Cornerstones and Milestones

Thanks, Casey. Will do. Here's what The Guardian has to say about this...

Human rights campaigners are calling it the 'November surprise' - a last-minute amendment smuggled into a Pentagon finance bill in the US Senate last Thursday.

Its effects are likely to be devastating: the permanent removal of almost all legal rights from 'war on terror' detainees at Guantanamo Bay and every other similar US facility on foreign or American soil.

--snip--
The amendment was tabled by Lindsay Graham, a South Carolina Republican, and passed by 49 votes to 42. It reverses the Supreme Court's decision in June last year which affirmed the right of detainees to bring habeas corpus petitions in American federal courts.

As a result, about 200 of Guantanamo's 500 prisoners have filed such cases, many of them arguing that they are not terrorists, as the US authorities claim, and that the evidence against them is unreliable.

None of them were given any kind of hearing when they were consigned to Guantanamo. Instead, the Americans unilaterally declared they were unlawful 'enemy combatants', mostly on the basis of assessments by junior military intelligence personnel, who were often reliant on interpreters whose skills internal Pentagon reports have criticised.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1641703,00.html

Our federal government does not have the right to become judge, jury and executioner. We have seen a complete lack of accountability from this current administration for just about everything. The very foundations of this country are being eliminated by this same administration. It is time to fight back, our country is under attack from the right wing and they need to be stopped. Preserve the writ of habeus
corpus NOW!!!!!!

dialing as I write...

wait...I do not HAVE a Senator...

Today I will borrow Sen. Landrieu.

I may send her a copy of FEAR UP...

Posted by: Karen at November 14, 2005 10:08 AM

By rights, you should have two... Feel free to pick another one off the list above... ;)

(I've decided that I'll adopt the 5 Dem senators who helped this amendment pass for the day since my senators are almost always on the good side of our issues.)

OK, spoke with a young man at Sen. Landrieu's office and he will convey my request to her to consider voting FOR Sen. Bingaman's amendment to trip the bill of what she voted FOR last week.

202-224-5824 is the number...

Thank you Casey. I had been wondering what this vote was when I heard little bits and peices of it.

I will be calling right now!

I just spoke to Lieberman's press office to get an answer to one specific question.

In light of all the votes in this past year supporting the Republican and NeoCON agenda, is Senator Lieberman switching party affiliation?

(Keep in mind the press office is the only place allowed 'officially' to speak for any Senator...)

The Press office's response was, 'Senator Lieberman has always been a life-long Democrat. While admittedly he has crossed party votes lately, he has no intention of switching party affiliations. He still believes in the Democratic Party values."

Marjorie Cohn: Graham Amendment Invokes Constitutional Crisis
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111405Z.shtml

This isn't the real America
Jimmy Carter
11/14/05
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-carter14nov14,0,7164514.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

IN RECENT YEARS, I have become increasingly concerned by a host of radical government policies that now threaten many basic principles espoused by all previous administrations, Democratic and Republican.

[snip]

Instead of cherishing our role as the great champion of human rights, we now find civil liberties and personal privacy grossly violated under some extreme provisions of the Patriot Act.

Of even greater concern is that the U.S. has repudiated the Geneva accords and espoused the use of torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, and secretly through proxy regimes elsewhere with the so-called extraordinary rendition program. It is embarrassing to see the president and vice president insisting that the CIA should be free to perpetrate "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment" on people in U.S. custody.

Instead of reducing America's reliance on nuclear weapons and their further proliferation, we have insisted on our right (and that of others) to retain our arsenals, expand them, and therefore abrogate or derogate almost all nuclear arms control agreements negotiated during the last 50 years. We have now become a prime culprit in global nuclear proliferation. America also has abandoned the prohibition of "first use" of nuclear weapons against nonnuclear nations, and is contemplating the previously condemned deployment of weapons in space.

Protection of the environment has fallen by the wayside because of government subservience to political pressure from the oil industry and other powerful lobbying groups. The last five years have brought continued lowering of pollution standards at home and almost universal condemnation of our nation's global environmental policies.

Our government has abandoned fiscal responsibility by unprecedented favors to the rich, while neglecting America's working families. Members of Congress have increased their own pay by $30,000 per year since freezing the minimum wage at $5.15 per hour (the lowest among industrialized nations).

I am extremely concerned by a fundamentalist shift in many houses of worship and in government, as church and state have become increasingly intertwined in ways previously thought unimaginable.

As the world's only superpower, America should be seen as the unswerving champion of peace, freedom and human rights. Our country should be the focal point around which other nations can gather to combat threats to international security and to enhance the quality of our common environment. We should be in the forefront of providing human assistance to people in need.

It is time for the deep and disturbing political divisions within our country to be substantially healed, with Americans united in a common commitment to revive and nourish the historic political and moral values that we have espoused during the last 230 years.

CIA allegedly hid evidence of detainee torture: report Sun Nov 13, 4:43 PM ET

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051113/pl_afp/usattacksintelligence

CIA interrogators apparently tried to cover up the death of an Iraqi "ghost detainee" who died while being interrogated at Abu Ghraib prison, a US magazine reported, after obtaining hundreds of pages of documents, including an autopsy report, about the case.

The death of secret detainee Manadel al-Jamadi was ruled a homicide in a Defense Department autopsy, Time magazine reported, adding that documents it recently obtained included photographs of his battered body, which had been kept on ice to keep it from decomposing, apparently to conceal the circumstances of his death.

