Anyone who thinks they have all the Answers before they've even heard the Question - is Dangerously Deluded! Real Truth Requires Vigilance, Perseverance and Courage, regardless of Party and who wields Power. Left, Right, Center, Corporations, Government, Unions, Criminals or the Indifferent.
The Politics of Fear: The BBC special describes how Leo Strauss at the University of Chicago and Egyptian Syyid Qotb each simultaneous began the Neo-Conservative Movement, and Radical Wahhabist Islam as methods to manipulate and control the masses, but instead became the converging paths on a road to mutual destruction.
You see the big flaw in America/Western Culture according to both Strauss and Qotb is our individualism. Our Freedom. Or Greed, Selfishness and lack of desire for a common purpose. Qotb felt this common purpose should be a devotion to Islam, and after visiting the United States to review our educational system returned to Egypt to begin thinktank of Islamic thinker, who eventually become more and more radicalized until they attempted to overthrow the government, were imprisoned, tortured and eventually executed - but not for influencing other Islamic thinker such as Ahyman al Zawahiri, the eventually mentor of Osama Bin Laden.
Strauss similarly influenced his contemporaries including Irvin Kristol, reacted to the Great Society arguing that it was an "abject failure".
Irvin Kristol: (The Liberals) had their reforms, and they have led to consequences they did not expect and have no answer for.
The crime and strife of the 60's and early 70's couldn't have been the result of an unreasonable War and restrictive regressive policies of division and exclusion - No, it had to be those Liberals, and all those damn Peace Loving, Anti-Discriminatory HIPPIES fault.
Other similar travelers, using Strauss's thoughts on anti-indiviudalism to answer Kristol, which included his son William, Paul Wolfowitz, Francis Fukiyama and of course, Donald Rumsfeld.
Part 2 focuses on the Rise of Reagan, the eventual Fall of Afghanistan, and the Phantom Victory over the Cold War
So interesting that President Reagan dedicated the crashed Space Shuttle Columbia to the Afganistan Freedom Fighters.
In part 6 you'll see a very young looking David Brock arguing vehemently that then President Bill Clinton had perpetrated a sexual assault against Paula Jones - but Brock realizing that he had become part of the Scaif funded "Arkansas Project" eventually rejected the destructive practices of the Right, and has since gone on for found Media Matters.
This is what he says now...
Brock: They didn't care (if any of it was true). It was terrorism, political terrorism.
The last section address the rise of Bin Laden, become the perfect tool and foil for the Neo-Cons now regaining power with the Election of George W. Bush who supposedly represented the "Return of Honor" to the White House following the (mostly falsified) scandals of Bill Clinton.
When originally broadcast by the BBC this special very nearly prevented Tony Blair from joining in the War on Iraq - nearly, but not quite.
Quite an informative piece on the Neo-Cons, the Religious Right and Radical Islam. It's always good to know your enemies at least as well, if not better, than they know themselves.
We can still see the techniques of Strauss in the constant propaganda of the Fox Disinformation Network. The constant drumbeat of Fear of Socialism, Marxism, Islamicism, Secularism coming from Fox, filtered through the Tea Party and back into wacked-out radical candidates such as Sharron Angle (who rails against the government while living on the government dole), Christine O'Donnell (who hasn't met a gratuitous self-aggrandizing LIE she didn't love), Joe Miller (who wants to cut the Social Security and Medicare his own parents depend on), Meg Whiteman (whose tossed her own former illegal immigrant maid under the bus) and Karl Paladino (who threatened to take out a HIT on a reporter).
We can't allow this fear-mongering to continue to rip our country apart.
It's Official: Newt Gingrich & Mark Williams have been emboldening the enemy with their anti-Islam Crusade (Yes, I said Crusade).
Taliban officials know it’s sacrilegious to hope a mosque will not be built, but that’s exactly what they’re wishing for: the success of the fiery campaign to block the proposed Islamic cultural center and prayer room near the site of the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan. “By preventing this mosque from being built, America is doing us a big favor,” Taliban operative Zabihullah tells NEWSWEEK. (Like many Afghans, he uses a single name.) “It’s providing us with more recruits, donations, and popular support.”
Nice going Newt, Nice going.
Taliban officials say they’re looking forward to a new wave of terrorist trainees from the West like this year’s Times Square car bomber. “I expect we will soon be receiving more American Muslims like Faisal Shahzad who are looking for help in how to express their rage,” says a Taliban official who was a senior minister when the group ruled Afghanistan and who remains active in the insurgency.
As an indication of the anger that is growing among some Muslims in the West, this official, who requested anonymity for security reasons, mentions the arrest of three Canadian Muslims in Ontario last week on charges of plotting to build and detonate improvised explosive devices. (A fourth individual was arrested in Ottawa last Friday in connection with the case.) The Ground Zero furor will likely add to that anger. “The more mosques you stop, the more jihadis we will get,” Zabihullah predicts.
Not only has the hate-speech coming from the right begun to inspire the Taliban who we are fighting in Afghanistan, it's begun to inspire domestic terrorist including the arsonist who set fire to the Mosque in Murfeesboro Tennessee.
Local and federal authorities are investigating a fire at the construction site of an Islamic community center and mosque in Murfreesboro, Tenn., this weekend, as well as reports of gunshots as community members gathered at the site.
The fire, which damaged a large piece of construction equipment, was discovered early Saturday morning. The local sheriff's office, the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Bureau and the FBI are investigating.
A spokesman for ATF said today that although they aren't ready to say the fire was intentional, an accelerant was found.
"We're leaning toward arson," Special Agent Glenn Anderson said on MSNBC.
Church burning! We've returned to Church Burning, like what used to happen during the Civil Rights Era. Fighting Terrorism with Terrorism. Brilliant.
But we have to realize that this isn't a battle between Christians and Muslims, it's a battle between Extremists and Moderates as Imam Feisal Rauf himself has stated.
DUBAI (Reuters) - Election-year politics are interfering with the plan to build an Islamic center near the site of the September 11 attacks, the Muslim cleric leading the project said in comments published Monday.
Kuwait-born Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has been tight-lipped on the planned cultural center as he tours Gulf Arab countries to speak about religious radicalism, but said he felt the uproar was linked to the U.S. congressional elections in November.
"There is no doubt that the election season has had a major impact upon the nature of the discourse," Abdul Rauf said in an interview with Abu Dhabi's The National newspaper.
The imam said the issue was "not between Muslims and non-Muslims, but between moderates of all the faith traditions and the radicals of all the faith traditions."
We've heard a whole lot of blather over the last few weeks about how the Fruit-of-the-Boom Attacker should've been dragged by Air Marshals off a U.S. Airplane in Detriot straight to Gitmo, Do not pass "Go" - do not collect your Miranda.
We've been told that we should do it the way Bush did it.
But the facts are that the Bush Administration had an 88% success rate prosecuting terrorists in civilian court while in military tribunals the FAILURE rate so far has been ... 85%.
The Bush administration -- in which Liz Cheney's papa held a fairly high position, you might recall -- prosecuted, after 9-11, 828 people on terrorism charges in civilian courts. At the time of publication of this excellent report from the Center on Law and Security, NYU School of Law last year, trials were still pending against 235 of those folks. That leaves 593 resolved indictments, of which 523 were convicted of some crime, for a conviction rate of 88%.
