Actually, It's Called Talking Out of Your Ass

The first thing that should grab you and shake you by your lapels when you read this is that Mr. Judis is quoting an "unnamed policy expert." That's like quoting the guy who says something profound before he falls off his barstool:

On the morning of the second day, one of the policy experts pulled me aside and told me that the night before over drinks, some CIA people had told him that they believed Iraq was behind the anthrax attacks. He was taken aback, and so was I, because we presumed they had access to information that might demonstrate this. I don’t who they were; I also don’t believe that the CIA itself was officially engaged in spreading rumors of this kind--most of CIA officialdom was very skeptical of the invasion--but I think it is possible that there was a network people who were promoting a theory about anthrax that helped make the case for war. They may have been unwittingly spreading mis-information that emanated from the perpetrator. Or they may have been winging it irresponsibly. It’s not clear, but I join those who believe that some kind of congressional investigation is in order.

No serious assessment of our intelligence agencies is going to happen until the Congressional leadership reshuffles after the election this Fall. Nothing is to be gained from any hearing chaired by Senator Jay Rockefeller, whose chairmanship has been a disaster. A serious assessment and change will actually begin when a new DNI, a new DIRNSA, a new head of the CIA, and most definitely a new head of the FBI can be chosen. The current bloc holding those positions are the stick in the eye of any progress that might come from having Congress yap to itself about what it thinks should be done. What's sad is that Michael Hayden could stay in place and still be marginalized and contained because his position has seen so much power erode over the last year.

The other problem with what Mr. Judis has to say is that he might have been listening to someone "talking out of their ass" and repeating something that, in early 2003, had been circulating since the Anthrax attacks:

During the last week of October, 2001, ABC News, led by Brian Ross, continuously trumpeted the claim as their top news story that government tests conducted on the anthrax -- tests conducted at Ft. Detrick -- revealed that the anthrax sent to Daschele contained the chemical additive known as bentonite. ABC News, including Peter Jennings, repeatedly claimed that the presence of bentonite in the anthrax was compelling evidence that Iraq was responsible for the attacks, since -- as ABC variously claimed -- bentonite "is a trademark of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program" and "only one country, Iraq, has used bentonite to produce biological weapons."

So much for the wisdom and insight of what a policy expert hears over drinks.

--WS

The Sooner the Hayden Era Ends, the Better

Of course, the man who presided over the debacle of 9/11, the fallout over waterboarding, and the explosion of private contractors probably isn't the right guy for the job--and the sooner the Michael Hayden era ends, the better. He should never again be put in charge of any agency or any aspect of US intelligence.

Soon after accepting the post of CIA director two years ago, Michael V. Hayden set an unusual goal for his scandal-beset agency: virtual invisibility.

"CIA needs to get out of the news as source or subject," he said in an internal memo to his staff in 2006.

Two years later, that goal is far from met, as Hayden has tacitly acknowledged. In a retirement ceremony last month marking the end of his military career, the Air Force general stressed the need for the agency to "stay in the shadows" while ignoring what he called the "sometimes shrill and uninformed voices of criticism."

The comment reflected the difficulties that Hayden's CIA faces in trying to turn the corner on six years of controversy at the same time that it attempts sweeping internal changes. While the agency's leadership has sought a return to normal and has launched initiatives intended to improve ties with lawmakers and foreign allies, it finds itself in the cross hairs of a Congress determined to force a reckoning over the agency's past intelligence failures and its conduct in the fight against terrorism.

The quickest way for CIA to get out of the newspapers is for CIA to stop breaking the law, stop letting contractors do their dirty work, and for Hayden and his management style to depart. The next President needs to appoint someone who will reduce the contractor workforce, emphasize professionalism over politics, and get us back into the business of Human Intelligence (HUMINT) and get us out of the business of torturing people.

--WS

From the department of fixed facts

This is a whistleblower whose story needs a good look-see, since we know that what he is charging has already been perpetrated against us to trump up one war. A former CIA operative is coming in from the cold and, through an attorney, since he is forbidden from revealing his identity by the agency. (Cheney will decide when to release his name and tell Bob Novak.)

filed a motion in federal court late Friday asking the government to declassify legal documents describing what he says was a deliberate suppression of findings on Iran that were contrary to agency views at the time.

The former operative alleged in a 2004 lawsuit that the CIA fired him after he repeatedly clashed with senior managers over his attempts to file reports that challenged the conventional wisdom about weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. Key details of his claim have not been made public because they describe events the CIA deems secret.

You have no idea how deeply it pains me, and on what level, that we live in an era not of rogue agents, but a rogue agency.


Roy Krieger, the attorney representing the former undercover operative, asserts that the NIE on Iran's nuclear capabilities that was released last winter undermined the agency's case for censoring his lawsuit. "On five occasions he was ordered to either falsify his reporting on WMD in the Near East, or not to file his reports at all," Krieger said in an interview.

The former officer charges in court filings and statements through his attorney, that his 22 year career was destroyed when he raised questions about the nuclear programs of Iraq and Iran. The officer in question is a native of the Middle East, fluent in both Farsi and Arabic, and had engaged in undercover work in the Persian Gulf region, where he successfully recruited an informant with access to sensitive information about Iran's nuclear program.

The informant provided secret evidence that Tehran had halted its research into designing and building a nuclear weapon. Yet, when the operative sought to file reports on the findings, his attempts were "thwarted by CIA employees," according to court papers. Later he was told to "remove himself from any further handling" of the informant, the documents say.

In the months after the conflict, the operative became the target of two internal investigations, one of them alleging an improper sexual relationship with a female informant, and the other alleging financial improprieties. Krieger said his client cooperated with investigators in both cases and the allegations of wrongdoing were never substantiated. Krieger contends in court documents that the investigations were a "pretext to discredit."

Krieger maintains that his client is being further punished by the agency's decision prohibiting him from fully regaining his identity. "He is not even allowed to attend court hearings about his own case," Krieger said.

The agency issued the standard denials, that they don't fix facts, blah blah blah blah blah...and there was a time I would have taken their word for it. But that time is long past.

In fact, it is high time that the Intelligence committees of both chambers get together behind closed doors in a joint session with this fellow and have a little chat, under oath.

Yet Another Turf War in the Making

While browsing through some items at War and Piece, this stuck out

Executive Order 12333. LAT:

A Bush administration plan to issue new orders realigning the chain of command over U.S. spy services has triggered turf-related skirmishes across the intelligence community.

The changes could erode the CIA's standing as the nation's lead spy service abroad by requiring agency station chiefs in certain countries to cede authority to officials from other U.S. spy agencies, officials said. ...

Is this just an "updating" of the document or a real attempt at speeding along the wholesale destruction of the CIA? The basis for the changes was the virtually unnecessary creation of yet another bureaucratic strata called the Director of National Intelligence. The director, of course, has no control over national intelligence and can't hire or fire anyone or make significant changes in the budget without being told to do so by the Secretary of Defense. The DNI is supposed to guide the intelligence community, but precious little guiding can be done without any power.

