The Sick Logic of the CIA Memos: Abuse Isn't Torture If a Doctor Is There

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AlterNet

Perhaps the most chilling aspect is that medical professionals apparently conducted a form of research on the detainees, without their consent.
Former CIA Director Michael V. Hayden was fond of saying that when it came to handling high-value terror suspects, he would play in fair territory, but with "chalk dust on my cleats." Four legal memos released by the Obama administration make it clear that the referee role in CIA interrogations was played by its medical and psychological personnel.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, which authored the memos, legal approval to use waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other abusive techniques pivoted on the existence of a "system of medical and psychological monitoring" of interrogations. Medical and psychological personnel were assigned to monitor interrogations and intervene to ensure that interrogators didn't cause "serious or permanent harm" and thus violate the U.S. federal statute against torture.
The reasoning sounds almost circular. As one memo, from May 2005, put it: "The close monitoring of each detainee for any signs that he is at risk of experiencing severe physical pain reinforces the conclusion that the combined use of interrogation techniques is not intended to inflict such pain."
In other words, as long as medically trained personnel were present and approved of the techniques being used, it was not torture.
The memos provide official confirmation of both much-reported and previously unknown roles of doctors, psychologists, physician assistants and other medical personnel with the CIA's Office of Medical Services (OMS). The government's lawyers characterized these medical roles as "safeguards" for detainees.
Medical oversight was present from the beginning of the special interrogation program following the 9/11 attacks and appears to have grown more formalized over the program's existence. The earliest of the four memos, from August 2002, states that a medical expert with experience in the military's Survival Evasion Resistance, Escape (SERE) training would be present during waterboarding of detainee Abu Zubaydah and would put a stop to procedures "if deemed medically necessary to prevent severe medical or physical harm to Zubaydah." (All interrogation techniques, the memos said, were "imported" from SERE.)
Later, OMS personnel were involved in "designing safeguards for, and in monitoring implementation of, the procedures" used on other high-value detainees. In December 2004, the OMS produced a set of "Guidelines on Medical and Psychological Support to Detainee Rendition, Interrogation and Detention," a still-secret document that is heavily quoted from in three legal memos that were written the following year.
The CIA declined our request to comment further on the OMS' role in detainee treatment. The OMS employs physicians, psychologists and other medical professionals to care for CIA employees and their families.
Perhaps the most chilling aspect of the memos is their intimation that medical professionals conducted a form of research on the detainees, clearly without their consent. "In order to best inform future medical judgments and recommendations, it is important that every application of the waterboard be thoroughly documented," one memo reads. The documentation included not only how long the procedure lasted, how much water was used and how it was poured, but also "if the naso- or oropharynx was filled, what sort of volume was expelled ... and how the subject looked between each treatment." Special instructions were also issued with regard to documenting experience with sleep deprivation, and "regular reporting on medical and psychological experiences with the use of these techniques on detainees" was required.
The Nuremberg Code, adopted after the horrors of "medical research" during the Nazi Holocaust, requires, among other things, the consent of subjects and their ability to call a halt to their participation.
The memos also draw heavily on the advice of psychologists that interrogation techniques would not be expected to cause lasting harm. At times this advice sounds contradictory. While calling waterboarding "medically acceptable," the OMS also deemed it "the most traumatic of the enhanced interrogation techniques."
The fact that traumatic events have the potential to cause long-lasting post-traumatic stress syndrome has been well documented. Physicians for Human Rights, in interviews with eleven former detainees held in Iraq and Afghanistan, found "severe, long-term physical and psychological consequences." "All the individuals we evaluated were ultimately released without ever being charged," said Dr. Allen Keller, medical director of the Bellevue/New York University School of Medicine Program for Survivors of Torture.
The memos describe the techniques in highly precise and clinical detail, befitting a medical textbook. During waterboarding, in which a physician and psychologist were to be present at all times, "the detainee is monitored to ensure that he does not develop respiratory distress. If the detainee is not breathing freely after the cloth is removed from his face, he is immediately moved to a vertical position in order to clear the water from his mouth, nose and nasopharynx." Side effects including vomiting, aspiration and throat spasm that could cut off breathing were each addressed: "In the event of such spasms ... if necessary, the intervening physician would perform a tracheotomy."
While physician assistants could be present when most "enhanced" techniques were applied, "use of the waterboard requires the presence of a physician," one memo said, quoting the OMS guidelines.
Doctors were also described as having vetted the practices for safety. Certain limits on waterboarding were created "with extensive input from OMS." One memo states that OMS "doctors and psychologists" confirmed that combining the various techniques "would not operate in a different manner from the way they do individually, so as to cause severe pain."
Medical and psychological personnel were required to observe whenever interrogators came into physical contact with detainees, including slapping them and pushing them into flexible walls ("walling"). Whenever a detainee was doused with cold water, a medical officer had to be on hand to monitor for signs of hypothermia. Confining prisoners to cramped boxes required "continuing consultation between the interrogators and OMS officers." Prisoners made to stand for long periods to prevent sleep were to carefully monitor detainees for swelling of the legs and other dangerous conditions, and at least three times early in the program were switched, on medical advice, to "horizontal sleep deprivation."
This was one example of how medical personnel could, according to the CIA, help prevent "severe physical or mental pain or suffering" on the part of the detainees. However, the memos show that the OMS' role was not merely to limit the medical impact of interrogations, but also to consult on the effectiveness of interrogations. A May 30, 2005, memo quotes the OMS suggesting that cramped confinement was "not ... particularly effective" because it provides "a safe haven offering respite from interrogation."
Some medical professionals are calling for their colleagues to be investigated and sanctioned for participating in practices that professional medical and psychological organizations and officials in the Justice Department now call torture. "We stand ready to adjudicate these issues," said American Psychological Association spokesperson Rhea Farberman.
But finding out which professionals were involved in designing, monitoring and implementing the interrogation techniques may be difficult. The four memos were released almost in their entirety. The few redactions concerned mainly the names of the personnel involved.

