About those destroyed CIA tapes...they were porn

I am in the middle of reading Jane Mayer's excellent book, The Dark Side, and something she reported has not been picked up yet by members of the traditional media. I am talking about the investigation of the interrogation videotapes that were allegedly destroyed by the CIA back in 2005 at the behest of Clandestine Services chief Jose Rodriguez.

According to Mayer, the CIA claims that the tapes were the only record of the interrogation and no verbatim transcripts exist at all.  I find that very hard to believe, given how torture enthusiasts within the Bush Administration touted the actionable intelligence that the tapes supposedly produced. 

The conventional thinking about why the tapes were destroyed was to prevent CIA officials from being prosecuted for war crimes. After reading The Dark Side, I have a different theory: the tapes were destroyed because what they show is Abu Zubaydah's penchant for autoeroticism.

As one CIA officer put it, and another confirmed, "He spent all his time masturbating like a monkey in a zoo. He went at it so much, at some point I heard he injured himself. They had to intervene. He didn't care that they were watching him. I guess he was bored, and mad." ((page 173)

I wonder how all those self-appointed moralists that demanded former Surgeon General Joyceln Elders be fired after she promoted masturbationas an alternative to risky sexual behavior at a UN  AIDS conference would react when they learned that not only did the supposedly effective torture program fail but it turned Abu Zubaydah into a serial wanker.

Reading in Mayer's book about some of the other "enhanced interrogation techniques" caused me to reexamine the focus solely on waterboarding. Clearly, waterboarding is a crime as it has been for more than 100 years in this country. Nonetheless, these other "techniques" which included sleep depravation and stress positions probably caused as much long term damage to prisoners. 

One thing that was common at Gitmo or Abu Gharib or Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan was the constant bombardment of the prisoners with loud music. Some prisoners swear they heard

babies or perhaps their wive's crying. Other prisoners complained of constantly hearing a buzzing sound in the ear even after they had been released from Gitmo.

Ask yourself if you could withstand days of either no sleep or constantly interrupted sleep. Ask yourself if you could live in a room with no light, not knowing whether it was day or night. Ask yourself if you could deal with extreme temperature fluctuations like freezing cold or sweltering rooms. Now combine all of those tactics and you end up with some who is claiming to be mentally incompetent as in the case of Jose Padilla.

What happened to Abu Zubaydah is probably not that different than Padilla. This is how someone who was at Gitmo described Zubaydah's behavior:

Another source said, "he masturbated constantly. A couple of guards were worried about it. He wasn't brazen about it — he wasn't facing the camera. He'd do it at night, facing the wall, but it was rigged so there was no place for him to not be seen. This was closed circuit. He would complain to the interrogator that he would never feel  a woman's touch again, and lament that he would never have children. He freaked though at one point  because there was blood in his ejaculate. He saved it for the doctors in a tissue, to show them in the morning . The doctor said not to worry." (Page 173)

And that is why the CIA destroyed the interrogation tapes. My sense is that had the tapes proven that these enhanced interrogation tapes actually worked, you would see them on cable news as much as that footage of the Al Qaeda training camp with the guys scurrying over the monkey bars.

The official rationale for videotaping the interrogations was that it was done to protect the CIA agents. Then again, the official rationale for destroying the videotapes was that it was also done to protect the agents. Which is it? Come on, this is Circular Reasoning 101. 

At the time former CIA agent Larry Johnson said that the rationales described by former CIA Director Michael Hayden didn't pass the" bullshit test." Moreover, Johnson pointed out that any 14 year old with a Macbook Pro could blur the faces of the CIA agents to protect their identity. 

Sadly, we seem to know the reason why the tapes were destroyed. They were literally torture porn, more disgusting than  Saw, Hostel, or any other of these films that have appeared coincidently during the tenure of the Bush Adminstration.  

Slave wages for airline pilots, cockpit crews

Probably the most startling revelations during the National Transit Safety Board hearings on the fatal crash of a commuter airliner en route to Buffalo which which killed all 49 people on board last February  were how low the salaries for the cockpit crews were and how the cockpit crew of Colgan Air flight 3407 was so fatigued that  expert witnesses testified that this level of fatigue is the equivalent of "drunk driving."

Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation, said policies involving fatigue can be difficult to implement because workers don't like having their employers interfere with their personal lives. "It's hard to tell people what to do during their day off," he said.

Voss, a former pilot, said he'd felt fatigue while on the job. "There are times you work long hours," Voss said. "It's insidious. It's just like any other impairment. It's like having too much to drink. It can sneak up on you."

Stephanie Chen, writing for CNN.com, said that the issue was part of an FAA sponsored panel last year:

At an FAA symposium last year, John A. Caldwell, a fatigue management consultant for the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army, talked about a phenomenon called "micro-sleep." A pilot falls asleep for a fraction of a second to several seconds because of sleep deprivation. Caldwell said his research found that 80 percent of regional pilots admitted to nodding off during a flight.

Officials from a union representing pilots of regional carriers urged that the FAA to deal with this dangerous issue:

“We must address pilot fatigue in all types of flying from long-haul international to multi-leg domestic,” said Captain Rory Kay, the executive air safety chairman of Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l (ALPA), following his testimony. “While ALPA recognizes that individual pilots have the responsibility to report for duty fit to fly, we also recognize that those pilots must be given the tools to fulfill that responsibility.”