Instead of dealing with anything significant, the update has a controversial provision:

The most controversial component of the new order would reshape the roles of the CIA's station chiefs, the agency's top representatives in other countries.

Station chiefs have traditionally operated with significant autonomy, serving as the main intelligence advisors to U.S. ambassadors, controlling clandestine operations in their countries, and acting as the main point of contact for foreign intelligence services.

Under the proposed plan, the station chiefs would remain in position but could be required to cede some of their authority to officials from other agencies, including the NSA or the Defense Intelligence Agency.

"There will always be a station chief," said a second U.S. intelligence official familiar with the proposal. But the director of national intelligence "may choose a different representative."

That's a recipe for disaster. In effect, the change would allow the DNI to swoop in, make a change as to who is calling the shots, and nothing can be done about it. What would cause that to happen? Say, for example, a CIA station chief refuses to allow some aspect of what he or she controls to be politicized. The DNI can walk straight out of a meeting at the White House and make a change that would sideline the station chief and put "someone else" in charge.

Well, would that someone else be the "best person for the job" or would that person be "a sycophantic yes man who will go along with anything?"

Which answer gets to the part about who is doing the job of defending this country against its enemies? Because that question never comes up when the Bush Administration starts issuing orders and changing things. The first and only consideration is--what's the best way to defend this country. Not "what can we do to make sure we get our way?"

Can we get back to the days of defending this country?

Terrorism works! An American President Quaked in Fear, and Sold America's Soul

CIA Director Michael 'shame of the Air Force' Hayden admitted Tuesday the the CIA has broken federal and international laws and used torture, in the form of waterboarding, to interrogate three suspected terrorists, but he quickly added that the technique has not been used in five years.

And what reasoning does he use to justify torture?

They were a bunch of chickenshits, pissing down their legs in fear.

Torture was employed at secret CIA detention facilities (the so-called 'Black Sites') at a time when little was known about al Qaeda, and they feared more attacks like those of September 11, 2001 were imminent. He seems to waive it away with a simple "those two realities have changed."

"General Hayden's acknowledgment that the CIA subjected three detainees to waterboarding is an explicit admission of criminal activity," said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism director for human Rights Watch. "Those who authorized these crimes have to be held accountable."

Hayden stressed that waterboarding hasn't been used in nearly five years, and that other so-called "enhanced" techniques had been used on "fewer than one-third" of the "fewer than 100" people the CIA has held since 9-11. He said that although the techniques went beyond what was allowed in the Army field manual, the attorney general had certified them as legal for the CIA. The use of waterboarding would require the agreement of the president and attorney general, he said.

His comments came during a hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee on the risk that terrorist groups pose in which he said the U.S. faced dangers from al Qaida, groups that get money or training from terrorist organizations and what officials call "homegrown extremists" in the United States.

Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, who also testified, said that U.S. cells hadn't been very effective so far but that they could use information on the Internet to become more deadly.

When the current occupant authorized waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques" (call them what they are: torture) he sold America's soul, and illustrated Ben Franklin's observation that those who would trade away their freedoms for a false sense of security deserve neither.

Waterboarding is torture. Period. Full stop.

It has long since been classified as such, and Congress is considering taking up legislation banning the CIA from using it. It is already prohibited under the Army Field Manual.

I am the ultimate Cold War brat. I have some pretty set-in-stone ideas and ideals. One of them is that we simply don't do things like that. There truly are prices that are simply too high to pay. Abdicating the moral high ground out of fear is one of them.

I realize full measure that "American Exceptionalism" was always a myth - but at least we used to pretend to behave in an exceptional manner.

The President Throws US Intel Agencies Under the Bus

[updated some of my rambling and my less-than-clear indignation]
Starting off another incredible week of mind-bogglingly frightening developments and insane incidents, here is what amounts to a stunning revelation, one the media seems to have paid absolutely no heed as they stampede themselves through another round of meaningless primary races and celebrity news:

Bothersome Intel on Iran
By Michael Hirsh | NEWSWEEK
Jan 21, 2008 Issue

In public, President Bush has been careful to reassure Israel and other allies that he still sees Iran as a threat, while not disavowing his administration's recent National Intelligence Estimate. That NIE, made public Dec. 3, embarrassed the administration by concluding that Tehran had halted its weapons program in 2003, which seemed to undermine years of bellicose rhetoric from Bush and other senior officials about Iran's nuclear ambitions.

But in private conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last week, the president all but disowned the document, said a senior administration official who accompanied Bush on his six-nation trip to the Mideast.

"He told the Israelis that he can't control what the intelligence community says, but that [the NIE's] conclusions don't reflect his own views" about Iran's nuclear-weapons program, said the official, who would discuss intelligence matters only on the condition of anonymity.

Yes--the President of the United States has "his own views" and those views are NOT informed by the work of the intelligence services that work for this country. That's "work for this country" and "not specifically to reinforce his policy choices and preferences."

Yeah, yeah--Cheney runs things. Cheney has his fingerprints all over this statement and this leak. We get that.

Why is this not page 1, and on every network, and screaming at you from all sides? How is it that the President of the United States of America can go to a foreign country and tell the leader of that country that the collective judgement and estimate of the massive intelligence community means nothing to him? When is he going to come out and tell the American people that the 43.5 billion dollars spent in 2007 by this country to defend itself might as well have been pissed away down the drain?

What are we paying for? Why bother to even have an intelligence community? He's just going to put on his Carnac hat and make the wrong guesses and not get any laughs, right?



How would you like to be a career intelligence professional, and know that your President went overseas and sat down with some other leader and, in a chummy sort of way, basically said that the work you've done to protect America is a joke and a fraud and that he knows more than you do?

Here are the reasons why this matters--the President hasn't fired the DNI or the head of any of the agencies that matter. He hasn't fired any of the people who aren't telling him what he wants to hear. But he holds the work of those people in obvious low regard. Why else would they "leak" that Bush told Olmert that he has his own ideas about what Iran is doing to develop nuclear weapons? Every one of these people is an appointee of his own choice. He nominated these people. He could fire all of them in one fell swoop. He is, ultimately, responsible for everything they oversee. And what they now know is this--he doesn't care what the people who work for them have to say about a critical issue. He'll just dismiss it and do whatever the hell he wants.

That's NOT a great way to go about things in a Democracy. Just wanted to mention that.

What country is this? Where do we live? What nation is this, again? I simply have no idea anymore.

The incredible hubris of a man who thinks he knows more than the tens of thousands of people who have spent their lives defending this country is astonishing. Isn't there someone close to him that can remind him that he has no viable track record for getting anything right? Someone to speak truth to power? Someone who can show him, at least in theory, "a DVD of what is going on in New Orleans", only tailored to show him why the US intel community downgraded the threat from Iran?

