When I first posted this photo back in September 2006, I wondered aloud about what was going on here. This week, an article in the New York Times has perhaps shed a little light on this scene:
[McCain] likes trading jokes about colleagues with a small group of friends that includes Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. . . . Entertaining guests at his property in Sedona, Ariz., [McCain] invariably drags them for long walks to indulge his passion for bird watching. “If you took all the people at Gitmo, put them in the cabin for the weekend and made them listen to John talk about the birds, they would all spill their guts.” Mr. Graham said.
Perhaps Senator Graham had developed some sort of reflective tedium shield that bounced McCain’s stories right back at Arizona’s pre-eminent snooze button.
If McCain surrogate Graham does indeed posses such technology, I urge him to share it with the rest of America with all due alacrity. The consciousness of the electorate may depend on it!
To read more about my suggestions for what Graham and McCain can do to help America, please head on over to capitoilette.
Laughing on the outside, crying on the inside. . . well, really crying on the outside, too.
One line in this AP report caused me to half laugh/half gasp:
A Kuwaiti who had been imprisoned in Guantanamo for more than 3 1/2 years carried out a recent suicide attack in Iraq, the U.S. military said Wednesday.
Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi took part in one of three suicide bomb attacks last month in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, said U.S. Navy Cmdr. Scott Rye, a military spokesman.
. . . .
Al-Ajmi, 29, was transferred in 2005 to Kuwait, where the government was supposed to ensure he would not pose a threat. In May 2006, a Kuwaiti court acquitted him and four other former Guantanamo prisoners of terrorism charges.
. . . .
"It is unknown what motivated him to leave Kuwait and go to Iraq," Rye said. "His family members reportedly were shocked to hear he had conducted a suicide bombing."
“Unknown what motivated him”—really? What could have possibly happened in the half-dozen years that would turn a man against US interests in the Middle East? Oh, wait, here’s something:
Military documents previously released to AP show that al-Ajmi was "constantly in trouble" while in Guantanamo and held in disciplinary blocks during his detention. He also allegedly told officials in August 2004 that "he now is a jihadist, an enemy combatant, and that he will kill as many Americans as he possibly can."
Tom Wilner, a lawyer who represented Kuwaiti prisoners at Guantanamo, said al-Ajmi had a broken arm during one of their meetings at the base in Cuba and that he alleged he had been injured by guards who interrupted him while he prayed.
Wilner called the alleged suicide attack a "tragedy" that could have been avoided with court hearings for prisoners held at Guantanamo, where the U.S. now holds about 270 men.
"The lack of a process results in tragic mistakes on both sides," the lawyer said.
I’m not sure how Wilner is defining “sides”. . . or “mistake,” for that matter. This just seems like one big, well-rounded tragedy.
Meanwhile, as we all focus like a laser on Jeremiah Wright, a second US carrier group has moved into the Persian Gulf, the recession that Bush refuses to acknowledge continues to deepen, the Iraqi occupation slogs along at over $341 million per day, suicide bombers kill in Kabul, Pakistanis struggle to restore an independent judiciary, a real genocide is happening in Sudan, our government continues to justify torture—the list goes on. Take a moment to compare how much time and space your favorite media outlet is giving to these stories. . . now compare that to today’s coverage of Obama’s remarks about Wright. . . .
Mr. Clark Hoyt Public Editor The New York Times 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018
public@nytimes.com
Dear Mr. Hoyt,
It has now been nine days since reporters at ABC News told us of “dozens of top-secret talks and meetings” held in the White House by senior Bush Administration officials to discuss in fine detail the interrogation techniques to be used on so-called “high value al Qaeda suspects,” and it has been one week since ABC told us that President Bush knew about these meetings and approved of the result—namely, the torture of certain detainees by CIA interrogators.
I make note of this timeline because, as of this writing, I am still waiting for the New York Times to report on these revelations.
At first I thought I had just missed the story. Surely the paper of record finds it newsworthy that the Vice President of the United States, The Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, and the National Security Advisor (who is now, herself, Secretary of State) all gathered in the people’s house and there agreed to violate domestic law and international treaties—not to mention some of the principles most Americans consider central to what we are as a nation. Surely the Times thinks it noteworthy that a President that has repeatedly told your reporters and the American people that “we don’t torture” has now cavalierly admitted that we do, and did even while he claimed the contrary. Surely your paper, which only days earlier had reported on how one Justice Department Attorney had drafted a memo theoretically legitimizing torture for his bosses, came to realize with the reporting by ABC that the very highest ranking officials of the executive branch approved of torture and designed methods even before they obtained their legal “cover.”