With regard to military tribunals, the Bush administration inaugurated 20 such cases. So far just three convictions have been won. The highest-profile is the conviction of Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's driver. The Hamdan legal saga, rehearsed here, doesn't exactly suggest that military tribunals provide swifter and surer and tougher justice. In the end, he was convicted all right, but sentenced -- not by a bunch of New York City Democrats, but by a military jury! -- to five and half years.
Then, the tribunal judge, a US Navy captain, gave Hamdan credit for time served, which was five years. So he served six months after conviction. Today he's back in -- guess where? -- Yemen.
Typical Conservative Opposite World Logic - rather than do what works, reaches justice and protects the nation 88% of time, they'd rather do what hasn't worked in 85% of the attempted cases, and even when it has worked the suspect was ultimately released for time served after only SIX MONTHS.
But let's not dance around the sad ugly truth here - the real reason that Conservatives want to have the Military handle these cases is because they believe that Only The Military can "Sweat those Terrorist Secrets Out of Them" - like Jack Bauer in a badly thought out scene for "24".
Just listen to Giu-Liar-ani talk about how "We should still be interrogating" abdulMuttalab with the military even though from all indications he's already talking to us.
Guiliiani: They only talked to him for 30 Hours? My question is why would you ever stop it? In the Military they wouldn't have a time limit to talk to him.
Actually the fact is they don't have to stop it. Even with Miranda in place or a lawyer present they can ask him all kinds of things about al Qeada's functioning as long as it's not about his own case, or going to be used in court against him. (That's what the Fifth Amendment from that Pesky Constitution is all about)
His attorney's only requirement is to protect his client, not to protect al Qeada. In fact, it's because of what abdulMuttalab has told us - without the Military - that we even know that former Gitmo detainees were involved in his training in Yemen.
Guiliani is a former Assistant Attorney General and Federal Prosecutor - he should know better than this. He really should. But for the sake of Partisan Politics he pretends he doesn't know that law or how our Justice system works. It's pathetic.
Anyone who'se ever sat halfway though an episode of Mattlock should know this stuff.
Let also point out the kind of "extended interrogations" that Ghouliani is talking about - something which is far beyond what would be allowed for any P.O.W. under Geneva (ie Name, Rank, Serial Number)- are likely to be thrown out even in a Military Tribunal setting and not admissible, ending in a ruined case just as it did in the case one living accused 9-11 Hijacker Mohommad al-Qhatani.
"We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that’s why I did not refer the case" for prosecution. [...]
Oh, and one more thing -- according to FBI (Ali Soufan) and Military (Matthew Alexander) Interrogators who did get us actionable information after 9-11 and in Iraq Torture Doesn't Work at giving us accurate information, besides the fact it's inadmissible in ANY court.
WASHINGTON -- The testimony of a key witness at a Senate hearing Wednesday raised serious questions about the truthfulness of former President George W. Bush's own personal defense of the CIA's brutal interrogation program. Former FBI agent Ali Soufan also indicated that the harsh interrogation techniques may actually have hindered the collection of intelligence, causing a high-value prisoner to stop cooperating.
In the first congressional hearing on torture since the release of Bush administration memos that provided the legal justification for torture, Soufan told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the CIA's abusive techniques were "ineffective, slow and unreliable, and as a result harmful to our efforts to defeat al-Qaida." According to Soufan, his own nonviolent interrogation of an al-Qaida suspect was quickly yielding valuable, actionable intelligence -- until the CIA intervened.
This is NOT the road we need to be running blindly back down. As has been posted in another diary - Obama's Approval Rating on his handling of the attempted Detroit Plane Bombing is 57% favorable.
After his inserted his foot up to his back molar on Good Morning America by claiming "Bush had No Domestic Attacks" - Rudy Gui-9/11-iani decided to do some damaged control on CNN, and managed to steer right into the high weeds.
Rudy Giuliani came on The Situation Room to attempt to clarify his remarks on Good Morning America and still has his facts wrong. John's right. The media needs to give this liar a time out. Rudy now wants us to believe that he meant to say we weren't attacked since Sept. 11th on George Bush's watch. When asked about the anthrax attacks, Giuliani claims that wasn't a terrorist attack because the FBI didn't ever figure out who did it, and it "was not done in the name of Islamic terrorism".
Of course Blitzer didn't point out how utterly ridiculous that statement is, or some of the other domestic terrorist attacks that happened on Bush's watch as well, so he didn't do much better than George Stephanopoulos' bit of stenography on Good Morning America.
WASHINGTON -- In a series of court documents that were at turns chilling and bizarre, federal investigators said U.S. Army microbiologist Bruce E. Ivins misled government agents investigating the 2001 anthrax mailings, sent emails with language closely matching the handwritten letters sent to victims and had access to the strain of anthrax used in the crime.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation says the evidence, including hundreds of pages of unsealed documents, proves that Dr. Ivins was the sole person responsible for the 2001 anthrax mailings. Many of the documents contain previously unknown details and shed fresh light on the seven-year investigation, one of the most complex and controversial undertaken by federal law enforcement.
The only reason this suspect hasn't been brought to Justice is because he committed suicide as soon as it was announced that he was the chief suspect.
Guiliani's arguement is that we didn't have another Islamic Terrorist Attack since since 9-11, except for Fort Hood - and his evidence that Maj Hasan was a "islamic terrorist" is simply the fact he (allegedly) spoke in arabic during the attack - an allegation which has been disputed.
Guiliani also goes on to say that Obama is making a mistake by calling it a "War on Al Qaeada" becasue there are other terrorist organizations out there such as Hezbollah and Hamas, and there are individuals who may be inspired by Islamic extremism besides those specifically allied with al Qeada.
If your going to include people "inspired" by al Qeada (which is clearly an attempt to pull Maj Hasan into the mix) you would then have to include things like the DC Sniper, the SUV attack on campus of UNC, the attack at LAX, the shooting of Army Recruiters in Little Rock and the planned attack on Ft. Dix - all of which occurred on Bush's watch as pointed out here by Lawrence O'Donnell on Countdown.
If that doesn't work for you here's a chart showing the number of terrorist attacks during the last three Presidents via Bob Cesca.
So much for "Bush Kept us Safe" - either before or after 9-11.
And if you really look into the numbers it seems we have a lot more to worry about from Domestic Terrorists affiliated with groups like the Army of God such as Scott Reoder or wack-jobs like the Holocaust Museum Shooter than al Qeada.
The other argument the Guiliani makes which is equally ridiculous and frankly for more dangerous, is the idea that U.S. Intelligence Offices can't talk to abdulMuttalab because he's been arranged in Federal Court. The fact is they absolutely CAN talk to him all they want to, especially if what their asking him about has nothing to do with presenting any evidence against him in court.
Yes, it might be necessary to have his attorney in the room during questioning if he requests it - but the FBI or CIA can talk to him all they want - they simply can't use what he says against him in his own case. What he says about other people is all fair game.
Giuliani is arguing that Miranda and the Fourth and Fifth Amendments shouldn't apply to this guy and that he should be treated as a Military Prisoner of War - but if he were a P.O.W. the only things that you could ask him, "Under the Laws Of War" (as Joe Lieberman recently claimed we should be using) - would NAME, RANK and SERIAL NUMBER.
The "Laws of War" are the Geneva Conventions.
