Torture

Torture News Strike

Bob Fertik — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 08:25:34 -0400

Brattleboro (Vt.) Reformer
Kansas City Star
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News

On 4/11/08, George Bush told ABC News he personally approved of the approval of torture - including waterboarding - by Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and George Tenet.

Bush said, "Yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved."

You would think a President confessing to war crimes would be on the front pages of all the nation's newspapers, and all over their editorial pages - not just on Countdown and The Daily Show.

You'd be wrong. The only newspapers that have covered the story are in the box on the right.

Is your newspaper missing from this list? Then let's work together to do something about it.

We're calling this action our "Torture News Strike."

Call the Editor of your local newspaper and tell him/her you are suspending your subscription until they give Bush's torture confession the serious coverage it deserves either in the news or editorial section, or preferably both.

If you get home delivery, then call the circulation department and tell them to suspend delivery until further notice. (If you buy at the newsstands, read something else.)

Want to connect with other activists who read the same newspaper as you? Read more...

1. Login to Democrats.com and look for a "Local" forum devoted to your newspaper, either under "state" or "county". If you don't see your newspaper listed, skip to (3) below.
http://democrats.com/local

2. Post a comment about your action and the editor's response in the forum.

3. If your newspaper isn't listed on your "Local" page, please add it:

Find the name and contact info for your newspaper's editor by opening the newspaper, using Google, or using this list:
http://www.mondotimes.com/world/usa/newspapers.html
click on your state
click on your local newspaper
Open Notepad and copy/paste the full name of the newspaper
Scroll down and look under "contact information" for the name of the editor
Copy/paste the editor's name into Notepad
Just above "contact information," click the web site
Find the main phone number and copy/paste into Notepad
Post this information on Democrats.com
Login and click http://democrats.com/local
If your newspaper serves an area smaller than your County, click the [Post] link next to "County" - if it serves more than one County, click the [Post] link next to "State"
For "Subject" use "Newspaper Strike:" and the name of your newspaper
For "Democrats.com Forums" choose "Hot Topics"
For "Body" copy/paste the Editor's name and phone number

4. Use the "Send" link below your local newspaper forum to invite your friends to participate.

Want to do more?

1. Write a letter to your local newspaper about Bush's torture scandal and the paper's failure to cover it. Also call your favorite talk shows.

2. Also sign our petition to Impeach Bush and Cheney for Torture:
http://www.democrats.com/impeach-for-torture

Thanks for all you do!

To learn more about the Torture scandal, visit these links:

ABC News 4/11/08: Bush Approved Torture
Democrats.com torture news
Troutfishing (How you can fight, What about sexual torture)
Invictus
AmericanTorture.com
Emptywheel
White House Watch by Dan Froomkin (Bush OK'd torture meetings)
The Abu Ghraib Scandal and the U.S. Occupation of Iraq by John Cox
Died hanging from wrists and gagged, with over 25 rib fractures by bewert
Prisoner Abuse in Iraq, Afghanistan and Elsewhere by Cooperative Research
The Green Light by Philippe Sands
Psychological Torture by US Forces, Physicians for Human Rights
Watch the new documentary: Standard Operating Procedure

Huffing and Puffing at the Pentagon

dlindorff — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:02:26 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

American Secretary of War Robert Gates knows a real leader when he sees one. “Clearly, as far as I’m concerned,” he said, Vladimir Putin, and not President Dmitry Medvedev, "has the upper hand right now."

Well hell, Gates should know. After all, he deals on a daily basis with the same peculiar situation here in the US, where the president also is a figurehead and the real power lies in the hands of Vice President Dick Cheney.

But Gates doesn’t speak with such clarity and directness in other matters. "I think that there is a real concern that Russia has turned the corner here and is headed back toward its past rather than toward its future, and my hope is that we will see actions in the weeks and months to come that provide us some reassurance," he said, speaking on ABC and CNN, claiming that the country was returning to the authoritarianism of the old Soviet era.

Ahem.

