” devise strategy and tactics to defend “ourselves.” If they die or otherwise suffer in the attacks, they have only themselves or the radical minority to blame. This principle goes beyond chalking up the deaths of innocents to “collateral damage,” because it suggests that no one is truly innocent.”

I invite you to read Paul Marek’s original piece written in 2006 published by FrontPage Magazine. When doing so, for the sake of ‘objectivity’, keep in mind that FrontPage Magazine is the anti-Islamic propaganda brainchild of David Horowitz. Beyond that, read the piece and then read Richmond’s article in full and decide for yourself which is the more intelligent and well rounded argument.

Photoshop, Not Just For Graphic Designers

Wired Magazine points out that some of the images used to bolster anti-Russian sentiment during its recent conflict with Georgia were tampered with by an Associated Press photographer. The AP has denied the accusations.

Again, read the article and come to your own conclusions.

Poland And Black Sites

When news first broke that the United States had been using secret locations in Europe to hold and interrogate detainees illegally rendered to them, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice scoffed at the assertion. Of course, as time passed, it became clear that her rejection of the idea was little more than hot air.

Yesterday’s Telegraph contains an explosive article pertaining to the uncovering of evidence that numerous key Polish Cabinet Ministers knew of the existence of a CIA Black Site in the country…

“A Polish radio station has claimed that prosecutors possess a 2006 report confirming the jail’s existence, written by Roman Giertych, a cabinet minister in Poland’s previous government, who was then head of a committee monitoring the secret services.

The station, Radio Zet, says that at least two ministers, including then justice minister, Zbigniew Ziobro, saw the report.

The revelations have been supported by similar claims by one of Poland’s most respected newspapers. Gazeta Wyborcza says that it has seen a document, possessed by prosecutors, proving the existence of a key CIA centre in Poland, which was set up under a secret Polish-US agreement in 2002.

The paper adds that the secret service presented the report to Poland’s then chief prosecutor, Janusz Kaczmarek and two ministers in 2006. Mr Kaczmarek confirmed he met the ministers but has refused to disclose what was discussed.

Prosecutors began their probe under orders from Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, in order to investigate persistent accusations that Szymany, an air force base in north-east Poland, was the location of a key centre in US’s campaign against terrorist networks.

They are also investigating claims that US interrogators used practices such as water-boarding, regarded by many as torture, in Poland.”

I would imagine that, somewhere out there, there are articles that contradict this. If you can find them, feel free to post them in the comments.

George Tenet.

Whenever I write or hear that name one word comes to mind – scapegoat. Not surprisingly, it seems that the CIA’s former clandestine service chief, Jose Rodriguez, might not be in the mood to join Tenet in that distinction.

Rodriguez, on whose watch the now infamous CIA tapes were destroyed, has indicated that might be willing to cut an immunity deal regarding his upcoming testimony in front of the House Intelligence Committee.

So the question has to be asked – what damaging information does Rodriguez possess that would push him to consider such a deal? Even more, was Rodriguez even directly involved in the decision making process or did he simply follow orders? And if so, then what was on the tapes that was so damaging that it prompted members of the administration to seek their destruction?

From the Times Online…

“The House intelligence committee has subpoenaed Rodriguez to appear for a hearing on January 16. Last week the CIA began opening its files to congressional investigators. Silvestre Reyes, a Democrat who is chairing the committee, has said he was “not looking for scapegoats” – a hint to Rodriguez that he would like him to talk.

Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer, believes the scandal could reach deep into the White House. “The CIA and Jose Rodriguez look bad, but he’s probably the least culpable person in the process. He didn’t wake up one day and decide, ‘I’m going to destroy these tapes.’ He checked with a lot of people and eventually he is going to get his say.”

Johnson says Rodriguez got his fingers burnt during the Iran-contra scandal while working for the CIA in Latin America in the 1980s. Even then he sought authorisation from senior officials. But when summoned to the FBI for questioning, he was told Iran-contra was “political – get your own lawyer”.

He learnt his lesson and recently appointed Robert Bennett, one of Washington’s most skilled lawyers, to handle the case of the destroyed interrogation tapes. “He has been starting to get his story out and was smart to get Bennett,” said Johnson.”

