US launches criminal probe of CIA tapes

By Randall Mikkelsen

WASHINGTON, Jan 2 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday it had launched a criminal investigation into the CIA's destruction of videotapes depicting the harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects.

"There is a basis for initiating a criminal investigation of this matter, and I have taken steps to begin that investigation," Attorney General Michael Mukasey said in a statement issued by the department.

The CIA last month disclosed that it had destroyed in 2005 hundreds of hours of tapes from the interrogations of two al Qaeda suspects, prompting an outcry from Democrats, human rights activists and some legal experts.

The interrogations, which took place in 2002, were believed to have included a form of simulated drowning known as waterboarding, condemned internationally as torture.

President George W. Bush has said the United States does not torture but has declined to be specific about interrogation methods.

The Justice Department and the CIA's inspector general last month launched an initial inquiry into the tapes. Congress is also investigating the tapes' destruction.

The CIA said it would "cooperate fully with this investigation, as it has with others into this matter."

But the agency's inspector general, John Helgerson, said he would step aside from the full investigation.

Helgerson said the inspector general's office had reviewed the tapes "some years ago" as part of a review into agency interrogations and that he had helped prepare a report on the issue, so it would be inappropriate to be involved in the probe.

Mukasey said he had asked a federal prosector from Connecticut, John Durham, to lead the probe.

Jim Rogers dumping his dollars (11/07 OLD)

In this clip Jim Rogers explains why the the value of the dollar is sinking dramatically and where he is moving his assets to in preparation of a U.S. economic collapse. For more information regarding the U.S. Economy and its effect on Real Estate visit my website at http://www.PhilDeCarolis.com

Oil Touches $100 a Barrel on Supply Concern, Increased Demand

By Mark Shenk and Nesa Subrahmaniyan

Jan. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil rose to $100 a barrel for the first time in New York as record global fuel consumption threatens to outpace production.

Oil's gain, extending last year's 57 percent rally, was boosted by forecasts that U.S. stockpiles dropped to a three-year low last week. Unrest in Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer, also spurred prices.

``This is the culmination of everything that we talked about last year,'' said John Kilduff, vice president of risk management at MF Global Ltd. in New York. ``Various geopolitical problems have deteriorated overnight, in particular Nigeria and Pakistan. Commodities, and in particular oil, have become safe havens in a dangerous world.''

Three-figure prices may bring energy costs near the tipping point that will cause global economic growth to falter. China has more than doubled oil use since New York crude dropped to this century's low of $16.70 a barrel on Nov. 19, 2001. That's soaked up most of the world's spare production capacity amid supply cuts in Nigeria, Iraq and Venezuela.

Crude oil for February delivery rose $4.02, or 4.2 percent, to $100 a barrel at 12:10 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest since trading began in 1983. Prices were up $3.46, or 3.6 percent, to $99.44 a barrel at 1:24 p.m.

Important Number

``This is an important psychological number,'' said Rick Mueller, an analyst with Energy Security Analysis Inc. in Wakefield, Massachusetts. ``Everyone has been expecting this since early December.''

Prices on Oct. 15 passed the previous all-time inflation- adjusted record. Measured in today's dollars, oil in 1981 rose as high as $84.73 after a decade of Middle East instability including the Arab-Israeli war in 1973, the Iranian revolution in 1979 and the Iran-Iraq war that began in 1980.

Oil embargoes and higher prices helped trigger recessions in developed countries, prompting efficiency drives that sent prices lower for two decades to as little as $10.35 a barrel on Dec. 21, 1998.

Prices rose 2.9 percent last week partly because of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan's former prime minister. Pakistan borders Iran, which holds the world's second- biggest oil reserves, and is located along the Arabian Sea, where tankers travel before entering the Persian Gulf.

``Not one drop of oil was disrupted when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated last week, but prices surged,'' Mueller said. ``Anything that can is sending the market higher. That's what happens when you have a jittery market.''

Soaring energy costs have so far failed to choke rising consumption in developing nations, led by China and India. Asia's developing economies will grow 9.8 percent this year, the International Monetary Fund said in its Oct. 17 World Economic Outlook report.

Brent Oil

Brent crude for February settlement rose $3.79, or 4 percent, to $97.64 a barrel on London's ICE Futures Europe exchange. Futures touched $97.75, the highest since trading began in 1988.

The dollar's 11 percent slide last year against the euro boosted oil prices because it made commodities cheaper for buyers outside the U.S. and attracted investors as a hedge against inflation.

``The consumer is going to be hit with record fuel bills during the first quarter of the year,'' Kilduff said. ``Most of the attention is on crude oil but the product markets are also soaring to records and that's going to hurt.''

Heating oil for February delivery rose 9.68 cents, or 3.7 percent, to $2.7412 a gallon in New York. Futures touched $2.7465, the highest since trading began in 1978. Gasoline for February delivery climbed 9.13 cents, or 3.7 percent, to $2.5671. The contract touched a record $2.5784.

Iranian Dispute

A simmering dispute between the U.S. and Iran has contributed to oil's rally. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said Iran wants to develop atomic energy to generate electricity. George W. Bush's administration says the project is a cover for producing nuclear weapons.

A military conflict would threaten almost a quarter of global oil supply that passes from the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz waterway off Iran's coast.

In Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil exporter, militants have attacked oil installations and kidnapped foreign workers since the beginning of 2006, forcing Royal Dutch Shell Plc to halt about 500,000 barrels a day of output, almost a quarter of the country's total.

Venezuelan Output

In Venezuela, production has slumped to about 2.44 million barrels a day from almost 3 million barrels a day in 2002, according to Bloomberg's estimates, before President Hugo Chavez fired almost 20,000 workers who had closed the state oil company in an attempt to overthrow the government.

Iraq's oil production has yet to reach levels attained before the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 as the country struggles with sectarian fighting and attacks on its energy infrastructure.

Higher prices have been cast as vindication for a theory that the world has reached the maximum rate of oil production as explorers fail to discover major new fields to replace aging deposits being tapped in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran.

While Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi and Exxon Mobil Corp. President Rex Tillerson have said oil supplies will last for decades, energy traders are increasingly debating the amount of available crude.

Investors who back the peak-oil theory, such as Boone Pickens, a Dallas hedge fund manager and former oil executive, have led the price rally of the past two years. Pickens, chairman of BP Capital LLC, correctly predicted in 2004 that oil prices would top $60 a barrel in 2005 and in early 2006 said oil could reach $90 to $100 a barrel within two years.

Dollar extends early losses after downbeat ISM data

Greenback plunges against yen; Fed minutes, crude-oil spike add pressure

By Lisa Twaronite, MarketWatch

Last update: 2:23 p.m. EST Jan. 2, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The dollar extended losses against most major rivals Wednesday, plunging against the yen after the Institute of Supply Management said the U.S. factory sector contracted in December, crude-oil futures hit $100 a barrel for the first time and minutes from the Federal Reserve's last meeting showed little opposition to an interest rate cut.

Nearly all members of the Federal Open Market Committee backed the quarter percentage-point cut in the federal funds rate at the Dec. 11 meeting, though the minutes provided little guidance about what the FOMC might do at the Jan. 29 and 30 meeting. Read The Fed.

Lower interest rates weigh on the dollar because they reduce the return on dollar-denominated assets.

Earlier Wednesday, crude for February delivery rallied $4.02 to $100 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, on expectations U.S. crude inventories may have fallen for a seventh straight week and concerns about violence in Nigeria, Africa's biggest crude producer.