Surely the New York Times could not have decided that none of this was worthy of some independent reporting or at least some prime space on their news pages.
At least that is what I thought.
But after a week of watchful waiting, it seems, I surely thought wrong.
A Times search of the terms “George Bush,” “George W. Bush,” and/or “President Bush” narrowed by “torture” turns up no entries after your April 2 news piece and April 4 editorial on the Yoo memorandum. Broadening the search to “Bush” and “interrogation” only adds an AP wire story about a DoJ probe of whether the advice in the March 2003 memo was even legal.
Honestly, this makes absolutely no sense to me. I cannot think of any rationale that would explain why the Times has chosen to ignore a story about a sitting President and his top officials discussing, designing, and approving methods by which to torture other human beings—no matter whether they are “high value suspects” or some other type of captive—especially when you have President Bush confirming on the record that these torture meetings took place. That is why I am now writing to you.
I would greatly appreciate an explanation from your point of view, and, of course, from the viewpoint of the editors in charge of delineating what are, to my mind, such skewed priorities.
I appreciate your attention, and look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
[withheld] New York City
This is the letter I sent this morning to New York TimesPublic Editor Clark Hoyt. While others have rightfully advocated for letters to the editor in order to protest what is a shameful silence by the establishment media in light of such grave revelations, I decided that it might also do us well to contact public editors, ombudsmen, and the like, since they are supposed to be our most direct link when we have questions about or problems with the choices made by the news organizations. They are also often tasked with investigating the errors and oversights of the reporters and editors.
I encourage all reading this to send their own questions to Clark Hoyt, and to similarly tasked people at other newspapers and television news divisions. If you have—and if you have had any response—please let me know in the comments section.
Who could think of a better Valentine’s Day present?!
And, speaking of pitchers reporting, this one doesn’t quite understand that testifying before Congress isn’t the same as arguing with an umpire, or pitching broken bat chunks in a World Series.
Other moments tested Mr. [Roger] Clemens, too, particularly when he was asked about whether he attempted to coach a witness — his former nanny — before she spoke earlier this week to lawyers for the panel, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The hearing ended with the committee chairman, Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, pounding the gavel sharply to keep Mr. Clemens from interrupting him, but with the committee drawing no immediate conclusions as to who was being truthful.
That paragraph doesn’t quite capture just how inappropriate Roger the Rocket’s comportment actually was. Clemens repeatedly interrupted the proceedings, talking over House members, as well as other witnesses. You would think Roger’s lawyers might have coached him a bit, no?
Maybe he didn’t expect to have to defend himself that all much. Clemens apparently got a pretty warm reception from committee members, visiting their offices, shaking hands, signing autographs, and posing for pictures with representatives and staffers in the days leading up to this public hearing.
Mr. Shays and Mr. Issa were among the 25 committee members who met with Clemens individually over the past week. Mark E. Souder, Republican of Indiana, one of the few who refused Mr. Clemens’s request to meet with him, deviated from other Republicans, stating that the depositions were “fairly devastating” against Clemens.
Reps. Chris Shays (R-CT) and Darrell Issa (R-CA)—along with Dan Burton (R-IA)—basically made total asses of themselves, behaving about as badly as Clemens. All three gestured wildly, pointing at Clemens’s accuser and former trainer, Brian McNamee, while calling him a “drug dealer.”
It got so bad that House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) actually apologized to McNamee for the behavior of his colleagues. He should have apologized for just how cheaply a member of the United States House of Representatives can be bought. Really, why waste tens of thousands on K Street lobbyists, lavish junkets, and big campaign contributions, when you can just have The Rocket visit and scribble his name on a couple of ten dollar baseballs?
Of course, at the end of the day, Rep. Waxman should probably apologize for wasting our time.
Actually, he kind of did:
“The only reason we had this hearing was because Roger Clemens insisted on it,” Mr. Waxman said in a news conference afterward.
But, Waxman should have apologized for wasting America’s time with this whole investigation. Seriously, Henry, you’re a smart guy—you have your staff looking into what seems like hundreds of Bush Administration misdoings—but with a President jumping up and down and demanding that Congress retroactively indemnify him for previous lawbreaking, and your colleagues across the rotunda debating about whether to enforce rules against torture (Note: Senator McAssholeflip-flopped on this one), don’t you think that professional athletes using HGH—before it was even illegal to do so, I should add—don’t you think, Henry, that this is kind of small beer?
