Peace and Justice Post

· Ex-CIA agent says coercive technique was US policy
· Bush at centre of missing interrogation tapes row

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Wednesday December 12, 2007
The Guardian

The White House was directly accused yesterday of authorising the waterboarding of al-Qaida detainees, putting President George Bush at the centre of a deepening controversy over the treatment of detainees.

The charge from John Kiriakou, a former CIA official involved in the capture of senior al-Qaida members, came on a day when the Bush administration tried to contain a dispute concerning the destruction of hundreds of hours of video footage of the interrogation of the high-level al-Qaida suspect known as Abu Zubaydah.

Continued . . .

Antiwar.com, December 11, 2007

by Rep. Ron Paul

The latest National Intelligence Estimate has been greeted by a mixture of relief and alarm. As I have been saying all along, Iran indeed poses no quantifiable imminent nuclear threat to us or her neighbors. It is with much alarm, however, that we see the administration continue to ratchet up the war rhetoric as if nothing has changed.

Indeed nothing has changed from the administration’s perspective, as they have had this latest intelligence report for some time. Only this week has it been made known to the public. They want it both ways with Iran. On the one hand, they discredit the report entirely, despite it being one of the most comprehensive intelligence reports on the subject, with over 1,000 source notes in the document. On the other hand, when discrediting it fails, they claim that the timing of the abandonment of the weapons program, just as we were invading Iraq, means our pressure must have worked, so we must keep it up with a new round of even tougher sanctions. Russia and China are not buying this, apparently, and again we are finding ourselves on a lonely, tenuous platform on the world stage.

Keep reading . . .

Published on Monday, December 10, 2007 by Inter Press Service

by William Fisher

NEW YORK – A coalition of more than 200 not-for-profit human rights and social justice organisations charge that the George W. Bush administration is contributing to racial, religious and ethnic discrimination in the U.S. — and attempting to cover up its violations in a report to the United Nations they term “a complete whitewash”.

The charges are contained in a “shadow report” timed to coincide with International Human Rights Day Monday, and designed to rebut a far more positive picture painted by the U.S. State Department. State’s report, quietly submitted to the U.N. last spring and posted without publicity on the department’s website, was a requirement under the world body’s International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination, to which the U.S. is a signatory.

The shadow report was prepared by the U.S. Human Rights Network (USHRN), a large group of non-governmental organisations ranging from Amnesty International to the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund.

Keep reading . . . 

 Press TV, December 10, 2007

Israel’s Gabi Ashkenazi (L) and Admiral Mullen

The top US army commander holds high-level talks with Israeli military echelons after the Zionists rejected the NIE report on Iran.

Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen met his Israeli counterpart Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi and War Minister Ehud Barak in Tel Aviv on Monday, Israeli sources said.

Zionists military sources added that Admiral Mullen, who has been reportedly opposed to military strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites, was briefed on the argument of Israeli spy agencies that the Islamic Republic ‘could have nuclear bombs by 2010’.

Israel which is widely believed to possess the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East claims a nuclear Iran would be a threat to the region. However, Tehran has repeatedly attested that its nuclear program is civilian.

The December 3rd National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s nuclear activities concluded with ‘high confidence’ that the Tehran is not pursuing nuclear weaponry.

The NIE report has provoked an outcry amongst hawkish US officials and their Zionist allies; however political observers believe the findings make a US military strike against Iran less likely.

Dissident Voice

by James Petras / December 10th, 2007

The most important thing [sic] that should be said about Bush is that had I told him that I was opposed to this move (Annapolis meeting), he wouldn’t have embarked on it. I could have blocked the move. Had I been unwilling to co-operate with him, Bush wouldn’t have coerced me… I spoke to the President with unparalleled sharpness about these matters (bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities) and my comments were extremely well received — regarding the freedom (to bomb Iran) we are reserving for ourselves and what we will and won’t do.
– Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Haaretz, November 29, 2007

Introduction

During and immediately after the Annapolis meetings to discuss peace, Israel abducted the student president of Beir Zeit University for dissent, launched over 50 attacks on Gaza killing and wounding over 50 Palestinian civilians, police and militia, set in motion a vast building project of 250 new apartments in Palestinian East Jerusalem, projected permanent Israeli military posts in the West Bank, rejected any time limits or specific goals in their negotiations with the PLO and launched a virulent dismissal of the major US intelligence report (National Intelligence Estimate) on the non-existence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.