According to Chen, a prominent travel writer and blogger, Joe Sharkey, recently wrote in his blog "High Anxiety" that the investigation reveals that problems facing airline pilots extend beyond fatigue. Pilots are also underpaid, which can pressure them to get second jobs and consequently tire them more, he said.

Sharkey pointed the finger directly at the FAA:

The basic ugly truth -- long known by regional airline pilots and by those of us who follow these things -- is that many regional airline pilots work in a culture of chronic fatigue, in a sub-tier of the air-travel industry where captains might make $50,000 a year and first officers might make less than $20,000, and that the official FAA-sanctioned duty-time regulations that supposedly ensure that pilots have enough time to sleep (7 hours, which of course includes the time to get from airport to hotel and back) are a national scandal.

The feckless FAA -- which incidentally has been operating without a director for almost two years -- is complicit in the grim fiction that safety standards are just fine, evidence aside. The N.T.S.B., to its credit, is digging out the ugly reality, case by case, question by question.

Colgan, a subsidiary of Pinnacle Airlines, supplies regional-airline service to Continental and other airlines. The plane that crashed on approach to Buffalo was a 70-seat Dash 8- Q400 commuter turboprop. 

In the cockpit were Captain Marvin D. Renslow, 47, and First Officer Rebecca Shaw, 24. Renslow had slight experience in the Dash 8 Q400; Shaw had more, but had been on the job for only a little over a year. Shaw's base salary was about $16,000 a year (it could have gone up to around $24,000 with overtime), and Renslow was making around $60,000. To save money, Shaw had recently moved in with her parents near Seattle, necessitating her cross-country commute to work.

The lengthy commute was necessitated by cost cutting measures implemented by the regional carrier, Sharkey said:

Colgan, incidentally, has in recent years closed about 10 of its regional crew bases, which now number 20 at locations around the country, with the result that many pilots are now commuting (via free hops on airplanes) long distances to reach the airport where they the clock then starts ticking for their official workday. Also, the word "commuting" describes pilots who need to get to one airport to start a new shift from the airport where their previous flight ended. Shaw was based in Newark but had recently moved back to her native Washington state. 

 NTSB officials said investigations showed Shaw worked at a coffee shop while working as a pilot when she was stationed out of Norfolk, Virginia., reported Chen.

Clearly there is something wrong with THAT picture. Not only are pilots grossly underpaid, but they sometimes take on as much as $100,000 in debt to go to flight school before they are even hired at wages that are lower than a full time employee at McDonald's or Dunkin' Donuts.

 The direct testimony at the hearing noted by Sharkey, includes these startling revelations in response to questions from NTSB member Debbie Hersman to an official with Colgan, Harry Mitchel (CQ), the vice president of flight operations: 

H: "Mr. Mitchel, when you talked about a 16-hour duty day, were you familiar with the first officer's schedule the day before the accident?"

M: "Yes, m'am, I am aware."

H: "So she began the day by waking at 9 or 10 in the morning; she started her commute from Seattle that evening; she commuted from Seattle to Memphis, stayed in a crew lounge in Memphis from midnight to 4 a.m., commuted from Memphis to Newark from 4 to 6.30, and then hung out in a crew lounge in Newark until her 1.30 show-time. The accident occurred that evening. That looks like about a 36-hour clock to me. I think at best maybe there was an opportunity -- I'm not sure if she could get it -- but there might have been the opportunity for 7 hours' sleep during that commute. But it sounds pretty horrible to me. It's not something I would want, to try to achieve my sleep on those legs from Seattle to Memphis, in a crew lounge in Memphis, and then from Memphis to Newark. Do you think this violates kind of the spirit of duty time?"

MITCHEL: "I think it violates the professionalism of a crew member. We can't dictate to a crew member what they do on their own time. We hire professionals, and those professionals we expect should show up fresh and ready to fly that aircraft, and we provide the adequate rest for those individuals. There is no difference: If my wife has a baby and I'm up all night with my new-born and I get no sleep -- same situation. If I am fatigued, I shouldn't fly that airplane."

HERSMAN: "Your commuting policy says crew members shouldn't commute on the day that their shift begins, but she [First Officer Shaw] began the commute on the day before her shift began, but she finished her commute on the day the shift began. How do you monitor this policy and how is it enforced?"

M: "Again, it not a firm hard policy. It's guidelines to our crew member. ... We just give those pilots the guidelines to try to make an appropriate professional decision, and giving those guidelines to our pilots is our responsibility. How that individual or those individuals execute their duties and responsibilities on their own time is up to those individuals." 

Another NTSB member Kitty Higgins zeroed in on earlier testimony which indicated that most Colgan pilots were unable to afford to live in the Newark area on such a low salary, thus necessitating long commutes to work:

HIGGINS: "A hundred thirty-seven Newark-based pilots are commuting, and if I did the math correctly, 20 percent of those pilots live more than 1,000 miles from the Newark base, and another 14 percent live 400 or more miles. So that's more than a third of the pilots based in Newark ... commuting extensive distances. ... How do you define duty time?"

MITCHEL: "Duty time is specifically outlined in the FAA regulations."

H: "And what does it say?"

M: "Unless it's in front of me, I do not have it memorized."

