News and Views you don't have to lose:
Creation of a secret police force in the United States
Negroponte to Head Domestic Intelligence Unit
Timothy Edgar, national security counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "The FBI is effectively being taken over by a spymaster who reports directly to the White House. . . . It's alarming that the same person who oversees foreign spying will now oversee domestic spying, too."
Under Bush's memo, the FBI will create a National Security Service (aka the New SS) by bringing together its counterintelligence, counterterrorism and intelligence divisions and take over most of the FBI's $3 billion intelligence budget.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/063005B.shtml
The War Crimes Act of 1996
No less a figure than Alberto Gonzales, then-White House counsel to George W. Bush and now US Attorney General, expressed deep concern about possible prosecutions under the War Crimes Act of 1996 for American mistreatment of Afghanistan war detainees.
This relatively obscure statute makes it a federal crime to violate certain provisions of the Geneva Conventions. The Act punishes any US national, military or civilian, who commits a "grave breach" of the Geneva Conventions. A grave breach, as defined by the Geneva Conventions, includes the deliberate "killing, torture or inhuman treatment" of detainees.
Although the term "inhuman treatment" is not defined in the War Crimes Act or in the Geneva Conventions, there is little doubt that US personnel subjected Iraqi detainees to inhuman treatment by, for example, forcing hooded prisoners into stressful positions for lengthy periods of time, using dogs to bite and intimidate naked prisoners, compelling prisoners to engage in or simulate sexual acts, dragging naked prisoners on the ground with a leash around the neck, beating prisoners, and on and on.
Even beyond the notorious Abu Ghraib photos, there is a huge body of evidence documenting inhuman treatment. Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba's inquiry found "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses." The report issued by a panel headed by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger found "widespread" abuses. And the International Red Cross repeatedly protested the treatment of Iraqi prisoners.
The key question is not whether detainees in Iraq were subjected to inhuman treatment in violation of the War Crimes Act, but how high up the responsibility goes for those abhorrent acts.
Under well-established principles of international law, officials in the chain of command who order inhuman treatment or who, knowing about it, fail to stop it are responsible. The "chain of command" doctrine is undoubtedly applicable to War Crimes Act prosecutions. But even if it weren't, higher-ups could be held responsible under the principles of conspiracy or aiding and abetting the crime under normal federal criminal law. This was surely the reason that Gonzales wanted to block future prosecutions of higher-ups by "prosecutors and independent counsels."
In the final analysis, there is no sure way to compel the government to investigate itself or to hold high-level government officials accountable under applicable criminal statutes. But if the public does not seek to have it happen, it will not happen. Those in the public who care deeply about the rule of law and government accountability must keep this issue alive. Failure to investigate wrongdoing in high places and tolerating misconduct or criminality can have only the most corroding impact on our democracy and the rule of law that sustains us.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/063005H.shtml
A chilling effect on First Amendment
"In declining to review the important issues presented by this case, we believe that the Supreme Court has limited press freedom in ways that will have a chilling effect on our work and that may damage the free flow of information that is so necessary in a democratic society," Time Editor in Chief Norman Pearlstine said in a statement.
It may also encourage excesses by overzealous prosecutors.
It is unfortunate that the Supreme Court has left uncertain what protections the First Amendment and the federal common law provide journalists and their confidential sources.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/063005A.shtml
Geopolitics and the Baku Pipeline
June 27th, 2005 -- After a short-term fall in price below the $50 a barrel level, oil is now bounding back towards $60 a barrel and likely far higher. In this situation one might think that the announcement of the opening of a major new oil pipeline to pump Caspian oil to world markets might dampen the relentless rise in prices.
Oil has become the central theme of world political and military operations planning, even when not always openly said.
On the one side is an alliance of US-Turkey-Azerbaijan and, since the Rose Revolution, Georgia, that small but critical country directly on the pipeline route. Opposed to it, in terms of where the pipeline route carrying the Caspian oil should go, is Russia, which until 1990 held control over the entire Caspian outside the Iran littoral. Today, Russia has cultivated an uneasy but definite alliance with Iran and with Armenia, in opposition to the US group. This two-camp grouping is essential to understand developments in the region since 1991.
By F. William Engdahl, author of ‘A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order,’ from Pluto Press Ltd.