Why didn't someone, decades ago, basically sit down and explain to this man that his inability to get anything right means he doesn't get to dismiss the opinions, findings and research of tens of thousands of people who have a better track record than he does? Not a great track record, but significantly better. At least they have subjected themselves to criticism, review, and reorganization.

Apparently, the man who got it wrong about virtually everything knows more than the people who are there to figure these things out. So why bother funding them next year? We might as well spend the money erecting a monument to the fabulous insight and intellect of a President who will leave office at record low approval ratings, record high number of scandals and disasters yet to be sorted out, and with more hubris than any mad dictator who has ever lived. I mean, really. Does reality figure into any of this anymore?

So this is the way we start the week--with this leaked tidbit that throws our intelligence agencies under a bus. And that's what it really was--a leak. That leak places this country in serious jeopardy.

More on those troublesome tapes

Lee Hamilton and Thomas Kean waited until after the holidays to take to the pages of the New York Times to blast the CIA for obstructing justice withholding evidence from the 9/11 Commission that was sanctioned by both Congress and the President to mount an investigation into the attacks and ascertain the “facts and circumstances relating to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001” - and to make recommendations that might prevent future attacks. Almost immediately after the commission was created, the president's Chief of Staff ordered all agencies of the executive branch to comply with the commissions requests.

The commission’s mandate was sweeping and it explicitly included the intelligence agencies. But the recent revelations that the C.I.A. destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot. Those who knew about those videotapes — and did not tell us about them — obstructed our investigation.

There could have been absolutely no doubt in the mind of anyone at the C.I.A. — or the White House — of the commission’s interest in any and all information related to Qaeda detainees involved in the 9/11 plot. Yet no one in the administration ever told the commission of the existence of videotapes of detainee interrogations.

When the press reported that, in 2002 and maybe at other times, the C.I.A. had recorded hundreds of hours of interrogations of at least two Qaeda detainees, we went back to check our records. We found that we did ask, repeatedly, for the kind of information that would have been contained in such videotapes.

The commission did not have a mandate to investigate how detainees were treated; our role was to investigate the history and evolution of Al Qaeda and the 9/11 plot. Beginning in June 2003, we requested all reports of intelligence information on these broad topics that had been gleaned from the interrogations of 118 named individuals, including both Abu Zubaydah and Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, two senior Qaeda operatives, portions of whose interrogations were apparently recorded and then destroyed.

The C.I.A. gave us many reports summarizing information gained in the interrogations. But the reports raised almost as many questions as they answered. Agency officials assured us that, if we posed specific questions, they would do all they could to answer them.

So, in October 2003, we sent another wave of questions to the C.I.A.’s general counsel. One set posed dozens of specific questions about the reports, including those about Abu Zubaydah. A second set, even more important in our view, asked for details about the translation process in the interrogations; the background of the interrogators; the way the interrogators handled inconsistencies in the detainees’ stories; the particular questions that had been asked to elicit reported information; the way interrogators had followed up on certain lines of questioning; the context of the interrogations so we could assess the credibility and demeanor of the detainees when they made the reported statements; and the views or assessments of the interrogators themselves.

The general counsel responded in writing with non-specific replies. The agency did not disclose that any interrogations had ever been recorded or that it had held any further relevant information, in any form. Not satisfied with this response, we decided that we needed to question the detainees directly, including Abu Zubaydah and a few other key captives.

In a lunch meeting on Dec. 23, 2003, George Tenet, the C.I.A. director, told us point blank that we would have no such access. During the meeting, we emphasized to him that the C.I.A. should provide any documents responsive to our requests, even if the commission had not specifically asked for them. Mr. Tenet replied by alluding to several documents he thought would be helpful to us, but neither he, nor anyone else in the meeting, mentioned videotapes.

A meeting on Jan. 21, 2004, with Mr. Tenet, the White House counsel, the secretary of defense and a representative from the Justice Department also resulted in the denial of commission access to the detainees. Once again, videotapes were not mentioned.

As a result of this January meeting, the C.I.A. agreed to pose some of our questions to detainees and report back to us. The commission concluded this was all the administration could give us. But the commission never felt that its earlier questions had been satisfactorily answered. So the public would be aware of our concerns, we highlighted our caveats on page 146 in the commission report.

As a legal matter, it is not up to us to examine the C.I.A.’s failure to disclose the existence of these tapes. That is for others. What we do know is that government officials decided not to inform a lawfully constituted body, created by Congress and the president, to investigate one the greatest tragedies to confront this country. We call that obstruction.

Huh. That's exactly what I call it, too.

The Torture-Tapes Story Isn't Fading Away

It isn't like the Bush administration needed yet another criminal investigation, but that's what they got earlier today when Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed an outside prosecutor to head up a criminal investigation into the destruction of the tapes.

Last month, the CIA admitted that tapes of operatives using "harsh interrogation techniques" against torturing two terrorism suspects had been destroyed. The admission of the destroyed video evidence sparked a congressional inquiry and a preliminary investigation by the Department of Justice.

''The Department's National Security Division has recommended, and I have concluded, that there is a basis for initiating a criminal investigation of this matter, and I have taken steps to begin that investigation,'' Mukasey said in a statement released Wednesday.

The A.G. has tapped John Durham, an AUSA from Connecticut who has a reputation as a tough, no-nonsense, publicity-averse career prosecutor to oversee the case. He is best known for his role in sending several corrupt public officials to prison, including former Republican Governor Jim Rowland in 2005.

John L. Helgerson, Inspector General for the CIA, who worked with the DoJ on the preliminary investigation has recused himself from the criminal investigation. Additionally, the US Attorney's office for the Eastern District of Virginia (where Langley is physically located) has also been recused.

Mukasey did not take the additional step of naming Durham a Special Prosecutor, but instead designated him the "acting U.S. Attorney" in the case. Durham will not have the same level of autonomy in conducting his investigation that Patrick Fitzgerald had in the Plame outing and treason trial of "Scooter" Libby.

The CIA has already acquiesced to congressional investigators, who have begun reviewing documents and files, and the former head of the Clandestine Services, Jose Rodriguez, has been summoned to appear before the House Intelligence Committee on January 16. Rodriguez was the official who ultimately gave the "destroy" order, after much internal wrangling by administration lawyers.

''The CIA will of course cooperate fully with this investigation as it has with the others into this matter,'' agency spokesman Mark Mansfield said.

Here is hoping that this investigation goes right to the door of the "fourth branch"...

Cheney in an orange jumpsuit would be a sight to behold - one that might make me pass out from a schaddenfreude overdose!

Was it Arrogance? Was it Hubris? Whatever it was, somebody needs to GO TO JAIL!!!

Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Go directly to jail.