The details about his death emerge as US officials continue to debate congressional legislation to ban torture of foreign detainees by US troops overseas, and efforts by the George W. Bush administration to obtain an exemption for the CIA from any future torture ban.

Jamadi was abducted by US Navy Seals on November 4, 2003, on suspicion of harboring explosives and involvement in the bombing of a Red Cross center in Baghdad that killed 12 people, and was placed in Abu Ghraib as an unregistered detainee.

After some 90 minutes of interrogation by CIA officials, he died of "blunt force injuries" and "asphyxiation," according to the autopsy documents obtained by Time.

A forensic scientist who later reviewed the autopsy report told Time that the most likely cause of Jamadi's death was suffocation, which would have occurred when an empty sandbag was placed over his head while his arms were secured up and behind his back, in a crucifixion-like pose.

Blood was mopped up with a chlorine solution before the interrogation scene could be examined by an investigator, Time wrote, adding that after Jamadi's death, a bloodstained hood that had covered his head had disappeared.

Photos of grinning US soldiers crouching over Jamadi's corpse were among the disturbing images that emerged from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in 2004, prompting international outrage and internal US military investigations.

Last week, the New Yorker magazine reported that the US government's policies on interrogating terrorist suspects may preclude the prosecution of CIA agents who commit abuses or even kill detainees, and said the CIA had been implicated in the death of at least four detainees.

Mark Swanner, the CIA agent who interrogated Jamadi, has not been charged with a crime and continues to work for the agency, told investigators that he did not harm Jamadi, Time wrote.

I'm proud to say that Sen Bingham IS my Senator. Just called the local office (getting busy curcits when I tried to call Washington)
Caught the girl on the phone by surprise, but she said she would try to get back to me on which Senators Sen.Bingham would like us to target.

Anyone else having phone trouble?

Posted by: Fe at November 14, 2005 12:46 PM

I watched the Jimmy Carter interview with Larry King again last night. It was originally broadcast about a week ago.

He said he covers all the above and more in his new book: "Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis," published this month by Simon & Schuster.

Might make a good book club selection for the winter months.

Some good ones here:

William Rivers Pitt | Aid and Comfort
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111405I.shtml
William Rivers Pitt writes that the old chestnut has been hauled out in public again: if you do not support the war, if you do not support Bush, you are betraying our troops and giving aid and comfort to the enemy. It is worthwhile, in the face of this resurgent nonsense, to take a long, hard look at what "aid and comfort" really is.

White House Declines to Rule Out Torture
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111405J.shtml
In an important clarification of President George W. Bush's earlier statement, a top White House official refused to unequivocally rule out the use of torture.

The White House's 527 Group, Armed and Ready
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111405K.shtml
Though Progress for America describes itself as an independent grass-roots organization, it receives millions of dollars from the president's largest fundraisers, is run by former Bush campaign aides and draws heavy support from a Republican lobbying and consulting firm in Washington.

Libby May Have Tried to Mask Cheney's Role
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111405L.shtml
Libby, according to Fitzgerald's indictment, gave a false story to agents and, later, to a grand jury, even though he knew investigators had his notes, and presumably knew that several of his White House colleagues had already provided testimony and documentary evidence that would undercut his own story.

Paul Krugman | Health Economics 101
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111405M.shtml
Paul Krugman writes that the free market doesn't work for health insurance, and never did. All we have ever had was a patchwork, semi-private system supported by large government subsidies.

The Other Cloud on Republican Horizon
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111405N.shtml
Of all the pending controversies in Washington, few may be as perilous for the Republican majority as the one swirling around former powerhouse lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Ohio 2005: Shenanigans Again?
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111405O.shtml
Once again, the Buckeye state has hosted an astonishing display of electronic manipulation that calls into question the sanctity of America's right to vote, and to have those votes counted in this crucial swing state.

New York Times | Stonewalling the Katrina Victims
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111405P.shtml
The New York Times poses the question, "Why did the Bush administration focus on trailer parks built by FEMA - which is actually not a housing agency - instead of giving the lead role to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which has so much experience on this issue?"

Marjorie Cohn: Graham Amendment Invokes Constitutional Crisis
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111405Z.shtml
In blatant defiance of the Constitution's guarantees of Habeas Corpus and separation of powers, the Senate on Thursday approved the Graham Amendment to the Department of Defense Authorization Act by a vote of 49 to 42. Five Democrats joined all but 4 Republican Senators in giving the President unfettered power to hold prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for the rest of their lives, with no criminal charges, and no right to challenge their confinement by Habeas Corpus.

Fe
Jimmy Carter's book - perfect Christmas present for my son and my mom, both of whom read & raved about Clinton's book. I think Jimmy Carter was lst president I was old enough to vote for, though I'd already worked for 2 presidential campaigns (since the candidates lived where I lived - MN & SD).

Truth and DiAnne:

The more we have LIGHT coming in from all sides, the more this Administration will slip into chaos.

Carter is helping to dissipate the far right by going straight to what is right. This man knows how to "frame" with both wisdom and experience.

The Worst Speech of Bush's Presidency
David Kusnet
Sunday, November 13, 2005 by The New Republic
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1113-21.htm

For speechwriters drafting a presidential address for a patriotic holiday such as Independence Day, Memorial Day, or Veterans Day, there are three rules: Don't be wordy; don't be wonky; and, most important, don't be partisan. In his Veterans Day remarks today at the Tobyhanna Army Depot near Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, President Bush and his staff broke all three rules, producing a strident speech that went on for almost 50 minutes, included a lengthy comparison of "Islamic radicalism" and "the ideology of communism," and concluded by attacking "some Democrats," while taking an implicit shot at "my opponent during the last election." It may have been the worst speech of his presidency.

