Read the Google Cache of the "Arizona Sentinel" blog cut-and-paste hack job that right-wingers are claiming "proves" that Barack Obama applied to Occidental College as a foreigner. As you'll see with a quick read and the most minimal effort to find the faked sources referred to within, it's a hoax. Also a hoax, therefore, is the claim by right-wingers that the "Arizona Sentinel" is a newspaper website taken down by The Man because conspiracy theorists were TOO CLOSE to the truth! See here for a debunking of the fake "article."
Had it up to here with the silence of the Speaker of the House during years and years of U.S. Government torture? Then shout it to the highest clouds: Nancy Pelosi, Resign!
There’s a battle going on in Congress over the documentation of military interrogations. It’s been sparked by the consistent pattern of torture by military interrogators begun under the Bush Administration, and by Barack Obama’s decision to cover up evidence of that torture.
In the Senate, Joseph Lieberman has been leading the way in helping Obama to conceal evidence of torture that was conducted during military interrogations. In the House of Representatives last week, however, Congressman Rush Holt introduced legislation as a countercurrent to the push for coverup.
The legislation, an amendment to the Defense appropriations bill approved yesterday in the House of Representatives, requires military interrogations to be videotaped. An exemption is provided for battlefield tactical interrogations in which there may not be time to set up a camera.
The idea of required videotaping for interrogations is not an external imposition forced upon the military. It’s something the U.S. military itself recommended. In January of this year, a military task force issued a document known as the Walsh Report, which concluded, “We endorse the use of video recording in all camps and for all interrogations. The use of video recording to confirm humane treatment could be an important enabler for detainee operations. Just as internal controls provide standardization, the use of video recordings provides the capability to monitor performance and to maintain accountability.”
Videotaped interrogations help to prevent torture and other forms of detainee abuse, but also can guard against false accusations of abuse. Furthermore, the videotapes provide better intelligence, recording the nuances of information that memory cannot preserve and notes can misrepresent.
Who could oppose the military’s own recommendations for improving its interrogation techniques? 162 Republicans and 31 Democrats, that’s who. They voted against Rush Holt’s amendment, which passed nonetheless, thanks to 214 Democrats and 10 Republicans.
In Afghanistan, torture is a problem that won’t die - it just continues to create suffering for those who value the truth. The BBC interviewed 27 former prisoners who had been held at the American military base in Bagram. 25 said that they had been tortured or abused.
Apparently, some of the torture photographs Barack Obama refuses to allow us to see were taken at the Bagram prison. Just what is Obama trying to cover up, and why? And why is it that Obama is refusing prisoners at Bagram even the basic right of habeas corpus? Why would Obama do that at a prison where torture is alleged to be rampant?
Keep in mind that the 27 Bagram prisoners who were interviewed by the BBC were never even charged with a crime. 25 people sampled by the BBC were tortured and abused by Americans, and weren’t even formally accused of any crime.
Why is Barack Obama helping to cover up these crimes?
2 bombings in the last 24 hours have killed 100 people in Iraq. One of the bombings, in the north, killed about 80 people. The other, in the south, killed around 30. American soldiers are supposed to begin their withdrawal from Iraqi towns this month. With these bombings, and others like them, will this withdrawal still take place, or will American soldiers be told to stay, in order to preserve order?
It’s been six years since we were told that everything would be all wrapped up in a couple of months. It’s been two years since we were told that the surge was going to bring a political solution that would ensure a lasting end to the violence. Remember how we were told that a withdrawal before a surge would be bloody? Well, now we’re seeing that a withdrawal after a surge is bloody too.
So, what did the surge bring us that a simple withdrawal would not have brought? There are still extremists throughout Iraq - and many of them are in the American-approved, corrupt, theocratic government. There still is no political solution, and there still is no guarantee of freedom for Iraqis.
Years after the flowers were supposed to be raining down upon American soldiers, Iraq is still not liberated.