It might also be noted that the US is heading increasingly towards an authoritarian future, no? Certainly over the course of the last seven years we have seen the executive branch in the US claim that it no longer needs to enact or adhere to laws passed by Congress or to terms of international treaties approved by the Senate. We have also seen this administration refuse to respond to Congressional subpoenas for information and testimony from White House officials, effectively establishing the presidency as a dictatorship, have we not?

As for Gates’ condemnation of Russia for resorting to force in Georgia, one need not defend Russia’s actions there to note that such tactics have long been deemed fully appropriate in the US. Only recently America used force to depose an elected government in Haiti, hustling its elected president off into exile. The US has also been working assiduously through covert means to overthrow the elected government of Venezuela, even supporting (and probably helping to organize) a temporarily successful military coup there. Then of course there is the decades-long effort by the US to overthrow the government of Cuba, which has included everything from invasions and embargos to multiple assassination attempts against Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Russia is clearly moving in an authoritarian direction at home, and is reasserting its influence and control over some—though hardly all—of the states that were formerly part of the USSR. But in all of this it is merely aping the behavior of the US government, which is becoming more authoritarian also, and which has always been a bully in its local neighborhood.

If Gates has anything legitimate to complain about it is that the American military disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its preoccupation with drumming up conflict with Iran, have rendered the Pentagon almost impotent when it comes to threatening Russia.

All that is left for Gates to do is huff and puff about Russia backsliding to the bad old days when it was able to stand up to the US as an equal.
________________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback edition). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Extra! Dog Bites Man! Read All About It!

dlindorff — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:23:00 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

In the category of yawn-inducing stories that we knew all about
before they happened, comes word that the jury of senior uniformed
officers sitting in judgement of Osama Bin Laden’s chauffeur in the
first Bush-league military tribunal to actually go to a hearing at
Guantanamo Naval Station found the prisoner, Salim Hamdan…

Drum roll please…

Guilty of supporting terrorism.

I pause here for gasps of astonishment.

It’s awfully silent…

Really, did anyone expect anything else? The officers, who all have
careers to think about that would surely be severely crimped if they
went off script and found the man innocent of the charges, heard
evidence that was obtained through torture. They heard reports of
confessions from a man who himself was subjected to torture, by the
admission of the military itself, and who was never afforded an
attorney during those interrogations.

Okay. So now we need to ask, do we all feel safer, knowing that a
car driver whose claim to fame is that he used to drive the Evil One
from house to house and wife to wife is going to be locked up for life?

Wait a minute. He is already being locked up for life. At least, he
was captured in November 2001, and shipped to Guantanamo in May 2002,
and he’s been held there ever since—for over six years—awaiting this
trial, er, I mean tribunal. There certainly was no prospect of his ever
being let go before the tribunal, so I’m not sure what the point of
this exercise was really.

So now we can move on to the next tribunal—this one involving Ahmed
Khadr, a Canadian boy picked up in Afghanistan at the age of 15, who’s
been held now for six years on the base. His “crime” is that he was
bombed by the US Air Force, and then shot up (in the back) by US
Special Forces, but he somehow managed, at least allegedly, to toss a
grenade at his attackers, killing one (actually there is some testimony
that he didn’t actually toss the grenade, but then, why quibble about
details, right?).

Does anyone want to guess about the outcome of his “trial”?

Back in journalism school, I remember being told that the classic
definition of a news story was “Man Bites Dog!” The notion was that if
something totally predictable happens, like a dog biting a man, it
ain’t really news. Only if it is unexpected does it have any real news
value. By that standard, Hamdan’s conviction should be relegated to a
one-sentence notice in the news briefs section, but I’m guessing it’ll
be page one tomorrow all over America: Terrorist Convicted!

What we really need to be asking is why taxpayer dollars are being
spent on this shameful farce, which makes a joke of American “justice”
around the world.

Salim Hamdan is one of three things:

* a vile terrorist, in which case he should be tried in a regular
court of law by a jury of citizens, with all the rights available under
our Constitution

* a prisoner of war, in which case he should be sent back to
Afghanistan, since that war is now technically over (he is not a member
of the Taliban).