At a time when Bush would benefit from sounding cheerful, forward looking, and above partisan politics, just as Ronald Reagan did during his second term even in the midst of the Iran-Contra scandal, Bush instead sounded like Richard Nixon or Lyndon Johnson during the worst days of the Vietnam War, although neither is remembered for flubbing a speech on a national holiday. It's as if Bush was reading from a cue-card that proclaimed, "Message: I'm embattled and embittered."

When a president speaks angrily and defensively for almost an hour, he might well be extemporizing, but that clearly was not true of this president and this speech: We know this because while the address may have seemed interminable, it was not ungrammatical, and it subjected listeners to a lecture about a bewildering array of personalities and events, including "Al Qaeda's number two man, a guy named Zawahari"; "his chief deputy in Iraq, the terrorist Zarqawi"; the Syrian democracy advocate Kamal Labwani; and "the Mehlis investigation into the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister."

[snip]

This was a speech that presented Bush's case implausibly and inappropriately. It's hard for a president to sound unpresidential on a patriotic holiday, but Bush achieved that dubious distinction today.

Carter is helping to dissipate the far right by going straight to what is right. This man knows how to "frame" with both wisdom and experience.

Posted by: Fe at November 14, 2005 01:34 PM

and add to that...faith.

Did you catch Bush’s Veterans Day speech? The speech has been called the “worst of Bush’s presidency,” 1 and we couldn’t bear to hear the lies anymore. So we thought we’d have some fun with it.

Our news video shows who’s REALLY “rewriting the history” of the Iraq War. It’s the same speech, but now with actual facts (that's right, facts!).

Check it out at:

http://www.truemajorityaction.org/bushspeech.asx 

Fe and DiAnne,

I enjoyed his interview with Larry King so much!
I wish now I would have recorded it.

He did go straight to his clear cut views of the wrongs this administration has perpetrated on us the last five years.

His manner was gentle, yet not weak. There was not a trace of guile in his manner or words.

He pretty much said we need to stay away from the R. v. W. debate, and instead focus on matters we have common cause and agreement with, with others in our society, regardless of party affiliation. He does not favor overturning R. v. W., but said we need to educate and build up our society so that that avenue does not have to be used as a last resort.

He clearly said in so many words that this administration has brought changes to our government that have undone principles our forefathers fought and died for.

He made it clear that we are treading on very dangerous territory in our home and foreign policy.

He is against the merging of church and state.

Why, hearing his position on many issues wouldn't have caused me to bat an eye 25 years ago, but today it sounds almost foreign, and daring, to hear someone say these things out loud in the media after the "patriotic brainwashing" that has been orchestrated through the MSM the past three and a half years.

November 14, 2005
Court Pick Described View on Abortion in '85 Document
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito wrote in 1985 that he was proud of his Reagan-era work helping the government argue that "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion," documents showed Monday.

Alito, who was applying in 1985 to become deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration, boasted in a document that he helped "to advance legal positions in which I personally believe very strongly."

"I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government argued that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion," he said.

The document was included in more than 100 pages of material about Alito released by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library on Monday.

Abortion will be a key topic in January at Alito's confirmation hearings to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is a crucial swing vote on abortion on the high court.

Alito, 55, has told senators in private meetings that he had "great respect" for the precedent set by the 1973 Supreme Court ruling, Roe v. Wade, that legalized abortion but did not commit to upholding it.

Some abortion rights groups already have come out against Alito because of his work as a federal appellate judge, including a dissent on a U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals decision striking down a law requiring women seeking abortions to notify their spouses.

Recently confirmed Chief Justice John Roberts also worked for the Justice Department, but argued during his confirmation that his work was just a lawyer representing his government client.

"Unlike Chief Justice John Roberts, Alito says these are his own strong personal views, and not just those of the administration he was working for," said Ralph Neas, head of the liberal People for the American Way. "Combined with his judicial record, Judge Alito's letter underscores our concern that he would vote to turn back the clock on decades of judicial precedent protecting privacy, equal opportunity, religious freedom, and so much more."

Alito's supporters say the judge's statement from 1985 shouldn't be held against him.

"For pro-choice extremists and other liberal activists to say that this legal statement by Judge Alito in 1985 somehow disqualifies him from serving as a Supreme Court justice is absurd," said Wendy Long, lawyer for the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network. "Justice (Ruth Bader) Ginsburg and Justice (Stephen) Breyer had taken clear public positions to the contrary, and no one argued that those positions should be held against them."

In the document, Alito also declared himself a "lifelong registered" Republican and a Federalist Society member, and said he had donated money to the National Republican Congressional Committee, the National Conservative Political Action Committee and several GOP candidates.

When he wrote this document, he was working as an assistant to the solicitor general, where he stayed from 1981 to 1987. Although he sought the job of deputy assistant attorney general in 1985, he did not win that job until 1987.

"I am and always have been a conservative and an adherent to the same philosophical views that I believe are central to this administration," Alito said.

Alito wrote that he believed "very strongly in limited government, federalism, free enterprise, the supremacy of the elected branches of government, the need for a strong defense and effective law enforcement and the legitimacy of a government role in protecting traditional values."