The CIA withheld evidence from the 9/11 Commission, and then destroyed it.

In interviews this week, the two chairmen of the commission, Lee H. Hamilton and Thomas H. Kean, said their reading of the report had convinced them that the agency had made a conscious decision to impede the Sept. 11 commission’s inquiry.

Mr. Kean said the panel would provide the memorandum to the federal prosecutors and congressional investigators who are trying to determine whether the destruction of the tapes or withholding them from the courts and the commission was improper.

A C.I.A. spokesman said that the agency had been prepared to give the Sept. 11 commission the interrogation videotapes, but that commission staff members never specifically asked for interrogation videos.

The review by Mr. Zelikow does not assert that the commission specifically asked for videotapes, but it quotes from formal requests by the commission to the C.I.A. that sought “documents,” “reports” and “information” related to the interrogations.

Mr. Kean, a Republican and a former governor of New Jersey, said of the agency’s decision not to disclose the existence of the videotapes, “I don’t know whether that’s illegal or not, but it’s certainly wrong.” Mr. Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana, said that the C.I.A. “clearly obstructed” the commission’s investigation.

What? The? Fuck???

I'm not the only one mad as hell about the obstruction of justice - Kean and Hamilton - whose authority to investigate the events of September 11 was granted by both the White House and Congress - are pissed off, too.

And so is Pat Leahy.

On Friday, the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to AG Mukasey and DNI McConnell, specifically instructing them to "preserve and produce to the committee all remaining video and audio recordings of 'enhanced interrogations' of detainees in American custody." The letter was signed by Chairman Leahy and Ranking Member Specter, and requested an extensive search of the White House, CIA facilities and other intelligence agencies to determine whether or not other recordings exist that might show interrogation techniques “including but not limited to waterboarding.”

Officials speaking for the government have steadfastly maintained that the evidence destroyed in 2005 were the only recordings made by employees of the CIA, but the lie was put to this claim in September when attorneys who represent the government informed a federal judge in Virginia that three more recordings of detainee interrogations had been discovered.

As easy as it is to believe the absolute worst about this craven cabal, I keep reminding myself that at their very core, they are a bunch of Mayberry Machiavellis, and they are completely out of their depth. If they weren't incompetent, we would really be screwed.

OOOPS!

Something about his story didn't make sense...

WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice is investigating whether a former intelligence officer illegally disclosed classified information in interviews he gave on how the CIA interrogated a suspected senior al Qaida member.

In interviews with ABC News and The Washington Post earlier this month, former CIA officer John Kiriakou gave detailed descriptions of how a detainee known as Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded. The procedure produces the sensation of drowning and is widely considered a form of torture, which is illegal under U.S. and international laws.

The interviews were the first public confirmation that Zubaydah, a Palestinian who allegedly helped finance the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, had been subjected to the technique while in secret CIA custody. The CIA surrendered Zubaydah to the U.S. military in September 2006, and he's now being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The department opened the criminal probe of Kiriakou after receiving a "criminal referral" from the CIA, according to officials familiar with the process. The officials requested anonymity because criminal referrals aren't made public.

The investigation comes as the White House and the CIA face congressional investigations and court battles over a 2005 decision to destroy videotapes of Zubaydah's interrogation and that of another al Qaida member while they were being held secretly by the CIA.

A federal judge scheduled a hearing in Washington on Friday on whether the destruction of the videotapes violated his order to the government to preserve evidence in a lawsuit brought by 16 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.

* * *

Come on, we already know they've figured out that the only road out of town is paved with destroyed evidence. Does anyone really think that the Republicans in charge of this administration haven't been furiously destroying evidence since the second inaugural? They've long known that this was going to be the Republican Party's last shot at Executive Power for a generation. They've been reading the demographic tea leaves long enough to know that we may well see twenty uninterrupted years of Democratic control of at least the Congress and the Executive. No one is interested in defending this country. They're more concerned with successfully fleecing and raping the country and leaving no evidence behind.

Continuing with the article, this made me laugh:

* * *

CIA Director Michael Hayden has taken a hard line against leaks because he believes national security has been damaged by disclosures of the administration's domestic eavesdropping program and the identity of an undercover CIA officer married to a White House critic.

A former senior U.S. intelligence official, who asked not to be identified because of the issue's sensitivity, said that current CIA officers have "expressed mixed feelings" about Kiriakou's interviews.

They welcomed his defense of their effort to save American lives, "but they are faced with the problem of a guy going out there and talking about stuff that he is not authorized to speak about. You can't send a signal to everybody to go out there and say what you know," he said.

* * *

I honestly don't think Hayden cares about the Plame case. I think they view that incident as their civilian overlords doing whatever was necessary to preserve their lie to start a war. The reason they're going after Kiriakou is that they had everything all sorted out--all of the evidence was neatly destroyed and everything was lined up all dress right dress--and he screwed the pooch for them by opening his mouth.

* * *

The other shoe that drops today is this:

WASHINGTON - A House of Representatives committee issued a subpoena Thursday for Jose Rodriguez, a former CIA official who directed that secret interrogation videotapes be destroyed.

The House intelligence committee ordered Rodriguez, former head of the CIA's National Clandestine Service, to appear Jan. 16 for a hearing. The Democratic committee chairman, Silvestre Reyes, said Rodriguez "would like to tell his story, but his counsel has advised us that a subpoena would be necessary."

Now, why would he be in the process of lawyering up?

Has anyone screamed Executive Privilege yet?

Aside from Peter Hoekstra pretending to care, where is the outrage? Where is the outrage from the Republican Party on this issue? Oh, wait. They won't start caring about this stuff until after Bush and Cheney roll out of town.

White House attorneys were involved in discussing the CIA torture tapes

All that's missing are the inmate numbers

At least four White House attorneys were involved in discussions about the destruction of the CIA torture tapes.

The accounts indicate that the involvement of White House officials in the discussions before the destruction of the tapes in November 2005 was more extensive than Bush administration officials have acknowledged.

Those who took part, the officials said, included Alberto R. Gonzales, who served as White House counsel until early 2005; David S. Addington, who was the counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney and is now his chief of staff; John B. Bellinger III, who until January 2005 was the senior lawyer at the National Security Council; and Harriet E. Miers, who succeeded Mr. Gonzales as White House counsel.

It was previously reported that some administration officials had advised against destroying the tapes, but the emerging picture of White House involvement is more complex. In interviews, several administration and intelligence officials provided conflicting accounts as to whether anyone at the White House expressed support for the idea that the tapes should be destroyed.

One former senior intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter said there had been “vigorous sentiment” among some top White House officials to destroy the tapes. The former official did not specify which White House officials took this position, but he said that some believed in 2005 that any disclosure of the tapes could have been particularly damaging after revelations a year earlier of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Other officials have maintained that no one at the White House made the case for destroying the case, but quickly add that no White House lawyer ever specifically advised that destroying the videos would violate the law.