The path to military satellite reconnaissance of the American people was laid down by a “Blue Ribbon Study” commissioned by the Bush administration, whose inter-agency Civil Applications Committee (CAC) created an “Independent Study Group” to write its report. This report, issued in September 2005, made the following conclusions:
Intelligence Capabilities (as used in this report) includes: national satellite sensors; technical collection capabilities (archival, current & future) of the DoD; airborne sensors; NSA worldwide assets; military and other MASINT sensors; and sophisticated exploitation/analytic capabilities….
During the course of the study, no one said that they were failing at their mission due to the lack of access to IC capabilities. There was no “Burning Bridge” identified by the participating agencies and stakeholders. However, there were many areas where the process was shown to be broken and where efficiencies in the process can be realized to greatly increase the timeliness and relevance of the information provided. The current system operates in a risk-averse vice risk-management environment where protection of sources and methods and individual civil liberties, while important concerns to be carefully considered and taken into account, are the predominant concerns unreasonably operating to limit appropriate support to the defense of the homeland.
What was the makeup of this “Independent Study Group” concluding that civil liberties are unreasonably predominant in limiting the use of satellites to spy on the American people? Consult the report, page 2, to find the following names and affiliations:
Mr. Keith Hall: Chairman and Vice President, Booz Allen Hamilton
Edward G. Anderson: Principal, Booz Allen Hamilton
Jeff Baxter: Independent Consultant
Thomas W. Conroy: Vice President, National Security Programs, Northrop Grumman/TASC
Dr. Paul Gilman: Director, Oak Ridge Center for Advanced Studies
Patrick M. Hughes: L-3 Communications
Kemp Lear: Associate, Booz Allen Hamilton
Kevin O’Connell: Director, Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis
Joseph D. Whitley: Alston & Bird, LLP
Greg Jay: Booz Allen Hamilton
Keith Elliot: USGS
Bob Evans: Booz Allen Hamilton
Marty Eckes: USGS
Chuck Symes: Booz Allen Hamilton
Randy Soderholm: ODNI
Ed Obloy: Booz Allen Hamilton
Robin Saenz: Booz Allen Hamilton
While Jeff Baxter is listed as an “independent consultant,” at the time of the report’s publication he was under the employ of military contractor Northrup Grumman when not participating in his other career as (I am not kidding) a guitarist for the likes of Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers.
When 11 out of 17 members of an “Independent Study Group” are military contractors getting money from federal government coffers to develop surveillance systems — heck, when nearly half of the members come from just one corporation — should we wonder that the “Independent Study Group” concludes that the Constitution is an unreasonably predominant concern blocking the domestic deployment of military surveillance?
The Congressional Research Service has issued a follow-up report that documents the historical link between the findings of this “Independent Study Group” and the creation of the domestic-spying National Applications Office. The planning for the NAO occurred during the Bush administration, with implementation being carried out thanks to the efforts of the Obama administration. The NAO has been set up to take this military satellite imagery and farm it out to law enforcement officials at the federal, state and local level. As House Homeland Security Committee Chair Bennie Thompson notes, in this process there was:
no briefing, no hearing, no phone calls from anyone on [the DHS] staff to inform any member of this committee of why, how or when satellite imagery would be shared with police and sheriff’s offices nationwide.
I am looking forward to the next speech by Dick Cheney or Barack Obama, explaining again why citizens must cultivate a greater trust in their government.
I have never been a big fan of U.S. Representative John McHugh. Though he’s not the most extreme Republican in Congress, he has supported many of the worst policies crafted by the Republicans under George W. Bush, including the decision to invade Iraq.
That lack of judgment presents a new a problem now, given that President Obama has nominated McHugh to become Secretary of the Army.
Accoring to the Center for Responsive Politics, McHugh has a long history of accepting money funneled from companies that make profits from war. For example, McHugh has taken $35,000 from Lockheed Martin, $31,000 from General Dynamics, and $160,250 from the military contractor lobbying firm PMA Group. The PMA Group is currently under investigation for violating campaign finance laws in order to wield influence over elected officials.
Sadly, John McHugh is not alone among members of Congress in his dependence upon military contractors’ money. The system that funds the military is so thick with corruption that it may be impossible to find anyone in Congress who is a plausible candidate for Secretary of the Army who has not taken a significant amount of dirty money.
