From truthdig.com :
Molly Ivins: The Best Little Whorehouse in Washington
Posted on May 8, 2006
By Molly Ivins
AUSTIN, Texas—Of course I am above sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. So serious a servant of the public interest am I, I can fogey with the best: On my better days, I make David Broder look like Page Six.
I don’t care what anyone smoked 20 years ago, I approve of those who boogie ‘til they puke, and I don’t care who anyone in politics is screwing in private, as long as they’re not screwing the public.
On other hand, if you expect me to pass up a scandal involving poker, hookers and the Watergate building with crooked defense contractors and the No. 3 guy at the CIA, named Dusty Foggo (Dusty Foggo?! Be still my heart), you expect too much. Any journalist who claims Hookergate is not a legitimate scandal is dead—has been for some time and needs to be unplugged. In addition to sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, Hookergate is rife with public interest questions, misfeasance, malfeasance and non-feasance, and many splendid moral points for the children. Recommended for Sunday school use, grades seven and above.
But for starters, let us consider the unenviable record of Porter Goss at the CIA. From the beginning of his tenure, Goss has been criticized for politicizing the agency. He brought a bunch of political hacks with him for staff, one of whom turns out to be the poker player called “Nine Fingers.” And in the end, he was likely fired for not having politicized the agency sufficiently.
What is the point of politicizing an intelligence agency? So the CIA officials would get a report from some agent in Iraq saying, “Looks bad.” The first thing they’d ask was, “Is this agent a Republican or a Democrat?”
Maybe there really are conservatives who believe everything in Iraq is hunky-dory and there’s a giant media conspiracy to hide the joyous tidings. But as you may recall, the ever-nimble minds at Donny Rumsfeld’s shop have already tried paying public relations people to invent good news about Iraq and then plant it in newspapers there—it didn’t work.
In fact, it was so stupid it was humiliating. Fortunately, the Pentagon was once again able to investigate itself and determine it had done nothing illegal.
So now they’re turning the CIA over to a general who not only ran the warrantless wiretap program, but still can’t figure out that it’s unconstitutional. Why do I get the feeling this is W. and Karl again flipping the finger at some grown-up they don’t like?
Hayden had mixed reviews as director of the National Security Agency—he’s evidently not a good manager, which makes him a perfect Bushie. But is he straightforward enough to have admitted some warrantless spying has been done for political reasons? None of the usual Washington insiders seems to have a bead on this. Hayden would theoretically report to John Negroponte, Bush’s supposed intelligence czar. Negroponte is widely considered worthless. His major achievement so far seems to be organizational charts and buying furniture.
You know me, no conspiracy theories here, but the Bush administration, which doesn’t seem to be able to run much, set out to retool the CIA after 9-11 and the Iraq War. Problem is, everything that worked at the CIA—that it warned about 9-11 and said the Iraq War was a bad idea—was on the hit list. The Bushies wanted to eliminate the people who were right and promote those who were wrong. This is no way to shape up an intelligence agency, not to mention the White House spit fit over Joe Wilson’s wife.
Next, we need to contemplate sincere, old-fashioned, non-ideological greed, theft and bribery. In the beginning, there was only Duke Cunningham, the high-living, fun-loving super-patriot congressman from San Diego. His yacht was called “The Duke-Stir,” and he had nice taste in 19th century French commodes. While we are all happy to see our elected representatives enjoying themselves in Washington, that’s real people’s money. Actually, the yacht and commode were paid for by Brent Wilkes (keep an eye on that player), the crooked defense contractor. It was people’s money that paid for the defense contracts Wilkes bribed public officials into landing for his clients.
The former inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, Clark Kent Ervin—that would be the DHS equivalent of a police department’s internal affairs chief—tried to blow the whistle on shady contracts at DHS and instead was thrown overboard himself. Folks, we’ll never get government straightened out again if we don’t keep the IGs strong and independent.
If the Bush administration continues to fall apart at this clip, I think we’ll be grateful for incompetence as an excuse.
To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
Wrap...
Monday, May 08, 2006
Take your choice: Liberty or....
From Secrecy News:
CIVIL LIBERTIES AS AN ANTIDOTE TO VIOLENT EXTREMISM
It is often asserted or assumed that American traditions of open government and civil liberties place the United States at a disadvantage in confronting terrorism. But the opposite may be closer to the truth.
"In an open society like ours... it is impossible to protect against every threat," said President Bush in an August 24, 2005 speech."That's a fact we have to deal with. In a free society it is impossible to protect against every possible threat," implying that it might be possible in a closed or unfree society.
Similarly, according to February 15 testimony by Secretary of StateCondoleezza Rice, "terrorists and criminals... would exploit our open society to do us harm."And "precious little can be done to prevent [terrorist attacks onsoft targets] in a society like ours that rightly values personal liberty so highly," wrote Clark Kent Ervin, former Homeland Security Inspector General, in a Washington Post opinion piece on May 7.
But a distinctly different perspective was offered by John C. Gannon, former CIA Deputy Director for Intelligence, in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week. Among the reasons that there has not been another terrorist attack on U.S. soil since September 11, he proposed, are precisely the openness and freedom that some others view with anxiety.
"I believe that the hard-won Constitutional freedoms enjoyed by Americans, along with our unparalleled commitment to civil liberties embedded in law, work against the development of domestic terrorist networks that could be exploited by foreigners," testified Gannon, who is now a Vice President at BAE Systems Information Technology. http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2006_hr/050206gannon.html
Secrecy News asked Dr. Gannon to elaborate on this point.
"Americans have unparalleled Constitutional and legal protections to express grievances and to openly criticize government at all levels," he replied in a May 6 email message. "This doesn't mean that terrorists wouldn't try to operate here. It means that the terrorists or other extremists would find less fertile ground to build networks in the US because local support would be harder to come by and because local opposition would be more certain."
"In this sense, our liberties are a powerful antidote to violent extremism."
"This is not an academic point for me. It is an observation from a career of watching the domestic consequences of repressive regimes elsewhere in the world--including US-friendly Islamic governments such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt," Gannon wrote.
The question of whether openness and civil liberties tend to enhance national security or to undermine it is not a theoretical one. Much depends on which one of the two perspectives prevails. If openness and the rule of law are sources of vulnerability, or viewed as such, then they will be quickly surrendered in the name of security. Torture may be redefined to permit non-lethal abuses, habeas corpus may be suspended, statutes regulating domestic surveillance may be disregarded.
Conversely, if civil liberties and the rule of law are a source of strength, it follows that they should be bolstered and scrupulously upheld even in the conduct of vital security operations.
Secrecy News asked Dr. Gannon whether his views on civil liberties could be reconciled with intelligence programs such as warrantless domestic surveillance.
"The NSA warrantless surveillance program--the details of which are mired in secrecy--should not be seen as a tradeoff between security and civil liberties. But, for this to be true, the program must be bound by law and subject to both judicial review and competent Congressional oversight--the latter now in short supply," he explained."I believe our democracy has the instruments to advance security and protect civil liberties at the same time," he said.
Wrap...
CIVIL LIBERTIES AS AN ANTIDOTE TO VIOLENT EXTREMISM
It is often asserted or assumed that American traditions of open government and civil liberties place the United States at a disadvantage in confronting terrorism. But the opposite may be closer to the truth.
"In an open society like ours... it is impossible to protect against every threat," said President Bush in an August 24, 2005 speech."That's a fact we have to deal with. In a free society it is impossible to protect against every possible threat," implying that it might be possible in a closed or unfree society.
Similarly, according to February 15 testimony by Secretary of StateCondoleezza Rice, "terrorists and criminals... would exploit our open society to do us harm."And "precious little can be done to prevent [terrorist attacks onsoft targets] in a society like ours that rightly values personal liberty so highly," wrote Clark Kent Ervin, former Homeland Security Inspector General, in a Washington Post opinion piece on May 7.
But a distinctly different perspective was offered by John C. Gannon, former CIA Deputy Director for Intelligence, in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week. Among the reasons that there has not been another terrorist attack on U.S. soil since September 11, he proposed, are precisely the openness and freedom that some others view with anxiety.
"I believe that the hard-won Constitutional freedoms enjoyed by Americans, along with our unparalleled commitment to civil liberties embedded in law, work against the development of domestic terrorist networks that could be exploited by foreigners," testified Gannon, who is now a Vice President at BAE Systems Information Technology. http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2006_hr/050206gannon.html
Secrecy News asked Dr. Gannon to elaborate on this point.
"Americans have unparalleled Constitutional and legal protections to express grievances and to openly criticize government at all levels," he replied in a May 6 email message. "This doesn't mean that terrorists wouldn't try to operate here. It means that the terrorists or other extremists would find less fertile ground to build networks in the US because local support would be harder to come by and because local opposition would be more certain."
"In this sense, our liberties are a powerful antidote to violent extremism."
"This is not an academic point for me. It is an observation from a career of watching the domestic consequences of repressive regimes elsewhere in the world--including US-friendly Islamic governments such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt," Gannon wrote.
The question of whether openness and civil liberties tend to enhance national security or to undermine it is not a theoretical one. Much depends on which one of the two perspectives prevails. If openness and the rule of law are sources of vulnerability, or viewed as such, then they will be quickly surrendered in the name of security. Torture may be redefined to permit non-lethal abuses, habeas corpus may be suspended, statutes regulating domestic surveillance may be disregarded.
Conversely, if civil liberties and the rule of law are a source of strength, it follows that they should be bolstered and scrupulously upheld even in the conduct of vital security operations.
Secrecy News asked Dr. Gannon whether his views on civil liberties could be reconciled with intelligence programs such as warrantless domestic surveillance.
"The NSA warrantless surveillance program--the details of which are mired in secrecy--should not be seen as a tradeoff between security and civil liberties. But, for this to be true, the program must be bound by law and subject to both judicial review and competent Congressional oversight--the latter now in short supply," he explained."I believe our democracy has the instruments to advance security and protect civil liberties at the same time," he said.
Wrap...
Court Marshal the anti-Rummy Generals?...Man!!!
From Slate.com :
Could Rumsfeld Court-Martial the Retired Generals?Surprisingly, yes.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Wednesday, April 26, 2006, at 2:59 PM ET
Donald Rumsfeld has a notorious vindictive streak. How low will he stoop to pursue it? Let's put him to the test. If he wanted to get really brutal, Rumsfeld could convene a court-martial and prosecute the six retired generals <http://www.slate.com/id/2139777/> who have been calling for his head. Military law, if read literally, permits him to do this. So, will he?One of the assumptions surrounding the recent criticism of Rumsfeld is that the retired generals, unlike active-duty officers, are free to criticize the defense secretary without fear of reprisal.
Surprisingly, this assumption is untrue. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice <http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ucmj.htm#SUBCHAPTER%20III.%20NON-JUDICIAL%20PUNISHMENT <http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ucmj.htm> > , one of the many activities deemed punishable by court-martial is "contempt toward officials." This code of laws applies not just to active-duty officers but to retired ones, too. It's right there in Article 2, Section (a) (5): Persons subject to the UCMJ include "retired members of a regular component of the armed forces who are entitled to pay."The key phrase is "entitled to pay." If you resign from the military, and thus give up all retirement pay and benefits, you're free from the clutches of military law. But if you retire and thus keep getting paid 50 percent to 75 percent <http://www.military.com/Finance/Content?file=Money_Retirement.htm&area=Content> of your peak active-duty salary (plus cost-of-living adjustments pegged to the consumer price index), you're still in the cage. (Many retirees learned this the hard way, when they were called back into service in Iraq.)
If Rumsfeld wanted to stick it to the retired generals who are daring to question his wisdom: Anthony Zinni, Greg Newbold, Paul Eaton, Charles Swannack, John Batiste, and John Riggs, he could invoke Article 88 of the military justice code, which reads:Any commissioned officer [and, under Article 2, this includes any retired officer] who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation [!], or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present, shall be punished as a court-martial may direct. [Italics and exclamation mark added.]
The military's Manual for Courts-Martial <http://www.uscg.mil/Legal/MJ/Courts-MartialManual.pdf> , the implementing document for the UCMJ, could be read as strengthening Rumsfeld's case against his critics, in two ways.
First, in its elaboration of Article 88, the manual states:It is immaterial whether the [contemptuous] words are used against the official in an official or private capacity.In short, it's no defense for a retired general to say, "I'm just speaking as a private citizen."
Second, the manual notes:Giving broad circulation to a written publication containing contemptuous words of the kind made punishable by this article aggravates the offense. The truth or falsity of the statements is immaterial.
This is pretty shocking stuff. It means a lieutenant could get court-martialed for e-mailing all of his friends a newspaper or magazine story that's contemptuous of Rumsfeld. The six retired generals didn't merely give "broad circulation" to such stories. They wrote the stories, or gave on-the-record interviews to those who did, in publications with extremely broad circulation.
If Rumsfeld wanted to take this law literally and crack down, how could he go about it?
Article 22, Section (a) states that a court-martial may be convened by, among others, the president, the secretary of defense, the "secretary concerned" (i.e., the official who's been the object of contempt), or any commanding officer designated by the secretary concerned or by the president. So, Secretary Rumsfeld or President Bush could set up a court-martial, or either of them could get a loyal henchman to do the dirty work.
If the generals were found guilty, the maximum penalty under Article 88 is "dismissal, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for one year."
Now, before Secretary Rumsfeld and his small circle of friends start salivating, they should consider two things. First and most obvious, trying to court-martial these six generals would be stupid beyond all measure. Very few officers and, as far as I can tell, no retired officers, have ever been prosecuted under Article 88. I'm hardly suggesting that Rumsfeld break precedent; nor am I predicting that he might. But if he wanted to interpret the law literally, as the Justice Department does http://www.slate.com/id/2136324/ when it prosecutes someone under the federal espionage statute for receiving classified information, this would let him bring down the hammer.
But second, Rumsfeld should take a closer look at Article 88. In fact, all officers, active and retired, should take a look. In its commentary on that article, the Manual for Courts-Martial notes: If not personally contemptuous, adverse criticism of one of the officials or legislatures named in the article in the course of a political discussion, even though emphatically expressed, may not be charged as a violation of the article.
In other words, if officers (active or retired) merely criticize Rumsfeld, even emphatically, they are not violating military law, as long as they avoid "contemptuous" words. (I guess this means you should preface your remarks by saying, "With all due respect, sir, ") So, it turns out that military law, which actually protects most critical speech, may not be why active-duty officers won't harsh on Rumsfeld. They refrain from criticism of any sort not because they fear court-martial, but because they know their careers will hit a brick wall. They'll never be promoted; they'll probably be transferred to the Arctic Circle.
The open question is: What is the legal meaning of "contemptuous"? Article 88 offers no definition. Neither does the commentary in the Manual for Courts-Martial. The only guidance that the Defense Department's public-affairs office could come up with was this definition from The Military Judges' Benchbook http://www.jag.navy.mil/documents/MJBenchbook.pdf , paragraph 3-12-1d: "Contemptuous" means insulting, rude, disdainful or otherwise disrespectfully attributing to another qualities of meanness, disreputableness, or worthlessness.
This sounds more like an 18th-century guide on gentlemen's etiquette than a modern-day casebook on military law. But if it is a crime, punishable by court-martial, to disdain Donald Rumsfeld, he could lock up half the Army officer corps.
Fred Kaplan writes the "War Stories" column for Slate. He can be reached at war_stories@hotmail.com .
Wrap...
Could Rumsfeld Court-Martial the Retired Generals?Surprisingly, yes.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Wednesday, April 26, 2006, at 2:59 PM ET
Donald Rumsfeld has a notorious vindictive streak. How low will he stoop to pursue it? Let's put him to the test. If he wanted to get really brutal, Rumsfeld could convene a court-martial and prosecute the six retired generals <http://www.slate.com/id/2139777/> who have been calling for his head. Military law, if read literally, permits him to do this. So, will he?One of the assumptions surrounding the recent criticism of Rumsfeld is that the retired generals, unlike active-duty officers, are free to criticize the defense secretary without fear of reprisal.
Surprisingly, this assumption is untrue. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice <http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ucmj.htm#SUBCHAPTER%20III.%20NON-JUDICIAL%20PUNISHMENT <http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ucmj.htm> > , one of the many activities deemed punishable by court-martial is "contempt toward officials." This code of laws applies not just to active-duty officers but to retired ones, too. It's right there in Article 2, Section (a) (5): Persons subject to the UCMJ include "retired members of a regular component of the armed forces who are entitled to pay."The key phrase is "entitled to pay." If you resign from the military, and thus give up all retirement pay and benefits, you're free from the clutches of military law. But if you retire and thus keep getting paid 50 percent to 75 percent <http://www.military.com/Finance/Content?file=Money_Retirement.htm&area=Content> of your peak active-duty salary (plus cost-of-living adjustments pegged to the consumer price index), you're still in the cage. (Many retirees learned this the hard way, when they were called back into service in Iraq.)
If Rumsfeld wanted to stick it to the retired generals who are daring to question his wisdom: Anthony Zinni, Greg Newbold, Paul Eaton, Charles Swannack, John Batiste, and John Riggs, he could invoke Article 88 of the military justice code, which reads:Any commissioned officer [and, under Article 2, this includes any retired officer] who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation [!], or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present, shall be punished as a court-martial may direct. [Italics and exclamation mark added.]
The military's Manual for Courts-Martial <http://www.uscg.mil/Legal/MJ/Courts-MartialManual.pdf> , the implementing document for the UCMJ, could be read as strengthening Rumsfeld's case against his critics, in two ways.
First, in its elaboration of Article 88, the manual states:It is immaterial whether the [contemptuous] words are used against the official in an official or private capacity.In short, it's no defense for a retired general to say, "I'm just speaking as a private citizen."
Second, the manual notes:Giving broad circulation to a written publication containing contemptuous words of the kind made punishable by this article aggravates the offense. The truth or falsity of the statements is immaterial.
