While both houses of the U.S. Congress are busily debating whether or not possible investigations of the Bush administration’s policies on the torture of prisoners and detainees in its wars on terror, Iraq and Afghanistan should be held at all, and if held whether or not they should be public, California Senator Diane Feinstein has managed to forestall the public possibility for a year. Democrat Feinstein and Republican Kit Bond of Missouri as chair and co-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee announced on March 5 a Committee review of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program.

The probe is designed to discover new information about the origins of the programs as well as to scrutinize their operations. The five specified areas of investigation include:

• The creation, operation and maintenance of the CIA interrogation program.

• How detainees were assessed as to who possessed information valuable enough to require “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

• Whether the Intelligence Committee, Office of Legal Counsel and other responsible offices of government received accurate information from the CIA about its detention and interrogation programs.

• Whether the programs were implemented in compliance with guidance issued by the pertinent government offices.

• Whether information gained through the programs was valuable enough to justify the programs themselves.

The Obama administration is conducting its own concurrent review in-house. Such closed-door investigations may or may not lead to more open examinations, and there is the possibility that immunity granted to witnesses in these non-public reviews may interfere with any future public testimony and/or prosecutions that proceed from violations of law if those are determined to have occurred.

It would appear that the “move forward” attitude of the new administration and among enablers in Congress in light of revelations coming out via Bush administration memos and documents ordered to be released by judicial review requires some behind-the-scenes machinations to ensure that public disclosure cannot lead to criminal prosecutions or public disclosure of some of the worst abuses in programs the public already knows from sickening photographs and documents already released went well beyond rational justification and the few “bad apples” on the lower tiers thus far prosecuted for prisoner abuses.

Public pressure for the appointment of a special prosecutor is quickly gaining momentum. In the past independent investigations for prosecution have been conducted before or concurrently with Congressional investigations so as to minimize the impact of immunity granted to witnesses or possible defendants. By insisting that the secret investigations precede any possible public ones it is practically a foregone conclusion that the public will never see justice done for any violations of law the public is also not allowed to know about.

No wonder people are becoming seriously jaded about politics and politicians in this country.

Links:

Senate panel starts inquiry into CIA interrogation program
Feinstein, Bond Announce Intelligence Committee Review of CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
Senate to investigate CIA’s actions under Bush

Wow. That’s a real photograph of our dear President representing America at the Olympic Summer Games in Bejing. Pay particular attention to the look on daughter Barbara next to him… Even as Chinese police are slaughtering protesters north of the city and censoring internet access for people from all over the world. Some athletes and journalists covering the games can’t even get their own blogs…

Just for coming-in-January nostalgia’s sake, check out the rest of these fun photos over at Gawker. At the very least it’ll make you not feel so bad about those debate drinking games where you have to chug every time John McCain mentions being a tortured Vietnam veteran or Obama says “we can.”

Link:

Gawker: Bush Looking Drunk at the Olympics

Yahoo News reported: White House unveils intelligence powers overhaul.

“Unveils?” Is this some sort of proposal? Nope. It’s a done deal, no oversight or even prior notice required…

The action by Bush provoked bipartisan anger among House of Representatives lawmakers who said they were not properly consulted or briefed on the planned changes.

“We were only shown the document after it was complete and on its way to the president for his signature,” said Rep. Silvestre Reyes, a Texas Democrat who heads the House Intelligence Committee.

“Given the impact that this order will have on America’s intelligence community, and this committee’s responsibility to oversee intelligence activities, this cannot be seen as anything other than an attempt to undercut congressional oversight,” said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the panel.

So. What exactly does this done deal include? Over at AFP the story is entitled: Bush orders overhaul of US intelligence. But don’t bother, it’s mostly a pro-fluff piece. Better is the offering by Raw Story: Watchdog: Bush turning intelligence agencies on Americans…

“This kind of concentrated power, exercised in secret, is a lit fuse with our Constitution likely in danger of being burned,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington legislative office.

