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Cheney's Role Deepens
At the end of April 2003, not long after the fall of Baghdad, U.S. forces captured an Iraqi who Bush White House officials suspected might provide information of a relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime. Muhammed Khudayr al-Dulaymi was the head of the M-14 section of Mukhabarat, one of Saddam's secret police organizations. His responsibilities included chemical weapons and contacts with terrorist groups.
"To those who wanted or suspected a relationship, he would have been a guy who would know, so [White House officials] had particular interest," Charles Duelfer, head of the Iraqi Survey Group and the man in charge of interrogations of Iraqi officials, told me. So much so that the officials, according to Duelfer, inquired how the interrogation was proceeding.
In his new book, Hide and Seek: The Search for Truth in Iraq, and in an interview with The Daily Beast, Duelfer says he heard from "some in Washington at very senior levels (not in the CIA)," who thought Khudayr's interrogation had been "too gentle" and suggested another route, one that they believed has proven effective elsewhere. "They asked if enhanced measures, such as waterboarding, should be used," Duelfer writes. "The executive authorities addressing those measures made clear that such techniques could legally be applied only to terrorism cases, and our debriefings were not as yet terrorism-related. The debriefings were just debriefings, even for this creature."
Duelfer will not disclose who in Washington had proposed the use of waterboarding, saying only: "The language I can use is what has been cleared." In fact, two senior U.S. intelligence officials at the time tell The Daily Beast that the suggestion to waterboard came from the Office of Vice President Cheney. Cheney, of course, has vehemently defended waterboarding and other harsh techniques, insisting they elicited valuable intelligence and saved lives. He has also asked that several memoranda be declassified to prove his case. (The Daily Beast placed a call to Cheney's office and will post a response if we get one.)
Without admitting where the suggestion came from, Duelfer revealed that he considered it reprehensible and understood the rationale as political-and ultimately counterproductive to the overall mission of the Iraq Survey Group, which was assigned the mission of finding Saddam Hussein's WMD after the invasion.
"Everyone knew there would be more smiles in Washington if WMD stocks were found," Duelfer said in the interview. "My only obligation was to find the truth. It would be interesting if there was WMD in May 2003, but what was more interesting to me was looking at the entire regime through the slice of WMD."
But, Duelfer says, Khudayr in fact repeatedly denied knowing the location of WMD or links between Saddam's regime and al Qaeda and was not subjected to any enhanced interrogation. Duelfer says the idea that he would have known of such links was "ludicrous".
This proposed use of enhanced interrogation techniques, or torture, in Iraq was not the only time these methods were actually used to derive information for a purpose other than the stated one-to derive intelligence about imminent threats to the United States following the 9/11 attacks.
An extensive analysis I conducted as a reporter for NBC News of the 9/11 Commission's Final Report and its monograph on terrorist travel showed that much of what was reported about the planning and execution of the terror attacks on New York and Washington was based on the CIA's interrogations of high-ranking al Qaeda operatives who had been subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques."
More than one-quarter of all footnotes in the 9/11 Report refer to CIA interrogations of al Qaeda operatives subjected to the now-controversial interrogation techniques. In fact, information derived from the interrogations was central to the 9/11 Report's most critical chapters, those on the planning and execution of the attacks.
The NBC analysis also showed-and agency and commission staffers concur-there was a separate, second round of interrogations in early 2004, specifically conducted to answer new questions from the 9/11 Commission after its lawyers had been left unsatisfied by the agency's internal interrogation reports.
Human-rights advocates, including Karen Greenberg of New York University Law School's Center for Law and Security and Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, have said that, at the least, the 9/11 Commission should have been more suspect of the information derived under such pressure.
Commission executive director Philip Zelikow (later counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice) admitted, "We were not aware, but we guessed, that things like that were going on. We were wary...we tried to find different sources to enhance our credibility." (Zelikow testified before the Senate on Wednesday, May 13, that he had argued in a 2005 memo that some of the tactics used on suspected terrorists violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.)
A former senior U.S. intelligence official told me the Commission never expressed any concerns about techniques and even pushed for a second round of interrogations in early 2004, as the Commission was finishing up its work. The second round of interrogations sought by the Commission involved more than 30 separate interrogation sessions.