* an innocent schmuck who was working for a living driving a rich
bearded guy around the Hindu Kush, and who got picked up instead of his
boss, who’s still plotting ways to blow us all up while the US
government wastes its time and its personnel prosecuting his driver.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Then again, maybe it is news after all: “US Attacked By Terrorist Gang, Mastermind’s Driver Gets Life Seven Years Later”
__________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a journalist and columnist based in
Philadelphia. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St.
Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback edition). His work
can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Mukasey's Excellent Idea: War All the Time, Enemy Combatants Everywhere

dlindorff — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:55:16 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

Attorney General Michael Mukasey has caught some flak for
proposing, in an address to the American Enterprise Institute, that
Congress should declare war on Al Qaeda.

Instead, he should be applauded for his brilliant idea.

First of all, Mukasey is admitting, whether he wants to admit it or
not, that the Bush/Cheney program of capturing alleged terrorists and
holding them for years as enemy combatants without charge in detention
centers in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and various
undisclosed locations around the globe, and of torturing many of them,
are illegal actions that violate US law and International Law. So let’s
give him credit for that.

Second, he wants to make these criminal acts retroactively legal
and future such acts legal, by declaring Al Qaeda to be some kind of an
entity and to declare America to be at war with that entity. Of course,
doing this wouldn’t exactly solve the torture problem, since the Geneva
Conventions are fairly clear about the fact that you just cannot
torture. You can’t even treat captives in a war in a degrading manner,
which pretty much rules out things like stress positions and
waterboarding, unless perhaps conducted by polite men in butler
uniforms who address the victims as “sir” and deliver hors derves and
wine spritzers during the process.

But what’s brilliant about Mukasey’s idea is that it could be so easily expanded beyond just terrorism.

Once you accept the idea that a gang of armed men can be declared
war on like a country, it opens up a whole universe of enemies against
which the US could declare war.

Start with the war on drugs. Remember that one? It was never a war,
and no one ever really thought of it as one, but we could now make it a
real one, and have Congress declare war on drugs. Then, using Mukasey’s
war on terror model, we could just have cops grab drug dealers and
suspected drug dealers, and maybe even users, and just lock them up
without charge to be held for the duration of the war, like he wants to
do with terrorists.

But why stop there?

Congress could declare war on drunk drivers. Now there’s a scourge
that is killing Americans at a frightening rate. With a war on drunks
behind the wheel, we would no longer see people hiring lawyers and
getting their charges reduced to some trivial moving violation that
allows them to get back behind the wheel. We’d just lock ‘em up and
hold ‘em until the war was over.

Next we could have a war on littering. I, for one, am sick of
seeing our streets lined with soggy used soda cubs, balled up used
diapers and shriveled wet condoms, and all those plastic shopping bags,
If we could just start locking up enemy combatant litterers, the whole
country would look a whole lot better in no time.

Finally, Congress could declare a real war on poverty. We had one
of those back in the mid-‘60s, but we lost. Not for lack of trying, but
poor people kept getting poor again and dragging the rest of us down.
If Congress would declare war, the government could start rounding up
the enemy combatant poor, and locating them away for the duration. I
understand Halliburton is already building camps around the country
which could be used for this purpose.

Now I admit Mukasey and the Bush/Cheney administration are a bunch
of heartless bastards, and I wouldn’t want to see them treating the
enemy combatant poor the way they treat drug dealers or hardened
litterers, but with the poor, it could be a humanitarian kind of thing.
I mean, the enemy combatant poor would certainly get treated better in
those camps, with three squares a day and schools for the kids, than
they are doing on their own right now.

So I say let’s move forward with this idea. The Founding Fathers
couldn’t have been so blind that they were only referring to nation
states when they talked about Congress having the power to declare war.
They were a bunch of creative, forward-thinking men, and I’m sure they
would have liked the idea of broadening the meaning of war a bit to
include things like international criminal gangs, domestic criminals,
litterbugs and the poor.