In the document, Alito said he drew inspiration from the "writings of William F. Buckley, Jr., The National Review and Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign."

"In college, I developed a deep interest in constitutional law, motivated in large part by disagreement with Warren Court decisions, particularly in the areas of criminal procedure, the Establishment Clause and reapportionment," he said.

Of the five Dem senators, I picked Kent Conrad (ND) to write to because I have a vested interest in that state, so to speak. Just above the email form for Conrad's office it asks about ND connections, so I gave my caveat first, and then laced into him for voting in favor of doing away with the writ of habeas corpus. For your information, I'm publishing the whole letter. (Be nice? Why? Being nice has gotten Dems precisely nowhere in the last five years.... Anyway, the senators and reps are people, and they ought to know that when they are being naughty little children who deserve being reprimanded, people like me can lecture them. When they grow up and apologize for their bad votes and decisions, I'll be more polite.)

Here, then, is my letter:

North Dakota Connection:
If you are a North Dakotan but do not currently reside in North Dakota, please explain the connection in your message so that I can ensure that I give your comments the priority treatment they deserve.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
North Dakota Connection Caveat: Although he's a Minnesota resident, my youngest nephew is serving in a ND Guard unit that is being sent for "training" (training to kill?) next month, and then supposedly to Afghanistan for a year. I am NOT a happy camper about that!!!

Senator Conrad:

As a "neighbor" of yours from Minnesota, upon reading that you voted in favor of Graham's amendment to suspend habeas corpus, I can only ask, aghast: Have you lost your mind?!?

There is NO reason to suspend habeas corpus for the citizens of this country, nor for Bu$hCo's prisoners in Guantánamo or in Iraq (or wherever else the cretins in the administration send prisoners when they outsource torture). Those of us with an ability to read (especially PNAC's web site) all know it's their private little war to control the oil in Iraq (with the ultimate aim of world dominance - like the world needs another Hitler, or the US needs to be the nation dominating the world?), and we all know the entire Iraq war was based on lies, and lies to cover the original lies. (I knew Bush was lying in the 2000 debates when he said he wasn't going to do any nation-building. I knew if he was elected he'd invade Iraq to finish his daddy's war and that this nation would go into a recession. I never dreamed the Supreme Court would appoint Bush president, nor that you in Congress would go along with any damned lame-brained ideas the cretin had!!!)

Shame on you for betraying the US by voting to suspend writs of habeas corpus!!! Shame on you for supporting Bu$hCo at any time!!! You owe your ND constituents an apology, and you owe our nation an apology..., just as all senators and representatives who voted to give Bush war powers after 9/11 owe this nation an apology for being cowardly wimps who roll on their backs like puppies wetting themselves every time Bush barks. Bush is drunk on power and members of the Senate and the House have done nothing since 2000 to warrant re-election by caving in to any and all demands of the Bu$hCo administration. Congress has given its Constitutional powers (apparently willingly) to a wannabe tyrannical dictator who calls himself 'president' and acts like a spoiled brat.

Do you have any idea how foolish most of the members of Congress seem to be most of the time to most of the citizens of this nation who still have the ability to think for themselves (and who refuse to watch Fox News) since the Selection of 2000, and especially since the Stolen Election of 2004? Not all of the people of this nation are sheeples who believe everything President Cretin (Bu$h) has ever said. Do you know how utterly stupid Americans seem in the eyes of people of other nations because of how badly Bush has led this nation, and how hypocritical we all seem because of Bu$hCo's torture policies??? Do you know how shameful it is to be an American now, especially because our senators and representatives keep voting for all the things that have led us to being a corporate fascist nation in all but name - and you keep voting for bills that consolidate profits and power in the hands of corporations?!?!? (I, for one, would willingly give up my US citizenship and move to another country if it were financially feasible, all thanks to Bu$hCo..., and because of the senators and representatives who have become a Congress of Wimps since 2000! Right now we are the most uncivilized and hypocritical nation on the planet, and I don't like being a citizen of a nation that is regressing to less than even Dark Ages standards.)

Now, please, wake up and smell the coffee, and start doing things that will benefit this nation as a whole, and that means restoring the balance of power between the three branches of government, and severely curtailing the criminal cabal known as the Bu$hCo administration - and restoring our Constitutional rights and privileges that the Bu$hCo administration is trying to take away from the citizens of this nation!!!

Your neighbor,

"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it." - Mark Twain

BREAKING:
Rediscovered testimony given by CIA director in 2001 suggests manipulation of pre-war intelligence
Jason Leopold

President George W. Bush’s attempt Friday to silence critics who say his administration manipulated prewar intelligence on Iraq is undercut by congressional testimony given in February 2001 by former CIA Director George Tenet, who said that Iraq posed no immediate threat to the United States or other countries in the Middle East, RAW STORY has found.

Details of Tenet’s testimony have not been reported before.

Since a criminal indictment was handed up last month against Vice President Dick Cheney’s former Chief of Staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, for his role in allegedly leaking the name of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson to reporters in an attempt to muzzle criticism of the administration’s rationale for war, questions have resurfaced in the halls of Congress about whether the president and his close advisers manipulated intelligence in an effort to dupe lawmakers and the American public into believing Saddam Hussein was a grave threat.

The White House insists that such a suggestion is ludicrous and wholly political. It has launched a full-scale public relations effort to restate its case for war by saying Democrats saw the same intelligence as their Republican counterparts prior to the March 2003 invasion.