The latest fury of worry about North Korea comes today in the form of a North Korean missile test. “North Korea appears to be preparing for a long-range missile launch that could possibly reach the United States,”writes ABC News Reporter Joohee Cho.
Pay attention to this phrase in that article: Could possibly. What does could possibly mean? It sounds a bit like Sarah Palin’s favorite phrase, also too.
Could possibly means that something might might happen. What this article is really saying is that North Korea looks like it might be getting ready to launch a missile that might might be able to reach the United States.
Of course, that’s not how most Americans are reading this article, and others like it. The message that they’re getting is that North Korea is going to launch a missile that can hit the United States.
Oh, and when we talk about that missile perhaps being capable of reaching the United States, are we talking about a nuclear weapon exploding over Los Angeles? No. When these news reports talk about a missile that “could possibly reach the United States”, the “United States” means the closest part of the United States, which, from North Korea, is that little tiny island in far western Alaska, where, as Sarah Palin informed us, when the air is clear, you can see Russia, and Putin rearing his head into our airspace.
Now, it’s Kim Jong-il who’s rearing his head into Alaska’s airspace, or a little corner of it, possibly, maybe.
Keep in mind that the same journalistic organizations that are now reporting on a North Korean threat are the same journalistic organizations that told reported back in 2002 and 2003 on the threat of weapons of mass destruction from Iraq. Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, they said, threatened the entire world.
The mistake of invading Iraq was to confuse domestic and regional posturing with a global threat. Iraq didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction at all. They said that they did, not because the Iraqi government was planning aggression, but because the Iraqi government was afraid of aggression. Americans only considered Iraqi politics at the cartoonish level of Saddam Hussein being a “bad guy”, without bothering to wonder if other motivations might be at work.
We ought not to make the same mistake with North Korea now. Yes, North Korea has a rotten government that abuses the people within its borders. Yes, North Korea has nuclear weapons. However, there’s no clear reason to think that North Korea has any plans to use its nuclear weapons and missile technology for anything other than Saddam-Hussein-style defensive posturing.
In interpreting North Korea’s sudden nuclear display, consider what else is going on in North Korean politics. The current leader, Kim Jong-il, appears to be seriously ill. Reports indicate that he has just chosen a successor, a sign that North Korea’s leader is preparing to die. North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missiles tests look an awful lot like a display of strength by a government that is worried about its vulnerability.
Even as Saddam Hussein made blustering shows of defiance to the world, there was little actual reason for the world to worry about him. The same appears to be true about Kim Jong-il. Let’s not make the mistake of 2003 again, and accept the megalomaniacal posturings of a contained dictator at face level.
I love the story of Spider Man, the character of Spider Man, the style of Spider Man.
I don’t love the violence of Spider Man. I hate the vigilante attitude of Spider Man, and other superheroes, who take it upon themselves to be judge, jury and executioner - laws unto themselves. We don’t need superheroes who can protect us with their exceptionalism. We need to have a society with just laws and courts, and measured, accountable enforcement.
So, when it comes to dressing my kids, I’ve decided to skip over the Spider Man tshirts that are now popular among the young ones. I’ve also decided to skip over the made-in-China shirts that abuse great power with great irresponsibility.
My alternative: Peace Spider - an edgy arachnid who, rather than taking the law into his own hands, promotes nonviolence with a little orange peace sign on his back.
I know that my son, when he goes to school in this shirt, will be promoting a more peaceful message than the superheroes do. He’ll also have a design that none of the other kids in his school are likely to have. That’s definitely something I couldn’t find at Target or Wal-Mart. Peace Spider shirts are manufactured and printed in the USA, with no sweatshop labor involved.
Was it just last year that we were promised that we weren’t going to live under the politics of fear any more? All over the corporate-owned media, people are going into a heightened state of Homeland Insecurity about the Axis of Evil like it’s 2002 again.
They’re saying North Korea must be stopped, that it cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons, that its actions threaten global security. It’s true, to some extent.
But then again, all of those things are also true, to some extent, about the government of the United States of America. The government of the USA has acted to threaten global security. The government of the USA cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons. The government of the USA, to the extent that it continues on the path that it has, needs to be stopped.