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Rise of Right-Wing Extremism Linked to Recession

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Democracy Now!

Guest: Mark Potok, Director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is facing calls for her ouster from a number of House Republicans in the wake of a department memo that warned of right-wing political extremism in the United States.
The report, which was released last week, warns that right-wing extremist groups are gaining new recruits by exploiting fears about the economy and the election of the nation's first black president. The report predicts a worsening economy will to lead more people joining militias and skinhead groups and carrying out individual acts modeled after Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.
A handful of Republicans in the House are calling for Napolitano to step down in the wake of the report. House Minority Leader John Boehner said the report includes, quote, "about two-thirds of Americans who might go to church, who may have served in the military, who may be involved in community activities...I just don't understand how our government can look at the American people and say, 'You're all potential terrorist threats.'"
Idaho has long been the center of white supremacist groups in the United States.
Mark Potok is the director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center. They recently released a report that finds the number of violent hate groups in the US has skyrocketed since 2000. He joins us via Democracy Now! stream from Alabama.
Welcome to Democracy Now!
MARK POTOK: Well, thank you so much for having me.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Mark, your reaction to the controversy now and the calls for Janet Napolitano's ouster?
MARK POTOK: I think it is completely a tempest in a teacup. You know, the things that Boehner and others have said are very hard to square with actually reading the report. You know, basically, the report has been accused of saying that all conservatives and all veterans are this huge suspect class, people who may, you know, take up arms and start blowing up federal buildings.
The reality is, is when you read the report, it doesn't say anything remotely like that. You know, the reference to veterans is--what it really says is that white supremacists are interested in attempting to recruit returning veterans because of their skills. It does not say, in any sense, that these people are prone to joining the groups, that we should look at all veterans with a wary eye. And it certainly doesn't make any suggestion like that with regard to conservatives.
You know, really, I think that this is an attempt to create a great big political storm over an essentially innocuous report. You know, there are a few, what I would characterize as, errors in the report. For instance, it describes the rise of militias in the 1990s as being essentially the result of a recession. Well, there really wasn't a recession in the '90s, and that really is not why the militias rose. But essentially, the conclusions, which are--which amount to the idea that we're at a time when these groups are poised to continue growing, I think is obviously correct.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Now, your group has been charting the rise of hate groups in recent years. The issue of whether the election of Barack Obama has caused a new spur, a new growth in those groups?
MARK POTOK: Well, of course, that only begins to play about July of last year, when Obama actually wins the Democratic nomination. And initially, the reaction of the white supremacist movement is utter horror. Eventually, the leaders, such as they are, begin to say, "Well, maybe if Obama wins, it will be good for us." David Duke famously wrote last year that if Obama won the election, it would be a, quote, "visual aid to white Americans." In other words, people would wake up, realize their country had been robbed from them, and rush into these groups.
You know, what we know for a fact is that immediately after the election, on November 5th and 6th, in fact, we saw the servers of at least two major white supremacist groups crash, because they did get a major surge in interest. You know, whether that really translates into a significant growth of the groups or not, I think remains to be seen. But I think it's quite likely.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Mark, I want to thank you very much, Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, for being with us.

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What Caused the Economic Crisis?

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GlobalResearch.ca

Warren Buffett called them "weapons of mass destruction" in 2003.
President Bush said they had to be regulated.
So did the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the current head of the Federal reserve.
As did the G-20 group of the world's 20 richest nations.
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan - after being one of their biggest cheerleaders - now says they are dangerous.
And a Nobel prize-winning economist said they should be "blown up or burned", and we should start fresh.
What Are They Talking About?
What are the above-listed folks talking about?
A financial instrument called "credit default swaps" (CDS for short).
CDS are like an insurance contract, where the purchaser buys "insurance" that a company won't go out of business from a seller. If the company stays in business, the purchaser pays premiums to the seller, but if the company goes belly up, the seller has to pay the face value of the CDS "policy".
Why are CDS so dangerous?
According to the experts, CDS were largely responsible for bringing down Bear Stearns, AIG (and see this) and other giant financial companies.
Indeed, many leading experts say that CDS were the main cause of the financial crisis. As just 3 examples:

• Newsweek called CDS "The Monster that Ate Wall Street"


• Former SEC chairman Christopher Cox said "The virtually unregulated over-the-counter market in credit-default swaps has played a significant role in the credit crisis''


• And - as mentioned above- a Nobel economist is so concerned about them that he thinks that existing CDS contracts must be "blown up or burned"

I'll explain the reason that CDS are so dangerous in a future post (basically, they let the financial players to pretend that they had less risk, less stretched-too-thin leverage, and more stability then they really did). But for now, just keep in mind that some of the world's top financial experts say that they are extremely dangerous. They are not the only cause of the financial crisis, but they are one of the main causes.
But At Least the Risk from CDS is Over, Right?
But at least the risks from CDS are over, right?
Not exactly . . .
Credit default swaps continue to bring down large companies, partly because they make it less likely that the companies can restructure.
And one of the main reasons that banks have been hoarding the bailout money instead of lending to consumers it because of CDS.Wall Street firms and banks have been hoarding cash. As the Financial Times wrote on October 7th:

Banks are hoarding cash in expectation of pay-outs on up to $400bn (£230bn) of defaulted credit derivatives linked to Lehman Brothers and other institutions, according to analysts and -dealers.

And as Fox News put it:

Massive positions are just starting to be unwound in the credit default swaps market as tens of billions of dollars worth of these contracts are now getting settled in the aftermath of several high-profile flops.
Banks are hoarding cash in expectation of expected payouts on anywhere from $200bn to $1 tn-no one knows the amount, adding to volatility-for defaulted credit derivatives linked to the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the government's seizure of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government's rescue of American International Group, and the failure of Washington Mutual.