But as a bipartisan investigation into prewar intelligence heats up, some key Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), have unearthed unreported evidence that indicates Congress was misled. This evidence includes Tenet’s testimony before Congress, dissenting views from the scientific community and statements made by members of the administration in early 2001.

Tenet told Congress in February 2001 that Iraq was “probably” pursuing chemical and biological weapons programs but that the CIA had no direct evidence that Iraq had actually obtained such weapons. However, such caveats as “may” and “probably” were removed from intelligence reports by key members of the Bush administration immediately after 9/11 when discussing Iraq.

“We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since (Operation) Desert Fox to reconstitute its WMD programs,” Tenet said in an agency report to Congress Feb. 7, 2001. “Moreover, the automated video monitoring systems installed by the UN at known and suspect WMD facilities in Iraq are still not operating… Having lost this on-the-ground access, it is more difficult for the UN or the U.S. to accurately assess the current state of Iraq’s WMD programs.”

In fact, more than two dozen pieces of testimony and interviews of top officials in the Bush administration, including those given by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz prior to 9-11, show that the U.S. never believed Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to anyone other than his own people.

more...http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Rediscovered_testimony_given_by_CIA_director_1114.html

November 14, 2005
Op-Ed Contributors
Doing Unto Others as They Did Unto Us
By M. GREGG BLOCHE and JONATHAN H. MARKS

Washington — How did American interrogation tactics after 9/11 come to include abuse rising to the level of torture? Much has been said about the illegality of these tactics, but the strategic error that led to their adoption has been overlooked.

The Pentagon effectively signed off on a strategy that mimics Red Army methods. But those tactics were not only inhumane, they were ineffective. For Communist interrogators, truth was beside the point: their aim was to force compliance to the point of false confession.

Fearful of future terrorist attacks and frustrated by the slow progress of intelligence-gathering from prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Pentagon officials turned to the closest thing on their organizational charts to a school for torture. That was a classified program at Fort Bragg, N.C., known as SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape. Based on studies of North Korean and Vietnamese efforts to break American prisoners, SERE was intended to train American soldiers to resist the abuse they might face in enemy custody.

The Pentagon appears to have flipped SERE's teachings on their head, mining the program not for resistance techniques but for interrogation methods. At a June 2004 briefing, the chief of the United States Southern Command, Gen. James T. Hill, said a team from Guantánamo went "up to our SERE school and developed a list of techniques" for "high-profile, high-value" detainees. General Hill had sent this list - which included prolonged isolation and sleep deprivation, stress positions, physical assault and the exploitation of detainees' phobias - to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who approved most of the tactics in December 2002.

Some within the Pentagon warned that these tactics constituted torture, but a top adviser to Secretary Rumsfeld justified them by pointing to their use in SERE training, a senior Pentagon official told us last month.

When internal F.B.I. e-mail messages critical of these methods were made public earlier this year, references to SERE were redacted. But we've obtained a less-redacted version of an e-mail exchange among F.B.I. officials, who refer to the methods as "SERE techniques." We also learned from a Pentagon official that the SERE program's chief psychologist, Col. Morgan Banks, issued guidance in early 2003 for the "behavioral science consultants" who helped to devise Guantánamo's interrogation strategy (we've been unable to learn the content of that guidance).

SERE methods are classified, but the program's principles are known. It sought to recreate the brutal conditions American prisoners of war experienced in Korea and Vietnam, where Communist interrogators forced false confessions from some detainees, and broke the spirits of many more, through Pavlovian and other conditioning. Prolonged isolation, sleep deprivation, painful body positions and punitive control over life's most intimate functions produced overwhelming stress in these prisoners. Stress led in turn to despair, uncontrollable anxiety and a collapse of self-esteem. Sometimes hallucinations and delusions ensued. Prisoners who had been through this treatment became pliable and craved companionship, easing the way for captors to obtain the "confessions" they sought.

SERE, as originally envisioned, inoculates American soldiers against these techniques. Its psychologists create mock prison regimens to study the effects of various tactics and identify the coping styles most likely to withstand them. At Guantánamo, SERE-trained mental health professionals applied this knowledge to detainees, working with guards and medical personnel to uncover resistant prisoners' vulnerabilities. "We know if you've been despondent; we know if you've been homesick," General Hill said. "That is given to interrogators and that helps the interrogators" make their plans.

Within the SERE program, abuse is carefully controlled, with the goal of teaching trainees to cope. But under combat conditions, brutal tactics can't be dispassionately "dosed." Fear, fury and loyalty to fellow soldiers facing mortal danger make limits almost impossible to sustain.

By bringing SERE tactics and the Guantánamo model onto the battlefield, the Pentagon opened a Pandora's box of potential abuse. On Nov. 26, 2003, for example, an Iraqi major general, Abed Hamed Mowhoush, was forced into a sleeping bag, then asphyxiated by his American interrogators. We've obtained a memorandum from one of these interrogators - a former SERE trainer - who cites command authorization of "stress positions" as justification for using what he called "the sleeping bag technique."

"A cord," he explained, "was used to limit movement within the bag and help bring on claustrophobic conditions." In SERE, he said, this was called close confinement and could be "very effective." Those who squirmed or screamed in the sleeping bag, he said, were "allowed out as soon as they start to provide information."

Three soldiers have been ordered to stand trial on murder charges in General Mowhoush's death. Yet the Pentagon cannot point to any intelligence gains resulting from the techniques that have so tarnished America's image. That's because the techniques designed by communist interrogators were created to control a prisoner's will rather than to extract useful intelligence.