Oil's standard trading unit is dollars per barrel. As the dollar drops, so does the price of oil in non-dollar terms. This usually encourages investors who hold other currencies to bid up the price of oil, leading it to rise in dollar terms.

A report released n the morning session showed the ISM index fell to 47.7% from 50.8% in November. Economists expected the index to slide to 50.5%. Readings below 50% indicate more manufacturing firms were contracting than were growing in December. It was the lowest reading since April 2003 and the first sub-50 reading since January 2007. See Economic Report.

"Today's [ISM] release is definitely unsettling," wrote Stephen Stanley, Chief Economist at RBS Greenwich Capital.

"The real question is whether today's data point to a brief pause in activity or a more persistent trend. It is always tough to make that call when faced with one outlier downside reading. We are inclined to wait a month and see what the January figures look like before tossing the manufacturing sector onto the trash heap," he added.

U.S. stocks were sharply lower Wednesday, after the ISM report and crude-oil price spike. See Market Snapshot.

Yen surges

The stock market downturn lifted the yen, which tends to weaken as investor's appetite for risk increases and they take on so-called carry trade positions, in which investors borrow funds in yen at low rates to invest in other higher-yielding assets.

The dollar was buying 109.47 yen, down about 2.2%, compared with 111.02 yen earlier.

The euro was at $1.4732, up about 0.8%, compared with $1.4652 earlier.

The dollar managed to hold onto some gains against the British pound sterling, which was down about 0.3% at $1.9821, but still up from $1.9783 earlier.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was down about 0.8% at 75.940, compared with 76.390 earlier Wednesday.

Currency investors largely shrugged better-than-expected construction data.

Commerce Department data showed spending on construction projects hit a two-month high in November, rising by 0.1% on strong outlays for public, state and local construction projects. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had been expecting construction spending to fall by 0.5% in November.

Spending on home construction, meanwhile, continued its slide, falling by 2.5% in November following a drop of 2.3% in October. It's the 21st consecutive decline. See Economic Report.

Later Wednesday, the Federal Reserve is scheduled to release the minutes of its Dec. 11 meeting, at which the central bank cut rates by a quarter-point to 4.25%.

Yuan starts on high note

In Asian trading Wednesday, the Chinese yuan kicked off the new year with a new record high close against the dollar over-the-counter trading. The yuan rose to 7.2934 against the dollar, up from Friday's 7.3041 close. Chinese markets were closed Monday.

The yuan gained nearly 7% in 2007, with over 2% of the gains coming in the last two months of 2007.

In its tightly-controlled currency markets, China permits the yuan to trade in a band of 0.5% on either side of its official parity rate, which it sets daily.

Chinese officials have indicated that the yuan will be allowed to gradually appreciate in the country's tightly controlled foreign-exchange market, to help alleviate domestic inflationary pressures.

National City to Trim Dividend by 49%, Cut 900 Jobs

By David Mildenberg

Jan. 2 (Bloomberg) -- National City Corp., Ohio's largest bank, will eliminate another 900 jobs and halve its dividend, the first reduction since the payout began in 1935. The company fell 6 percent in New York trading.

The lender plans to raise capital and hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. as its adviser, Cleveland-based National City said today in a statement. The bank is halting home loans through brokers and firing the employees in that business, bringing total cuts to 3,400, or about 10 percent of its workforce, in one year.

National City is still reeling from the U.S. housing slump a year after selling its subprime mortgage unit to Merrill Lynch & Co. It now expects to make $15 billion to $20 billion in home loans in 2008, compared with a previous projection of $35.7 billion.

``The housing market was poised for a correction and then it corrected with a high degree of suddenness,'' Chief Executive Officer Peter Raskind said in an interview. ``It's not clear to me that anything can be done prudently to dramatically improve that process.''

National City will pay 21 cents a share on Feb. 1 to shareholders of record on Jan. 14. The dividend was previously 41 cents a share.

The bank fell 99 cents to $15.47 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, the biggest drop in three weeks. The stock lost 55 percent in 2007.

`Cleaning Up the Mess'

``National City is probably at the front edge of cleaning up the mess,'' said analyst Gerard Cassidy of RBC Capital Markets, who has an ``underperform'' rating on the bank. ``They still have some heavy lifting going forward. We think others are going to follow. The housing problems are going to continue through 2008.''

U.S. home foreclosures rose 68 percent in November from a year earlier as adjustable-rate mortgages left subprime borrowers unable to meet higher payments, according to RealtyTrac Inc., an Irvine, California-based seller of housing information.

The bank said it plans to raise ``non-dilutive'' capital in the first quarter of this year to improve its so-called Tier 1 capital ratio, which is used to assess a bank's ability to withstand loan losses. The bank on Dec. 31 was above ``well- capitalized levels'' set by regulators, Treasurer Thomas Richlovsky said, without disclosing the figures.

The bank will continue making home loans through its 300 mortgage offices and 1,448 bank branches, spokeswoman Kristen Baird Adams said. It had about 34,000 employees as of Sept. 30, according to a regulatory filing.

California, Ohio

Most of National City's problem loans stem from markets including California where prices surged and then declined, Raskind said.

About one-third of the bank's branches are in Ohio and Michigan. Ohio has the third-highest foreclosure rate in the U.S., and Michigan ranked sixth, according to RealtyTrac Inc.

National City on Dec. 17 took a $200 million charge related to the declining value of mortgage securities and said it expects to set aside about $700 million in the fourth quarter to cover bad loans. The bank said it has ``elevated risk'' from loans made by its former First Franklin unit and its closed National City Home Equity business. National City sold First Franklin, which principally made loans to borrowers with less than prime credit, to Merrill Lynch in December 2006.

Washington Mutual, the biggest U.S. savings and loan, sold $3 billion of perpetual convertible preferred bonds last month to shore up its capital and slashed its dividend 73 percent after mortgage-market losses increased.

Bank of America Corp., the nation's second-largest bank behind Citigroup Inc., said in October it would stop making loans through brokers, a business called wholesale lending. The move will lead to 700 job cuts, Bank of America said.

US might take over Pak nukes?

Press TV
Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Pakistan has dismissed a report that US forces will 'seize or disable' the country's nuclear weapons, after the assassination of Bhutto.

The British daily Herald had earlier quoted military sources as saying that a US Special Forces squad and volunteer scientists from the Nuclear Emergency Search Team had orders to take control of Pakistan's estimated 60 nuclear warheads.

The report also said some of the US forces were already in neighboring Afghanistan to 'seize or disable' Pakistan's nuclear weapons in the event of the collapse of the administration following the killing of former PM Benazir Bhutto.

Pakistani Foreign Office Spokesman Mohammad Sadiq, however, rejected the report as 'baseless and ridiculous', saying Pakistan has an effective command and control system, The Hindustan Times reported.

Over the past few weeks, Pakistan has been trying to allay the West's concerns about the safety of its nuclear arsenals, saying it has an established command and control system.

Couple banned for life from shopping centre and branded 'terrorists' - for taking photos of their grandchildren

STEVE DOUGHTY
Daily Mail
Wednesday, January 2, 2008

A couple were banned for life from a shopping centre - because they were taking photos of their beloved grandchildren.

Kim and Trevor Sparshott were ordered to stop taking photos because they were causing a security threat.

