Stonewalled by the C.I.A.

New York Times, January 2, 2008

Washington

MORE than five years ago, Congress and President Bush created the 9/11 commission. The goal was to provide the American people with the fullest possible account of the “facts and circumstances relating to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001” — and to offer recommendations to prevent future attacks. Soon after its creation, the president’s chief of staff directed all executive branch agencies to cooperate with the commission.

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

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

Keep reading . . .

Two Body Blows to the Political Establishment

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
and JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

For the party establishments–Democratic and Republican–it was a bad night, as their favored candidates went down to severe defeat.

With Barrack Obama’s crushing victory over Hillary Clinton, the campaign scenario of the Democratic elite is now in the trash bin. Their calculation had been that Obama would never be able to match the Clintons’ fundraising. Wrong. Obama raised huge sums from small contributors, who can continue their support. A lot of Hillary’s big financial backers have already reached their legal limits. They thought Obama was another Howard Dean, headed for deflation as soon as the voters faced the moment of decision. Wrong again. Mrs. Clinton had the big feminist organizations in her corner and a good chunk of organized labor. They didn’t deliver, any more than the Democratic machine supervised by campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe and superpollster Mark Penn. They thought they could sink Obama with December’s slurs about drug use, Islamic heritage and color. They backfired.

Keep reading . . .

Counterpunch,

Weekend Edition, December 31, 2008

Business as Usual

By LIAQUAT ALI KHAN

The Bhutto assassination might force Pakistani rulers to reconsider supporting the war on terror that has been forced upon the entire Muslim world. Just as Spain withdrew from the war in Iraq after the Madrid terrorist bombings, Pakistan too might use Bhutto’s death to withdraw from the war in Afghanistan. For sure, Pakistan is no Spain. It will be much harder for corrupt Pakistani rulers to say no to billions of dollars coming from America. If Islamabad does not change its devious ways, however, the war on terror will consume and destroy Pakistan.

Subservience and Subversion

Since its birth in 1947, Pakistan has been a subservient but subversive ally of the United States. Lacking resources and strong political institutions, Pakistani rulers have played the role of makkar noker (cunning servant) who takes pleasure in servitude but nonetheless resents and subverts the wellbeing of the master. That duplicitous Pakistani officials can outsmart naïve American policymakers has been the defining attribute of Islamabad’s furtive foreign policy. This policy may have brought fame and fortune to some military and political individuals, but it has been a proven disaster for the people of Pakistan.

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Swissinfo.org, January 4, 2008

By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON (Reuters) – Myanmar’s junta deployed riot police and fire trucks at potential flashpoints in Yangon on Friday to prevent pro-democracy protests on the 60th anniversary of independence from Britain.

Riot police took up positions outside the former capital’s City Hall and the Shwedagon and Sule pagodas — all key locations in mass anti-junta protests that erupted in September.

One government official, who did not want to be named, said local authorities had also been ordered to prepare gangs of “Swan-Arr-Shin”, or “Masters of Force”, thugs in case pro-democracy activists tried to demonstrate.

The junta, the latest face of 45 years of army rule in the former Burma, limited its celebrations to a military ceremony in the remote new capital, Naypyidaw, and a broadcast message from junta supremo Than Shwe.

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TPM, December 31, 2007,

Boy, was it time for an update.

Late last year we decided to take stock of all the Bush Administration officials who’d been accused of corruption and/or resigned in the face of scandal. Although we had fun doing it, we altruistically started the project in order to help our friends at Powerline, who professed an inability to think of any Bush officials beset by scandal.

This year´s result, which built on Justin Rood´s original gem, is, like our catalog of the administration´s efforts to disappear information, a staggering monument to the Bush Administration. And it wouldn’t have been possible without TPM’s research hounds, Adrianne Jeffries, Andrew Berger, and Peter Sheehy.

A quick note on methodology. Since a complete catalog of administration officials who’ve been accused of some form of corruption or abuse of power would be endless, we tried to maintain a high standard for inclusion. Most of those below were the subjects of criminal probes, but we also included officials who were credibly accused of acts that, if not criminal, were a corruption of office (like the U.S. attorney scandal). And even then, such officials were only included if their accusers had them dead to rights (which is why Karl Rove didn’t make the cut). We also limited ourselves to officials who were either political appointees or whose actions were so political that they were effectively political appointees (like John Tanner).

Enjoy:

Continued . . .