Ron Suskind’s book The One Percent Doctrine includes FBI sources that claim that the individual interrogated on the tapes, Abu Zubaydah, was…

“…mentally unstable and tangential to Al-Qaeda’s plots, and that he gave reams of unfounded information under torture - information that led law-enforcement bodies in the US to raise terror alert levels, rushing marshals and police to shopping malls, bridges and other alleged targets as Zubaydah tried to get the torture to stop. No one disputes that Zubaydah wrote a diary - and that it was written in the words of three personalities, none of them his own.

A former FBI agent who was involved in the interrogation, Daniel Coleman, said last week that the CIA knew Al-Qaeda’s leaders all believed Zubaydah “was crazy, and they knew he was always on the damn phone. You think they’re going to tell him anything?” Even though preliminary, legal interrogation gave the US good - though not unique - information, the CIA still asked for and received permission to torture him in pursuit of more data and leads.”

That, right there, may very well be the reason why the tapes were destroyed – because they contained evidence that the intelligence gleaned from Zubaydah’s torture was baseless and that the administration acted on it despite that fact for their own ends.

In the end, fear is a powerful tool. Even if it’s baseless. Better yet, especially if it’s baseless.

Since the scandal involving the destruction of CIA tapes surfaced I have been trying to compile information regarding it. I have, thus far, made a few entries regarding the issue, but wanted to delve further into it having found some very interesting information.

First, Michael Ratner, the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and noted human rights lawyer, has made numerous points regarding the tapes that are of value. The first is actual quite simple. If the CIA was worried that the tapes could expose who was involved in the interrogations, as they’ve stated, they could have simply digitally pixilated out the faces of those involved, a procedure that is, by no means, complicated.

The second is that the only reason to actually destroy the tapes is to conceal the methods used in the interrogation process; that much, I believe, is evident. If the tapes showed acts of torture, it would violate the United States Anti-Torture Statue, and those responsible could be prosecuted under that law and face penalties – including everyone knowingly involved in initiating the policy itself. Being that the United States does not adhere to the authority of the International Criminal Court regarding such matters, the only legal hurdle left to face would be the US’s own Anti-Torture Statute.

Now, as many of you are aware, an ex-CIA agent, John Kiriakou, recently conducted several interviews about the tapes and the methods used during the interrogations. Being that he is no longer a member of the Central Intelligence Agency, to reveal that information Kiriakou would have had to have gone through a Clearance Review to be able to reveal that waterboarding was in fact used as a method of interrogation. In essence, the Central Intelligence Agency would have had to clear it before Kiriakou was able to discuss the issue. Interestingly, the CIA has now asked the US Justice Department to investigate whether Kiriakou illegally disclosed classified information.

Given that, the CIA has done at least one of two things.

The first is that it has all but admitted that the United States employs waterboarding as a interrogation technique, not to mention the fact that it did so at a Black Site, being that the tapes were not made at Guantanamo or any other known facility that the CIA has been willing to openly admit to.

The second, and this is speculation on my part, though not out of the realm of possibility, is that it quietly approved Kiriakou’s public admission to protect itself.

Now, that might sound absurd to some of you, but the history of the CIA as it pertains to its relationships with those administrations that have abused it should not be overlooked. In truth, it works both ways. The CIA has also been responsible for manipulating administrative policy in the past, there’s no question of that, especially during the Dulles era. But in this case, the CIA might very well be attempting to forgo being scapegoated by placing the blame where the blame actually lies – on the administration itself. The very same administration that has worked diligently to categorize waterboarding as a procedure that does not constitute torture.

The most telling piece of evidence that supports this theory is that four members of the Bush administration openly discussed the destruction of the tapes with the CIA between 2003 and 2005. The four individuals, Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, John Bellinger, and Harriet Miers, had foreknowledge of the tapes contents, and their role in discussing the destruction of the tapes not only underscores the administration’s involvement in the creation of interrogation policy itself, but that it played a role in willingly covering up evidence that demonstrated its criminality.

Also of import is that fact that the 9/11 Commission made repeated requests to the CIA for all materials regarding the interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects. Such material would have included the tapes in question, which were not made available to the Commission. This, of course, brings into question the CIA’s motives for not supplying the tapes to the Commission. Was it at the behest of the administration? Were the tapes ultimately destroyed because their content, in the hands of the Commission, would have been disastrous for the administration? The Commission asked the CIA for all documents, reports, and information regarding interrogation in 2003 and 2004. Of course, by 2004 the Abu Ghraib scandal had broke, so handing over tapes that showed US operatives torturing an individual would have certainly been a political risk not worth taking. Thus, in 2004, the CIA claimed that it had, in fact, handed over all relevant materials to the Commission. The tapes, of course, were not.