"Remember," the intelligence official said, "the Commission had access to the intelligence reports that came out of the interrogation. This didn't satisfy them. They demanded direct personal access to the detainees and the administration told them to go pound sand."
"As a compromise, they were allowed to let us know what questions they would have liked to ask the detainees. At appropriate times in the interrogation cycle, agency questioners would go back and re-interview the detainees. Many of [those] questions were variants or follow-ups to stuff previously asked."
At least four operatives whose interrogation figured in the 9/11 Commission Report have claimed that they told interrogators critical information as a way to stop being "tortured." Those claims came during their hearings in the spring of 2007 at the U.S. military facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
For Duelfer, an experienced interrogator, the details now being laid out in CIA and White House memoranda and in congressional hearings cannot be justified. While admitting that the interrogators faced enormous pressure in 2002 and 2003, he said he had problems with the overall strategy.
"Interrogation is about two humans who are face to face, sweat to sweat. Is your hand going to hit them?" he notes. "That's a relationship that becomes very deep. If you are going to reach someone at an intellectual or emotive level, it's hard to see how you can do that and still be the person who accosts that person. I don't know how to do that."
Robert Windrem is a Senior Reserach Fellow at the NYU Center on Law and Security. For three decades, he worked as a producer for NBC News. During that time, he focused on issues of international security, strategic policy, intelligence and terrorism. He is the winner of more than 40 national journalism awards for his work in print, television, and online journalism, including a Columbia-duPont Award, mostly for his work on international security issues.
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Show AllI'm really surprised that Rush Limbaugh hasn't called for the start of a non-profit organization called "The Cheney Youth"
...sort of reminiscent of a similar organization that existed from about 1934 to 1944 in a Teutonic area of Europe.
He doesn't need to... Homeland security beat him to it... Now the boy scouts are running "counter-terrorism" drills with police departments in Texas... With real and fake guns...
(see article on sidebar of today's CommonDreams' main page for the full article)
Faderland Uber Alles...! Heil..!
Darth Cheney haunted the bowels of the CIA until he got the report that matched his intentions to attack Iraq.
He was just passing thru.
In these forums, I have often referred to Dick Cheney as the Cardinal Richelieu of American politics. With this latest revelation, another sobriquet from history is deserved: Tomas de Torquemada.
To review, everything we think we know about 9-11 is a lie based on torture. Back in the Ashcroft era when we were having color-coded terror alerts, they were based on lies produced by torture. While we were being spied on, so were our representatives, at least some of whom knew about the torture. Last poll I saw (well, Lou Dobbs call in and agree with me poll) had 87% saying they don't think the pictures should be releases - not now, not at this time, not while we're at war.
Exactly when will we not be at war since we have been at perpetual war since 9-11? Yet we now know for a fact that the basis for transforming our nation from any pretense of following the Constitution to making us subordinate to the privatized international war machine is a product of torture.
There were a couple of reasons for not torturing. It was illegal, immoral and it didn't produce reliable results. But they went ahead and did it anyway because 9-11 changed everything. Dead or alive. Whatever it takes. You're either with us or against us. Stay the course. New president, still staying the course. Now, he says, is not the time to deal with the hijacking of our country. We're at war. You'll have to wait for the unlikely event of our being between wars in order to discuss this, at which time it will be "looking back" which we don't do either.
Our country has become something most of us never thought we could see it become. People have died. People like Lynddie England have been jailed. People like Alyssa Peterson have committed suicide because they could not defy their conscience and take part in Cheney's new America. Many people have already been held accountable by the reality created by policy. The only people who haven't been held accountable are those who wrote the policy. Why are they so ashamed to see the fruits of their labor?
Obama says, stay the course.
- Exactly when will we not be at war since we have been at perpetual war since 9-11? -
Our despicable and corrupt morons in Congress must reverse the damage that they caused when they allowed the President to launch wars against future enemies (Public Law 107-40).
That is not likely to happen. In over seven years none of the lizard-brained idiots in Congress have even explained what they meant by making the military's goal that of 'preventing future terrorism'.
So, in answer to the question - When will we not be at war?
a. when Congress ends the President's authority to wield the US military against our announced enemies (al-Qaeda, the Taliban and anybody on the President's secret kill list, if such exists and it probably does).
b. when the US military achieves the prevention of future terrorism.
