Wasn't there an "It's a Slam Dunk" remark by someone?



Feith Takes the Fall


Friday, Feb. 09, 2007

By MARK THOMPSON/WASHINGTON - TIME MAGAZINE

For a person most Americans have never heard of, Doug Feith has been called terrible names by very important people. In Plan of Attack, Bob Woodward quotes General Tommy Franks — appalled at the quality of intelligence about Iraq — railing that Feith, then the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, was "the f---king stupidest guy on the face of the earth." Today, there was another bad review. Feith got publicly slapped by the Defense Department's inspector general for developing pro-war intelligence on Iraq — outside of official channels — that now seems plainly wrong. The IG concludes that Feith's office, on a free-lance basis, made claims "that were inconsistent with the consensus of the intelligence community." The report said that Feith's shop exaggerated the purported links between Saddam Hussein's government and al Qaeda. "That was the argument that was used to make the sale to the American people about the need to go to war," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the armed services committee. He said the Feith's work, "which was wrong, which was distorted, which was inappropriate ... is something which is highly disturbing."

Feith may have been one of the Bush Administration's most fervent supporters of war with Iraq but, in truth, he was only a bit player. Indeed, he is the third bit player in the Iraq fiasco to be paying for the sins of his superiors recently. For a couple of weeks now, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has been in the dock in federal court in Washington, trying desperately to keep his one-time boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, from being stained by the responsibility for Libby's chats with reporters and government officials about Valerie Plame's CIA job. Then, just yesterday, Army General George Casey was raked over the coals by Senators who didn't think his past 30 months in command of U.S. ground forces in Iraq warrants his elevation to Army chief of staff. While he did get the promotion, the Senate vote of 83-to-14 was the poorest showing for an Army chief since Vietnam. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Casey should be held accountable for giving Congress too-rosy assessments of the war as the situation there spiraled downward into chaos. "I have questioned in the past and question today a number of decisions and judgments that Gen. Casey has made in the past two and a half years," McCain said. "During that time, conditions in Iraq have gotten remarkably and progressively worse."

This trio of woes seems to have a common thread: Underlings snared while trying to please their bosses. It's almost like blaming the hammer instead of the carpenter for a bent nail. Speaking to the Associated Press, Feith took umbrage at descriptions that his work was "inappropriate." Said he: "The policy office has been smeared for years by allegations that its pre-Iraq-war work was somehow 'unlawful' or 'unauthorized.'" He has a point: it was the Bush administration that chose Feith's reports over those generated by its $1 billion-a-week intelligence operation. Feith's work was most certainly authorized — from the very top.




Wasn't there an "It's a Slam Dunk" remark by someone?

WaPo quasi-retracts page-one story about Feith Iraq/AQ intelposted at 6:49 pm on February 9, 2007 by Allahpundit



“Good Lord.” Indeed.

They’re calling it a “correction,” but is it really a correction if you’re quoting from an entirely different document than the one you thought you were? And your story kinda sorta hinges on which one it was?

This is a “correction” in the same way Crocodile Dundee’s knife was a knife:

Correction to This Article

A Feb. 9 front-page article about the Pentagon inspector general’s report regarding the office of former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith incorrectly attributed quotations to that report. References to Feith’s office producing “reporting of dubious quality or reliability” and that the office “was predisposed to finding a significant relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda” were from a report issued by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) in Oct. 2004. Similarly, the quotes stating that Feith’s office drew on “both reliable and unreliable reporting” to produce a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq “that was much stronger than that assessed by the IC [Intelligence Community] and more in accord with the policy views of senior officials in the Administration” were also from Levin’s report. The article also stated that the intelligence provided by Feith’s office supported the political views of senior administration officials, a conclusion that the inspector general’s report did not draw.The two reports employ similar language to characterize the activities of Feith’s office: Levin’s report refers to an “alternative intelligence assessment process” developed in that office, while the inspector general’s report states that the office “developed, produced, and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al Qaida relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers.” The inspector general’s report further states that Feith’s briefing to the White House in 2002 “undercuts the Intelligence Community” and “did draw conclusions that were not fully supported by the available intelligence.”