I say, declare war and bring ‘em on!
____________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a journalist and columnist based in Philadelphia. His
latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and
now available in paperback edition). His work is available at
www.thiscantbehappening.net

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digg_bodytext = "By Dave Lindorff\r\n\r\n Attorney General Michael Mukasey has caught some flak for proposing, in an address to the American Enterprise Institute, that Congress should declare war on Al Qaeda.\r\n\r\n Instead, he should be applauded for his brilliant idea.\r\n\r\n First of all, Mukasey is admitting, whether he wants to admit it or not, that the Bush/Cheney program of capturing alleged terrorists and holding them for years as enemy combatants without charge in detention centers in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and various undisclosed locations around the globe, and of torturing many of them, are illegal actions that violate US law and International Law. So let’s give him credit for that.\r\n\r";
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(British) House Committee Impeaches Bush for Torture

Bob Fertik — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:14:12 -0400

On Monday, a House Committee finally impeached George Bush for torture. The only problem is that the House Committee is in the British Parliament, not the United States Congress.

In a damning criticism of US integrity, the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said ministers should no longer take at face value statements from senior politicians, including George Bush, that America does not resort to torture in the light of the CIA admitting it used "waterboarding". The interrogation technique was unreservedly condemned by Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who said it amounted to torture...

"The UK can no longer rely on US assurances that it does not use torture, and we recommend that the government does not rely on such assurances in the future," said the committee. "We also recommend that the government should immediately carry out an exhaustive analysis of current US interrogation techniques on the basis of such information as is publicly available or which can be supplied by the US."

Glenn Greenwald says this is a big deal:

For the British, of all countries, to conclude in a formal Report that the U.S. is essentially an untrustworthy rogue nation when it comes to human rights abuses -- "The committee's conclusions amount to saying we can no longer rely on assurances from a US administration that purports to uphold the civil and political standards of behaviour," as MP Andrew Tyrie put it -- is about as potent an indictment of how far we've fallen as one can imagine.

"Indictment" is the right word. So when will Bush and Cheney get one - or a few million?

The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals

davidswanson — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:18:51 -0400

By Steve Clemons

JANE MAYER, Washington correspondent for The New Yorker, has an important book that will officially hit the stands on Monday, 14 July. I have signed a contract forbidding me to share any of the blockbuster findings and reporting that she has done on the internal Bush administration debates
about torture policy and the other post-9/11 war decisions, but I can say that she has done the nation a great service by further illuminating the important and often defining roles that Vice President Cheney and his staff have played in these policies. In particular, Mayer takes her groundbreaking profile of David Addington -- Cheney's current chief of staff and the man David Ignatius referred to as "Cheney's Cheney" -- an order of magnitude higher.

The book is titled, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals. We will have copies for sale on Tuesday morning.

I am sending this announcement to many around the world and the US who do not live in Washington. IF YOU CANNOT ATTEND OR DO NOT LIVE NEAR WASHINGTON, YOU ARE INVITED TO WATCH THE LIVE WEBCAST OF THIS MEETING AT WWW.THEWASHINGTONNOTE.COM. IT WILL AIR FROM 9:30 AM 11:00 AM EST. WE CAN
SEND COPIES OF THE VIDEO OR AUDIO FILE TO ANY WHO REQUEST.

I hope you can join us in person or on line.
All the best,
Steve Clemons
Director, American Strategy Program, New America Foundation
Publisher, www.TheWashingtonNote.com

The New America Foundation/American Strategy Program cordially invites you and your colleagues to a special morning conversation and book release

terror, torture and the "dark side" in post 9-11 BushLand:
A CONVERSATION WITH NEW YORKER CORRESPONDENT JANE MAYER ON HER JUST RELEASED BOOK

The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals

TUESDAY, 15 JULY 2008
9:30 am 11:00 am (please note special timing of this event)

New America Foundation
1630 Connecticut Avenue, NW, 7th Floor
Washington, DC (outside Q Street Exit of Dupont Metro Station)