Some in Congress are now claiming that the CIA is guilty of obstruction of justice. Backed into a corner, the question that must now be asked is if the CIA will fight back, and by doing so work to turn the tables on an administration that has abused it for the last five years.

The White House hasn’t commented directly about the ongoing scandal regarding the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes, but it did comment on an article in today’s New York Times which asserts…

“At least four top White House lawyers took part in discussions with the Central Intelligence Agency between 2003 and 2005 about whether to destroy videotapes showing the secret interrogations of two operatives from Al Qaeda, according to current and former administration and intelligence officials.

The accounts indicate that the involvement of White House officials in the discussions before the destruction of the tapes in November 2005 was more extensive than Bush administration officials have acknowledged.

Those who took part, the officials said, included Alberto R. Gonzales, who served as White House counsel until early 2005; David S. Addington, who was the counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney and is now his chief of staff; John B. Bellinger III, who until January 2005 was the senior lawyer at the National Security Council; and Harriet E. Miers, who succeeded Mr. Gonzales as White House counsel.”

The White House has called the article “pernicious”, claiming that the Times should correct assertions that the administration hid facts. The administration has also been leaning on Congress and the courts to “back off”, claiming that the courts do not have the authority to get involved. In most cases it has succeeded, but one U.S. Federal Judge, Henry H. Kennedy, recently asserted that the government must answer questions about the destruction of the tapes. Kennedy was the same judge that ordered the administration in 2005 to ensure the safety of “all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees” at the US detention facility at Guantanamo.

The tapes, which showed the interrogations of two al-Qaeda suspects, were not made at the US detention facility at Guantanamo, a fact that government attorneys claim renders Kennedy’s 2005 order moot.

The CIA has claimed that it destroyed the tapes to protect the identities of the interrogators, even though one of them has since come forward and done a television interview about his role in the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, claiming that vital intelligence was gleaned from the interrogation that ultimately helped disrupt significant terror activities. But because the tapes were destroyed, only the CIA and, by extension, the administration, knows whether the intelligence acquired was significantly actionable.

Loopholes. In this particular case, I’ve been sitting here shaking my head for the past half hour because it doesn’t get any more mind boggling than this. Follow the handy graphic created for your enjoyment…

That’s right, cherubs. In the end, a legal ambiguity might excuse the destruction of the tapes because the interrogations captured on video were conducted at locations that the United States adamantly refused to admit existed until the EU launched an official investigation into the existence of Black Sites in Eastern Europe. Of course, that doesn’t mean that they were limited to Eastern Europe, just that the exposure of the system occurred because of those particular locations. In truth, if you do a little digging, you’ll discover that, beyond the use of foreign destinations for purposes of Rendition, Black Sites have existed, or continue to exist, in Africa (Ethiopia is suspected of being one of the latest locales), the Middle East, South East Asia, and in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ironically, it wasn’t too long ago that Condoleezza Rice was denying their existence. Now they may very well provide the thinnest of legal loopholes and offer the CIA, and the administration, a rabbit hole to conveniently fall down.

The overthrow of the ICU in Somalia was AFRICOM’s first challenge. Using Ethiopia as a military proxy, and backing their initial invasion of Somalia with air strikes and the insertion of special forces teams, the United States helped plunge Somalia back into a state of chaos that has resulted in a crisis that is being compared to that of Darfur.

The justification for their direction of the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia was that several members of the ICU had ties to al-Qaeda. The ICU’s implementation of Sharia law concerned the United States (who, ironically, has no qualms about its existence in Saudia Arabia), even though in the case of Mogadishu it provided stability where none had existed for more than a decade, with many Somalis, for the first time in a very long time, openly confessing that despite its implementation they were content to have a governing body in place that could provide stability. The US reaction, of course, was one that lent on the possible evolution of a terror-state governed by such a body.

What has occurred in Somalia since has gone largely under reported, and the situation there has become catastrophic in scope. From today’s New York Times…

“The worst humanitarian crisis in Africa may not be unfolding in Darfur, but here, along a 20-mile strip of busted-up asphalt, several top United Nations officials said.

A year ago, the road between the market town of Afgooye and the capital of Mogadishu was just another typical Somali byway, lined with overgrown cactuses and the occasional bullet-riddled building. Now it is a corridor teeming with misery, with 200,000 recently displaced people crammed into swelling camps that are rapidly running out of food.