A full account of how our leaders reacted to terrorism by re-engineering Red Army methods must await an independent inquiry. But the SERE model's embrace by the Pentagon's civilian leaders is further evidence that abuse tantamount to torture was national policy, not merely the product of rogue freelancers. After the shock of 9/11 - when Americans desperately wanted mastery over a world that suddenly seemed terrifying - this policy had visceral appeal. But it's the task of command authority to connect means and ends rationally. The Bush administration has too frequently failed to do this. And so it is urgent that Congress step in to tie our detainee policy to our national interest.

M. Gregg Bloche is a law professor at Georgetown University and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution. Jonathan H. Marks, a barrister in London, is a bioethics fellow at Georgetown and Johns Hopkins.

Cyrano,

The SERE story was one we used in FEAR UP. Those involved with creating it are apparently beyond upset at how it is being used.

I'm just checking in from work--wondering how the phone calls are coming into the Senate--and also:

Who is planning to see the Wal-Mart movie this week?

Dick and I are going tomorrow night...

My friend Marietta saw it yesterday--she said it was "deeply disturbing".

Update from 9/11 Commission:

The U.S. government is not doing enough to protect nuclear weapons from terrorists and its handling of terrorism suspects is undermining America's image in the Muslim world, members of a commission that investigated the September 11 attacks said on Monday.

Although President George W. Bush calls arms proliferation the country's biggest threat and al Qaeda has sought nuclear weapons for a decade, the former commission's chairman Thomas Kean said, "the most striking thing to us is that the size of the problem still totally dwarfs the policy response."

"In short, we still do not have a maximum effort against the most urgent threat ... to the American people," he told a news conference, noting that half the nuclear materials in Russia still have no security upgrade.

The bipartisan commission was established by the U.S. Congress to investigate the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network that killed nearly 3,000 people.

It formally disbanded after submitting its final report in July last year, but members continue working as the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, which tracks implementation of the report's recommendations.

Monday's report recorded little progress on combating weapons proliferation as well as on U.S. foreign policy and public diplomacy issues,

"This kind of grade -- unfulfilled, insufficient, minimal progress -- those grades are failing grades ... That is an unacceptable response," Commission member Timothy Roemer said.

The panel attributed the poor results to the difficulty of the tasks and a divided government that is easily distracted even from urgent priorities.... [more]
_______________________________________
US faulted on handling nuclear threat
http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-11-14T203943Z_01_MOL463347_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-USA-COMMISSION.xml

Posted by: Cyrano at November 14, 2005 02:43 PM

They are just "itching" for a fight over this one, aren't they?

Think it will "redeem" them?

Really OT, but...a French film opened last week called "Joyeux Noel" about the 1914 Christmas truce that Hawkeye told us about on Veteran's Day. It won awards at Cannes this year. I'm sure it's not in the US yet, but you can watch a trailer here ==>
http://www.cinemovies.fr/fiche_multimedia.php?IDfilm=7390

It's in French, but I think you'll get the gist, even if you don't speak French. It choked up an old hag like me...

And here's what Snopes has to say about the story. Status: true
http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/truce.asp

Robert Scheer fired from LA Times.

The righties are now in the war of tit for tat. More in a minute...

from HUFFPO:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-scheer/on-leaving-the-la-tim_b_10509.html

On Leaving the LA Times
by Robert Scheer

On Friday I was fired as a columnist by the publisher of the Los Angeles Times, where I have worked for thirty years. The publisher, Jeff Johnson, who has offered not a word of explanation to me, has privately told people that he hated every word that I wrote. I assume that mostly refers to my exposing the lies used by President Bush to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Fortunately sixty percent of Americans now get the point, but only after tens of thousand of Americans and Iraqis have been killed and maimed as the carnage spirals out of control. My only regret is that my pen was not sharper and my words tougher.

I have been trying to tell ANYBODY that we will be at war with Venezeula very soon and bush used Katrina to capture a stategic port.

When that chopper crashed in Mexico and killed Foxs close people.. I tried to tell anyone that was not an accident.

And now the worst case scenario I said would happen ... is happening.

Fox has sold his soul to the devil.

And bush will be king of the Americas.

The ultimate war prize.

IT IS IS HAPPENING NOW

Mexico Threatens to Break Diplomatic Ties with Venezuela
By VOA News
14 November 2005

Venezuela and Mexico are recalling each others ambassadors, amid an escalating dispute between the countries' presidents. Venezuela has ordered the withdrawal of its ambassador to Mexico.

Mexican President Vicente Fox said on U.S. television (CNN) Monday that his country would also recall its ambassador. Mr. Fox said he will not accept verbal attacks made on him by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Mr. Chavez used his Sunday radio and television show to criticize Mr. Fox after last week's Summit of the Americas, saying Mr. Fox was the U.S. government's "cub" for supporting a U.S.-proposed Western Hemisphere free trade zone.

Today, Venezuela's Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez rejected Mexico's demand that Venezuela apologize for the comments.

Some information for this report provided by Reuters, AP

This was what I said would happen all along.

There were only two options really. Fox would say no. Or he would say yes.

I guess yes is easier than worrying everytime you get in your chopper.

The Mexican people will turn against every single one of us.

Mexican = The NEW Palestinian.

It was his plan all along.