The Department of Justice is (perfunctorily) mounting an internal investigation into the destruction of the tapes. Officials who spoke to the New York Times did so under conditions of anonymity because of that ongoing investigation.

Spokespersons for the president and the vice president, as well as the CIA, cited the investigation and declined to comment.

The new information was revealed on Tuesday when Federal Judge Henry Kennedy ordered the attorneys involved appear before him on Friday at 11:00 a.m. to answer questions about the destroyed videos. Kennedy was the judge that issued the order to preserve evidence, presumably that would include the tapes, as part of a lawsuit brought on behalf of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The tapes documented the "harsh treatment" (civilized folk call it what it is: torture) of two suspected al Qaeda terrorists in CIA custody. .

New details also emerged on Tuesday about the role of Jose (I smell a fall guy here...) Rodriguez Jr., who headed the clandestine branch and has thus far been fingered as the guy who gave the burn order. The anonymous officials said that prior to Rodriguez issuing a secret cable ordering the destruction, he was advised, in writing, by two CIA lawyers, Steven Hermes and Robert Eatinger, that he indeed had the authority to order the tapes be destroyed and that no laws would be violated.

The CIA refused to allow Mr. Eatinger or Mr. Hermes to comment.

The two agency lawyers did, however, inform the top lawyer at the CIA, John A. Rizzo, about the legal advice they had given Rodriguez.

Mr. Rodriguez did not inform either Mr. Rizzo or the CIA director at that time, Porter Goss, before he issued the cable ordering the tapes be destroyed. “There was an expectation on the part of those providing legal guidance that additional bases would be touched,” said one government official with knowledge of the matter. “That didn’t happen.”

Robert Bennet, attorney for Mr. Rodriguez is adamant that his client was not a lose cannon who ordered evidence be destroyed on his whim. “He had a green light to destroy them,” Mr. Bennett insists.

The tapes were never sent back to Langley. Instead, they were kept in the safe in the bureau office in Thailand, where the interrogations took place. Senior officials in the clandestine service had been chomping at the bit to have the tapes destroyed, starting in 2003, citing concern that the budding Torquemada's on the tapes could face legal or physical jeopardy should the content of the tapes be leaked.

Prior to the revelations in the Times today, the only official previously reported to have been involved in discussions about the tapes was Harriet Meiers, who served as White House counsel after Alberto Gonzales became the Attorney General in 2005. Ms. Meiers' involvement is sketchy - some sources say she was not part of the discussions prior to 2005, but others insist she was in the loop as early as 2003.

The only thing we know for sure (besides the fact that this is the most corrupt and feckless administration in the history of the republic) is that the issue is not going away. In fact, it seems to be ramping up.

To which I say "Good! It's about damned time! Can we impeach Dick Cheney now?"

The CIA torture-tape case isn't going away

In a terse, one-sentence order issued Tuesday, Federal Judge Henry H. Kennedy rejected the Justice Department's appeal to let DoJ cover up investigate the destruction of videotapes that showed the torture interrogation of terrorism suspects.

Instead of rolling over and playing dead for the DoJ, Kennedy ordered the attorneys to appear before him at 11:00 a.m. Friday. He offered no hint at what he might ask the attorneys, or why the order was issued.

Judge Kennedy is not likely to be too inclined toward sympathy for the administrations position, however - in 2005, he personally issued the order to the administration to maintain "all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay."

Five months after Kennedy's original order was issued, the CIA destroyed the videos anyway, and DoJ threw up a feeble smokescreen, asserting that the videos weren't covered, since the interrogation didn't take place at Guantanamo, but instead was conducted at a secret CIA "black site" in Thailand.

So now we have one pissed-off Federal Judge, and pressure mounting for a Special Prosecutor to look into the matter. And an issue that is not going to go away any time soon.

Mukasey in the Hot Seat

During his confirmation hearings last fall, new Attorney General Michael Mukasey pledged to act independently and swore that he would not hesitate to pursue investigations that might displease the Bush administration.

A month in, he is faced with calls for an investigation into the destruction of video of interrogations of terror suspects that show the men being tortured. Such an investigation would delve into the heart of darkness itself, and expose some of the most closely guarded secrets of the Bush administration, highlighting the "aggressive interrogation" favored - nay lusted after - by the small men in the administration for what it is: Torture.

Torture is a crime against humanity, under treaty as well as international statute.

Last week, Senator Dick Durbin (D - IL) officially requested the Attorney General open an investigation into the destruction of the tapes. "The CIA apparently withheld information about the existence of these videotapes from official proceedings, including the 9/11 Commission and a federal court," Durbin charged in the letter he sent to Mukasey.

But this story just keeps getting weirder and weirder:

Justice officials refused to comment on what the new A.G. will do, but White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said that if he does open an investigation, the White House would support him. The videotapes, made in 2002, showed the questioning of two high-level Qaeda detainees, including logistics chief Abu Zubaydah, whose interrogation at a secret cell in Thailand sparked an internal battle within the U.S. intelligence community after FBI agents angrily protested the aggressive methods that were used. In addition to waterboarding, Zubaydah was subjected to sleep deprivation and bombarded with blaring rock music by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. One [FBI] agent was so offended he threatened to arrest the CIA interrogators, according to two former government officials directly familiar with the dispute. [emphasis added]

Yes. You read that right. An FBI agent was so put off by what he witnessed, he threatened to take the CIA interrogators into custody. And when an FBI agent threatens to arrest CIA agents,it is safe to say that the CIA agents have definitely crossed a bright line.

Officials with the CIA claim that the decision was made three years ago to destroy the tapes. The "reason" the CIA gives for the destruction is laughable: The identity of the torturers interrogators might pose a security risk if the tapes were to leak.

Please.

Spare me.

The identity of the interrogators might pose an incarceration risk.

And if they were acting on orders from the White House, they would most likely say so before they went to prison for a long time for committing war crimes.

The CIA destroyed the tapes in spite of requests for records of interrogations by multiple entities, includign the Senate Intelligence Committee and the 9/11 Commission. Representative Jane Harman, then the ranking Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee had also submitted a written directive that videos of interrogations be preserved.

Additionally, in the trial of Zacharias Moussaoui , defense attorneys requested any video of interrogations, but the CIA told a Federal judge that no videos existed. (Got Perjury? Hows' about Obstruction of Justice?)

A thorough investigation into the destruction of the video tapes by the Justice Department would be undertaken with one goal: Find out who issued the orders and make that person accountable. Porter Goss was the CIA Director at the time, and thought he had an "understanding" with ops officials that the tapes would be preserved. He reportedly was extremely unhappy when he learned that the tapes had been destroyed. Meantime, Jose Rodriguez, who as head of the Clandesting Service at the time and issued the destroy order has a reputation as a "loyal subordinate" who would never have taken it upon himself to make such a decision.