Natheefa Ali, who trudged up this road a week ago to escape the bloodbath that Mogadishu has turned into, said Monday that her 10-month-old baby was so malnourished she could not swallow.

“Look,” Ms. Natheefa said, pointing to her daughter’s splotchy legs, “her skin is falling off, too.”

Top United Nations officials who specialize in Somalia said the country had higher malnutrition rates, more current bloodshed and fewer aid workers than Darfur, which is often publicized as the world’s most pressing humanitarian crisis and has taken clear priority in terms of getting peacekeepers and aid money.

The relentless urban combat in Mogadishu, between an unpopular transitional government — installed partially with American help — and a determined Islamist insurgency, has driven waves of desperate people up the Afgooye road, where more than 70 camps of twigs and plastic have popped up seemingly overnight.

The people here are hungry, exposed, sick and dying. And the few aid organizations willing to brave a lawless, notoriously dangerous environment cannot keep up with their needs, like providing milk to the thousands of babies with fading heartbeats and bulging eyes. “Many of these kids are going to die,” said Eric Laroche, the head of United Nations humanitarian operations in Somalia. “We don’t have the capacity to reach them.”

He added: “If this were happening in Darfur, there would be a big fuss. But Somalia has been a forgotten emergency for years.”

The officials working on Somalia are trying to draw more attention to the country’s plight, which they feel has fallen into Darfur’s shadow. They have recently organized several trips, including one on Monday, for journalists to see for themselves.

“The situation in Somalia is the worst on the continent,” said Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the top United Nations official for Somalia.

That situation has included floods, droughts, locusts, suicide bombers, roadside bombs and near-daily assassinations.

United Nations officials said the recent round of plagues, natural and man-made, coupled with the residual chaos that has consumed Somalia for more than a decade, have put the country on the brink of famine. In the worst-hit areas, like Afgooye, recent surveys indicate the malnutrition rate is 19 percent, compared with about 13 percent in Darfur; 15 percent is considered the emergency threshold.

The officials, in making the comparison, were not trying to diminish the problems in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have died from violence and disease since 2003. But they said they were concerned that the crisis here was increasingly urgent.

Unlike Darfur, where the suffering is being eased by a billion-dollar aid operation and more than 10,000 aid workers, Somalia is still considered mostly a no-go zone. Just last week, a Somali aid worker and a guard were shot to death at an aid distribution center in Afgooye. United Nations officials estimate that total emergency aid is under $200 million, partly because it is so difficult just getting food into the country.

Pirates lurking off the coast of Somalia have attacked more than 20 ships this year, including two carrying United Nations food. The militias that rule the streets — typically teenage gunmen in wraparound sunglasses and flip-flops — have jacked up roadblock taxes to $400 per truck. The transitional government last month jailed a senior official of the United Nations food program in Somalia, accusing him of helping terrorists, though he was eventually released.”

“Installed partially with American help”. Now there’s an understatement.

This passage, though, is rather telling…

“United Nations officials now concede that the country was in better shape during the brief reign of Somalia’s Islamist movement last year. “It was more peaceful, and much easier for us to work,” Mr. Laroche said. “The Islamists didn’t cause us any problems.”

Off The Books

Since the US backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, the United States has been gifted use of notorious Ethiopian jails to house and question detainees, despite the fact that they have been afforded the ability to conveniently claim that such individuals are not technically in US custody…

“Ethiopia, which denies holding secret prisoners, is a country with a long history of human rights abuses. In recent years, it has also been a key U.S. ally in the fight against al-Qaida, which has been trying to sink roots among Muslims in the Horn of Africa.

U.S. government officials contacted by AP acknowledged questioning prisoners in Ethiopia. But they said American agents were following the law and were fully justified in their actions because they are investigating past attacks and current threats of terrorism.

The prisoners were never in American custody, said an FBI spokesman, Richard Kolko, who denied the agency would support or be party to illegal arrests. He said U.S. agents were allowed limited access by governments in the Horn of Africa to question prisoners as part of the FBI’s counter-terrorism work.

Western security officials, who insisted on anonymity because the issue related to security matters, told AP that among those held were well-known suspects with strong links to al-Qaida.

But some U.S. allies have expressed consternation at the transfers to the prisons. One Western diplomat in Nairobi, who agreed to speak to AP only if not quoted to avoid angering U.S. officials, said he sees the United States as playing a guiding role in the operation.