H: "Does duty time include commuting time?"

M: "No, m'am."

H: "So the fact that the first officer [Shaw] essentially commuted on two flights to get to the crew base ... that doesn't count in terms of duty time?"

M: "That is correct."

H: "Do you think that affects the issue of fatigue? What is the nexus between commuting and fatigue?"

M: "... it's very difficult for me to answer that question unless there was a specific issue [Sharkey's comment: Isn't the Buffalo crash the specific issue at hand??] ... We expect fatigue- management of our pilots, and we expect those professional pilots to be able to manage fatigue."

H: "... I know I've flown a red-eye, in a real seat, and it's pretty tough. And the first thing I want to do when I fly a red-eye is to find a bed someplace. In fact, she [Shaw] commented to one of the pilots that was flying her that there was a couch in the crew-room that had her name on it. ... The Colgan policy is [pilots] are not supposed to sleep in the crew-room, but it turns out that they are sleeping in the crew-room. ... What are the policies and procedures?"

M: -- "One of them is sleeping overnight, because it is not an adequate rest facility, is prohibited for our crew members ... First Officer Shaw went through our pre-training program, she went through our CRM [Crew Rest Management] program. Within our CRM program, we gave that pilot [Shaw] some fatigue-management tools through her training. ... if a pilot was found sleeping in the crew-room, we would discuss it with the pilot about what going on. We are also in complete dialog with our pilots on a crew-scheduling committee to try to adapt and prosper commutable scheduling-legs, to assist in this very challenging environment in Newark."

H: "In the crew-member policy handbook it says, and I'm quoting: 'While commuting by flight crew-members is understood and accepted by the company, in no way will commuting be deemed a mitigating factor in the flight crew-member's scheduling, punctuality and demeanor. Flight crew-members will be fully accountable for their timely arrival and appearance at their base. Any and all expenses incurred because of commuting will be borne by the flight crew-member. Crew-members should not attempt to commute to their base the same day they're scheduled to work.' I don't see anywhere in there where there any mention of the risks of commuting or the effects of commuting, in terms of fatigue ... You've got a policy that acknowledges that pilots are going to commute ... You've got a policy that says that crew-rooms are not to be used as motel rooms, but in fact they were -- in many instances, that's what they were being used for, for people to sleep. We've got a standard of the company that says that safety is our mission, our most-important objective -- but we know from previous accidents that fatigue is a huge factor. ... where does that all come together for someone who says, `Wait a minute: What is going on here?'"

Isn't it obvious? Colgan and its parent corporation are trying to squeeze as much profit as possible out of the airline. One way they do this is by cutting corners. If Colgan had to pay for hotel rooms for the flight crew it would have cut into their profit.

Colgan also appeared to cut corners when it came to training the cockpit crew as neither Shaw nor Renslow was experienced enough to deal with the icy conditions on that fateful evening in February. Wall Street Journal reporter Andy Pasztor has details of an in-flight conversation between Shaw and Renslow:

Icing was on the crew's mind approaching Buffalo in snow and mist. Starting four minutes before the crash, and just before rushing through the descent checklist, the crew talked about dramatic buildup of ice around the windshield. "Oh yeah, it's full of ice," the co-pilot said. The captain replied, "that's the most I've seen . . . in a long time." But instead of discussing their situation and agreeing on a plan of action in case of an emergency, the crew immediately switched to discussing personal anecdotes regarding icing.

Co-pilot Shaw, for example, is quoted on the transcript reminiscing about how little experience she had with ice during her early training flying in the Southwest U.S. "I had more actual time (experiencing icing) on my first day" with Colgan "than I did in the 1,600 (flight) hours I had when I came here."

The co-pilot, who had been hired by Colgan less than a year before, went on to say: "I really wouldn't mind going through a winter in the Northeast before I have to upgrade to captain."

Pazstor placed the blame squarely on the cockpit crew:

Data released by the National Transportation Safety Board indicates that the stall wasn't triggered by ice accumulation, but rather Capt. Renslow's pulling back on the controls and overpowering an automatic stall-protection system that was pushing the nose of the plane down in order to regain a safe flying speed.

 The data confirmed earlier reports that Capt. Renslow continued to pull back on the controls to raise the plane's nose during the entire seven seconds the so-called stick-shaker was warning the crew about an impending stall. The normal reaction to such a warning is to lower the nose in order to gain speed.

I disagree with Pasztor's theory as I maintain that fatigue clouded the judgement of the crew, causing them to react counter to their training.  With that in mind, I refer you back to NTSB member Higgins' testimony:

"One of the things I learned since coming here [to the N.T.S.B., investigating aviation accidents] is sometimes the individual does not recognize fatigue. You don't know how tired you really are. Fatigue has been compared to essentially driving drunk. It has the same effect on an individual as alcohol. ...I think that's a recipe for an accident. And that is what we have here."

Memo to Republicans: 9/12 changed nothing!

 

by Dirk McQuigley [Subscribe] [Edit Diary]

   

Tue May 12, 2009 at 01:57:27 PM EDT

Listening to Dick Cheney or any other torture enthusiast attempting to justify war crimes because 9/11 changed everything is perhaps the most blatant example of American exceptionalism. Terrorism was not invented on Sept. 11, 2001 as citizens of the United Kingdom, Israel, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, El Salvador, Italy, Japan, and South Korea can all experienced attacks against their countries BEFORE 9/11.