And guess where most of the AIG bailout went? Yup - to corporations which bought CDS from AIG. $13 billion dollars worth of the bailout money paid to AIG went to Goldman Sachs for CDS contracts. $40 billion dollars worth of AIG's bailout money (and see this) went to foreign banks for CDS contracts. (Even AIG's former chief said that the government used AIG "to funnel money to other institutions, including foreign banks").
Unless something is done to change things, taxpayers may have to continue shelling out bailout money to keep bailing out CDS contract-holders.
Well, At Least the Regulators are Bringing CDS Under control so That They Can't Cause Damage Indefinitely. Right?
Unfortunately, regulators have so far caved into lobbying pressure from those in the CDS industry, and have failed to take any decisive action to reign CDS in.
As Newsweek writes:

Major Wall Street players are digging in against fundamental changes. And while it clearly wants to install serious supervision, the Obama administration--along with other key authorities like the New York Fed--appears willing to stand back while Wall Street resurrects much of the ultracomplex global trading system that helped lead to the worst financial collapse since the Depression.
At issue is whether trading in credit default swaps and other derivatives--and the giant, too-big-to-fail firms that traded them--will be allowed to dominate the financial landscape again once the crisis passes. As things look now, that is likely to happen. And the firms may soon be recapitalized and have a lot more sway in Washington--all of it courtesy of their supporters in the Obama administration...
The financial industry isn't leaving anything to chance, however. One sign of a newly assertive Wall Street emerged recently when a bevy of bailed-out firms, including Citigroup, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, formed a new lobby calling itself the Coalition for Business Finance Reform. Its goal: to stand against heavy regulation of "over-the-counter" derivatives, in other words customized contracts that are traded off an exchange...
Geithner's new rules would allow the over-the-counter market to boom again, orchestrated by global giants that will continue to be "too big to fail" (they may have to be rescued again someday, in other words). And most of it will still occur largely out of sight of regulated exchanges...
The old culture is reasserting itself with a vengeance. All of which runs up against the advice now being dispensed by many of the experts who were most prescient about the crash and its causes--the outsiders, in other words, as opposed to the insiders who are still running the show.

Credit default swaps may continue to deepen the economic crisis and prevent a recovery - and cause future crises - unless regulators stand up to the lobbyists and take real action to reign them in.

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Burnt, broken, silent: the child victims of Tamil war

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Times Online

A SEVEN-YEAR-OLD Tamil girl with a severe leg injury was sharing a hospital bed yesterday with her elder sister, who had burns to her face. Their mother was dead and their father was in intensive care with a 50% chance of survival.
The children, their names lost in a hospital overwhelmed by trauma victims, were two of thousands being treated in Vavuniya, just outside the conflict zone where Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers are making their last stand.
Emaciated, dehydrated and with terror etched on their faces, more than 100,000 refugees have surged into overcrowded camps and hospitals in the town after escaping the Tigers, who had held them as human shields for months.

Aid workers say the impact of the conflict on children has been devastating. Hundreds have been killed in crossfire and thousands more traumatised by horrific scenes and the loss of their families.
"We had one case of a four-year-old girl looking after her nine-month-old brother alone as her mother is in another hospital and her father in yet another," said Hugues Robert, head of a mission for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the aid agency. "Many children end up alone. They are forgotten about and they don't eat for days."
Vavuniya hospital, with a capacity of 450, was swamped last week as 1,700 patients crowded wards and corridors, desperately seeking treatment.
Paul McMaster, a British surgeon working for MSF, said staff working with limited supplies had seen an increase in patients suffering from blast and gunshot wounds.
"We're doing amputations on children . . . and sometimes we're operating on the mother and father and a child from the same family that had been wounded by the same explosion or mine," he said.
"We had a young woman of about 19 who is breast-feeding that I had to do a leg amputation on. I just wonder what the future for her life and child will be.
"These are deeply, deeply traumatised people. We have children sitting in the middle of emergency wards seeing people brought in with major blast and limb injuries, just sitting silently, emotionless."
The exodus began on Monday when the Sri Lankan army breached a mud defence wall built by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to defend their last stronghold, a five-square-mile strip of land just north of Mullaittivu.
The breach created an escape route for tens of thousands of civilians who had been trapped under heavy shelling.
An estimated 50,000 civilians were believed to be still cornered yesterday in the tiny patch of jungle where Vellupilai Prabhakaran, the Tigers' leader, was boxed in with up to 900 rebels.
The government insisted that the rebels, who once controlled more than one-third of the island, were all but finished, heralding an end to three decades of ethnic conflict.
Sarath Fonseka, the army chief, claimed he knew the "general area" where Prabhakaran was hiding. "We are set to destroy him," Fonseka said, admitting his forces were facing stiff resistance that could end in hand-to-hand combat.
Last week a naval blockade was put on high alert amid speculation that Prabhakaran - feted by his followers as the "Sun God" - his son Charles Anthony and senior LTTE figures were planning an audacious escape by submarine.
The plan was leaked by the rebels' former media co-ordina-tor, who surrendered along with the LTTE political wing interpreter. The remaining leadership, known to wear cyanide vials around their necks, have vowed not to surrender.
Prabhakaran is one of the most effective and feared modern guerrilla leaders, but his renowned luck at outsmarting successive government offensives may have run out.
As it emerged that close to 6,500 civilians have died so far this year, survivors told of their perilous flight to government-controlled areas after being forced to live for months in shallow water-logged ditches in the battleground.
People opted to flee across the Puthumathalan lagoon when the army forced back the rebels. Parents tied children to their wrists with string in the neck-deep water but several did not make it alive.
Rajeshwarai, 40, said she had run with her five-year-old son towards the military-controlled area, knowing they might die in the attempt. They had been trapped under constant shelling for two months, with little to eat.
"I ran with my child, hoping even if I died my son will survive and be freed," she said.
Kamalakaran, 70, said people had been "craving safety for months" after being forced to move with the LTTE since the middle of 2008.
"The trauma in the first few months was bearable as we were repeatedly told by the Tigers that they would protect us at all costs," she said. "But in recent months we saw a transformation - every family was forced to send a youngster to fight for the Tigers."