George Mitchell, the former Senator from the Great State of Maine, and the author of the report on the use of performance enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball, said that there is plenty of blame to go around—players, trainers, agents, owners, and MLB officials all the way up to and including Commissioner Bud Selig all played a role in helping “juice” the game. When issuing the report, Mitchell essentially said, “The past is the past; let’s not look to place blame—let’s move on.”
So, let’s, shall we?
It’s February 14th, 2008, and spring training has begun. Let the juiced Mr. Clemens go play with his equally juiced wife. Let Brian McNamee peddle his used syringes and bloody gauze on e-Bay. And let us PLAY BALL!
________________________ PS Here’s what Rep. Rush Holt (D-NY) was doing while Shays, Issa, and Burton were having a hissy-fit over the Rocket’s oft-needled buttocks:
Who needs Oprah when you’ve got Ralph. . . sort of.
It’s always nice to say thank you. (Watch the video—I think it’s nice that the Senator says “thank you”; how you want to say “thank you, too,” is up to you.)
Speaking of saying thanks, guess which presidential contenders will be saying thank you to the telecommunications industry this season (gosh, I guess by missing the debate on Monday, they kind of already did, no?).
Shocked! Shocked to discover that the White House was directly involved in discussions about whether to destroy those CIA torture tapes.
And about those tapes—it’s not just that they showed torture, they showed that the torture didn’t work.
NYT makes fun of Greenspan’s favorite book. . . or maybe they’re just makin’ fun of Greenspan. (h/t Gem Spa)
Well, I have something of a cold, but that didn’t stop me from going on a bit about ABC’s "exclusive" with John Kiriakou, the spy they say is now “coming in from the cold.”
The Bush Administration has once again set out to show us just how banal evil can be.
While the latest revelation of the CIA destruction of at least two tapes documenting their interrogation of alleged al Qaeda suspects is yet another cut-and-dried case of obstruction of justice by this administration, I want to take just a moment to reflect on the reason given for why these tapes were made in the first place:
General Hayden said the tapes were originally made to ensure that agency employees acted in accordance with “established legal and policy guidelines.” General Hayden said the agency stopped videotaping interrogations in 2002.
“The tapes were meant chiefly as an additional, internal check on the program in its early stages,” his statement read.
. . . .
A former intelligence official who was briefed on the issue said the videotaping was ordered as a way of assuring “quality control” at remote sites following reports of unauthorized interrogation techniques.
Because, as we all know, there is nothing more embarrassing to a government than torture of inferior quality. Especially at those franchise outlets “remote sites.”
Now back to the obstruction destruction. . . .
Daniel Marcus, a law professor at American University who served as general counsel for the Sept. 11 commission and was involved in the discussions about interviews with Al Qaeda leaders, said he had heard nothing about any tapes being destroyed.
If tapes were destroyed, he said, “it’s a big deal, it’s a very big deal,” because it could amount to obstruction of justice to withhold evidence being sought in criminal or fact-finding investigations.
. . . .
John Radsan, who worked as a C.I.A. lawyer from 2002 to 2004 and is now a professor at William Mitchell College of Law, said the destruction of the tapes could carry serious legal penalties.
“If anybody at the C.I.A. hid anything important from the Justice Department, he or she should be prosecuted under the false statement statute,” he said.
It seems to me beyond any doubt that the Bush Administration withheld important information about the existence of the tapes, their contents, and their destruction from Congress, the 9/11 Commission, and the judge and defense team in the Zacarias Moussaoui case, but I am beyond holding my breath until we get any movement toward arrests and prosecution in any of those instances.
I am not, however, beyond now speculating about the timing of the release of the new NIE on Iran’s nuclear capabilities, in light of our fresh understanding that the New York Times had planned to go public with the tape story today, Friday, and had officially notified the CIA on Wednesday. I can pretty much guarantee that Michael Hayden knew that this story was on its way some time before that.
In fact, I can’t even fathom the “dumb luck” of having the NIE and the tape destruction revelations come out in the same week—and in the same week as Mitt Romney’s “JFK moment” (not), and a (another) mass shooting, to boot
It’s really too much to fathom. Best we go back to our holiday shopping.
But, before we do, let me add that I draw this post to a close without anything in the way of a new revelation or much of a new angle—and for that, I feel a tad bad.