Whoever ordered that the tapes be destroyed, all eyes are on Mukaey now.

Waterboarding Did NOT Save Anyone's Life

The only way to approach this is to expose the lie they're using to hide the fact that all of them are complicit in something that should drive them out of public life forever. When you had the chance to speak up, you didn't do it. When you had the chance to step up, you hid in the shadows. There's only one piece of advice I can give you--GET OUT OF THE WAY of people who CAN lead. Russ Feingold and James Webb can do the job better than you can. And Speaker of the House Waxman and Majority Leader Conyers has a nice ring to it.

Juan Cole told us all about this in September. He spelled it out for us. But the trail goes back all the way to 2002 and has some interesting twists and turns. Bear with me, and if you click the links, I'm sure you'll find some good stuff.

To expose the lie, look at this headline on MSNBC.COM:

Waterboarding ‘probably saved lives’
Ex-CIA officer says technique worked, but he now considers it torture

BULLSHIT.

When you see bullshit, call it what it is and never back down. Waterboarding did NOT save the life of one single, solitary person. Bad main stream media, bad! You're no better than a puppy that piddles everywhere and won't learn to actually do your business outside where it is socially acceptable. With patience, we will teach you.

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The article continues:

A former CIA officer who participated in the capture and questioning of the first al-Qaeda terrorist suspect to be waterboarded said yesterday that the harsh technique provided an intelligence breakthrough that "probably saved lives," but that he now regards the tactic as torture.

Zayn Abidin Muhammed Hussein abu Zubaida, the first high-ranking al-Qaeda member captured after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, broke in less than a minute after he was subjected to the technique and began providing interrogators with information that led to the disruption of several planned attacks, said John Kiriakou, who served as a CIA interrogator in Pakistan.

Abu Zubaida was one of two detainees whose interrogation was captured in video recordings that the CIA later destroyed. The recent disclosure of the tapes' destruction ignited a recent furor on Capitol Hill and allegations that the agency tried to hide evidence of illegal torture.

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First of all, John Kiriakou is a liar. Plain and simple. When there is "closed circuit" video system in place, it generally means someone has also installed a goddamned recording device. Pretty much anyone who walks upright and can chew gum knows that. What a ridiculous, bald-faced lie:

Kiriakou said he did not know that the interrogations were videotaped, although there often were closed-circuit video systems in the rooms where questioning took place. He said he also had no knowledge of the decision to destroy videotapes of the interrogations. Officials said there are hundreds of hours of recordings, but most are of Abu Zubaida alone in his cell recovering from his injuries.

Yes, after he'd been shot, we denied him treatment and we denied him painkillers. We're just batting a thousand when it comes to decency and compassion, aren't we? Of course, to prove we're tough, we have to remember that this guy was a "terrorist."

This controversy over who was told what is ridiculous. You can go to the archives of the Washington Post and see that this was all well-known and spelled out in great detail. As far back as 2002, the foundation of a policy of torturing detainees was laid by men who have never worn the uniform, never stood a watch and never been held accountable for anything in their lives. And we will be paying the price for that for a generation or more.

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An August 2002 memo by the Justice Department that concluded interrogators could use extreme techniques on detainees in the war on terror helped provide an after-the-fact legal basis for harsh procedures used by the C.I.A. on high-level leaders of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials.

The legal memo was prepared after an internal debate within the government about the methods used to extract information from Abu Zubaydah, one of Osama bin Laden's top aides, after his capture in April 2002, the officials said. The memo provided a legal foundation for coercive techniques used later against other high-ranking detainees, like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, believed to be the chief architect of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, who was captured in early 2003.

So we've now established that anyone with a brain knew that Zubaida and Khalid Shiekh Mohammed were tortured in 2002. The government told everyone what they were doing and dared people to challenge them. This was all spelled out again and again in 2004 when the CIA had to put their efforts on hold and wait for legal justification to be dishonestly concocted by the White House and the Justice Department. What people did not know is that it was videotaped. And, as Abu Ghraib shows, it's one thing to talk about naked monkeypiles of people. It's a whole other thing to show people what it looks like.

You can go into those same archives and see things from 2002 like this little chestnut:

While the U.S. government publicly denounces the use of torture, each of the current national security officials interviewed for this article defended the use of violence against captives as just and necessary. They expressed confidence that the American public would back their view. The CIA, which has primary responsibility for interrogations, declined to comment.

"If you don't violate someone's human rights some of the time, you probably aren't doing your job," said one official who has supervised the capture and transfer of accused terrorists. "I don't think we want to be promoting a view of zero tolerance on this. That was the whole problem for a long time with the CIA."

Sorry, chumley. We don't back your view. And respecting human rights means we have a thing called moral authority. And that moral authority is now long gone. Long gone.

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We also know that, in 2004, it was reported that:

The interrogation methods were approved by Justice Department and National Security Council lawyers in 2002, briefed to key congressional leaders and required the authorization of CIA Director George J. Tenet for use, according to intelligence officials and other government officials with knowledge of the secret decision-making process.

When the CIA and the military "started capturing al Qaeda in Afghanistan, they had no interrogators, no special rules and no place to put them," said a senior Marine officer involved in detainee procedures. The FBI, which had the only full cadre of professional interrogators from its work with criminal networks in the United States, took the lead in questioning detainees.

So where's the story in all of this? The story that they're trying to concoct is that there was a need to torture Zabaida and that the Congress was briefed. That gives them their plausible deniability. Because we're long past "discussing" whether people should go to jail. We need to discuss things like "hard time" and "Leavenworth" and "shower privileges."

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And what they certainly don't want anyone to know is that Abu Zabaida is delusional and insane, and had no useful information. It was known at the time that he was not to be trusted. But they tortured him anyway. This is where the lies get really interesting, and go virtually unchallenged. The first thing people should know is that we tortured a crazy person and he gave up nothing useful. Seems like that's the part we should "focus" on as we figure out how we pissed away our soul for 35 seconds of torture. You know, our "soul?" The thing that used to make us proud? America's soul is now an Amsterdam hooker with one leg, standing in front of a dirty window with a thousand yard stare. It's not easy to get your soul back when you've given it away:

He described Abu Zubaida as ideologically zealous, defiant and uncooperative — until the day in mid-summer when his captors strapped him to a board, wrapped his nose and mouth in cellophane and forced water into his throat in a technique that simulates drowning.

The waterboarding lasted about 35 seconds before Abu Zubaida broke down, according to Kiriakou, who said he was given a detailed description of the incident by fellow team members. The next day, Abu Zubaida told his captors he would tell them whatever they wanted, Kiriakou said.

"He said that Allah had come to him in his cell and told him to cooperate, because it would make things easier for his brothers," Kiriakou said.