This is pretty shocking stuff. It means a lieutenant could get court-martialed for e-mailing all of his friends a newspaper or magazine story that's contemptuous of Rumsfeld. The six retired generals didn't merely give "broad circulation" to such stories. They wrote the stories, or gave on-the-record interviews to those who did, in publications with extremely broad circulation.
If Rumsfeld wanted to take this law literally and crack down, how could he go about it?
Article 22, Section (a) states that a court-martial may be convened by, among others, the president, the secretary of defense, the "secretary concerned" (i.e., the official who's been the object of contempt), or any commanding officer designated by the secretary concerned or by the president. So, Secretary Rumsfeld or President Bush could set up a court-martial, or either of them could get a loyal henchman to do the dirty work.
If the generals were found guilty, the maximum penalty under Article 88 is "dismissal, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for one year."
Now, before Secretary Rumsfeld and his small circle of friends start salivating, they should consider two things. First and most obvious, trying to court-martial these six generals would be stupid beyond all measure. Very few officers and, as far as I can tell, no retired officers, have ever been prosecuted under Article 88. I'm hardly suggesting that Rumsfeld break precedent; nor am I predicting that he might. But if he wanted to interpret the law literally, as the Justice Department does http://www.slate.com/id/2136324/ when it prosecutes someone under the federal espionage statute for receiving classified information, this would let him bring down the hammer.
But second, Rumsfeld should take a closer look at Article 88. In fact, all officers, active and retired, should take a look. In its commentary on that article, the Manual for Courts-Martial notes: If not personally contemptuous, adverse criticism of one of the officials or legislatures named in the article in the course of a political discussion, even though emphatically expressed, may not be charged as a violation of the article.
In other words, if officers (active or retired) merely criticize Rumsfeld, even emphatically, they are not violating military law, as long as they avoid "contemptuous" words. (I guess this means you should preface your remarks by saying, "With all due respect, sir, ") So, it turns out that military law, which actually protects most critical speech, may not be why active-duty officers won't harsh on Rumsfeld. They refrain from criticism of any sort not because they fear court-martial, but because they know their careers will hit a brick wall. They'll never be promoted; they'll probably be transferred to the Arctic Circle.
The open question is: What is the legal meaning of "contemptuous"? Article 88 offers no definition. Neither does the commentary in the Manual for Courts-Martial. The only guidance that the Defense Department's public-affairs office could come up with was this definition from The Military Judges' Benchbook http://www.jag.navy.mil/documents/MJBenchbook.pdf , paragraph 3-12-1d: "Contemptuous" means insulting, rude, disdainful or otherwise disrespectfully attributing to another qualities of meanness, disreputableness, or worthlessness.
This sounds more like an 18th-century guide on gentlemen's etiquette than a modern-day casebook on military law. But if it is a crime, punishable by court-martial, to disdain Donald Rumsfeld, he could lock up half the Army officer corps.
Fred Kaplan writes the "War Stories" column for Slate. He can be reached at war_stories@hotmail.com .
Wrap...
When Russ Baker talks, we'd better listen....
From Tom Paine :
Crashing WatergateGate
Russ Baker
May 08, 2006
[Investigative reporter and essayist Russ Baker is a longtime contributor to TomPaine.com. He is also the founder of the Real News Project , a new not-for-profit investigative journalism outlet. He can be reached at russ@russbaker.com.]
We knew this was big back in March, when a court sent ex-Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif.—convicted of taking $2.4 million in bribes from military contractors—off to serve eight years in prison, the most severe sentence ever handed out to a member of Congress. From then on, the sleaze chain has been metastasizing. More members of the House might be implicated—and even top CIA officials. Now it is being described as the largest federal corruption scandal in a century. With stories of prostitutes and all-night poker games at the Watergate hotel, it is one scandal that truly is deserving of the "-gate" suffix that has become such a dreary journalistic cliché.
No matter how big the affair grows, though, it is likely to follow in the path of so many of its predecessors—distracting public attention from a larger and more important reality: Today, “the largest corruption scandal in a century” is not WatergateGate—it is the everyday performance of the U.S. government. The worst sleaze in Washington is mainly legal, as the old saying goes; and that includes the sorry state of the entire intelligence apparatus—beyond whether the #3 CIA official improperly participated in those late-night, high-stakes card games.
Too many in the media treat a juicy mess like the Cunningham Affair as a shocking aberration. Consider the wording in a New York Times article on Sunday, which described “a growing suspicion among some lawmakers that corrupt practices may have influenced decision-making in Congress and at executive-branch agencies.”
Who would have thought? Don’t the editors read their own paper? It’s been clear for some time that corruption in the Bush administration has exceeded a Washington standard that already was pretty tawdry. Some of the stories are known already, especially to TomPaine.com readers: White House procurement chief taken out in handcuffs in connection with a sprawling lobbying corruption investigation; the vice president’s chief of staff indicted for perjury; the unseemly setup between Bush’s first FEMA director and Brownie, the incompetent neophyte who replaced him.
But many of the larger misdeeds have gone unreported, in part because—technically illegal or not—they represent business as usual in Republican Washington today. Virtually every federal agency is now captive to the corporate interests it is supposed to regulate. The reach of corporate influence has even compromised the science agencies on whose fact-finding and truth-telling crucial questions of national safety and even survival depend.
And then there is Congress. A quick comparison of committee activity and floor votes with campaign finance reports tells the story. Never mind the now-controversial “earmarks,” in which legislators secretly slip goodies at the last minute into larger bill packages. The real scandal is going on in plain sight. The entities that give the most get the most—and the goodies keep on coming. That outfits like Halliburton can survive a never-ending series of contracting horror shows with their federal contacts intact says a lot about Congress’s willful abrogation of fiduciary duty on behalf of the taxpayer.
The main mistake Randy Cunningham made was accepting the goodies while he was still in Congress. There is no crime involved in doing the exact same favors for government contractors, and later joining the company’s board or getting hired as a highly-paid lobbyist, or getting payback on a more indirect basis. That’s the deal all over town, and some of the most “well-respected” names in America have such arrangements—and not all of them are Republicans. The whole thing stinks, but what to do about it? That’s the rub.
Speaking of a rub, besides the careless greed, in the Cunningham Caper we are blessed by the emergence of a sexual angle worthy of a British tabloid, with the congressman alleged to have enjoyed the favors of big-league prostitutes in return for military contracts. Sexual peccadilloes always get the public’s attention in a way that other misdeeds, like accepting bribes from defense contractors, cannot. That Cunningham and his buddies may have preferred presumably-discreet professional company over out-of-wedlock friends of the Gennifer Flowers ilk, makes perfect sense in an atmosphere where holier-than-thou sanctimony cannot bear scrutiny. That might take the story to a new level, since these sins would have been committed by the staunchest defenders of the "sanctity of marriage."
Those who care about the ever more brazen sellout of the public interest over the last five years have no choice but to take these revelations in whatever garb they come—and if they’re scantily clad, so be it. Meanwhile, consorting with prostitutes—the thing that will get perhaps get the most attention—is the one thing that matters least to the future of our body politic.
With this new WatergateGate, we must at all costs beware the Woodward Fallacy—that sanitation is a substitute for politics and ideas. It is the conceit of the reigning elite. But in fact we can get rid of Cunningham and his cronies and the rot will continue, unless change goes much deeper to the root.
Wrap...
Crashing WatergateGate
Russ Baker
May 08, 2006
[Investigative reporter and essayist Russ Baker is a longtime contributor to TomPaine.com. He is also the founder of the Real News Project , a new not-for-profit investigative journalism outlet. He can be reached at russ@russbaker.com.]
We knew this was big back in March, when a court sent ex-Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif.—convicted of taking $2.4 million in bribes from military contractors—off to serve eight years in prison, the most severe sentence ever handed out to a member of Congress. From then on, the sleaze chain has been metastasizing. More members of the House might be implicated—and even top CIA officials. Now it is being described as the largest federal corruption scandal in a century. With stories of prostitutes and all-night poker games at the Watergate hotel, it is one scandal that truly is deserving of the "-gate" suffix that has become such a dreary journalistic cliché.
No matter how big the affair grows, though, it is likely to follow in the path of so many of its predecessors—distracting public attention from a larger and more important reality: Today, “the largest corruption scandal in a century” is not WatergateGate—it is the everyday performance of the U.S. government. The worst sleaze in Washington is mainly legal, as the old saying goes; and that includes the sorry state of the entire intelligence apparatus—beyond whether the #3 CIA official improperly participated in those late-night, high-stakes card games.
Too many in the media treat a juicy mess like the Cunningham Affair as a shocking aberration. Consider the wording in a New York Times article on Sunday, which described “a growing suspicion among some lawmakers that corrupt practices may have influenced decision-making in Congress and at executive-branch agencies.”
Who would have thought? Don’t the editors read their own paper? It’s been clear for some time that corruption in the Bush administration has exceeded a Washington standard that already was pretty tawdry. Some of the stories are known already, especially to TomPaine.com readers: White House procurement chief taken out in handcuffs in connection with a sprawling lobbying corruption investigation; the vice president’s chief of staff indicted for perjury; the unseemly setup between Bush’s first FEMA director and Brownie, the incompetent neophyte who replaced him.
But many of the larger misdeeds have gone unreported, in part because—technically illegal or not—they represent business as usual in Republican Washington today. Virtually every federal agency is now captive to the corporate interests it is supposed to regulate. The reach of corporate influence has even compromised the science agencies on whose fact-finding and truth-telling crucial questions of national safety and even survival depend.
And then there is Congress. A quick comparison of committee activity and floor votes with campaign finance reports tells the story. Never mind the now-controversial “earmarks,” in which legislators secretly slip goodies at the last minute into larger bill packages. The real scandal is going on in plain sight. The entities that give the most get the most—and the goodies keep on coming. That outfits like Halliburton can survive a never-ending series of contracting horror shows with their federal contacts intact says a lot about Congress’s willful abrogation of fiduciary duty on behalf of the taxpayer.
The main mistake Randy Cunningham made was accepting the goodies while he was still in Congress. There is no crime involved in doing the exact same favors for government contractors, and later joining the company’s board or getting hired as a highly-paid lobbyist, or getting payback on a more indirect basis. That’s the deal all over town, and some of the most “well-respected” names in America have such arrangements—and not all of them are Republicans. The whole thing stinks, but what to do about it? That’s the rub.
Speaking of a rub, besides the careless greed, in the Cunningham Caper we are blessed by the emergence of a sexual angle worthy of a British tabloid, with the congressman alleged to have enjoyed the favors of big-league prostitutes in return for military contracts. Sexual peccadilloes always get the public’s attention in a way that other misdeeds, like accepting bribes from defense contractors, cannot. That Cunningham and his buddies may have preferred presumably-discreet professional company over out-of-wedlock friends of the Gennifer Flowers ilk, makes perfect sense in an atmosphere where holier-than-thou sanctimony cannot bear scrutiny. That might take the story to a new level, since these sins would have been committed by the staunchest defenders of the "sanctity of marriage."
Those who care about the ever more brazen sellout of the public interest over the last five years have no choice but to take these revelations in whatever garb they come—and if they’re scantily clad, so be it. Meanwhile, consorting with prostitutes—the thing that will get perhaps get the most attention—is the one thing that matters least to the future of our body politic.
With this new WatergateGate, we must at all costs beware the Woodward Fallacy—that sanitation is a substitute for politics and ideas. It is the conceit of the reigning elite. But in fact we can get rid of Cunningham and his cronies and the rot will continue, unless change goes much deeper to the root.
Wrap...
Bush in up to his neck...as usual....
From Capitol Hill Blue :
From Capitol Hill Blue
Bush Leagues
Libby's lawyer plans to link Bush to Plame scandal
By Staff and Wire Reports
May 7, 2006, 08:43
The lawyer for former White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby said on Friday he would argue that his client revealed intelligence on Iraq after Vice President Dick Cheney authorized it and President George W. Bush declassified the information.
At a hearing on what documents the prosecution must turn over to the defense, lawyer Theodore Wells also said he believed there may be testimony or statements by Bush and Cheney that the disclosure of the intelligence was authorized.
Wells said he was entitled to any such information from the special prosecutor investigating who in the Bush administration leaked the identity of a CIA operative, Valerie Plame, to the news media.
U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton ruled that prosecutors must turn over information about how the intelligence was declassified because it was important to Libby's defense.
Prosecutors disclosed last month that Libby had testified he had been authorized to disclose the intelligence to reporters in the summer of 2003, to counter criticism of Bush's Iraq policy from Plame's husband, diplomat Joseph Wilson.
Bush has acknowledged declassifying the information, prompting charges of hypocrisy from Democrats who say he has denounced some leaks while encouraging others.
Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, is charged with lying to investigators as they sought to determine who disclosed Plame's name to a conservative columnist in July 2003.
Wells said he would tell the jury that Libby disclosed the intelligence with Cheney's authorization and with the understanding Bush had declassified it.
The trial is scheduled to begin in January, keeping alive an issue that has dogged the White House for months.
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said he already turned over the relevant documents.
Fitzgerald said he agreed with the defense the intelligence had been declassified, but did not know precisely when that happened.
The leak occurred at a time when opponents were stepping up their criticism of the March 2003 invasion after U.S. forces had failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Wells also said he planned to attack the credibility of Wilson, a former ambassador. He said he planned to call five witnesses who would say that Wilson told them about his wife working at the CIA.
Wilson investigated for the CIA an administration claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium, an ingredient used in nuclear weapons, in Niger, and he later wrote in a New York Times article that the charges could not be substantiated.
Wells said he wanted a wide range of government documents about Wilson's trip to Niger.
The judge rejected the request on the grounds that it was not relevant to the lying charges against Libby. "I'm just not going to let this case become a judicial resolution of the legitimacy of the (Iraq) war," he said.
Wells also said top White House aide Karl Rove would likely be a defense witness at the trial and the prosecutor must turn over information about Rove, who remains under investigation.
Fitzgerald said he was not withholding information about Rove. Rove, who faces possible perjury charges, last month testified before a grand jury for the fifth time. Fitzgerald has yet to decide whether to charge Rove.
© Copyright 2005 Capitol Hill Blue
Wrap...
From Capitol Hill Blue
Bush Leagues
Libby's lawyer plans to link Bush to Plame scandal
By Staff and Wire Reports
May 7, 2006, 08:43
The lawyer for former White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby said on Friday he would argue that his client revealed intelligence on Iraq after Vice President Dick Cheney authorized it and President George W. Bush declassified the information.
At a hearing on what documents the prosecution must turn over to the defense, lawyer Theodore Wells also said he believed there may be testimony or statements by Bush and Cheney that the disclosure of the intelligence was authorized.
Wells said he was entitled to any such information from the special prosecutor investigating who in the Bush administration leaked the identity of a CIA operative, Valerie Plame, to the news media.
U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton ruled that prosecutors must turn over information about how the intelligence was declassified because it was important to Libby's defense.
Prosecutors disclosed last month that Libby had testified he had been authorized to disclose the intelligence to reporters in the summer of 2003, to counter criticism of Bush's Iraq policy from Plame's husband, diplomat Joseph Wilson.
Bush has acknowledged declassifying the information, prompting charges of hypocrisy from Democrats who say he has denounced some leaks while encouraging others.
Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, is charged with lying to investigators as they sought to determine who disclosed Plame's name to a conservative columnist in July 2003.
Wells said he would tell the jury that Libby disclosed the intelligence with Cheney's authorization and with the understanding Bush had declassified it.
The trial is scheduled to begin in January, keeping alive an issue that has dogged the White House for months.
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said he already turned over the relevant documents.
Fitzgerald said he agreed with the defense the intelligence had been declassified, but did not know precisely when that happened.
The leak occurred at a time when opponents were stepping up their criticism of the March 2003 invasion after U.S. forces had failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Wells also said he planned to attack the credibility of Wilson, a former ambassador. He said he planned to call five witnesses who would say that Wilson told them about his wife working at the CIA.
Wilson investigated for the CIA an administration claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium, an ingredient used in nuclear weapons, in Niger, and he later wrote in a New York Times article that the charges could not be substantiated.
Wells said he wanted a wide range of government documents about Wilson's trip to Niger.
The judge rejected the request on the grounds that it was not relevant to the lying charges against Libby. "I'm just not going to let this case become a judicial resolution of the legitimacy of the (Iraq) war," he said.
Wells also said top White House aide Karl Rove would likely be a defense witness at the trial and the prosecutor must turn over information about Rove, who remains under investigation.
Fitzgerald said he was not withholding information about Rove. Rove, who faces possible perjury charges, last month testified before a grand jury for the fifth time. Fitzgerald has yet to decide whether to charge Rove.
© Copyright 2005 Capitol Hill Blue
Wrap...
Corruption ok, but sex stirred in and the shit hits fan...
From the Christian Science Monitor :
posted May 8, 2006 at 11:09 a.m.
Report: Scandal may have played role in Goss resignation
Media sources say a corruption investigation may have forced White House to act quickly on Goss, and may also touch other defense and intelligence officials.
By Tom Regan
csmonitor.com
A widening investigation into a corruption scandal in Congress may have played a key role in the decision by the White House to ask Central Intelligence Agency Director Porter Goss to step down.
The New York Daily News reported Sunday that a "little known White House advisory board" pushed President Bush to dump Mr. Goss as CIA head. The president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board was reportedly alarmed by the investigation of a spreading corruption scandal that had already looked into the actions of the CIA's number three official and its executive director, Kyle Dustin (Dusty) Foggo, and may have indirectly touched on Goss himself.
The investigations have focused on the Watergate poker parties thrown by defense contractor Brent Wilkes, a high-school buddy of Foggo's, that were attended by disgraced former Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham and other lawmakers. Foggo has claimed he went to the parties "just for poker" amid allegations that Wilkes, a top GOP fund-raiser and a member of the $100,000 "Pioneers" of Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, provided prostitutes, limos and hotel suites to Cunningham.