"b. when the US military achieves the prevention of future terrorism."
You gotta be kidding! A military machine can never prevent terrorism.
If you want to get a picture about terrorism then read ‘Collateral Damage’ part I & II.
>>> www.scribd.com/people/documents/2169400-ep-heidner <<<
"everything we think we know about 9-11 is a lie based on torture."
that was my 1st tho't, too.
But now, it's not even being called torture. MSM constantly refer to "enhanced interrogation." Remember, waterboarding is only torture when Communists or evil despots do it...well, I guess Cheney fits the latter, so never mind.
Remember the destroyed CIA interrogation video tapes? I have wondered if those tapes were made to show higher ups how hard the interrogations was and to satisfy the demands of being tough. Further, since torture is unreliable and counter productive, the higher ups may have simply wanted torture. Did Cheney see the tapes?
Other criminals like taping their crimes, those who rape, murder etc although the tape creates evidence against them. Wasn't the destruction of the tapes clearly destruction of evidence of crimes? The tapes were probably classified documents and as such were accounted for with control logs showing who accessed them. Do the logs still exist?
So weird, this life is like a movie.
When confronted with an accusation of wrongdoing, people tend to do one of three things.
a) Admit to acts of wrongdoing.
b) Deny the acts.
c) Admit to the acts but deny that they were wrong.
The second category is the reason that we have laws.
The third category is the reason that we have mental institutions.
q
Cheney reminds me of a druggie or alcoholic that is in denial. Yeah, I take a few drugs and drink a little but I can stop anytime. Cheney is a delusional liar and belongs in an insane asylum.
He actually belongs in prison. I think he's in full command of his faculties--he's just evil.
You may be right, but I never thought ANYONE with a conscience could be THAT evil!
Read the written rationalizations for "Nacht und Nebel," Look at the Gestapo and the NKVD's methods in Germany and Russia. Look at the way the US has fairly quietly gone from being a Constitutional Republic to a covert, and now increasingly overt fascist government.
If you torture a man long enough and hard enough, you could probably get him to admit he ate his own mother, just to get the pain to stop. Under the American fascist laws, developed under the Cheney/Bush regime and now being reinforced under the Obamanation, that information could be admitted into a military commission tribunal to pronounce him guilty and have him executed or renditioned for more torture.
About the only thing that these criminals have learned is that they better be the winners so they don't have to face a Nuremberg Tribunal themselves, just as apparently the Israeli government has come to the conclusion that genocide works, as long as you are not interrupted.
I'm glad I'm an old man. I'll continue fighting for peace and sanity in our time, but fortunately, I won't live long enough to see what our nation, and possibly the world, will eventually become, before it, too, passes into the dustbin of history, leaving behind its own mountain of skulls as a legacy.
"If you torture a man long enough and hard enough, you could probably get him to admit he ate his own mother, just to get the pain to stop."
Recently on Larry King's show, former Navy SEAL Jesse Ventura said that if he were allowed to waterboard Dick Cheney then he could get the former VP to confess to the Sharon Tate murders.
When I heard him make that statement, it dawned on me that Cheney's behavior in interviews is not dissimilar to Manson's responses to questions.
q
" ... it dawned on me that Cheney's behavior in interviews is not dissimilar to Manson's responses to questions."
I know you were just noting how Cheney and Manson may have similar forms of psychosis, but still it disturbs me that people would compare Cheney to Manson. Manson terrorized a small group of people. Cheney terrorized a large slice of the world. Manson isn't qualified to shine Cheney's jackboots.
"... still it disturbs me that people would compare Cheney to Manson."
If you're only going to compare entities that are alike in every detail then there is not much point in making the comparison.
I used Manson because of his role in the Tate/LaBianca murders to which Ventura aluded.
jj
Yes, I know. No problem. I was just making a poor effort at a joke, pretending to defend Cheney's reputation as a world-class terrorist, warmonger, and general thug vs. a small-time murderer like Manson.
There is also a good interview with Ventura, on "Inside USA" an Al Jazeera program, from some months ago, available on youtube.
"Look at the way the US has fairly quietly gone from being a Constitutional Republic to a covert, and now increasingly overt fascist government."