Kiriakou's remarks came a day before top CIA officials are to appear before a closed congressional hearing to account for the decision to destroy recordings of the interrogations of Abu Zubaida and another senior captive, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. Last Thursday, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden announced that the recordings were destroyed in 2005 to protect the identities of CIA employees who appear on them.

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What did Zubaida give them?

Nothing. He was nuts.

"The interrogations of Abu Zubaida drove me nuts at times," Downing said. "He and some of the others are very clever guys. At times I felt we were in a classic counter-interrogation class: They were telling us what they think we already knew. Then, what they thought we wanted to know. As they did that, they fabricated and weaved in threads that went nowhere. But, even with these ploys, we still get valuable information and they are off the street, unable to plot and coordinate future attacks."

Really? Here's Juan Cole, writing about what is in Ron Suskind's book The One Percent Solution:

Ron Suskind's One Percent Solution discusses Abu Zubayda. His sources in the intelligence community revealed to him that Abu Zubayda turned out not to have been a high level planner, as Rumsfeld had announced. He was more like a low level travel agent for the families of al-Qaeda operatives.

And he could barely pull off that basic job, since he seems to suffer from multiple personality syndrome. The CIA captured his diary. The entries were by his three distinct personae, Hani-1, Hani-2 and Hani-3 (a boy, a young man, and a middle-aged man).

The entries contained exhaustive detail about making travel arrangements for his clients. It was useless, junk detail, compulsive in nature and completely unhelpful. It went on forever. Dan Coleman, then the FBI's lead man in fighting al-Qaeda said the diary was about "what people ate, or wore, or trifling things they said. . . This guy is insane, certifiable, split personality."

So where's the discussion about how fucking nuts this guy was? Buried deep in the articles being used to give the administration cover? Forgotten?

How about putting it in the goddamned FRONT of the story, where it fucking belongs?!? I think I'm gonna blow a gasket, and it's only Tuesday.

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And, no. Bill Clinton did NOT do it, too:

According to present and former officials with firsthand knowledge, the CIA's authoritative Directorate of Operations instructions, drafted in cooperation with the general counsel, tells case officers in the field that they may not engage in, provide advice about or encourage the use of torture by cooperating intelligence services from other countries.

"Based largely on the Central American human rights experience," said Fred Hitz, former CIA inspector general, "we don't do torture, and we can't countenance torture in terms of we can't know of it." But if a country offers information gleaned from interrogations, "we can use the fruits of it."

Bush administration officials said the CIA, in practice, is using a narrow definition of what counts as "knowing" that a suspect has been tortured. "If we're not there in the room, who is to say?" said one official conversant with recent reports of renditions.

The Clinton administration pioneered the use of extraordinary rendition after the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. But it also pressed allied intelligence services to respect lawful boundaries in interrogations.

After years of fruitless talks in Egypt, President Bill Clinton cut off funding and cooperation with the directorate of Egypt's general intelligence service, whose torture of suspects has been a perennial theme in State Department human rights reports.

"You can be sure," one Bush administration official said, "that we are not spending a lot of time on that now."

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That's right. We were warned. Nothing to see here, folks. Continue to not pay attention to what your government is doing in your name. Move along.

The soul of this country is under siege. The soul of this country and what it stands for is being stripped away from us. Don't let the bastards do it.

It's enough to piss off Pollyanna herself!

On the day that House and Senate negotiators reached agreement on legislation that will codify in law the prohibition of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation torture methods when interrogating suspected terrorists; CIA director Michael Hayden came clean and admitted that the CIA had destroyed video evidence of "harsh interrogation techniques" employed in the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah (yet another top lieutenant of ObL - but aren't they all?) and another unnamed suspected high-ranking al Qa'eda member. (Zubaydah is one of three suspects who has been identified as having been waterboarded. Waterboarding, in case you have been under a rock for the last two years, is not just a "dunk in the water" as that bastard Cheney so glibly put it. It is controlled drowning.)

From the Washington Post:

All the tapes were destroyed in November 2005 on the order of Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then the CIA's director of clandestine operations, officials said. The destruction came after the Justice Department had told a federal judge in the case of al-Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui that the CIA did not possess videotapes of a specific set of interrogations sought by his attorneys. A CIA spokesman said yesterday that the request would not have covered the destroyed tapes.

The tapes also were not provided to the Sept. 11 commission, the independent panel that investigated the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which demanded a wide array of material and relied heavily on classified interrogation transcripts in piecing together its narrative of events.

The legislation hammered out on Thursday will, in essence, make the Army Field Manual the last word on acceptable interrogation methods.

It also sets up a battle-royal between congress and the candy-assed, draft-dodgin' coward, Chimpy McWarPorn.

Of course, he is threatening to bravely veto the bill.

The spin coming off the decision to destroy the tapes is almost enough to create it's own gravitational field. The spooks doing the torturing are identifiable, and would be criminally liable. Period.

The spin is that the tapes present a security risk. "Beyond their lack of intelligence value -- as the interrogation sessions had already been exhaustively detailed in written channels -- and the absence of any legal or internal reason to keep them, the tapes posed a security risk," Hayden said. "Were they ever to leak, they would permit identification of your CIA colleagues who had served in the program, exposing them to and their families to retaliation from al-Qaeda and it sympathizers."

This, children, is what is known in the common vernacular as a bullshit story.

The CIA is in the business of keeping secrets, and of protecting their employees and the families of their employees (well, unless you are Valerie Plame Wilson, then you are Fair Game, but I digress.) They could most certainly secure a couple of videos. What they were scared of was the long arm of the law as the earth erodes beneath the feet of the feckless, and the fifth horseman (Accountability) appeared on the horizon. The tapes were destroyed because they likely contained evidence that could land former GOP congressman and CIA chief Porter Goss in the slammer, and Donald Rumsfeld might be in the next cell.

I am left with but one thought as I mark off another day of life under the inept, corrupt and floundering Bush regime...thank god these bastards are incompetent to their very core. You only think we are screwed now - If they had the savvy to pull off a two-car parade, then we would really know from screwed.

Hayden Goes Hysterical

In an unprecedented move, CIA director Michael Hayden has ordered an internal inquiry into the work of the Inspector General over the agency. The IG, John L. Helgerson, has been dedicated to the investigation of the CIA’s detention and interrogation programs, and this stern oversight has rankled many operatives.

Helgerson’s willingness to look into the dark crannies has prompted Hayden to order an investigation of the IG’s office, focusing on complaints that the Inspector General’s office has not acted in a fair and impartial manner when judging agency operations. Hayden accuses the IG of embarking on a “crusade” against those who have gone along with the morally bankrupt Bush administrations detention and interrogation programs.

This move by Hayden has taken many aback, as it threatens to undermine the independence of the IG’s office. Former IG for the CIA, Frederick Hitz, who served in that capacity from 1990 to 1998, was astounded by Hayden’s order. In his opinion, any move by the agency’s director to examine the work of the inspector general would “not be proper.”

