Month: October 2004

House Debating Key Amendment Right Now

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Congressman Markey’s amendment will not come before the House floor, but there is an amendment offered by Congressman Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, that substitutes the Senate version of the 9/11 bill for the current House version. The Senate version of the bill has a stronger national intelligence director with budgetary and personnel authority, … Read more

The Abu Ghraib RICO Case: Part III.

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This is the third installment of “what’s shakin’ in the Abu Ghraib RICO lawsuit.” Prior installments are here and here; prior posts on the subject are here and here.

In this installment: More torture allegations! Greedy plaintiffs’ attorneys! The decline and fall of the automatic spell check function! Fun with the hearsay rule! More on the “the government was involved so it must be OK” defense! And much, much more!

For those just joining us, a public interest group filed a class-action RICO lawsuit on behalf of about a thousand Abu Ghraib detainees, claiming that several civilian contractors and their employees conspired to torture, maim, sexually abuse, and otherwise mistreat prisoners. The allegations are disturbing, but the evidentiary support for them is a bit thin. Moreover, even if the allegations are proven, it’s not at all clear to me that the corporate defendants — the deep pockets in the case — should be held responsible.

So, with all caveats firmly in place, we join our story . . . .

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A Modest Proposal

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Malkinfan makes a modest proposal regarding Michelle Malkin‘s Japanese internment claims: Somebody in one of the comments below used the term “African-American,” well, like Michelle [Malkin] has shown [In Defense of Internment], that term is wrong. It’s like how she points out that so-called “Japanese-Americans” even though they were born here and were supposedly “citizens,” … Read more

Will You Still Need Me?

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John Lennon would have been 64 years old this Saturday. In honor of this milestone he had sung about but tragically never reached, Yoko Ono has organized an exhibition of his drawings that opens in Soho tonight. Here’s an example:

Driving bin Laden

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The high cost of oil, supported by America’s refusal to even entertain the idea of conserving energy, supported by fierce resistance to a gas tax which would curb demand, actually aids the terrorists. So argues Thomas Friedman in his column today: Of all the shortsighted policies of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, none … Read more

Anatomy of a Spinning Top

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My opinion of the Cheney-Edwards debate, three seconds after it concluded: No knockout, no TKO, but Cheney won on points.

My opinion of the Cheney-Edwards debate today: No knockout, no TKO, but Cheney won on points.

My opinion of who’s winning the aftermath of the Cheney-Edwards debate: Edwards, clearly — and Cheney’s heading to a TKO.

Why?

Because, in the course of the debate, Cheney created too much grist for the Democratic mill. He made errors. His put-downs of Edwards, brilliant in the moment, became phantoms when put into factual context. And, worst for a Vice-President who’s been accused of having a strange and distant relationship with the truth: He lied. Mostly about small stuff, sure. But he lied. Repeatedly. As if he didn’t know any other way of operating.

My opinion of Cheney actually increased after the debate, and it’s still higher than it was pre-debate. I still think he won. I’m beginning to understand, however, why no Republican should be happy with his performance Tuesday night.

Bush needs to win big on Friday. And he needs to win in a way that doesn’t lose him the post-debate spin.

UPDATE: Citizen Smash and I seem to agree on this one: Cheney’s otherwise strong performance on Tuesday night was marred by his factual lapses. (I don’t think Smash is prepared to use the “lie” word, but I really don’t think you can escape the conclusion that at least Cheney’s dig on Edwards’ attendence record was a lie. See my comment, below, for why I’m prepared to go beyond “misstatement,” “embellishment,” or “misleading statement” on this one.) Smash also points out Edwards’ errors, including a pretty big one regarding military pay.

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War, on Drugs

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Via an excellent Kos diary entry by ObWi constant reader wilfred ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I’ll post a good chunk of it here, but there’s more at Kos: Today I got home early and flipped on the tube. Oprah was on and her show is about being 30 years old in different countries around the world. A very … Read more

Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses yearning to…psych!

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We are a nation of immigrants. You all know this. Most of us had to write an essay about it at some point in elementary school, unless we could get out of it by having our mom bake a loaf of Irish Soda bread or whichever other recipe to honor our heritage.

If the House version of the 9/11 bill becomes law, we will have no right to say it. I’ve focused heavily on the sections legalizing extraordinary rendition, but the awful things is, they are probably not even the worst part of Hastert’s bill. In terms of innocent people sent to torture and death, some of the other anti-immigration provisions would probably do more harm. The ACLU summarizes them here:

Attack on Habeas Corpus (Section 3006) – The House bill would eliminate judicial review of some immigration deportation orders under the ancient “Great Writ” of habeas corpus by channeling virtually all immigration cases to the federal courts of appeals, where appeals in some cases are barred.