Got that? The big scoop was that the Pentagon itself had concluded that Feith floated bogus intel on the links between Iraq and AQ and suggested that he’d done so at Bush/Cheney’s behest. Except the Pentagon didn’t conclude that. Anti-war Democrat Carl Levin did. The only damning quote from the IG report that doesn’t appear to have been retracted is this:

It stated that the office produced intelligence assessments “inconsistent” with the U.S. intelligence community consensus, calling those actions “inappropriate” because the assessments purported to be “intelligence products” but were far more conclusive than the consensus view…

The policy office, the summary stated, “was inappropriately performing Intelligence Activities . . . that should be performed by the Intelligence Community.”


And yet, per the Times: “According to Congressional officials [who’d read the report], Mr. Feith’s statement and the policy office’s rebuttal, the report concluded that none of the Pentagon’s activities were illegal and that they did not violate Defense Department directives.” In which case … whence the impropriety? He conducted his own investigation and came to a different conclusion than the CIA. Like Captain Ed says, I thought the left liked dissent.


So how’d they blow it so bigtime? Blame Levin. Says the Times:

Working under Douglas J. Feith, who at the time was under secretary of defense for policy, the group “developed, produced and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and Al Qaeda relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers,” the report concluded. Excerpts were quoted by Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who has long been critical of Mr. Feith and other Pentagon officials.

He must have held a conference call and inadvertently read to them out of his own office’s report, not the IG’s. Sweet, sweet justice for the leakhive.

Spruiell says Chris Matthews was talking about the bogus WaPo article on “Hardball” as though it were accurate as late as 5 p.m. ET. Exit question: How vigorous should we expect news networks’ corrections to be once word gets out? Will they be a knife? Or a knife?

It must really suck to be a conservative reporter. You have to always compromise your ethical and professional standards because your personal hatred and bias is so overwhelmingly strong that you can't control yourself.

You'll even compromise your own countries security for political advantage. Hell, it must be hard to spin the story when the vice president of the country and some of his staff are motherforking traitors with more loyalty to the party than the country.

This guy must worship the hospitality peace god!

ick. I'm getting a callous on my scroll finger.

WHATEVER IT TAKES
( very long article)

The politics of the man behind “24.”

by JANE MAYER
( Oh, how the libs hate this successful show!)

Issue of 2007-02-19

Posted 2007-02-12


The office desk of Joel Surnow—the co-creator and executive producer of “24,” the popular counterterrorism drama on Fox—faces a wall dominated by an American flag in a glass case. A small label reveals that the flag once flew over Baghdad, after the American invasion of Iraq, in 2003. A few years ago, Surnow received it as a gift from an Army regiment stationed in Iraq; the soldiers had shared a collection of “24” DVDs, he told me, until it was destroyed by an enemy bomb. “The military loves our show,” he said recently. Surnow is fifty-two, and has the gangly, coiled energy of an athlete; his hair is close-cropped, and he has a “soul patch”—a smidgen of beard beneath his lower lip. When he was young, he worked as a carpet salesman with his father. The trick to selling anything, he learned, is to carry yourself with confidence and get the customer to like you within the first five minutes. He’s got it down. “People in the Administration love the series, too,” he said. “It’s a patriotic show. They should love it.”

Surnow’s production company, Real Time Entertainment, is in the San Fernando Valley, and occupies a former pencil factory: a bland, two-story industrial building on an abject strip of parking lots and fast-food restaurants. Surnow, a cigar enthusiast, has converted a room down the hall from his office into a salon with burled-wood humidors and a full bar; his friend Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk-radio host, sometimes joins him there for a smoke. (Not long ago, Surnow threw Limbaugh a party and presented him with a custom-made “24” smoking jacket.) The ground floor of the factory has a large soundstage on which many of “24” ’s interior scenes are shot, including those set at the perpetually tense Los Angeles bureau of the Counter Terrorist Unit, or C.T.U.—a fictional federal agency that pursues America’s enemies with steely resourcefulness.


Note how those items in bold seem to bother her!

sorry AV and all. that picture epitomizes a Davis rant.........................

Through the head might be more apropos.