Cunningham is serving an eight-year sentence after pleading to taking $2.4 million in bribes to steer defense contracts to cronies. Wilkes hosted regular parties for 15 years at the Watergate and Westin Grand Hotels for lawmakers and lobbyists. Intelligence sources said Goss has denied attending the parties as CIA director, but that left open whether he may have attended as a Republican congressman from Florida who was head of the House Intelligence Committee.
Harpers.org, the website of Harper's Magazine, reported in late April that the FBI was investigating "current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence comittees" as part of the scandal investigation. The Wall Street Journal also reported that in recent weeks the FBI has interviewed women from escort services in the Washington area, as well as obtained information from the Watergate Hotel, where many of the poker parties were allegedly held. While no other member of Congress has been implicated so far, if the FBI finds evidence of favors being given to lawmakers, it could lead to charges.
The New York Times reported Sunday that the investigation into Randy Cunningham's actions "has produced a second round of inquiries into the actions of officials at the CIA and the Homeland Security Department and of members of the House Intelligence Committee," according to government officials.
Writing for the progressive online news site truthout.org, Larry C. Johnson (who worked previously with the CIA and the US State Department's Office of Counterterrorism as a deputy director), says sources have told him that Goss did not directly take part in the any of the parties that Foggo attended, but that other members of his staff may have.
A former CIA buddy tells me that Porter's main problem, however, is a key staffer who is linked to both Brent Wilkes and the CIA's Executive Director, Dusty Foggo. My friend also said that it is highly likely that the Goss staffer did participate in the [parties]. Goss, politician that he is, probably recognized that even though he did not participate ..., his staffer's participation created a huge problem for him that would be difficult to escape.
There also is truth to the rumor that Goss was not happy with presiding over a CIA that had been rendered a co-equal with the Department of Defense intelligence units. Prior to the creation of the National Director of Intelligence (NDI), the CIA was the lead intelligence agency. No longer. Ironically, part of the impetus for the creation of the NDI was the perceived "failures" of the CIA with respect to 9/11 and Iraq. Recent revelations by retired CIA officers, such as Paul Pillar and Ty Drumheller, make clear that the CIA basically got it right on Iraq and was ignored by the Bush administration.
Time magazine picks up on Mr. Johnson's second point - that the struggle between Goss and John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence, proved to be too much for Goss, and that the departure of the CIA director is a coup for Mr. Negroponte's bid to assume control over all branches of US intelligence. On the same front, the Los Angeles Times reports that Negroponte and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld are also in a turf war over whose office should have the largest say in intelligence matters, in particular the intelligence budget.
David Corn of The Nation says the important question is, even if Goss did not take part in any of the parties, did he know about what might have happened there, or about the close ties between Foggo and Brent Wilkes?
What's this got to do with Porter Goss? Maybe nothing. But here's the reason for speculation. Wilkes did hold parties and poker games for CIA officials and lawmakers, including members of the House intelligence committee. (Goss has been a CIA director, a lawmaker, and a member of the House intelligence committee.) Wilkes was pals with Foggo. (As CIA executive director, Foggo manages the CIA on a day-by-day basis for Goss.) So might Goss know anything about (a) a rigged contract; (b) bad behavior at Wilkes' poker bashes; (c) the non-recreational use of prostitutes; (d) all of the above or something we cannot even imagine?
The Washington Post reports that the White House's pick to replace Goss, Gen. Michael Hayden, will face challenges from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers who do not feel comfortable with a military officer heading a civilian agency. Also, The New York Times reported on Sunday that whoever becomes the next head of the CIA will face the daunting task of trying to fill in the holes in the agency's intelligence on Iran.
A year after a presidential commission gave a scathing assessment of intelligence on Iran, they say, American spy agencies remain severely handicapped in their efforts to evaluate its weapons programs and its leaders' intentions. Whoever takes the helm of the CIA after the resignation on Friday of Porter Goss will confront a critical target with few, if any, American spies on the ground, sketchy communications intercepts and ambiguous satellite images, the experts say.
Wrap....
posted May 8, 2006 at 11:09 a.m.
Report: Scandal may have played role in Goss resignation
Media sources say a corruption investigation may have forced White House to act quickly on Goss, and may also touch other defense and intelligence officials.
By Tom Regan
csmonitor.com
A widening investigation into a corruption scandal in Congress may have played a key role in the decision by the White House to ask Central Intelligence Agency Director Porter Goss to step down.
The New York Daily News reported Sunday that a "little known White House advisory board" pushed President Bush to dump Mr. Goss as CIA head. The president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board was reportedly alarmed by the investigation of a spreading corruption scandal that had already looked into the actions of the CIA's number three official and its executive director, Kyle Dustin (Dusty) Foggo, and may have indirectly touched on Goss himself.
The investigations have focused on the Watergate poker parties thrown by defense contractor Brent Wilkes, a high-school buddy of Foggo's, that were attended by disgraced former Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham and other lawmakers. Foggo has claimed he went to the parties "just for poker" amid allegations that Wilkes, a top GOP fund-raiser and a member of the $100,000 "Pioneers" of Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, provided prostitutes, limos and hotel suites to Cunningham.
Cunningham is serving an eight-year sentence after pleading to taking $2.4 million in bribes to steer defense contracts to cronies. Wilkes hosted regular parties for 15 years at the Watergate and Westin Grand Hotels for lawmakers and lobbyists. Intelligence sources said Goss has denied attending the parties as CIA director, but that left open whether he may have attended as a Republican congressman from Florida who was head of the House Intelligence Committee.
Harpers.org, the website of Harper's Magazine, reported in late April that the FBI was investigating "current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence comittees" as part of the scandal investigation. The Wall Street Journal also reported that in recent weeks the FBI has interviewed women from escort services in the Washington area, as well as obtained information from the Watergate Hotel, where many of the poker parties were allegedly held. While no other member of Congress has been implicated so far, if the FBI finds evidence of favors being given to lawmakers, it could lead to charges.
The New York Times reported Sunday that the investigation into Randy Cunningham's actions "has produced a second round of inquiries into the actions of officials at the CIA and the Homeland Security Department and of members of the House Intelligence Committee," according to government officials.
Writing for the progressive online news site truthout.org, Larry C. Johnson (who worked previously with the CIA and the US State Department's Office of Counterterrorism as a deputy director), says sources have told him that Goss did not directly take part in the any of the parties that Foggo attended, but that other members of his staff may have.
A former CIA buddy tells me that Porter's main problem, however, is a key staffer who is linked to both Brent Wilkes and the CIA's Executive Director, Dusty Foggo. My friend also said that it is highly likely that the Goss staffer did participate in the [parties]. Goss, politician that he is, probably recognized that even though he did not participate ..., his staffer's participation created a huge problem for him that would be difficult to escape.
There also is truth to the rumor that Goss was not happy with presiding over a CIA that had been rendered a co-equal with the Department of Defense intelligence units. Prior to the creation of the National Director of Intelligence (NDI), the CIA was the lead intelligence agency. No longer. Ironically, part of the impetus for the creation of the NDI was the perceived "failures" of the CIA with respect to 9/11 and Iraq. Recent revelations by retired CIA officers, such as Paul Pillar and Ty Drumheller, make clear that the CIA basically got it right on Iraq and was ignored by the Bush administration.
Time magazine picks up on Mr. Johnson's second point - that the struggle between Goss and John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence, proved to be too much for Goss, and that the departure of the CIA director is a coup for Mr. Negroponte's bid to assume control over all branches of US intelligence. On the same front, the Los Angeles Times reports that Negroponte and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld are also in a turf war over whose office should have the largest say in intelligence matters, in particular the intelligence budget.
David Corn of The Nation says the important question is, even if Goss did not take part in any of the parties, did he know about what might have happened there, or about the close ties between Foggo and Brent Wilkes?
What's this got to do with Porter Goss? Maybe nothing. But here's the reason for speculation. Wilkes did hold parties and poker games for CIA officials and lawmakers, including members of the House intelligence committee. (Goss has been a CIA director, a lawmaker, and a member of the House intelligence committee.) Wilkes was pals with Foggo. (As CIA executive director, Foggo manages the CIA on a day-by-day basis for Goss.) So might Goss know anything about (a) a rigged contract; (b) bad behavior at Wilkes' poker bashes; (c) the non-recreational use of prostitutes; (d) all of the above or something we cannot even imagine?
The Washington Post reports that the White House's pick to replace Goss, Gen. Michael Hayden, will face challenges from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers who do not feel comfortable with a military officer heading a civilian agency. Also, The New York Times reported on Sunday that whoever becomes the next head of the CIA will face the daunting task of trying to fill in the holes in the agency's intelligence on Iran.
A year after a presidential commission gave a scathing assessment of intelligence on Iran, they say, American spy agencies remain severely handicapped in their efforts to evaluate its weapons programs and its leaders' intentions. Whoever takes the helm of the CIA after the resignation on Friday of Porter Goss will confront a critical target with few, if any, American spies on the ground, sketchy communications intercepts and ambiguous satellite images, the experts say.
Wrap....
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Palestine..."Do unto others...."
From International Herald Tribune via Information Clearing House:
Jimmy Carter: Punishing the innocent is a crime
By Jimmy Carter
05/07/06
"IHT"
Innocent Palestinian people are being treated like animals, with the presumption that they are guilty of some crime. Because they voted for candidates who are members of Hamas, the United States government has become the driving force behind an apparently effective scheme of depriving the general public of income, access to the outside world and the necessities of life.
Overwhelmingly, these are school teachers, nurses, social workers, police officers, farm families, shopkeepers, and their employees and families who are just hoping for a better life. Public opinion polls conducted after the January parliamentary election show that 80 percent of Palestinians still want a peace agreement with Israel based on the international road map premises. Although Fatah party members refused to join Hamas in a coalition government, nearly 70 percent of Palestinians continue to support Fatah's leader, Mahmoud Abbas, as their president.
It is almost a miracle that the Palestinians have been able to orchestrate three elections during the past 10 years, all of which have been honest, fair, strongly contested, without violence and with the results accepted by winners and losers. Among the 62 elections that have been monitored by us at the Carter Center, these are among the best in portraying the will of the people.
One clear reason for the surprising Hamas victory for legislative seats was that the voters were in despair about prospects for peace. With American acquiescence, the Israelis had avoided any substantive peace talks for more than five years, regardless of who had been chosen to represent the Palestinian side as interlocutor.
The day after his party lost the election, Abbas told me that his own struggling government could not sustain itself financially with their daily lives and economy so severely disrupted, and access from Palestine to Israel and the outside world almost totally restricted. They were already $900 million in debt and had no way to meet the payroll for the following month. The additional restraints imposed on the new government are a planned and deliberate catastrophe for the citizens of the occupied territories, in hopes that Hamas will yield to the economic pressure.
With all their faults, Hamas leaders have continued to honor a temporary cease-fire, or hudna, during the past 18 months, and their spokesman told me that this "can be extended for two, 10 or even 50 years if the Israelis will reciprocate." Although Hamas leaders have refused to recognize the state of Israel while their territory is being occupied, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has expressed approval for peace talks between Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel. He added that if these negotiations result in an agreement that can be accepted by Palestinians, then the Hamas position regarding Israel would be changed.
Regardless of these intricate and long-term political interrelationships, it is unconscionable for Israel, the United States and others under their influence to continue punishing the innocent and already persecuted people of Palestine. The Israelis are withholding approximately $55 million a month in taxes and customs duties that, without dispute, belong to the Palestinians. Although some Arab nations have allocated funds for humanitarian purposes to alleviate human suffering, the U.S. government is threatening the financial existence of any Jordanian or other bank that dares to transfer this assistance into Palestine.
There is no way to predict what will happen in Palestine, but it would be a tragedy for the international community to abandon the hope that a peaceful coexistence of two states in the Holy Land is possible. Like Egypt and all other Arab nations before the Camp David Accords of 1978, and the Palestine Liberation Organization before the Oslo peace agreement of 1993, Hamas has so far refused to recognize the sovereign state of Israel as legitimate, with a right to live in peace. This is a matter of great concern to all of us, and the international community needs to probe for an acceptable way out of this quagmire. There is no doubt that Israelis and Palestinians both want a durable two-state solution, but depriving the people of Palestine of their basic human rights just to punish their elected leaders is not a path to peace.
(Former President Jimmy Carter is founder of the Carter Center, a nonprofit organization working for peace and health worldwide. )
International Herald Tribune
Wrap....
Jimmy Carter: Punishing the innocent is a crime
By Jimmy Carter
05/07/06
"IHT"
Innocent Palestinian people are being treated like animals, with the presumption that they are guilty of some crime. Because they voted for candidates who are members of Hamas, the United States government has become the driving force behind an apparently effective scheme of depriving the general public of income, access to the outside world and the necessities of life.
Overwhelmingly, these are school teachers, nurses, social workers, police officers, farm families, shopkeepers, and their employees and families who are just hoping for a better life. Public opinion polls conducted after the January parliamentary election show that 80 percent of Palestinians still want a peace agreement with Israel based on the international road map premises. Although Fatah party members refused to join Hamas in a coalition government, nearly 70 percent of Palestinians continue to support Fatah's leader, Mahmoud Abbas, as their president.
It is almost a miracle that the Palestinians have been able to orchestrate three elections during the past 10 years, all of which have been honest, fair, strongly contested, without violence and with the results accepted by winners and losers. Among the 62 elections that have been monitored by us at the Carter Center, these are among the best in portraying the will of the people.
One clear reason for the surprising Hamas victory for legislative seats was that the voters were in despair about prospects for peace. With American acquiescence, the Israelis had avoided any substantive peace talks for more than five years, regardless of who had been chosen to represent the Palestinian side as interlocutor.
The day after his party lost the election, Abbas told me that his own struggling government could not sustain itself financially with their daily lives and economy so severely disrupted, and access from Palestine to Israel and the outside world almost totally restricted. They were already $900 million in debt and had no way to meet the payroll for the following month. The additional restraints imposed on the new government are a planned and deliberate catastrophe for the citizens of the occupied territories, in hopes that Hamas will yield to the economic pressure.
With all their faults, Hamas leaders have continued to honor a temporary cease-fire, or hudna, during the past 18 months, and their spokesman told me that this "can be extended for two, 10 or even 50 years if the Israelis will reciprocate." Although Hamas leaders have refused to recognize the state of Israel while their territory is being occupied, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has expressed approval for peace talks between Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel. He added that if these negotiations result in an agreement that can be accepted by Palestinians, then the Hamas position regarding Israel would be changed.
Regardless of these intricate and long-term political interrelationships, it is unconscionable for Israel, the United States and others under their influence to continue punishing the innocent and already persecuted people of Palestine. The Israelis are withholding approximately $55 million a month in taxes and customs duties that, without dispute, belong to the Palestinians. Although some Arab nations have allocated funds for humanitarian purposes to alleviate human suffering, the U.S. government is threatening the financial existence of any Jordanian or other bank that dares to transfer this assistance into Palestine.
There is no way to predict what will happen in Palestine, but it would be a tragedy for the international community to abandon the hope that a peaceful coexistence of two states in the Holy Land is possible. Like Egypt and all other Arab nations before the Camp David Accords of 1978, and the Palestine Liberation Organization before the Oslo peace agreement of 1993, Hamas has so far refused to recognize the sovereign state of Israel as legitimate, with a right to live in peace. This is a matter of great concern to all of us, and the international community needs to probe for an acceptable way out of this quagmire. There is no doubt that Israelis and Palestinians both want a durable two-state solution, but depriving the people of Palestine of their basic human rights just to punish their elected leaders is not a path to peace.
(Former President Jimmy Carter is founder of the Carter Center, a nonprofit organization working for peace and health worldwide. )
International Herald Tribune
Wrap....
Want 'em out? All it takes is a sex scandal...
From NY Daily News via Raw Story:
New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
Behind the Goss toss
BY RICHARD SISK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Sunday, May 7th, 2006
WASHINGTON - A little-known White House advisory board convinced a reluctant President Bush to launch yet another high-profile shakeup of the nation's intelligence community and can CIA Director Porter Goss, sources said yesterday.
Bush had already gotten an earful from Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte on the shortcomings of Goss, but the final push came from the "very alarmed" President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, intelligence and Congressional sources said.
Alarms were set off at the advisory board by a widening FBI sex and cronyism investigation that's targeted Kyle (Dusty) Foggo, the No.3 official at the CIA, and also touched on Goss himself.
The 16-member bipartisan board, now headed by former Goldman Sachs executive Stephen Friedman, has the mandate to conduct periodic assessments on "the quality, quantity and adequacy of intelligence collection."
The board, which includes longtime Bush confidant and former Commerce Secretary Don Evans, joined in the growing chorus inside and outside the CIA calling for Goss' ouster, persuading Bush to act, sources said.
The result was the awkward Oval Office announcement Friday at which neither Goss nor Bush gave a specific reason for Goss' return to Florida. Goss told CNN yesterday his resignation was "just one of those mysteries."
White House spokeswoman Dana Perrino said a "collective agreement" led to the decision to find a new CIA director, but "reports that the President had lost confidence in Porter Goss are categorically untrue."
Bush was expected to name a new spy chief, possibly as early as tomorrow, with Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, Negroponte's top deputy, and White House homeland security adviser Fran Townsend heading up a short list.
But the spillover from the continuing FBI investigation, coupled with a parallel probe by the CIA's inspector general, could impact on what were already expected to be difficult Senate confirmation hearings for the new director.
The investigations have focused on the Watergate poker parties thrown by defense contractor Brent Wilkes, a high-school buddy of Foggo's, that were attended by disgraced former Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham and other lawmakers.
Foggo has claimed he went to the parties "just for poker" amid allegations that Wilkes, a top GOP fund-raiser and a member of the $100,000 "Pioneers" of Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, provided prostitutes, limos and hotel suites to Cunningham.