It’s not as if I didn’t try. Since I read of the tape scandal Thursday afternoon, I have been searching almost non-stop for a very specific angle, and I just can’t find the quotable, linkable piece of evidence I seek.
So, I am going to throw this out to you for help:
I will date myself here, but I have a very clear memory of a certain DCI named George H.W. Bush ignoring congressional requests for files and, indeed, destroying files in a direct rebuke of investigators. I even think I remember him justifying the destruction by saying that the CIA just didn’t have the room to store the files anymore.
The thing is, I can’t remember what the files were, and I can’t find a primary source that refers to this incident.
I believe this happened in the spring or summer of 1976—but the revelation might have come later. It is possible that the files concerned investigations into CIA programs known as CHAOS and CONDOR. The former having to do with Agency spying on domestic activist groups in the 1960’s and ‘70’s, the latter concerning CIA ties to South American shenanigans like the overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Allende, the instillation of Augusto Pinochet, the torture of dissidents, and the murder three years later of Pinochet opponent Orlando Letellier and American Ronni Moffitt by car bomb on the streets on Washington DC. There is also the possibility that the files in question concerned CIA operations in Cuba.
Or maybe they were about something else—the details of this are hazy to me.
But, I feel relatively certain GHW Bush did destroy CIA records, and that he did so in defiance of Congress. If anyone else has this recollection, can shed some light on it, or can point to a newspaper article or a Congressional report, please let me know via comment or e-mail.
I heard the head of the New York Bar on the radio speaking in support of Pakistani lawyers because, he said, the Musharraf government had tortured some of them. Well, the American government is torturing people, probably every day, probably for some six years now—do they have to torture lawyers to get you to stage protests of your own government’s behavior?
Too harsh? Read my longer argument over at capitoilette.
Well, as you may know, I am not a lawyer, but my common sense sure keeps telling me that laws are being broken. Yesterday, I touched upon my feeling that private security contractors had likely run afoul of the Anti-Pinkerton Act of 1893; today, I want to direct your attention to 18 U.S.C. 1001, AKA The Fraud and False Statements Statute.
It was really quite by accident that I happened upon an old post by Morton Halperin (he’s the smart Halperin) that talked about how NSA director Michael Hayden’s bout of lying to Congress bore a striking resemblance to the behavior of Nixon CIA chief Richard Helms. Helms, as Halperin points out, was charged under the FFSS (my shorthand) for lying to Congress about CIA involvement in overthrowing the Allende government in Chile (he plead no contest and received a suspended sentence). That item referred me to 18 U.S.C., and this is the text of the law that once brought people to justice:
Section 1001. Statements or entries generally
(a) Except as otherwise provided in this section, whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully - (1) falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact; (2) makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or (3) makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry;
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both. (b) Subsection (a) does not apply to a party to a judicial proceeding, or that party's counsel, for statements, representations, writings or documents submitted by such party or counsel to a judge or magistrate in that proceeding. (c) With respect to any matter within the jurisdiction of the legislative branch, subsection (a) shall apply only to - (1) administrative matters, including a claim for payment, a matter related to the procurement of property or services, personnel or employment practices, or support services, or a document required by law, rule, or regulation to be submitted to the Congress or any office or officer within the legislative branch; or (2) any investigation or review, conducted pursuant to the authority of any committee, subcommittee, commission or office of the Congress, consistent with applicable rules of the House or Senate.
(my apologies if the formatting above doesn’t hold to form)
OK, again, I’m not a lawyer, but as I read it, that first part about concealing and covering up and misrepresenting sure sounds like a good many moments from the last six and three-quarter years,
Specifically, I thought about 18 U.S.C. 1001 while reading two days of New York Times’revelations about secret Justice Department memorandums that provided the “intellectual” cover for the CIA to continue the Bush/Cheney policy of torturing prisoners taken in their GWOT™. With new information about documents that gave the go-ahead to techniques and programs that Congress outlawed and the Supreme Court said violated the Geneva Conventions, documents that Bush officials from the Attorney General and DCI on down failed to provide to the appropriate oversight committees, it seems to me abundantly clear that several members of the administration have knowingly and willfully concealed and covered-up the DoJ findings, and then just as knowingly and willfully made false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements about what has actually been happening inside the White House, the Justice Department, and an unknown number of “black sites” around the world.