In fact, more careful scientific studies have placed the population of Muslims in America much lower. A NY Sun op-ed by Dr. Daniel Pipes in October 2001 (“How Many U.S. Muslims?”) noted two different scientific university-conducted studies in recent years that place the population of Muslims at less than 3 million:

The American Religious Identification Survey 2001 carried out by the Graduate Center of the City University of New York polled more than 50,000 people and found the total American Muslim population to be 1.8 million.

Meanwhile, the University of Chicago's Tom Smith reviewed prior national surveys and (in a study sponsored by the American Jewish Committee) found that the best estimate puts the Muslim population in 2000 at 1,886,000. (With a nod toward figures supplied by Islamic organizations, he allowed that this number could be as high as 2,814,000 Muslims.)

Ed Schultz blasts the snot out of Airhead America!!



http://audio.wegoted.com/podcasting/021307HourOne.mp3

I told ya we should check the couch cushions for change and buy them out. Al Franken was the only expensive thing, and he's vying for a real job.

This goes deeper than just AA's financial mismanagement. Seems one of their hosts told his listeners to call XM and complain about Schultz landing the 12-3 slot from the orbital platform.

Wow, free Ed Shultz. I have to pay for Rush.

One question, who is Ed Shultz?

Team players at AA? I guess not.

Classic show. Listened to most of it and he has it right, for a liberal/dem.

AA has nothing but negativity, jelousy, and NO BUSINESS SENSE. They'd rather beg for handouts than sell advertizing and EARN an audience. Al Franken has said he was leaving to run for office rather than build AA. AA is fringe nuts and he's right when he says they're hurting the Dems.

A certain congressman from Texas was on with Big Eddie today, too!

http://audio.wegoted.com/podcasting/021307PaulRon.mp3

You can listen to Rush for free through the sites of many of his affiliates.

Only live I assume. I have a digital recording program, but I got Rush 24/7 as a present. So what the heck, I download it to my laptop and get to listen w/o commercials.

Yeah, only live.

For a few cents a day I can live with the cost to get the archives and the news links. Radio has so many commercials it's nice to hear a show straight through with no stops.

Cuba honors American who made Castro a legend

Reuters, by Staff


2/18/2007 1:37:36 PM

Havana - Cuba unveiled a marble plaque on Saturday commemorating the interview 50 years ago by New York Times reporter Herbert Matthews that helped build the legend of Fidel Castro, the state news agency Prensa Latina reported. The plaque was placed on the spot where Matthews met with Castro at his hideout in the Sierra Maestra mountains of south eastern Cuba. /snip/ The interview may also have helped Castro by exaggerating the size of his rebel force. Castro later bragged he only had 18 men at the time, but made them pass in front of the American reporter several times.

Still being fooled by the commies or perhaps being fooled on purpose!

The New York Times you say. Now there is a surprise.

Che's PR may well have been even better, as he's still on T-shirts.

I just went down a list of about 15 news websites letting them know I am sick and tired of the play by play of Britney Spears and Anna Nicole Smith.

I did note that the Christian Science Monitor does not refer to either.


That is wonderful.

Alicia Colon writes in the New York Sun:

The total military dead in the Iraq war between 2003 and this month stands at about 3,133. This is tragic, as are all deaths due to war, and we are facing a cowardly enemy unlike any other in our past that hides behind innocent citizens. Each death is blazoned in the headlines of newspapers and Internet sites. What is never compared is the number of military deaths during the Clinton administration: 1,245 in 1993; 1,109 in 1994; 1,055 in 1995; 1,008 in 1996. That's 4,417 deaths in peacetime but, of course, who's counting?

Were these deaths because of natural causes? Or accidents? Is there an intellectually honest defense of this paragraph? Or has the New York Sun lost its mind?


http://dailydish.typepad.com/

You freaky little fark...intellectually honest defense?

Defend this:

UNITED STATES
Number of abortions per day: Approximately 3,700

Awwwwww, did someone rattle your part-time morals?

So you attempt to decry dishonest debate with introducing still more dishonesty?


You might want to give Sullivan a listen, he's honest, at least.

You are on the other hand, just aren't.

Do you really want me to actually defend it? I mean, really really be blunt about it? Are you sure?