The myopic Cheney and other torture defenders are so blissfully ignorant of the facts that they ignored a number of terrorist attacks both against American citizens abroad and those that occurred in the United States. A quick search of the internets led to me finding an interesting nugget on the U.S State Department website under the heading "Significant Terrorist incidents, 1961-2003: A Brief Chronology."

Follow me below the fold for details, including terrorist attacks IN the United States.

• Dirk McQuigley's diary :: ::

The entire list may be seen here, but I will limit the scope of my diary to: attacks against American citizens; attacks on American soil; and major attacks abroad resulting in the loss of more than 50 people.

A similar list can be found on the website of the U.S. Army, under the heading of "Timeline of Terrorism", which covers the period from 1960 through 2006.

According to the State Department's Office of Historian, the first terrorist attack during this period specifically targeting an American citizen was the assassination of John Gordon Mein, the Abassador to Guatemala, who was gunned down by rebels in Guatemala City Aug. 28, 1968. Mein, killed only one block from the U.S. consulate was the first American Ambassador to be assassinated.

The pattern of terrorist attacks against Americans  abroad for the next 13 years seemed to be limited to American diplomats and ancillary staff. These included the assassinations of the Ambassador to the Sudan in 1973 and the Ambassador to Cyprus a year later.

According to the State Department, January, 1975 marks the first Domestic terrorist attack although several sources indicate the first attack that the FALN of Puerto Rico claimed credit for took place three months earlier.

All told, FALN and other factions from Puerto Rico conducted a terror campaign which were responsible for:

... resulted in 72 actual bombings, 40 incendiary attacks, 8 attempted bombings and 10 bomb threats, resulting in 5 deaths, 83 injuries, and over $3 million in property damage.

Similar to the FALN, the existence of the Macheteros became publicly known when the group sent a communiqué to the United Press International in which they claimed credit for the death of a Puerto Rican police officer on August 24, 1978. The goals of the Macheteros were complete autonomy and sovereignty for Puerto Rico. In order to achieve their goals, the Macheteros conducted an armed struggle against the United States Government, mainly represented through attacks on military and police, in several cases causing the death of U.S. servicemen. In a January 1981 attack, Macheteros commandos infiltrated a Puerto Rican Air National Guard base and blew up 11 planes, causing approximately $45 million in damages.

Other diplomats murdered in the 1970's included the Ambassadors to Lebanon and Afghanistan.

There was a terrorist attack in the United States in September of 1976, directed against the  former Foreign Minister of Chile, Orlando Letelier, which also killed his American assistant in a car bombing in Washington, D.C.

A major terrorist attack at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, killed more than 250 people and wounded 600 more, in Nov. 1979.

What is noteworthy about this attack is the involvement of the Bin Laden family:

At the time, the Grand Mosque was being renovated by the Saudi Binladin Group in what was the most prestigious construction contract in the Islamic world. An employee of the organization was able to report the seizure to corporate headquarters before the insurgents cut the telephone lines. A representative of the Binladin Group was thus the first to notify King Khalid.

Suspicion of the Bin Laden family playing a role in those attacks continues to this day:

In the 1960s Osama bin Laden's half-brother Mahrous bin Laden joined a rebel group opposed to the Saudi government. With his assistance, in 1979 the rebels smuggled weapons into Mecca, Saudi Arabia, using trucks belonging to the bin Laden family company. 500 rebels then seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca (sic), Islam's holiest mosque in its holiest city. They try, but fail, to overthrow the Saudi royal family. All the men who took part are later beheaded except Mahrous. Eventually he is released from prison because of the close ties between the bin Ladens and the Saudi royal family. Mahrous apparently abandons the rebel cause and joins the family business. He is eventually made a head of the Medina branch and a member of the board. He will still hold these positions on 9/11. But a newspaper reports that "his past [is] not forgiven and most important decisions in the [bin Laden family business] are made without Mahrous' input."

Steven Coll, author of Ghost Wars, reported that weapons were brought to the mosque BEFORE the takeover. Because Bin Laden company trucks were common in the mosque, which had been under renovation since 1973, there presence did not arouse any suspicion.

More suspicion of Bin Laden family involvement centers around the crackdown on secular images and the imposition of Sharia law in Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of the attacks. The theory is that the Bin Laden family provided plans of the mosque to the Royal Saudi Family in exchange for the strict adherence to Sharia law, which continues to this day in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

In the 1980's, attacks against Americans abroad intensified, beginning with the brutal rape and murder of three nuns and a lay missionary inEl Salvador.

The [1993] U.N.-sponsored report of the Commission on the Truth for El Salvador concluded that the abductions were planned in advance and the men responsible had carried out the murders on orders from above. It further stated that the head of the National Guard and two officers assigned to investigate the case had concealed the facts to harm the judicial process. The murder of the women, along with attempts by the Salvadoran military and some American officials to cover it up, generated a grass-roots opposition in the U.S., as well as ignited intense debate over the Administration’s policy in El Salvador. In 1984, the defendants were found guilty and sentenced to 30 years in prison. The Truth Commission noted that this was the first time in Salvadoran history that a judge had found a member of the military guilty of assassination.