It's really disappointing that Giuliani, who is a former Federal Prosecutor, seems to have lost all faith in the American Justice System - for a Partisan Jack Bauer Wet-Dream.
Tonight Keith Olbermann Reported that the Warnings about Christmas Bomber Umar AdbulMuttalab actually were noticed and were transmitted to the proper agency - but were simply Six Hours Late, as the flight to Detroit had already left the ground and U.S. Agents were actually waiting to question him on arrival.
The new information shows that border enforcement officials came close to uncovering the plot despite previous intelligence failures that were criticized by President Obama this week.
If the intelligence had been discovered sooner, it could have resulted in the interrogation and search of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab before he boarded the Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight, senior law enforcement officials said.
"The people in Detroit were prepared to look at him in secondary inspection," said a senior law enforcement official who requested anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. "The decision had been made. The . . . database had picked up the State Department concern about this guy, that this guy may have been involved with extremist elements in Yemen. . . . They could have made a decision on whether to stop him from getting on the plane."
It appears that the Intelligence Agencies under President Obama really aren't as hopelessly clueless as they had been under President Bush, and now the goal will be make them even better not tear our hair out in panic or frustration.
Another interesting factor in the L.A Times report is apparently that AdbulMutallab has been providing quite a bit of information, and that he has admitted communications to the same former Radical U.S. Cleric that had been linked to Maj Hasan and the Ft. Hood Shootings.
Abdulmutallab has provided valuable information to the FBI and federal prosecutors about his dealings with extremists in Yemen, where he was allegedly trained and outfitted with the explosive device that he concealed in his underwear during the trip that began in Ghana, according to U.S. law enforcement officials. Abdulmutallab has told interrogators that the plot involved meetings in Yemen with Anwar al Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni cleric suspected of involvement with Al Qaeda. In addition, communications intercepts detected discussions about Awlaki's role in a suspected plot involving a Nigerian, U.S. officials have said.
The investigation has also uncovered communications between Abdulmutallab and Awlaki, a U.S. anti-terrorism official said today.
"He was definitely in communication with Awlaki," said the official. "That's been documented."
The FBI had investigated Hasan's links to Awlaki, but hadn't found their communication suspicious. The only known link between Awlaki and al Qeada had been that some of the 9-11 Hijackers went to his mosque in Virginia, but not that they'd communicated with him while there. Yet another link to Awlaki may indicate that he had stronger links to al Qeada then the FBI had previously thought.
It's about time a grown-up finally appeared in the room... This is National Security Counter-Terrorism Chief John Brennan (who now holds Richard Clarke's former post) responding to issues raised by former Vice-President (And Unindited War Criminal) Dick Cheney.
BRENNAN: It’s disappointing to me that either the vice president or others have willfully mischaracterized President Obama’s position and actions or they’re just ignorant of the facts.
He's being gentlemanly here but there are only two choices; Either Cheney is Ignorant (and thereby irresponsible to speak without the facts) or A LIAR (Willful Mischaracterizer!)
Brennan via Thinkprogress.
BRENNAN: It’s disappointing to me that either the vice president or others have willfully mischaracterized President Obama’s position and actions or they’re just ignorant of the facts. I think in either case, it doesn’t speak well to sort of the reasons why they sort of went out and said these things. I came back into government for the express purpose of making sure that we can make this country safer than its ever been in the past. I have worked with the president over the past 12 months now and he is as determined as anybody I’ve worked with. I’m neither Republican nor Democrat. I’ve worked with the previous five administrations and this president is determined. And I think he has demonstrated in his language. He says we’re at war with al Qaeda. Were going to destroy al Qaeda the organization and we’re going to demonstrate through our actions, whether it be in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and other places that al Qaeda might be able to run, but they’re not going to be able to hide.
More Brennan from Meet The Press
MR. GREGORY: Republicans have been very critical of this president and accuse him of returning to a pre-9/11 mentality, of becoming lax in the face of terror, of essentially letting America's guard down. Former Vice President Dick Cheney said this to Politico this past week. Let me put his comment up on the screen. "As I've watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won't be at war. ... He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of September 11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won't be at war. He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core al-Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won't be at war. He seems to think if he gets rid of the words, `war on terror,' we won't be at war. But we are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren't, it makes us less safe." How do you respond to that?
MR. BRENNAN: I'm very disappointed in the vice president's comments. I'm neither Republican nor Democrat. I've worked for the past five administrations. And either the vice president is willfully mischaracterizing this president's position, both in terms of the language he uses and the actions he taken--he's taken, or he's ignorant of the facts. And in either case, it doesn't speak well of what the vice president's doing. The clear evidence is that this president has been very, very strong. In his inaugural address, he said, "We're at war with this international network of terrorists." We continue to say that we're at war with al-Qaeda. We're trying to give it some clarity. And we have taken the fight to them. We've continued, in fact, many of the, of the activities of the previous administration. I would not have come back into this government if I felt that this president was not committed to prosecuting this war against al-Qaeda. And every day I see it in the president's face, I see it in the actions he's taken, and so I'm confident that this country is, in fact, protected by this president's position on al-Qaeda and against terrorist activities. We're going to continue to do this, we're going to do it hard, we're going to do it constantly.
Watching the entire program Brennan slapped back hard at any suggestion that President Obama was in any way unserious about doing the rest thing and the best things to protect this nation from future attacks and to seek justice against those who perpetrate such attacks.
The Yemeni/Al Qeada strongholds which are most likely to have spawned the Christmas Day Attack have already been bombed into dust with many of the leaders of that faction of AQ being killed and rendered "on the run" by Yemeni forces. Brennan spoke extensively about how the Administration has already been focusing heavily on Yemen and making great progress there.
This is how a professional behaves - this is non-partisanship - as contrasted by the horrible performance by the top politicos from the House and Senate Homeland Security Committees, who for the record happen to be Joe Lieberman (Senate-Chairman), Susan Collins (Senate-Ranking Members), Jane Harmon (House-Chair) and Pete Hoekstra (House-Ranking Member).
Let's start with Lieberman:
Sen. Joe Lieberman believes that Guantanamo Bay's bad reputation isn't deserved. "You could not find a better, more humane facility for a detention center in the world," Lieberman told ABC's Terry Moran Sunday.
Lieberman thinks it's a mistake to close the detention center. "The president is in charge of what happens there now so some of the abuses of the past are not going to happen [in the future]," said Lieberman.
So Lieberman thinks Gitmo is fine and dandy - and further during this program he stated that Christmas Bomber AdulMuttabu shouldn't be tried in court but instead as a Prisoner of War by a Military Commission so that he can be mined for Intelligence Resources without the protection of Miranda.
One problem with that, he wasn't captured on a "Battlefield" - he was captured on U.S. Soil on an American Airplane by U.S. Air Marshals, not the U.S. Military. He's being handled by the Department of Justice because that's who has custody of him - is Lieberman really suggesting that we should have U.S. Troops patrolling our Airports and Airplans?
Posse Commitatus Much?
Have none of these people ever paid attention to how the U.S. Justice System has been taking down organized crime for decades? They didn't "sweat it out of them" - very often they cut them deal for a lesser or reduced sentence in exchange for valuable verifiable information.