They were thrown out of the centre after they took out a camera to snap the look on the youngsters' faces when they turned up unexpectedly.

The couple were on a four-day break from their home in Spain and wanted to surprise their family by arriving at the centre, in Fareham, Hants, while they were shopping.

But when they went to take a photo, a security guard pounced and ordered them out.

The guard then insisted that cameras were banned because of the risk of a terrorist attack - and barred the bemused couple for life.

Speaking from her home in Malaga, Spain, Mrs Sparshott, 51, said: "I couldn't believe it. I was so shocked.

"He said we had committed an act of terrorism.

"At first I wanted the ground to swallow me up whole because it was so embarassing - but then I got really angry."

Mr Sparshott, 52, added: "Instead of being a nice surprise for our family it turned into a nightmare. I was furious.

"In these worrying times we understand the need for caution, but surely a quiet word when he first saw us would have stopped all this unpleasantness."

The couple, who had been visiting their daughter, who lives in Gosport, Hants, with her husband and children, returned to Spain in shock.

They wrote a letter of complaint to the centre, and received a reply from manager Pam Gillard who said taking photos was a security risk.

In the reply to the Sparshotts, Ms Gillard said: "By the sounds of it my officers/duty manager didn't explain the position very clearly and for that I apologise."

FULL STORY: CLICK HERE

How the Police Create Crimes: Criminals With Badges

PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
Counterpunch
Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Take heed, ye red-blooded American males. The police are operating a new sting designed to destroy your life.

The police are planting attractive women half naked in parks. They entice passing males, engage them in conversation, lay back, spread their legs and rest their feet on the men's shoulders.

After being as friendly and suggestive as possible, they ask to see your penis.

Don't show it to them. You are being filmed by police. If you show your penis, you will be arrested as a pervert.

Only American police, judges, and juries could think that responding to a seductress's invitation is proof of perversion. But, hey, you live in America where Christians believe that killing as many Muslims as possible for Israel is God's work. Don't expect a dumb Amerikan jury, or a self-righteous Republican judge, or a mindless law professor to understand entrapment.

No, this is not a joke. It is actually happening. Last May in Berliner Park in Columbus, Ohio, Robin Garrison, a 42-year-old firefighter was lured into arrest by a half naked woman under a tree.

In reporting the story, the idiot--possibly some male-hating feminist--who wrote the headline for ABC News describes the above: "Topless Woman Lured Perverts in Police Sting."

Get that, red-blooded American males. You are a pervert if you show your penis to a woman who is seducing you.

The reporter, Marcus Baram, is not indignant about the sting. Neither is Gabriel Chin, a University of Arizona law professor who says: "It's not entrapment to give somebody an opportunity to commit a crime."

It was Anglo-Saxons who made laws against entrapment. Thanks to law professors like Chin, gullible reporters and jurors, and corrupt police, prosecutors, and judges, Americans no longer have the protection of law. In the Orwellian world in which we now live, a male who succumbs to female seduction is a pervert.

The American police have never prevented crimes. In olden days, the police solved crimes by finding the guilty party. No more. In our time, the police create crimes. And that is why the US prison population is twice the size of China's, an authoritarian country with a population four to five times larger than America's.

And not only in Columbus, Ohio, are crimes created by police. The corrupt New York Police Department ensnared 300 innocents during 2007 via "Operation Lucky Bag." Police place IPods, cell phones, wallets, and shopping bags containing items in New York subway stations. The items appear to be dropped, lost, or abandoned. Anyone who picks up one of the planted items is arrested for "subway grand larceny."

This particular police atrocity is in conflict with New York law, which allows someone who finds property 10 days to turn it in to the police or to find the owner.

The corrupt NYPD says that the property left as bait has not been abandoned, but is the property actively left by an officer who is still in the vicinity."

There you have it. The American Police--"support your local Gestapo"--spend their time engineering false crimes and not investigating real crimes. Americans are more at risk from the police than they are from criminals.

On December 29, I received yet another email from a law-abiding American family harassed by police. The family refused to sell a $75,000 piece of property to a deputy sheriff for $4,000. Farm operations were obstructed. The mother was stopped every time she went out in the car. The son was framed and sent to prison.

Never make the mistake of calling the police, and never get stopped by a traffic cop. You run the risk that he will drop a bag of drugs into you car and arrest you on a drug offense. If you encounter a police officer, be sure you have thousands of dollars with which to buy him off from making false charges. Most police charges are false charges. Americans need to wake up to this fact or the American prison population will outstrip the rest of the world combined.

Top economist says America could plunge into recession

Suzy Jagger
London Times
Monday, December 31, 2007

Losses arising from America’s housing recession could triple over the next few years and they represent the greatest threat to growth in the United States, one of the world’s leading economists has told The Times.

Robert Shiller, Professor of Economics at Yale University, predicted that there was a very real possibility that the US would be plunged into a Japan-style slump, with house prices declining for years.

Professor Shiller, co-founder of the respected S&P Case/Shiller house-price index, said: “American real estate values have already lost around $1 trillion [£503 billion]. That could easily increase threefold over the next few years. This is a much bigger issue than sub-prime. We are talking trillions of dollars’ worth of losses.”

He said that US futures markets had priced in further declines in house prices in the short term, with contracts on the S&P Shiller index pointing to decreases of up to 14 per cent.

“Over the next five years, the futures contracts are pointing to losses of around 35 per cent in some areas, such as Florida, California and Las Vegas. There is a good chance that this housing recession will go on for years,” he said.

Professor Shiller, author of Irrational Exuberance, a phrase later used by Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said: “This is a classic bubble scenario. A few years ago house prices got very high, pushed up because of investor expectations. Americans have fuelled the myth that prices would never fall, that values could only go up. People believed the story. Now there is a very real chance of a big recession.”

He pointed out that signs at the beginning of 2007 that had indicated that some states were beginning to experience a recovery in house prices had proved to be false: “States such as Massachusetts had seen some increases at the beginning of the year. Denver also looked like it had a different path. Now all states are falling.”

FULL STORY: CLICK HERE

CIA-ISI Created “Qaeda Network” Blamed for Pakistan Troubles

Kurt Nimmo
Prison Planet
Monday, December 31, 2007

It is a familiar if not worn-out refrain: “The Qaeda network accused by Pakistan’s government of killing the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto is increasingly made up not of foreign fighters but of homegrown Pakistani militants bent on destabilizing the country, analysts and security officials here say.”

If we are to believe the New York Times — you know, the propaganda sheet in large part responsible for selling the “war” in Iraq, that is to say the plan to mass murder of more than a million Iraqis — the contrived terrorist scare crow al-Qaeda has “clearly expanded their ranks and turned to a direct confrontation with the Pakistani security forces while also aiming at political figures like Ms. Bhutto,” never mind there is absolutely no evidence of this and never mind as well al-Qaeda was in fact created by Pakistan’s ISI, with a large infusion of CIA cash and directives.

“Al Qaeda right now seems to have turned its face toward Pakistan and attacks on the Pakistani government and Pakistani people,” averred Robert Gates, one of the primary founders of al-Qaeda, a fact he willingly admitted in his memoir, From the Shadows. Of course, no mention of this slimy connection in the “liberal” New York Times, the former home of the neocon disinfo operative Judith Miller.

“The expansion of Pakistan’s own militants, with their fortified links to Al Qaeda, presents a deeply troubling development for the Bush administration and its efforts to stabilize this volatile nuclear-armed country.”