Traditionally available to any person, citizen or non-citizen, in the United States as a “safety valve” that allows one final appeal to challenge extreme injustices by the authorities, habeas review would be barred in certain cases involving, for instance:

–Challenges to removal where the deportee is likely to be tortured upon return.
–Attorney malpractice or incompetence.
–Virtually all cases of the unlawful use of “expedited removal,” which allows immigration officials to summarily deport certain non-citizens, including many who are already in the country, if they believe, for instance, that their documents are invalid. Practically, the change could mean that a refugee from the genocide in Sudan who arrives without proper documentation could be sent back without any hearing….

Deportation Before Final Appeal (Section 3009) – The bill would set an extraordinarily high bar for courts to meet before granting “stays” of deportation, even while a deportee’s appeal is pending. Effectively, this section will render those appeals moot in many cases, because the non-citizen will have already been deported.

Deportation to Countries Without a Functioning Government (Section 3033) – The consent of a government to accept a person being deported there is a basic principle in international law. To do otherwise would subject many deportees to extreme human rights violations, torture and even death. The House bill would remove that requirement, allowing the government to deport a person to any country that does not “physically” resist his or her entry….

Asylum Claims Made More Difficult (Section 3007) — Currently, asylum seekers need only show they face persecution based in part on race, religion, nationality or membership in a certain social group. The current law would require one of these criteria to be the “central motive” behind the persecution. This is a significantly higher burden to meet for any asylum claimant who will suffer persecution based on a mixture of these factors, or who will suffer harm that is related, but not directly so, to one of these factors (for instance, an opposition party politician who faces arrest on trumped-up charges).

The section would also allow a judge to require asylum seekers to “corroborate” their claim of persecution, and lowers the ability of other courts to overturn a denial of asylum based on the ruling judge’s demand for corroboration. This is a significantly higher hurdle for asylum seekers, who often lack any ability to prove their claim through anything save their own testimony (imagine, again, a hypothetical Christian refugee who escapes Darfur only by the skin of her teeth). Not surprisingly, asylum-seekers have difficulty obtaining corroborating documents from the very government that is persecuting them.

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Business School Professors Write Open Letter To Bush

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We’ve already had diplomats and former military commanders, more retired generals and admirals, Nobel laureates, eminent pediatricians, and others signing statements against President Bush and his policies — and those are just the ones that leapt to mind. Some of these are interesting: diplomats and former military generals, for instance, don’t organize to endorse candidates all that often, and I take the fact that they are doing it now as a sign of real alarm. But now comes the most unlikely group of all: Business School Professors have written a stinging letter to President Bush.

Now: Professors are a diverse and often unruly bunch, and attempts to generalize about them are usually a mistake. However, I will take the risk and say: Business School professors are, by and large, fairly conservative. The letter these B-School professors have written pulls no punches. After trying to excerpt it, I’ve decided to post the whole of it: the first two paragraphs here, the rest after the fold. These are very serious points made by very serious people.

Dear Mr. President:

As professors of economics and business, we are concerned that U.S. economic policy has taken a dangerous turn under your stewardship. Nearly every major economic indicator has deteriorated since you took office in January 2001. Real GDP growth during your term is the lowest of any presidential term in recent memory. Total non-farm employment has contracted and the unemployment rate has increased. Bankruptcies are up sharply, as is our dependence on foreign capital to finance an exploding current account deficit. All three major stock indexes are lower now than at the time of your inauguration. The percentage of Americans in poverty has increased, real median income has declined, and income inequality has grown.

The data make clear that your policy of slashing taxes – primarily for those at the upper reaches of the income distribution – has not worked. The fiscal reversal that has taken place under your leadership is so extreme that it would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. The federal budget surplus of over $200 billion that we enjoyed in the year 2000 has disappeared, and we are now facing a massive annual deficit of over $400 billion. In fact, if transfers from the Social Security trust fund are excluded, the federal deficit is even worse – well in excess of a half a trillion dollars this year alone. Although some members of your administration have suggested that the mountain of new debt accumulated on your watch is mainly the consequence of 9-11 and the war on terror, budget experts know that this is simply false. Your economic policies have played a significant role in driving this fiscal collapse. And the economic proposals you have suggested for a potential second term – from diverting Social Security contributions into private accounts to making the recent tax cuts permanent – only promise to exacerbate the crisis by further narrowing the federal revenue base.

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Another note

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This reader e-mail to TPM gets the litigation tactics right; not sure about debate crossover, however. Shorter TPM: If you’re so fortunate to catch someone in a lie, and you know you can prove it’s a lie without help from the witness, leave it be. Otherwise, you run the risk that the witness will try … Read more

A Better Tool Against the “Ideology of Hate”

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Let’s take the argument at face value for just a moment…the argument that fighting “terrorism” (by which today we mainly mean terrorist actions by Islamist extremists) requires taking the offensive against an “ideology of hate.” What would be the best way to fight this ideology of hate?