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Talibanistan in Pakistan

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The Dreyfuss Report

The real crisis in central and south Asia -- the one in Pakistan -- is going from really bad to much, much worse.
Let's review some of the more recent reports from Pakistan.
Earlier this month, in a terrifying analysis of the situation in Pakistan, the New York Times reported:

Some analysts here and in Washington are already putting forward apocalyptic timetables for the country. "We are running out of time to help Pakistan change its present course toward increasing economic and political instability, and even ultimate failure," said a recent report by a task force of the Atlantic Council that was led by former Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. The report, released in February, gave the Pakistani government 6 to 12 months before things went from bad to dangerous.
A specialist in guerrilla warfare, David Kilcullen, who advised Gen. David H. Petraeus when General Petraeus was the American commander in Iraq, offered a more dire assessment. Pakistan could be facing internal collapse within six months, he said.

An even more frightening and graphic description of the spreading Islamist movement there was provided last week by the Wall Street Journal:

Thousands of Islamist militants are pouring into Pakistan's Swat Valley and setting up training camps here, quickly making it one of the main bases for Taliban fighters and raising their threat to the government in the wake of a controversial peace deal.
The number of militants in the valley swelled in the months before the deal with the Taliban was struck, and they continue to move in, say Pakistani and U.S. officials. They now estimate there are between 6,000 and 8,000 fighters in Swat, nearly double the number at the end of last year.

The Taliban fighters are spreading from the ungoverned tribal areas (the seven agencies of FATA) to the settled areas, starting with the Swat Valley, a key part of the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan proper. And from there, they are spreading into neighboring districts, even as they carry out terrorist attacks in key cities, such as Lahore and Islamabad. They are butchering people, beheading police officers, and terrorizing the citizens, who have no way to fight back. The Journal notes that in Swat, one central plaza "has become known among residents as 'Slaughter Square' because the Taliban have begun using it to dump bodies after executions."
Adds the Journal:

Swat now offers a glimpse of the Taliban's vision for Pakistan. They have taken control of the local government and the police, who have been ordered to shed their uniforms in favor of the traditional Shalwar Kameez, an outfit comprising a long shirt and loose trousers. They also have seized Swat's emerald mines, which extract millions of dollars a year in gemstones.
At barbershops, notices warn men not to shave their beards. Women are no longer allowed to leave their homes without their husbands or male blood relatives. Girls' schools have been reopened after initially being closed but the students must be covered from head to toe, and Taliban officials routinely inspect classrooms for violators.

In an April 14 piece entitled "United Militants Threaten Pakistan's Populous Heart," the Times describes the spreading Taliban cancer in Pakistan thus:

Taliban insurgents are teaming up with local militant groups to make inroads in Punjab, the province that is home to more than half of Pakistanis, reinvigorating an alliance that Pakistani and American authorities say poses a serious risk to the stability of the country. ...
Telltale signs of creeping militancy abound in a belt of towns and villages near here that a reporter visited last week. Militants have gained strength considerably in the district of Dera Ghazi Khan, which is a gateway both to Taliban-controlled areas and the heart of Punjab, the police and local residents say. Many were terrified.
Some villages, just north of here, are so deeply infiltrated by militants that they are already considered no-go zones by their neighbors.
In at least five towns in southern and western Punjab, including the midsize hub of Multan, barber shops, music stores and Internet cafes offensive to the militants' strict interpretation of Islam have received threats. Traditional ceremonies that include drumming and dancing have been halted in some areas. Hard-line ideologues have addressed large crowds to push their idea of Islamic revolution. Sectarian attacks, dormant here since the 1990s, have erupted once again.

Yesterday, the Washington Post carried a brilliant piece by Pamela Constable that reported on the results so far of Pakistan's deal to cede power in Swat to the Taliban and its allies:

A potentially troubling era dawned Sunday in Pakistan's Swat Valley, where a top Islamist militant leader, emboldened by a peace agreement with the federal government, laid out an ambitious plan to bring a "complete Islamic system" to the surrounding northwest region and the entire country.
Speaking to thousands of followers in an address aired live from Swat on national news channels, cleric Sufi Mohammed bluntly defied the constitution and federal judiciary, saying he would not allow any appeals to state courts under the system of sharia, or Islamic law, that will prevail there as a result of the peace accord signed by the president Tuesday.

The Post also reported the release of Maulana Abdel Aziz, the fiery, pro-Taliban leader of the Red Mosque in Islamabad that was invaded and shut down last year. He's back home, and preaching to thousands of fanatics. The Post added:

Together, these rallying cries seemed to create an arc of radical religious energy between the turbulent, Taliban-plagued northwest region and the increasingly vulnerable federal capital, less than 100 miles to the east. They also appeared to pose a direct, unprecedented religious challenge to modern state authority in the Muslim nation of 176 million.

So President Obama is beefing up US forces next door in Afghanistan. By doing so, he's pushing some Taliban militants back across the border into Pakistan. (Unlike Afghanistan, which has no strategic value to anyone except some pipeline builders, Pakistan is a vastly important nation with nuclear weapons.) By catapulting drone attacks on FATA villages, he's pushing militants further east into Pakistan proper, and the US escalation has so far had the effect of uniting the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistan Taliban, and various pro-Taliban militias into a unified fighting force. We're also providing recruiting posters for Pakistani fundamentalists.
A year ago, I would have said that the idea that Muslim fundamentalists could seize control of Pakistan, a relatively modern and urbane country, was laughable. No more. I'm not sure that I agree with Kilcullen that Pakistan could collapse in six months, but it's not impossible.
Make no mistake, though: this is the most dangerous problem in the world.