There were three significant terrorist attacks in the 1980'son airliners, with each killing several hundred passengrs. In 1985, an Air India jet exploded over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 329 aboard. In 1987, North Korean agents killed 118 on Korean Airlines Flight 858 . Three years later, Pan AmFlight 103 blew up near Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all of 259people on board. Eleven more people were killed in Lockerbie, by debris from the wreckage.

The rest of the 1980's was marked by increased attacks on American citizens abroad, especially military personnel:

Bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut, April 18, 1983: Sixty-three people, including the CIA’s Middle East director, were killed and 120 were injured in a 400-pound suicide truck-bomb attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

Naval Officer Assassinated in El Salvador, May 25, 1983: A U.S. Navy officer was assassinated by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front.

Bombing of Marine Barracks, Beirut, October 23, 1983: Simultaneous suicide truck-bomb attacks were made on American and French compounds in Beirut, Lebanon. A 12,000-pound bomb destroyed the U.S. compound, killing 242 Americans, while 58 French troops were killed when a 400-pound device destroyed a French base. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

Naval Officer Assassinated in Greece, November 15, 1983: A U.S. Navy officer was shot by the November 17 terrorist group in Athens, Greece, while his car was stopped at a traffic light.

Kidnapping of Embassy Official, March 16, 1984: The Islamic Jihad kidnapped and later murdered Political Officer William Buckley in Beirut, Lebanon. Other U.S. citizens not connected to the U.S. government were seized over a succeeding two-year period.

Restaurant Bombing in Spain, April 12, 1984: Eighteen U.S. servicemen were killed and 83 people were injured in a bomb attack on a restaurant near a U.S. Air Force Base in Torrejon, Spain.

TWA Hijacking, June 14, 1985: A Trans-World Airlines flight was hijacked en route to Rome from Athens by two Lebanese Hizballah terrorists and forced to fly to Beirut. The eight crew members and 145 passengers were held for seventeen days, during which one American hostage, a U.S. Navy sailor, was murdered. After being flown twice to Algiers, the aircraft was returned to Beirut after Israel released 435 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners.

Attack on a Restaurant in El Salvador, June 19, 1985: Members of the FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front) fired on a restaurant in the Zona Rosa district of San Salvador, killing four Marine Security Guards assigned to the U.S. Embassy and nine Salvadorean civilians.

Berlin Discothèque Bombing, April 5, 1986: Two U.S. soldiers were killed and 79 American servicemen were injured in a Libyan bomb attack on a nightclub in West Berlin, West Germany. In retaliation U.S. military jets bombed targets in and around Tripoli and Benghazi.

Servicemen’s Bar Attack, December 26, 1987: Catalan separatists bombed a Barcelona bar frequented by U.S. servicemen, resulting in the death of one U.S. citizen.

Kidnapping of William Higgins, February 17, 1988: U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel W. Higgins was kidnapped and murdered by the Iranian-backed Hizballah group while serving with the United Nations Truce Supervisory Organization (UNTSO) in southern Lebanon.

Naples USO Attack, April 14, 1988: The Organization of Jihad Brigades exploded a car-bomb outside a USO Club in Naples, Italy, killing one U.S. sailor.

Attack on U.S. Diplomat in Greece, June 28, 1988: The Defense Attaché of the U.S. Embassy in Greece was killed when a car-bomb was detonated outside his home in Athens.

Assassination of U.S. Army Officer, April 21, 1989: The New People’s Army (NPA) assassinated Colonel James Rowe in Manila. The NPA also assassinated two U.S. government defense contractors in September.

This is quite the long list and I haven't yet mentioned the first World Trade Center attacks on Feb. 23, 1993 or the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 20, 1995.

Other attacks against Americans and in the U.S. BEFORE Sept. 11, 2001, include:

Khobar Towers Bombing, June 25, 1996: A fuel truck carrying a bomb exploded outside the US military's Khobar Towers housing facility in Dhahran, killing 19 U.S. military personnel and wounding 515 persons, including 240 U.S. personnel. Several groups claimed responsibility for the attack.

Abduction of US. Citizen by FARC, December 11, 1996: Five armed men claiming to be members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) kidnapped and later killed a U.S. geologist at a methane gas exploration site in La Guajira Department.

Empire State Building Sniper Attack, February 23, 1997: A Palestinian gunman opened fire on tourists at an observation deck atop the Empire State Building in New York City, killing a Danish national and wounding visitors from the United States, Argentina, Switzerland, and France before turning the gun on himself. A handwritten note carried by the gunman claimed this was a punishment attack against the "enemies of Palestine."

Murder of U.S. Businessmen in Pakistan, November 12, 1997: Two unidentified gunmen shot to death four U.S. auditors from Union Texas Petroleum Corporation and their Pakistani driver after they drove away from the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi. The Islami Inqilabi Council, or Islamic Revolutionary Council, claimed responsibility in a call to the U.S. Consulate in Karachi. In a letter to Pakistani newspapers, the Aimal Khufia Action Committee also claimed responsibility.