Stuck in the Cold War mentality and still misunderstanding that a state-centric solution stands little chance if the real problem is contained in radical misinterpretations/perversions of a worldwide religion that’s spreading all the time, Paul Wolfowitz et al. dreamt up the highly experimental dominoes approach…the idea that injecting “democracy” into the heart of the Middle East will act like a virus of sorts, spreading stabilization and spurring grass roots rebellions. If injecting that democracy requires war (and the deaths of innocent civilians that would mean), so be it. There are moral, as well as practical, objections that must be ignored to endorse this approach, but the idea is that eventually states dedicated to freedom will be less likely to both harbor terrorists or provide a breeding ground for the hatred that fuels them. The Bush Administration has essentially put all its eggs in this basket. Really, they have…if it fails, the global situation will most surely be less stable than it was before we invaded Iraq.

But what else…what other ways would there be to fight an ideology of hate? Less risky ways?

Because I opposed the invasion of Iraq, I get asked that question all the time. My answer remains to focus on the moderate Muslim countries and leaders that exist…elevate them, celebrate them, support and reward them. Make them shining examples of the good that democratic societies provide all people…make Muslims in other parts of the world want to immigrate there…this will have the extra benefit of encouraging these moderate countries to double their democratizing efforts. Follow Margaret Thatcher’s famous recipe for success: “Accentuate the Positive.”

At least if this fails you’re guaranteed that you won’t have actually made matters worse. Nor will you have costs thousands of innocent civilians their lives.

But…but…but…we can’t wait…we have to go kill them before they kill us…we can’t let the evidence that Wolfowitz was right be a mushroom cloud…we…er…flypaper…Niger…9/11…uh…look over there…a funny French person

Does that about cover the uncontrollable urge to reject this without due consideration?

OK, back to my point.

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The Abu Ghraib RICO lawsuit: The Defense

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(Part II of a series.) What do you say to a claim that you engaged in an international, illegal enterprise to torture, beat, rape, and murder Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison? (See these prior posts regarding the RICO and other claims against the Abu Ghraib civilian contractors.) Well, if you’re The Titan Corporation, … Read more

Ahmed Agiza & Muhammad al-Zery

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Summary
Thanks to excellent reporting by a Swedish TV program and the Washington Post, this case is the best window we have into how “extraordinary rendition” works in practice.

On December 18, 2001, the United States transported Swedish asylum seekers Ahmed Agiza and Muhammad Al-Zery from Sweden’s Bromma airport to Cairo. And for once we have a named witness. Paul Forell, a policeman stationed at the airport that night, described it to the TV show “Kalla Fakta”:

Forell waited with the Swedish security police and two Americans in civilian clothing for the prisoners to arrive. 20 minutes later, the suspects arrived. They were handcuffed, footcuffed and blindfolded. They were each escorted by 3-4 American agents, who were also wearing hoods or balaclavas. Forell said one of the masked American agents was giving orders, and all were “very professional in their way of acting, and if you´d compare with anything it would be the National action force (Swedish elite police unit for special actions). They acted very deftly, swiftly and silently,” and had “absolutely” done this before.

Forell escorted them into a small room, and waited outside. Another, anonymous source told Kalla Fakta that in the changing room, Agiza and al Zery’s clothes were cut off. They were given rectal suppositories, which one witness believed contained sedatives, and dressed in dark overalls.

“When they left the changing-room, they had their clothes changed into overalls, and were still with handcuffs and footcuffs. They were taken out to the cars, and then away,” Forell said.

According to the Washington Post, declassified Swedish government documents “noted that ‘the American side” had offered to help in the deportation “by lending a plane for the transport” and that “”the transport from Sweden to Egypt was carried out with the help of American authorities.”

Airport records obtained by Kalla Fakta show that a Gulfstream V jet registered with an American company identified by the registration/tail number N379P, the same plane that transported Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed from Karachi to Cairo, flew from the Swedish airport to Cairo that night.

Agiza and Al Zery were held in the Masra Tora prison, which is just south of Cairo. Agiza’s mother, Hamida Shalaby, says they were tortured there. She told Kalla Fakta,

The mattress had electricity. The mattress. He would lay on it – like this – and his arms in chains on both sides and his legs in chains too. When they connected to the electricity, his body would rise up and then fall down and this up and down would go on until they unplugged electricity.

Shalaby said this happened four times from December 19 to February 20, and “every day” her son was tortured with electrodes while stapped to a chair. She told the Washington Post that

told her during separate visits that he was given electric shocks and that prison doctors tried to cover up scars on his body by applying a special cream. “He couldn’t even pick up his arms to hug me,” she said in an interview. “He was very slow and very tired and very weak.”

Al Zery denied that he’d been tortured in an interview with Kalla Fakta, but it was conducted under the supervision of Egyptian security officers. (Zery has been released from prison, but cannot leave Egypt or indeed his village there & is under tight surveillance.) Zery’s lawyer, Kjell Jonsson, said

It´s evident that he is speaking under coercion…This information, that they have been tortured is now confirmed. It is about very painful torture. They fasten electrodes to the most sensitive parts of the body. That is, genitals, breast nipples, tongue, ear lobes, underarms. There are physicians present to judge how much torture, how much electricity, the prisoners can take. Afterwards the exposed parts are anointed, so that there won´t be marks and scars, and cold water is poured to stop blood clots.