Why is it that the only thing these people seem to be able to conceive is some kind of Jack Bauer/24 Non-Justice - don't they ever watch programs like CSI where it's not the suspect or witnesses statements that count as much as the physical and trace evidence?
All of the Congress-Critters present seemed to think that the warning offered by Muttalab's father was more than credible and sufficient to have his already valid Visa revoked and his named moved to the No-Fly List - Even without anyone checking to see if this Claim was Correct!
A claim and an allegation is not "EVIDENCE*.
This ridiculous suggestion is how people like Cat Stevens (Yusef Islam), former Vice-President Al Gore and Nelson Mandela wound up on the Watch and No-Fly List. A panicked Chicken-Little response is more likely to alienate those who might want to come forward and help us, just as the likelihood that his son would wind up detained indefinitely without charges in a Black Site or GITMO would deter future father's and family members from coming forward with tips about their relatives extremist allegiances.
And then you had Hoekstra the Jokestra attempting to defend his attempts to use an attempted terrorist attacks as an opportunity to raise funds.
Hoeksta didn't back off one iota, and claims to be "fully substantiated" in his Security claims - yet Hoekstra, along with Rick (Man-on-Dog) Santorum - formerly claimed that we really *DID* find WMD's in Iraq!
I am so glad that the person making the decisions on these issues are people like Brennan and not grand-standing ass-clowns like Lieberman and Hoeksta.
David Shuster discusses Obama and his response to the Christmas Bomber with Republican Congressman and Former FBI Agent Mike Rogers.
Rogers: Are you saying want to extend the Constitution to Foreigners?
Shuster: What about upholding the Constitution?
As it turns out the Supreme Court has already settled this question w/Hamdan v Rumsfeld - the 14th Amendment Requires Equal Protection all "Persons" not just "Citizens". They still have Habeaus Protection under the Courts (even though Bush and Congress attempted to strip if from them) and Bush's first set of Military Commissions were found completely illegal.
What's amazing about this is that this FBI Agent doesn't trust the FBI to be able to get the job done. Shuster points out that none of the suspects who have been tried via Civilian Courts have been able to "Get Away With it" (and he should hsve slso mentioned that the Military Commissions have FAILED many times, particular in the case where charges were dropped against one of the Cole Bombers because he had been Tortured).
“We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani,” said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. “His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that’s why I did not refer the case” for prosecution. [...]
The Military Commission Process is completely tainted, and should be avoided unless there literally is no other choice.
But let's be realistic here, people like Cheney, Rove and Rogers here are concerned with whether the susepct is brought to Justice - they're arguing for Jack Bauer Justice where this person could be interrogated for information with no-holds-barred. Particularly not Miranda or that peska annoying Constitution in the way.
It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence.
We discovered, for example, that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Abu Zubaydah also told us about Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber. This experience fit what I had found throughout my counterterrorism career: traditional interrogation techniques are successful in identifying operatives, uncovering plots and saving lives.
There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics.
Yet these Wingnuts are still in love with techniques that have Never been shown to generate accurate information.
The Supreme Court has already settled this w/Hamdan v Rumsfeld - the 14th Amendment Requires Equal Protection all "Persons" not just "Citizens"
Sad to say, this is how they think Terrorism Should be Handled:
Here on Hardball you have Ron Christie beating the Republican Drum that the problem with Obama is that he's trying to Use the Constitution to fight Terrorism?
This just aired today and trascript is not up yet - but please watch to see how Joan Walsh put this little Golem wannabe in his place.
Cheney:
As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of 9/11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war.
Yeah, That would be just like the Lawyer and Trial the Bush Administration gave to Richard Reid the last person to use PETN to try and blow up an American Plane? Or how about Jose Padilla? Or how about the other 200 plus terrorism suspects who're were succesfully tried and convicted - yes, even during the Bush Administration?
Meanwhile it seems that the "Masterminds" behind the Underwear-Bomb Plot were released form Gitmo by Bush against the advice of the Military that they represented a continued threat?
Brian Ross of ABC News reports that two of the four men behind the plot to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day were actually prisoners of the United States and that, under the leadership of President George W. Bush, were released into a Saudi art rehabilitation program.
According to Defense Department records, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi (now known as Muhamad al-Awfi) and Said Ali Shari were released from detention at Guantanamo Bay in 2007 despite allegations of material support for military operations in Afghanistan. Naturally, they were never tried on those charges and al-Awfi reportedly was refused access to his own passport to refute allegations made against him. Shari was reportedly killed in an airstrike on Christmas Eve, and is suspected in the murder of 6 Christian missionaries in Yemen.
Both the families of al-Awfi and Shari attribute their radicalization to their years in detention at Guantanamo Bay.
Let's repeat this point - these guys were NOT terrorist before they were detained at Gitmo as quite a bit of evidence has shown many of those held there are completely innocent, but the experience of being unlawfully detained (and very likely mistreated) was itself the Spark that radicalized these men and led to the Christmas attack.
And Cheney thinks this is what we need to keep doing?
Also Abdul Muttalab received his Visa and Passport and traveled to the U.S. TWICE under the Bush/Cheney Administration.
Sadly this lunacy is not just coming from Cheney, there's also Gingrinch.
In the Obama Administration, protecting the rights of terrorists has been more important than protecting the lives of Americans. That must now change decisively. It is time to know more about would-be terrorists, to profile for terrorists and to actively discriminate based on suspicious terrorist information.
And there's Karl (Unsanctified Marriage Quitter) Rove.
CARLSON: This President was not notified until three hours after this incident became known. Is that a long time? It seems like a long time.
ROVE: Look, they woke him up immediately to tell him he won the Nobel Prize but couldn’t bother to interrupt his vacation for three hours to tell him a terrorist tried to bring down a plane on Christmas Day. And the President waits 72 hours before we hear from him, and it’s over 72 hours from the time of the incident to the time that the President spoke today, and then the President said some things that are simply not true.
President Bush didn't respond to the Richard Reid Shoe Bomber attack until 6 days later, and only because he was asked about it by a reporter at the end of a press conference - he never made Any kind of formal statement on it.
This bull is what we get from the people behind the President who didn't come off his vacation when he received the August 6th PDB that said "Al Qaeda Determined to Attack the U.S."
They got some nerve.
Eric Massa on Ed Responds to Cheney and Christie.
Massa: I'm sick and tired of the former Vice President taking shots at this administration for the creation of problems he was largely responsible for. It's like he has Political Tourettes!
To put it simply: this President is not interested in bellicose rhetoric, he is focused on action. Seven years of bellicose rhetoric failed to reduce the threat from al Qaeda and succeeded in dividing this country. And it seems strangely off-key now, at a time when our country is under attack, for the architect of those policies to be attacking the President.
Bellicose Attack is all the have, particularly when it's Republican Senator Jim Demint who is currently blocking the confirmation of the new TSA Head. It's been Republicans in Congress who've blocked funding and deployment for bomb sniffing equipment and full body scanners - yet they think they have credibility on "Fighting Terror"?
What's their solution : Call Jack Bauer?
The repeated whine coming from all of these Neo-cons is that Foreign Fighters shouldn't be subject to the protections of the Constitution - because if they get "Miranda Rights" and the ability to "Remain Silent" to cross examine witness and present evidence in their defense - it's BAD FOR AMERICA?
Really?