The laws were made to be religiously implemented and not to be lambasted. The problem here is that several laws overlap each other. Some, through accidents or intentional are even contradictory. Take the case of the law regarding terrorism. It is a shame that it is being greatly prioritized than the welfare of the people. Everybody deserves due process, which is inexistent when the government starts the terrorist crackdown.

The Staggeringly Impossible Results of Ohio's '05 Election...
...As Half of Ohio's Counties Fire Up Blackwell's New Diebold Electronic Diebold Voting Machines
Is this the Election that will finally break the camel's back?

With so much going on, we haven't had much time to report here on the extraordinary outcome of last Tuesday's election in Ohio where the crooked state that brung you...

With so much going on, we haven't had much time to report here on the extraordinary outcome of last Tuesday's election in Ohio where the crooked state that brung you -- by hook and by crook -- a second term for George W. Bush may have turned in results so staggeringly impossible, that perhaps even the Ohio Mainstream Corporate Media will have no choice but to look into it. And that's a good thing.

As usual, the Free Press' heroic Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman are on the case. Their article on what happened on ballot issues 1 through 5 last week is A MUST READ for anybody who still gives the slightest damn about whatever democracy might be left in America.

We'll try to summarize here briefly. There were five initiatives on the ballot last week. Issue 1 was a controversial proposition for $2 billion in new state spending. The Christian Right was opposed (because some of the new funds might go to stem cell research), but otherwise, the Republican Governor Taft's Administration (he recently pleaded guilty to several counts of corruption) was pushing it hard alongside progressives in the state.

The Columbus Dispatch's pre-election polling, which Fritrakis and Wasserman describe as "uncannily accurate for decades", called the race correctly within 1% of the final result. The margin of error for the poll was +/- 2.5% with a 95% confidence interval. On Issue 1, the Dispatch poll was right on the money. They predicted 53% in favor, the final result was 54% in favor.

But then came Issues 2 through 5 put forward by ReformOhioNow.org -- a bi-partisan coalition pushing these four initiatives for Electoral Reform in the Buckeye State largely in response to their shameful '04 Election performance led by the extremely partisan Secretary of State (and Bush/Cheney '04 Co-Chair) J. Kenneth Blackwell.

On those four issues, which Blackwell and the Christian Right were against, the final results were impossibly different -- and we mean impossibly! -- from both the Dispatch's final polling before the election and all reasoned common-sense. Take a look:

ISSUE 1 ($2 Billion State Bond initiative)
PRE-POLLING: 53% Yes, 27% No, 20% Undecided
FINAL RESULT: 54% Yes, 45% No

ISSUE 2 (Allow easier absentee balloting)
PRE-POLLING: 59% Yes, 33% No, 9% Undecided
FINAL RESULT: 36% Yes, 63% No

ISSUE 3 (Revise campaign contribution limits)
PRE-POLLING: 61% Yes, 25% No, 14% Undecided
FINAL RESULT: 33% Yes, 66% No

ISSUE 4 (Ind. Comm. to draw Congressional Districts)
PRE-POLLING: 31% Yes, 45% No, 25% Undecided
FINAL RESULT: 30% Yes, 69% No

ISSUE 5 (Ind. Board instead of Sec. of State to oversee elections)
PRE-POLLING: 41% Yes, 43% No, 16% Undecided
FINAL RESULT: 29% Yes, 70% No

Now, you tell us...What could possibly explain such unheard of differences between the Dispatch's poll and the final results?

Now, we'll tell you...This was the year that Ohio, under the encouragement and mandates of Blackwell, rolled out new Electronic Touch-Screen Voting Machines in 44 of its 88 counties...41 of them employing the same Diebold Touch-Screen Machines that California's Republican Sec. of State decertified in this state when 20% of them failed this summer in the largest test of its kind ever held.

Those would be the very same Electronic Voting Machines which a recent GAO Report (still unmentioned by a single wire-service or mainstream American newspaper) confirmed to be easily hackable.

Will the absurdly skewed results from last Tuesday's Ohio Election finally light a fire under the media -- either nationally or just in Ohio alone -- to look into what the hell is going on here?! We remain hopeful...if not optimistic.

The Free Press article is a must read, as mentioned, but we'll share their closing thoughts here on the possible reasons for the wildly unexplained discrepancy between the final polling and the final results which, as they posit, are due to either a completely inexplicable breakdown of the Dispatch's historically accurate polling methods wildly beyond the margin-of-error for all initiatives except Issue 1...or...somebody hacked that vote count:

If the latter is true, it can and will be done again, and we can forget forever about the state that has been essential to the election of every Republican presidential candidate since Lincoln.

And we can also, for all intents and purposes, forget about the future of American democracy.

Anybody in the Mainstream Media ready to give a damn yet?

Cross-Posted at Huffington Post.

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002015.htm

Supreme Court just impaired the right for parents to contest Individual Education Programs for special education students - now the burden of proof in lawsuits is on parents, not the school district. This puts parents in a weaker position.

Sooner or later this administration does something to restrict the livelihood of every America not earning big bucks. The above legislation and cuts proposed to Medicaid directly affect me & Medicare law change destroyed my business.

Meanwhile, 4 University Deans made over a million bucks a year this year. They excel at fundraising.

I cannot stand Steven Hadley.
He's speaking for Bush lately - such as following Bush's speech to troops at a base in Alaska on his way to China. He's such a neocon.

Posted by: Christy at November 14, 2005 06:35 PM

Disgusting. I knew Fox was W's puppet all along.

BATTLE ROYAL OVER AT AOL DISCUSSION BOARD:

DID BUSH MISLEAD US INTO WAR???