Swedish government documents corroborate these allegations. From the Post:

In a report made public shortly afterward, Sven Linder, the Swedish ambassador to Egypt, wrote that Agiza and Zery told him they had been treated “excellently” in prison and that to him “they seemed well-nourished and showed no external signs of physical abuse or such things.”

Another section of the ambassador’s report that remained classified until recently, however, offered a different appraisal. It noted that Agiza had complained that he was subjected to “excessive brutality” by the Swedish security police when he was seized and that he was repeatedly beaten in Egyptian prisons.

From the Swedish TV show:

Kalla Fakta has taken part of original documents which support the testimonies, and which prove that the two men have been systematically tortured, with electricity, blows and kicks. On at least four occasions, Swedish authorities have received information through different channels from the men about what they have been subjected to.”

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Fact Check: Stem Cell Funding

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The Bush campaign has put out a statement about his record on funding stem cell research. It reads, in part:

“The Facts Are:

President Bush delivered the first funding ever for embryonic stem cell research.  Prior to the President’s announcement of new funding, federal funding of embryonic stem cell research was $0.

The President’s announcement did not ban, limit or restrict stem cell research.

It is inaccurate to say the President “limited federal funding” of stem cell research, as such funding did not exist to limit.  This language misleads voters to believe that the President put restrictions on existing federal funding.

The President did announce the first ever federal funding of stem cell research with ethical requirements on which stem cell lines are funded.”

Since various claims and counterclaims are being made about this, I decided to provide some background against which to assess them. I am not doing this in a partisan spirit; I work on this stuff, and I just thought it would be good to have a clear account of the history.

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Just for Fun

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Here is a fun site which compares heiresses Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Paris Hilton. I didn’t realize that Julia Louis-Dreyfus was that Dreyfus. Via The Protocols of the Yuppies of Zion.

Nope, Wouldn’t Want to Affect the Election

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CBS decides that it doesn’t want to risk affecting the election. Whew, now that we got caught trying to affect the election with fraudulant documents we certainly wouldn’t want to affect the election by publically admitting that our producer revealed a ‘confidential’ source to the Kerry campaign before the story ran. Wouldn’t want to reveal … Read more

Guantanamo’s Evil Stepson

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(12th post in a series on the House GOP’s attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition”. Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)

Please read this very, very important Newsweek story. As I feared, Gonzales’ letter is not worth much.

Hastert’s spokesman John Feehery said that Homeland Security had requested the extraordinary rendition provision, but “for whatever reason the White House has decided they don’t want to take this on because they’re afraid of the political implications.”

It’s actually worse than I thought. It’s not just a legal justification to keep doing what they’ve been doing. It’s not justa way to get rid of the Maher Arar case. It still might have been a political ploy, but not only a political ploy. Torture outsourcing was going to be–still may be–the substitute for Guantanamo Bay after the Supreme Court decision:

He said the provision, mainly laid out in Section 3032 and 3033 , was designed as a way of addressing the problem created by last summer’s Supreme Court decision. The justices ruled that the administration couldn’t detain people indefinitely without trial or charges. As a result, the government has ordered the release of suspects such as Yaser Hamdi, a dual citizen of the United States and Saudi Arabia who was captured in Afghanistan and held for three years as an enemy combatant.

Now, Feehery said, “we’ve got a situation where we’ve got these people in the country who ought not to be in the country. We have to release them because of the Supreme Court case. So Homeland Security wanted this provision.”

The DOJ spokesman confirmed this:

Justice spokesman Mark Corallo also said it was Homeland Security’s call. “It’s their issue,” Corallo said. “They’re the immigration people now. Not us.”

The House is still pushing for the provision, and I’m sure the White House has no objection. They just need to keep a safe distance. They can’t be allowed to. The press must ask Bush about this directly.

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Five Suspects Deported From Malawi to Zimbabwe

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(10th post in a series on the House GOP’s attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition”. Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)
Summary
I just learned about this one a half hour ago. It’s been reported on even less than the other cases in the U.S. press (yoo hoo, U.S. press! Look alive!)–just one news brief and one editorial in Seattle newspapers over a year ago, and no one’s picked up on the Amnesty International report–so I’m posting it out of chronological sequence.

According to Amnesty International, Ibrahim Habaci and Arif Ulusam of Turkey, Faha al Balhi of Saudi Arabi, MUhmud Sardar Issa of the Sudan, and Khalifa Abdi Hassan of Kenya were arrested in Blantyre, Malawi, on June 22, 2003. The arrests were carried out by Malawian police and CIA agents. They were held in secret. Their families lawyers intervened with the High Court of Malawi, which ordered them to be brought before the court in 48 hours.