Cunningham is serving an eight-year sentence after pleading to taking $2.4 million in bribes to steer defense contracts to cronies.
Wilkes hosted regular parties for 15 years at the Watergate and Westin Grand Hotels for lawmakers and lobbyists. Intelligence sources said Goss has denied attending the parties as CIA director, but that left open whether he may have attended as a Republican congressman from Florida who was head of the House Intelligence Committee.
Wrap....
New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
Behind the Goss toss
BY RICHARD SISK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Sunday, May 7th, 2006
WASHINGTON - A little-known White House advisory board convinced a reluctant President Bush to launch yet another high-profile shakeup of the nation's intelligence community and can CIA Director Porter Goss, sources said yesterday.
Bush had already gotten an earful from Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte on the shortcomings of Goss, but the final push came from the "very alarmed" President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, intelligence and Congressional sources said.
Alarms were set off at the advisory board by a widening FBI sex and cronyism investigation that's targeted Kyle (Dusty) Foggo, the No.3 official at the CIA, and also touched on Goss himself.
The 16-member bipartisan board, now headed by former Goldman Sachs executive Stephen Friedman, has the mandate to conduct periodic assessments on "the quality, quantity and adequacy of intelligence collection."
The board, which includes longtime Bush confidant and former Commerce Secretary Don Evans, joined in the growing chorus inside and outside the CIA calling for Goss' ouster, persuading Bush to act, sources said.
The result was the awkward Oval Office announcement Friday at which neither Goss nor Bush gave a specific reason for Goss' return to Florida. Goss told CNN yesterday his resignation was "just one of those mysteries."
White House spokeswoman Dana Perrino said a "collective agreement" led to the decision to find a new CIA director, but "reports that the President had lost confidence in Porter Goss are categorically untrue."
Bush was expected to name a new spy chief, possibly as early as tomorrow, with Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, Negroponte's top deputy, and White House homeland security adviser Fran Townsend heading up a short list.
But the spillover from the continuing FBI investigation, coupled with a parallel probe by the CIA's inspector general, could impact on what were already expected to be difficult Senate confirmation hearings for the new director.
The investigations have focused on the Watergate poker parties thrown by defense contractor Brent Wilkes, a high-school buddy of Foggo's, that were attended by disgraced former Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham and other lawmakers.
Foggo has claimed he went to the parties "just for poker" amid allegations that Wilkes, a top GOP fund-raiser and a member of the $100,000 "Pioneers" of Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, provided prostitutes, limos and hotel suites to Cunningham.
Cunningham is serving an eight-year sentence after pleading to taking $2.4 million in bribes to steer defense contracts to cronies.
Wilkes hosted regular parties for 15 years at the Watergate and Westin Grand Hotels for lawmakers and lobbyists. Intelligence sources said Goss has denied attending the parties as CIA director, but that left open whether he may have attended as a Republican congressman from Florida who was head of the House Intelligence Committee.
Wrap....
Saturday, May 06, 2006
So where is Bin Laden?
From Al Jazeera:
Bin Laden wants Musharraf killed
Saturday 06 May 2006, 21:10 Makka Time, 18:10 GMT
Fighters battling the Pakistani army in the Waziristan tribal region have distributed leaflets in the name of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, calling for the assassination of Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president.
"I also pray to the one and the only Almighty Allah to teach a telling lesson to Bush, Musharraf and their forces, and give a chance to the lions of Islam to kill the slave of Bush in Pakistan," reads the leaflet.
Musharraf has survived several al-Qaeda assassination attempts by Pakistani jihadi groups since siding with the US in a global "war on terrorism" following the 9/11 attacks on the US.
And bin Laden's Egyptian deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, who is believed to be moving between the Pashtun tribal lands on either side of the Pakistan-Afghan border, had last month issued a videotape again calling for Pakistanis to overthrow Musharraf.
Printed in Urdu, the leaflet began with an introduction in Arabic saying that it was a message from bin Laden calling on Muslims everywhere to aid the tribes people under attack from Pakistani forces in Waziristan.
Its signoff read "Mujahideen Emirates Islamia Afghanistan", or the Holy Warriors of Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan.
Frequent clashes
The leaflet was circulated in Miranshah and Mir Ali, two towns in North Waziristan, where clashes between pro-Taliban militant tribesmen and security forces have worsened since early March after helicopter gun ships smashed a compound used by fighters, mostly from Chechnya, Central Asia and Afghanistan.
Musharraf has survived many al-Qaeda assassination attemptsThere has been a lull in fighting for the past few days, and an unofficial truce is expected to hold through to the middle of next week as thousands of Muslim preachers and scholars have converged on Miranshah to hold a congregation over several days.
The congregation was organised by Tablighi Jamaat - a largely apolitical Lahore-based missionary group whose followers spread Islam throughout the world - and its main event passed off without incident on Saturday.
Bin Laden is believed to have passed through North Waziristan during his flight from Afghanistan in late 2001, but most security analysts believe that while he is probably somewhere in Pakistan he is unlikely to be in the tribal areas.
Military officials say they have killed 324 Muslim fighters in North Waziristan and lost 56 soldiers since the middle of last year.
A Pakistani intelligence officer told Reuters last week there were up to 1,000 foreign militants still roaming around North Waziristan. The military campaign switched to North Waziristan last year from South Waziristan.
Embarrassingly for the Pakistani authorities, self-avowed former Taliban fighters are now imposing their law in large parts of South Waziristan and recruiting fighters to sneak across the border to wage a guerrilla war against US-led and government forces in Afghanistan.
US: Bin Laden in Pakistan
Meanwhile, the US ambassador in charge of counter-terrorism said on Saturday that parts of Pakistan are a “safe haven” for militants and that Osama bin Laden was more likely to be hiding there than in Afghanistan.
Crumpton says parts of Pakistan are safe haven for militantsAmbassador Henry Crumpton lauded Pakistan for arresting "hundreds and hundreds" of al-Qaeda figures, but said that it needed to do more.
"Has Pakistan done enough? I think the answer is no. I have conveyed that to them, other US officials have conveyed that to them," he told reporters at the US Embassy in Kabul after talks with Afghan officials.
Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan, the chief spokesman for Pakistan's army, dismissed Crumpton's assertion that Pakistan was not doing enough.
"It is totally absurd," he said. "No one has conveyed this thing to Pakistan, and if someone claims so, it is absurd."
Al-Qaeda leader captured
"If we knew exactly where bin Laden was, we'd go get him," Crumpton said. "But we're very confident he's along the Pakistan-Afghan border somewhere...there was a "higher probability" that bin Laden was hiding on the Pakistan side "
Henry Crumpton,US ambassador in charge of counter-terrorismCrumpton confirmed that Pakistan had captured Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, a top al-Qaeda strategist with a $5 million bounty on his head - whom US and Pakistani officials say was arrested in the south western Pakistani city of Quetta in November.
Crumpton said that this showed that Pakistan was working to arrest al-Qaeda leaders.
Pakistan has also launched repeated counter-terrorism operations in its lawless tribal regions close to the Afghan border over the past two years, in which hundreds of militants and soldiers have died.
"Our expectation is that they will continue to make progress, and we know that it's difficult," he said. Pakistan "can't remain a safe haven for enemy forces, and right now parts of Pakistan are indeed that."
Crumpton said US officials continued to believe that al-Qaeda leader bin Laden was somewhere along the Afghan-Pakistani border, and more likely on the Pakistani side.
"If we knew exactly where bin Laden was, we'd go get him," Crumpton said. "But we're very confident he's along the Pakistan-Afghan border somewhere," he said,adding that there was a "higher probability" that bin Laden was hiding on the Pakistan side.
Wrap...
Bin Laden wants Musharraf killed
Saturday 06 May 2006, 21:10 Makka Time, 18:10 GMT
Fighters battling the Pakistani army in the Waziristan tribal region have distributed leaflets in the name of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, calling for the assassination of Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president.
"I also pray to the one and the only Almighty Allah to teach a telling lesson to Bush, Musharraf and their forces, and give a chance to the lions of Islam to kill the slave of Bush in Pakistan," reads the leaflet.
Musharraf has survived several al-Qaeda assassination attempts by Pakistani jihadi groups since siding with the US in a global "war on terrorism" following the 9/11 attacks on the US.
And bin Laden's Egyptian deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, who is believed to be moving between the Pashtun tribal lands on either side of the Pakistan-Afghan border, had last month issued a videotape again calling for Pakistanis to overthrow Musharraf.
Printed in Urdu, the leaflet began with an introduction in Arabic saying that it was a message from bin Laden calling on Muslims everywhere to aid the tribes people under attack from Pakistani forces in Waziristan.
Its signoff read "Mujahideen Emirates Islamia Afghanistan", or the Holy Warriors of Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan.
Frequent clashes
The leaflet was circulated in Miranshah and Mir Ali, two towns in North Waziristan, where clashes between pro-Taliban militant tribesmen and security forces have worsened since early March after helicopter gun ships smashed a compound used by fighters, mostly from Chechnya, Central Asia and Afghanistan.
Musharraf has survived many al-Qaeda assassination attemptsThere has been a lull in fighting for the past few days, and an unofficial truce is expected to hold through to the middle of next week as thousands of Muslim preachers and scholars have converged on Miranshah to hold a congregation over several days.
The congregation was organised by Tablighi Jamaat - a largely apolitical Lahore-based missionary group whose followers spread Islam throughout the world - and its main event passed off without incident on Saturday.
Bin Laden is believed to have passed through North Waziristan during his flight from Afghanistan in late 2001, but most security analysts believe that while he is probably somewhere in Pakistan he is unlikely to be in the tribal areas.
Military officials say they have killed 324 Muslim fighters in North Waziristan and lost 56 soldiers since the middle of last year.
A Pakistani intelligence officer told Reuters last week there were up to 1,000 foreign militants still roaming around North Waziristan. The military campaign switched to North Waziristan last year from South Waziristan.
Embarrassingly for the Pakistani authorities, self-avowed former Taliban fighters are now imposing their law in large parts of South Waziristan and recruiting fighters to sneak across the border to wage a guerrilla war against US-led and government forces in Afghanistan.
US: Bin Laden in Pakistan
Meanwhile, the US ambassador in charge of counter-terrorism said on Saturday that parts of Pakistan are a “safe haven” for militants and that Osama bin Laden was more likely to be hiding there than in Afghanistan.
Crumpton says parts of Pakistan are safe haven for militantsAmbassador Henry Crumpton lauded Pakistan for arresting "hundreds and hundreds" of al-Qaeda figures, but said that it needed to do more.
"Has Pakistan done enough? I think the answer is no. I have conveyed that to them, other US officials have conveyed that to them," he told reporters at the US Embassy in Kabul after talks with Afghan officials.
Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan, the chief spokesman for Pakistan's army, dismissed Crumpton's assertion that Pakistan was not doing enough.
"It is totally absurd," he said. "No one has conveyed this thing to Pakistan, and if someone claims so, it is absurd."
Al-Qaeda leader captured
"If we knew exactly where bin Laden was, we'd go get him," Crumpton said. "But we're very confident he's along the Pakistan-Afghan border somewhere...there was a "higher probability" that bin Laden was hiding on the Pakistan side "
Henry Crumpton,US ambassador in charge of counter-terrorismCrumpton confirmed that Pakistan had captured Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, a top al-Qaeda strategist with a $5 million bounty on his head - whom US and Pakistani officials say was arrested in the south western Pakistani city of Quetta in November.
Crumpton said that this showed that Pakistan was working to arrest al-Qaeda leaders.
Pakistan has also launched repeated counter-terrorism operations in its lawless tribal regions close to the Afghan border over the past two years, in which hundreds of militants and soldiers have died.
"Our expectation is that they will continue to make progress, and we know that it's difficult," he said. Pakistan "can't remain a safe haven for enemy forces, and right now parts of Pakistan are indeed that."
Crumpton said US officials continued to believe that al-Qaeda leader bin Laden was somewhere along the Afghan-Pakistani border, and more likely on the Pakistani side.
"If we knew exactly where bin Laden was, we'd go get him," Crumpton said. "But we're very confident he's along the Pakistan-Afghan border somewhere," he said,adding that there was a "higher probability" that bin Laden was hiding on the Pakistan side.
Wrap...
Thursday, May 04, 2006
US okays torture says Amnesty International in Berlin...
From Knight Ridder Newspapers via truthout.org :
Report Blames Top US Officials for Alleged Torture of Detainees
By Matthew Schofield
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Wednesday 03 May 2006
Berlin - Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees by U.S. forces is widespread and, in many cases, sanctioned by top government officials, Amnesty International charged Wednesday.
The allegations, contained in a 32,000-word report released in New York and London and posted on the human rights organization's Web site, are likely to influence a U.N. hearing on U.S. compliance with international torture agreements that begins Friday in Geneva. Amnesty International sent a copy of the report to the U.N. Committee Against Torture, which is holding the hearings.
"Although the U.S. government continues to assert its condemnation of torture and ill-treatment, these statements contradict what is happening in practice," said Curt Goering, the group's senior deputy executive director in the United States. "The U.S. government is not only failing to take steps to eradicate torture, it is actually creating a climate in which torture and other ill-treatment can flourish."
American officials denied the allegations. "There's no more staunch defender of human rights around the world than the United States government," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros, said "humane treatment of detainees is and always has been the (Defense Department) standard." He noted that a dozen reviews of military detention operations had found no evidence that the top officials encouraged abuse.
The report notes that American military officials have listed 34 deaths of detainees in U.S. custody as "confirmed or suspected criminal homicides." It suggested that the true number may be much higher, saying "there is evidence that delays, cover-ups and deficiencies in investigations have hampered the collection of evidence."
"In several cases," it says, "substantial evidence has emerged that detainees were tortured to death while under interrogation. . . . What is even more disturbing is that standard practices as well as interrogation techniques believed to have fallen within officially sanctioned parameters, appear to have played a role in the ill-treatment."
The Amnesty International report was a foretaste of the hearing in Geneva, scheduled for Friday and Monday.
The United States is dispatching a delegation of 30 officials to testify at the hearing, which is a follow-up to a review in 2000 that was critical of America's treatment of inmates in its domestic prisons.
The hearing is expected to focus on the allegations of mistreatment of prisoners taken captive in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq or seized by U.S. agents in other countries and later jailed at the American naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or at undisclosed locations.
The United States is one of seven nations the committee is reviewing during meetings this month. The others are Georgia, Guatemala, Peru, Qatar, South Korea and Togo.
The United States is one of more than 140 nations that have approved the convention against torture. The U.S. has written to the committee saying it's unequivocally opposed to torture.
The Amnesty International report questions that, saying there's evidence that top American officials had approved abusive interrogation techniques.
"Most of the torture and ill-treatment stemmed directly from officially sanctioned procedures and policies, including interrogation techniques approved by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld," said Javier Zuniga, Amnesty International's Americas director.
The report criticizes the United States for giving those convicted of abuse relatively light sentences.
"The heaviest sentence imposed on anyone to date for a torture-related death while in U.S. custody is five months, the same sentence that you might receive in the U.S. for stealing a bicycle," Goering said. "In this case, the five-month sentence was for assaulting a 22-year-old taxi driver who was hooded and chained to a ceiling while being kicked and beaten until he died."
--------
The Amnesty International report is available online at http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engamr510612006.
Wrap...
Report Blames Top US Officials for Alleged Torture of Detainees
By Matthew Schofield
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Wednesday 03 May 2006
Berlin - Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees by U.S. forces is widespread and, in many cases, sanctioned by top government officials, Amnesty International charged Wednesday.
The allegations, contained in a 32,000-word report released in New York and London and posted on the human rights organization's Web site, are likely to influence a U.N. hearing on U.S. compliance with international torture agreements that begins Friday in Geneva. Amnesty International sent a copy of the report to the U.N. Committee Against Torture, which is holding the hearings.
"Although the U.S. government continues to assert its condemnation of torture and ill-treatment, these statements contradict what is happening in practice," said Curt Goering, the group's senior deputy executive director in the United States. "The U.S. government is not only failing to take steps to eradicate torture, it is actually creating a climate in which torture and other ill-treatment can flourish."
American officials denied the allegations. "There's no more staunch defender of human rights around the world than the United States government," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros, said "humane treatment of detainees is and always has been the (Defense Department) standard." He noted that a dozen reviews of military detention operations had found no evidence that the top officials encouraged abuse.
The report notes that American military officials have listed 34 deaths of detainees in U.S. custody as "confirmed or suspected criminal homicides." It suggested that the true number may be much higher, saying "there is evidence that delays, cover-ups and deficiencies in investigations have hampered the collection of evidence."
"In several cases," it says, "substantial evidence has emerged that detainees were tortured to death while under interrogation. . . . What is even more disturbing is that standard practices as well as interrogation techniques believed to have fallen within officially sanctioned parameters, appear to have played a role in the ill-treatment."
The Amnesty International report was a foretaste of the hearing in Geneva, scheduled for Friday and Monday.
The United States is dispatching a delegation of 30 officials to testify at the hearing, which is a follow-up to a review in 2000 that was critical of America's treatment of inmates in its domestic prisons.
The hearing is expected to focus on the allegations of mistreatment of prisoners taken captive in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq or seized by U.S. agents in other countries and later jailed at the American naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or at undisclosed locations.
The United States is one of seven nations the committee is reviewing during meetings this month. The others are Georgia, Guatemala, Peru, Qatar, South Korea and Togo.
The United States is one of more than 140 nations that have approved the convention against torture. The U.S. has written to the committee saying it's unequivocally opposed to torture.
The Amnesty International report questions that, saying there's evidence that top American officials had approved abusive interrogation techniques.
"Most of the torture and ill-treatment stemmed directly from officially sanctioned procedures and policies, including interrogation techniques approved by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld," said Javier Zuniga, Amnesty International's Americas director.