When people like Cheney and Gingrich and even Rove were sworn in to their government jobs they didn't swear to protect the American people, they didn't swear to protect American buildings, they didn't swear to protect Aircraft - THEY SWORE TO PROTECT THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION.
Yet repeatedly the first thing they want to jettison in the face of each and every threat - no matter how incompetently executed - is run screaming from the Constitution at the highest speed possible.
And here's an example of Alan Colmes handing a serious Smack-Down to Wingnut Talking Points on Terrorism. Nice Job Alan.
Tantaros: But the point now is that we cannot discount this, we cannot use terms like 'manmade disaster' and go after -- it seems like this administration is more interested in going after Republicans, and going after the previous administration, than going after our real enemies. When you say, 'Don't blame Barack Obama' --
Colmes: That is an outrageous smear, an outrageous smear against an administration that's trying to do the right thing, that cares about this country. The implication that this administration or Democrats don't love America, don't want to protect America, don't want to protect the American people -- that's an outrageous smear against Democrats.
Tantaros: Alan, I don't blame just Barack Obama, like you said, Alan. I blame you, I blame Nancy Pelosi, and I blame the left and the liberals who are trying to weaken our country.
"Weaken the Country?" by having the country not just TALK TOUGH but actually Be Tough enough to live up to it's ideals and values instead of cowering in fear?
Republicans and Republicans ONLY want to pretend this is a debatable point, but it's not - not since the Hamdan v Rumsfeld decision which determined that even "Enemy Combatants" were indeed protected by the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions.
The Supreme Court announced its decision on 29 June 2006. The Court reversed the ruling of the Court of Appeals, holding that President George W. Bush did not have authority to set up the war crimes tribunals and finding the special military commissions illegal under both military justice law and the Geneva Conventions.
I think that tells everything we really need to know about these Patriotic Pimps.
After a long-winded session of Back Peddling by Ridge over his thoughts and feelings that Homeland Security "might" have been politicized - the best part is during the second section of the Interview here where Rachel hones in the invalid basis for starting the Iraq War and does something no other Journalist has bother to do in 6 Years - Point out the Truth!
MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show - 1 Sep. 2009: Rachel interviews former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge on politicizing terror threat level during the Bush Administration. Maddow clearly has no patience with Ridge pulling out the "faulty intelligence was responsible for Iraq fiasco" crap and his backpedaling.
PART ONE OF INTERVIEW: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...
MADDOW: I think you making that argument right now is why Republicans after the Bush and Cheney administration are not going to get back the country's trust on national security. To look back at that decision and say 'we got it wrong but it was in good faith' and not acknowledge the foregone conclusion that we are going to invade Iraq that pervaded every decision that was made about intelligence. Looking back at that decision-making process, it sounds like you're making the argument that you would have made the same decision again.
Americans need to believe that our government would not make that wrong a decision, that would not take such a foregone conclusion to such an important issue, that the intelligence that proved the opposite point was all discounted, that the intelligence was combed through for any bit that would fit the foregone conclusion of the policymakers. The system was broken and if you don't see that the system was broken and you think that it was just that the intel was wrong - I think that you're one of the most trusted voices on national security for the Republican party, and I think that is the elephant in the room. I don't think you guys get back your credibility on national security until you realize that was a wrong decision made by policy makers; that wasn't the spies fault.
RIDGE: Well, I think you are suggesting that it was only driven by, quite obviously the people who made the decision knew more about the threat than you and I do. And again I think it is a pretty radical conclusion to suggest that men and women entrusted with the safety of this country would predicate a decision upon any other basis other than to keep America safe. Later on it may have proven that some of the information was inaccurate, but there were plenty of reasons to go into Iraq at the time - the foremost were the weapons of mass destruction, that obviously proven to be faulty. But the fact of the matter is, at that time, given what they knew, and they knew more than what you and I did, it seemed to be the right thing to do and the decision was made in what they considered to be in the best interest of our country.
- snip -
MADDOW: If you can go back in time and sell the American people on the idea that 4,000 Americans ought to lose their lives and we ought to lose those trillions of dollars for democracy in Iraq, you have a wilder imagination than I do. We were sold that war because of 9/11. We were sold that war because of the threat of weapons of mass destruction from this guy who didn't have them, and our government should have known it. And frankly a lot of people believe our government did know it and it was a cynical decision. And maybe everybody wasn't in on it and maybe that is a radical thing to conclude...
Repeated Ridge claims the people who ultimately made the decisions had better information than either "You or I"?
You mean people like Dick "String 'em up and Crush their Testicles" Cheney?
Here's something they knew:
The head of Iraqi Intelligence, Tahir Jalil Habbush, had Defected before the War and TOLD US that Saddam had already destroyed all his previous WMD stockpiles. Bush choose not to believe him and said "Give me something I can use..." They then paid him off with $5 Million to keep quiet, after having him forge a letter that framed Saddam for 9-11!
Suskind says he spoke on the record with U.S. intelligence officials who stated that Bush was informed unequivocally in January 2003 that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. Nonetheless, his book relates, Bush decided to invade Iraq three months later — with the forged letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam bolstering the U.S. rationale to go into war.
George Tenet phoned and sent faxes to the White House saying the "Yellowcake Story is Bogus"... so Bush didn't quote the CIA or Tenet, he quoted the British who hadn't figured out that the Niger Document was forgery yet.
When Joe Wilson called them on it, they blew his wife's cover as a covert CIA Agent - which under normal and sane circumstances would be called "Treason" - and tried to claim his objections were just "Nepotism". Yeah, ok - where's the Yellow Cake then?
In order to help prove the Saddam/9-11 link Cheney requested that the head of Iraqi Security be Waterboarded (A Prisoner of War In Iraq - to whom the OLC Memos Didn't Apply), even though he was already cooperating - he just wasn't telling them what CHENEY wanted to hear.
Cynical? Maybe so and Maybe not, but Fracking BULLHEADED and CRIMINAL! You Betcha!
Here's a parting shot from my new Video - just because it's Right on Point - Show them the Truth and some people will simply Never Believe it.
Quite a bit of negative commentary, particular from attorney's such as Jesselyn Raddack and Glenn Greenwald has come down in stomp-footed opposition to Obama's plan to implement "Preventative Detention", meanwhile those on the Right continue to pull their hair out over the idea of "Terrorists released on American streets".
Both positions may in fact be an extreme over-reaction, while Obama's own Solomon-like path of splitting the difference may actually be our nation's only real choice under Geneva, the Constitution and the Law.
First we have to recall where have previously been to better understand where Obama is going. Under President Bush, the protections of Geneva were blatantly rejected by executive fiat. This meant that the tenets of the Army Field Manual, which were based on Geneva were undermined and our troops left without a coherent detention strategy leading to widespread abuses at Bagram A.F.B. and throughout Iraq. Eventually The U.S. established a set of secret detention centers specifically intended to avoid the Geneva mandate of oversight by the International Red Cross, where a program of coercion and torture was implemented to get the answers the Administration wanted, particularly concerning links between Saddam Hussein and 9-11.
In 2006 the Supreme Court overruled Bush's claim that Geneva did not apply with the Hamdan v Rumsfeld decision which meant that all of the previous actions of the Administration at the CIA Black Sites and elsewhere could now fall under 18 USC 2441 for War Crimes prosecution. Bush responded by closing the illegal Black Sites and moving their detainees to GITMO, then quickly pushing through the Military Commissions Act which revoked the protections of habeas corpus for "Alien Enemy Combatants", allowed the use of coerced and self-incriminating testimony (gained via torture), and via "hearsay" in a new Military Commission Trial System.