U.S. Embassy Bombings in East Africa, August 7, 1998: A bomb exploded at the rear entrance of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, killing 12 U.S. citizens, 32 Foreign Service Nationals (FSNs), and 247 Kenyan citizens. Approximately 5,000 Kenyans, 6 U.S. citizens, and 13 FSNs were injured. The U.S. Embassy building sustained extensive structural damage. Almost simultaneously, a bomb detonated outside the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing 7 FSNs and 3 Tanzanian citizens, and injuring 1 U.S. citizen and 76 Tanzanians. The explosion caused major structural damage to the U.S. Embassy facility. The U.S. Government held Usama Bin Laden responsible.

Hutu Abductions, March 1, 1999: 150 armed Hutu rebels attacked three tourist camps in Uganda, killed four Ugandans, and abducted three U.S. citizens, six Britons, three New Zealanders, two Danish citizens, one Australian, and one Canadian national. Two of the U.S. citizens and six of the other hostages were subsequently killed by their abductors.

Attack on U.S.S. Cole, October 12, 2000: In Aden, Yemen, a small dingy carrying explosives rammed the destroyer U.S.S. Cole, killing 17 sailors and injuring 39 others. Supporters of Usama Bin Laden were suspected.

The State Department did not count the terrorist activities of Eric Rudolph or James Kopp, even though they were both considered terrorists by law enforcement.

If one were to only count terrorist atacks against Americans or ON American soil BEFORE 9/11, the death toll would be more than 700 Americans and at least 500 foreign nationals murdered by terrorists.

These are very significant numbers that should never be discounted, especially with those idiots like Cheney that think no one was ever a victim of terrorism before that September morning in New York and Washington.  At minimum it is historical amnesia, but at worst, this is American exceptionalismrun amuck.

The basis most commonly cited for American exceptionalism is the idea that the United States and its people differ from other nations, at least on a historical basis, as an association of people who came from numerous places throughout the world but who hold a common bond in standing for certain self-evident truths, like freedom, inalienable natural and human rights, democracy, republicanism, the rule of law, civil liberty, civic virtue, the common good, fair play, private property, and Constitutional government; and that through these values America diverged from the rest of the world at least during its early years.

The term is also used by United States citizens to indicate that America and Americans have different states of mind, different surroundings, and different political cultures than other nations, and still others use it to refer to the American dream and the slow yet continuous journey of the people of the United States, sharing a nation and a destiny, to build a more perfect union, to live up to the dreams, hopes, and ideals of its founders, so that "these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this Earth."

So the next time, a wing nut tries the hackneyed argument that 9/11 changed everything, you can effectively counter that by citing some or all of the above examples You can even mention that infamous Aug. 6, 2001 PDB "Bin Laden Determined to Attack U.S." but the Bush Administration decided to blow that off until after the fact.

Even if you limited to just the attacks on American soil, the changed everything argument is absurd because it ignores the 1993 WTC attacks which ultimately led to 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing, which should have changed everything but didn't.

The other thing you could point out to torture fans is that the Bush Administration's ability to protect us from terrorist attacks AFTER 9/11 was a meager one week — those anthrax attacks that they have convenient amnesia — and not the eight years that Cheney and the rest of his goons are claiming.

A version of this diary appears on Daily Kos under the byline of Dirk McQuigley.

Republican Circular Reasoning 101

If you watched yesterday's network talk shows or the past week of cable television, Republicans seem to have two simultaneous talking points concerning torture: no crimes were committed by those that crafted the legal opinions which "legalized" torture; and that  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is guilty because she "knew about the torture which wasn't "torture."

This ride on the GOP circular reasoning ferris wheel is so tortured (PUN clearly intended) that I feel my head will explode listening to the inherent contradictions in these simultaneous arguments.

Glenn Greenwald wrote how American Exceptionalism is coloring how the Traditional Media cover "torture" in other countries. Greenwald describes how the New York Times, in an obituary of a Korean War veteran that was captured and imprisoned by the Chinese and was subject to torture, but when Americans are accused, the paper only calls it "enhanced interrogation techniques."

This is how the Times described the treatment of former pilot Charles Fischer:

From April 1953 through May 1955, Colonel Fischer — then an Air Force captain — was held at a prison outside Mukden, Manchuria. For most of that time, he was kept in a dark, damp cell with no bed and no opening except a slot in the door through which a bowl of food could be pushed. Much of the time he was handcuffed. Hour after hour, a high-frequency whistle pierced the air.

After a short mock trial in Beijing on May 24, 1955, Captain Fischer and the other pilots — Lt. Col. Edwin L. Heller, First Lt. Lyle W. Cameron and First Lt. Roland W. Parks — were found guilty of violating Chinese territory by flying across the border while on missions over North Korea. Under duress, Captain Fischer had falsely confessed to participating in germ warfare.

 

Greenwald mocks how hypocritical Mainstream Media organs like the Times have been, especially after their completely non-objective cheerleading for war against Iraq.

So that's torture now?  To use the prevailing American mindset:  a room that doesn't meet the standards of a Hilton and some whistling in the background is torture?  My neighbor whistles all the time; does that mean he's torturing me?  It's not as though Fischer had his eyes poked out by hot irons or was placed in a coffin-like box with bugs or was handcuffed to the ceiling.