“I think it’s a terrible idea,” said Mr. Hitz, who now teaches at the University of Virginia. “Under the statute, the inspector general has the right to investigate the director. How can you do that and have the director turn around and investigate the I.G.?”

Current and former officials said that Hayden’s inquest had involved formal interviews with members of the IG’s staff, and his little inquisition is being headed up by a loyal minion to Hayden, Robert L. Deitz, who served as General Counsel to the NSA when Hayden ran that agency.

Inspectors General are not immune from accountability – but Hayden’s approach is astounding in it’s brazen nature. In a normal, sane administration, the proscribed grievance process would be followed. That would involve filing a complaint with the Integrity Committee of the President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency, which oversees all the inspectors general. The second option is for the director of the aggrieved agency to plead his or her case directly to the President, and if the case is made, the President can remove the Inspector General from his post.

How quaint. These proscribed mechanisms afford accountability, and would have avoided the current awkwardness; while protecting the independence of the IG’s office.

The existing mechanisms just didn’t have the right element of authoritarian and histrionic theatrics about them to suit Hayden’s fancy, apparently.

And therein lies the rub…maybe the IG has been overreaching. I don’t know – But now it isn’t likely that we will find out. Another important issue has been reduced to political Kabuki, when what is needed is sober assessment.

A thumb in the eye of the civilized world

To no ones surprise, but the dismay of civilized people the world over, the partisan hacks on the Roberts court have refused without comment to hear a case brought by a German citizen of Lebanesse descent who claims he was abducted by CIA agents and spirited to a prison in Afghanistan where he was subjected to torture tactics. His case is the most extensively documented instance of the United States practice of "extraiordinary rendition" of terrorism suspects.

The Supremes upheld the unanimous ruling of a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit, which found for the government on the specious grounds of "state secrets."

When the Fourth Circuit refused to hear Mr. al-Masri's case, they had reservations. “We recognize the gravity of our conclusions that el-Masri must be denied a judicial forum for his complaint,” Judge Robert B. King wrote in March. “The inquiry is a difficult one, for it pits the judiciary’s search for truth against the executive’s duty to maintain the nation’s security.” When the Fourth Circuit ruled, Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, called the action “truly unbelievable” and “reminiscent of third-world countries.”

While today's action by the Supremes, which let the ruling by the Fourth Circuit stand, is not a surprise; it is expected to cast a further chill over the relationship between the United States and Germany, strained over the United States bullheaded persistence in prosecuting a failed policy in Iraq.

...Mr. Masri’s lawyer in Germany, Manfred Gnijdic, said the high court’s refusal to consider the case sends a message that the United States expects other nations to act responsibly but refuses to take responsibility for its own
actions.

“We are very disappointed,” Mr. Gnijdic said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It will shatter all trust in the American justice system.”

Mr. Masri contended in his suit that he was seized by local law enforcement officials while vacationing in Macedonia on New Year’s Eve 2003. At the time, he was 41 years old and an unemployed car salesman.

“They asked a lot of questions — if I have relations with Al Qaeda, Al Haramain, the Islamic Brotherhood,” Mr. Masri said in a 2005 interview with The New York Times. “I kept saying no, but they did not believe me.”

After 23 days, he said, he was turned over to C.I.A. operatives, who
flew him to a secret C.I.A. prison in Kabul. There, Mr. Masri said, he was kept
in a small, filthy cell and shackled, drugged and beaten while being
interrogated about his supposed ties to terrorist organizations. At the end of
May 2004, Mr. Masri said, he was released in a remote part of Albania without
ever having been charged with a crime.

The CIA has never admitted to involvement in the al-Masri case, but investigators in Europe have found his account credible and arrest warrents have been issued for 13 CIA agents who have been implicated. While it is unlikely that the Bush administration would have any higher regard for the law in another nation when he doesn't even respect it at home, the existence of the warrants will hamper the ability of the agents to move about Europe.

The Constitution Project, a nonpartisan organization that seeks to focus attention on constitutional issues, called the Supreme Court’s refusal to take
up the case “profoundly disappointing.”

“The government’s treatment of Mr. El-Masri has been appalling, and the executive branch should not be permitted to hide its mistakes behind the so-called state secrets privilege,” said the organization’s senior counsel, Sharon Bradford Franklin. “Now that the Court has declined to consider this issue, Congress should immediately take up legislation to reform the state secrets privilege and clarify that it does not authorize unchecked power to disregard individual rights.”

Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, who has introduced legislation to ban extraordinary rendition, said today that “the Bush administration reflexively responds with the ‘state secrets’ defense whenever it is caught bending or simply ignoring the law.”

I have taken a few moments to contact my Senators and Representative and encourage them to support or sponsor legislation to rein in the abuses of the State Secrets provision that has become a petticoat under which to hide from accountability. I would encourage you to do the same - and remember to be civil.

And if this utter apostasy, this "fuck you" to the rest of the world, does not highlight the importance of a Democrat making the next Supreme Court appointment, I don't know how to reach you.

NOW it makes sense...

You know how this morning I was engaging in eye-rolling and poking fun at the morons who floated the bit of fantasy in the Guardian about Iran forming an alliance with al Qa’eda (!!!) ?

Well, after the lead story on ABC News reported tonight what we who read the think-tank policy papers have known for ages – namely, that the US has been meddling in Iran for ages got some attention from the MSM.

It makes perfect sense now!

That bit of fluff/fantasy/fiction in the Guardian this morning was the best they could get out there on such short notice.

The thing is – anyone who reads this blog knows that I have been posting on reports from policy research organizations for a year now, saying “pardon me, but you really should be looking at the cross-border meddling that we are doing in Iran.” And pointing out that their sense of urgency where nukes are concerned is understandable to anyone who can read a map – and bothers to do so.

Here is where it gets really rich:

"The kind of dealings that the Iranian Revolution Guards are going to do, in terms of purchasing nuclear and missile components, are likely to be extremely secret, and you're going to have to work very, very hard to find them, and that's exactly the kind of thing the CIA's nonproliferation center and others would be expert at trying to look into," Riedel said.

Refresh my memory - but wasn't nuclear proliferation what valerie Plame dedicated her entire career to, before she was outed for political reasons by Vice President deserves-to-hang?

C'mon people - you know where your torches and pitchforks are, don't you?

We have long-since passed tolerable and acceptable behavior on the part of our government.

How much more is needed for you to reach the pissed-off tipping point?

(Jesus! Read the comments at The Blotter! What a bunch of reich-wing sycophants! No wonder aWol got away with referring to the Constitution as "just a god-damned piece of paper" - most of the comments over there apparently think that it's an inconvenience to their dream of an authoritarian existence the rest of us would consider a nightmare.)