Weir and Lauer Scold Democrats for Feckless
Efforts to End War

http://www.mrc.org/cyberalerts/2007/cyb20070220.asp#1

ABC's Bill Weir on Saturday, and NBC's Matt Lauer on Monday, expressed disappointment at inadequate efforts by Democrats to end the war in Iraq. On Saturday's Good Morning America, Weir pressed left-wing Senator Russ Feingold: "Do you hold your Party responsible, not only for the authorization, but for the seeming inability to muster a unified front to, to fight the President on this, to get what you want, what apparently the American people wanted with the midterm elections and end the war?" Weir followed up by using Feingold to prod Senator Clinton: "Should Democratic presidential candidates be firmer, stronger? Should Hillary Clinton come out and, and express regret for authorizing this war?"

On Monday's Today, Lauer fretted to Tim Russert: "If they can't pass a kind of symbolic vote how do they ever have the strength to do something more serious?" Lauer described the Democratic maneuvers on resolutions as feckless: "Put yourself in the position of Joe and Mary Smith living somewhere across this country right now and you've watched these politicians for more than a month talk about passing a symbolic vote. Does it amount to little more than them ringing someone's door bell and running away?"

Gosh, I don't know...you might use real facts and stuff.

Ouch!

Matt Lauer is likely one of the smartest 'newsmen' of his generation

(SIGH)

Media Lauds Clinton's Wealth, Excoriated Reagan

Clinton rakes in millions -- and the Drive-By Media loves it...

King of the retards.

he'll be on fux news in no time.

The Real American Idol: Why the New York Times
buried Maj. Bruce Crandall's Medal of Honor

The Real American Idol
Why the New York Times buried Maj. Bruce Crandall's Medal of Honor on page 15.

BY DANIEL HENNINGER

Thursday, March 1, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

Amid the mad jumble that makes the news in our time, the White House on Monday held a ceremony for a Medal of Honor recipient. His name is Bruce Crandall. Mr. Crandall is 74 now, and earned his medal as a major, flying a Huey helicopter in 1965 in the Vietnam War.

The Medal of Honor is conferred only for bravery in combat. It is a military medal, and it is still generally regarded as the highest public tribute this nation can bestow. It is also very rare.

Still, the Medal of Honor does not occupy the place in the nation's cultural life that it once did. This has much to do with the ambivalent place of the military in our angry politics.

In the House debate just ended on a "non-binding" resolution to thwart the sending of more troops to Iraq, its most noted element was the Democratic formulation to "support the troops" but oppose the war. We will hear more of this when the members of the Senate debate their own symbolic resolution.

In last November's congressional election, the Democrats picked several military veterans as candidates to mitigate the notion, a burden since Vietnam, that an endemic hostility toward things military runs through the party's veins. Those Democratic veterans won. Notwithstanding the bitter divide over Iraq, the presence of these veterans in Congress should be a good thing, if one thinks that the oft-publicized "divide" between the professional military and American civilians is not in this country's interest. It surely cannot be in the country's interest if over time more Americans come to regard the life of U.S. soldiers at war and in combat as an abstraction--as say, mainly Oscar nominees or as newspaper photographs of scenes of utter loss at arms.

Two men have received the Medal of Honor for service in Iraq: Army Sgt. First Class Paul R. Smith, who died defending some 100 fellow soldiers, allowing their withdrawal; and Marine Cpl. Jason L. Dunham, who died after he dove atop a live grenade to protect his squad. (Cpl. Dunham's act was the subject of a 2004 Wall Street Journal story by reporter Michael M. Phillips and later a book, "The Gift of Valor.")
Bruce Crandall's Medal of Honor, at an emotional remove of 42 years, offers a chance to ponder just where the military stands now in the nation's life. The particulars of Lt. Col. Crandall's act of heroism, and what others said of it at the awarding of the medal on Monday, offers we civilians a chance to understand not merely the risks of combat but what animates those who embrace those risks.

Mr. Crandall, then a major, commanded a company with the 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, carrying soldiers to a landing zone, called X-ray, in the la Drang Valley. An assault from the North Vietnamese army erupted, as described at the White House ceremony Monday. Three soldiers on Maj. Crandall's helicopter were killed. He kept it on the ground while four wounded were taken aboard. Back at base, he asked for a volunteer to return with him to X-ray. Capt. Ed Freeman came forward. Through smoke and bullets, they flew in and out 14 times, spent 14 hours in the air and used three helicopters. They evacuated 70 wounded. The battalion survived.