Also, using the editorial standards of America's journalistic institutions -- as explained recently by the NYT Public Editor -- shouldn't this be called "torture" rather than torture -- or "harsh tactics some critics decry as torture"?  Why are the much less brutal methods used by the Chinese on Fischer called torture by the NYT, whereas much harsher methods used by Americans do not merit that term?  Here we find what is clearly the single most predominant fact shaping our political and media discourse:  everything is different, and better, when we do it.  In fact, it is that exact mentality that was and continues to be the primary justification for our torture regime and so much else that we do.

Opposition to torture is not ideological by nature. Not every American clamoring for torture prosecutions is some pajama wearing lefty blogger like myself.  John Sifton, writing in the center-right blog, the Daily Beast, makes perhaps the most compelling point as to why torture is a crime and is ALWAYS a crime. 

A simple fact is being overlooked in the Bush-era torture scandal: the number of cases in which detainees have been tortured to death. Abuse did not only involve the high-profile cases of smashing detainees into plywood barriers (“walling”), confinement in coffin-like boxes with insects, sleep deprivation, cold, and waterboarding. To date approximately 100 detainees, including CIA-held detainees, have died during U.S. interrogations, and some are known to have been tortured to death.

 I have a theory about the torture cum homicide. Now I not a lawyer, but we have a very basic concept in this country called Felony Murder. For example, if I drive the getaway car in a bank robbery and a police officer is killed during the heist, I could be prosecuted for Felony Murder even though I personally did not kill the officer.

The rule of felony murder is a legal doctrine in some common law jurisdictions that broadens the crime of murder in two ways. First, when an offender kills accidentally or without specific intent to kill in the course of an applicable felony, what might have been manslaughter is escalated to murder. Second, it makes any participant in such a felony criminally liable for any deaths that occur during or in furtherance of that felony. While there is some debate about the original scope of the rule, modern interpretations typically require that the felony be an inherently dangerous one, or one committed in an obviously dangerous manner. For this reason, the felony murder rule is often justified by its supporters as a means of deterring dangerous felonies.

According to some commentators, the common law rule dates to the twelfth century and took its modern form in the eighteenth century. Because the rule requires no intent to kill, it has been criticized as unjust. Conversely, it may be argued that the inherent danger of violent felony such as arson or rape suggests an intent to cause or risk serious harm and that thus, all perpetrators should be held accountable for the outcomes of their acts.

Whether or not individuals like Judge Bybee, Steven Bradbury, and John Yoo would personally be charged with Felony Murder hinges on the degree of participation of the individuals that committed the felony:

In the United States, felony murder is generally first degree murder, and is often a capital offense. When the government seeks to impose the death penalty on someone convicted of felony murder, the Eighth Amendment has been interpreted so as to impose additional limitations on the state power. The death penalty may not be imposed if the defendant is merely a minor participant and did not actually kill or intend to kill. However, the death penalty may be imposed if the defendant is a major participant in the underlying felony and "exhibits extreme indifference to human life".

I would suppose that the individuals that attempt to craft a legally defensible position out of something which is always illegal under both American and International law could reasonably be called Major participants.

Daily Kos front pager McJoan notes that the Homicide was foreseeable: 

The official sanction of torture, in fact, not just the sanction of torture but the before-the-fact decision to use torture as a policy tool had this inevitable consequence: homicide. Torturing people to death wasn't official policy, but once unleashed it was inevitable that abuse would spread and intensify and result in murder. And that should demand a criminal investigation, not just of those directly responsible for the deaths, but of those who authorized them. 

Sifton is not willing to concede all deaths caused by the interrogations were torture, but he argues that clearly many of them were:

It would be overly simplistic to suggest that every detainee death in U.S. custody and every act of abuse was part of an authorized and ordered interrogation program designed and run from the highest levels of the Bush administration. Some deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan appear to have involved military or CIA personnel going “off the rails” and engaging in abusive conduct beyond what even White House lawyers had in mind when they crafted their “enhanced interrogation” policies. And some torture techniques were already in use in Afghanistan and spread there earlier than they were even formally approved.

Yet directly or directly, abuse spread and worsened—detainees started dying. Unlike torture, however, homicide is an uncomplicated crime. A criminal homicide occurs when a person or set of persons simply causes the death of another without legal justification. There is little nuance, little room for escape. Once a person is dead, the killer and those assisted him, those who solicited his crime or aided or abetted it, are accomplices.

The bottom line is that many detainee homicides in Iraq and Afghanistan were the direct result of approval and orders from the highest levels of government, and that high officials in the government are accomplices. Any meaningful investigation of those homicides would reveal the initial authorizations and their link to the homicides (my emphasis).

Homicide presents legal issues impossible to ignore. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice cannot conclude their deliberations about Bush-era torture policies without closely investigating the homicide cases tied to them. One cannot speak glibly of “policy differences” and “looking forward” and “distraction” when corpses are involved.

And yet, the same people who insisted that we follow the" Rule of Law" a decade ago when President Clinton received  consensual — albeit creepy and inappropriate — oral pleasure from an adult woman. We kept hearing that the impeachment was due to the perjury, which we all know was crap since the judge hearing Jones v. Clinton determined that the alleged perjury — while clearly an untrue statement — was immaterial to the case at hand. Nonetheless, the Republican Party and the lawyers for Paula Jones schemed for the next three and a half years to create a perjury trap for the President of the United States because we had to follow the "Rule of Law."