The report criticizes the United States for giving those convicted of abuse relatively light sentences.
"The heaviest sentence imposed on anyone to date for a torture-related death while in U.S. custody is five months, the same sentence that you might receive in the U.S. for stealing a bicycle," Goering said. "In this case, the five-month sentence was for assaulting a 22-year-old taxi driver who was hooded and chained to a ceiling while being kicked and beaten until he died."
--------
The Amnesty International report is available online at http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engamr510612006.
Wrap...
Ohio voting...Messed up again....
From Associated Press via truthout.org :
Ohio Struggles to Fix Voting Problems
The Associated Press
Thursday 04 May 2006
Cleveland - Ohio's first election without punch card ballots was marred by a slew of problems with new voting machines, raising a crucial question: Can the state that decided the last presidential race get it together before November?
Election officials had trouble printing ballot receipts, finding lost votes and tabulating election results in Tuesday's primary. Some election workers were late or did not show up at all in Cleveland's Cuyahoga County, the state's largest. Others could not figure out how to turn on the machines.
"Ohio's quickly getting this reputation as most corrupt and maybe most incompetent," said Chris Link, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, which fielded dozens of complaints from voters.
Tuesday's primary was the first in which all 88 counties used either touch-screen machines or devices that scan ballots marked by voters.
Glitches were reported across the state, and a few local races remained undecided Wednesday while counting continued. The number of outstanding votes was too small to affect races for governor, Congress and statewide offices.
Columbus attorney Cliff Arnebeck, who handles voting-rights cases, said many of the problems were expected. "You could see in the absence of adequate training, people could just screw up," he said.
Cuyahoga County was searching for memory cards holding votes from 74 polling locations. Spokeswoman Jane Platten said the cards might have been left in machines, but she would not discuss details, citing security concerns. The county had reported results from about 93 percent of precincts by midday Wednesday.
Matthew Damschroder, elections chief in Franklin County, encompassing Columbus, defended the training of poll workers but said additional instruction would be offered before November.
"We've had poll workers with the old system who after 10 years still made mistakes," Damschroder said. "It's going to be a learning curve no matter what we do."
The two companies that provided voting machines to Ohio counties said overall the devices worked well, citing only a few memory cards that failed and were quickly replaced.
In North Carolina, the state's election chief also reported a good experience. Gary Bartlett said the machines arrived in February, giving officials two months to test the systems and instruct poll workers. Only minor problems arose in the primary.
"For a first-time rollout, we've got to be pleased," Bartlett said.
The worst problems in Ohio appeared to be in Cuyahoga County, where officials resorted to paper ballots after touch-screen machines failed and about 17,000 absentee ballots were being hand-counted.
David Bear, spokesman for Diebold Inc., which supplied Cuyahoga's machines, said ovals on the ballots printed by the county did not line up properly for optical-scan machines to read them, he said.
Workers in counties using the machines for the second time did far better than first-timers, Bear said. He expects that improvement to increase in November.
Link, of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the problems went far beyond minor snags that could be expected, including complaints that voters were sent away by poll workers who were perplexed by the machines. In those cases, voters should have been offered paper ballots.
"We're not conspiracy theorists unless gross incompetence is a conspiracy, and that's what we saw," she said. "The elected officials charged with ensuring that citizens get to vote are not doing their job."
Workers failed to open one polling place until 1:30 p.m. Robert Bennett, the state GOP chairman and head of the Cuyahoga Elections Board, said they might have been criminally negligent and referred the case to prosecutors.
John Daley of Cuyahoga Falls near Akron said poll workers suggested he leave after some voting machines malfunctioned. He asked for a paper ballot, then the optical-scan system began working.
"I said, 'No, I'm not leaving,"' Daley said. "I kind of got frustrated."
--------
Associated Press writers Carrie Spencer Ghose in Columbus, Thomas J. Sheeran in Cleveland and Mike Baker in Raleigh, N.C., contributed to this report.
Wrap...
Ohio Struggles to Fix Voting Problems
The Associated Press
Thursday 04 May 2006
Cleveland - Ohio's first election without punch card ballots was marred by a slew of problems with new voting machines, raising a crucial question: Can the state that decided the last presidential race get it together before November?
Election officials had trouble printing ballot receipts, finding lost votes and tabulating election results in Tuesday's primary. Some election workers were late or did not show up at all in Cleveland's Cuyahoga County, the state's largest. Others could not figure out how to turn on the machines.
"Ohio's quickly getting this reputation as most corrupt and maybe most incompetent," said Chris Link, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, which fielded dozens of complaints from voters.
Tuesday's primary was the first in which all 88 counties used either touch-screen machines or devices that scan ballots marked by voters.
Glitches were reported across the state, and a few local races remained undecided Wednesday while counting continued. The number of outstanding votes was too small to affect races for governor, Congress and statewide offices.
Columbus attorney Cliff Arnebeck, who handles voting-rights cases, said many of the problems were expected. "You could see in the absence of adequate training, people could just screw up," he said.
Cuyahoga County was searching for memory cards holding votes from 74 polling locations. Spokeswoman Jane Platten said the cards might have been left in machines, but she would not discuss details, citing security concerns. The county had reported results from about 93 percent of precincts by midday Wednesday.
Matthew Damschroder, elections chief in Franklin County, encompassing Columbus, defended the training of poll workers but said additional instruction would be offered before November.
"We've had poll workers with the old system who after 10 years still made mistakes," Damschroder said. "It's going to be a learning curve no matter what we do."
The two companies that provided voting machines to Ohio counties said overall the devices worked well, citing only a few memory cards that failed and were quickly replaced.
In North Carolina, the state's election chief also reported a good experience. Gary Bartlett said the machines arrived in February, giving officials two months to test the systems and instruct poll workers. Only minor problems arose in the primary.
"For a first-time rollout, we've got to be pleased," Bartlett said.
The worst problems in Ohio appeared to be in Cuyahoga County, where officials resorted to paper ballots after touch-screen machines failed and about 17,000 absentee ballots were being hand-counted.
David Bear, spokesman for Diebold Inc., which supplied Cuyahoga's machines, said ovals on the ballots printed by the county did not line up properly for optical-scan machines to read them, he said.
Workers in counties using the machines for the second time did far better than first-timers, Bear said. He expects that improvement to increase in November.
Link, of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the problems went far beyond minor snags that could be expected, including complaints that voters were sent away by poll workers who were perplexed by the machines. In those cases, voters should have been offered paper ballots.
"We're not conspiracy theorists unless gross incompetence is a conspiracy, and that's what we saw," she said. "The elected officials charged with ensuring that citizens get to vote are not doing their job."
Workers failed to open one polling place until 1:30 p.m. Robert Bennett, the state GOP chairman and head of the Cuyahoga Elections Board, said they might have been criminally negligent and referred the case to prosecutors.
John Daley of Cuyahoga Falls near Akron said poll workers suggested he leave after some voting machines malfunctioned. He asked for a paper ballot, then the optical-scan system began working.
"I said, 'No, I'm not leaving,"' Daley said. "I kind of got frustrated."
--------
Associated Press writers Carrie Spencer Ghose in Columbus, Thomas J. Sheeran in Cleveland and Mike Baker in Raleigh, N.C., contributed to this report.
Wrap...
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
The final word on illegal immigration ain't what you think...
From Strategic Forecasting Inc:
U.S. Border Security: Looking North
By Fred Burton
Immigration to the United States has re-emerged as a hot topic and likely will remain so for the foreseeable future. Divides are deepening on both sides of the issue: Thousands of immigrants this week took to the streets or skipped work to protest proposed changes in U.S. immigration law, while groups opposed to illegal immigration, such as Minuteman Project, have begun private-citizen patrols along the U.S. border with Mexico, and even have built fences on private property in efforts to help the U.S. government improve border security. For the time being, attention within the United States appears to be trained directly on the U.S.-Mexican border.
Certainly, there are many concerns in that region that merit serious consideration -- including alien- and narcotics-smuggling, Latin American criminal syndicates, violence and the migration of criminal aliens. However, cross-border terrorist threats to the United States -- both historically and currently -- are of much greater concern thousands of miles to the north.
Last week, the U.S. State Department released the 2005 edition of its annual "Country Reports on Terrorism" document, and the chapter dealing with the Western Hemisphere provides some interesting insights when the entry on Canada is compared to that for Mexico. For example, the report states: "Terrorists have capitalized on liberal Canadian immigration and asylum policies to enjoy safe haven, raise funds, arrange logistical support, and plan terrorist attacks." There is nothing even vaguely resembling such an indictment in the section on Mexico, which notes: "The Mexican government worked closely with the United States on all aspects of counterterrorism security and prevention."
Certainly, Canada has a long history of harboring political dissidents from a number of different ethnic militant groups (perhaps as many as 50 organizations). This is an outgrowth of the liberal refugee policies and generous social welfare programs for which Canada is known around the world. In fact, the Canadian government receives some 20,000 to 30,000 applications for refugee status each year, and reportedly accepts more than half of the applicants. Many of these refugees arrive in Canada without documentation, or with forged or counterfeit documents, making it nearly impossible to verify a person's true identity. Prior to November 2001, none of these people were screened for criminal, terrorism or other concerns unless they requested permanent residency in Canada. After the 9/11 attacks, the policy was reformed: Canadian immigration officials are now free to deny asylum to suspected terrorists, and database checks are now run on all asylum applicants. But problems remain in dealing with undocumented arrivals or those whose identities cannot be found in government databases.
Though U.S. policies are identical for visitors or immigrants passing through either the northern or southern borders, they are much more stringently enforced -- with a denser concentration of border checkpoints and agents -- along the border with Mexico. In many places, it is possible to cross the Canadian border by walking, jogging, swimming or boating -- or entering through national parks, as has sometimes been the case with would-be terrorists.
A History of Plots
Refugees who have sought and received sanctuary in Canada have included members of ethnic militant groups, such as Algeria's Armed Islamic Group, various Palestinian factions (including Hamas), Hezbollah, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and Babbar Khalsa, a Sikh group. Many of these groups use Canada as a place of refuge, and most use it as a base for fundraising and political activity. However, some of those granted asylum have gone on to commit terrorist attacks.
Perhaps the most notorious of the cases (and certainly the most controversial) involving Canada were the twin bombings of Air India Flights 182 and 301, carried out by Babbar Khalsa in 1985. The bomb on Flight 182 exploded over the Atlantic Ocean and killed all 329 people aboard; the bomb placed on Flight 301 exploded on the ground at Narita Airport in Japan, killing two baggage handlers. There were several arrests in each case but only one man, Inderjit Singh Reyat, was ever convicted. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges related to the Narita bombing in 1991; in 2001, he was charged and pleaded guilty to his role in the Flight 182 bombing, for which he received an additional five-year sentence. As part of the plea agreement, Reyat was expected to testify in the trial of two other Flight 182 suspects.
However, he later claimed he could not remember anything, and the suspects were acquitted in March 2005. The Canadian government was widely criticized for its handling of the case. There were allegations that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) had conducted physical and electronic surveillance of group leaders prior to the attacks, and employed an informant who might have played a direct part in the attack.
Later, following the acquittals of Sikh separatists Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri in the Flight 182 case, outrage from relatives of the victims prompted the government to establish a commission of inquiry -- exploring issues related to Canada's counterterrorism preparedness. This step could have serious implications for Canadian policy, as the work of the 9/11 Commission did in the United States. However, the Canadian panel literally has only just begun; it commenced its work on May 1.
Threats to the United States
On several occasions, Canada has been a point of entry for people who posed specific threats to the United States. Some may recall the case of Ghazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer, a Palestinian who was convicted of plotting a suicide bombing against the New York subway system in 1997. Mezer, who had been granted political asylum by Canada, reportedly was stopped by U.S. authorities twice while trying to enter the country illegally. His first two attempts to cross the border were made only days apart, in June 1996 (Mezer was jogging across the border when he was stopped the second time). His third attempt came in January 1997, when he was stopped at a Greyhound bus station in Bellingham, Wash., along with two other Arabs, after a successful border crossing.
At that point, Mezer was detained and, though he agreed to return voluntarily to Canada, the country refused to accept him upon release from U.S. custody, since he was not a citizen. What happened next involves a maze of legal technicalities: Abu Mezer was eventually released on bond and applied for political asylum in the United States. While that request was pending, he moved to Brooklyn. He later agreed to depart the United States voluntarily, in August 1997. His plans for a suicide attack against the New York subway system, however, were to have been carried out in July -- a month before he was required to leave the country -- had it not been for a roommate who got cold feet and tipped off police to the plot the night before it was to have occurred. Mezer and a co-conspirator, Lafi Khalil, were arrested in an early-morning raid at their apartment, where police found bombs assembled and ready for deployment.
The Millennium Bomb Plot
The best-known terrorism cases involving movement across the Canadian border are, naturally, related to al Qaeda. Most prominent among these is the so-called "millennium bomb" plot, for which Ahmed Ressam was arrested. Ressam is a textbook example of someone who, in the words of the recent State Department report, "capitalized on liberal Canadian immigration and asylum policies to enjoy safe haven, raise funds, arrange logistical support, and plan terrorist attacks."
In 1994, Ressam entered Canada under false pretenses, using a poorly altered French passport to fly from France to Montreal. When Canadian immigration officials confronted him about the document, Ressam admitted that the passport photo had been altered and then immediately claimed political asylum, saying that he had been tortured in Algeria because he had been accused of arms trafficking and other terrorist activities. Immigration officials released Ressam while a hearing on his asylum claim was pending -- but he never showed up for the hearing, and his asylum claim was later denied.
Ressam later testified, at his trial in the millennium bombing case, that he supported himself from 1994 to 1998 with petty theft and welfare payments he received from the Canadian government, as a potential refugee. By his own account, he was arrested four times for theft; other criminal activities involved credit card, financial and document fraud. During those years, Ressam also acquired an authentic blank baptismal certificate, which he completed and used to obtain an authentic Canadian passport.
In early 1998, Ressam flew to Pakistan and then was taken across the border into Afghanistan, where he trained at al Qaeda's Khaldan facility. There, he learned a range of skills, including training in small arms and urban warfare as well as surveillance techniques, document fraud and bomb-making. In 1999, after nearly a year of training, Ressam returned to Canada and began making preparations to carry out an attack against the United States. In fact, his return flight to Canada stopped over in Los Angeles; while waiting in the airport there, he hit upon the idea of targeting LAX.
Although several of the men who reportedly had planned to assist Ressam in the millennium plot were not able to gain entry to the United States or Canada, Ressam managed to cobble together a team of acquaintances -- many of whom were seeking refugee status while living in Canada -- to aid his project. Mokhtar Haouari, a friend and fellow Algerian asylum-seeker living in Montreal, provided financing and agreed to be a communications link with Ressam's partner in the United States, Abdelghani Meskini. In November 1999, Ressam flew to Vancouver, where another Algerian asylum-seeker, Abdelmajid Dahoumane, helped him rent a hotel room. There, the two men brewed the explosives that Ressam later attempted to smuggle into the United States via ferry -- traveling from Victoria, British Columbia, to Port Angeles, Wash. Ressam was cleared by U.S. immigration in Victoria but was arrested by a U.S. Customs inspector as he was preparing to exit the ferry, and the plot was eventually outed.
Jihadist Connections
The post-9/11 annals of terrorism history contain several other mentions of Canadian citizens who have been arrested by the United States or allied countries. These include:
Abdurahman Khadr, a member of a fairly notorious family who was captured in Afghanistan and imprisoned for a time at Guantanamo Bay. He is now living in Toronto.
Khadr's father, Ahmed Said Khadr, allegedly served as a finance and logistics operative for al Qaeda and, before his death in a Pakistani counterterrorism operation in 2003, reportedly had close ties to Osama bin Laden. Some of Ahmed Said Khadr's other sons also are embroiled in criminal cases: Omar Khadr remains imprisoned at Guantanamo for killing a U.S. medic in a grenade attack in Afghanistan; Abdullah Khadr -- who is in Canadian custody while an extradition request is pending -- has been indicted in the United States for conspiring to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, and conspiracy to possess a destructive device to commit violent crimes.
Mohamed Mansour Jabarah, who was born in Kuwait but raised in St. Catherine's, Ontario. Jabarah has pleaded guilty to several charges in connection with a foiled plot to bomb U.S. embassies in Singapore and Manila. The plans had been hatched prior to the 9/11 attacks but were not discovered until after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Jabarah reportedly was a key link between al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) operatives in southeast Asia; he is said to have delivered cash from al Qaeda to JI leader Hambali, who is believed to have planned the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings. Jabarah initially was arrested in Oman in 2002 and sent to Canada. He then was sent to the United States and reportedly is cooperating with American officials.
Mohammed Momin Khawaja, who was born in Canada to Kuwaiti parents and has lived in Ottawa. Momin Khawaja is believed to have been an important link between New York-based Mohammed Junaid Babar and a group of co-conspirators in London, who were planning a string of attacks there. Babar was identified as a potential problem following the 9/11 attacks, when he made threats against the United States on a Canadian television program. Momin Khawaja is the first person ever charged under Canada's Anti-Terrorism Act -- which is in itself significant, since the attacks he allegedly was planning would not have been carried out on Canadian soil.
The recent State Department report labels several more people who are living in Canada as known or suspected terrorists. These include Mohammed Mahjoub of the Vanguards of Conquest, a radical wing of Egyptian Islamic Jihad; Mahmoud Jaballah, a senior member of the Egyptian Islamist organization al-Jihad and al Qaeda; and three suspected al Qaeda members.
In a very recent case, former Canadian resident Ehsanul Islam Sadequee has been accused of conspiring with a Georgia Tech student, Syed Haris Ahmed, to attend a militant training camp in Pakistan and planning terrorist attacks against targets in the United States. Ahmed was indicted in April on charges of conspiring to provide material support for terrorism. Sadequee was interviewed at JFK International Airport in August 2005 before boarding a flight bound for Bangladesh and thus far, it is believed, has not returned to the United States. Federal authorities since have filed an affidavit supporting an arrest warrant for Sadequee that provides great detail about the allegations in the case.