A Medal of Honor requires eyewitness accounts, and an officer there attested, "Maj. Crandall's actions were without question the most valorous I've observed of any helicopter pilot in Vietnam."

Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, spoke at the ceremony of what he called "the warrior ethos." Look at his words and consider whether they still stand today, or whether as a matter of the nation's broader ethos of commonly accepted beliefs, they are under challenge. Gen. Schoomaker said: "The words of the warrior ethos that we have today--I will always place the mission first; I will never accept defeat; I will never quit; and I will never leave a fallen comrade--were made real that day in the la Drang Valley."

At issue today is the question: Is that ethos worth it, worth the inevitable sacrifice? And not only in Iraq but in whatever may lie beyond Iraq?

The secretary of the Army, Francis Harvey, went on in this vein: "The courage and fortitude of America's soldiers in combat exemplified by these individuals is, without question, the highest level of human behavior. It demonstrates the basic goodness of mankind as well as the inherent kindness and patriotism of American soldiers."

An American soldier in combat demonstrates "the basic goodness of mankind"? And the highest level of human behavior? This was not thought to be true at the moment Maj. Crandall was flying those choppers in Vietnam. Nor is it now.

To embrace the thoughts of Gen. Schoomaker and of Secretary Harvey is to risk being accused of defending notions of American triumphalism and an overly strong martial spirit thought inappropriate to the realities of a multilateral world. This is a debate worth having. But we are not having it. We are hiding from it.

In a less doubtful culture, Maj. Crandall's magnificent medal would have been on every front page, if only a photograph. It was on no one's front page Tuesday. The New York Times, the culture's lodestar, had a photograph on its front page of President Bush addressing governors about an insurance plan. Maj. Crandall's Medal of Honor was on page 15, in a round-up, three lines from the bottom. Other big-city dailies also ran it in their news summaries; some--the Washington Post, USA Today--ran full accounts inside.

Most schoolchildren once knew the names of the nation's heroes in war--Ethan Allen, John Paul Jones, Stephen Decatur, the Swamp Fox Francis Marion, Ulysses S. Grant, Clara Barton, Billy Mitchell, Alvin York, Lee Ann Hester. Lee Ann who? She's the first woman to win a Silver Star for direct combat with the enemy. Did it in a trench in Iraq. Her story should be in schools, but it won't be.
All nations celebrate personal icons, and ours now tend to be doers of good. That's fine. But if we suppress the martial feats of a Bruce Crandall, we distance ourselves further from our military. And in time, we will change. At some risk.

Mr. Henninger is deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. His column appears Thursdays in the Journal and on OpinionJournal.com.

Was the Medal Of Honor Story on the WSJ front page?

Sudden Jihad Syndrome Hits University of Missouri-Rolla

February 28, 2007

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT


RUSH: Have you heard about what went on at the University of Missouri-Rolla? “Nearly two dozen people were being decontaminated yesterday after a white powdery substance was found on a student who claimed to have a bomb and threatened ‘terrorist-type' actions. The man, described as an ‘international graduate student,’ was depressed about his grades, according to police. School officials said possible bomb materials were found when he was taken into custody. Twenty-three people were sent through a decontamination process Tuesday morning outside the University's civil engineering building where a police standoff with the student had started around 2:30. Acting police chief Mark Kearse said when the cops arrived the student was holding a knife and that he held up a bag and said ‘this is a bomb.’ He also claimed to have anthrax. Mayor William Jenks said the student’s identity and nationality were not released had problems and was depressed.”

We have an international student; identity and nationality weren’t released; claimed to have a bomb; threatened terrorist type activities. How remarkable, ladies and gentlemen, no one knows his name. No one knows his homeland. Now, we have to ask ourselves, “Is there a common link with the many other little single incidents of sudden jihad syndrome?” Because that's what this is, sudden jihad syndrome. From cabdrivers to the flying imams to any number of activities. How about that nut that tried to run over the students at University of North Carolina last year. This is sort of like not naming the driver of an SUV. The SUV does all this. International student, identity and nationality not released. Hmm.