JANE MAYER
Washington Correspondent, The New Yorker
Author, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into
a War on American Ideals
Buy at Amazon.

host and moderator
STEVEN CLEMONS
DIRECTOR, AMERICAN STRATEGY PROGRAM, NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION
Publisher, www.TheWashingtonNote.com

RSVP TO CLEMONS@NEWAMERICA.NET OR 202-986-4901

This meeting with JANE MAYER and STEVE CLEMONS will stream LIVE at
www.TheWashingtonNote.com and also at the events web page at
www.NewAmerica.net

America has a Double Standard When It Comes to Kids. Victims if Prostitutes, Terrorists if They Are Caught Fighting the US

dlindorff — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:44:41 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

Double standards when it comes to children are pretty
appalling—especially when it comes to “our” kids vs. “their” kids, but
here in America they aren’t limited to just right-wingers.

Take reaction to the US Supreme Court’s latest ruling that you
cannot execute rapists—even those who rape children—on the theory that
only killing someone justifies execution.

Politicians who make their careers by promoting state sponsored
murder have been quick to condemn this latest “liberal outrage” by
calling for more laws that would make execution the punishment for
raping a child (admittedly a monstrous crime).

"Anybody in the country who cares about children should be outraged
that we have a Supreme Court that would issue a decision like this,"
says Republican Alabama Attorney General Troy King, who said the
court’s 5-4 decision makes America “a less safe place to grow up.”

Even Barack Obama has weighed in, along with John McCain, in
condemning the court’s decision, saying that states should be free to
pass death statutes for child rape.

Texas Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, supporting death for
“repeat child molesters, says, “Our top priority remains protecting our
most precious resource — our children." (Huh? I thought in Texas it was
oil.)

Then there’s the FBI’s latest sweeping busts of child prostitution
rings, which rescued 21 juveniles from sex-selling rings. In announcing
the arrests of some 300 people, FBI Director Robert Mueller said, "Our
top priority in these cases has always been to identify children
victims and move swiftly to remove them from these dangerous
environments.”

"These kids are victims,” said Ernie Allen, president of the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. “They lack the
ability to walk away. This is the 21st-century slavery."

The question is, where are Mueller and Allen and these allegedly
concerned politicians when it comes to children who are forced or lured
into fighting against the US, whether in Afghanistan or Iraq? Where are
they when those children are captured by US military forces and
incarcerated with adult captives in hell-holes like Bagram Airbase in
Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, or Guantanamo, where there was
a special children’s section called Camp Iguana? I certainly haven’t
heard a word from either Obama or that famous POW McCain in defense of
America’s child war prisoners.

Take Omar Khadr, shot and then captured and tortured by US forces
at the tender age of 15 in 2002 in Afghanistan and held for six years
in Guantanamo. Last week, I reported on his story
and on plans to try him by military tribunal as a terrorist because he
had dared, allegedly, to toss a grenade at US Special Forces troops who
had called in an air strike on him and several adult fighters, killing
one US soldier (at least one witness to the incident, a US soldier,
says it was not Khadr who three the grenade). Nobody’s saying that
Khadr was a victim. Nobody’s saying that he “lacked the ability to walk
away” from the Taliban forces that his father and older brothers had
him join at the age of 14 a year before. Nobody’s saying he should be
“identified” and “removed from these dangerous environments.”

Nobody in government or in child protection organizations is even
investigating to see if Khadr, as a 15-year-old captive, was tortured!
Indeed, the US has been blocking both Khadr’s military defense attorney
and his Canadian lawyer (Khadr is a Canadian citizen) from getting
military records giving the details of his capture and subsequent
treatment.

Canadian journalist Chris Cook reports that the Canadian government
actually argued in Canadian court against releasing the US reports in
its possession claiming doing so might “upset relations” between Canadian and
the United States. (The Canadian Supreme Court in May rejected that
pathetically subservient claim by a 9-0 vote, ordering full disclosure.)

The thing is, Khadr is just one of at least 2500 children who have
been captured and held as “enemy combatants” by the US in the
Bush/Cheney so-called “War” on Terror.