Continued . . .

The Raw Story, December 9, 2007

John Byrne
Published: Sunday December 9, 2007

Pelosi would later boot sole objector to program from chance to chair Intelligence Committee

Two senior Republicans and Democrats in Congress — including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — were briefing on the CIA’s program to use waterboarding on terror suspects in September 2002 and did not object, according to Sunday’s Washington Post.

In the long-ranging article, which seemingly takes the lawmakers and the Bush Administration to task by discussing the practice’s emergence in Nazi Germany and other totalitarian states, a Pelosi aide said the Speaker remembered discussion of “enhanced” interrogation techniques and “acknowledged that Pelosi did not raise objections at the time.”

Keep reading . . .

voltairenet.org

by Silvia Cattori

Omar Barghouti belongs to a new generation of Palestinians who never adhered to the solution of « Two States, Two peoples ». They are advocating, instead, the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) of Israel as well as a «secular, democratic state» solution, where Palestinians and Israelis would share equal rights, after historic injustices are redressed and the refugees are allowed to return.

Continued . . .

RINF.com, December 10, 2007

One of the countries that has been most frequently used by the CIA for torturing detainees is Jordan, a key US ally in the Middle East.

By Joe Kay

The revelation that the CIA organized the destruction of videotapes documenting the interrogation of prisoners at secret CIA detention facilities abroad has focused attention on one aspect of the US torture program. Another important component is the policy of “extraordinary rendition”—the transfer of prisoners to the control of other countries that specialize in torture.

One of the countries that has been most frequently used by the CIA in this way is Jordan, a key US ally in the Middle East. An article in the Washington Post published on Saturday (“Jordan’s Spy Agency: Holding Cell for the CIA” by Craig Whitlock) documents the close relationship that has developed over the past seven years.

Keep reading . . .

Salon.com, December 9, 2007

The Washington Post reports today that the Bush administration, beginning in 2002, repeatedly briefed leading Congressional Democrats on the Senate and House Intelligence Committees — including, at various times, Jay Rockefeller, Nancy Pelosi, and Jane Harman — regarding the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation methods,” including details about waterboarding and other torture measures. With one exception (Harman, who vaguely claims to have sent a letter to the CIA), these lawmakers not only failed to object to these policies, but affirmatively supported them.

This information was almost certainly leaked to the Post by intelligence officials who are highly irritated — understandably so — from watching the manipulative spectacle whereby these Democrats now prance around as outraged victims of policies to which they deliberately acquiesced, when they weren’t fully supporting them. Numerous liberal bloggers are already drawing the only conclusions that can be drawn, and expressing their outrage and horror at the Democratic Party leadership. Those sentiments are indisputably appropriate, and I just want to add a few more points to them.

Keep reading . . .

uruknet.info

Ramy Abdu, Popular Committee Against siege

About 60 years passed since our Palestinian catastrophe (Nakhba). Palestinian people have passed and tasted several sufferings and calamites, thus the Gaza strip which includes about 1.5 million peoples 75% from refuges, got a big share from these sufferings. By the start of the 2 nd Intifada in 2000, Israeli occupation violated all the taboos international conventions and tortured Palestinians severely. In the mean time, the harsh siege imposed on Gaza Strip continues for the seven months but with more cruelty. The siege hinder the freedom movement for people and goods into and out the Gaza Strip. Therefore, humanitarian situation severely deteriorated and the fragile Gaza economy die out. That economy was weak due to occupation procedures. Accordingly, the Gaza Strip turned to a big “Ghetto” All Gaza houses carry stories of pain and suffering! Basically, Gaza Strip depends on importing goods through the occupied territories that under Israeli occupation control. Since the start of this siege, occupation prevented raw materials into the Gaza strip as well as banding exporting Palestinian home made goods! Additionally, unemployment rates reached sharp level of 70% percent. Therefore, Gaza civilians became not able to secure their basic human needs beside the sharp decrees of income which reached less than $650 yearly per capita. Until this moment, Occupation failed in subjugating Gazans. Thus occupation is seeking all methods and means to reach this subjugation. Keep reading . . .