Another interesting analysis appears in cskendrick’s DKos diary, Who Needs Congress? Bush Reorgs Intel Services by Decree. The logical next question for any citizen concerned about civil liberties, the US Constitution, and things like the orderly transfer of power to the next duly elected President is,

Are they doing this for Barack Obama’s benefit?

P.S. Check out Pulitzer winning journalist Seymour Hersh’s report in the New Yorker (analyzed at Think Progress) about how VP Dick Cheney proposed a “false flag” operation to provoke war with Iran To Provoke War, Cheney Considered Proposal to Dress Up Navy Seals as Iranians and Shoot at Them. Is it likely these guys are tired of All The Power In The World yet?

No, it’s not a joke from the late-nighters, or even one of the stand-ups at Comedy Central. A Cheney-linked neocon “think tank” called Family Security Matters issued an article last August by Philip Atkinson, opining that G.W. Bush would fail the country if he didn’t declare himself “President-for-Life” and refuse to step down next January to let his duly elected replacement take the reins of the executive branch.

The article, entitled Conquering the Drawbacks of Democracy, was removed from the Family Security Matters website – and its author disappeared from an author list that includes such brainy luminaries as Newt Gingrich, Ed Koch, Michelle Malkin and Dick Morris, no doubt due to coverage at the time at Rogue Government, and lately in the progressive blogosphere in such places as Daily Kos, and at-Largely. Luckily (or not, depending on how strong your stomach is), MadCityRag caught the whole thing before it disappeared.

Some of the juciest tidbits are true keepers, if for no other reason than to remind ourselves why we should care about the U.S. Constitution and the democratic republic gifted to us by our wise founding fathers more than 230 years ago when the citizens of this new nation threw off the shackles of crazy King George. For instance…

President Bush can fail in his duty to himself, his country, and his God, by becoming “ex-president” Bush or he can become “President-for-life” Bush: the conqueror of Iraq, who brings sense to the Congress and sanity to the Supreme Court. Then who would be able to stop Bush from emulating Augustus Caesar and becoming ruler of the world? For only an America united under one ruler has the power to save humanity from the threat of a new Dark Age wrought by terrorists armed with nuclear weapons.

No, thanks. Atkinson goes on to suggest that Bush should also copy Julius Caesar and order the army to simply kill everyone in Iraq so it could be repopulated with Americans as a 21st century colony. We’ve known for a long time that neocons are anti-Americans with seriously traitorous leanings, but it’s good to remind ourselves occasionally just how insane they really are. Yet another juicy tidbit to leave readers with…

Democracy is clearly an enemy of not just truth, but duty and justice, which makes it the worst form of government. President Bush must overcome not just the situation in Iraq, but democratic government.

Mister <27% WILL step down on January 20, 2009 as his elected successor is sworn in to the office of Presidency. Now, he can throw a hissy fit and chain himself to one of the White House pillars, but it won’t work. I’d suggest his smartest move would be to go ahead and fly down to his private ‘preserve’ in Paraguay about a week early and just skip the ceremony. Otherwise he just might find himself (along with his puppeteer Dick) being shuffled unceremoniously off to The Hague to stand trial for crimes against humanity.

It seems that Bush’s visit to Europe last week has produced some recommitment to his ever-expanding Mid-East War, at least from the Brits. I’m figuring that Palau isn’t quite ready to invade Iran for us. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, however, did promise tougher sanctions on Iran and an increase in its troop strength in Afghanistan. Brown announced that he has ordered a freeze on the assets of Iran’s biggest bank.

The New York Times reported Monday that Brown sought to speak directly to the Iranian people during the joint Bush/Brown press conference.

“We will take action today that will freeze the overseas assets of the biggest bank in Iran, the Melli bank, and secondly, action will start today for a new phase of sanctions on oil and gas.”