Like child prostitutes, these captives, if they were even actually
involved in operations against the US (who would know, since they’ve
never been given hearings in court, and since in many cases the
evidence, such as it is, against them is the result of torture, either
of the children themselves, or of others), are at worst child soldiers,
who cannot be held responsible for their actions. Indeed, under the UN
Charter and the Geneva Convention, as amended by a protocol signed by
the US in 2002, any of them who, at the time of their capture, were
under 18, as was Khadr, are to be considered not POWs or “enemy
combatants,” but rather victims, who need care and treatment.

Aside from Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who has filed an article of
impeachment against President Bush, charging him with a war crime for
holding these children, and for authorizing rules of engagement that
have encouraged the killing of children as young as 14, who are
“presumed” to be combatants, and for the six other members of the
House who have co-signed his impeachment bill (Rep. Robert Wexler,
D-FL, Rep. Barbara Lee, D-CA, Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-CA, Rep. Tammy
Baldwin, D-WI, Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-NY, and Rep. Sam Farr, D-CA), no
members of Congress have called for the protection of children captured
or held by US military forces.

Their, and the American public’s “concern” for the welfare of
children is narrowly limited to those who are lured or forced into
prostitution. That’s it.

Of course, we should not be surprised at this double standard. Most
of these same politicians are also quick to support laws that take
young children from poor (and usually minority) urban backgrounds who
commit violent crimes and have them tried, and punished, as adults.
Again, these children are as much victims as the kids who become child
prostitutes, but there’s no love lost on them by these “child welfare”
charlatans.
__________________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His
latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and
now in paperback edition). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Support a Progressive Candidate!

ghost122 — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:19:18 -0400

Born in 1963 in Parkersburg, West Virginia, Rebecca Schneider grew up in rural western Pennsylvania in a middle class neighborhood. Rebecca graduated from Mars High School in 1982 and Slippery Rock University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology. During the course of attending College and working two, sometimes three jobs to pay her way, she set the course of her career when she began working in the library and currently works as a Library Supervisor for Arizona State University.

Rebecca has a long history of working within and with government entities to achieve success for the organizations and communities by which she has been employed. She has experience managing budgets as well as personnel as part of her management of a Maricopa County Branch Library in addition to her current supervisory position at ASU. Schneider brought together business, government and private foundation groups to raise the funds necessary to build a new library building in Sun Lakes, Arizona. She will use those same skills to bridge the aisle in Congress and foster relationships that will enact legislation that doesn't undermine our Constitutional rights while providing true security to our nation.

In her own words:

Our government has been broken by those who have been in power these past eight years. We have lost many of our constitutional rights and we have lost our way in the world. This is completely unacceptable, and it is my passion and my calling to restore what has been stolen. WE, the people, should be watching our government. They should NOT be watching us. While they were watching us, they were not watching our economy, our infrastructure, our security, our children's health and education, our ports and chemical plants, our energy production and certainly not our environment. They’ve neglected our internal welfare while they were pretending to be concerned about our nation.

Mr. Flake has gone unopposed in his past two elections. With your help, we can make sure that this time around he has a run for his money! Let's at least be able to offer District #6, and by extension, all of Arizona and the United States, a choice. A progressive choice!!

We must demand a strong America that offers broad prosperity to all its citizens, a better future for YOU and all of us. We require a more effective government without all the waste and terrible planning. We must have mutual responsibility between government, the people and business for the betterment of this nation. I want to encourage an economy that doesn't neglect the worker and focus solely on big gains for the CEOs and shareholders. We need a strong voice in Congress that will stand up to partisan bullying and do what is right. I will be that voice.

I am dedicated to improving all our lives by creating an environment of hope and unity. I promise to work tirelessly to affect positive change in the world around us and to work with the citizens of Congressional District #6...YOU...to create a community, a state, a nation that serves us all. I will not waiver in the conviction that we can create a better world for all citizens now and for the future.