Saying “we do not torture” or, as White House spokesperson Dana Perino said on Thursday, “What I can tell you is that any procedures that they use are tough, safe, necessary and lawful,” actually doesn’t get around the language of the Fraud and False Statements Statute. It’s not whether the findings that Justice drafted are sound or well-reasoned or will withstand judicial scrutiny, it is that Justice drafted said findings and then failed to inform Congress while all sorts of administration personnel basically pretended that the memos didn’t exist.
News this morning tells us that Rep. John Conyers wants the memos turned over to his committee, and the ACLU is calling for an independent investigation. Could they have 18 U.S.C. in mind?
I wonder if the president has ever met Kenny Shopsin
I learned something surprising today. George W. Bush, it seems, really likes killing flies. Useless News (and World Distort) reported earlier this week that someone has even made up presidential flyswatters for His Decider-ness. Apparently, Bush is really bothered by the noise. (You’d think it would distract him from the voices in his head. . . oh, that’s just his transceiver. . . oh, wait, that explains it, he doesn’t like the noise because it keeps him from hearing the voices!)
I was surprised by the news that the President likes to swat because I rather thought he was the kind of guy that just liked pulling the wings off flies.
PS & by the way: I doubt Kenny Shopsin would even let GW Bush sit down in his restaurant. . . with his secret service detail, he’d probably be a party of five.
I have written in the past with some degree of shock and amazement about the words chosen by the Bush Administration when it sets out to pitch its so-called security initiatives to a post 9/11 America. There was The New Way Forward, which reminded me of Mao’s Great Leap Forward, and, most notably, the constant references to “homeland” and “homeland security,” words that (as I’ve said before) “instantly reminded me of apartheid South African Pass Laws and Bantustans, and Nazi Germany’s Heimatland.”
. . . the interrogation methods approved and defended by this president are not new. Many have been used in the past. The very phrase used by the president to describe torture-that-isn’t-somehow-torture - “enhanced interrogation techniques” - is a term originally coined by the Nazis.
I know I shouldn’t be. Sadly, I am more shocked by the choice of words than I am by the choice of techniques.
The techniques are indistinguishable. The methods were clearly understood in 1948 as war-crimes. The punishment for them was death.
Nor am I the least bit surprised that for all the security programs pimped and all the money spent, the reality proves the promotion singularly meretricious:
A group of experts advising the intelligence agencies on interrogation techniques are arguing that “the harsh techniques used since the 2001 terrorist attacks are outmoded, amateurish and unreliable.”
The psychologists and other specialists, commissioned by the Intelligence Science Board, make the case that more than five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration has yet to create an elite corps of interrogators trained to glean secrets from terrorism suspects.
Still, with the billions the administration has spent on high-tech wizardry and “total information awareness,” you would think there is some propaganda equivalent of “spell check” available to White House pitchmen to help flag unfortunate references to previous totalitarian regimes. Or, maybe, this track record of frightening phraseology is proof they indeed have just such a tool.
(Oh, and, speaking of tools, I know some of you are waiting for my response to Terry’s response to my response to Terry’s response. . . soon, very soon. Somebody opened up a big can of worms, and I’m searching for just the right hook.)
Thursday was a day so full of real news, it made my head spin. More fallout from James Comey’s testimony (and more fallout still), Paul Wolfowitz’s resignation, Cheney’s lawyers claiming total immunity in the Plame civil suit, Bush not answering one question, and smirking at another—I wanted to write a piece that pulled it all together, culminating in one or two undeniable conclusions. But, I’ll leave that to your imagination for now, that post is growing very long, and there is something else that I just can’t get off of my mind.
It’s kind of a small thing, really, but in another way, kind of not. It involves, of all things, last night’s episode of the long-running NBC hospital drama ER. The show, the season finale, itself wasn’t great (I’m not sure there has been a “great” episode of ER in a very, very long time), but some of the things in it really struck me. Struck me not so much because they were rendered that artfully, but rather, it struck me because they were rendered at all.
Over the years (and I am not a regular, each and every week viewer, but I see my share), ER has been good about bringing the outside world into the TV one—adding a line or a short subplot about the state of healthcare in America, or about other social issues—but last night, well. . . .
I suppose that the mayor who was sued for violating the constitution 17 times during his tenure, praised the police after the killing of Amadou Diallo, and provided the namesake war cry for the cops that sodomized Abner Louima with a wooden stick and then shoved the same stick in Louima’s mouth wouldn’t have a problem with waterboarding. . . but what are the other guys’ excuses?
Jamie Rose for The New York Times