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Cyberspies Hack Into U.S. Fighter Project: Report

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Wired.comComputer spies have repeatedly breached the Pentagon's costliest weapons program, the $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
The newspaper quoted current and former government officials familiar with the matter as saying the intruders were able to copy and siphon data related to design and electronics systems, making it potentially easier to defend against the plane.
The spies could not access the most sensitive material, which is kept on computers that are not connected to the Internet, the paper added.
Citing people briefed on the matter, it said the intruders entered through vulnerabilities in the networks of two or three of the contractors involved in building the fighter jet.
Lockheed Martin Corp is the lead contractor. Northrop Grumman Corp and BAE Systems PLC also have major roles in the project. Lockheed Martin and BAE declined comment and Northrop referred questions to Lockheed, the paper said.
The Journal said Pentagon officials declined to comment directly on the matter, but the paper said the Air Force had begun an investigation.
The identity of the attackers and the amount of damage to the project could not be established, the paper said.
The Journal quoted former U.S. officials as saying the attacks seemed to have originated in China, although it noted it was difficult to determine the origin because of the ease of hiding identities online.
The Chinese Embassy said China "opposes and forbids all forms of cyber crimes," the Journal said.
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Armitage: "They Tortured" "Maybe I should Have Resigned"

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Informed Comment

Armitage admits:
1. He and his boss Colin Powell lost a major battle within the Bush administration on whether the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war applied to guerrillas captured during the "war on terror."
2. That the Bush administration engaged in torture in the form of waterboarding, though he denied that he had sure knowledge of this practice at the time he was in office
3. That he probably should have resigned, but hung on for fear of how bad policy could get if he and others were not there to fight the battles
4. He says that the US Senate should have known about the torture, calls them "AWOL," and implies that there will be no investigation of Bush crimes against humanity because such a process would implicate the senators themselves, as at the very least having been derelict in their duty to advise and consent. (I wonder if he is also implying that some Democratic senators knew about the waterboarding and remained silent, so that they will not now launch a prosecution?)
A Spanish judge is considering an indictment of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and several other Bush administration officials for having sanctioned torture at Guantanamo Bay. In breaking news Thursday morning, it was announced in Spain that the government prosecutor has advised the judge to drop the case; apparently he still has the discretion to continue.
The others who would likely be indicted if the case went forward, according to Scott Horton, are "Federal Appeals Court Judge and former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, University of California law professor and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, former Defense Department general counsel and current Chevron lawyer William J. Haynes II, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff David Addington, and former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith."
Armitage's revelation that he and his boss "lost" a battle to preserve a commitment to the Geneva Conventions in Washington in this period seems likely to me to become part of the Spanish prosecution.
Japanese officers were tried for war crimes after World War II by the United States for having engaged in waterboarding.
It has been suggested that the six implicated Bush administration officials would, in case of formal indictmen, no longer be able safely travel to Europe, because judges claiming universal jurisdiction over crimes against humanity might well order their arrest, as happened to former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

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As multiple-death shootings surge, Congress looks away