By then they’d been flown out of the country. On June 26, 2003, a Malawian government official wrote to Amnesty that:

the arrests were not done by the Malawi Police but by the National Intelligence Bureau and the USA Secret Agents who controlled the whole operation. From the time the arrests were made, the welfare of the detainees, their abode and itinerary for departure were no longer in the hands of the Malawian authorities. Thus as a country we did not have the means to stop or delay the operation…In Malawi we do not know where these people are but they are in hands of the Americans who them out of the country using a chartered aircraft. They should now being going through investigations at a location only known by the USA.”

The U.S. ambassador to Malawi denied that the U.S. was responsible for the deportations.

There was some question over where they were taken. According to the Seattle Times, the men were suspected of funneling money to Al Qaeda through Islamic charities, and had been flown to Botswana for interrogation. A Guardian article from August 2003 describes “reports that the Air Malawi plane chartered by the US stopped off in Zimbabwe on the way to a third country, possibly Djibouti or Uganda, where the men were questioned for a month.” Several other sources said that they were interrogated in Zimbabwe for a month.

It seems as if the last story is accurate, based on what one of the prisoner’s told his wife. Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe has one of the worst human rights records on the planet, and severe and sometimes fatal torture is widespread there. But fortunately, for once, these men seem not to have been harmed. Ella Ulusam, Arif Usulam’s wife, told Xinhua New Service that her husband had called her from Istanbul,

informing her that they were kept for 29 days in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwean(sic), where US and Malawian intelligence officials cleared them of any al-Qaeda links.

“He told me apart from the trauma of being arrested at night with no reason, they were treated well and are all in good health, ” she said.

The Guardian confirms that the CIA and the Malawian government decided they were innocent:

Nothing more was heard until July 24 when lawyers heard that Fahad Ral Bahli had surfaced in Riyadh and the other four in Sudan, all free men. Hub-Eddin Abbakar, a colleague of the Sudanese suspect, said they had been handed over to their respective embassies in Khartoum after the CIA decided they were innocent.

The President of Malawi met with Ella Ulusam and another of the prisoner’s wives and apologized to them for their treatment. From Xinhua Net:

“The president was very apologetic,” said Ella during the Tuesday interview. “He just said he was sorry, it was not the Malawi government, it was all the Americans. That’s all he said.”

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Truth Cuts (Strings and other Things)

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I’ve been one of the loudest among those calling Allawi a puppet of the Bush Administration, so let me be among the loudest to commend him for painting a more realistic portrait of the situation in his country:

In his first speech before the interim national assembly here, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi gave a sobering account today of the threat posed by the insurgency, saying the country’s instability is a “source of worry for many people” and that the guerrillas represent “a challenge to our will.”

Dr. Allawi, who has tried hard to cast himself as a tough and confident leader since taking office in late June, asserted that general elections would go ahead in January as planned, but acknowledged that there were significant obstacles standing in the way of security and reconstruction. The nascent police force is underequipped and lacks the respect needed from the public to quell the insurgency, he said, and foreign businessmen have told him they fear investing in Iraq because of the rampant violence here.

Why the change? I’ll give him all benefit of doubt here…but before anyone even thinks about suggesting there’s not been any change…

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Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed

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(9th post in a series on the House GOP’s attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition”. Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)

Summary
At 1 am in the morning of October 23 or 24, 2001, in a dark, empty corner of the Karachi airport, Pakistan handed, Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, over to U.S. officials. Mohammed was shackled and blindfolded. A Pakistani newspaper reported that he had been “missing since the start of October” from Karachi University, where he was studying microbiology.

Mohammed is Yemeni, and was a suspect in the U.S.S. Cole bombing.

The U.S. flew him to Amman, Jordan on a private Gulfstream jet (which you may hear more about in a subsequent post) with the registration number N379P.

He hasn’t been seen since. Amnesty International has asked the U.S. where he is and what his legal status is, but gotten no reply. According to the 2001 State Department human rights report for Jordan, prisoners there made allegations of “methods of torture include sleep deprivation, beatings on the soles of the feet, prolonged suspension with ropes in contorted positions, and extended solitary confinement.”

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______ the Model

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At some point, usually when it’s done, the models are damned and the thing becomes the thing that it is. Until that time, though, Kieran of Crooked Timber is on the right track: The U.S.’s day-to-day problems in Iraq may end up resembling Northern Ireland rather than Vietnam: car bombings, political assassinations, a general effort … Read more

The Pain Cannot Go On: RICO and Abu Ghraib

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On June 9, 2004, a civil rights group, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed a class-action lawsuit in the Southern District of California. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of about a thousand Iraqis who had been imprisoned in Abu Ghraib. The lawsuit alleges violations of the Alien Tort Claims Act, assault and battery, sexual assault and battery, wrongful death, violations of the Fourth, Eigth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, among other things. And, most significantly, it alleges that a consortium of U.S companies and their employees violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) through their work in the Abu Ghraib prison. Over the next few days, ObWi will explore the extent and nature of the Abu Ghraib RICO allegations.