And yet few seem to be troubled by the fact these militants were mentored and lavishly funded by the CIA. Long ago relegated to the memory hole are uncomfortable facts: Gen. Akhtar Abdul Rahman, Pakistani ISI’s head from 1980 to 1987, regularly met with bin Laden in Peshawar, Pakistan; the CIA essentially micromanaged Afghanistan’s opium production; the ISI trained “militants” (i.e., patsies and useful idiots) to attack the Soviet Union proper; well over 100,000 Islamic militants were trained in Pakistan between 1986 and 1992 in camps constructed and overseen by the CIA and MI6, with the British SAS training future al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters in bomb-making and other black arts, etc., on and on, ad nauseam.

Now we are expected to believe al-Qaeda, appearing out of the mist of amnesia, is a portentous threat to the poor people of Pakistan, as related by the premier propaganda sheet, the New York Times.

Al Qaeda in Pakistan now comprises not just foreigners but Pakistani tribesmen from border regions, as well as Punjabis and Urdu speakers and members of banned sectarian and Sunni extremists groups, Najam Sethi, editor of The Daily Times, wrote in a front-page analysis. “Al Qaeda is now as much a Pakistani phenomenon as it is an Arab or foreign element,” he wrote.

Excuse me, but al-Qaeda, the database and perennial boogieman, has always been a “Pakistani phenomenon,” that is with the good grace of the CIA and MI6, with a bit of collaboration from the Mossad and German intelligence.

How long before we are told the U.S. has to send an infusion of soldiers, pronto, the fight the evil al-Qaeda in Pakistan?

Soon. Lest we face the specter of that Muslim atom bomb falling into the hands of al-Qaeda.

Oh, please.

United Nations Propaganda Comic Book Designed to Brainwash Kids

Kurt Nimmo
Truth News
December 30, 2007

It’s a super — as in superhero — way to inculcate the younger generation:

“Marvel Comics and the United Nations are teaming up to create comic books to show superheroes working with the agency to rid the world of conflict and disease,” reports United Press International. “The United Nations and Marvel Comics are working together to develop a comic book set in a fictional war-torn country with superheroes working alongside UNICEF aid workers and U.N peacekeepers.”

No mention of the “war-torn country” this will be based upon, but allow me to offer and example: Yugoslavia. In this example, the United States secretly supported a terrorist group, the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, and filled their ranks with “al-Qaeda fighters,” delivered by NATO with a bit of help from Germany’s BND.

As engineered, this project helped fuel Yugoslavia’s social and ethnic divisions and create a situation rife for a “peacekeeping” operation. It also helped to have the IMF and bankers working on the destruction of the Yugoslavian economy, ushering in third worldization and blueprinted misery.

Slobodan Milosevic, like Saddam Hussein after him, became a “new Hitler,” with plenty of help from a script-reading corporate media accusing him of directing his army to rape between 25,000 to 100,000 Muslim women.

At the behest of the United Nations and its puppet master, the United States, NATO, in direct violation of its charter, bombed Yugoslavia. “Yugoslavia attacked no NATO member,” writes Michael Parenti. “U.S. leaders discarded international law and diplomacy,” although of course “U.S. diplomacy is something else, as evidenced in its dealings with Vietnam, Nicaragua, Panama, Iraq” and other “rogue nations.”

“The United Nations hopes to bolster its international image damaged by the unilateral diplomatic efforts of some Western countries by teaching children the value of international cooperation,” the UPI continues. “The United Nations said it will distribute the comics to nearly 1 million U.S. children initially, but hopes to reach a broader international audience following the initial release.”

International cooperation, for instance, consisting of the premeditated murder of 500,000 Iraqi children under medieval sanctions and allowing the genocide in Rwanda to unfold with sickening precision. In fact, there is a farrago of nasty stuff the “humanitarian” United Nations has been accused of over the years, although you will not learn about it by way of the corporate media:

“United Nations peacekeeping troops have been involved in a catalogue of crimes and scandals across the globe,” the Scotsman reported in 2002.

During the UN peacekeeping mission to Somalia, it was claimed Canadian, Belgian and Italian soldiers were involved in torture and murder.

An inquiry by the Canadian government of a young Somali man in 1993, found that he had been murdered by its troops and that a senior officer had lied in an attempt to cover up the atrocity. Two soldiers were jailed.

In Belgium, newspapers published photographs of two soldiers holding a Somali boy over a fire. Three paratroopers were prosecuted, but were acquitted by a military tribunal.

An Italian magazine published photographs showing soldiers from the country’s elite paratroop regiment apparently torturing a naked Somali with electrodes and sexually abusing a Somali woman. Two generals who had commanded the Italian force in Somalia resigned.

In January 2000 the United Nations were sued for the first time in its history for alleged complicity in the crime of genocide which drove hundreds of thousands Rwandan Tutsis from their homes.

Two Rwandan women accused the UN, which was meant to be defending their families, of handing them over to their killers or running away.

The families of these women were slaughtered during the 1994 genocide in which 800,000, mostly Tutsi people, were slaughtered by Hutus.

In Bosnia, more than 20 peacekeepers were ejected from the mission for theft and corruption. Nearly four dozen others were sent home after allegedly abusing mental patients at a hospital. Canadian peacekeepers were accused of rape, beatings and sexual abuse of a teenage handicapped girl.

Don’t expect any of this to find its way into a Marvel comic book.

Video: 'The most conclusive evidence' Bhutto was shot

David Edwards and Katie Baker
Raw Story
Monday, December 31, 2007

On Sunday, UK's Channel 4 news broadcasted a new video of the Bhutto assassination which they say "provides the most conclusive evidence yet that Benazir Bhutto was shot."

Although the Pakistani government officially claims that Bhutto died from hitting her head on the sunroof as she ducked into her car, evidence in the video drastically contradicts that account.

The video shows a large crowd swarming around Bhutto's car. A clean-shaven man in sunglasses is visibly watching, concealing a gun; behind him stands the suspected suicide bomber dressed in white. As the video rolls, the man in sunglasses moves closer to Bhutto's car and fires three shots. Directly after, the suicide bomber detonates his device and chaos ensues.

Reporter Jonathan Rugman points out how, as the gunman fires, Bhutto's hair is lifted and her shawl seems to rise as she falls inside her car.

"These images ... apparently [contradict] the official version of events," Rugman asserts.

"As more such images come to light," he says, "they will fuel the anger of protesters both here at the scene of the crime and around the country who feel that they've been lied to by the government and that there's been a deliberate coverup of what amounts to a massive security failure to protect this country's best known politician."

Authorities initially said that Bhutto died from bullet wounds, and a surgeon who treated her said the impact from shrapnel on her skull killed her. But, Rugman points out, no blood was found on the bulletproof car -- and, every other passenger in the car survived. The video clearly shows three policeman to the left of the car, doing nothing to hold back the crowd. Was the government trying to cover-up a security lapse? Those close to the president say that was not the case.

"We do things here [quite differently]," says Senator Tarif Azeem, a friend of President Musharraf, citing Bhutto's want to "be amongst the crowd" as the reason why she stood through the sunroof without much security around her.

Officials have rejected calls for independent foreign inquiry, although they have offered to exhume her body if requested. According to Rugman, the government's actions suggest they may be hiding something.

"[The truth] really matters in a country where scores of people have died in protests against Mrs. Bhutto's death and indeed against the circumstances of Mrs. Bhutto's death," Rugman says, adding that the "great fear" in Pakistan is that the assassination will go unsolved.