In 2008 the Supreme Court just as they has previously restored Geneva protections, restored Habeas Corpus to detainees and invalidated Section 7 of the Military Commissions Act with the Boumedian v Bush decision. It held in restoring habeas that...
“to hold that the political branches may switch the constitution on or off at will would lead to a regime in which they, not this court, 'say what the law is'.
So unlike what was claimed by Bush, Obama finds himself in a landscape that must abide not only by the Constitution and Geneva but also Habeas for all detainees. least of all indefinitely without the option of Habeas Review by a court.
In light of these realities Obama outlined five possible options for the disposition of current GITMO detainees.
1. Transfer to U.S. Civilian Courts for Trial.
This option in the past has led to the successful prosecution and incarceration of Ramzi Yusef (The Original WTC Bomber), the "Blink Sheik", Zacarias Moussaoui (The "20th" Hijaker"), Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph (The Olympic Park Bomber), and Ted Kasczinki (the Unibomber) all of whom are being currently held at the Florence Supermax Correctional Facility in Colorado.
No One Has Ever Escaped from a Supermax.
On April 30, 2009 Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, who had been held for the previous six years at the Naval Brig in Charleston without charge, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and terrorism after being transferred by the Obama Administration into the civilian courts and is now being held at the Federal Facility at Pekin, Illinois awaiting sentencing.
The Obama administration plans to follow this trend by bringing charges against another al Qaeda suspect for the 1998 East Africa bombings which killer over 200 Americans.
Despite all the frenzied chest beating, this option has worked fine. America has the best prison system in the world, and is already holding al Qeada inmates - adding another hundred or so is not going to end civilization as we know it.
2. Try Suspects as War Criminals in Military Court
Unlike those who may have committed crimes against Civilians and Non-Combatants, it seems perfectly appropriate to try those who have perpetrated crimes against our troops on the battle field, or civilians in a war zone. Some may say that "there are no Rules in War" however the fact is there have been very clear and definite rules since the Ratification of Geneva in 1949. Under Geneva these would include...
"violations of the laws or customs of war"; including but not limited to "murder, the ill-treatment or deportation of civilian residents of an occupied territory to slave labor camps", "the murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war", the killing of hostages, "the wanton destruction of cities, towns and villages, and any devastation not justified by military, or civilian necessity".
A Courts Martial of Military Criminals is entirely appropriate if the circumstances warrant, and as Obama has noted the previous flaws from the Bush Military Commission System will not - and frankly CAN NOT vis SCOTUS - be included.
The second category of cases involves detainees who violate the laws of war and are therefore best tried through military commissions. Military commissions have a history in the United States dating back to George Washington and the Revolutionary War. They are an appropriate venue for trying detainees for violations of the laws of war. They allow for the protection of sensitive sources and methods of intelligence-gathering; they allow for the safety and security of participants; and for the presentation of evidence gathered from the battlefield that cannot always be effectively presented in federal courts.
Now, some have suggested that this represents a reversal on my part. They should look at the record. In 2006, I did strongly oppose legislation proposed by the Bush administration and passed by the Congress because it failed to establish a legitimate legal framework, with the kind of meaningful due process rights for the accused that could stand up on appeal.
I said at that time, however, that I supported the use of military commissions to try detainees, provided there were several reforms, and in fact there were some bipartisan efforts to achieve those reforms. Those are the reforms that we are now making. Instead of using the flawed commissions of the last seven years, my administration is bringing our commissions in line with the rule of law. We will no longer permit the use of evidence -- as evidence statements that have been obtained using cruel, inhuman, or degrading interrogation methods. We will no longer place the burden to prove that hearsay is unreliable on the opponent of the hearsay. And we will give detainees greater latitude in selecting their own counsel, and more protections if they refuse to testify.
3. Detainees who have been ordered to be released by the Courts
Amazingly some on the right would argue that the Adminstration ignore a Court Order to release a detainee against whom the evidence is insufficient. Obama has rejected that view.
Now, let me repeat what I said earlier: This has nothing to do with my decision to close Guantanamo. It has to do with the rule of law. The courts have spoken. They have found that there's no legitimate reason to hold 21 of the people currently held at Guantanamo. Nineteen of these findings took place before I was sworn into office. I cannot ignore these rulings because as President, I too am bound by the law. The United States is a nation of laws and so we must abide by these rulings.
Whether GITMO stays open or not, these 21 people must legally be released - the problem for some of them however is "to where"? A problem which still plagues the Uighurs, Chinese Muslims who would most likely face persecution if released to that nation but like Boumedienne - a Serbian who was ultimately released to France - an alternative arrangement may eventually be made available. Which leads to the next category.
4. Transferral of Detainees to other Jursidictions.
The fourth category of cases involves detainees who we have determined can be transferred safely to another country. So far, our review team has approved 50 detainees for transfer. And my administration is in ongoing discussions with a number of other countries about the transfer of detainees to their soil for detention and rehabilitation.
This isn't setting them free, Bush did this with numerous detainees such as Ibn Shayhk al-Libi who was transferred to Egypt and eventually to Libya. He also rendered innocent persons such as Abu Omar and Maher Arar who was transferred to Syria. The difficulty here is that both Omar and Arar were completely innocent and actually apprehended by mistake - and all three individuals were tortured in those countries. Like the case of the Uighurs simply shipping people off to other countries without careful thought or planning could prove disastrous, but extradition is an option that should clearly be pursued and could be successful with careful planning.
And then there is the most controversial category.
5. Detainees who can not be prosecuted, but remain AT WAR with the United States
Now, finally, there remains the question of detainees at Guantanamo who cannot be prosecuted yet who pose a clear danger to the American people. And I have to be honest here -- this is the toughest single issue that we will face. We're going to exhaust every avenue that we have to prosecute those at Guantanamo who pose a danger to our country. But even when this process is complete, there may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, in some cases because evidence may be tainted, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States. Examples of that threat include people who've received extensive explosives training at al Qaeda training camps, or commanded Taliban troops in battle, or expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden, or otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans. These are people who, in effect, remain at war with the United States.
In the most simple terms, these people are Prisoners of War and can potentially be held "until hostilities cease". The controversy here is that this is war the in some ways can not be either one or lost, ever. As Glenn Greenwald argues...
When Bush supporters used to justify Bush/Cheney detention policies by arguing that it's normal for "Prisoners of War" to be held without trials, that argument was deeply misleading. And it's no less misleading when made now by Obama supporters. That comparison is patently inappropriate for two reasons: (a) the circumstances of the apprehension, and (b) the fact that, by all accounts, this "war" will not be over for decades, if ever, which means -- unlike for traditional POWs, who are released once the war is over -- these prisoners are going to be in a cage not for a few years, but for decades, if not life.
Traditional "POWs" are ones picked up during an actual military battle, on a real battlefield, wearing a uniform, while engaged in fighting. The potential for error and abuse in deciding who was a "combatant" was thus minimal. By contrast, many of the people we accuse in the "war on terror" of being "combatants" aren't anywhere near a "battlefield," aren't part of any army, aren't wearing any uniforms, etc. Instead, many of them are picked up from their homes, at work, off the streets.