The affidavit claims that Sadequee -- a U.S. citizen who attended high school in Ontario -- made false statements to FBI agents when he was interviewed about a March 2005 trip to Canada. Sadequee told the bureau he had traveled alone, but the FBI had evidence that he and Ahmed had been traveling together. The purpose of the trip, according to the affidavit, was to meet with Islamist "extremists" in Canada. Ahmed reportedly said during his interview that they discussed possible targets for a terrorist strike in the United States, such as oil refineries, military installations and the global positioning system, and made plans to attend a military training camp in Pakistan.
The affidavit also notes that three people Ahmed and Sadequee met with in Toronto are subjects of an FBI international terrorism investigation (and thus, presumably, were under the scrutiny of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and CSIS.) Also, Ahmed and Sadequee reportedly traveled from Georgia to Toronto and back via bus. Though they still had to pass through immigration and customs inspection points, the security procedures applied to bus passengers are far less intensive than those used by the airline industry.
Conclusion
In the grand scheme of things, suspects like Ahmed and Sadequee can be viewed as examples of grassroots jihadists -- part of the evolution of al Qaeda from a focused organization to a looser ideological movement. Such jihadists are not likely to be major players in the international terrorism scene -- but as illustrated by cases such as "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid, London rail attacks cell leader Mohammed Sidique Khan or Ahmed Ressam, they still are capable of causing significant, though localized, damage.
Jihadist sympathizers who attend training camps like those in Pakistan or Afghanistan often become further radicalized, and -- history has shown -- frequently become involved in the planning or execution of a terrorist attack upon leaving such institutions. This is why the FBI sought an arrest warrant for Sadequee; charges of making false statements are not very significant, but federal authorities clearly believe Sadequee has gone overseas for training and they want to have a reason to detain him if he returns to the United States.
Though the affidavit filed in Sadequee's case contains many interesting details, there also are several significant omissions. For example, it gives no indication as to the current location or activities of the Toronto men who were the subject of the FBI terrorism investigation. It is not clear whether federal authorities believe any of them have traveled overseas with Sadequee to seek training, or whether they have remained in Toronto to "capitalize on liberal Canadian immigration and asylum policies" while fleshing out plans for potential attacks.
That, at its core, is likely the best explanation of why the Canadian border is so frequently overlooked in discussions of immigration and U.S. border security. American concerns about the southern border with Mexico are deeply rooted in geography, history and culture and are, at bottom, sovereignty issues -- whereas the threats that have emerged from Canada are embedded in a more liberal political system. Stated differently, the security risks to the United States arising from Canada are not so much products of fundamental, structural issues as they are the outgrowth of political attitudes and preferences. As a result, these security concerns tend to command less emotion and attention -- but they are, for all of that, no less real.
Wrap...
U.S. Border Security: Looking North
By Fred Burton
Immigration to the United States has re-emerged as a hot topic and likely will remain so for the foreseeable future. Divides are deepening on both sides of the issue: Thousands of immigrants this week took to the streets or skipped work to protest proposed changes in U.S. immigration law, while groups opposed to illegal immigration, such as Minuteman Project, have begun private-citizen patrols along the U.S. border with Mexico, and even have built fences on private property in efforts to help the U.S. government improve border security. For the time being, attention within the United States appears to be trained directly on the U.S.-Mexican border.
Certainly, there are many concerns in that region that merit serious consideration -- including alien- and narcotics-smuggling, Latin American criminal syndicates, violence and the migration of criminal aliens. However, cross-border terrorist threats to the United States -- both historically and currently -- are of much greater concern thousands of miles to the north.
Last week, the U.S. State Department released the 2005 edition of its annual "Country Reports on Terrorism" document, and the chapter dealing with the Western Hemisphere provides some interesting insights when the entry on Canada is compared to that for Mexico. For example, the report states: "Terrorists have capitalized on liberal Canadian immigration and asylum policies to enjoy safe haven, raise funds, arrange logistical support, and plan terrorist attacks." There is nothing even vaguely resembling such an indictment in the section on Mexico, which notes: "The Mexican government worked closely with the United States on all aspects of counterterrorism security and prevention."
Certainly, Canada has a long history of harboring political dissidents from a number of different ethnic militant groups (perhaps as many as 50 organizations). This is an outgrowth of the liberal refugee policies and generous social welfare programs for which Canada is known around the world. In fact, the Canadian government receives some 20,000 to 30,000 applications for refugee status each year, and reportedly accepts more than half of the applicants. Many of these refugees arrive in Canada without documentation, or with forged or counterfeit documents, making it nearly impossible to verify a person's true identity. Prior to November 2001, none of these people were screened for criminal, terrorism or other concerns unless they requested permanent residency in Canada. After the 9/11 attacks, the policy was reformed: Canadian immigration officials are now free to deny asylum to suspected terrorists, and database checks are now run on all asylum applicants. But problems remain in dealing with undocumented arrivals or those whose identities cannot be found in government databases.
Though U.S. policies are identical for visitors or immigrants passing through either the northern or southern borders, they are much more stringently enforced -- with a denser concentration of border checkpoints and agents -- along the border with Mexico. In many places, it is possible to cross the Canadian border by walking, jogging, swimming or boating -- or entering through national parks, as has sometimes been the case with would-be terrorists.
A History of Plots
Refugees who have sought and received sanctuary in Canada have included members of ethnic militant groups, such as Algeria's Armed Islamic Group, various Palestinian factions (including Hamas), Hezbollah, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and Babbar Khalsa, a Sikh group. Many of these groups use Canada as a place of refuge, and most use it as a base for fundraising and political activity. However, some of those granted asylum have gone on to commit terrorist attacks.
Perhaps the most notorious of the cases (and certainly the most controversial) involving Canada were the twin bombings of Air India Flights 182 and 301, carried out by Babbar Khalsa in 1985. The bomb on Flight 182 exploded over the Atlantic Ocean and killed all 329 people aboard; the bomb placed on Flight 301 exploded on the ground at Narita Airport in Japan, killing two baggage handlers. There were several arrests in each case but only one man, Inderjit Singh Reyat, was ever convicted. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges related to the Narita bombing in 1991; in 2001, he was charged and pleaded guilty to his role in the Flight 182 bombing, for which he received an additional five-year sentence. As part of the plea agreement, Reyat was expected to testify in the trial of two other Flight 182 suspects.
However, he later claimed he could not remember anything, and the suspects were acquitted in March 2005. The Canadian government was widely criticized for its handling of the case. There were allegations that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) had conducted physical and electronic surveillance of group leaders prior to the attacks, and employed an informant who might have played a direct part in the attack.
Later, following the acquittals of Sikh separatists Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri in the Flight 182 case, outrage from relatives of the victims prompted the government to establish a commission of inquiry -- exploring issues related to Canada's counterterrorism preparedness. This step could have serious implications for Canadian policy, as the work of the 9/11 Commission did in the United States. However, the Canadian panel literally has only just begun; it commenced its work on May 1.
Threats to the United States
On several occasions, Canada has been a point of entry for people who posed specific threats to the United States. Some may recall the case of Ghazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer, a Palestinian who was convicted of plotting a suicide bombing against the New York subway system in 1997. Mezer, who had been granted political asylum by Canada, reportedly was stopped by U.S. authorities twice while trying to enter the country illegally. His first two attempts to cross the border were made only days apart, in June 1996 (Mezer was jogging across the border when he was stopped the second time). His third attempt came in January 1997, when he was stopped at a Greyhound bus station in Bellingham, Wash., along with two other Arabs, after a successful border crossing.
At that point, Mezer was detained and, though he agreed to return voluntarily to Canada, the country refused to accept him upon release from U.S. custody, since he was not a citizen. What happened next involves a maze of legal technicalities: Abu Mezer was eventually released on bond and applied for political asylum in the United States. While that request was pending, he moved to Brooklyn. He later agreed to depart the United States voluntarily, in August 1997. His plans for a suicide attack against the New York subway system, however, were to have been carried out in July -- a month before he was required to leave the country -- had it not been for a roommate who got cold feet and tipped off police to the plot the night before it was to have occurred. Mezer and a co-conspirator, Lafi Khalil, were arrested in an early-morning raid at their apartment, where police found bombs assembled and ready for deployment.
The Millennium Bomb Plot
The best-known terrorism cases involving movement across the Canadian border are, naturally, related to al Qaeda. Most prominent among these is the so-called "millennium bomb" plot, for which Ahmed Ressam was arrested. Ressam is a textbook example of someone who, in the words of the recent State Department report, "capitalized on liberal Canadian immigration and asylum policies to enjoy safe haven, raise funds, arrange logistical support, and plan terrorist attacks."
In 1994, Ressam entered Canada under false pretenses, using a poorly altered French passport to fly from France to Montreal. When Canadian immigration officials confronted him about the document, Ressam admitted that the passport photo had been altered and then immediately claimed political asylum, saying that he had been tortured in Algeria because he had been accused of arms trafficking and other terrorist activities. Immigration officials released Ressam while a hearing on his asylum claim was pending -- but he never showed up for the hearing, and his asylum claim was later denied.
Ressam later testified, at his trial in the millennium bombing case, that he supported himself from 1994 to 1998 with petty theft and welfare payments he received from the Canadian government, as a potential refugee. By his own account, he was arrested four times for theft; other criminal activities involved credit card, financial and document fraud. During those years, Ressam also acquired an authentic blank baptismal certificate, which he completed and used to obtain an authentic Canadian passport.
In early 1998, Ressam flew to Pakistan and then was taken across the border into Afghanistan, where he trained at al Qaeda's Khaldan facility. There, he learned a range of skills, including training in small arms and urban warfare as well as surveillance techniques, document fraud and bomb-making. In 1999, after nearly a year of training, Ressam returned to Canada and began making preparations to carry out an attack against the United States. In fact, his return flight to Canada stopped over in Los Angeles; while waiting in the airport there, he hit upon the idea of targeting LAX.
Although several of the men who reportedly had planned to assist Ressam in the millennium plot were not able to gain entry to the United States or Canada, Ressam managed to cobble together a team of acquaintances -- many of whom were seeking refugee status while living in Canada -- to aid his project. Mokhtar Haouari, a friend and fellow Algerian asylum-seeker living in Montreal, provided financing and agreed to be a communications link with Ressam's partner in the United States, Abdelghani Meskini. In November 1999, Ressam flew to Vancouver, where another Algerian asylum-seeker, Abdelmajid Dahoumane, helped him rent a hotel room. There, the two men brewed the explosives that Ressam later attempted to smuggle into the United States via ferry -- traveling from Victoria, British Columbia, to Port Angeles, Wash. Ressam was cleared by U.S. immigration in Victoria but was arrested by a U.S. Customs inspector as he was preparing to exit the ferry, and the plot was eventually outed.
Jihadist Connections
The post-9/11 annals of terrorism history contain several other mentions of Canadian citizens who have been arrested by the United States or allied countries. These include:
Abdurahman Khadr, a member of a fairly notorious family who was captured in Afghanistan and imprisoned for a time at Guantanamo Bay. He is now living in Toronto.
Khadr's father, Ahmed Said Khadr, allegedly served as a finance and logistics operative for al Qaeda and, before his death in a Pakistani counterterrorism operation in 2003, reportedly had close ties to Osama bin Laden. Some of Ahmed Said Khadr's other sons also are embroiled in criminal cases: Omar Khadr remains imprisoned at Guantanamo for killing a U.S. medic in a grenade attack in Afghanistan; Abdullah Khadr -- who is in Canadian custody while an extradition request is pending -- has been indicted in the United States for conspiring to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, and conspiracy to possess a destructive device to commit violent crimes.
Mohamed Mansour Jabarah, who was born in Kuwait but raised in St. Catherine's, Ontario. Jabarah has pleaded guilty to several charges in connection with a foiled plot to bomb U.S. embassies in Singapore and Manila. The plans had been hatched prior to the 9/11 attacks but were not discovered until after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Jabarah reportedly was a key link between al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) operatives in southeast Asia; he is said to have delivered cash from al Qaeda to JI leader Hambali, who is believed to have planned the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings. Jabarah initially was arrested in Oman in 2002 and sent to Canada. He then was sent to the United States and reportedly is cooperating with American officials.
Mohammed Momin Khawaja, who was born in Canada to Kuwaiti parents and has lived in Ottawa. Momin Khawaja is believed to have been an important link between New York-based Mohammed Junaid Babar and a group of co-conspirators in London, who were planning a string of attacks there. Babar was identified as a potential problem following the 9/11 attacks, when he made threats against the United States on a Canadian television program. Momin Khawaja is the first person ever charged under Canada's Anti-Terrorism Act -- which is in itself significant, since the attacks he allegedly was planning would not have been carried out on Canadian soil.
The recent State Department report labels several more people who are living in Canada as known or suspected terrorists. These include Mohammed Mahjoub of the Vanguards of Conquest, a radical wing of Egyptian Islamic Jihad; Mahmoud Jaballah, a senior member of the Egyptian Islamist organization al-Jihad and al Qaeda; and three suspected al Qaeda members.
In a very recent case, former Canadian resident Ehsanul Islam Sadequee has been accused of conspiring with a Georgia Tech student, Syed Haris Ahmed, to attend a militant training camp in Pakistan and planning terrorist attacks against targets in the United States. Ahmed was indicted in April on charges of conspiring to provide material support for terrorism. Sadequee was interviewed at JFK International Airport in August 2005 before boarding a flight bound for Bangladesh and thus far, it is believed, has not returned to the United States. Federal authorities since have filed an affidavit supporting an arrest warrant for Sadequee that provides great detail about the allegations in the case.
The affidavit claims that Sadequee -- a U.S. citizen who attended high school in Ontario -- made false statements to FBI agents when he was interviewed about a March 2005 trip to Canada. Sadequee told the bureau he had traveled alone, but the FBI had evidence that he and Ahmed had been traveling together. The purpose of the trip, according to the affidavit, was to meet with Islamist "extremists" in Canada. Ahmed reportedly said during his interview that they discussed possible targets for a terrorist strike in the United States, such as oil refineries, military installations and the global positioning system, and made plans to attend a military training camp in Pakistan.
The affidavit also notes that three people Ahmed and Sadequee met with in Toronto are subjects of an FBI international terrorism investigation (and thus, presumably, were under the scrutiny of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and CSIS.) Also, Ahmed and Sadequee reportedly traveled from Georgia to Toronto and back via bus. Though they still had to pass through immigration and customs inspection points, the security procedures applied to bus passengers are far less intensive than those used by the airline industry.
Conclusion
In the grand scheme of things, suspects like Ahmed and Sadequee can be viewed as examples of grassroots jihadists -- part of the evolution of al Qaeda from a focused organization to a looser ideological movement. Such jihadists are not likely to be major players in the international terrorism scene -- but as illustrated by cases such as "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid, London rail attacks cell leader Mohammed Sidique Khan or Ahmed Ressam, they still are capable of causing significant, though localized, damage.
Jihadist sympathizers who attend training camps like those in Pakistan or Afghanistan often become further radicalized, and -- history has shown -- frequently become involved in the planning or execution of a terrorist attack upon leaving such institutions. This is why the FBI sought an arrest warrant for Sadequee; charges of making false statements are not very significant, but federal authorities clearly believe Sadequee has gone overseas for training and they want to have a reason to detain him if he returns to the United States.
Though the affidavit filed in Sadequee's case contains many interesting details, there also are several significant omissions. For example, it gives no indication as to the current location or activities of the Toronto men who were the subject of the FBI terrorism investigation. It is not clear whether federal authorities believe any of them have traveled overseas with Sadequee to seek training, or whether they have remained in Toronto to "capitalize on liberal Canadian immigration and asylum policies" while fleshing out plans for potential attacks.
That, at its core, is likely the best explanation of why the Canadian border is so frequently overlooked in discussions of immigration and U.S. border security. American concerns about the southern border with Mexico are deeply rooted in geography, history and culture and are, at bottom, sovereignty issues -- whereas the threats that have emerged from Canada are embedded in a more liberal political system. Stated differently, the security risks to the United States arising from Canada are not so much products of fundamental, structural issues as they are the outgrowth of political attitudes and preferences. As a result, these security concerns tend to command less emotion and attention -- but they are, for all of that, no less real.
Wrap...
Bolton struts and stonewalls about Iran....
From Information Clearing House:
Bolton Refuses To Answer Kucinich’s Questions About US Troops In Iran
States That US Is Prepared To Act With or Without The UN
By Doug Gordon
05/03/06 "ICH"
Despite numerous public reports stating that US troops are currently conducting operations within Iran, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) refused to answer repeated questions by Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) about US troops in Iran, today at a House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations.
Kucinich, the Ranking Member on the Subcommittee, repeatedly questioned Ambassador Bolton on the effect that US troops operating within Iran will have on diplomatic negotiations already underway, including those at the UN.
Recently, Seymour Hersh reported in The New Yorker magazine that US troops are already operating in Iran. Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner (Ret.) has made similar statements on CNN. In addition, Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counter-terrorism chief, told the Guardian newspaper that special forces are operating within Iran identifying targets and aiding dissident groups.
While Ambassador Bolton refused to answer questions about US troops in Iran, Ambassador Bolton did state that the US was prepared to move against Iran, with or without the UN Security Council.
“I find it hard to believe that the United States Ambassador to the United Nations does not know about ongoing military activity in one of the world’s most volatile regions, and in a country at the heart of current debate before the UN,” stated Kucinich after the hearing. “Congress has a Constitutional role to play in providing checks and balances of this Administration.
Ambassador’s Bolton testimony today, and his refusal to answer even the most basic questions about Iran, is just another example of this Administration’s contempt of Congress.”