John Sifton, a Human Rights Watch expert on counter-terrorism, went further. He said in an e-mail that the United States has acted as “ringleader” in what he labeled a “decentralized, outsourced Guantanamo.”

Details of the arrests, transfers and interrogations slowly emerged as AP and human rights groups investigated the disappearances, diplomats tracked their missing citizens and the first detainees to be released told their stories.

One investigator from an international human rights group, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak to the media, said Ethiopia had secret jails at three locations: Addis Ababa, the capital; an Ethiopian air base 37 miles east of the capital; and the far eastern desert close to the Somali border.”

As an added tidbit, it should also come as no surprise that Ethiopia is believed to be the country in which AFRICOM’s headquarters are located.

It’s been a question in the US for some time now – is waterboarding a form of torture? The Bush administration claims that it isn’t. The former US Attorney General claimed that it wasn’t. The newly confirmed US Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, claimed that he wasn’t even aware of what it was during his confirmation hearing – and this is a man that has presided over several high-profile terror trials.

In truth, waterboarding is a practice that dates back centuries, to the Spanish Inquisition in fact, if not before. The Gestapo and the Japanese used it during the Second World War – bizarrely, it was, at that time, considered a form of torture. The practice involves the simulation of drowning a person in hopes of eliciting information. Of course, as countless studies have shown, the use of torture doesn’t commonly result in the production of useful information, rather anything that will simply make the torture of that person stop. The results of waterboarding are no different.

Despite the current ambiguity of the US position regarding its use, not to mention how those being waterboarded have been legally classified, the practice is in direct contravention of the Geneva Conventions, to which the United States claims to subscribe. At least, that is, when it suits them.

Put another way – were an American operative to be, for example, captured inside Iran and waterboarded by the Iranians, how do you think it would then be defined by the United States? As torture? Or just a routine part of questioning? According to Senator John McCain, who is a Republican Presidential hopeful, and also spent years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, waterboarding is a form of torture. In fact, he claimed it to be “no different than holding a pistol to his head and firing a blank”.

Let’s take a look at a little history regarding the United States and waterboarding courtesy of the Washington Post…

“On Jan. 21, 1968, The Washington Post published a front-page photograph of a U.S. soldier supervising the questioning of a captured North Vietnamese soldier who is being held down as water was poured on his face while his nose and mouth were covered by a cloth. The picture, taken four days earlier near Da Nang, had a caption that said the technique induced “a flooding sense of suffocation and drowning, meant to make him talk.”

The article said the practice was “fairly common” in part because “those who practice it say it combines the advantages of being unpleasant enough to make people talk while still not causing permanent injury.”

The picture reportedly led to an Army investigation.

Twenty-one years earlier, in 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk.

“Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) told his colleagues last Thursday during the debate on military commissions legislation. “We punished people with 15 years of hard labor when waterboarding was used against Americans in World War II,” he said.

A CIA interrogation training manual declassified 12 years ago, “KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation — July 1963,” outlined a procedure similar to waterboarding. Subjects were suspended in tanks of water wearing blackout masks that allowed for breathing. Within hours, the subjects felt tension and so-called environmental anxiety. “Providing relief for growing discomfort, the questioner assumes a benevolent role,” the manual states.

The KUBARK manual was the product of more than a decade of research and testing, refining lessons learned from the Korean War, where U.S. airmen were subjected to a new type of “touchless torture” until they confessed to a bogus plan to use biological weapons against the North Koreans.

Used to train new interrogators, the handbook presented “basic information about coercive techniques available for use in the interrogation situation.” When it comes to torture, however, the handbook advised that “the threat to inflict pain . . . can trigger fears more damaging than the immediate sensation of pain.”

In the post-Vietnam period, the Navy SEALs and some Army Special Forces used a form of waterboarding with trainees to prepare them to resist interrogation if captured. The waterboarding proved so successful in breaking their will, says one former Navy captain familiar with the practice, “they stopped using it because it hurt morale.”

Torture is not alone defined by the physical abuse of a person. It is defined as the conduct of an individual with the intent of imposing great physical or mental suffering or anxiety on another. Note that ‘mental suffering or anxiety’ is also included in the definition.

For those that don’t think that this is a serious issue, former Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld might disagree…

“October 26, 2007, Paris, France – Today, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) along with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), and the French League for Human Rights (LDH) filed a complaint with the Paris Prosecutor before the “Court of First Instance” (Tribunal de Grande Instance) charging former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with ordering and authorizing torture. Rumsfeld was in Paris for a talk sponsored by Foreign Policy magazine.