I think that Greenwald, and I am frankly loathe to disagree with Glenn as I respect him greatly and consider his work an inspiration for my own, is just simply wrong here. At the beginning of any armed conflict, it is never really known exactly when hostilities will end. Israel has essentially remained in a constant state of war for decades. The "Troubles" in Northern Ireland were of a similar extended nature.
It should also noted that nearly two years ago in 2007 the newly minted commander in Afghanistan, Gen McChrystal officially announced that al Qaeda in Iraq has been Defeated. Iraq still has lots of problems but that conflict has ended. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of AQI, is dead.
There may indeed be a point in time where this may also be true of Senior Leadership of Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where they are either captured or killed and their ability to function as an effective international terrorist enterprise is diminished to point of irrelevance. In fact - This Should be Our Goal. The difficulty in attaining that goal should be lost on no-one, but neither should it lead us to making choices that defy common sense and allowing enemy assets to return to the battlefield during an active conflict.
The second part of his assumption I think ignores both Obama's specific comments and the reality of the situation is that these would not be people "picked up from their homes, at work, or off the streets" since these locations can not honestly be called the "battlefield." Those people would be, and should be handled as criminal suspects and processed through the civilian courts as Obama describes under option 1.
What we're really talking in this scenario would be Taliban, Al Qeada and Insurgent fighters who have been caught on the battlefield, planting IEDs or otherwise in the act of attacking our troops. Again the case of Insurgents is also instructive here. as at one point we would have never considered the idea of a cease fire let alone open cooperation with those who had previously been fighting with in the Sunni Triangle. Today things are different, and consequently the Military need to hold these prisoners would similarly change over time.
Also the greatest protection against possible abuse of this policy, would be to ensure that the decision does not rest in just one set of hands just as Obama has described.
Let me repeat: I am not going to release individuals who endanger the American people. Al Qaeda terrorists and their affiliates are at war with the United States, and those that we capture -- like other prisoners of war -- must be prevented from attacking us again. Having said that, we must recognize that these detention policies cannot be unbounded. They can't be based simply on what I or the executive branch decide alone. That's why my administration has begun to reshape the standards that apply to ensure that they are in line with the rule of law. We must have clear, defensible, and lawful standards for those who fall into this category.
President Bush reserved the sole right to pluck someone off the street, even an American Citizen such as Jose Padilla, and hold them without charge or without judicial review.
Those days are over.
Any potential Prisoner of War or detainee under Boumedienne must now be afforded Habeas review, even if the Administration thinks they may remain an "ongoing threat" they're going to have to provide some evidence of this assertion before a court although evidence of a specific civilian or war crime on their part may be either lacking or tainted.
Further as a result of the precedent set by Hamdan (although the SCOTUS offered no opinion on this point), it could be argued that Geneva protections should also apply and before the administration could even relegate someone to P.O.W. status they would need to have this confirmed by a Competent Tribunal under Article 5.
Under U.S. military regulations, a Tribunal would be composed of:
Three commissioned officers; a written record of proceedings; proceedings shall be open with certain exceptions; persons whose status is to be determined shall be advised of their rights at the beginning of their hearings, allowed to attend all open sessions, allowed to call witnesses if reasonably available, and to question those witnesses called by the Tribunal, and to have a right to testify; and a tribunal shall determine status by a preponderance of evidence.[2]
Possible determinations are:
1. Enemy Prisoner of War. 2. Recommended Retained Personnel (RP), entitled to EPW protections, who should be considered for certification as a medical, religious, or volunteer aid society RP. 3. Innocent civilian who should be immediately returned to his home or released. 4. Civilian Internee who for reasons of operational security, or probable cause incident to criminal investigation, should be detained
Bush had previously established "Combat Status Review Tribunals" to fill this requirement, but studies by the Seton Hall found the 92% of GITMO detainees were not in fact "Enemy Combatants" and that the Bush CSRT were essentially Kangaroo Courts biased to find guilt in nearly all cases. Ultimately Boumedienne invalidated the Bush CSRT process, so a new, and fair process in line with Geneva and the Code of Military Justice needs to be constituted. One which mandates periodic status review updates for all persons ultimately declared as having P.O.W. status for the ongoing War as circumstances within that conflict continue to shift and change overtime. Think of it as a "parole hearing" to determine if the person remains a threat and either repatriate or retain them as appropriate. This would not be the Obama Administration's decision, but one based on the available facts and circumstances at the time by an independent judge or judicial panel on a case by case basis.
In short "Preventative Detention" of a P.O.W. might not ultimately be Permanent Detention nor should be it something that any President or Administration should be able to legally implement without oversight from the courts or Congress. Doing this may require a new POW or Military Tribunal Act, but it can be done. Russ Feingold is already demanding hearings and testimony based on Obama's Speech.
While I recognize that your administration inherited detainees who, because of torture, other forms of coercive interrogations, or other problems related to their detention or the evidence against them, pose considerable challenges to prosecution, holding them indefinitely without trial is inconsistent with the respect for the rule of law that the rest of your speech so eloquently invoked. Indeed, such detention is a hallmark of abusive systems that we have historically criticized around the world. It is hard to imagine that our country would regard as acceptable a system in another country where an individual other than a prisoner of war is held indefinitely without charge or trial.
Once a system of indefinite detention without trial is established, the temptation to use it in the future would be powerful. And, while your administration may resist such a temptation, future administrations may not. There is a real risk, then, of establishing policies and legal precedents that rather than ridding our country of the burden of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, merely set the stage for future Guantanamos, whether on our shores or elsewhere, with disastrous consequences for our national security.
Feingold's concerns aer well founded considering the history of Bush Administrations handling of detainees, but the U.S. has held prisoners of war without charge and without trial in every war that we've engaged in since the formation of the Union. It doesn't mean they'll be held forever, it does not violate the law, the constitution or Geneva, but it will need to be done with the consultation and understanding of Congress.
With rational and legal protections in place, we can ensure a framework which both protects the rights of the accused from unwarranted and unreasonable detention and protects the American people from those who would continue to wage violence and war against them through the weapons of terror.
It's not a Hobson's Choice of protecting Americans vs protecting Terrorist Suspects, we have to do both - protect the innocent (all of them) as well as punish the guilty using the best legally obtained evidence and facts.
Most of this discussion with Charles Duelfer, the man who proved that Iraq DID NOT have WMD"s, shows that Dick Cheney despites all his claims that water-boarding "yielded valuable information" was attempting desperately to prove some type of operational link between Al Qaeada and Saddam.
All of thie needs to be looked at in context which shows that it wasn't a simple "mistake" it was a deliberate ruse perpetrated on the American people and the world., In late 2002 Colin Powell went before the UN armed with information gained from the torture of Ibn Sheik al-Libi claiming Al-Qaeda members had been trained in chemical weapons use by Iraq (which was a lie), and claims that they possessed mobile labs from Curveball (which was also a Lie).
His presentation led to the adoption of UN resolution 1441 which required Iraq to make a full and final declaration on their WMD status - which they DID.
That document said they Had No WMD, and in compliance with that resolution Saddam allowed the inspector back into Iraq where they found some al samoud missles, but no WMD. The Bushies ignored Saddam's declaration (which was the truth) partly because Saddam didn't explain where the "Yellow Cake from Niger" had gone, even though Joe Wilson had already debunked that claim and the State Dept. had shown it was based on a forgery.