I’d say that the Abu Ghraib claims are shocking, if the term “shocking” wasn’t already so diluted by its association with Britney’s marriages, thirty-year-old National Guard pay stubs, and JacketGate, etc. A sixteen year-old boy “was [allegedly] prevented from eating, drinking water, sitting, or sleeping. He described being sexually abused by Americans who placed their fingers in his anus.” One man was purportedly told by American interrogators that if he didn’t talk, they’d “torture him and rape his sister.” Other men were purportedly tortured, threatened with death, or sexually humiliated. And, allegedly, some were murdered in cold blood by their American interrogators and guards.

These allegations are enough to fill anyone with rage. But don’t let your rage be blind. As we get into the details of the case, you may begin to raise real questions regarding the truth of some of these allegations. You may also see that blame for the nightmare of Abu Ghraib may not fall to the persons accused. And you will see, I hope, that there’s a reason why we have judges and juries in this country, and that things are usually not so black-and-white that you can pick up a newspaper, read a story, dispense justice, and get on with your day.

The only thing worse than a crime, after all, is to convict the wrong person for it.

(There’s more.)

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It’s the Number of Troops, Stupid!

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Again and again, from Generals to Pundits, folks who spend their lives studying such things insisted the biggest mistake we made in invading Iraq was not sending in enough troops. Now even Paul Bremer is concurring: The United States did not have enough troops in Iraq after ousting Saddam Hussein and “paid a big price” … Read more

Our President Lies.

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Last Saturday, in Columbus OH, our President said this: “Think about this, Senator Kerry’s approach to foreign policy would give foreign governments veto power over our national security decisions. I have a different view. (Applause.) When our country is in danger, the President’s job is not to take an international poll. The President’s job is … Read more

Torture Legalization: A Winning Strategy for YOUR Congressional Campaign!

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(8th post in a series on the House GOP’s attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition”. Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.) I noted in my last post that if Congressman Markey’s amendment fails, and the language legalizing extraordinary rendition make into the final version of the 9/11 Commission bill, … Read more

Legislative Update: Torture Outsourcing Bill One Step Closer

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(7th post in a series on the House GOP’s attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition”. Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)

Via Congressman Markey’s Office: The Republican leadership has released the version of the 9/11 Commission bill that will go before the full House this week. Here is a PDF version. The torture outsourcing provisions are still there. (Sections 3032 and 3033, pages 254-258.)

I didn’t have much hope otherwise. I’m still pretty depressed right now.

The Senate version doesn’t include the language legalizing extraordinary rendition. But given that the D.O.J. apparently requested these provisions and given the routine exclusion of Democrats and moderates from conference committees on major bills, I would be very very surprised if they were not included in the bill that comes out of conference.

Senate Democrats and moderate Republicans will probably not vote against, let alone filibuster, the bill based on this issue. Not the 9/11 Bill, not in an election year. They remember the Homeland Security Bill and the 2002 midterms. They remember how a triple amputee was successfully painted as soft on defense and this led to the loss of the Senate. I don’t think it’s farfetched to say that Hastert and DeLay remember too, and that it’s part of the reason for the anti-immigration provisions in the bill. Heads they win, tails Democrats lose. Maybe they can even have it both ways: pass the bill AND get a few conscience-ridden Democrats to oppose it and give them negative ad fodder.

So if I had to guess, I would tell you that Markey’s amendment is our last, best hope of stopping this.

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Don’t Ask, Don’t Teach

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Via a diary by Daniel at Tacitus RedState has endorsed South Carolina Senate candidate Republican Jim DeMint. In fact, RedState said he represents “a dying breed.” All I can say to that is I certainly hope so. Gays and lesbians should not be allowed to teach in public schools, Republican Jim DeMint said Sunday in … Read more

Mamdouh Habib

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(6th post in a series on the House GOP’s attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition”. Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)

Summary
Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib was arrested in Pakistan on October 5, 2001, and sent to Egypt for interrogation shortly after that. Makhdoom Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat, Pakistan’s Interior Minister, told the Australian TV show SBS Dateline that Habib was sent to Egypt on U.S. orders and in U.S. custody: “The US wanted him for their own investigations. We are not concerned where they take him,” Hayat said. Hayat also stated that Egypt had never requested Habib’s extradition.

The Australian government has accused Habib of attending Lashkar and Al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan. An Australian TV program, Four Corners on the ABC network, has reported that a raid on Habib’s home in Sunday had uncovered “notes from a terrorist weapons training course”, that he told a friend he planned “to go to Afghanistan to live an Islamic life in the bin Laden camp,” and that he had contacts with two men convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Mahmud Abouhalima and Ibrahim El-Gabrowny. Sheik Mohammed Omran, a fundamentalist Muslim cleric in Melbourne, has said that he banned Habib from his mosque for trying to recruit people for jihad.