Al Bawaba,  January 3, 2008

Israeli troops backed by airstrikes killed at least six Palestinians on Thursday in the Gaza Strip. Hamas officials reported heavy clashes between its men and Israeli troops east of Khan Younis and at least nine Israeli airstrikes overnight that wounded 10 people, at least three critically.

The latest fighting started after midnight when Israeli forces, including 10 tanks, raided an area east of Khan Younis, sparking exchanges of fire with Hamas and Islamic Jihad men, witnesses said, according to the AP. Two Palestinian fighters were killed and nine hurt in the airstrikes, doctors said.

Later, an Israeli tank fired a shell at a house, killing four people, including an Islamic Jihad activist, his mother and 19-year-old sister, and wounding six others, the family and doctors said. Palestinian doctors reported a total of 21 injured in the clashes.

Continued . . .

Truthdig.com, January 1, 2008

By Amy Goodman

Benazir Bhutto and her supporters who died with her during the suicide attack Dec. 27 are the latest victims of decades of dangerous U.S. support for Pakistan’s military regime. The country’s dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has held his grip on power despite increasing popular unrest. The Bush administration got nervous, turning to Bhutto to preserve the status quo in Pakistan. There is no doubt the exiled former prime minister was personally brave to return to her country. But Pakistani professor Pervez Hoodbhoy was critical nevertheless: “After returning to Pakistan, she made clear that for a few table scraps, she would have happily teamed up with Musharraf under the hopelessly absurd U.S. plan to give the military government a civilian face.”

While President Bush imposed “regime change” on Iraq, based on fictitious weapons of mass destruction, “regime preservation” is the U.S. policy for Pakistan, despite its role in global nuclear proliferation, the sale of true WMDs.

Keep reading . . .

The Independent, January 3, 2008

By Claire Soares

Fouad al-Farhan knew they were coming for him. A few days before Saudi security forces swooped on his offices, he sent a letter to friends telling them he was a wanted man. “They will pick me up any time in the next two weeks,” he predicted.

His crime? Writing one of the most widely read blogs in Saudi Arabia.

Mr Farhan, 32, who describes his online mission as “searching for freedom, dignity, justice, equality, public participation and other lost Islamic values”, had already broken ground by refusing to hide behind a pen-name as he vented his spleen about the rampant corruption blighting political life. Now he has clocked up another first – the first blogger to be arrested in the kingdom.

The blogger was picked up on 10 December from the offices of his computer company in Jeddah, but it was not until this week that the interior ministry finally confirmed his arrest.

Keep reading . . .

Salem-News.com, January 2, 2008

Tim King

More Democrats signing on to the idea of a Vice-Presidential impeachment, could it really happen?

Vice President Dick Cheney
Photo courtesy: blogrunner.com

(SALEM, Ore.) – A House Resolution to impeach U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney, Dennis Kucinich’s H.R. 333, is gathering more support. The national impeachment continues to grow and generate increasing interest since being referred to the House Judiciary Committee last month, a Kucinich spokesperson said.

As a member of that committee, Representative Robert Wexler and two other committee members, Luis Gutierrez and Tammy Baldwin, have joined together in demanding that the legal action against Cheney moves forward.

Congressman Robert Wexler of Florida is just one elected official who says the charges are too serious to ignore.

Keep reading . . .

· Son should not have been made party leader, says clan chief
· Feudal lord intervenes in the wake of assassination

Declan Walsh in Mirpur Bhutto
Wednesday January 2, 2008
The Guardian

Mumtaz Bhutto, head of the Bhutto tribe in Pakistan’s Sindh province and former rival of Benazir Bhutto, receiving visitors at the family ancestral home at Mirpur Bhutto, six miles from Benazir Bhutto’s home in Naudero. Photograph: Declan Walsh/Guardian

Mumtaz Bhutto sat back on the cool marble veranda of his sprawling country mansion in rural Sindh province. A guard brandishing a Kalashnikov stood behind him. A servant fanned the chocolate cake on the table to keep the flies at bay. He was dismayed.

The rise of Asif Zardari, Benazir Bhutto’s husband, to the leadership of the Pakistan People’s party, was nothing less than a disaster, said Mumtaz, the sprightly 74-year-old head of the Bhutto clan.

“Zardari is an illiterate man. He has no political background or experience. He will not be able to conduct himself as the same level as Benazir,” he said with barely concealed disdain. “Most unfortunate.”Family feuds are never pretty but for the Bhuttos, Pakistan’s dominant political dynasty, they are played out with the same intensity that characterises the rest of the family’s Greek tragedy-style history.

Continued . . .