But, we don’t need to stop the government of the USA through violence. We need to stop it through persuasion, long, dedicated efforts at persuasion. Just think how long the US government has held on to its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, refusing to give them up even after the supposed need for Mutually Assured Destruction was gone. Why should we expect more from the totalitarian government of North Korea?
I’m not saying that the US government is as negative as the government of North Korea. The government of North Korea is totally undemocratic, while the government of the USA is only somewhat undemocratic, though becoming more so.
The point is that what we despise in the current actions of North Korea has its parallel in our own nation. In fact, the nuclear nightmare scenarios some imagine coming from North Korea would have their historical roots right here in the USA.
It’s the United States that invented nuclear weapons in the first place, and if we’re worried about North Korea leaking secrets about how to build nuclear nations to other nations, it’s worth remembering that North Korea is only able to do so because those secrets originally leaked out of the United States.
Have we not conducted huge numbers of conspicuous tests of nuclear weapons? Have we not tested short range missiles, medium range missiles, and long range missiles?
Have we not made threats to drop nuclear bombs on other nations? We’re the only nation to have actually done it.
As disgustingly authoritarian and erratically belligerent as the government of North Korea is, North Korea has not gone to war against another nation in the last 50 years. The United States has - over and over again.
Yet, no one is applying the same standard to the United States. No one on those corporate-owned news outlets is calling for air strikes against the United States.
Nor should they. Nor should they call for attacks against North Korea.
North Korea is acting crazy because North Korea has learned that acting crazy is the only way it gets the kind of attention it wants. And so, here we are in the United States, rewarding North Korea again - by freaking out.
There is no easy solution to North Korea’s nuclear insanity, just as there has been no easy solution to the nuclear insanity of the United States. So, what do we do? We keep trying. We keep trying to talk to the North Koreans, and don’t play into their game of intimidation. We keep calm. We keep asking all nations, including our own, to disarm, and not to engage in acts of violence.
Above all else, we must not go to war. For one thing, we can’t go to war. Thanks to Barack Obama’s decision to keep Americans in Iraq with a slow withdrawal, and to add new American soldiers to the fighting in Afghanistan, we don’t have the sufficient military force for an invasion and occupation of North Korea. All we could do was bomb them, and hope that we could bomb their nuclear weapons before they could send a nuclear missile off to South Korea or Japan. There is no military solution. War won’t work.
So, let’s not travel down the path of hype that led us into Iraq. Let’s not get all swine flu about this. No new war in Korea - please.
On Memorial Day we’re supposed to recall the people in battle who suffer and fall. Corollary we insist that human descent, from the plains of Versailles to the rivers of Ghent, is all for the best. Now I won’t sing that bombing has no good effect (if you ignore the lives and the cities all wrecked) but I also won’t crank up the anthem refrain that no death is in vain, no death is in vain! Today, as we rest, we forget the rest. In parades we fete gross, not net.
In other respects our remembrance is skewed; while we swear that from now we’ll never be rude to detainees who will not be moved to a trial. Now we’ll put aside torture and ask with a smile. That’s what we were told in the years gone behind; we might ask what prevents waterboarding rewind when it’s all kept a secret and boxed in the dark. When memories dredged up are uncomfortably stark, we look forward, not back. The future is soothingly bare. And if we don’t look at our Schrodinger’s past, is it there?
Pelosi’s response earlier this week, as revelations dribbled out? To claim somehow, golly, she only knew the techniques were “authorized” to be used by the Bush administration, not actually used. Or to claim that yes, she was informed about the use of some torture techniques, but not about others. Or to claim that only an aide was informed of the actual use of waterboarding, but that she wasn’t briefed. Or to claim that the Bush administration told her the use of torture was legal, gosh darn it.
The excuses Speaker Pelosi offers up damn her all the more. It doesn’t matter whether those using torture said it was legal or not; federal law clearly states in its own special section, U.S. Code 18 Section 2340, that torture of the sort described to Pelosi is illegal. Legislators’ job is to know the law. So what Nancy Pelosi told us this week is that she just credulously believed all this torture was legal because the Bush administration told her so, because as the leader of the House of Representatives she isn’t familiar enough with the law to know better.