What the torture enthusiasts are arguing NOW is that the rule of law doesn't matter. Not only that but somehow the criminality, which they dispute is actually criminal, is moot because we supposedly stopped attacks as a result of torture.

If only that last point was actually true. New documents released today seem to undercut the argument about attacks being stopped. The torture supposedly stopped an attack on a Los Angeles skyscraper that was featured in the movie Independence Day except that that attack was foiled by the FBI a full six months before the torture actually "worked."

The problem with this logic is that real life is not an episode of "24." The same people who were willing to blow themselves up in order to destroy the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are not going to confess when they are tortured.  These men were all told that they would be martyrs and that 72 virgins awaited them in Heaven. Capitulating to torture would mean a dishonorable death with no Heaven and no 72 virgins — not even a 72 YEAR OLD virgin.

The torture enthusiasts always like to cite that fictional ticking time bomb scenario, but given the fact that these men believe they will be martyrs makes that point absurd. Besides, giving false information would purposely waste time and resources chasing leads that only  ensure that the bomb will go off.

A quick review of these torture enthusiast talking points is: torture is only a crime committed by foreigners and not Americans; this wasn't torture because lawyers working for the Bush Administration said so; the killing of roughly 100 men was neither torture nor homicide because the same people who crafted the torture policy said so; and last, even though torture was not a crime, the fact that Nancy Pelosi knew that torture was committed not only makes her complicit but that and only that is a crime. 

How ordinary Americans end up on the Terrorist Watch List

The FBI should be renamed the Federal Bureau of Incompetence. The gang that failed to investigate suspicious middle eastern men at flight schools BEFORE Sept. 11, bungled the investigation of the anthrax attacks for three years before then fingering the wrong man, and who insisted an Oregon lawyer was linked to deadly terrorist attacks in Madrid five years ago, is back in the news with a  story which will reinforce the notion that they are a bunch of Barney Fife's.

A report released yesterday by the Department of Justice lambasted the Bureau for failing to clear as many as 24,000 Americans that were mistakenly put on the Terrorist Watch List. 

The report strongly criticized law enforcement for relying on outdated and incorrect information in the cases of both innocent and suspected terrorist suspects.

According to Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times, more than one third of the nearly 70,000 records reviewed by DoJ Inspector General Glenn Fine, were wrong. Equally troubling was a Fine's review of 216 actual terrorism cases , that 35 individuals or 15 percent, should have rightfully been added to the TWL but had not been.

In one case, for instance, a Special Forces soldier was investigated and ultimately convicted of stealing some 16,500 rounds of ammunition, C-4 explosives and other matériel from Afghanistan and shipping them to the United States in what investigators suspected might be the makings of a domestic terrorist plot. Yet the suspect was not placed on the watch list until nearly five months after the investigation opened.

“We believe that the F.B.I.’s failure to consistently nominate subjects of international and domestic terrorism investigations to the terrorist watch list could pose a risk to national security,” the inspector general said.

In my opinion, the Bush Administration's reliance on an algorithm known as Mosaic theory was the main problem with the TWL.  The idea behind Mosaic is that guilt or innocence of any terror suspect is moot because potentially some useful information may be gleamed from the investigation.  This is quoted directly from an FBI affadavit:

The business of counterterrorism intelligence gathering in the United States is akin to the construction of a mosaic. At this stage of the investigation, the FBI is gathering and processing thousands of bits and pieces of information that may seem innocuous at first glance. We must analyze all that information, however, to see if it can be fit into a picture that will reveal how the unseen whole operates (My emphasis). The significance of one item of information may frequently depend on knowledge of many other items of information. What may seem trivial to some may appear of great moment to those within the FBI or the intelligence community who have a broader context within which to consider a questioned item or isolated piece of information. At the present stage of this vast investigation, the FBI is gathering and culling information that may corroborate or diminish our current suspicions of the individuals who have been detained. The Bureau is approaching that task with unprecedented resources and a nationwide urgency. In the meantime, the FBI has been unable to rule out the possibility that respondent is somehow linked to, or possesses knowledge of, the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. To protect the public, the FBI must exhaust all avenues of investigation while ensuring the crucial information does not evaporate pending further investigation."

So in other words, it didn't matter under Mosaic Theory whether or not people actually belonged on the TWL. I should point out that many of the so-called Enemy Combatants captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere were detained under Mosaic Theory, and of course because the Northern Alliance often got as much $500 per detainee. 

Much as we learned that the torture programs of the Bush Administration were designed to create false confessions. Mosaic seemed to be used to trumpet the prowess of law enforcement, covert agents, and the military in fighting the war on terror. The validity of the charges did not matter because under Mosaic, anything had the potential to be useful, regardless of the fact  of whether or not it actually was.

Caroline Fredrickson, director of the Washington legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union, said her group’s monitoring of watch lists indicated that the problems identified at the F.B.I. were endemic to the entire system.

“What this report really shows is that on both ends, the lists are really overinclusive and underinclusive,” Ms. Fredrickson said in an interview. “With 1.1 million names, there’s all sorts of problems that have larded it up, and the whole thing just really needs to be torn down and start a new system.”

Indeed, the TFL needs to be completely overhauled when Senator Kennedy, Congressman John Lewis, the Washington director of the ACLU and the wife of a Republican Senator are mistakenly placed on the list.