Media Blacklists BBC Fiasco
Google, Digg Censor 9/11 Truth
News 24 'timestamp' video disappears from Google Video, despite the fact it's under 30 seconds in length and clearly constitutes fair use, Digg lets small minority of morons decide its content

The crowned kings of censorship Google have "pulled" the News 24 "timestamp" video that shows the BBC reporting the collapse of Building 7 26 minutes before it happened. Meanwhile, the establishment media continues to ignore the WTC 7 farce as a whole, including the inconceivable notion that BBC World have mysteriously lost all their 9/11 footage.

http://prisonplanet.com/articles/march2007...ablacklists.htm

Dunno. I only heard it on Fox News. I hear almost no stories about bravery in combat TODAY, much less from the 70s. The main story is about soldiers getting killed or wounded, not about anything they may have done in the act.

I think I picked it up of the front page of the LA Times site, maybe the WAPO too. Of course, the site and the cellulose copy are not necessarily the same.

You mean they have copies that aren't online? I heard of a thing called newsprint. Long ago, in a universe far away.

I see them on neighborhood driveways in the mornings.

They must come from outer space in the middle of the night.

The Must-Do List
The New York Times, unable to slow their tail spin of hysteria
over Bush, goes into high bash mode

Doomocrat gloom never ends. The NY Times is a socialist rag that's lost readership and still spews the stuff that lost "customers". The NY Times won't be happy until Lenin rises from his crypt and runs for office with Mao as his VP and the reign of terror and oppression begin!

March 4, 2007

Editorial

The Must-Do List

The Bush administration’s assault on some of the founding principles of American democracy marches onward despite the Democratic victory in the 2006 elections. The new Democratic majorities in Congress can block the sort of noxious measures that the Republican majority rubber-stamped. But preventing new assaults on civil liberties is not nearly enough.

Five years of presidential overreaching and Congressional collaboration continue to exact a high toll in human lives, America’s global reputation and the architecture of democracy. Brutality toward prisoners, and the denial of their human rights, have been institutionalized; unlawful spying on Americans continues; and the courts are being closed to legal challenges of these practices.

It will require forceful steps by this Congress to undo the damage. A few lawmakers are offering bills intended to do just that, but they are only a start. Taking on this task is a moral imperative that will show the world the United States can be tough on terrorism without sacrificing its humanity and the rule of law.

Today we’re offering a list — which, sadly, is hardly exhaustive — of things that need to be done to reverse the unwise and lawless policies of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Many will require a rewrite of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, an atrocious measure pushed through Congress with the help of three Republican senators, Arlen Specter, Lindsey Graham and John McCain; Senator McCain lent his moral authority to improving one part of the bill and thus obscured its many other problems.

•

Our list starts with three fundamental tasks:

Restore Habeas Corpus

One of the new act’s most indecent provisions denies anyone Mr. Bush labels an “illegal enemy combatant” the ancient right to challenge his imprisonment in court. The arguments for doing this were specious. Habeas corpus is nothing remotely like a get-out-of-jail-free card for terrorists, as supporters would have you believe. It is a way to sort out those justly detained from those unjustly detained. It will not “clog the courts,” as Senator Graham claims. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the Democratic chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has a worthy bill that would restore habeas corpus. It is essential to bringing integrity to the detention system and reviving the United States’ credibility.

Stop Illegal Spying

Mr. Bush’s program of intercepting Americans’ international calls and e-mail messages without a warrant has not ceased. The agreement announced recently — under which a secret court supposedly gave its blessing to the program — did nothing to restore judicial process or ensure that Americans’ rights are preserved. Congress needs to pass a measure, like one proposed by Senator Dianne Feinstein, to force Mr. Bush to obey the law that requires warrants for electronic surveillance.

Ban Torture, Really

The provisions in the Military Commissions Act that Senator McCain trumpeted as a ban on torture are hardly that. It is still largely up to the president to decide what constitutes torture and abuse for the purpose of prosecuting anyone who breaks the rules. This amounts to rewriting the Geneva Conventions and puts every American soldier at far greater risk if captured. It allows the president to decide in secret what kinds of treatment he will permit at the Central Intelligence Agency’s prisons. The law absolves American intelligence agents and their bosses of any acts of torture and abuse they have already committed.