This video is from Channel 4 News, broadcast on December 30, 2007.

BBC Censored Benazir Bhutto's Reports that Bin Laden Had Been Murdered

Existentialist Cowboy Blog
Monday, December 31, 2007

When a news organization as venerable as the BBC censors the reportage of a story as important as the assassination of Benzir Bhutto --a highly visible critic of Bush/British policy with regard to the "War on Terrorism" et al --it is fair to ask: who is the BBC protecting? Are they covering up the motive for her murder? Are they protecting the regimes that engineered her assassination?

Here is the original, unedited version in which Bhutto states that Bin Laden had been murdered.

Here is the BBC's Censored version.

Bhutto herself has exposed a motive for her murder. Solving the case is a matter of finding the gunmen whom Hilary Clinton thinks may be found found among Pakistani troops.

CLINTON, Iowa - Hillary Rodham Clinton waded into Pakistan's volatile internal political situation yesterday, raising the possibility the country's military might have assassinated Benazir Bhutto because the killing took place in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.

Clinton's remarks came as Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's government seemed to reject a call for an independent international investigation of the murder that Clinton and John Edwards proposed on Friday.

During a question-and-answer session at an elementary school here, Clinton offered a detailed prescription for the troubled country, suggesting that the U.S divert aid away from its military to social welfare programs.

And for the second time in as many days, she cast doubt on Musharraf's contention that the suicide bombing that led to the death of the country's most popular opposition leader was masterminded by al-Qaida.

"There are those saying that al-Qaida did it. Others are saying it looked like it was an inside job - remember Rawalpindi is a garrison city," she said.

--Hillary: Pakistan troops might have killed Bhutto
Isn't it interesting that it was Secretary of State Condoleezsa Rice who brokered Bhutto's return to Pakistan when even Bhutto knew that her life would be endangered? I smell the work of an axis of evil: neocons, Bush, and his puppet: Musharraf.

Bhutto herself has exposed the fraudulent nature of the Bush/Blair "war on terrorism". If Bin Laden is dead, as has been reported, then the various tapes that he is alleged to have made are all phony. The war on terrorism itself is a callous, calculated fraud perpetrated by a murderous Bush regime, a murderous Blair regime, a murderous puppet regime of Musharraf.

That's why Bhutto was murdered. She was the woman who knew too much. Bhutto exposed the fact that US policies cause terrorism and she stated the various ways in which groups inside the US and Britain benefited politically and materially from the phony war on phony terrorism, the failed war in Afghanistan, the war crime that is still perpetrated against the people of Iraq. Bhutto posed a threat to the culprits in the Bush regime to include Bush himself. She posed a threat to the kiss ups in Musharraf's regime to include Musharraf and the liars who tried to float the incredible "lone lever" theory. She was murdered. And the BBC has been caught censoring the most important piece of the puzzle. If Osama is dead, the war on terror is a bloody fraud!

Tony Blair converts to Catholicism

Tony Blair converts to Catholicism

Ex-U.K. prime minister formally embraces his wife's faith

The Associated Press

updated 9:24 a.m. ET, Sat., Dec. 22, 2007

LONDON - Tony Blair, who often kept his religious views private while serving as Britain's prime minister, has converted to Catholicism, officials said Saturday.

Blair, who had long been a member of the Church of England, converted to the Catholic faith during a Mass held on Friday night at a chapel in London, the Catholic Church said.

"It can be confirmed that Tony Blair has been received into full communion with the Catholic church by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor," the head of the church in England and Wales, the church said in a statement.

"I'm very glad to welcome Tony Blair into the Catholic Church," the statement quoted Murphy-O'Connor as saying.

"For a long time he's been a regular worshipper at Mass with his family and in recent months he's been following a program of formation for his reception into full communion. Our prayers are with him, his family and his wife at this joyful moment in their journey of faith together," Murphy-O'Connor said.

Feared being a 'nutter'
There had long been speculation that Blair planned to convert to Catholicism. His wife, Cherie, is Roman Catholic, the couple's children have attended Catholic schools, and Blair had regularly attended Catholic, rather than Anglican, services.

Blair, who is now a Middle East peace envoy, met Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican in June.

The former prime minister told the BBC this year that he had avoided talking about his religious views while in office for about 10 years for fear of being labeled "a nutter."

In England's last census, 72 percent of people identified themselves as Christian. Many are Anglicans affiliated with the Church of England, which was created by royal proclamation during the 16th century after King Henry VIII — who married six times — broke ties with the Roman Catholic Church in a dispute over divorce.

The Church of England has said that less than 10 percent of its members are regular churchgoers.

Britons often are surprised by people who openly and fervently discuss their religious views, and the degree to which faiths such as evangelicalism can influence U.S. politics.

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22368586/

Report: Hoover plotted mass arrest

Report: Hoover plotted mass arrest

Failed plan involved detaining 12,000 Americans suspected of disloyalty

The Associated Press

updated 4:20 p.m. ET, Sat., Dec. 22, 2007

WASHINGTON - Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had a plan to suspend the rules against illegal detention and arrest up to 12,000 Americans he suspected of being disloyal, according to a newly declassified document.

Hoover sent his plan to the White House on July 7, 1950, less than two weeks after the Korean War began. But there is no evidence to suggest that President Harry S. Truman or any subsequent president approved any part of Hoover's proposal to house suspect Americans in military and federal prisons.

Hoover had wanted Truman to declare the mass arrests necessary to "protect the country against treason, espionage and sabotage," The New York Times reported Saturday in a story posted on its Web site.

The plan called for the FBI to apprehend all potentially dangerous individuals whose names were on a list Hoover had been compiling for years.

"The index now contains approximately twelve thousand individuals, of which approximately ninety-seven percent are citizens of the United States," Hoover wrote in the now-declassified document. "In order to make effective these apprehensions, the proclamation suspends the writ of habeas corpus."

Habeas corpus is the right to seek relief from illegal detention, and is a bedrock legal principle.

All apprehended individuals eventually would have had the right to a hearing under Hoover's plan, but hearing boards comprised of one judge and two citizens would not have been bound by the rules of evidence.

The details of Hoover's plan was among a collection of Cold War-era documents related to intelligence issues from 1950-1955. The State Department declassified the documents on Friday.

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22371074/

FBI prepares vast biometrics database

FBI prepares vast biometrics database

$1 billion project to include images of irises and faces

By Ellen Nakashima

The Washington Post

updated 1:32 a.m. ET, Sat., Dec. 22, 2007

CLARKSBURG, W. Va. - The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion effort to build the world's largest computer database of peoples' physical characteristics, a project that would give the government unprecedented abilities to identify individuals in the United States and abroad.

Digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm patterns are already flowing into FBI systems in a climate-controlled, secure basement here. Next month, the FBI intends to award a 10-year contract that would significantly expand the amount and kinds of biometric information it receives. And in the coming years, law enforcement authorities around the world will be able to rely on iris patterns, face-shape data, scars and perhaps even the unique ways people walk and talk, to solve crimes and identify criminals and terrorists. The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law.

"Bigger. Faster. Better. That's the bottom line," said Thomas E. Bush III, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division, which operates the database from its headquarters in the Appalachian foothills.