“The filing of this French case against Rumsfeld demonstrates that we will not rest until those U.S. officials involved in the torture program are brought to justice. Rumsfeld must understand that he has no place to hide. A torturer is an enemy of all humankind,” said CCR President Michael Ratner.

“France is under the obligation to investigate and prosecute Rumsfeld’s accountability for crimes of torture in Guantanamo and Iraq. France has no choice but to open an investigation if an alleged torturer is on its territory. I hope that the fight against impunity will not be sacrificed in the name of politics. We call on France to refuse to be a safe haven for criminals.” said FIDH President Souhayr Belhassen.

“We want to combat impunity and therefore demand a judicial investigation and a criminal prosecution wherever there is jurisdiction over the torture incidents,” said ECCHR General Secretary Wolfgang Kaleck.

“That a criminal State representative should benefit from impunity is always unacceptable. Because the USA is the super power of the beginning of this century and, above all, because it is a democracy, the impunity of Donald Rumsfeld is even more insufferable than that of a Hissène Habré or a Radovan Karadzic”, underlined Jean-Pierre Dubois, LDH President.”

The irony, of course, is that even though Mr. Rumsfeld is no longer a member of the US government, were he to actually be arrested in France or Germany - where such charges have been filed - the reaction of the United States would be swift and severe. Of course, Mr. Sarkozy’s government would never tolerate it for obvious political reasons, which, to me, is simply aiding and abetting after the fact. Donald Rumsfeld is a private citizen now, not a member of government, and thus, in France, not to mention Canada, subject to laws pertaining to war crimes.

Unfortunately, when you were once a member of the government of the world’s foremost military power, one that refuses to recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court to spare its own from criminal prosecution, there’s little chance that you’ll ever be faced with answering for anything.

But that is not to say that there aren’t those in the United States that completely disagree with the government’s position on waterboarding – only that if they happen to be in a position to have their opinion heard at the federal level they’re simply shuffled off.

In 2004, acting assistant attorney general Daniel Levin was so concerned about the waterboarding issued that he volunteered to undergo the procedure so that he could experience it for himself. And while he knew that he would not die, and that nothing harmful would be allowed to happen to him, he claimed after the fact that the procedure ‘clearly simulated drowning’. While working on a memo regarding tighter controls being implemented over interrogation techniques, Levin was dismissed when Alberto Gonzales was appointed Attorney General…

The horrible truth is that the issue of waterboarding is simply the tip of the iceberg. In comparison to the abuse suffered by those that have been rendered by the United States to countries in which torture practices are commonplace, or to security forces who are known to torture, waterboarding may be the least of their concerns. What occurs at the hands of others has been reported at being worse in many cases, and as far as Black Sites are concerned, what occurs at them remains a mystery.

First, from The Village Voice via Roy. The ‘if and when’ is certainly little more than an extremely hopeful ‘if’, but…

“If and when there’s the equivalent of an international Nuremberg trial for the American perpetrators of crimes against humanity in Guantánamo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the CIA’s secret prisons, there will be mounds of evidence available from documented international reports by human-rights organizations, including an arm of the European parliament—as well as such deeply footnoted books as Stephen Grey’s Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program (St. Martin’s Press) and Charlie Savage’s just-published Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy (Little, Brown).

While the Democratic Congress has yet to begin a serious investigation into what many European legislators already know about American war crimes, a particularly telling report by the International Committee of the Red Cross has been leaked that would surely figure prominently in such a potential Nuremberg trial. The Red Cross itself is bound to public silence concerning the results of its human-rights probes of prisons around the world—or else governments wouldn’t let them in.

But The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer has sources who have seen accounts of the Red Cross interviews with inmates formerly held in CIA secret prisons. In “The Black Sites” (August 13, The New Yorker), Mayer also reveals the effect on our torturers of what they do—on the orders of the president—to “protect American values.”

She quotes a former CIA officer: “When you cross over that line of darkness, it’s hard to come back. You lose your soul. You can do your best to justify it, but . . . you can’t go back to that dark a place without it changing you.”

Few average Americans have been changed, however, by what the CIA does in our name. Blame that on the tight official secrecy that continues over how the CIA extracts information. On July 20, the Bush administration issued a new executive order authorizing the CIA to continue using these techniques—without disclosing anything about them.

