AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

Book Cites Secret Red Cross Report of C.I.A. Torture of Qaeda Captives

by Scott Shane

WASHINGTON - Red Cross investigators concluded last year in a secret report that the Central Intelligence Agency's interrogation methods for high-level Qaeda prisoners constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes, according to a new book on counterterrorism efforts since 2001.

The book says that the International Committee of the Red Cross declared in the report, given to the C.I.A. last year, that the methods used on Abu Zubaydah, the first major Qaeda figure the United States captured, were "categorically" torture, which is illegal under both American and international law.

The book says Abu Zubaydah was confined in a box "so small he said he had to double up his limbs in the fetal position" and was one of several prisoners to be "slammed against the walls," according to the Red Cross report. The C.I.A. has admitted that Abu Zubaydah and two other prisoners were waterboarded, a practice in which water is poured on the nose and mouth to create the sensation of suffocation and drowning.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/washington/11detain.html?_r=3&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1215925373-+OIEzXy8yJsFNfC/QFojQQ

July 13, 2008
President George W Bush lobbyist in 'cash for access' row


A lobbyist with close ties to the White House is offering access to key figures in George W Bush's administration in return for six-figure donations to the private library being set up to commemorate Bush's presidency.

Stephen Payne, who claims to have raised more than $1m for the president's Republican party in recent years, said he would arrange meetings with Dick Cheney, the vice-president, Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, and other senior officials in return for a payment of $250,000 (£126,000) towards the library in Texas.

Payne, who has accompanied Bush and Cheney on several foreign trips, also said he would try to secure a meeting with the president himself.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4322684.ece

http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-conachy010404.htm

However grisly, the passions of the crowd reflect the hostility toward the US invasion and ongoing occupation of Iraq. In the last week, the American military has intensified the repression of the 500,000 residents of Fallujah. On March 24, the California-based First Marine Division took over control of the area, which has been one of the centres of opposition and armed resistance to the US. The newly arrived troops have been attempting to assert their control using brutal tactics.A farmer, Jamal Mahesem, told the Washington Post he was shot in the leg while he was walking down a road. "I didn't even see the American soldiers," he said. "I don't know why they started shooting. I didn't hear anyone shooting at them."

Another wounded man, Ahmed Yusuf, who claimed he was shot as he turned his car into a side street, told the Post: "They think that they're going to control the city by doing this? They're wrong. They will never be able to control the city like this. They will turn the situation here to a war situation." The man in the car behind him was shot in the head.

Among those killed by American bullets was Mohammed Mazhour, a freelance cameraman working for US ABC News. Hospitals reported treating at least 25 wounded, including five children.

The marines' offensive continued over the following days. The major roads in and out of Fallujah were blockaded by US tanks and troops until Tuesday, with hundreds of people being subjected to vehicle searches. On Monday and Tuesday, marines carried out house-to-house searches for insurgents in three suburbs, including al-Askari. An unknown number of men were detained. A local, Khaled Jamaili, told AP: "If they find more than one adult male in any house, they arrest one of them. Those marines are destroying us. They are leaning very hard on Fallujah."

As they rampaged through the city, the marines tossed Arabic leaflets into the streets that provocatively read: "You can't escape and you can't hide."

The offensive has inflamed what was already a population fiercely opposed to the US occupation. Fallujah was a centre of support for the former Baathist regime and fighting has not stopped since the US-led invasion. As a result, the city has suffered considerably at the hands of the USA military. Resistance fighters, however, have killed and wounded dozens of Americans.

Thank you for that link, MM. Liberals, and actually, some thinking conservatives, have always been against this illegal invasion and the numerous war crimes being committed by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Thank you for pointing out the brutality of the US invasion.

Quote:

http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-conachy010404.htm

However grisly, the passions of the crowd reflect the hostility toward the US invasion and ongoing occupation of Iraq. In the last week, the American military has intensified the repression of the 500,000 residents of Fallujah. On March 24, the California-based First Marine Division took over control of the area, which has been one of the centres of opposition and armed resistance to the US. The newly arrived troops have been attempting to assert their control using brutal tactics.A farmer, Jamal Mahesem, told the Washington Post he was shot in the leg while he was walking down a road. "I didn't even see the American soldiers," he said. "I don't know why they started shooting. I didn't hear anyone shooting at them."

Another wounded man, Ahmed Yusuf, who claimed he was shot as he turned his car into a side street, told the Post: "They think that they're going to control the city by doing this? They're wrong. They will never be able to control the city like this. They will turn the situation here to a war situation." The man in the car behind him was shot in the head.

Among those killed by American bullets was Mohammed Mazhour, a freelance cameraman working for US ABC News. Hospitals reported treating at least 25 wounded, including five children.

The marines' offensive continued over the following days. The major roads in and out of Fallujah were blockaded by US tanks and troops until Tuesday, with hundreds of people being subjected to vehicle searches. On Monday and Tuesday, marines carried out house-to-house searches for insurgents in three suburbs, including al-Askari. An unknown number of men were detained. A local, Khaled Jamaili, told AP: "If they find more than one adult male in any house, they arrest one of them. Those marines are destroying us. They are leaning very hard on Fallujah."