The increasing use of biometrics for identification is raising questions about the ability of Americans to avoid unwanted scrutiny. It is drawing criticism from those who worry that people's bodies will become de facto national identification cards. Critics say that such government initiatives should not proceed without proof that the technology really can pick a criminal out of a crowd.

Increasing use
The use of biometric data is increasing throughout the government. For the past two years, the Defense Department has been storing in a database images of fingerprints, irises and faces of more than 1.5 million Iraqi and Afghan detainees, Iraqi citizens and foreigners who need access to U.S. military bases. The Pentagon also collects DNA samples from some Iraqi detainees, which are stored separately.

The Department of Homeland Security has been using iris scans at some airports to verify the identity of travelers who have passed background checks and who want to move through lines quickly. The department is also looking to apply iris- and face-recognition techniques to other programs. The DHS already has a database of millions of sets of fingerprints, which includes records collected from U.S. and foreign travelers stopped at borders for criminal violations, from U.S. citizens adopting children overseas, and from visa applicants abroad. There could be multiple records of one person's prints.

"It's going to be an essential component of tracking," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and Liberty Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. "It's enabling the Always On Surveillance Society."

If successful, the system planned by the FBI, called Next Generation Identification, will collect a wide variety of biometric information in one place for identification and forensic purposes.

In an underground facility the size of two football fields, a request reaches an FBI server every second from somewhere in the United States or Canada, comparing a set of digital fingerprints against the FBI's database of 55 million sets of electronic fingerprints. A possible match is made -- or ruled out--as many as 100,000 times a day.

Fast fingerprint checks
Soon, the server at CJIS headquarters will also compare palm prints and, eventually, iris images and face-shape data such as the shape of an earlobe. If all goes as planned, a police officer making a traffic stop or a border agent at an airport could run a 10-fingerprint check on a suspect and within seconds know if the person is on a database of the most wanted criminals and terrorists. An analyst could take palm prints lifted from a crime scene and run them against the expanded database. Intelligence agents could exchange biometric information worldwide.

More than 55 percent of the search requests now are made for background checks on civilians in sensitive positions in the federal government, and jobs that involve children and the elderly, Bush said. Currently those prints are destroyed or returned when the checks are completed. But the FBI is planning a "rap-back" service, under which employers could ask the FBI to keep employees' fingerprints in the database, subject to state privacy laws, so that if that employees are ever arrested or charged with a crime, the employers would be notified.

Advocates say bringing together information from a wide variety of sources and making it available to multiple agencies increases the chances to catch criminals. The Pentagon has already matched several Iraqi suspects against the FBI's criminal fingerprint database. The FBI intends to make both criminal and civilian data available to authorized users, officials said. There are 900,000 federal, state and local law enforcement officers who can query the fingerprint database today, they said.

The FBI's biometric database, which includes criminal history records, communicates with the Terrorist Screening Center's database of suspects and the National Crime Information Center database, which is the FBI's master criminal database of felons, fugitives and terrorism suspects.

The FBI is building its system according to standards shared by Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

At the West Virginia University Center for Identification Technology Research (CITeR), 45 minutes north of the FBI's biometric facility in Clarksburg, researchers are working on capturing images of people's irises at distances of up to 15 feet, and of faces from as far away as 200 yards. Soon, those researchers will do biometric research for the FBI.

Covert iris- and face-image capture is several years away, but it is of great interest to government agencies.

Think of a Navy ship approaching a foreign vessel, said Bojan Cukic, CITeR's co-director. "It would help to know before you go on board whether the people on that ship that you can image from a distance, whether they are foreign warfighters, and run them against a database of known or suspected terrorists," he said.

Reliability questioned
Skeptics say that such projects are proceeding before there is evidence that they reliably match suspects against a huge database.

In the world's first large-scale, scientific study on how well face recognition works in a crowd, the German government this year found that the technology, while promising, was not yet effective enough to allow its use by police. The study was conducted from October 2006 through January at a train station in Mainz, Germany, which draws 23,000 passengers daily. The study found that the technology was able to match travelers' faces against a database of volunteers more than 60 percent of the time during the day, when the lighting was best. But the rate fell to 10 to 20 percent at night.

To achieve those rates, the German police agency said it would tolerate a false positive rate of 0.1 percent, or the erroneous identification of 23 people a day. In real life, those 23 people would be subjected to further screening measures, the report said.

Accuracy improves as techniques are combined, said Kimberly Del Greco, the FBI's biometric services section chief. The Next Generation database is intended to "fuse" fingerprint, face, iris and palm matching capabilities by 2013, she said.

To safeguard privacy, audit trails are kept on everyone who has access to a record in the fingerprint database, Del Greco said. People may request copies of their records, and the FBI audits all agencies that have access to the database every three years, she said.

"We have very stringent laws that control who can go in there and to secure the data," Bush said.

Privacy concerns
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the ability to share data across systems is problematic. "You're giving the federal government access to an extraordinary amount of information linked to biometric identifiers that is becoming increasingly inaccurate," he said.

In 2004, the Electronic Privacy Information Center objected to the FBI's exemption of the National Crime Information Center database from the Privacy Act requirement that records be accurate. The group noted that the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2001 found that information in the system was "not fully reliable" and that files "may be incomplete or inaccurate." FBI officials justified that exemption by claiming that in law enforcement data collection, "it is impossible to determine in advance what information is accurate, relevant, timely and complete."

Privacy advocates worry about the ability of people to correct false information. "Unlike say, a credit card number, biometric data is forever," said Paul Saffo, a Silicon Valley technology forecaster. He said he feared that the FBI, whose computer technology record has been marred by expensive failures, could not guarantee the data's security. "If someone steals and spoofs your iris image, you can't just get a new eyeball," Saffo said.

In the future, said CITeR director Lawrence A. Hornak, devices will be able to "recognize us and adapt to us."

"The long-term goal," Hornak said, is "ubiquitous use" of biometrics. A traveler may walk down an airport corridor and allow his face and iris images to be captured without ever stepping up to a kiosk and looking into a camera, he said.

"That's the key," he said. "You've chosen it. You have chosen to say, 'Yeah, I want this place to recognize me.' "

Staff researcher Richard Drezen contributed to this report.

© 2007 The Washington Post Company

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22366208/page/2/

BUSTED! SO-CALLED WHITE SUPREMICIST GROUP EXPOSED AS ISRAELI PROPAGANDA OPERATION!

whatreallyhappened.com

Every time the Israeli lobbyists in the United States demand more money or more special legal protections, they wave about these so-called "Neo-nazi" or "White Supremacist" groups like Stormfront and the American Nazi Party. AIPAC, ADL, JDL, and their ilk raise tons of money by waving these boogie-men around as a real imminent threat and danger!

Yet no matter what laws get passed and no matter how many millions ADL, JDL, etc. raise, Stormfront and the American Nazi Party remain strangely unmolested by either criminal or civil actions.

How very strange!!!

So, earlier today, the Commander of the American Nazi Party, one Bill White, posted an article on the official American Nazis website an article accusing rising Presidential candidate Ron Paul of being a "Secret" White Supremacist.

Now, one might suppose that the American Nazi party would be happy to have a candidate who shares their views, and one might assume that Bill White is smart enough to know that making such a public accusation is going to be quite harmful to the candidate he claims shares his philosophy. Indeed it does appear that Bill White's accusation is intended to cause as much harm to Ron Paul as possible.

Of course, Bill White's claim did not do much more than incite a great deal of laughter. But in their haste to get this message out, one of Bill's minions slipped up.