Bush reiterated that “all options” were on the table in regards to U.S. actions against Iran, which includes military strikes. Brown committed to increased troop strength in Afghanistan as NATO began redeploying forces to meet a new threat there as hundreds of Taliban fighters took over villages in the south over the weekend during heavy fighting, releasing hundreds of insurgents from the Kandahar prison.

U.S. troops are primarily bogged down in Iraq, supplying the bulk of troops in that country, with fewer than 20,000 troops in Afghanistan. This years after “success” of the missions was declared – it looks like we’ve had less trouble ejecting leadership in those countries than we’ve had in “securing the peace” in either. Some troops have done as many as six tours of duty and are being prevented from leaving the service by “stop loss” directives.

Where the heck is he planning to get troops to deal with Iran? I mean, if he just sends in the Air Force to bomb them, what makes him think the Iranian Army won’t cross into Iraq and Afghanistan to wreak havoc on our troops there?

Despite Bush’s desire to leave America in much, much worse shape than he found it in 2000, opening yet another front in his ‘forever-war’ isn’t a very good idea. Will Congress act to prevent it this time?

The full text of the letter is below the fold:

April 3, 2008

The Honorable Michael Mukasey ?Attorney General of the United States ?U.S. Department of Justice ?950 Pennsylvania Ave., NW ?Washington, DC 20530

Dear Mr. Attorney General:

We are writing about two disturbing recent revelations concerning the actions and inactions by the Department of Justice and the federal government to combat terrorism. These include a public statement by you that appears to suggest a fundamental misunderstanding of the federal government’s existing surveillance authority to combat terrorism, as well as possible malfeasance by the government prior to 9/11, and the partial disclosure of the contents of a secret Department memorandum concerning Executive Branch authority to combat terrorism, which has been previously requested to be provided to Congress. We ask that you promptly provide that memorandum and that you clarify your public statement in accordance with the questions below.

First, according to press reports, in response to questions at a March 27 speech, you defended Administration wiretapping programs and proposals to change the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by referring to a pre-9/11 incident. Before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, you stated, “we knew that there had been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn’t know precisely where it went. You’ve got 3,000 people who went to work that day, and didn’t come home, to show for that.”1

This statement is very disturbing for several reasons. Initially, despite extensive inquiries after 9/11, I am aware of no previous reference, in the 9/11 Commission report or elsewhere, to a call from a known terrorist safe house in Afghanistan to the United States which, if it had been intercepted, could have helped prevent the 9/11 attacks. In addition, if the Administration had known of such communications from suspected terrorists, they could and should have been intercepted based on existing FISA law. For example, even assuming that a FISA warrant was required to intercept such calls, as of 9/11 FISA specifically authorized such surveillance on an emergency basis without a warrant for a 48 hour period.2 If such calls were known about and not intercepted, serious additional concerns would be raised about the government’s failure to take appropriate action before 9/11.

Accordingly, we ask that you promptly answer the following questions:

1. Were you referring to an actual pre-9/11 incident in the portion of your statement quoted above? If not, what were you referring to?

2. Do you believe that a FISA warrant would have been required to intercept a telephone call from a known terrorist safe house in Afghanistan to the United States in 2001? If so, please explain.

3. Even assuming that such a warrant would have been required, do you agree that even before 9/11, FISA authorized emergency interception without a warrant for a 48-hour period of phone calls from a known terrorist safe house in Afghanistan to the United States?

4. Assuming that you were referring to an actual pre-9/11 incident in your statement, please explain why such phone calls were not intercepted and appropriately utilized by federal government authorities in seeking to prevent terrorist attacks.

Second, in the March, 2003 Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memorandum publicly released on April 1, 2008, the contents of a secret October, 2001 OLC memorandum were partially disclosed. Specifically, the 2003 memorandum explains that in an October 23, 2001 memorandum, OLC “concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations.”3 On two prior occasions – in letters of February 12 and February 20, 2008, – Chairman Conyers requested that the Administration publicly release the October 23, 2001, memorandum .4 The memorandum has not been received despite these specific requests.