Habib’s family and lawyers deny all these charges. His wife says he traveled to Pakistan to look for an Islamic school for their children.

Habib’s lawyers say he was imprisoned for six months in Egypt and tortured with beatings, electric shock, and drug injection. Dr. Najeeb Al-Nauimi, the former Justice minister of Qatar, told the Dateline TV program that these accusations were true, though it is not clear how he knew this. From an unofficial transcript:

DR HAJEEB AL-NAUMI, FORMER MINISTER OF JUSTICE, QATAR: They said he will die.
REPORTER: Tell me more specifically what you were told from your sources about what happened to Mamdouh Habib in Egypt.
DR HAJEEB AL-NAUMI: Well, he was in fact tortured. He was interrogated in a way which a human cannot stand up.
REPORTER: And you know this absolutely?
DR HAJEEB AL-NAUMI: Yes. We were told that he – they rang the bell that he will die and somebody had to help him.
REPORTER: And again, did your sources tell you what kinds of things he was saying in Egypt to his torturers, to his interrogators?
DR HAJEEB AL-NAUMI: My sources did not say exactly what dialogue but they say that he accepted to sign anything.
REPORTER: So he was talking lots?
DR HAJEEB AL-NAUMI: Yes – “Whatever you want, I will sign. I’m not involved. I’m not Egyptian. I’m Egyptian by background but I’m Australian.” But he was really beaten, he was really tortured.
REPORTER: Do you think…
DR HAJEEB AL-NAUMI: They tried to use different ways of treating him in the beginning but in the end of that they thought he was lying and that’s why they were very tough.

Sometime in the spring of 2002, most likely in May, the U.S. brought Habib from Egypt to Guantanamo Bay. Ian Kemish, a spokesman for Australia’s foreign affairs department, told Dateline SBC that 10 days after he arrived in Guantanamo Habib “made some serious complaints about maltreatment during his time in Egypt” to visiting Australian officials.

This July, three British detainees released from Guantanamo Bay, Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, and Rhuhel Ahmed, gave a long public statement about conditions there. It contained these allegations about Habib (on page 108):

Habib himself was in catastrophic shape – mental and physical. As a result of his having been tortured in Egypt he used to bleed from his nose, mouth and ears when he was asleep. We would say he was about 40 years of age. He got no medical attention for this. We used to hear him ask but his interrogator said that he shouldn’t have any. The medics would come and see him and then after he’d asked for medical help they would come back and say if you cooperate with your interrogators then we can do something.

Habib is still imprisoned in Guantanamo, and has not yet been charged before a military commission.

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A Divider…Not a Uniter

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We’ve gone a few rounds here about the actions Bush took upon his inauguration in 2001 that made a mockery of his pledge to work to unite the nation after one of its most controversial elections; actions such as rolling back the Clinton EPA plans or defunding international organizations that provide abortions or abortion counseling … Read more

Or are you just happy to see me?

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Eric Muller shows us exactly what Kerry had in his pocket during his debate with President Bush. I’ve been unexpectedly called away, so my upcoming report on the Abu Ghraib RICO lawsuit won’t appear until tomorrow morning. ‘Till then, this is another open thread. UPDATE: For those unfamiliar with “Jacketgate” (and, thus, Muller’s reference) see … Read more

We Should Be Ashamed.

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Here’s a story from the Washington Post: Thousands of U.S. troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with physical injuries and mental health problems are encountering a benefits system that is already overburdened, and officials and veterans’ groups are concerned that the challenge could grow as the nation remains at war. The disability benefits and health … Read more

David Brooks: Wrong On The Debates, Wrong On Morality

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I have vowed, repeatedly, never to read David Brooks again: I have low blood pressure, as it happens, but a person can never be too careful. Still, every few months or so I spot a sentence out of the corner of my eye before I realize it’s his, and it’s so completely inane that I can’t help myself. Today, the sentence in question was this: “In weak moments, I think the best ticket for this country would be Bush-Kerry.” With a horrible sinking sensation, I knew that I was going to have to read on.

Fortunately, Brooks did not dwell on the supposed merits of a Bush-Kerry ticket. Instead, he analyzed the debates. I was not surprised that what he said was inane. I was surprised, however, at how entirely false it was. People like Brooks are, as Emerson once said, “not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us, and we know not where to begin to set them right.”

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The Tirana Cell

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post in a series on the House GOP’s attempt to legalize “Extraordinary Rendition”. Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)

(see also this post from June 15, which relies on the same source.)