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Minnesota Independent

Last month in Southern Alabama, an unemployed twenty-something sheet-metal worker armed himself with two semi-automatic rifles, a shotgun and a pistol. He shot his mother and the four family dogs, and then drove to a neighboring town where he killed four more relatives, four passersby, and then himself. All in all, he sprayed more than 200 bullets across two Alabama counties. The ages of the victims ranged from 74 years to 18 months. It was the worst killing spree in state history.
Since then other parts of the country have suffered similar nightmares. Indeed, in recent weeks more than 60 people -- including seven police officers -- have been killed in multiple-death shootings from coast to coast. It's just the type of headline-grabbing trend that might usually get congressional lawmakers screaming from the rafters for policy reforms, like banning military-style assault weapons and forcing gun-show vendors to do background checks on prospective buyers. Gun control advocates argue that such steps would help stem the more than 30,000 gun deaths that plague the United States each year.
But that hasn't been the case. Instead, the reaction from congressional leaders -- even the most vocal gun-reform proponents -- has been a long, strange silence.
It wasn't always this way. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) was the author of the successful 1994 effort to install an assault weapons ban, which expired five years ago. Yet last week, less than a month after four police officers were killed in a shooting spree in Oakland, Feinstein told "60 Minutes" that, while she hopes to reintroduce the measure, "I wouldn't bring it up now."
Similarly, President Obama -- who campaigned on a platform of renewing the assault weapons ban -- reiterated his support for that prohibition during a visit to Mexico last week, but added that that he's not "under any illusions that reinstating that ban would be easy."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is another long-time advocate for tightening gun laws. Yet pressed this month about the absence of any gun reform push in Congress, she offered only a vague explanation about the need "to find some level of compromise."
Spokespersons for both Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said there's no plan on the horizon for gun reform legislation this year.
The reason is no mystery. Although Democrats expanded their majorities in both chambers of Congress last year, they owe those gains largely to more moderate members, who picked up seats in a number of conservative-leaning states that have historically gone Republican. Indeed, when Attorney General Eric Holder in February announced his support for renewal of the assault weapons ban, 65 House Democrats wrote to the White House attacking the proposal.
"Law-abiding Americans use these guns for all the same reasons they use any other kind of gun - competitive shooting, hunting and defending their homes and families," the Democrats wrote.
Not only do those members not want to be seen threatening their constituents' Second Amendment rights, but Pelosi and other Democratic leaders are bending over backwards to ensure that those seats remain Democratic in elections to come. In this political environment, congressional aids say, even a gun reform push from liberal Democrats would only divide the party and undermine other legislative priorities.
"What's the sense in expending a good amount of political capital?" asked a House Democratic aide, who asked to remain anonymous due to the political nature of the topic. "You know you're going to lose. You know you don't have the votes ... It's never good when leadership loses a vote, and this is a vote they'll lose."
Then there's the issue of lobbying. The pro-gun National Rifle Association is among the most powerful forces in all of Washington. In the 2008 election cycle alone, the NRA's political action committee spent $15.6 million on campaign activities, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And the group keeps tabs on every vote even remotely related to gun reform, threatening lawmakers with poor NRA rankings if they vote against the lobby's agenda.
The NRA did not reply to a call requesting comment, but the prowess of the gun lobby was in full display earlier this year during congressional debate on legislation to grant a voting representative to the residents of Washington, DC. That bill passed the Senate in February, but not before the NRA swayed lawmakers to attach language all but scrapping Washington's gun control laws, which are among the strictest in the nation. Faced with the gun-policy wildcard, stymied House Democrats have refused to bring the bill to the floor.
The reason is simple. The combination of support from Republicans and moderate Democrats all but ensures that the bill would pass. "On this issue, the NRA controls the House," said the Democratic aide. "It's that simple. We're in a political environment in which not much can be done because of the levels of power."
That's bad news for gun control advocates, who are pushing a series of reforms to tighten the nation's gun laws. Aside from reinstating the assault weapons ban, advocates want to force all gun-show vendors, even those unlicensed, to conduct background checks on potential customers to prevent felons and other violent criminals from obtaining weapons -- the same requirements currently in place for licensed gun sellers. A Senate bill, sponsored in the last Congress by Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Jack Reed (D-Del.), would do just that, but it hasn't resurfaced this year.
Another proposed reform would force gun makers to adopt a new technology that engraves weapons microscopically with their make, model and serial number -- information that would be left imprinted on the bullet casing after the gun is fired. Such a proposal was pushed by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) in the last Congress, but it as well has yet to appear this year. All three reforms are supported by public service groups, like the International Association of Chiefs of Police, but have been assailed by the gun lobby as initial steps toward an all-out gun ban.
Lawmakers are insisting that gun reform hasn't fallen off their radar, but some gun control advocates are growing impatient. "There are a lot of politicians," said Doug Pennington, spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, "even in the face of the mass shootings over the past six weeks, who aren't exactly sure how stiff their backbones are."
The debate arrives as a wave of high-profile gun violence has swept across the country in recent weeks. On March 29, a heavily armed gunman killed eight in a North Carolina nursing home. A day later, an IT professional opened fire on his family in Santa Clara, killing six people, including himself. In Binghampton, N.Y., on April 3, a gunman walked into a community center and killed 13 immigrants before turning a gun on himself. A day later, a 22-year-old Pittsburgh man barricaded himself in his home with a stash of assault weapons, killing three police officers in the stand-off. The list goes on.
Michael Bailey, political science professor at Georgetown University, pointed out that, despite the gruesome trend, there simply isn't the public outcry to inspire Congress to stick their necks out for something as controversial as gun reform. "As terrible as these tragedies were," Bailey wrote in an email, "there doesn't seem to be any appetite for thinking about them."
Even without the recent spate of gun deaths, the debate would be timely. Last Thursday marked the two-year anniversary of the shootings at Virginia Tech that left 33 people dead, including the gunman. And Tuesday marks the 10-year anniversary of Colorado's Columbine High School massacre, in which two seniors killed 12 students and a teacher before turning the guns on themselves.
In the absence of any federal movement, some state and local lawmakers have emerged in an effort to fill the void. Last week, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg visited Virginia to urge state lawmakers to pass a bill closing the so-called "gun-show loophole."
"Criminals do not have the right to own guns, and the gun shows make it far too easy for them to acquire guns," Bloomberg said. "In fact, it's easier for a criminal to buy a gun at a gun show than it is for a 20-year-old to buy a beer or for anyone to rent a car."
In Pennsylvania, Gov. Ed Rendell (D) has thrust himself into the debate as well, pushing last week for lawmakers to take up the assault weapons ban -- a prickly topic in a blue-collar state where unlimited gun rights are deemed by many to be sacrosanct.
"They're made for only one purpose," Rendell said of assault weapons. "Not for sport, not for hunting, nobody uses them in a duck blind, nobody uses them at the Olympics. They are used to kill and maim."
Advocates for gun reforms are quick to concede that the proposed reforms wouldn't prevent many of the gun-related deaths that torment the United States. Only one of the guns used by the Alabama shooter, for example, would have been prohibited under the 1994 assault weapons ban. Still, they maintain, taking some steps to keep military-grade weapons off the streets -- and all weapons out of the hands of violent criminals -- would go a long way toward improving safety in a country where firearms kill more than 80 people every day.
"That's not normal," Pennington said of the enormous number of domestic gun deaths. "We shouldn't treat that as just the cost of living in America."
Mike Lillis is Congress reporter for the Washington Independent.

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Columbine questions we still haven't answered: Isn't violence a predictable byproduct of our winner-take-all economy?