Based on the title of the October 23, 2001 memorandum, and based on what has been disclosed and the contents of similar memoranda issued at roughly the same time, it is clear that a substantial portion of this memorandum provides a legal analysis and conclusions as to the nature and scope of the Presidential Commander in Chief power to accomplish specific acts within the United States. The people of the United States are entitled to know the Justice Department’s interpretation of the President’s constitutional powers to wage war in the United States. There can be no actual basis in national security for keeping secret the remainder of a legal memorandum that addresses this issue of Constitutional interpretation. The notion that the President can claim to operate under “secret” powers known only to the President and a select few subordinates is antithetical to the core principles of this democracy. We ask that you promptly release the October 23, 2001, memorandum.

Please provide your responses and direct any questions to the Judiciary Committee office, 2138 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515 (tel:202-225-3951; fax: 202-225-7680). Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

John Conyers, Jr. ?Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary

Jerrold Nadler ?Chairman, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

Robert C. “Bobby” Scott ?Chairman, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security

Of course, sternly worded letters are not very impressive in DC these days, given that the Bush administration regularly ignores any and all demands from Congress for information. The ‘Unitary Executive’ policy that Dick Cheney has worked so hard to institute for so many decades does not have room for a Constitutional separation of powers or any respect for the Congressional duty of oversight.

I predict Mukasey will ignore this demand as well, and that Bush will assert presidential privilege to prevent him from talking to the Judiciary Committee. But at least We the People can see that some members of Congress still take their oaths and jobs seriously, which is a hopeful sign for the future. Or maybe it’s all just for show.

Treas. Sec. Henry Paulson

It seems the recent recognition by Wall street’s overzealous speculators that the nation is in deep recession (something they’ve ignored for years despite it being a regular big deal out amongst the real people who do real work when they can find it) has led to yet another opportunity for the Bush Administration to make an unprecedented power-grab. And predictably, they’ve leapt at the chance.

From the New York Times:

The Bush administration on Monday rolled out the broadest overhaul of Wall Street regulation since the Great Depression, presenting a series of proposals that would, for the first time, create a set of federal regulators with authority over all players in the financial system.

But the proposal will do almost nothing to regulate the alphabet soup of sophisticated financial products that have fueled the current financial crisis. And it will not rein in practices that have been linked to the mortgage crisis, like packaging risky loans into securities carrying the highest ratings.

[Emphasis mine] Well. There you have it. The overwhelming greed of the financial sector has led to serious financial troubles, so the Bushies want to claim more power while at the same time doing nothing at all about the greed that will by summer (if projections are correct) have millions of hard working Americans homeless in the streets.

Don’t be fooled. The administration was seriously at work on this power grab last year, well before the current crisis. They have just seized upon the current crisis – that had the Federal Reserve (NOT a government agency) bailing out a bankrupt Wall Street investment bank in an unprecedented action just weeks ago – as a good excuse to put the plan into action.

What the plan does is make legal actions such as what the Fed did for Bear Stearns, offering to back 30 billion dollars’ worth of bad debt in their portfolio in order to enable JP Morgan to purchase the bank for pennies on the dollar. Additionally, the plan aims to ‘merge’ the Securities and Exchange Commission with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the already existing ineffectual and lazy federal regulators of Wall Street) and de-regulating both. In other words, turning over regulation and oversight of the financial markets to the financial markets!

This should work as well as the FDA allowing drug companies to regulate themselves, genetic engineers to decide what is safe for the world to eat, letting the Chinese decide to poison pet food and use lead paint in cheap toys, and allowing nuclear power plants to determine their own safety regulations. Doesn’t that make us all feel much better about how much government cares for the citizenry that always gets screwed by Big Business?

The overhaul will simply put American taxpayer’s money at risk for the financial markets to use and abuse as they see fit. If they make money, it goes into private pockets. If they lose money, We the People bail them out.