Summary
In 1998, the CIA arranged for Ahmed Osman Saleh, Ahmed Ibrahim al-Naggar, Shawki Salama Attiya, Essam Abdel Tawwab, and Mohamed Hassan Tita to be captured in Albania and sent to Egypt for interrogation and imprisonment. According to the Wall Street Journal (see below for link, cite & excerpts–this article is excellent, highly recommended reading, and is the source for all of the information in this post unless otherwise noted.), they were all members of a cell of Egypt’s Islamic Jihad that Ayman Al-Zawahiri’s brother Mohamed started in 1992, and that U.S. officials considered “among the most dangerous terror outfits in Europe”. Islamic Jihad was merging with Al Qaeda at the time.

The arrests were primarily planned by the CIA, which sent 12 agents to plan them & enlisted Albania and Egypt’s help. The U.S. and Albania spent three months planning the operation, and Egypt issued pre-arranged charges and extradition requests against some of the suspects during this time. The arrests were carried out in June, July, and August. The suspects were flown to Egypt on a private jet and handed over to the authorities in Cairo.

All five of them alleged that they were tortured in Egypt. The Wall Street Journal Article Mentions that the Egyptian lawyer Hafez Abu-Saada, “who represented all five members of the Tirana cell, subsequently recorded their complaints in a published report.” I believe I have found a copy of Abu-Saada’s report, but only the Google cache is available.* These are excerpts from the report. (There are some translation/grammar errors, which I have not attempted to correct):

–Ahmed Osman Saleh (referred to as “Ahmed Ismail Osman” in Abu-Saada’s report) “was detained in an unknown place for two months, and he was being kept in isolation cell then he was tortured by beaten and suspended him. He was referred to SSI in Lazogli and was detained for 45 days during that period he was beaten and the electricity passed in his body.”

–Ahmed Ibrahim al-Naggar (spelled “Nagar” in Abu-Saada’s report) “was arrested on July 2, 1998 on his arrival to Cairo airport as he was deported from Albania, he was detained in an unknown place for 35 days-as he stated to the EOHR lawyers in the session on February 4, 1999 before the court body. During this period he was blindfolded, and was lodging for 24 hours in a room covered with water to reach his knee and then he was moved to State Security Investigation in Lazogli, and he was tortured by tying his legs, shackling his hands behind his back, forcing him to lie on a sponge mattress putting a chair on his chest and another between his leg and passing electricity to his body.”

–Shawki Salama Attiya (referred to as “Shawki Salama Mustafa” in Abu-Saada’s report) “was detained for 65 days, the water covered his knee, his legs was tied and he was dragged on his face. He was referred to the State Security Investigation in Lazogli-as stated in prosecution investigation on September 12, 1998 for many sessions in Folder # 1 page 20, he was tied, his legs and hands was suspended and they passing electricity to his male organ and castrates** and they even threatened of sexually abusing him.”

–Essam Abdel Tawwab (referred to as “Essam Abdel Tawab Abdel Aleim” in Abu-Saada’s report) “was detained in unknown place and then he referred to SSI, during this period he was beaten by hands and legs, his right hand was injured by a sharpener tool, also his legs and hands was tied and suspended and beaten and the electricity passed in a sensitive parts of his body, as stated in the prosecution investigations ‘their was a recovered wound.'”

–Mohamed Hassan Tita “was tortured –as stated in the prosecution investigations in page 65, he said to the EOHR Lawyer that “the electricity passed through my legs and back and I was suspended”.

There are also allegations that Egyptian authorities arrested and tortured the suspect’s families. Naggar’s brother Mohamed told The Wall Street Journal “that he and his relatives also were — and continue to be — harassed and tortured by Egyptian police. He said he had suffered broken ribs and fractured cheekbones. “They changed my features,” Mohamed Naggar said, touching his face. .” And this is another excerpt from Abu-Saada’s report:

Wives and Children:
– The defendants Ahmed Ibrahim El Nagar’s wife, she was arrested after him and while her departure from Albania in Cairo Airport. She was detained in SSI in Lazogli for three days and they ——- her. Worth mentioning, she was arrested before in 1993 for three days and was tortured by passing electricity to her body.

-The defendant Shawki Salama’s wife called Gihan Hassan Mohamed Hassan and a daughter of defendant Hassan Ahmed Hassan (defendant # 104), was arrested on August 1998 after her ——- from Albania and she was detained for three days in SSI in Lazogli. She was tortured by passing electricity to her body, beating her and tying her hands and legs. Worth mentioning the prosecutor recommend her as a witness against her husband but the court improbable her witness from the ——-.

According to the Wall Street Journal, all five defendants were tried and convicted in a mass trial known as the “Returnees-from-Albania Case” in early 1999. Naggar and Saleh were executed in February, 2000, based on earlier terrorism charges. Attiya was sentenced to life imprisonment, and Tita and Tawwab were sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. (Abu-Saada’s report says that Tawwab was sentenced to 15 years.)

*If anyone knows how to do a screen capture of this document, please email it to me at katherinesblog@hotmail.com. (UPDATE: several readers have done so. Thanks!)
**From context I think this is a mistranslation of “testicles” and not a verb, but I of course have no way of knowing for certain.

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