Source via Mark Nagel
http://321energy.com/editorials/engdahl/engdahl062705.html
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit for research and educational purposes. MY NEWSLETTER has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is MY NEWSLETTER endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NewsViewsnolose
Negroponte to Head Domestic Intelligence Unit
Timothy Edgar, national security counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "The FBI is effectively being taken over by a spymaster who reports directly to the White House. . . . It's alarming that the same person who oversees foreign spying will now oversee domestic spying, too."
Under Bush's memo, the FBI will create a National Security Service (aka the New SS) by bringing together its counterintelligence, counterterrorism and intelligence divisions and take over most of the FBI's $3 billion intelligence budget.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/063005B.shtml
The War Crimes Act of 1996
No less a figure than Alberto Gonzales, then-White House counsel to George W. Bush and now US Attorney General, expressed deep concern about possible prosecutions under the War Crimes Act of 1996 for American mistreatment of Afghanistan war detainees.
This relatively obscure statute makes it a federal crime to violate certain provisions of the Geneva Conventions. The Act punishes any US national, military or civilian, who commits a "grave breach" of the Geneva Conventions. A grave breach, as defined by the Geneva Conventions, includes the deliberate "killing, torture or inhuman treatment" of detainees.
Although the term "inhuman treatment" is not defined in the War Crimes Act or in the Geneva Conventions, there is little doubt that US personnel subjected Iraqi detainees to inhuman treatment by, for example, forcing hooded prisoners into stressful positions for lengthy periods of time, using dogs to bite and intimidate naked prisoners, compelling prisoners to engage in or simulate sexual acts, dragging naked prisoners on the ground with a leash around the neck, beating prisoners, and on and on.
Even beyond the notorious Abu Ghraib photos, there is a huge body of evidence documenting inhuman treatment. Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba's inquiry found "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses." The report issued by a panel headed by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger found "widespread" abuses. And the International Red Cross repeatedly protested the treatment of Iraqi prisoners.
The key question is not whether detainees in Iraq were subjected to inhuman treatment in violation of the War Crimes Act, but how high up the responsibility goes for those abhorrent acts.
Under well-established principles of international law, officials in the chain of command who order inhuman treatment or who, knowing about it, fail to stop it are responsible. The "chain of command" doctrine is undoubtedly applicable to War Crimes Act prosecutions. But even if it weren't, higher-ups could be held responsible under the principles of conspiracy or aiding and abetting the crime under normal federal criminal law. This was surely the reason that Gonzales wanted to block future prosecutions of higher-ups by "prosecutors and independent counsels."
In the final analysis, there is no sure way to compel the government to investigate itself or to hold high-level government officials accountable under applicable criminal statutes. But if the public does not seek to have it happen, it will not happen. Those in the public who care deeply about the rule of law and government accountability must keep this issue alive. Failure to investigate wrongdoing in high places and tolerating misconduct or criminality can have only the most corroding impact on our democracy and the rule of law that sustains us.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/063005H.shtml
A chilling effect on First Amendment
"In declining to review the important issues presented by this case, we believe that the Supreme Court has limited press freedom in ways that will have a chilling effect on our work and that may damage the free flow of information that is so necessary in a democratic society," Time Editor in Chief Norman Pearlstine said in a statement.
It may also encourage excesses by overzealous prosecutors.
It is unfortunate that the Supreme Court has left uncertain what protections the First Amendment and the federal common law provide journalists and their confidential sources.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/063005A.shtml
Geopolitics and the Baku Pipeline
June 27th, 2005 -- After a short-term fall in price below the $50 a barrel level, oil is now bounding back towards $60 a barrel and likely far higher. In this situation one might think that the announcement of the opening of a major new oil pipeline to pump Caspian oil to world markets might dampen the relentless rise in prices.
Oil has become the central theme of world political and military operations planning, even when not always openly said.
On the one side is an alliance of US-Turkey-Azerbaijan and, since the Rose Revolution, Georgia, that small but critical country directly on the pipeline route. Opposed to it, in terms of where the pipeline route carrying the Caspian oil should go, is Russia, which until 1990 held control over the entire Caspian outside the Iran littoral. Today, Russia has cultivated an uneasy but definite alliance with Iran and with Armenia, in opposition to the US group. This two-camp grouping is essential to understand developments in the region since 1991.
By F. William Engdahl, author of ‘A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order,’ from Pluto Press Ltd.
Source via Mark Nagel
http://321energy.com/editorials/engdahl/engdahl062705.html
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit for research and educational purposes. MY NEWSLETTER has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is MY NEWSLETTER endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NewsViewsnolose
posted by T. Scott Brineman at 12:02 PM
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