As they rampaged through the city, the marines tossed Arabic leaflets into the streets that provocatively read: "You can't escape and you can't hide."

The offensive has inflamed what was already a population fiercely opposed to the US occupation. Fallujah was a centre of support for the former Baathist regime and fighting has not stopped since the US-led invasion. As a result, the city has suffered considerably at the hands of the USA military. Resistance fighters, however, have killed and wounded dozens of Americans.

Who was the idiot (idiots) who said, "We'll be greeted as liberators"?

Now they cower behind fortified walls.

Cyclop perpetuates the ultra liberal debate style by posting radical leftwing sites that feature much distortion and/or downright dishonestly post made up news as the real deal. I wonder if they ever blush when they do that?

The practice of private 'audiences' for folks in high office in return for financial or other favors is as old as politics itself. Do you honestly think that any former President financed their Presidential libraries purely from altruistic motives of the American people? How many times did we see Clinton criticized for 'renting out' the Lincoln bedroom in return for financial or other favors?

But, so long as national secrets, classified information, or financial favors are being traded, there is nothing really wrong with that. The President has authority to have 'sleep over' guests any time he wants just like any other citizen. The only 'sleaze' here is the lobbyist who expects to personally benefit from the transaction if he can pull it off. If he was truly honorable, he would advise the person to deal with the White House personnel directly.

Only if you add corruption in American Liberalism in 2008 and beyond. Selling favors is not my cup of tea either but I know that it is done and has always been done by both conservatives and liberals. My objection with the ThinkProgress account is the implication that there was something corrupt or shady about this particular deal when there is no evidence that there was. At least the Timesonline piece on the face of it reported it as a straight news story without implications of illegality or something underhanded.

I would certainly be disappointed if we knew that an elected leader was employing lobbyists for this kind of activity but there is no evidence that this is the case. This appears to be a case of a lobbyist hoping to make a buck by hooking a client up with somebody in the White House. Sure I wish our elected leaders would discourage this kind of thing. But if they did, they would have to build their libraries out of their own pockets so don't look for that to happen any time in our lifetime.

Well get back to me, Cyclops, if Obama is elected. We'll see whether people who have not worked on his behalf or contributed to his campaign or otherwise furthered his interests get the lucrative appointments, or whether those who benefitted him the most will be at the head of the line for such appointments.

Maybe trading favors with no value other than aesthetic or prestige or photo ops for donations is not particularly classy. But it is not corrupt in any sense that would harm the people or the interests of the United States.

I can say with 100% certainty that he will give those appointments to people who have most benefitted him. At least those who have benefitted him montetarily or in some other way will certainly have first choice.

The ThinkProgress piece tried very hard to accuse the Bush administration of corruption in this case without actually saying that. They had no proof of any kind, but they didn't care. They want people to think that. Cyclop is more than eager to want to think that.

It is a Conservative principle to demand proof before accusing somebody of wrong doing, however. I prefer the Conservative principle to smearing people without foundation.

Do Your Job: Stop Ignoring Scheunemann's Past

As you can see, the McCain campaign is moving ahead with a new stab-in-the-back style attack on Obama over Iraq. But as Team McCain is raising the volume on these slash-and-burn style attacks, it's time for some coverage of the guy who's McCain's brain on Iraq. Remember, McCain's pitch on Iraq is that he was a critic of Bush, not a supporter, on the poor decisions and lies that got us into the current mess. In the McCain paradigm, he starts fresh with the 'surge'. That's where he takes ownership, as it were, of Iraq.

But look who's advising him on Iraq, who's crafting Iraq policy. That would be Randy Scheunemann, McCain's top foreign policy advisor. And he's the guy who today accused Barack Obama of wanting to lead America to defeat in Iraq for political gain.

Scheunemann was a core participant in the lobbying, plotting and organized campaigns of deception that led America to war in Iraq. He was a close collaborator with Ahmad Chalabi through the 1990s. He helped draft the Iraq Liberation Act, which created the new funding stream for Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. At the start of the Bush administration he signed on as Don Rumsfeld's 'consultant' on Iraq at the Pentagon. And then when the administration started cranking up the machinery for the propaganda campaign in favor of war he went back on the outside to form and lead the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, to lead the press and lobbying campaign to make sure the war got started on schedule.

Remember, US intelligence later found evidence that Chalabi, in addition to foisting a bunch of bogus intelligence and lying informers on the US and pocketing a lot of US taxpayer dollars, had provided highly classified US intelligence to Iran. Scheunemann worked closely with Chalabi for years in his efforts to get the US into war with Iraq. He was also a go-between between Chalabi and McCain. Now that he's taking such a high-profile role on the Iraq issue in the 2008, Scheunemann's history with Chalabi and the use of bogus intelligence to get the nation into war is unquestionably highly newsworthy.

--Josh Marshall