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Salon.com
By David Sirota

As Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's posthumous infamy turns 10 on April 20, I wish I were surprised that Columbine-like shootings are still happening, or even that our national discussion about violence hasn't yet matured past gun control and video games.
I wish I were surprised, but sadly, I'd be surprised if it were any different because we still refuse to ask the most uncomfortable questions.
Columbine was the "Pulp Fiction" of violence: not the first of its genre, but the model to which all contemporaries are compared. And lately, Columbine derivatives have been coming at a faster clip.
After each tragedy, it's the same thing. Liberals want us to wonder why gun laws let anyone access deadly weapons. Conservatives insist we question why video games supposedly turn down-to-earth kids into murderers.
These queries satiate two desires. In a country that ascribes hubristic "exceptionalism" to itself and berates self-analysis as "hating America," we seek absolution via scapegoat, and so we upbraid boogeymen like firearms and Xboxes. Similarly, in a democracy increasingly conducting its politics through red-blue filters and 140-character Twitter updates, we crave Occam's razors -- and none are sharper than oversimplified arguments about gun control and video games.
But what about the questions and answers that aren't so simple?
For example, isn't violence a predictable byproduct of our economy? When torture victims are waterboarded, they freak out. When a winner-take-all economy tortures society, should we be shocked that a few lunatics go over the edge?
For three decades, we converted our economy into one that enriches the rich and stresses out everyone else. Paychecks dwindled, debts accumulated, healthcare bills spiked. We now spend more hours working or seeking work, and fewer hours on parenting, family time and rest -- all while schools and mental-health services deteriorate.
Considering this, shouldn't we expect the recent Associated Press story telling us "the American home is becoming more violent" because of the recession? Shouldn't we expect the new Department of Homeland Security report saying that "the economic downturn" is "invigorating rightwing extremist activity, specifically the white supremacist and militia movements"? And, ultimately, shouldn't we expect the deep alienation that may lead the occasional troubled kid to turn video-game fantasies into real-world terror?
If these questions don't make you uneasy, then how about this one: Are those video games fantasies, or are they representations of real violence that we willfully organize our economy around?
Today, one in every three dollars the government spends goes to defense and security. The killing machine and adventurism that money manufactures has delivered 1 million Iraqi casualties, thousands of American casualties and an implicit promise of future wars -- indeed, of permanent war.
Perpetuating this expenditure, bloodshed and posture in a nation of dwindling resources, humanitarian self-images and anti-interventionist impulses requires a culture constantly selling violence as a necessity. It's not just video games -- it's the nightly news echoing Pentagon propaganda and "hawkish" politicians equating militarism with patriotism and "embedded" journalism cheering on wars and every other suit-and-tie-clad industry constantly forwarding the assumption that killing is a legitimate form of national ambition and self-expression. Is it any wonder that a few crazies apply that ethos to their individual lives, and begin seeing violence as a reasonable means to express their own emotions?
Sure, the assault weapons ban's expiration is an abomination. Absolutely, some video games are appalling. But we could ban all guns and video games and there would still be mass murders because neither the availability of firearms nor of Grand Theft Auto creates the original desire for violence.
Until we face that complex reality -- or at least ask different questions -- we'll continue being terrorized by Columbine killers.
© 2009 Creators Syndicate Inc.

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Radical Pakistani cleric, out on bail, calls for revolution

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McClatchy

A radical cleric, just freed from detention on bail, returned in triumph Thursday night to the Red Mosque in the Pakistani capital and raised the slogan of Islamic revolution before thousands of excited supporters.
Bearded men packed the mosque, long associated with extremist Islam and with links to al Qaida, while outside on the sidewalk rows of women sat clad in all-enveloping black burkas, only their eyes showing. Many were young adults who had come from Islamic seminaries.
"We will continue our struggle until Islamic law is spread across the country, not just in Swat," said Abdul Aziz, who'd been chief cleric at the mosque, told the fired-up congregation. Dressed in white flowing traditional clothes, with a white turban and his long white beard, he looked a messianic figure.
Aziz was carried in on the shoulders of supporters after arriving in a motorcade from the nearby city of Rawalpindi. He had been under house arrest since 2007 over terrorism-related charges until a court granted him bail earlier this week.
Earlier this week, Pakistan's president bowed to pressure from extremists and agreed to impose Islamic law in Swat, a valley northwest of Islamabad, in a bid to end a two-year insurgency there by Pakistani Taliban. Now with Aziz's release, Islamists have an ideologue to rally around.
The Pakistani government jailed Aziz after he and hundreds of armed followers in the mosque sent out vigilante squads to enforce Islamic stricture and then barricaded themselves inside the building. Aziz claimed that he was being guided directly by the prophet Mohammed, whom he had seen in his dreams.
After a standoff lasting months, security forces stormed the mosque, killing about 100 of those holed up there, including Aziz's brother Abdul Rasheed Ghazi, also a cleric at the mosque.
The court's decision to grant bail to Aziz, coming on the heels of the government's concession in Swat, added to the momentum with which militant Islam is sweeping across Pakistan, a key U.S. ally that has nuclear weapons. Those gathered at the Red Mosque sensed that the tide was with them.
"He (Aziz) has raised his voice for Islam," said Tayab, a seminary student who gave only his first name. "There must be Islamic law here, it's not enough to be a country of Muslims."
Aziz appeared at the Red Mosque in the company of Ahmed Ludhianvi, the reputed leader of a banned militant organization, Sipah-e-Sahaba, which has close links with al Qaida. Ludhianvi, at Aziz's side, attempted to control the excited crowd. Sipah-e-Sahaba and its even more extreme offshoot, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, have a long association with the Red Mosque.
"Islam requires sacrifice and after sacrifice, it spreads more vigorously," Aziz told those gathered. "That's the case here at the Red Mosque. The deadly (military) operation killed old people and children, but the government failed to suppress the voice of Islam. Today, we are a bigger number of people than ever before."
Aziz and his younger brother Ghazi turned into heroic figures for hardliners, especially the "martyr" Ghazi. It was after the storming of the Red Mosque in July 2007 -- in which supporters insist that thousands died -- that the Islamist insurrection in Pakistan started.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, the deputy leader of al Qaida, had issued a recording calling for jihad, or holy war, to avenge the bloodshed. A violent backlash started, first in the wild tribal area along the Afghan border, which then spread into mainstream Pakistan.
Supporters gathered at the mosque Thursday night chanted the slogan: "The voices are coming out of every house, with Ghazi's blood, there will come revolution."
At a press conference after giving his sermon at the mosque, Aziz said that he still believed in peaceful struggle, though the state's resistance to Islam had meant that some had been forced to take up arms, as in Swat valley.
"Many died at the Red Mosque. Today the whole country resounds to cries for the implementation of Islamic law," Aziz said.
Aziz faces 27 criminal charges, including several cases of abetting terrorist acts, but in the nearly two years since his capture, he has not been tried. Pakistan's Supreme Court ruled this week that he should be granted bail, though he was not physically freed until Thursday. It is widely suspected that he was released with some behind-the-scenes understanding with the government over his activities, and he seemed careful not to call for violence. How long that understanding will hold is unclear.
Aziz was caught sneaking out of the besieged mosque dressed as a woman in a burka. That apparent humiliation has not dented his status, because his supporters don't believe it. He is scheduled to lead the weekly prayer Friday at the mosque, which will give him the opportunity to spell out his vision for an Islamist Pakistan.