Rather than cut and paste the text of Bill's accusations, one of the members of Bill's blog, apparently to prove the story's source, screen captured Bill's article, posted it to various newsgroups and in doing so, let slip a rather interesting secret.

Here is that screen capture.

Click for full size image.

Note the tiny little icon indicated by the arrow in the Windows toolbar. It's a megaphone. But not just ANY Megaphone, it is the icon proving that the member of Bill White's American Nazi group is ALSO a member of Megaphone, the Israeli propaganda communications network!

Here is what the Megaphone looks like when it is running.

More about Megaphone can be found at Wikipedia and more about Bill White and his many fronts can be found HERE.

But what we have here is what appears to be a group of self-proclaimed NeoNazis using the Israeli propaganda network!

... which goes a long way to explaining why they are never arrested or sued by those groups that raise so much money using them as scarecrows!

Chertoff Concealed Role in Tape Destruction

Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t
Friday December 21, 2007

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff advised the CIA between 2002 and 2003 that its agents had the legal authority to use techniques that included waterboarding on one of the agency's so-called "high level detainees," according to a little-known report published in January 2005.

That interrogation was videotaped and the tape later was destroyed

Chertoff was head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division when CIA officials inquired whether its agents could be charged with violating the federal anti-torture statute for employing interrogation methods such as waterboarding. The tactic causes detainees to slowly drown, and is generally terminated before the detainees die.

"The CIA was seeking to determine the legal limits of interrogation practices for use in cases like that of Abu Zubaydah, the Qaeda lieutenant who was captured in March 2002," says a January 29, 2005, New York Times story. That story quoted unnamed sources who told the newspaper that "Chertoff was directly involved in these discussions, in effect evaluating the legality of techniques proposed by the CIA by advising the agency whether its employees could go ahead with proposed interrogation methods without fear of prosecution."

During his Senate confirmation hearing in February 2005, Chertoff maintained that he provided the CIA broad guidance in response to its questions about interrogation methods and never specifically addressed the legality regarding waterboarding or other techniques.

However, Chertoff, according to intelligence sources who spoke to Truthout, was briefed about the videotaped interrogations. Chertoff told former CIA General Counsel Scott Muller and his deputy, John Rizzo, that an August 1, 2002, memo widely referred to as the "Torture Memo" put the CIA on solid legal ground and that its agents could waterboard a prisoner without fear of prosecution. The memo was written by former Justice Department attorney John Yoo.

Yoo's memo said that Congress "may no more regulate the President's ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements on the battlefield."

The videotaped interrogations were destroyed in November 2005, after The Washington Post published a story that first exposed the CIA's use of so-called "black site" prisons overseas to interrogate terror suspects, using techniques that were not legal on US soil. The Post's story discussed Abu Zubaydah and the harsh methods the CIA used when questioning detainees. However, it's unknown whether the Post's story directly led to the destruction of the videotapes.

An intelligence official told Truthout that the CIA's Muller and Rizzo feared that the Justice Department's issuance of a new legal opinion defining torture in broader terms than Yoo's August 2002 memo would expose its agents - specifically those who interrogated Abu Zubaydah - to prosecution and so Rizzo had approved the destruction of the videotapes. That reported approval followed publication of The Washington Post story exposing the CIA's secret prisons, and the new legal opinion defining torture. Last week, The Times reported, however, that Rizzo did not give a top spy in the agency's clandestine division final approval to destroy the videotapes. Whether Rizzo did or did not approve destruction of the videotapes is one of the questions Congress said it was determined to get answers to.

Rizzo, a 30-year veteran of the CIA, is now the agency's acting general counsel. Congress has requested Rizzo to testify before a Congressional committee investigating the videotapes' destruction. However, the Bush administration is blocking Rizzo from testifying. In September, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee requested that Rizzo be withdrawn as the administration's pick to lead the CIA's legal department, on grounds that he was a strong supporter of the White House's so-called "enhanced interrogation methods." Those methods include waterboarding, which has been described as torture by human rights groups.

At his confirmation hearing in 2005, Chertoff claims he did not advise Rizzo or Muller on the legality of specific methods agents used during their interrogation of Abu Zubaydah. Rather, he said, he answered general questions the CIA had posed about interrogations.

"You are dealing in an area where there is potential criminality," Chertoff said he told the agency. "You better be very careful to make sure that whatever you decide to do falls well within what is required by law."

A spokesman for Chertoff said the Homeland Security secretary would not comment on his previous role in advising the CIA on its interrogation methods.

The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility launched an internal probe in late 2004 to determine whether one of two "torture" memos drafted by Yoo's office at the DOJ was unethical and opened the door to legal challenge. The details of that probe have not been disclosed. A DOJ spokesman would not respond to specific questions regarding the issue. The agency is required to turn over to the attorney general an annual report of its activities and internal probes. However, OPR has not posted on its website a copy of its annual report on its website since 2004, and the spokesman for the agency would not say whether the agency has submitted reports for the past three years or whether the findings of its probe into Yoo's "Torture Memo" were included in its fiscal year 2005 report, nor would the spokesperson provide Truthout with a copy.

The Capture and Interrogation

Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan on March 28, 2002, and whisked to a secret prison site in Thailand for interrogation, according to published reports.

During the early stages of his interrogation, Zubaydah was somewhat cooperative. Later he became tight-lipped when questioned about alleged terrorist plots against the United States and the whereabouts of other high-level associates of al-Qaeda.

In July 2002, a meeting was convened at the White House, where former White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, Justice Department attorney John Yoo, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney's attorney David Addington, and unknown CIA officials discussed whether the CIA could interrogate Zubaydah more aggressively in order to get him to respond to questions.

It was at this July 2002 meeting where Yoo, Gonzales and Addington gave the CIA the green light to use a wide variety of techniques, including waterboarding, on Zubaydah and other detainees at several secret prisons to "break" them and force them to cooperate with interrogators, according to an account published in Newsweek in late December 2003. Less than a month after the meeting, on August 1, 2002, Yoo drafted a memo to Gonzales that was signed by Jay Bybee, the assistant attorney general at the time. That memo declared that President Bush had the legal authority to allow CIA interrogators to employ harsh tactics to extract information from detainees. Human rights organizations and Democratic and Republican lawmakers have characterized the methods outlined in the Yoo memo as torture.

In his book "The One Percent Doctrine," author Ron Suskind said Zubaydah was not the "high value detainee" the CIA had claimed. Rather, Zubaydah was a minor player in the al-Qaeda organization, handling travel for associates and their families, Suskind says.

Abu Zubaydah's captors soon discovered that their prisoner was mentally ill and knew nothing about terrorist operations or impending plots. That realization was "echoed at the top of CIA and was, of course, briefed to the President and Vice President," Suskind writes.

But Bush portrayed Zubaydah as "one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States.

"And, so, the CIA used an alternative set of procedures" to get Zubaydah to talk, Bush said in the spring of 2002, after Zubaydah was captured.

Suskind writes that Zubaydah became one of the first prisoners in the wake of 9/11 to undergo some of the harshest interrogation methods at the hands of American intelligence officials.

Suskind says that, despite the fact that Bush was briefed by the CIA about Zubaydah's low-level al-Qaeda status, the president did not want to "lose face" because he had stated his importance publicly.

"Bush was fixated on how to get Zubaydah to tell us the truth," Suskind writes. Bush questioned one CIA briefer, "Do some of these harsh methods really work?"