Its probably redundant to add "police state" to what you already wrote. We have so many police agencies we can't count them all. We can not leave home without immediately being recorded by millions of cameras. And we have more people in prison per capita than any other country on earth. We have PRIVATE prisons for PROFIT. Tell me we aren't living in a police state and then spit on a sidewalk in front of a cop and see what happens.
"If you torture a man long enough and hard enough, you could probably get him to admit he ate his own mother, just to get the pain to stop."
Jesse Ventura, on the Larry King Show, stated that if he was given a waterboard and custody of Dick Cheney that he would within one hour have Cheney confess to the murder of Sharon Tate.
" ... apparently the Israeli government has come to the conclusion that genocide works, as long as you are not interrupted."
Although not widely reported, all of the foreign aid sent to Gaza has to pass through Israel, which is simply not forwarding needed food, medicine, fuel and everything else, and simply lets it sit in warehouses. Israel is literally starving to death the Palestinians of Gaza. No problem. Not in my back yard, why should I care? Oh. Wait. The US backs Israel. Israel is commiting genocide. This pisses off "terrorists" who may strike back at the U.S. Thats why I should care.
"I'm glad I'm an old man."
I'm only 59, but I agree with the rest of that paragraph. (Only? ONLY?)
_ d a r t h _ c h e n e y _ is the _ G a n g r e n e _ of our body politic
If we don't cut off the "dick", the rest of the body will soon die.
Namaste
Yup..we are already on life support and the bills are mounting up.....
Best to INCARCERATE/QUARANTINE the virus of the last administration and give this one an anti-viral shot....in the form of The People's Way or the highway!
I will even settle for circumcision, aka a lobotomy. Turn him into a vegetable wearing Florsheim shoes.
he perceived her speech as though the words were tumbling through an echo chamber.
"mmmmmmmmmmmrrrrrrrrrrrr cchheeeennnneyyy itt'ssss timmmme ffoorrr yourrr meddddsssss."
cheney thought for a moment, 'have i ever perceived speech differently' ? he decided no, it was always this way. he grasped the paper pill cup from the charge nurse and anxiously swallowed his meds. everyone was delighted; the nurse, mr cheney's daughter, 75% of the american people and even dick was happy. the surgical procedure was a success!!!
although he was no longer recognizable,
as the twisted smirky snarkiness
went down the drain with parts of his cortex,
a revelatory peephole of connection
to peace
The people who sign up to become interrogators are likely to be folks who enjoy hitting people rather than reaching out to them at an intellectual level. I would bet anything that if a study were made of it, both CIA and private interrogators would reveal a lifetime history more of bullying and control than of emotional empathy. I imagine they are constrained in this by their training and their directives, as a California highway cop maintains his fake courtesy in situations where he is not authorized to beat you to the pavement. Abuses happen when such dogs are let off the short leash.
"The Daily Beast placed a call to Cheney's office and will post a response if we get one."
Hilarious! The feared coup went through after all! Darth Viper is still in charge today after 70 million USans voted change of guard! The passive electorate, the enabling party, and the censoring media all conspired to give it all back to Darth!
Cheesedick Cheney is a sick man and has been for as long time. I'm talking about his heart, not his soul. Sick, weak men like him (think about the frail ex-chicken rancher Heinrich Himmler) need this kind of thing (torture) to validate themselves. Always in the back of Cheney's mind is the thought of the last, final junkyard dog heart attack that will finish him off. Playing God with captured prisoners makes him feel whole, virile and on top of the world.
not only this,
but he created shadow companys
to do businesses outside the US,
thereby not paying any social security or medicare taxes,
and also have been getting away with tax shelters..
here is the article by boston globe:
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2008/03/07/war_profiteering_by_tax_dodge/
On page A19 of today's NYT, the right wing conservative think tank, Accuracy in Media, paid for and published a full page ad puporting to be sponsored by 'Torture Truth Project', a project of AIM.
T O R T U R E
Throughout The Entire World
The Word 'Torture' Means Intense,
Lasting, Brutal Physical Agony
Why Is The U.S. News Media Eagerly
Spreading An Incalculably Harmful Lie
That Can Only Motivate Terrorists To
Further Attacks On America?