That’s not sorry enough for you? How about the sorry gosh-my-aide-was-briefed-not-me sidebar? If Pelosi is a competent leader, then of course serious matters her aide is briefed on will come to her attention. Only if Pelosi is incompetent would she not find out about torture. The golly-I-only-knew-about-some-kinds-of-torture excuse is just plain bizarre, like a police officer explaining that he didn’t stop the bank robbers because he only saw them running out of First National with big bags of cash, not with the Hoboken Diamond Tiara. And who in their right mind could sit through the Bush years and honestly believe that, having authorized itself to commit torture, the Bush administration would not follow through and actually do it?
What Nancy Pelosi told you this week is that no, she wasn’t in on the whole torture conspiracy, no no no, because she was foolish, stupid, ignorant, disorganized, credulous and utterly lacking in leadership skills.
And now Nancy Pelosi is telling you she thinks you’re stupid. Finding herself under the glare of the media spotlight on torture, Nancy Pelosi is making a surprise trip to Iraq to be photographed with the troops. Using soldiers as human shields against charges of unAmerican behavior? Oh, that’s so 2003!
Mother Davis looks at a picture of Afghanistan’s future, and notes,
Eight years ago, the USA went to fight in Afghanistan in order to end attacks on innocent civilians. In order to accomplish this, we’ve been launching attacks on civilians there ever since.
As many as 100 civilians were killed in an American attack in Afghanistan this week. President Obama says that he will make “every effort to avoid civilian casualties”. Does he really mean it? Does Obama plan to stop air strikes immediately? That’s what “every effort” would include, if Obama really meant what he said.
The sad thing is that I don’t believe that President Obama really meant what he said. It’s become clear that Obama has been sucked into the same twisted delusion that enabled George W. Bush to get the American military stuck in two quagmires at once: The belief that violence can be a tool for creating peace and social stability, if we just keep on using it for long enough.
We’ve had 8 years to try that approach in Afghanistan, and it still hasn’t brought results. Does Barack Obama not have any other ideas?
Thinking how Americans would react if this were one of their own children, Mother Davis
I do not write this as a rhetorical question: What are the Tamils protesting for?
It’s clear what Tamils around the world are protesting against. They’re protesting against the outrageous actions of the Sri Lankan government, which has herded large numbers of Tamil civilians into a narrow strip of land, where many have been killed, and many others are suffering.
Beyond the cessation of this particular atrocity, however, what do the Tamils want?
I ask this because I visited the protest organized by Tamils in London today. Under a glowering statue of Winston Churchill, right next to the British Parliament, a group of perhaps one thousand assembled once again today, as they have for many days now. They have a permit to protest for the rest of this week, and assurances that they will be given new weekly permits for the foreseeable future.
Everyone at the protest I talked to said that they intended to keep demonstrating for as long as it takes to get their objectives met. But, what are those objectives?
On the one hand, I heard protesters describe a demand that there be an immediate cease fire. I read signs that proclaimed, “Tamils Demand Political Solution. Tamils Detest Military Solution.”
I also, however, heard Tamils praising the Tamil Tigers, a group that has been engaged in violent rebellion against the government of Sri Lanka for decades. I heard the chant, “Tamil Tigers! Freedom Fighters!” in more than one corner of the protest square.
I have sympathy for the Tamils suffering in Sri Lanka. My sympathy for the protest in London ends, however, when demonstrators use the attention gained by other people’s suffering to bring glory to the cause of violence.
I am sure than many of the Tamils protesting outside of Parliament support nonviolent means to the resolution of the conflict on Sri Lanka. Their efforts are being co-opted, though, by people who respect only the rights of civilians in their own group. In order to gain more attention worldwide, the Tamil protest movement needs to repudiate the Tamil Tigers as it protests violence by non-Tamils.
The movement also needs to clearly articulate its goals. Does it want peace, or does it want to win a war? Does it want freedom, or just an independent Tamil state? None of the Tamils I met who were protesting today was able to articulate a vision beyond the current atrocity.