POLL, BLOG AND BOARDS

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20051114104609990001&ncid=NWS00010000000001

9/11 Commission Gives Bush Administration Mixed Review

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5415116,00.html

Tonight's AOL Polls:

Do you feel you were misled on the war?
Yes, deliberately 65%
No 25%
Yes, but not deliberately 10%
Total Votes: 118,272
Note on Poll Results

How important is it to debate the reasons we went to war?
Very 66%
Not at all 24%
Somewhat 10%
Total Votes: 117,727
Note on Poll Results

Does the government provide a balanced view of the situation in Iraq?
No 82%
Yes 18%
Total Votes: 90,910
Note on Poll Results

Im jelous.

I wish I was in Seoul.

I bet its beautiful, huh?

Sorry, I have the AOL title wrong:

"WERE WE MISLED INTO WAR?"

With a picture of Bush next to the title.....

Ralpheh
I went & looked at the blog too - interesting.
Scrolled down & they have Bush vs Arnold - & just think - Arnold is in China getting mobbed because people still think of him as the Terminator. Bush is headed there - on his way after leaving Alaska. The jet lag should start kicking in pretty soon. He will have no idea when it's 10 PM and time to go to bed. He'll wake up & not know where he is. Oh my.

You know - Ohio (& US in general) doesn't meet the criteria Jimmy Carter (who has supervised many elections all over the world) helped lay out for what constitutes a fair election.

Jimmy Carter | This Isn't the Real America

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111405Q.shtml

"In recent years, I have become increasingly concerned by a host of radical government policies that now threaten many basic principles espoused by all previous administrations, Democratic and Republican." - Former President Jimmy Carter

What's with Bush?

Check out this video.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/11/13.html#a5842

I went & looked at the blog too - interesting.
Scrolled down & they have Bush vs Arnold - & just think - Arnold is in China getting mobbed because people still think of him as the Terminator. Bush is headed there - on his way after leaving Alaska. The jet lag should start kicking in pretty soon. He will have no idea when it's 10 PM and time to go to bed. He'll wake up & not know where he is. Oh my.

Posted by: not my president at November 14, 2005 08:08 PM

They say that Cheney has been spending a lot of time away from Washington. Pheasant hunting in Wyoming etc.... The word is that Cheney is losing power and Bush is mad. I think of Cheney as really the day to day person running the White House. When Cheney gives a speech (filled with contradictions, lies and inaccuracies) it isn't even cleared with the White House - Cheney just says whatever he wants.

You know like "Go F*** yourself..."

Speaking of W in Asia, he won't be in China until stopping here in Korea (Busan) for the Asia-Pacific Economic Council summit later this week.

Most Koreans are incensed that W will probably stay at a US aircraft carrier off the coast, after already taking up an entire hotel to himself. Some are already incensed because W will bring his own limo instead of using ones provided by Hyundai and BMW, like everyone else.

I'll be in Busan tomorrow. I'll see what things are like.

In the meantime, strict security has turned South Korea into a "Papers Please" society. I can expect ID checks at any important landmark, and it'll be worse down in Busan tomorrow. I'll report what it's like. As many of you know, I am not a fan of Papers Please societies, given my identification problems!

With regard to the AOL poll -

Bush and the War are getting stomped again. It is about 65% to 25% people saying that they feel misled about Iraq.

Nota Bene - pro-war Democratic Candidates potentially running for president in 2008...

The Free Press article is a must read, as mentioned, but we'll share their closing thoughts here on the possible reasons for the wildly unexplained discrepancy between the final polling and the final results which, as they posit, are due to either a completely inexplicable breakdown of the Dispatch's historically accurate polling methods wildly beyond the margin-of-error for all initiatives except Issue 1...or...somebody hacked that vote count:

If the latter is true, it can and will be done again, and we can forget forever about the state that has been essential to the election of every Republican presidential candidate since Lincoln.

And we can also, for all intents and purposes, forget about the future of American democracy.

Anybody in the Mainstream Media ready to give a damn yet?

Cross-Posted at Huffington Post.

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002015.htm

Posted by: sparrow at November 14, 2005 07:05 PM

You could ask the exact same question of the Democrats in Congress. Are they going to do anything about this? Are they even going to talk about it??

Every Republican on our Christmas list is getting President Carter's book for Christmas.

We debated between a few books, but his has a wonderful sort of "universal" quality about it.

Are you tired of elections being rigged?

Wanna Stop it?

O.K.

Here is how.

http://fixingelections.blogspot.com/

HeHeHeHeHe

Posted by: ralpheh at November 14, 2005 08:46 PM

Ralph,

I know Kerry is working with John Conyers on election stuff. I don't have a link to the specifics, but if you want it, then I'll look more for it tomorrow.

I'm a little too tired to keep searching for the link tonight.

I'm just waiting to hear that China has decided to boycott American goods because of our human rights violations. First torture of detainees at various "prisons", then the cia torture houses, now the habeas corpus vote in our congress - not just a few out-of-control soldiers, there....

Here's a link to some of the Kerry/Conyers election and voting legislation:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=399775&mesg_id=399807

Posted by: sparrow at November 14, 2005 08:13 PM

sparrow - I watched that - Bush looks sloppy - like he's taken a few valiums or has had a few drinks. Just another reason Kilgore lost.

Sparrow
I watched the Bush video.
I'm not supposed to speculate about questionnable sources like The Globe cover story but like I say .. let's wait and see!