Check It Out for Friday, April 24th
Larissa Alexandrovna at Raw Story writes that the same people defending torture ignored 9/11 warnings.
"There are plenty of retired spooks. Why is no one out defending these tactics if they proved to be such successes? Where are all the spooks? Surely someone who is now retired can put their name to a pro-torture argument, no? The reason no one will do so is because they do not agree with this policy and they do not agree with this policy, first, because it provides no actionable intelligence and second, because it is immoral.
"So then who in the CIA would tell the DOJ that these tactics work? Who? Aside from the DOJ document, who in the CIA would have put their name – even on an internal memo – to this nonsense (illegal nonsense at that)?
"In the end, all of this propaganda and it is entirely propaganda (again, find me one former CIA officer willing to support this argument) – the very same people who are out defending torture as a necessary tool in their falsely constructed “war on terror” are the very same people who had the intelligence to stop the 9/11 attacks literally delivered to them and did nothing. These people who ignored multiple and various warnings from the CIA, foreign governments, and so forth, did nothing and that intelligence was obtained without the use of torture. Yet these very same people are arguing that the only way to stop terrorism is through the torture of suspects?
Helen Cobban at IPS News has an analysis on storm clouds ahead between Obama and Netanyahu.
"A big confrontation is brewing between the United States and Israel’s new government over the Palestine issue.
"Since his first days in office, President Barack Obama has expressed clear support for speedy action toward the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Since then, he and his key advisers - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and special envoy George Mitchell - have all quietly but firmly stayed the course in supporting that goal.
"Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly objects. He argues for starting with an "economic peace" for the Palestinians, and discussing sovereignty issues with them only much later - if at all. Though he has stopped short of saying an outright "No" to the Palestinian state idea, his advisers warn that he is adamantly opposed to the emergence of what he and they call "another Hamastan."
"Thus far, this disagreement has not erupted into an open confrontation. Netanyahu has, after all, only been in office since Mar. 31. But it may well become more acute during May, when Netanyahu visits Washington.
"Obama has also invited the leaders of Egypt and the Palestinian Authority (PA) to Washington at intervals throughout May and early June. Obama has already, this week, met with Jordan’s King Abdullah II in the White House.
"Some Arab commentators have voiced impatience that, for all this "listening" and for all the rhetorical support the Obama team has given to an independent Palestinian state, they have taken little or no concrete action to achieve it. Several of these analysts also note that on more immediate - but still significant - issues of deep concern to the Palestinians, leading figures in and close to the administration have called on Israel to stop the commission of specific abuses, and Israel has defied those calls with apparent impunity.
"One retired diplomat with long experience in the Middle East commented that episodes of defiance like those are harmful for U.S. diplomacy. 'They send a message to Israeli hardliners that they can defy the U.S. and get away with it, while they signal to the Arabs that the U.S. can easily be ‘rolled’ by the Israelis,' he said. 'Both ways it harms us.'
"In the short press conference he held with King Abdullah Tuesday, Obama signaled he may soon be ready to start ratcheting up the pressure on Netanyahu. 'I agree that we can’t talk forever, that at some point steps have to be taken so that people can see progress on the ground,' he said. 'And that will be something that we will expect to take place in the coming months.'
"He even indicated he might be preparing to link Israel’s behaviour on the peace process to the considerable amounts of financial, military, and political aid the U.S. gives to Israel, saying that what the U.S. can do, regarding Palestinian-Israeli peacemaking, is "create the conditions and the atmosphere and provide the help and the assistance that facilitates an agreement."
"The American Jewish community is much more diverse that it once was. In recent years, several new Jewish organisations have emerged that have agendas that are both pro-Israel and pro-peace.
"M.J. Rosenberg is the Washington policy director of one such group, the Israel Policy Forum.
" 'I guess Netanyahu is counting on pro-Israel organisations in America to line up behind him and not Obama,' Rosenberg wrote recently. 'He is wrong.'
A tandem of an article and commentary; the article by Jason Leopold at Public Record
about CIA brass lied to members of Congress about torture.
"Still, claims that Democrats were fully briefed on the Bush administration’s torture program have been leveled as recently as last December by Vice President Dick Cheney and in books by former Bush officials such as John Yoo, the former Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the OLC who helped draft one of the four memos released last week.
"But the veracity of those assertions have been called into question by former CIA official Mary O. McCarthy, who said senior agency officials lied to members of Congress during an intelligence briefing in 2005 when they said the agency did not violate treaties that bar, cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment of detainees during interrogations, according to a May 14, 2006, front-page story in The Washington Post.