I pledge to do everything in my power to return our government and our nation to the people; to restore our rights as promised by our Constitution; to renew our standing in the world by demonstrating the strength and goodness America has always stood for; to LISTEN to the people and enlist everyone’s help in transforming the country into one we can be proud of again. I will endeavor to bring dignity and fiscal responsibility back to Washington. We will have a healthy, vibrant nation once again where there are opportunities to achieve the American Dream for all instead of the few.

Help build that dream for yourselves by electing me to be your Representative in Congress. The time for the old way of doing things is past. It is time we, the people, took charge of our government, instead of special interests and big corporations remaining in control. Now is the time for the power of the people to shout from the rooftops, “WE are in charge!”. Permitting me to be your voice is a great step towards that freedom! We CAN bring back our dignity, our prosperity, our innovation and our American Dream. Join me, won’t you, in making it a reality. Truly, the time is NOW!!

Please check out my website at: www.schneider2008.com Then, make a donation of $20, $50, $100 or more to help me defeat Mr. Flake: the same Mr. Flake who never brings our fair share of our tax monies back to our district; the same Mr. Flake who has voted over and over again to undermine or take away our Constitutional rights; the same Mr. Flake who has supported George Bush for 8 years, yet has voted against helping our troops and our children.

If the status quo of borrow and spend, war and rising healthcare costs isn’t what you want anymore, please give your support NOW so that we have a true choice for change in November.

Thank you!!

Rebecca

Rice's Lies About Torture

dlindorff — Fri, 23 May 2008 11:00:51 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

Is anyone surprised that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says that the Bush/Cheney administration’s authorization of torture of captives has been consistently legal and in compliance with all treaties the US has signed, including the Geneva Conventions?

After all, she was at the meetings in the White House in 2001 at which various acts of torture, ranging from waterboarding to exposure to extreme heat and cold, to enforced long periods in stress positions, and to treatments which have not been disclosed (no doubt because they are so outrageous and offensive to common decency) were dreamed up, proposed and approved for use—meetings that were manifestly criminal in nature and in violation of international and US law.

The US was “a different place” in the wake of the 9-11 attacks, Rice told a group of people at a town hall meeting in Mountain View, Calif. on Thursday. But even though the administration’s “top priority” at the time was allegedly “preventing new attacks and not necessarily observing fine legal points,” the woman who at that time was Bush’s National Security Advisor, says “President Bush made clear that we were going to live up to our obligations at home and to our treaty obligations abroad."

Well of course she’d say that. But in fact, let’s look at those “fine legal points.”
The Third Geneva Convention Relating to the Treatment of Prisoners of War defines prohibited torture as follows:

“No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.”

It’s kind of hard to see how that rather thorough definition of torture—which as a treaty signatory is the definition by which the US is supposed to live—can accommodate the waterboarding, sexual humiliation, months in solitary confinement, faked executions, days in stress positions, etc. which were approved by Rice and her fellow inquisitors and the nation’s commander in chief.

But no matter. Rice says that even if things were kind of harsh back in 201 and 2002, today “the ground is different.” She says soothingly, "We now have in place a law that was not there in 2002 and 2003."

Well, actually no. Because when that new law was put in place by Congress, the president issued a signing statement saying that he would not be bound by it. Asserting a claim of “unitary executive,” created out of thin air by Deputy Assistant Attorney General John You and Assistant Attorney General (and now federal appeals court judge) Jay Bybee, Bush has claimed that for the duration of the so-called “War on Terror” he has all the powers of the executive, legislative and judicial branches rolled into his own hands, and as such is not bound by acts of Congress, or by orders of the court. (Yoo and Bybee are also the mob attorneys who advised Bush that any interrogation methods that fell short of causing death or “pain equivalent to death or organ failure” would not be torture.)

The truth is that the Bush/Cheney administration, with the clear knowledge and authority of the president and vice president and of Rice herself, went on to torture captives in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Guantanamo Bay, and in countless “black sites” around the globe, well into 2006 at least, and continues to torture captives now. Those tortured have even included children.