A Grassroots Plea To
The U.S. News Media
Stop Misleading The World
That Our Country Condones Torture
*You now know as a result of the recent release of what you
choose to call "The Torture Memos" that these are the 14
interrogation techniques permitted by the United States:
*Sleep deprivation...Dietary manipulation... Abdominal
slaps.. Facial slaps... Attention grasps...Facial holds...
Forced nudity..Water dousing..Stress positions not designed
to produce pain.. Cramped confinement in a dark space...
Confinement with insects such as a caterpillar... Pushing
against a wall..Wall standing...Pouring water on a person's
face to induce the feeling of drowning(waterboarding)
*As you know, waterboarding has not been used for 5 years and
was used on only 3 detainees. Our own troops are subject to
waterboarding as part of their training.
*By your continual use of the word 'Torture' to describe these
interrogation techniques you have been misleading the world
that the United States condones techniques of barbarous
cruelty. The consequences could be horrendous.
IT'S TIME FOR THE TRUTH
We are losing the goodwill of people across the world and you
are aiding al Qaida in recruiting terrorists for future
attacks on America.
Torture Truth Project
A project of Accuracy in Media, Inc.
4455 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20008/(202)364-4401
There's enough evidence for the DOJ to indict, Bush, the CIA operatives and the authors of the memos. The ensuing criminal investigation can determine what other techniques besides waterboarding are illegal and which other members of the Bush administration and members of Congress should also be charged.
What is confusing to me is that the Constitutions gives Congress the power to make the rules for captures on land and sea. How did the president get this power? If Cheney authorized also, we have really gotten away from this part of the Constitution.
This is just part of the overall accretion of executive power, the elimination of checks and balances, the fact that we are electing a virtual dictator and the threat to our democracy. Be afraid! Be very afraid!
Don't you know why we got saway from checks and balances? Because Congress can't be bothered working hard for the American people. They're too busy raising money 24/7 for their party's control of Congress. It's all about them and beating the opposing party. That's all they care about. Pelosi's refusal for impeachment hearings was motivated by pure politics. Crap, there could've been photos of Bush wearing the bloody glove and Pelosi would have denied the crime because the only thing that matters to all these opportunistic pigs is staying in power.
I have to say how much I'm enjoying watching both parties implode over torture right now, especially Pelosi. My fantasy is seeing Pelosi implicated in Bush's crimes and tossed out on her ass. She deserves to live out her days in misery, obsessing over the self serving decision of allowing Bush to destroy this country.
Considering the complicity of BOTH political parties, it now seems that there WILL be no justice or rule of law until some international body takes charge and organizes a Nuremberg type of tribunal to investigate and present all of the evidence for both the torture as well as the Bush doctrine of preemptive war, otherwise known in history as "Crimes Against Peace." See Robert H. Jackson's website (the prosecutor at Nuremberg and US Supreme Court Justice):
"Jackson drafted the original charges against the Nazis, outlining three categories of crimes for which the defeated Germans would be called to account. The first category included in the draft was the crime of aggressive war (Crimes Against Peace). Jackson considered this to be the most heinous international crime."
ALL TORTURE IS IMMORAL ,ILLEGAL AND FLAT OUT ACTS OF WEAK MINDED STUPIDITY.
WHY!
Because a society that approves torture for one reason, will approve it for other reasons. And soon acts of torture by Americans on Americans will be justified by people who do not care about anything other than gaining control and power.
Hitler tortured an entire nation with his secret police. Germans spying and committing acts of surveillance for the Fatherlands security.
FEAR MONGERING, PSYCHOLOGICAL TORTURE!!!!!
Sound familiar.
I am a victim of community watch, gang stalking torture.
24/7 surveillance , cars tail gating, headlights blaring, constant low frequency sound waves , deep bass notes, hitting the front an rear of my house, Directed Energy Weapons using micro wave energy and xrays to make my body shake and quiver in the middle of the night till I leave my bedroom, sirens marking me leaving my home.
If you have not guessed by now who runs all the local community watch groups, you are not to smart.
Self righteous right wingers who were given a great deal of power by Bush and the patriot acts are committing acts of torture every day on thousands of people.
This is how they build their power.
Thats why torture is wrong, its a terminal cancer that will devour a nations freedoms after it corrupts its morals.