The administration expects a long fight in Congress in getting their plot approved into law, but fully expects the next administration – whether Republican or Democrat – to go along because it’s such a great idea. It might actually be approved, given how many regular citizens’ retirement savings have been decimated by the recent ‘liquidation’. The players get bailed out, citizens will have to live on much less than they saved.

Paul Krugman of the NYT had this to say -

…there was a 2003 photo-op in which officials from multiple agencies used pruning shears and chainsaws to chop up stacks of banking regulations. The occasion symbolized the shared determination of Bush appointees to suspend adult supervision just as the financial industry was starting to run wild.

Oh, and the Bush administration actively blocked state governments when they tried to protect families against predatory lending.

In fact, attempts to investigate, indict and otherwise act against predatory lenders – and predatory health insurers – is part of what got New York governor Elliott Spitzer targeted for ruin. Helped in no small part by his bizarre taste for expensive hookers, of course. As usual, the old adage applies in the modern world… power corrupts. Absolute power (such as what the Bushies are grasping for) corrupts absolutely.

Keep a close eye on this one, as it could send the entire system into default and eradicate the dollar as a benchmark for world markets. The welfare of the American people has no role to play in this farce. Hyperinflation is a real danger (on top of massive homelessness), and not just for the price of gasoline to fuel the cars families will be living in. The food we need in order to live at all is quickly becoming unaffordable due to commodity speculation – there are already food riots in Asia over the price of rice, which isn’t rising as fast as the price of wheat or corn.

It’s time for Victory Gardens and a return to doing for ourselves. In the end – if we come out the other side at all and this isn’t just more right-wing attempts to bring Armageddon – it may have taught the current generations valuable lessons.

What did they do to us, again? I forget…

 Two “Unknown” Iraqi Casualties

American Dead: 3,990

American Casualties: 40,229

Iraqi Dead: Unknown

Iraqi Casualties: Unknown

Cost to the US: $504,000,000,000.00 

Senator Chris Dodd made a statement on the Senate floor on Friday, January 25th during the cloture debate on Bush’s FISA bill – the one granting retroactive immunity to America’s telecom giants for aiding and abetting Bushco’s rampant lawbreaking. The statement well explains what’s wrong with the entire situation in which we find ourselves after 7 long years of the decidedly un-American “Unitary Executive” – a.k.a. “The Deciderer.”

Dodd had threatened to filibuster the bill last month, so Harry Reid was forced to withdraw it from debate until last Friday, when Dodd again threatened filibuster. Reid then put off the cloture vote until today, January 28th. Senators Clinton and Obama, who were out of town campaigning in South Carolina on Friday, are scheduled to be present for this afternoon’s cloture vote (and filibuster, should that ensue).

Dodd noted that it wasn’t his colleagues in Congress – either house – who convinced him of the unacceptability of telecom immunity, it was the many citizens he met in his recently aborted campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination…

For several months now, I’ve listened to the building frustration over this immunity and this administration’s campaign of lawlessness. I’ve seen it in person, in mail, online – the passion and eloquence of citizens who are just fed up. They’ve inspired me more than they know.

In his impassioned speech, Dodd ran down the list of reasons why it’s important to stop this attempt to cover-up lawbreaking by the administration and its corporate enablers, and get the issues into the federal court system where they belong – and will be public. He echoes themes we’ve seen before…

Because this is about far more than the telecoms. This is about the choice that will define America: the rule of law, or the rule of men.

It’s about this government’s practice of waterboarding, a technique invented by the Spanish Inquisition, perfected by the Khmer Rouge, and in between, banned – originally banned for excessive cruelty – by the Gestapo!

It’s about the Military Commissions Act, a bill that gave President Bush the power to designate any individual he wants an “unlawful enemy combatant,” hold him indefinitely, and take away his right to habeas corpus – the 900-year-old right to challenge your detention.

It’s about the CIA destroying evidence of harsh interrogation – or, as some would call it, torture.

It’s about Dick Cheney raising secrecy to an art form.