If we, the people, are ultimately condemned by a world court for our complicity and silence in these war crimes, we can always try to echo those Germans who claimed not to know what Hitler and his enforcers were doing. But in Nazi Germany, people had no way of insisting on finding out what happened to their disappeared neighbors.

We, however, have the right and the power to insist that Congress discover and reveal the details of the torture and other brutalities that the CIA has been inflicting in our name on terrorism suspects.

Only one congressman, Oregon’s Democratic senator Ron Wyden, has insisted on probing the legality of the CIA’s techniques—so much so that Wyden has blocked the appointment of Bush’s nominee, John Rizzo, from becoming the CIA’s top lawyer. Rizzo, a CIA official since 2002, has said publicly that he didn’t object to the Justice Department’s 2002 “torture” memos, which allowed the infliction of pain unless it caused such injuries as “organ failure . . . or even death.” (Any infliction of pain up to that point was deemed not un-American.) Mr. Rizzo would make a key witness in any future Nuremberg trial.”

Of course, the probability of such a trial occurring is entirely remote. If the United States can refuse an extradition request by the Italians with regards to 26 members of the CIA indicted in the abduction and rendition of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr to Egypt, where he was tortured, then what real power will any international body have with regards to bringing anyone else to trial?

The United States opted out of the ICC for a reason, and it wasn’t simply to ‘protect’ US soldiers from the legal scrutiny of international criminal bodies, but very likely those that implemented policy as well.

As some of you are aware, former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, might have trouble vacationing in Germany for some time, after a lawsuit was brought against him, and 13 others, by a Berlin based lawyer for the violation of international law and the UN Convention Against Torture.

The truth of the matter is that a nation as militarily powerful as the United States will never be brought to justice for its crimes, even if American forces abandon Iraq in the years to come, which I doubt will ever happen on permanent basis, and the war itself is viewed as a loss. Even more, that after such an outcome occurred, that evidence of widespread criminality began to surface that exposed crimes that had, until that point, not been wholly revealed.

Even if some future government of Iraq were to move to take action in an international court, or a similar lawsuit was filed by Iraqis with regards to the abuse of international law and the UN Convention Against Torture, what would the outcome really be? That those responsible would be handed over? Hardly.

It’s important to remember that Nuremburg took place because Germany was decimated and its leadership had been captured. They hadn’t the ability to simply refuse to be tried because they were in the custody of those trying them. With regards to Iraq, Guantanamo, rendition, and practices at US Black Sites, that will never be the case because the United States will not find itself in the same position – to have no other recourse but to face the scrutiny of an international legal body. They will simply ignore it, passing it off as ridiculous, which is something that lends credence to just how damaging the Bush Doctrine has been, not to mention how its implementation as official US foreign policy will affect administrations to come.

No, there will be no justice for those seeking it with regards to the United States, nor do I believe that the next administration, Congress, or the people themselves, will really seek to hold accountable those that have been responsible for making the United States the most feared nation on the planet – even more so than terrorist organizations according to international polls.

Might makes right. And the mighty, in their time of unchallenged superiority, never forget it.

To put it another way – from today’s New York Times…

“Newly released documents regarding crimes committed by United States soldiers against civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan detail a pattern of troops failing to understand and follow the rules that govern interrogations and deadly actions.

The documents, released today by the American Civil Liberties Union ahead of a lawsuit, total nearly 10,000 pages of courts-martial summaries, transcripts and military investigative reports about 22 cases. They show repeated examples of troops believing they were within the law when they killed local citizens.

The killings include the drowning of a man soldiers pushed from a bridge into the Tigris River as punishment for breaking curfew, and the suffocation during interrogation of a former Iraqi general believed to be helping insurgents.

In the suffocation, soldiers covered the man’s head with a sleeping bag, then wrapped his neck with an electrical cord for a “stress position” they said was an approved technique.

Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer was convicted of negligent homicide in the death of Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush after a January 2006 court-martial that received wide attention because of possible C.I.A. involvement in the interrogation.

But even after his conviction, Mr. Welshofer insisted his actions were appropriate and standard, documents show.

“The simple fact of the matter is, interrogation is supposed to be stressful or you will get no information,” he wrote in a letter to the court asking for clemency. “To put it another way, an interrogation without stress is not an interrogation — it is a conversation.”