BORNFREEMEN
Community watch gang stalking torture victim. 2.6 years and running.
Signs point to sadomasochism, a frequent conservative condition.
This is why the videos were made.
This is why they were destroyed.
The Nazis, School of the Americas, Abu Garib - all Sexual Sadism carried to the extreme of crimes against humanity. The people who are involved in this were enjoying it. If we ever find out the truth, I'm afraid it will be much worse than imagined. The voyerism/ fetishism that makes people like this keep the photos and other mementos of their "fun" may be their undoing.
snydly
IF SOMEONE WERE TO WRITE A NOVEL IN WHICH THE PERPETRATOR OF A GRAND CRIME, one who had motive, means and opportunity, and who also was in a position to put himself in charge of interrogations, and who also had all the results of questioning sent to his office only, and directed CIA contractors who tortured suspects in ways that could turn suspects into something less interesting than a house pet...if that perp wanted to cover his tracks by neutralizing anyone who could describe any part of the chain of events leading up to that grand crime...what better way to do it than, while in office, to intervene when regular, effective questioning was starting to lead in that direction...and then, when out of office, keep popping up to mess with the process of discovery that is beginning to reveal parts of the puzzle...still trying to keep control...that perp would be a desperate, dangerous man.
What a novel it would be. Where's John Grisham when you need him? Where are the hero(s) in our FBI and CIA and DoJ when we need them?
Why read a novel when reality is stranger than fiction?
Read Collateral Damage part I and II
www.scribd.com/people/documents/2169400-ep-heidner
You will find ALL your ingredients of grand crime and more.
You will not be able to stop reading until the very end.
It is better (=sicker) than any thriller you've ever read.
It will change the way you look at history, politics, finance, war and terrorism. You will find out about real terrorism. Many persons in these documents are well known; many are right now in pivotal positions of politics and finance. These people do shape YOUR life and that of our children right now. The details are researched and referenced in over 400 footnotes. The consequences are BEYOND BELIEF.
Harry Whittington should have returned fire.
Sadly he's not the only 'Collateral Damage'.
Read 'Collateral Damage' part I and II:
www.scribd.com/people/documents/2169400-ep-heidner
"Silent as the Grave: A Timely Demise Draws the Curtain on a Deeply Rooted Evil",
by Chris Floyd, May 13, 2009
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m54223
QUOTE:
As Scott Horton at Harper's reports -- drawing on the reporting of Andy Worthington -- the Terror War captive who would have provided the most damning evidence of the direct connection between the Bush administration's torture program and its concoction of false evidence to "justify" its Hitlerian act of aggression in Iraq has suddenly, somehow, come over all dead-like.
Ali Mohamed al-Fakheri -- more usually known as Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi -- was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001 and subjected to a series of horrific tortures designed to make him "confess" to non-existent ties between Iraq and al Qaeda. These torture-induced fantasies were then used over and over by top Bush officials -- including the sainted Colin Powell in his infamous "Gleiwitz Incident" appearance at the UN in February 2003, which "sealed the deal" on the war for the bipartisan political and media elites. After this, al-Fakheri was deep-sixed into the blackest quadrants of the American gulag, then secretly "renditioned" to the tender mercies of America's new best friend, Libyan dictator Moamar Gadafy.
There he languished for many years, until a few noises began to be made in Washington about the possibility of looking into -- at some point, via some unspecified mechanism -- some of the "allegations" about "harsh interrogation techniques" used by the Bush Administration -- and the Bush Administration only! -- during a circumscribed period of time. More serious, however, have been the bruitings of actual criminal investigations and prosecutions in the legal systems of foreign nations, under the clear and unequivocal imperatives of international treaties on torture. Worse still is the potential PR fallout from the increasing level of revelations about the gulag atrocities (or rather confirmations of atrocities that have long been public knowledge -- to those few members of the public who want to know about them). Too much open and direct confirmation that the torture system has been devised and operated to manufacture false "intelligence" for fearmongering and warmongering (as well as its function as a means of state terror) would not only hamper the efforts of the militarist Republican faction to regain its ascendancy in the imperial palace -- it would also hamper the efforts of the militarist Democratic faction now in ascendancy to use those same authoritarian powers of secrecy, lawlessness, deceit and torture. (Yes, Virginia, torture is still going on, and has never stopped.)