[...] It’s about the Justice Department turning our nation’s highest law enforcement offices into patronage plums, and turning the impartial work of indictments and trials into the machinations of politics.

It’s about Alberto Gonzales coming before Congress to give us testimony that was a best wrong and at worst perjury.

It’s about Michael Mukasey coming before the Senate and defending the president’s power to openly break the law.

It’s about extraordinary renditions and secret prisons…

Whoa. Quite the list! I can remember when Richard Nixon resigned rather than try to defend his involvement in the cover-up of a “third-rate burglary.” Heck, I can remember when the only reason Ronald Reagan didn’t get impeached for giving high-powered weaponry to Iran and running drugs and death squads in Central America was because the lovable old Gipper was obviously suffering the early stages of Alzheimer’s.

…and I can remember an 8-year torch and pitchfork battle to impeach the most popular president in my lifetime for getting a blow job. Shrub has so corrupted this government and slimed the office of the Presidency that it’s hard to imagine how America can recover. George Bush and his puppets in the Congress (including more than a handful of culpable Democrats) are trying hard to ensure that America never recovers. They want us destroyed – much more thoroughly than Osama bin Laden could ever hope for.

Just as the nefarious threads of Sibel Edmonds’ revelations span decades, name the already well-known players, and establish a long-term program of illegal nuclear proliferation involving high level officials in the Pentagon, State Department, Congress and the Bush administration, the many violations of US and international law related to illegal spying on citizens as well as blatant abrogation of the Constitution are all of a set. They are dots that tell a sordid tale if they can be connected.

You go, Senator Dodd! Connect those dots, filibuster those criminals and creeps, be a true patriot and help save this country from power-mad traitors! I’ve contacted my Senators about voting ‘No’ on FISA cloture. Have you contacted yours?

Links:

Statement of Senator Dodd on FISA Telecom Immunity

WaPo: Post Politics Hour

lukery: Sibel Edmonds archive

The recent hoopla about videotapes of the torture of ‘War on Terror’ prisoners Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri by CIA interrogators has drawn some odd denials from people who ought to know better by now. White House press spokesbot Dana Perino kept insisting to all questions that the US does not torture. Period, end of discussion.

What American with an IQ of over 75 believes this garbage, or the George W. Bush “doesn’t remember” knowing about those torture tapes – or ordering their destruction? Anyone who doubts US involvement in torture (and, too often, murder) should read Jennifer Hardbury’s Interview with Buzzflash for realistic background on this issue.

We have a president who holds the record for executions in the state of Texas, who exhibited signs of psychopathic personality disorder as a child (blowing up frogs) and who as drunken frat boy publicly defended branding of pledges with hot wire hangers. He has enlisted in his administration some of the most infamous American orchestrators and enablers of the torture-and-murder regimes in Central America Harbury documented so well in her book Truth, Torture and the American Way.

This time Bush appears to have finally made enough actual patriots mad that he just might might soon find that the whole world is watching. Which could have serious consequences for his planned retirement in Paraguay – if World Court operatives catch up with him first.

Ex-CIA analyst Larry Johnson dares to publicly ask, Did Bush Eat Popcorn While Watching the Torture Tapes? This is a very scary article, more for its plausibility than for its audacity. There are rumors circulating that there were copies made of those torture tapes, and that at least one (likely more than one) national news source is in possession of them right now. Even if these rumors are off-base, we can be fairly sure copies were made, and that they have not all been destroyed. Such things do have a way of bubbling to the surface eventually.

It is not a stretch to surmise that we haven’t heard the last of this episode yet, so stay tuned!

Links:

Did Bush Eat Popcorn While Watching the Torture Tapes?

Truth, Torture and the American Way

Jennifer Hardbury’s Interview with Buzzflash

The Investigations of the Destruction of CIA Torture Tapes: How an ACLU Lawsuit Might Force the Bush Administration to Reveal What Actually Happened

NYT Editorial: On Torture and American Values