•

Many of the tasks facing Congress involve the way the United States takes prisoners, and how it treats them. There are two sets of prisons in the war on terror. The military runs one set in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. The other is even more shadowy, run by the C.I.A. at secret places.

Close the C.I.A. Prisons

When the Military Commissions Act passed, Mr. Bush triumphantly announced that he now had the power to keep the secret prisons open. He cast this as a great victory for national security. It was a defeat for America’s image around the world. The prisons should be closed.

Account for ‘Ghost Prisoners’

The United States has to come clean on all of the “ghost prisoners” it has in the secret camps. Holding prisoners without any accounting violates human rights norms. Human Rights Watch says it has identified nearly 40 men and women who have disappeared into secret American-run prisons.

Ban Extraordinary Rendition

This is the odious practice of abducting foreign citizens and secretly flying them to countries where everyone knows they will be tortured. It is already illegal to send a prisoner to a country if there is reason to believe he will be tortured. The administration’s claim that it got “diplomatic assurances” that prisoners would not be abused is laughable.

A bill by Representative Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, would require the executive branch to list countries known to abuse and torture prisoners. No prisoner could be sent to any of them unless the secretary of state certified that the country’s government no longer abused its prisoners or offered a way to verify that a prisoner will not be mistreated. It says “diplomatic assurances” are not sufficient.

•

Congress needs to completely overhaul the military prisons for terrorist suspects, starting with the way prisoners are classified. Shortly after 9/11, Mr. Bush declared all members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban to be “illegal enemy combatants” not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions or American justice. Over time, the designation was applied to anyone the administration chose, including some United States citizens and the entire detainee population of Gitmo.

To address this mess, the government must:

Tighten the Definition of Combatant

“Illegal enemy combatant” is assigned a dangerously broad definition in the Military Commissions Act. It allows Mr. Bush — or for that matter anyone he chooses to designate to do the job — to apply this label to virtually any foreigner anywhere, including those living legally in the United States.

Screen Prisoners Fairly and Effectively

When the administration began taking prisoners in Afghanistan, it did not much bother to screen them. Hundreds of innocent men were sent to Gitmo, where far too many remain to this day. The vast majority will never even be brought before tribunals and still face indefinite detention without charges.

Under legal pressure, Mr. Bush created “combatant status review tribunals,” but they are a mockery of any civilized legal proceeding. They take place thousands of miles from the point of capture, and often years later. Evidence obtained by coercion and torture is permitted. The inmates do not get to challenge this evidence. They usually do not see it.

The Bush administration uses the hoary “fog of war” dodge to justify the failure to screen prisoners, saying it is not practical to do that on the battlefield. That’s nonsense. It did not happen in Afghanistan, and often in Iraq, because Mr. Bush decided just to ship the prisoners off to Gitmo.

•

Prisoners designated as illegal combatants are subject to trial rules out of the Red Queen’s playbook. The administration refuses to allow lawyers access to 14 terrorism suspects transferred in September from C.I.A. prisons to Guantánamo. It says that if they had a lawyer, they might say that they were tortured or abused at the C.I.A. prisons, and anything that happened at those prisons is secret.

At first, Mr. Bush provided no system of trial at the Guantánamo camp. Then he invented his own military tribunals, which were rightly overturned by the Supreme Court. Congress then passed the Military Commissions Act, which did not fix the problem. Some tasks now for Congress:

Ban Tainted Evidence

The Military Commissions Act and the regulations drawn up by the Pentagon to put it into action, are far too permissive on evidence obtained through physical abuse or coercion. This evidence is unreliable. The method of obtaining it is an affront.

Ban Secret Evidence

Under the Pentagon’s new rules for military tribunals, judges are allowed to keep evidence secret from a prisoner’s lawyer if the government persuades the judge it is classified. The information that may be withheld can include interrogation methods, which would make it hard, if not impossible, to prove torture or abuse.