So in every way, to every side in the imperial court, Ali Mohamed al-Fakheri was a most inconvenient man, a thorny problem indeed. But as that great gulagist of yore, Josef Stalin, liked to say: "Remove the man, remove the problem." And now al-Fakheri has been removed.
II.
None of this should come as any suprise, given the nature of the imperial system. And no one has anatomized this slouching beast with more depth, insight and painful clarity than Arthur Silber. Back from yet another illness-induced absence, Silber has delivered a powerful, richly detailed analysis -- and indictment -- of the system, and the poisionous myths that have sustained it with self-righteous justifications for centuries of slaughter and atrocity. No excerpts this time: you should read the piece in full, and let it inform your thinking as each new glimpse of our brutal reality filters through the searing white phosphorus smoke laid down by our elites.
END QUOTE
The article by Andy Worthington linked in the above piece is the same one (based on the title anyway) that was posted at CD May 13th and has the following for title.
"The “Suicide” Of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi: Why The Media Silence?", May 12, 2009 (the original date, according to the original copy)
I began reading a little of the article by Arthur Silber that Chris Floyd links to in the above piece and will quote some "bits" from it; in the post following this one.
I began reading a little of the article by Arthur Silber that Chris Floyd links to in the his article linked in my post just before this one and will quote some "bits" from Arthur Silber's piece.
"Against Prosecution (III): Obama and the Triumph of the American Myth", May 12, 2009
(url broken over two lines)
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2009/05/
against-prosecution-iii-obama-and.html
QUOTE:
...
Reality and Truth Are Banished: The Descent into National Madness
...
Let it be noted that a few of us, a very few of us, repeatedly tried to warn you about all of this. With regard to certain aspects of Hedges' theme, I wrote the following in September 2007:
(indented in original copy) Ever since the end of World War II (and going back to the Spanish-American War and the occupation of the Philippines), the goal of our foreign policy has been world hegemony -- and this is the goal shared and advanced by both the Democratic and Republican parties. It may not serve the purposes of "ordinary" Americans or of foreigners numbering in the millions -- and God knows, it has murdered enough of them (but mostly poor, brown foreigners, so as to prevent unrest among the docile American public) -- but it certainly serves the interests of the ruling elites.
(indented ...) As it goes abroad, so it goes at home. Our bloated, corporatist, increasingly authoritarian government similarly serves the interests of the ruling elites, as the lives of more and more Americans become exercises in mindless stupor. ...
(indented ... ) So it's all about self-delusion and marketing. We can't speak of genocide or the pursuit of power and wealth by means of mass murder -- so we talk about "American freedom," "spreading democracy" and "national interests." We insist on our "good intentions" and that, no matter the catastrophic devastation that directly results from our actions, we "mean well."
(indented ...) On the domestic front, because the Democrats and Republicans both want and enjoy the fruits of the corporatist, authoritarian state but still vie with each other for control over the mechanisms of power, the two parties have a problem. In terms of basic principles and the interests they serve, they are indistinguishable. ...
...
... It was dangerous enough when truth was the enemy; truth was to be destroyed, but there remained a barely discernible acknowledgment that the truth still existed. With the ascension of Obama the Marketer, Obama the Fulfiller of Dreams, Obama the Commander of Illusion, the lie occupies the most prominent national space. Once installed, the lie grows daily and hourly. ...
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Torture and the American Project
When we attempt to gauge whether an individual is genuine and honest about his proclaimed goals and intentions, we can look to various indicators in our search for evidence. We will note conflicts and contradictions between a person's statements and his actions, always remembering that, especially in the realm of politics, a person's statements will convey what he wants you to believe, while his actions will reveal what he himself is in fact concerned about. (Keep that point in mind; we will return to it later in this series when we consider the realities of Obama's foreign policy.)
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END QUOTE
A video I've mentioned several times before in posts at CD and in which Pepe Escobar explains that what the U.S. is really after is "full spectrum dominance", while also stating the the Dem. and Repub. parties are rather actually "merged", which he's too awfully right about, was for TheRealNews.com and can be found there or at Youtube with the YT title of, "Full Spectrum Dominance".