“This Administration has set our nation on the path to war against Iran,” continued Kucinich. “It has done so without consulting the Congress, and without proper Congressional oversight. Today’s hearing could have been an important moment to educate the public and the Congress about this Administration’s policy towards Iran, and the role US military is already playing in implementing that policy. Unfortunately, Ambassador Bolton’s stonewalling prevent this from happening.”
“This Administration has set our nation on a very dangerous path with Iran. Congress must intervene before this Administration begins a wider, and far more dangerous war in the Middle East,” concluded Kucinich.
Wrap...
Bolton Refuses To Answer Kucinich’s Questions About US Troops In Iran
States That US Is Prepared To Act With or Without The UN
By Doug Gordon
05/03/06 "ICH"
Despite numerous public reports stating that US troops are currently conducting operations within Iran, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) refused to answer repeated questions by Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) about US troops in Iran, today at a House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations.
Kucinich, the Ranking Member on the Subcommittee, repeatedly questioned Ambassador Bolton on the effect that US troops operating within Iran will have on diplomatic negotiations already underway, including those at the UN.
Recently, Seymour Hersh reported in The New Yorker magazine that US troops are already operating in Iran. Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner (Ret.) has made similar statements on CNN. In addition, Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counter-terrorism chief, told the Guardian newspaper that special forces are operating within Iran identifying targets and aiding dissident groups.
While Ambassador Bolton refused to answer questions about US troops in Iran, Ambassador Bolton did state that the US was prepared to move against Iran, with or without the UN Security Council.
“I find it hard to believe that the United States Ambassador to the United Nations does not know about ongoing military activity in one of the world’s most volatile regions, and in a country at the heart of current debate before the UN,” stated Kucinich after the hearing. “Congress has a Constitutional role to play in providing checks and balances of this Administration.
Ambassador’s Bolton testimony today, and his refusal to answer even the most basic questions about Iran, is just another example of this Administration’s contempt of Congress.”
“This Administration has set our nation on the path to war against Iran,” continued Kucinich. “It has done so without consulting the Congress, and without proper Congressional oversight. Today’s hearing could have been an important moment to educate the public and the Congress about this Administration’s policy towards Iran, and the role US military is already playing in implementing that policy. Unfortunately, Ambassador Bolton’s stonewalling prevent this from happening.”
“This Administration has set our nation on a very dangerous path with Iran. Congress must intervene before this Administration begins a wider, and far more dangerous war in the Middle East,” concluded Kucinich.
Wrap...
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Choices of some very different kinds of books....
From Publishers Lunch Weekly:
FICTION/GENERAL/OTHER:
Whitbread winner and author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Mark Haddon's A SPOT OF BOTHER, a humorous and disturbing portrait of a dignified 57-year-old man trying to go insane politely, as his daughter decides to marry her inappropriate boyfriend, his wife has an affair with his ex-colleague, and he discovers a sinister rash on his hip, to Bill Thomas at Doubleday, for publication in September 2006, by Clare Alexander of Gillon Aitken Associates, to be edited along with Dan Franklin at Jonathan Cape (NA).
Carolly Erickson's BIRD OF PARADISE: A NOVEL OF THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE, about the Caribbean seductress whose sexually adventurous life and bold personality led her to the heights as Napoleon's wife and ultimately to the depths of imprisonment, to Charles Spicer at St. Martin's, in a two-book deal, by Russell Galen at Scovil Chichak Galen Literary Agency (world English).Translation: barorint@aol.com russellgalen@scglit.com
MYSTERY/CRIME:
Ariana Franklin's THE MISTRESS OF THE ART OF DEATH and THE SERPENT IN THE GARDEN, billed as "Kathy Reichs in the 12th Century," to Rachel Kahan at Putnam, by Helen Heller at Helen Heller Agency (US). helen@helenhelleragency.com
SI-FI/FANTASY:
Beauty author Brian D'Amato's IN THE COURTS OF THE SUN, which begins the day before December 21, 2012, the day the Mayan calender predicted that time would end, to Brian Tart at Dutton, with Julie Doughty editing, in a three-book deal (NA).
UK:
Sean Stewart and Jordan Weisman's CATHY'S BOOK, a multi-media, illustrated YA novel, with websites, message boards, and phone numbers, bringing to life a teen girl's daily journal of mystery events covering Chinese mythology, biotech misdeeds, and immortal thugs, licensed to Bloomsbury UK, by Sarah Spencer at Perseus.
Foreign rights to Baumhaus, with paperback rights to DTV in Germany; Mondadori in Italy; Bonnier Carlsen in Sweden; and Politiken in Denmark, by Sarah Spencer at Perseus, Paul & Peter Fritz Agency for Germany, Santachiara Literary Agency for Italy, and Licht & Burr for Scandinavia. sarah.spencer@perseusbooks.com
FOREIGN:
English Canadian rights to French author Celine Curiol's debut THE TERMINAL VOICE, about a lonely young woman who works as an announcer at Paris's Gare du Nord and wanders the streets of the modern city, playing on the edge of danger, seeking connection, to Jennifer Lambert at McClelland & Stewart, in a nice deal, by Elisabeth Beyer at Actes Sud.Rights have been sold in eleven countries. e.beyer@actes-sud.fr
NON-FICTION/BUSINESS/INVESTMENT/FINANCE:
Indian businessman/billionaire Vinay Rai and What Every American Should Know About the Rest of the World author Melissa Rossi's THINK INDIA: A forward-looking account of the rise of India as a world economic and political power as entrepreneurship, education, technology, nuclear power, and a growing middle class transform all aspects of the country, to Trena Keating at Dutton, in a very nice deal, by Bill Gladstone at Waterside Productions (World).
[NOTE: BILL GLADSTONE KICKED OFF THE "DUMMIES" BOOKS! HE'S QUITE A GUY. :)]
HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:
Former Washington Post journalist and bureau chief for South Africa and South America Jon Jeter's GHETTO RISING, revealing the underbelly of globalization in an account of the rise of ghettos around the world, to Alane Mason at Norton, in a very nice deal, by David Fugate at LaunchBooks Literary Agency (World).ekerr@wwnorton.com
Richard Wightman Fox's LINCOLN'S BODY, a history of the three-week period of national mourning during which Lincoln's corpse was toured around America by train, revealing the tensions in 19th century American culture, to Alane Salierno Mason at Norton, in a very nice deal, by Jill Kneerim at Kneerim & Williams (World).ekerr@wwnorton.com
HUMOR:
Kyle Macdonald's ONE RED PAPERCLIP, blending Napoleon Dynamite and Anthony Robbins, the story of how the author turned a simple red paperclip into the house of his dreams, to Jason Pinter at Three Rivers Press, by Marc Gerald and Brandon Stein at The Agency Group.
Foreign rights to Jake Lingwood at Ebury UK, in a pre-empt; and Oscar van Gelderen at Rothschild & Bach, in a pre-empt.marcgerald@theagencygroup.com
MEMOIR:
Japanese General Kumiko Kakehashi's SO SAD TO FALL IN BATTLE, a memoir of his life and of the battle of Iwo Jima from the viewpoint of the Japanese commander, soon to be an integral part of Clint Eastwood's Iwo Jima film, to Ron Doering at Presidio, by Al Zuckerman at Writers House (world English).
NARRATIVE:
David Howard's LOST RIGHTS, going inside the world of historical documents -- a world of obsessives, archivists, and thieves -- through the story of an original copy of the Bill of Rights, stolen from the North Carolina statehouse during the Civil War and recovered 130 years later in an FBI sting, to Webster Younce at Houghton, at auction, by Jeremy Katz at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates (NA).
Hobson Woodward's WILD WATERS: The True Tale of the Shipwreck that Inspired Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST, combining elements of WILL IN THE WORLD and MAYFLOWER, that takes as its hero the hapless Elizabethan writer, adventurer, and friend to John Donne, Ben Jonson, and William Shakespeare, William Strachey, to Hilary Redmon at Viking, by Patricia Moosbrugger at Patricia Mossbrugger Literary Agency (NA). hilary.redmon@us.penguingroup.com
POP CULTURE:
THE COLOR PURPLE: A MEMORY BOOK, an illustrated companion to the musical version now on Broadway, and a reflection of the journey from Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel to the theatrical stage, with a foreword by Oprah Winfrey, and the participation of Walker and the entire creative team, to Will Balliett at Carroll & Graf, for publication in fall 2006, produced by Melcher Media.
SPORTS:
USA Today columnist and author of The Jump Ian O'Connor's THE KING AND THE BEAR, about the rivalry between Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, an extraordinary five-decade duel that took place on the course and in the boardroom and that shaped modern golf into the competitive spectator sport it has become, to Susan Canavan at Houghton Mifflin, by David Black and the David Black Literary Agency (NA).
Author of Baseball by the Beach and Boston Metro sportswriter Christopher Price's THE BLUEPRINT: HOW THE NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS BEAT THE SYSTEM TO BECOME THE NFL'S LAST GREAT SUPERPOWER, an inside look at how the Pats went from laughingstock to NFL legends, in a Moneyball-esque account, to Peter Wolverton at Thomas Dunne Books, by Frank Scatoni of Venture Literary (NA).frank@ventureliterary.com
GENERAL/OTHER:
In the Merde For Love author Stephen Clarke's TALK TO THE SNAIL: Ten Commandments for Understanding the French, how to understand what the French really think, how to get on with them and, most importantly, how to get the best out of them, to Colin Dickerman at Bloomsbury, by Susanna Lea at Susanna Lea Associates.
Rights already sold to Transworld in the UK; Penguin in Canada; Random House in Australia.
FILM:
Richard Lewis's THE KILLING SEA, about an Indonesian boy and an American girl who are brought together in the aftermath of the devastating 2004 tsunami while the boy searches for his missing father and the girl tries to get medical treatment for her sick brother, optioned to Fox 2000, on behalf of Scott Free (Ridley and Tony Scott), in a pre-empt, by Sarah Self at The Gersh Agency, on behalf of Scott Miller at Trident Media Group.[NOTE: THE FOLKS AT TRIDENT MEDIA GROUP ARE GOOD PEOPLE.]
Wrap...
FICTION/GENERAL/OTHER:
Whitbread winner and author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Mark Haddon's A SPOT OF BOTHER, a humorous and disturbing portrait of a dignified 57-year-old man trying to go insane politely, as his daughter decides to marry her inappropriate boyfriend, his wife has an affair with his ex-colleague, and he discovers a sinister rash on his hip, to Bill Thomas at Doubleday, for publication in September 2006, by Clare Alexander of Gillon Aitken Associates, to be edited along with Dan Franklin at Jonathan Cape (NA).
Carolly Erickson's BIRD OF PARADISE: A NOVEL OF THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE, about the Caribbean seductress whose sexually adventurous life and bold personality led her to the heights as Napoleon's wife and ultimately to the depths of imprisonment, to Charles Spicer at St. Martin's, in a two-book deal, by Russell Galen at Scovil Chichak Galen Literary Agency (world English).Translation: barorint@aol.com russellgalen@scglit.com
MYSTERY/CRIME:
Ariana Franklin's THE MISTRESS OF THE ART OF DEATH and THE SERPENT IN THE GARDEN, billed as "Kathy Reichs in the 12th Century," to Rachel Kahan at Putnam, by Helen Heller at Helen Heller Agency (US). helen@helenhelleragency.com
SI-FI/FANTASY:
Beauty author Brian D'Amato's IN THE COURTS OF THE SUN, which begins the day before December 21, 2012, the day the Mayan calender predicted that time would end, to Brian Tart at Dutton, with Julie Doughty editing, in a three-book deal (NA).
UK:
Sean Stewart and Jordan Weisman's CATHY'S BOOK, a multi-media, illustrated YA novel, with websites, message boards, and phone numbers, bringing to life a teen girl's daily journal of mystery events covering Chinese mythology, biotech misdeeds, and immortal thugs, licensed to Bloomsbury UK, by Sarah Spencer at Perseus.
Foreign rights to Baumhaus, with paperback rights to DTV in Germany; Mondadori in Italy; Bonnier Carlsen in Sweden; and Politiken in Denmark, by Sarah Spencer at Perseus, Paul & Peter Fritz Agency for Germany, Santachiara Literary Agency for Italy, and Licht & Burr for Scandinavia. sarah.spencer@perseusbooks.com
FOREIGN:
English Canadian rights to French author Celine Curiol's debut THE TERMINAL VOICE, about a lonely young woman who works as an announcer at Paris's Gare du Nord and wanders the streets of the modern city, playing on the edge of danger, seeking connection, to Jennifer Lambert at McClelland & Stewart, in a nice deal, by Elisabeth Beyer at Actes Sud.Rights have been sold in eleven countries. e.beyer@actes-sud.fr
NON-FICTION/BUSINESS/INVESTMENT/FINANCE:
Indian businessman/billionaire Vinay Rai and What Every American Should Know About the Rest of the World author Melissa Rossi's THINK INDIA: A forward-looking account of the rise of India as a world economic and political power as entrepreneurship, education, technology, nuclear power, and a growing middle class transform all aspects of the country, to Trena Keating at Dutton, in a very nice deal, by Bill Gladstone at Waterside Productions (World).
[NOTE: BILL GLADSTONE KICKED OFF THE "DUMMIES" BOOKS! HE'S QUITE A GUY. :)]
HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:
Former Washington Post journalist and bureau chief for South Africa and South America Jon Jeter's GHETTO RISING, revealing the underbelly of globalization in an account of the rise of ghettos around the world, to Alane Mason at Norton, in a very nice deal, by David Fugate at LaunchBooks Literary Agency (World).ekerr@wwnorton.com
Richard Wightman Fox's LINCOLN'S BODY, a history of the three-week period of national mourning during which Lincoln's corpse was toured around America by train, revealing the tensions in 19th century American culture, to Alane Salierno Mason at Norton, in a very nice deal, by Jill Kneerim at Kneerim & Williams (World).ekerr@wwnorton.com
HUMOR:
Kyle Macdonald's ONE RED PAPERCLIP, blending Napoleon Dynamite and Anthony Robbins, the story of how the author turned a simple red paperclip into the house of his dreams, to Jason Pinter at Three Rivers Press, by Marc Gerald and Brandon Stein at The Agency Group.
Foreign rights to Jake Lingwood at Ebury UK, in a pre-empt; and Oscar van Gelderen at Rothschild & Bach, in a pre-empt.marcgerald@theagencygroup.com
MEMOIR:
Japanese General Kumiko Kakehashi's SO SAD TO FALL IN BATTLE, a memoir of his life and of the battle of Iwo Jima from the viewpoint of the Japanese commander, soon to be an integral part of Clint Eastwood's Iwo Jima film, to Ron Doering at Presidio, by Al Zuckerman at Writers House (world English).
NARRATIVE:
David Howard's LOST RIGHTS, going inside the world of historical documents -- a world of obsessives, archivists, and thieves -- through the story of an original copy of the Bill of Rights, stolen from the North Carolina statehouse during the Civil War and recovered 130 years later in an FBI sting, to Webster Younce at Houghton, at auction, by Jeremy Katz at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates (NA).
Hobson Woodward's WILD WATERS: The True Tale of the Shipwreck that Inspired Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST, combining elements of WILL IN THE WORLD and MAYFLOWER, that takes as its hero the hapless Elizabethan writer, adventurer, and friend to John Donne, Ben Jonson, and William Shakespeare, William Strachey, to Hilary Redmon at Viking, by Patricia Moosbrugger at Patricia Mossbrugger Literary Agency (NA). hilary.redmon@us.penguingroup.com
POP CULTURE:
THE COLOR PURPLE: A MEMORY BOOK, an illustrated companion to the musical version now on Broadway, and a reflection of the journey from Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel to the theatrical stage, with a foreword by Oprah Winfrey, and the participation of Walker and the entire creative team, to Will Balliett at Carroll & Graf, for publication in fall 2006, produced by Melcher Media.
SPORTS:
USA Today columnist and author of The Jump Ian O'Connor's THE KING AND THE BEAR, about the rivalry between Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, an extraordinary five-decade duel that took place on the course and in the boardroom and that shaped modern golf into the competitive spectator sport it has become, to Susan Canavan at Houghton Mifflin, by David Black and the David Black Literary Agency (NA).
Author of Baseball by the Beach and Boston Metro sportswriter Christopher Price's THE BLUEPRINT: HOW THE NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS BEAT THE SYSTEM TO BECOME THE NFL'S LAST GREAT SUPERPOWER, an inside look at how the Pats went from laughingstock to NFL legends, in a Moneyball-esque account, to Peter Wolverton at Thomas Dunne Books, by Frank Scatoni of Venture Literary (NA).frank@ventureliterary.com
GENERAL/OTHER:
In the Merde For Love author Stephen Clarke's TALK TO THE SNAIL: Ten Commandments for Understanding the French, how to understand what the French really think, how to get on with them and, most importantly, how to get the best out of them, to Colin Dickerman at Bloomsbury, by Susanna Lea at Susanna Lea Associates.
Rights already sold to Transworld in the UK; Penguin in Canada; Random House in Australia.
FILM:
Richard Lewis's THE KILLING SEA, about an Indonesian boy and an American girl who are brought together in the aftermath of the devastating 2004 tsunami while the boy searches for his missing father and the girl tries to get medical treatment for her sick brother, optioned to Fox 2000, on behalf of Scott Free (Ridley and Tony Scott), in a pre-empt, by Sarah Self at The Gersh Agency, on behalf of Scott Miller at Trident Media Group.[NOTE: THE FOLKS AT TRIDENT MEDIA GROUP ARE GOOD PEOPLE.]
Wrap...
E-voting safe yet? No.....
From VotetrustUSA.org :
National Issues
2006 E-VOTING 'TRAIN WRECK': Investigations and Problems Continue to Spread
By John Gideon
VotersUnite.Org and VoteTrustUSA.Org
May 01, 2006
As the Voters Continue to Pay the Price And as We Continue to Connect the Dots the Mainstream Media Still Won't.