"A CIA employee of two decades, McCarthy became convinced that 'CIA people had lied' in that briefing, as one of her friends said later, not only because the agency had conducted abusive interrogations but also because its policies authorized treatment that she considered cruel, inhumane or degrading," the Washington Post reported.
"In addition to CIA misrepresentations at the session last summer, McCarthy told the friends, a senior agency official failed to provide a full account of the CIA's detainee-treatment policy at a closed hearing of the House intelligence committee in February 2005, under questioning by Rep. Jane Harman (California), the senior Democrat," The Washington Post reported."
And the commentary by John Amato at Crooks and Liars asks why one of the CIA torture honchos is still serving at the CIA in the Obama administration.
"During our most excellent Live chat with the ACLU's Chris Anders, he revealed this very disturbing fact while answering your questions.
On holdover appointees from the Bush days, here is one that ought to get everyone on the phone to their member of Congress and the White House right now ---
Did you know that Panetta has kept John Rizzo as Acting CIA General Counsel? If you look at the newly released Justice Department memos, they were all addressed to John Rizzo. Truly unbelievable that he is still in charge of legal advice at the CIA.
"What shocking news.
"Here's the ACLU website with some documents addressed to John Rizzo.
"As far as I'm concerned, anyone involved in memos penned by Jay ByBee and Steven Bradbury should not be working for the Obama administration.A 18-page memo, dated August 1, 2002, from Jay Bybee, Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA. [PDF] A 46-page memo, dated May 10, 2005, from Steven Bradbury, Acting Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA. [PDF] A 20-page memo, dated May 10, 2005, from Steven Bradbury, Acting Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA. [PDF] A 40-page memo, dated May 30, 2005, from Steven Bradbury, Acting Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA. [PDF]
"He's still the "acting counsel" because Stephen Preston has not been confirmed yet. There needs to be some heavy scrutiny on Rizzo and fast."
Sarah van Gelder at Yes magazine via CommonDreams asks if Obama is serious about a new relationship with Latin America.
"The Summit of the Americas gave the leaders of Latin America a chance to get to know the new U.S. president. More importantly, it gave Obama a chance to hear, first-hand, the fears and hopes of a continent that has been subjected to repeated U.S. interventions since the Monroe Doctrine declared our country's right to call the shots throughout the hemisphere.
"Partners: for real this time? Obama signaled his hopes for a fresh start when he said in his opening remarks that he wanted to form an "equal partnership" among the nations of the hemisphere:
'There is no senior partner and junior partner in our relations; there is simply engagement based on mutual respect and common interests and shared values.'"U.S. leaders have said this before, but Obama made some gestures toward implementing a more pragmatic and respectful relationship. Shortly before the summit, the U.S. eased restrictions on Cuban-Americans who want to travel or transfer money to Cuba.
"What Obama Took Away This was Obama's first trip to Latin America, and it appears he took some important insights home with him. He learned, for example, the same thing I found during a study trip in Latin America at the end of 2006 -- that in many of the poorest regions, Cuban doctors are treating people who ordinarily have little or no access to health care, and that ongoing act of goodwill is generating goodwill in return towards Cuba. Here's what Obama said at his wrap-up news conference:
'One thing that I thought was interesting [was] hearing from these leaders who, when they spoke about Cuba, talked very specifically about the thousands of doctors from Cuba that are dispersed all throughout the region, and upon which many of these countries heavily depend.'"The statement shows Cuba's efforts are having the effect Dr. Juan Ceballos, adviser to the Cuban vice minister of public health, hoped for. I interviewed Ceballos when I was in Havana in December 2006 about why Cuba was carrying out these medical missions and training people from the poorest communities in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa to be doctors.
"At first Ceballos emphasized the "big hearts" of the Cuban people, and their pride in helping the world's poor. But when I pressed him on what Cuba hoped to gain for their aid, he said 'All we ask for in return is solidarity.' What good is "solidarity?"
" 'It's infinitely better to invest in peace than to invest in war,' he told me.
"Will President Obama rebuild our relationship with the south on a foundation of genuine respect for democracy and sovereignty? Or will it be more of the same superpower policies, this time cloaked in more collaborative and intelligent rhetoric?
"The spirit of partnership Obama brought with him to the summit, plus his willingness to listen directly to his counterparts, are hopeful signs that real change could be in the works."
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