Condi Rice seems to be hoping to return to Stanford University after she leaves office at the end of this benighted and criminal administration this coming January. If she does, she will, I am sure, have to at some point confront my colleague Barbara Olshansky, who has just spent her first year there at the Stanford Law School as a professor of international human rights. Barbara, who co-authored “The Case for Impeachment” with me (St. Martin’s Press, 2006), was for several years the lead attorney for several hundred of the detainees at Guantanamo, and has also looked into the conditions under which US prisoners are being held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan—another torture center that got its start down that road with the capture and torture of John Lindh back in October, 2001—the first documented case of such abuse.

One would hope that the students of Stanford would raise such a stink about having a war criminal like Rice running their school that they would either prevent her from getting the job, or drive her from the campus.

Until then, the least we can do is make her explain how waterboarding and other measures applied under her guidance and with her approval as National Security Advisor, can possibly comply with the Geneva Conventions which the US has signed.
_____________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based investigative journalist and columnist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). He is working on a new book on the reason’s for indicting Bush and Cheney for war crimes after they leave office. His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

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Bomb Bomb Iran: McCain's Only Hope

Bob Fertik — Mon, 05 May 2008 09:42:40 -0400

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy played its "ace in the hole" against Obama - Rev. Jeremiah Wright - and it failed miserably, because Americans are sick and tired of Karl Rove's politics of personal destruction.

So now what are they going to do to keep the White House? It looks like we're back to "wag the dog." Cue up McCain's old Beach Boys song: "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran."

On 5/11/07, Cheney threatened to bomb Iran while standing in front of five F-18 Super Hornet warplanes on the deck of the U.S.S. John C. Stennis in the Persian Gulf.

Last month, Cheney forced Iran war opponent Adm. James Fallon to resign from CentCom so he could appoint Gen. David Petraeus, a supporter of Cheney's plan to attack Iran.

Today Cheney's second-favorite NY Times propagandist, Michael Gordon, accused Iran of hosting Hezbollah bases to train Iraqi terrorists. (Gordon co-authored Judith Miller's worst Iraq lies.) What's the basis of Gordon's accusation?

An American official said the account of Hezbollah’s role was provided by four Shiite militia members who were captured in Iraq late last year and questioned separately.

As Tristero writes, "Probably tortured separately." And we all know what kind of "intelligence" torture produces.

The official summed up the information from the interrogation reports but did not make them available. He declined to be identified because the information had not been released publicly.

Of course it never will be "released publicly" because all of the torture tapes get scrubbed.

Today's "report" raises several key questions:

Is the White House planning to launch an attack on Iran in order to elect John McCain?
Is the White House planting propaganda - including torturing prisoners - to "sell" its attack?
Did Bush approve a "covert offensive" against Iran, as Andrew Cockburn reports?
Is the NY Times once again letting its front page be used for White House war propaganda?
Will Democrats in Congress immediately demand the answers to these questions?

Update 1: War criminal John Bolton went on FOX News to demand the immediate bombing of Iran:

this is a case where the use of military force against a training camp to show the Iranians we’re not going to tolerate this is really the most prudent thing to do.

Update 2: Scott Ritter says it's a "virtual guarantee" that Bush will bomb Iran soon:

We take a look at the military buildup, we take a look at the rhetoric, we take a look at the diplomatic posturing, and I would say that it's a virtual guarantee that there will be a limited aerial strike against Iran in the not-so-near future-or not-so-distant future, that focuses on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command. And if this situation spins further out of control, you would see these aerial strikes expanding to include Iran's nuclear infrastructure and some significant command and control targets.

Update 3: Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Israel TV he is "very hopeful that we don't get into a position where we have to get into a conflict" because U.S. forces are already overstretched.

"It would be a very significant challenge for the United States right now to get into a third conflict in that part of the world," Mullen added, referring to the Bush administration's long-running military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Clearly Mullen it's a "loyal Bushie" and is not toeing the neocon party line. How soon will he be forced to "resign" like Centcom's Adm. James Fallon?