Zubaydah was strapped to a waterboard and, fearing imminent death, he spoke about a wide range of plots against a number of US targets, such as shopping malls, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty. Yet, Suskind writes, the information Zubaydah had provided under duress was not credible.

Still, that did not stop "thousands of uniformed men and women [who] raced in a panic to each ... target." And so, Suskind writes, "the United States would torture a mentally disturbed man and then leap, screaming, at every word he uttered."

Ron Paul: Nation "Going Broke"

You Tube
Friday December 21, 2007

American Thinker's New Smear about Racist Ron Paul

Nolan Chart
Friday December 21, 2007

Thomas Lifson, editor at AmericanThinker.com recently published a new piece in a series of smears about Ron Paul’s connections to racist groups. Although it does not claim that the latest evidence is the best evidence yet, it specifically eschews past critics’ concerns over the American Thinker’s previous hysteria by alluding that they have finally obtained…well, the best evidence yet.

Lifson cited an article by Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, which cited a post by Bill White, a Commander of the American National Socialist Worker’s Party and a white supremacist. White claimed that Ron Paul had been at some dinners that were originally organized by Pat Buchanan, where several members of white supremacist groups attended. That’s pretty much the long and the short of the alleged facts. Oh…they also met on Wednesdays.

The only provocative part of the post was the tone. White claims that he is exposing Ron Paul’s "extensive involvement in white nationalism". White also states that he is upset that Ron Paul denies any affiliation with white supremacist groups. He says that Ron Paul is a white supremacist of the "Stormfront-type". Finally, White claims that the Ron Paul Campaign is being ridiculous by calling "white racialism" a small ideology.

Given Thomas Lifson’s excitement over the "extensive involvement" issue, one might expect to see more damning facts. Instead, Lifson claimed that Charles Johnson had assembled all the links to the corroborating evidence. I went to Little Green Footballs to find out this supposed dirt on Paul. The first sentence of Johnson’s page reads "Take this one with a grain of salt, please". I will be charitable and assume Lifson missed that statement.

Johnson’s "corroborating evidence" included an expenditure at the Thai restaurant and two links to websites. One of the websites claimed that Paul gave a speech to the Robert Taft club, a club organized by Pat Buchanan and dedicated to oversight of the Republican Party to ensure adherence to libertarian-conservative values. The website called the Robert Taft club an "extremist group" because it is headed by a man with "racist connections", whatever that means.

The other website was the white supremacist forum where Bill White made his claim. The forum was rather interesting. Amazingly, none of the comments from other white supremacists supported White nor did they allude to any similar knowledge of Paul’s "extensive" ties. Almost all of them chastised White for being generally obnoxious. Many claimed that they had seen White in various forums and consider him to be chronically attention-hungry. Perhaps the most inetresting point came from a comment which insisted self-respecting white supremacists don't go to Thai restaurants. I never would have guessed that white supremacy could be so nuanced. (I did not link the forum, because it can be a little shocking in other respects).

This is what it all the corroborating evidence boils down to: 1) White claims that he has been in the same room as Paul at undescribed dinners organized by Pat Buchanan. 2) Those were likely Robert Taft Club meetings. 3) Paul paid for his own dinner. 4) White, an observed attention-mongerer, wants this to be significant without citing anything significant. But here is another wrench in Lifson's gears: Don Black, the leader of Stormfront (the group Ron Paul is supposedly a member of), has recently admitted that while he endorses Paul's campaign, he has never met Paul and he regrets that Paul does not share his white supremacist views.

So which white supremacist is lying? The American Thinker position would have to be that Don Black is lying about the disconnect between himself and Paul and that the two have engaged in a massive conspiracy to defraud the public into believing Paul doesn’t care for Don Black, Bill White, or white supremacy in general. Second, Lifson would have to maintain that, while Black took the all the precautions to maintain Paul's secrecy, he forgot to not endorse Paul. Finally, Lifson would have to hold that Paul has spent the last 20 years in Congress reigning in all of his white supremacist furor, while faking the most libertarian platform in GOP memory, on the off-chance that he may someday become president, whence he can unleash his true socialist white supremacist agenda.

Of course, the more reasonable position is that Bill White is a social pariah in the white supremacy movement who is trying to capitalize on Paul’s fame, that Don Black simply endorsed the 'small government' candidate as white supremacists usually do, and that American Thinker, despite its name, wants Paul to be a racist a little too much.

So here is my take on Charles Johnson and Thomas Lifson: Johnson doesn’t get a complete pass just because he warned readers to take it with a grain of salt. He made an obnoxiously-attenuated connection with no real evidence. I am sure he has been in this game long enough to know that anyone who hates Paul as much as the staff of American Thinker would completely ignore the warning. The "ooohs" and "ahhhs" of his comment section are a testament to the value of hype over substance and Johnson ought to know about that factor.

Thomas Lifson and American Thinker do not get a shred of respect for this. This is the latest episode in American Thinker’s larger campaign to smear Paul with weak and attenuated claims. The fact that he thinks this one will finally silence the critics and the "abusive" Ron Paul supporters (whine), just shows how weak his previous claims were. It is an indictment on the quality of American Thinker as a publication and an indictment on Thomas Lifson’s seething bias. It stems from a broader attitude of dismissal about Ron Paul and his supporters: an attitude which Lifson would surely like to preserve. However, I cannot intelligently predict how the ends could justify Lifson turning himself into a conspiracy theorist.

The Real Reason this is Happening

There is a subtlety at play that readers may not pick up on. There is a major battle over control of the GOP right now. In one corner, there are the old-school libertarian-conservatives. They oppose war, taxes, spending, and any behavioral mandates. In the other corner are the neoconservatives. They espouse similar core principles, but often take to equivocation because they regularly breach them. They have more or less redefined ‘conservative’ to mean anything ‘right wing’ and ironically attempted to mandate their brand of conservatism on the people. Moreover, neoconservatives have coerced original conservatives to vote their way ever since Bush took the White House and they have even resorted to overt threats.

To libertarian-conservatives, Ron Paul is a hero. He stands for uncompromised integrity, unwavering adherence to the core principles of the old GOP, and a refusal to buckle under the threat of new GOP ostracism. More important, Paul’s candidacy has come to symbolize a possible resurgence of Goldwater’s GOP. So much in fact, that he has been endorsed by Goldwater’s progeny.

American Thinker has made it clear which side they take, which is why they don't mind wrapping non-neoconservative Republicans like Pat Buchanan in this obnoxious claim. Yet, they have miscalculated some key facts. When Dan Rather miscalculated neoconservative power by misreporting Bush’s dereliction of duty, he found himself retiring early. But now neoconservatism is an injured animal and libertarian-conservatism just raised $23 Million dollars for a humble country doctor’s presidential bid. Sure, it has been open season on Ron Paul until late, but his support has firmed and it is ready for action. It does not take kindly to Republicans who lie, obscure, and side with white supremacists against honest members of the GOP. Lifson’s complaining about the "abusive" letters from supporters misunderstands normative ideas of political power and refuses to acknowledge this obvious resurgence. Barry Goldwater, who once said, "I think every good Christian ought to kick [Jerry] Falwell right in the ass," has returned in the form of 130,000 donating Ron Paul supporters to kick neoconservatism in its metaphorical ass. They might be pleased to start with American Thinker, but I should not speak for them: I’m sure they will be talking to Lifson himself.