When asked by a reporter, "Which is harder to manage, your two children or ES&S?" Marion County, Indiana Clerk Doris Ann Sadler told the Indianapolis Star this week, "Oh, ES&S, definitely. My children are really very easy. In fact, at times I think my children would have done a better job with the voting machines. And they're (ages) 7 and 4."
The Electronic Voting Machine Vendor locomotive is still running away down the track at an alarming speed. However, this week some states and county election officials seem to be beginning to notice and are now sending out signals that they intend to either stop the train or – barring that -- at least ensure that companies such as Election Systems and Software (ES&S) do not profit too much from their arrogance, ineptitude and now epidemic failures.
Legal complaints against the company were filed this week in West Virginia and Indiana to add to the one previously under way in Oregon. Threats have been heard from Texas, Arkansas, Ohio and elsewhere. Election officials have been forced to change voting procedures in many states and counties to accommodate for ES&S' growing array of failures. Meanwhile no one seems to be talking about the people who will be most affected by this train wreck; the voter.
PROBLEMS MOUNT IN SUMMIT COUNTY, OHIO
Memory card failures, as reported in our previous "Train Wreck" articles have been a huge problem for Summit County, Ohio. This past week the Akron Beacon Journal reported that even after testing and retesting memory cards, they were still failing at an alarming rate. In the last round of testing before next week's primary, 17 memory cards failed. The counties voting machine vendor, ES&S promises to provide back-up cards that are pre-loaded with ballot information for the different county precincts. County election board members have expressed concern for the failures and the prospect that the failure rate of memory cards may prove to be "catastrophic" according to one board member. Also of great concern to the County Board of Elections is ES&S' plan for technical support for the county. It seems that ES&S has given up on any possibility of not having chaos and they have decided to distance themselves from the county in the bargain. In order to do this, they've come up with a brilliant plan. ES&S has hired 19 students from the University of Akron who will get a one-day training program and who will then be ES&S' technical representatives in the county. One member of the board said, "It's just not right and will not be tolerated. You guys are supposed to be the gold standards of optical scan, and I'm amazed.'' Apparently ES&S has given up on maintaining their reputation in this county. Who ends up suffering for this arrogance? The voters.
EMERCENCY PAPER BALLOTS OK'd IN TEXAS
In an April 24 letter to Texas county elections officials, Ann McGeehan, the Texas Director of Elections authorized the many counties who have not received programming media or paper ballots from their vendor to print paper ballots and use those in elections to take place on May 13. Though ES&S was not named in the letter there was no doubt that's the company that McGeehan was speaking about when she said: "We recognize that this kind of service from a certified voting systems vendors [sic] is completely unacceptable and disturbing. We will be pursuing all appropriate remedies from a state level that are available to us."Also in an editorial from the San Antonio Express-News we learn that Bexar County (San Antonio) is one of the Texas counties involved. The editorial gives a very good reason that the county and its voters should get very good service from ES&S:
"Bexar County spent $8 million on the ES&S system in 2003. But the costs don't stop there. Each time there is an election, ES&S technicians have to program the system and provide technical support. For example, the March primary cost $57,000 in programming fees, $4,600 in technical support fees and $31,000 in voice-recorded files for disabled voters. A $184 shipping fee was charged for the voice-recorded files, despite the fact that they are delivered via the Internet, Callanen said. Beginning in May 2007, the county's warranty with the company runs out. To extend it, the county will have to come up with $185,000 a year, every year. That is too much money to pay if the company is unable to hold up its end of the bargain. Once again, who gets hosed? The tax-payers…otherwise known as; The voters. "
ES&S MELTS DOWN IN WEST VIRGINA
It was just last week that West Virginia Secretary of State Betty Ireland was finding ways to make excuses for the state's voting machine vendor, ES&S. This week Ireland seems to have opened her eyes as legal proceedings have now begun against the company. Either that, or those around her finally shook her awake and she realized that there were problems that needed her attention. In a earlier this week, Ireland says:
“I am absolutely appalled by ES&S’s delays and the hardships ES&S has placed upon this state and our county officials. ES&S’s delay in programming ballots has made the process very difficult – it is inexcusable. We feel the court will appreciate the dilemma the delays have placed the counties in.”
On Friday the County Commissioners Association of West Virginia announced that they were filing legal action against ES&S with help from the Secretary of State and the state Attorney General's Office. And in Kanawha County the County Commission President Kent Carper has asked County Manager Brent Pauley to place a check for $1.2 million, that the county owes ES&S, under lock and key in his desk drawer. Carper then told the media, "(The company) has embarrassed themselves. I got a feeling this will get their attention."
INDIANA CERTIFIES MICROVOTE AND ANNOUNCES A COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST ES&S
This week the Indiana Elections Commission took the expected move and certified the software used on MicroVote General voting machines that are used in 47 Indiana counties. According to the Indianapolis Star Commission member Tom John said the commission was making this last-minute certification of MicroVote's equipment not for the sake of the company "but for the sake of hundreds of thousands of voters who otherwise would have had to vote on pieces of paper." MicroVote is not off the hook for violations of state law. There will be investigations by the Secretary of State and the Elections Commission. At the same time that MicroVote was certified, Secretary of State Todd Rokita announced that he had filed a complaint against ES&S. The complaint charges that ES&S has violated state law by providing defective equipment and services. The complaint lists 30 possible violations in 3 counties. Each of those complaints may cost ES&S up to $300,000 in civil penalties for each violation.
Meanwhile, as reported by the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel in another embarrassment for ES&S, they proved again that they can't get much done right anywhere as they incorrectly printed 80,000 paper ballots for Porter County, Indiana. They will replace the ballots and pay for the printing. Maybe the voters in all of the ES&S counties will be able to vote on the machines their tax money has paid for…eventually.
ARKANSAS JOINS THE "TRAIN WRECK"
The Arkansas primary is scheduled to be held on May 23 but early voting is to begin on May 8. So far the Arkansas voting machine vendor; yes, it's ES&S; has failed to deliver all of the voting machines purchased by some counties. They have also failed to provide the ballot programming to many counties. The Arkansas Leader reports that ES&S has not programmed the iVotronic DREs in Pulaski County which is a problem; and they have failed to program the county's optical-scan machines which is a larger problem because the county cannot test their absentee ballots to ensure they work with the machines. The county is now preparing to hand-count those ballots on election night.
According to the Fort Smith Times Record Sebastian County has the same problems except that ES&S has also failed to deliver the paper ballots they have contracted to deliver. The county commission has decided that they want to be sure they are ready, so they are having their central-count optical scan machines programmed by their previous contractor and their paper ballots are being printed by the printer who used to print their ballots. They hope to be ready for their voters.
Is it too late to avert a disaster in our primary elections? That's probably going to be up to the voting machine vendors in many states and to the elections officials who choose to stand-up to them.
What is the federal Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) doing about all of this? Not a thing that we can see. They are just sitting back and telling the world that they have no power to regulate.
The corporate mainstream media? Well, the local, and in some cases state-wide, media are reporting what is happening and editorial boards are doing their thing but the national media is sitting with their eyes closed -- failing to connect any dots whatsoever – and keeping mum on this train wreck in the making. Ssshh! Don't tell anybody. We'd hate to disturb the voters…
Wrap...
National Issues
2006 E-VOTING 'TRAIN WRECK': Investigations and Problems Continue to Spread
By John Gideon
VotersUnite.Org and VoteTrustUSA.Org
May 01, 2006
As the Voters Continue to Pay the Price And as We Continue to Connect the Dots the Mainstream Media Still Won't.
When asked by a reporter, "Which is harder to manage, your two children or ES&S?" Marion County, Indiana Clerk Doris Ann Sadler told the Indianapolis Star this week, "Oh, ES&S, definitely. My children are really very easy. In fact, at times I think my children would have done a better job with the voting machines. And they're (ages) 7 and 4."
The Electronic Voting Machine Vendor locomotive is still running away down the track at an alarming speed. However, this week some states and county election officials seem to be beginning to notice and are now sending out signals that they intend to either stop the train or – barring that -- at least ensure that companies such as Election Systems and Software (ES&S) do not profit too much from their arrogance, ineptitude and now epidemic failures.
Legal complaints against the company were filed this week in West Virginia and Indiana to add to the one previously under way in Oregon. Threats have been heard from Texas, Arkansas, Ohio and elsewhere. Election officials have been forced to change voting procedures in many states and counties to accommodate for ES&S' growing array of failures. Meanwhile no one seems to be talking about the people who will be most affected by this train wreck; the voter.
PROBLEMS MOUNT IN SUMMIT COUNTY, OHIO
Memory card failures, as reported in our previous "Train Wreck" articles have been a huge problem for Summit County, Ohio. This past week the Akron Beacon Journal reported that even after testing and retesting memory cards, they were still failing at an alarming rate. In the last round of testing before next week's primary, 17 memory cards failed. The counties voting machine vendor, ES&S promises to provide back-up cards that are pre-loaded with ballot information for the different county precincts. County election board members have expressed concern for the failures and the prospect that the failure rate of memory cards may prove to be "catastrophic" according to one board member. Also of great concern to the County Board of Elections is ES&S' plan for technical support for the county. It seems that ES&S has given up on any possibility of not having chaos and they have decided to distance themselves from the county in the bargain. In order to do this, they've come up with a brilliant plan. ES&S has hired 19 students from the University of Akron who will get a one-day training program and who will then be ES&S' technical representatives in the county. One member of the board said, "It's just not right and will not be tolerated. You guys are supposed to be the gold standards of optical scan, and I'm amazed.'' Apparently ES&S has given up on maintaining their reputation in this county. Who ends up suffering for this arrogance? The voters.
EMERCENCY PAPER BALLOTS OK'd IN TEXAS
In an April 24 letter to Texas county elections officials, Ann McGeehan, the Texas Director of Elections authorized the many counties who have not received programming media or paper ballots from their vendor to print paper ballots and use those in elections to take place on May 13. Though ES&S was not named in the letter there was no doubt that's the company that McGeehan was speaking about when she said: "We recognize that this kind of service from a certified voting systems vendors [sic] is completely unacceptable and disturbing. We will be pursuing all appropriate remedies from a state level that are available to us."Also in an editorial from the San Antonio Express-News we learn that Bexar County (San Antonio) is one of the Texas counties involved. The editorial gives a very good reason that the county and its voters should get very good service from ES&S:
"Bexar County spent $8 million on the ES&S system in 2003. But the costs don't stop there. Each time there is an election, ES&S technicians have to program the system and provide technical support. For example, the March primary cost $57,000 in programming fees, $4,600 in technical support fees and $31,000 in voice-recorded files for disabled voters. A $184 shipping fee was charged for the voice-recorded files, despite the fact that they are delivered via the Internet, Callanen said. Beginning in May 2007, the county's warranty with the company runs out. To extend it, the county will have to come up with $185,000 a year, every year. That is too much money to pay if the company is unable to hold up its end of the bargain. Once again, who gets hosed? The tax-payers…otherwise known as; The voters. "
ES&S MELTS DOWN IN WEST VIRGINA
It was just last week that West Virginia Secretary of State Betty Ireland was finding ways to make excuses for the state's voting machine vendor, ES&S. This week Ireland seems to have opened her eyes as legal proceedings have now begun against the company. Either that, or those around her finally shook her awake and she realized that there were problems that needed her attention. In a earlier this week, Ireland says:
“I am absolutely appalled by ES&S’s delays and the hardships ES&S has placed upon this state and our county officials. ES&S’s delay in programming ballots has made the process very difficult – it is inexcusable. We feel the court will appreciate the dilemma the delays have placed the counties in.”
On Friday the County Commissioners Association of West Virginia announced that they were filing legal action against ES&S with help from the Secretary of State and the state Attorney General's Office. And in Kanawha County the County Commission President Kent Carper has asked County Manager Brent Pauley to place a check for $1.2 million, that the county owes ES&S, under lock and key in his desk drawer. Carper then told the media, "(The company) has embarrassed themselves. I got a feeling this will get their attention."
INDIANA CERTIFIES MICROVOTE AND ANNOUNCES A COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST ES&S
This week the Indiana Elections Commission took the expected move and certified the software used on MicroVote General voting machines that are used in 47 Indiana counties. According to the Indianapolis Star Commission member Tom John said the commission was making this last-minute certification of MicroVote's equipment not for the sake of the company "but for the sake of hundreds of thousands of voters who otherwise would have had to vote on pieces of paper." MicroVote is not off the hook for violations of state law. There will be investigations by the Secretary of State and the Elections Commission. At the same time that MicroVote was certified, Secretary of State Todd Rokita announced that he had filed a complaint against ES&S. The complaint charges that ES&S has violated state law by providing defective equipment and services. The complaint lists 30 possible violations in 3 counties. Each of those complaints may cost ES&S up to $300,000 in civil penalties for each violation.
Meanwhile, as reported by the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel in another embarrassment for ES&S, they proved again that they can't get much done right anywhere as they incorrectly printed 80,000 paper ballots for Porter County, Indiana. They will replace the ballots and pay for the printing. Maybe the voters in all of the ES&S counties will be able to vote on the machines their tax money has paid for…eventually.
ARKANSAS JOINS THE "TRAIN WRECK"
The Arkansas primary is scheduled to be held on May 23 but early voting is to begin on May 8. So far the Arkansas voting machine vendor; yes, it's ES&S; has failed to deliver all of the voting machines purchased by some counties. They have also failed to provide the ballot programming to many counties. The Arkansas Leader reports that ES&S has not programmed the iVotronic DREs in Pulaski County which is a problem; and they have failed to program the county's optical-scan machines which is a larger problem because the county cannot test their absentee ballots to ensure they work with the machines. The county is now preparing to hand-count those ballots on election night.
According to the Fort Smith Times Record Sebastian County has the same problems except that ES&S has also failed to deliver the paper ballots they have contracted to deliver. The county commission has decided that they want to be sure they are ready, so they are having their central-count optical scan machines programmed by their previous contractor and their paper ballots are being printed by the printer who used to print their ballots. They hope to be ready for their voters.
Is it too late to avert a disaster in our primary elections? That's probably going to be up to the voting machine vendors in many states and to the elections officials who choose to stand-up to them.
What is the federal Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) doing about all of this? Not a thing that we can see. They are just sitting back and telling the world that they have no power to regulate.
The corporate mainstream media? Well, the local, and in some cases state-wide, media are reporting what is happening and editorial boards are doing their thing but the national media is sitting with their eyes closed -- failing to connect any dots whatsoever – and keeping mum on this train wreck in the making. Ssshh! Don't tell anybody. We'd hate to disturb the voters…
Wrap...
Monday, May 01, 2006
How to keep NSA's secrets, secret....
From Secrecy News:
WOULD-BE NSA WHISTLEBLOWER CAN'T GET CONGRESS' ATTENTION
There is no excuse for unauthorized disclosures of classified information, it is argued, because whistleblowers who have legitimate complaints about classified government misconduct can use official channels to convey those concerns on a classified basis. But as a practical matter, those channels are often blocked or ineffectual.
That is what former National Security Agency employee Russell D. Tice discovered when he attempted to initiate contact with the Senate and House Intelligence Committees to report what he believed to be "probable illegal conduct" by the NSA. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) did not respond to Mr. Tice's approach at all. House Intelligence Committee staffers met with Mr. Tice but concluded that neither they nor any member of the Committee had the requisite security clearances to receive his complaint.
See several letters to Congress sent by Mr. Tice last week, summarizing his conundrum, here:
http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2006/04/tice042506.pdf
In an astonishing letter sent last January, the NSA itself advised Mr.Tice that the congressional intelligence committees were not cleared to receive his information, which involve Department of Defense Special Access Programs, and that he should not convey any classified information to them without prior coordination.
While affirming "unequivocally" that Mr. Tice has "every right to petition Congress" as "guaranteed to you by the First Amendment of theUnited States Constitution," the NSA proceeded to warn Mr. Tice not to contact the committees without first providing a statement of his complaint to the Department of Defense Inspector General or the NSA Inspector General. Thereafter, the NSA said, he should follow the instruction of theSecretary of Defense "on how to contact the intelligence committees in accordance with appropriate security practices." See:
http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2006/04/nsa010906.pdf
Wrap...
WOULD-BE NSA WHISTLEBLOWER CAN'T GET CONGRESS' ATTENTION
There is no excuse for unauthorized disclosures of classified information, it is argued, because whistleblowers who have legitimate complaints about classified government misconduct can use official channels to convey those concerns on a classified basis. But as a practical matter, those channels are often blocked or ineffectual.
That is what former National Security Agency employee Russell D. Tice discovered when he attempted to initiate contact with the Senate and House Intelligence Committees to report what he believed to be "probable illegal conduct" by the NSA. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) did not respond to Mr. Tice's approach at all. House Intelligence Committee staffers met with Mr. Tice but concluded that neither they nor any member of the Committee had the requisite security clearances to receive his complaint.
See several letters to Congress sent by Mr. Tice last week, summarizing his conundrum, here:
http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2006/04/tice042506.pdf
In an astonishing letter sent last January, the NSA itself advised Mr.Tice that the congressional intelligence committees were not cleared to receive his information, which involve Department of Defense Special Access Programs, and that he should not convey any classified information to them without prior coordination.
While affirming "unequivocally" that Mr. Tice has "every right to petition Congress" as "guaranteed to you by the First Amendment of theUnited States Constitution," the NSA proceeded to warn Mr. Tice not to contact the committees without first providing a statement of his complaint to the Department of Defense Inspector General or the NSA Inspector General. Thereafter, the NSA said, he should follow the instruction of theSecretary of Defense "on how to contact the intelligence committees in accordance with appropriate security practices." See:
http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2006/04/nsa010906.pdf
Wrap...
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