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Congress nibbles on edges of wealth gap

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Minnesota Independent

As Washington policymakers screamed bloody murder last month over bonus payments for a few hundred AIG employees, another much larger scandal flew virtually unnoticed on Capitol Hill: The divide between the wealth of blacks and whites -- already gaping -- grew again. Now, as Congress prepares to consider a series of consumer-friendly finance reforms, some minority advocates, researchers and lawmakers are pointing to that startling trend as another reason the reforms are urgently needed.
"We need to work together to begin to attack the institutional and structural reasons why communities of color continue to lag so far behind white families," said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus.
The concerns were justified last month. According to the Federal Reserve, the net worth of the typical African American family in 2007 was just 10 percent of the net worth of the typical white family -- down from 12 percent in 2004. Put another way: For every $1 held by whites five years ago, blacks had 12 cents. Three years later, they had a dime.
"This is not just a gap. It's a deepening canyon," Meizhu Lui, director of the Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Initiative at the Oakland-based Insight Center for Community Economic Development, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed last month. "The overhyped political term 'post-racial society' becomes patently absurd when looking at these economic numbers."
The staggering statistic has taken some powerful lawmakers by surprise. Participants in a wealth gap summit on Capitol Hill last month said that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who attended the event, was shocked to learn the extent of the disparity.
But incredulity is one thing; closing the gap is another. And congressional lawmakers with that goal in mind face a series of barriers to getting the job done. Not only is there little recognition that such a divide exists, but the causes, according to reform advocates, are so rooted in history and engrained in policy that they're tough to iron out. Furthermore, the solutions reside largely in tax code reforms -- among the thorniest issues to tackle on Capitol Hill. Advocates for closing the wealth gap say that congressional lawmakers are well behind the curve.
"In terms of them really grappling with it," Lui said Friday, "I don't think they've done that yet. There's plenty of room for them to address this further."
It won't be easy. Advocates are pushing to reverse the Bush-era tax cuts, like those slashing the capital gains and estate taxes, which provide handsome benefits to those with accumulated wealth, but do almost nothing to help Americans of color, whose assets are a fraction of those held by white's.
"People aren't thinking in terms of wealth, it's always about income," Lui said of the public policy focus. "But income alone won't do it."
Thomas Shapiro, professor of law and social policy at Brandeis University, said additional tax reforms could include a shift in the mortgage interest deduction to benefit lower-valued homes and the creation of another deduction for renters -- controversial ideas that "no one's really talking about," he said.
"When the issue is something like the racial wealth gap," he said, "it's very difficult to think of policy levers [as solutions]."
That the wealth disparity is so wide is largely attributable to prejudiced policies both public and private. Advocates and academics point out that some of the largest federal benefit programs of the last century propped up whites but largely excluded minorities. The G.I. Bill, for example, provided $120 billion in low-interest mortgage loans to servicemen after World War II, yet less than 2 percent went to minorities before 1962, Liu found. And the Depression-era Home Owners' Loan Corporation, created to modify mortgages to prevent foreclosures, benefited no minorities whatsoever, she said.
More recently, Harvard University discovered that, among blacks and whites of similar incomes, lenders targeted blacks more often for sub-prime loans, even when those minority borrowers were eligible for less risky arrangements.
To combat that trend, advocates and some Democrats are pushing for the creation of a Financial Products Safety Commission, a concept championed by Elizabeth Warren, who chairs the congressional panel created to oversee the Wall Street bailout. A Senate bill, sponsored by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) would do just that. The commission would regulate financial products, like mortgage loans and credit cards, much the same way the Consumer Products Safety Commission protects buyers from faulty coffee makers and lawn chairs. Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) have also sponsored the bill.
The release of the Fed's latest Survey of Consumer Finances, a triennial assessment of American financial trends, reveals that such policies have taken their toll. The report found that, as a group, people of color held roughly 16 cents for every $1 held by whites in 2007. For Hispanics, the figure was 12 cents. For blacks, a dime. And those figures were crunched before the collapse of the economy. Advocates fear that the gap probably widened since then because, while fewer minorities than whites own their homes, minority homeowners tend to have a higher percentage of their wealth wrapped up in their homes.
Similarly, blacks and Hispanics have fewer credit cards, but tend to drive up higher debts per card. As a result, said Jose Garcia, associate director for research and policy at Demos, a liberal policy group, "more of [minorities'] income goes to pay debt, and less goes to buy assets."
Minority advocates are also wary of payday lenders, who tend to charge exorbitant rates and target minority communities where traditional banks are often scarce. "Billions of dollars are being taken out of low- and moderate-income communities as a result of these alternative financing schemes," Shapiro said.
Not that Congress isn't doing anything at all. Legislation to help homeowners by empowering bankruptcy judges to alter mortgage terms passed the House last month, though it's since stalled in the Senate. Democratic leaders are also preparing to take up bills tackling predatory lending and credit card abuses. Another proposal to rein in payday lenders is also on the Democrats' radar screen.
Speaking at the wealth gap summit last month, Lee said that reforming these industries to protect minority communities is long overdue. "Too many communities do not have access to traditional banks and rely too heavily on payday lenders and check cashing stores that charge uncontrolled fees and out of sight interest rates," Lee said. "We must work together to use this financial storm to demand the institutional reforms that will begin to lift all American families out of this crisis."
Reform advocates say they're heartened by such statements coming from Capitol Hill, but many remain wary that few lawmakers are sticking their necks out to close the wealth gap.
"They were very friendly and very encouraging," Shapiro said of the congressional participants at the summit, "but nobody was stepping up and saying, 'I want to be the champion of this.'"
Mike Lillis is Congress reporter for the Washington Independent.

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Republicans: What's This World Coming To?

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McClatchy
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