Suskind says he spoke on the record with U.S. intelligence officials who stated that Bush was informed unequivocally in January 2003 that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. Nonetheless, his book relates, Bush decided to invade Iraq three months later — with the forged letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam bolstering the U.S. rationale to go into war.
Every source up to this date except Ibn Shaik al-Libi had denied the existence of any connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda. So Bush instead of listening to Habbush, or the CIA that said the "Yellow Cake" story was bogus, or the State Dept, or the Energy Deptment that said the "aluminum tubes" were harmless, tried to manufacture a link by having the former Iraqi Intel head forge a letter falsely confessing that Saddam was in league with Osama Bin Laden and the 9-11 attacks.
Iraq having WMD is a potential problem (even though they didn't), but not as big a problem as them giving WMD to al Qaeda.
On page 371 of “The Way of the World,” Suskind describes >the White House’s concoction of a forged letter purportedly from the hand of Habbush to Saddam Hussein to justify the United States’ decision to go to war.
Suskind writes: “The White House had concocted a fake letter from Habbush to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001. It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq — thus showing, finally, that there was an operation link between Saddam and al-Qaeda, something the Vice President's office had been pressing CIA to prove since 9/11 as a justification to invade.”
He continues: “A handwritten letter, with Habbush's name on it, would be fashioned by CIA and then hand-carried by a CIA agent to Baghdad for dissemination.”
The truths is they were enemies, as the CIA Al Qeada desk already knew well.
Should we really be surprised that Dick Cheney just couldn't take "Hell No!" for an answer and quickly pushed to use torture to support this pack of lies?
Confirming the statement today in Vanity Fair by FBI Director Mueller that "No Plots Were Foiled by Enhanced Interrogation", the allegation that the use of Water-boarding (183 Times) against Khallid Sheik Mohammad helped foil "Second Wave" terrorist attacks against the U.S. such as the alleged plan to use planes to bring down the Library Tower in Downtown Los Angeles, appears to just simply be impossible.
The Library Tower plot was foiled in February of 2002, while KSM wasn't even captured until over a year later in March 2003. So how did water boarding him stop a plot that was already stopped?
Much of this information comes from a 2005 Memo which states the following:
It is difficult quantify with confidence and precision th conclusively if interrogations have provided informationp critical to the interdiction of specific imminent attacks.
The Library Tower, designed by I.M. Pei's architectural firm, stands 73 stories high and is the tallest skyscraper west of the Mississippi.* Sheikh Mohammed initially planned to crash a jetliner into it on 9/11 as part of a scheme involving not four but 10 passenger planes on both coasts. Osama Bin Laden vetoed that as too ambitious and scaled back the plan to focus on New York and Washington. After 9/11, Sheikh Mohammed still hoped to execute the attack on the Library Tower and, working with a Southeast Asian al-Qaida affiliate (the aforementioned Hambali), recruited four terror cell members to carry it out.
...
What clinches the falsity of Thiessen's claim, however (and that of the memo he cites, and that of an unnamed Central Intelligence Agency spokesman who today seconded Thessen's argument), is chronology. In a White House press briefing, Bush's counterterrorism chief, Frances Fragos Townsend, told reporters that the cell leader was arrested in February 2002, and "at that point, the other members of the cell" (later arrested) "believed that the West Coast plot has been canceled, was not going forward" [italics mine]. A subsequent fact sheet released by the Bush White House states, "In 2002, we broke up [italics mine] a plot by KSM to hijack an airplane and fly it into the tallest building on the West Coast." These two statements make clear that however far the plot to attack the Library Tower ever got—an unnamed senior FBI official would later tell the Los Angeles Times that Bush's characterization of it as a "disrupted plot" was "ludicrous"—that plot was foiled in 2002. But Sheikh Mohammed wasn't captured until March 2003.
Maybe, just maybe - he simply gave the interrogators Useless out-of-date information just to get them TO STOP! Ya think?
Today at the Republican Governors Association Sarahcuda Palin, the VP loser who just won't get the Hell off the TV, after stating repeatedly in her exclusive interview wtih Greta Van Susteren, and her exclusive interview with Matt Lauer, and her other exclusive interview with Larry King that's it's hard to win when people want CHANGE and you're in the same party as President Bush...
she now says that we owe Bush our THANKS FOR PROTECTING AMERICA. Oh Really?
PALIN: In politics, people sometimes go to great lengths to avoid stating the obvious, but I think it’s about time that we all remembered that the greatest measure of a president is whether he protected and defended this great country. America’s 43rd president took that foremost responsibility, that most important charge, seriously. He poured his life into it. He succeeded in keeping America safe from another attack.
I’m thankful he is my soldier son’s commander in chief and for that, I say God bless George W. Bush, and I thank you, Mr. President.
Ok, even if you ignore the obvious fact that Track Palin would not be in Iraq right now if it weren't for George Bush's HUNDREDS OF LIES to the American people about Saddam Hussein - the truth is that George Bush Failed to protect America.
After the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1992, President Clinton tracked down and captured the bomber, Ramzi Yousef. Bush didn't catch bin Laden. Besides catching Yousef, Clinton then thwarted multiple plans against the U.S., including the bombing of multiple planes over the pacific ocean, the bombing of the Holland Tunnel and the bombing of LAX during the Millenium Celebration. And they didn't illegally kidnap or torture *anyone* in order to do it. America was NOT attacked for 9 years after the first WTC bomb, so the person we should thank is Bill Clinton - but that doesn't mean they weren't *planning* another attack - they were. Bush knew it, he was repeatedly warned by both Richard Clark and George Tenet - but he DIDN"T DO JACK SHIT about it.
Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the U.S. Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America." :
After U.S. missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a [deleted text] service.
An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told [deleted text] service at the same time that Bin Laden was planning to exploit the operative's access to the U.S. to mount a terrorist strike.
The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of Bin Laden's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the U.S. Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that Bin Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning hisown U.S. attack.
Ressam says Bin Laden was aware of the Los Angeles operation.
Although Bin Laden has not succeeded, his attacks against the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Laden associates surveilled our Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.
AI Qaeda members -- including same who are U.S. citizens -- have resided in and traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently maintains asupport structure that could aid attacks.
Two Al Qaeda members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were U.S. citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.
A clandestine source said in 1998 that a Bin Laden cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.
We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a [deleted text] service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Shaykh" 'Umar' Abd aI-Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists.
Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
The FBI is conducting approximately 70 investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers Bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or Bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.
(This is quoted in it's entirety because a) people really do need to see the entire thing considering how long we've been lied to about it and b) it's been declassified, publically released and is a now a public domain document)
This is the document that Condoleeza Rice claimed was "Historical" and didn't indicate any future attacks - but LOOK AT IT. It specifically says that Bin Laden wants to Repeat Yousef's Attack on the World Trade Center, that they had operatives inside the U.S., that they planned to hijack U.S. planes -- that they planned to attack Washington -- they had everything but the date of the attack right in front of them.
If "protecting the nation" (instead of the Constitution which is what the Presidential oath states) is a President's foremost responsibility - then George W. Bush competely and utterly failed on both counts. He didn't protect the nation, and he didn't protect the Constitution.