Better Define ‘Classified’ Evidence

The military commission rules define this sort of secret evidence as “any information or material that has been determined by the United States government pursuant to statute, executive order or regulation to require protection against unauthorized disclosure for reasons of national security.” This is too broad, even if a president can be trusted to exercise the power fairly and carefully. Mr. Bush has shown he cannot be trusted to do that.

Respect the Right to Counsel

Soon after 9/11, the Bush administration allowed the government to listen to conversations and intercept mail between some prisoners and their lawyers. This had the effect of suspending their right to effective legal representation. Since then, the administration has been unceasingly hostile to any lawyers who defend detainees. The right to legal counsel does not exist to coddle serial terrorists or snarl legal proceedings. It exists to protect innocent people from illegal imprisonment.

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Beyond all these huge tasks, Congress should halt the federal government’s race to classify documents to avoid public scrutiny — 15.6 million in 2005, nearly double the 2001 number. It should also reverse the grievous harm this administration has done to the Freedom of Information Act by encouraging agencies to reject requests for documents whenever possible. Congress should curtail F.B.I. spying on nonviolent antiwar groups and revisit parts of the Patriot Act that allow this practice.

The United States should apologize to a Canadian citizen and a German citizen, both innocent, who were kidnapped and tortured by American agents .

Oh yes, and it is time to close the Guantánamo camp. It is a despicable symbol of the abuses committed by this administration (with Congress’s complicity) in the name of fighting terrorism.

QUOTE

And the NY Times continues its tradition of re-printing the Howard Dean DNC press releases, verbatum, while pretending they are written by "editorial writers".

I read it, and I still can't believe it. It's no wonder the writer refused to sign his name to this seditious piece of socialistic, pro-terrorist crap. The New York Times leads the list of un-American activity within our borders, and it's pure joy to watch their fall into oblivion.


Don't forget the challenge of getting women admitted to Augusta National!

The NYT's, where the blessed sun never shines...it's dark as a dungeon way down in the Times mines. I wonder...do the times editors ever tire of eating crow whilst their faces are covered with egg?


Founding princlples of American democracy? What do they mean - the right to keep and bear arms?

If they are so angry about not allowing foreigners writs of habeas corpus are the ready to revoke Lincoln's actions in the Civil War and cheerfully let the Confederacy go its way?

I cannot wait until this rag goes bankrupt.

Al Queda must have developed the list and given it to this moronic writer. Looks like the Al Queda Bill of Rights. Notice how they use "Democratic"? It's the Democrat Party you idiots at the Slimes, not the Democratic Party. If you want to really enrage a bedwetting, commie, terrorist loving liberal, refer to the Party as the Democrat Party. It's like saying poop in church. They get really upset when you call them Democrats. They are not Democratic, far from it. The thinking employed in this piece just shows you how badly the Democrats and their terrorist supporting traitors at the Slimes have embraced defeat and long for the days when the terrorists were operating more or less out in the open in this country and in many other parts of the world. Apparently at the Slimes, they really believe that terrorists and those who would kill us have feelings too. I mean, what right does our government have to persecute these poor souls? If these traitors don't live in Bizzaro World, I am not sure who does.

Torture lover.

Conspicuously missing from all the stories was the reason for the 40-year delay in awarding the medal, and the reasons for awarding it now.



You idiot, it's legal and official name is the Democratic Party. "Democrat Party" is a calculated insult cooked up by the right on the grounds that the Democratic Party is not "democratic", and Bush just got in trouble for using the insult in one of his speeches.

And the proper form is democRAT

Silly partisan crap, and shrub used it in his State of the Union.


Lots of dignity of the office that one.

Does have a certain ring to it...

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A common attack upon conservatives and republicans by the ultra left is to engage in what has come to be known as "playing the race card" but is more accurately described as racial McCarthyism. Hardly a day goes by without a member of the far left wing falsely accusing conservatives of racism, bigotry, and a wide array of similar nasty things. They are not only dishonest, but they often border on the absurd, as in NAACP leader and hyper bigot Julian Bond's recent implication to his organization that Bush administration officials supported confederate slavery. Amazingly, Bond's statements went without condemnation from the radical Democrat party or others in his organization............

WooOOOooooOooooo