They really are very merged; only operating a little differently. Like Arthur Silber says and Pepe Escobar lays out the details for, the objectives are the same; hence, indeed merged!
During one U.S. presidential administration we have one set of evil doers; during the next administration, we have the next set of evil doers; and on and on and on ... it all goes. It's a continuum that's not a merry-go-round, except that their evils, combined, while operated a little differently, certainly seems to make a lot of peoples' heads spin; because they don't perceive that the whole is rather really [merged], a continuum. Given that the Dems and Repubs work for slightly different ruling "elites", this also seems to add to peoples' confusion; instead of seeing that this apparent difference is more deceptive than anything particularly meaningful, besides permitting us to realise that we have more evil ruling elites than we can "stomach", and being able to better identify each of the sectors they're from or in, that is. The core continuum remains, continues to operate, non-stop; having the same objectives.
[Full spectrum dominance]! Militarily and economically! After all, the most core objective is economic dominance, but they need the military to achieve the economic. And of course this requires the involvement of geopolitics, without which ... forget the rest. The geopolitics and military are the means, while the economic is the ultimate objective.
And, as for governments, and elites, of Canada and European "allies", they all want as "big of a piece of the (overall) pie" as they can get by allying themselves with the U.S. in its "full spectrum dominance" scheme. They know the ruling elites of supwerpower USA want more for themselves, but realise that the latter need the formers' "assistance" and will therefore share, if "we just all get along and ... scratch each others' backs", say.
There's a whole lotta [brown-nosing] going on in all of this hellishly extreme criminality against humanity! I'll say or add.
A car pulled over on the freeway by Sacramento was being torn apart the other day-and the white vehicle that made the stop and arrests said Department of Homeland Security in it's "shield".
However this was a legitimate stop-a copy of the US Constitution was discovered secreted within a door panel.
Possession of course punishable by hanging.
Huh? Where did you find this bit of nonsense?
azjoe ,
Are you joking? If not, then did you read this online? If you did, then how about a link?
Must be a joke, for who would have thought of secreting a copy of the U.S. Constitution, instead of simply carrying a copy in normal manner or perhaps in a briefcase, say.
Punishable by hanging, eh? Well, GW Bush did say that the Constitution is "just a piece of paper", so since when does the U.S. punish people for mere pieces of paper of no importance?
Maybe the defendant will be able to use that historical reference in his or her defence in court; in this tale.
It's likely to be a rehash of one of those false spam e-mails that run around the web all the time. Check out www.snopes.com and also http://www.factcheck.org/
These are non-partisan sites that debunk most of this crap.
Capitol punishment for carrying copies of the constitution is a theme often sent around by both the radical left and the radical right depending on whose story you want to believe. It is hard to believe on this site I know, but most radical republicans really believe that, somehow, we liberals want to take away their freedom and turn the US into a fascist state.....yea I know...pot calling the kettle black and all that.....But that's the kind of bunker mentality that the radicals usually have.
The difference is that on the left the radicals are not in charge of the party.
On the right they certainly ARE in charge.
And Cheney, we have seen, is telling them to "stay the course"...advice he gave George Bush on numerous occasions. These ideas of Imperial (but somehow small??) government from the elected King are articles of faith with him that no amount of evidence to the contrary can shake.
And if you try to prove him wrong he will subject you to torture so that you will confess to the correctness of his view.....so you see, he just cannot possibly be wrong.....
Cheers,
Todd
This is America's darkest hour. I hope, but wonder if, our collective good intentions can find the way back to the dream. Simply put, an element of distrust, resulting from the Nixon, Raygun, Cheney-era disregard for credibility, pervades all our discussions. They have convinced so many that only self-interest is reliable. I hope we can.
I find it quite sad that Obama has turned his back on the people who truly believed that he would be our champion for truth and justice.
Personally, I won't feel safe from the fascists in the shadows of Wahington D.C. until they frog-walk Cheney and his evil PNAC minions before the Court in the Hague.
I don't even care if they are convicted... I just want to see them humiliated and exposed for being the animals that they are.
Right on!!!!!!
Pull the cloak of evil over there heads creting a hood and walk them in chains and ear muffs through the streets up to the court house steps.
Thats how we treat terrorists.
Except , they will have their date in court.
But lets wait a few years.