There’s nothing worse than someone you helped into power contradicting you. While President Bush has hailed progress in Afghanistan, it’s leader, President Hamid Karzai, had some choice words about Iran prior to the two meeting that were very interesting. From Agence France Presse…

“Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a key US ally, contradicted US assessments of the threat posed by Iran and insisted in an interview aired Sunday that Tehran played a beneficial role in his region. “So far, Iran has been a helper and a solution,” Karzai told CNN on the eve of a visit here Sunday to meet with President George W. Bush for talks on the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan.

“Iran has been a supporter of Afghanistan, in the peace process that we have and the fight against terror, and the fight against narcotics in Afghanistan,” said Karzai, who became president with US backing in 2002.

His remarks differed markedly from the US stance, which sees Iran as a major menace that bankrolls terrorists, supplies arms to insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq, and seeks to develop nuclear weapons.”

Now – who to believe? Someone pull out the magic eight ball.

Karzai also commented on the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, remarking…

“We are not closer, we are not further away from it,” Karzai said ahead of his two-day summit with President Bush at Camp David, Md. “We are where we were a few years ago.”

There is, of course, the possibility that Bin Laden has a much more powerful magic eight ball. Either that or the invasion of Iraq was so detrimental to the operation to kill or capture him that his continued ability to elude capture is primarily based on the fact that it has become far less of a priority, a revelation that, if true, is rather stunning being that this entire mess began with the notion of neutralizing him following 9/11.

Jane Mayer’s recent piece in The New Yorker entitled The Black Sites
A rare look inside the C.I.A.’s secret interrogation program is worth the read. An excerpt…

“The circumstances surrounding the confession of Mohammed, whom law-enforcement officials refer to as K.S.M., were perplexing. He had no lawyer. After his capture in Pakistan, in March of 2003, the Central Intelligence Agency had detained him in undisclosed locations for more than two years; last fall, he was transferred to military custody in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. There were no named witnesses to his initial confession, and no solid information about what form of interrogation might have prodded him to talk, although reports had been published, in the Times and elsewhere, suggesting that C.I.A. officers had tortured him. At a hearing held at Guantánamo, Mohammed said that his testimony was freely given, but he also indicated that he had been abused by the C.I.A. (The Pentagon had classified as “top secret” a statement he had written detailing the alleged mistreatment.) And although Mohammed said that there were photographs confirming his guilt, U.S. authorities had found none. Instead, they had a copy of the video that had been released on the Internet, which showed the killer’s arms but offered no other clues to his identity.”

When you possess the ability to destroy the world, you possess the ability to save it. If a singe submarine can be designed to carry a destructive payload that can effectively kill over 50 million people, then surely 50 million people can be fed, housed, and educated in its place.

These are truths, and ones that are only disregarded because of the lucrative nature of a world undone. Every stepping stone that has led us to this juncture in history has been worn down by the footsteps of not only those that we call enemies, but ourselves as well. With whom then does the responsibility rest to plant grass so that those stones are unearthed and cast aside? If the answer is no one, it would seem the ability to destroy the world is rather important after all.

I made mention of the new US defense budget on July 22nd, but it’s official now – the House has approved a $460 billion dollar defense budget for the next fiscal year, though it should not be overlooked that that figure does not represent the addition of various supplementals which would bring the actual total to well over $600 billion dollars. One of the more interesting aspects of the bill is that, according to the Associated Press - “the bill contains a provision barring the establishment of permanent bases in Iraq.”

That, of course, will be believed when proven true beyond a shadow of a doubt, especially considering that it wasn’t long ago that Iraq was being compared to South Korea with regards to a model promoting a protracted US military presence. It has long been reported that the US has some 14 permanent military bases in Iraq in the works, so it will be interesting to see what becomes of them given that stipulation, or whether it is adhered to at all.

With regards to the defense budget itself, I feel no need to point out for the 1,000th time the disproportional enormity of it. Put into perspective, the next largest defense budget in the world, that being the defense budget of China, is roughly $60+ billion dollars, if not slightly more. The ‘Black Budget’, that which is given the CIA, and the use of which is not disclosed, should also be of concern given the need to now retool their global detention network since the publishing of Dick Marty’s report uncovering the complicity of various European nations in hosting US Black Sites and allowing rendition flights to pass through European airspace and utilize various airports. Given that, the creation of AFRICOM should be suspect given reports that the United States has started to use notorious jails in Ethiopia to detain and interrogate detainees from a variety of nations.

Also of note is the passing of a bill that will increase the powers of FISA, the foreign intelligence surveillance act, which has caused controversy in the past regarding its illegal use against American citizens. The bill passed in a 227-183 vote, with many Democrats conceding on the measure.