Some times, my anger about a subject is so strong that I can’t express myself directly without blowing a gasket. This morning is one of those times, so I’ve channeled myself through a banana. Here’s what he has to say:
The news is coming in so fast that it’s a little hard to keep track of it all, but let’s try.
On the one hand over here, we have information that one individual was waterboarded by the United States Government, suffocated 183 times under water. Another individual tortured 83 times at least, possibly more. The full list of individuals who have been tortured multiple times by the United States Government? Unknown.
On the other side over here, we have information about what the torture was for. McClatchy reports this morning that the object of all this torture was not necessarily to try to prevent a terror attack, but to try to dredge up some kind of claim that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9-11 attacks, justifying the choice to go to war against Iraq.
Multiple instances of torture. A desire to go to war. Put them together and you get what? Lots of torture. Hundreds of thousands of people dead. Thousands of Americans killed. A trillion dollars shoved down the rat hole. Our international reputation shot to hell.
Have you had enough? What are you going to do about it?
Forget the banana, but don’t forget his question. What are you and I going to do about this? What can we do about this?
The efforts to convince the American public that the 2010 military budget has been cut instead of expanded aren’t even as sophisticated as the cheap tactics of a a street corner con artist. That much becomes clear if you pay attention to the details of the huge weapons programs that are wasteful in terms of government spending, but highly profitable for corporate military contractors. Of course, as every street corner con artist knows, most people don’t pay attention to the details.
Let me make this simple for you. Just remember this one thing: Last year, the U.S. Navy decided it only wanted only 2 DDG-1000 destroyers.
The reasons for this decision to buy fewer DDG-1000 destroyers than originally planned were many, including significant cost overruns. After years of development, still only one third of the DDG-1000’s “critical technologies” are ready for deployment. The most important consideration in this decision, however, is the fact that, even if all of its technologies worked according to design, the destroyer would be a sitting duck easily destroyed by enemy missiles. 15 separate reports have confirmed this to be the case.
In spite of the waste, incompetence and dangerous vulnerability to American sailors created by the DDG-1000 program, 11 U.S. Senators representing states where corporate military contractors benefit economically from the construction of the DDG-1000 sent an angry series of communications to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. They demanded that three DDG-1000 ships be built, and said that they would withdraw funding for other military programs unless their corporate patrons got their pork barrel.
Did Secretary Gates hold the line against waste? In the 2010 budget, Gates says he’s cutting wasteful defense spending, but he is requesting three DDG-1000 Destroyers. Explaining his budget, Gates said, “plans depend on being able to work out contracts to allow the Navy to efficiently build all three DDG-1000 class.”
Yet, the original point remains. The U.S. Navy doesn’t need three DDG-1000 Destroyers. Remember: The Navy only asked for two.
Neat trick, huh? The Pentagon increases a huge spending program by 50 percent, and then claims to be ending the program’s waste.
The 2010 military budget proposed by the Obama Administration is full of little maneuvers like this. The math isn’t even fuzzy. It’s brutally clear, if you just pay attention to the numbers, instead of the soaring promises that weave a narrative to shield our gullible minds from what’s right in front of our eyes.
It is a time of fear in the face of freedom, a time for the widening of previous roads and the opening of new paths, a time of an emptying country and swelling cities, yet a time when these paths are mined by knowing algorithms of the all-seeing eye. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection. These are the times when maps fade and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread. Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times.
In the Senate, Joseph Lieberman has been leading the way in helping Obama to conceal evidence of torture that was conducted during military interrogations. In the House of Representatives last week, however, Congressman Rush Holt introduced legislation as a countercurrent to the push for coverup.
It’s been six years since we were told that everything would be all wrapped up in a couple of months. It’s been two years since we were told that the surge was going to bring a political solution that would ensure a lasting end to the violence. Remember how we were told that a withdrawal before a surge would be bloody? Well, now we’re seeing that a withdrawal after a surge is bloody too.
That makes two “Independent Study Group” participants out of 17 affiliated with 
Mother Davis looks at a picture of Afghanistan’s future, and notes,
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