by TChris

Terry Jones puts the infamous March 6, 2003 torture memo in perspective by applying its reasoning to parental discipline of children.

The March 6 memo, prepared for Mr. Rumsfeld, explained that what may look like torture is not really torture at all. It states that: if someone “knows that severe pain will result from his actions, if causing such harm is not his objective, he lacks the requisite specific intent even though the defendant did not act in good faith.”

What this means in understandable English is that if a parent, in his anxiety to know where his son goes after choir practice, does something that will cause severe pain to his son, it is only “torture” if the causing of that severe pain is his objective. If his objective is something else—such as finding out where his son goes after choir practice—then it is not torture.

In fact, the report went further. It said, if a parent “has a good-faith belief [that] his actions will not result in prolonged mental harm, he lacks the mental state necessary for his actions to constitute torture.” So all you’ve got to do to avoid accusations of child abuse is to say that you didn’t think it would cause any lasting harm to the child. Easy peasy!

Many have tried to refute Michael Moore's allegations in Fahrenheit 911 that the Saudis sent planes to the U.S. to fly Saudi citizens out of the U.S. in the days following the 9/11 attacks. The St. Petersburg Times reports that TIA has confirmed such flights.

Two days after the Sept. 11 attacks, with most of the nation's air traffic still grounded, a small jet landed at Tampa International Airport, picked up three young Saudi men and left. The men, one of them thought to be a member of the Saudi royal family, were accompanied by a former FBI agent and a former Tampa police officer on the flight to Lexington, Ky.

The Saudis then took another flight out of the country. The two ex-officers returned to TIA a few hours later on the same plane. For nearly three years, White House, aviation and law enforcement officials have insisted the flight never took place and have denied published reports and widespread Internet speculation about its purpose. But now, at the request of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, TIA officials have confirmed that the flight did take place and have supplied details.

[hat tip, David Sirota, American Progress.]

Legal experts don't often agree on complicated issues with political overtones. But they do when it comes to the White House memo suggesting that the President can unilaterally decide to forego the Geneva convention and allow torture in some cases. Both sides slam the policy.

The White House took an unusual step by releasing a thick stack of documents to defend itself against charges it had authorized the abuse of war prisoners, but a number of experts said the most significant decision may have been the administration's disavowal of the memo contending the president can claim he is above the law on torture if he says he is defending the country.

The 2-year-old legal analysis said only the most egregious physical abuse constituted torture under the law and concluded that the president and the soldiers he commands were effectively exempt from any anti-torture treaties or criminal statutes. The memo's fundamental position has turned into the one issue that experts from both sides of the political spectrum have condemned. (our emphasis)

by TChris

Documents released by the Bush administration concerning the interrogation of detainees raise more questions than they answer, says Human Rights Watch.

The released documents stop in April 2003 and do not cover practices at Abu Ghraib and other military prisons in Iraq, Human Rights Watch said. Even so, they show that in December, 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld approved the use of techniques, such as the use of guard dogs to instill fear in detainees, stripping detainees nude, and the use of painful stress positions, that violate the law. Rumsfeld later rescinded his approval of these techniques on Guantanamo detainees, yet they later featured prominently in the abuses at Abu Ghraib.

Human Rights Watch calls for "an independent investigation, not a selective self-investigation." In addition, it wants the administration to release everything, "including the 2003 memoranda from Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior U.S. military officer in Iraq authorizing coercive interrogation techniques there," and documents relating to CIA interrogation practices.

by TChris

Blame the proofreader. Blame the database. Blame the CIA. Just don't blame the senior Bush administration officials (like Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage) who falsely claimed that the U.S. is winning the war on terrorism.

As TalkLeft reported on June 9, the State Dept. issued a report claiming that the number of terrorist attacks around the world decreased last year. The administration used the report to grade its performance in the war against terrorism, rewarding itself with an "A." Never mind that the report was wrong.

A revised report issued yesterday by the department shows that the total number of terrorist attacks rose slightly in 2003 and that the number of "significant attacks" had climbed to the highest it has been in 20 years.

The revised report said a total of 3,646 people were wounded worldwide in terrorist attacks last year, a sharp increase from the 2,013 wounded in 2002. The previous report put the number of wounded last year at 1,593.

Strangely, while Bush administration officials like to talk about terrorist attacks in Iraq, those incidents don't count as "terrorism" in the State Dept.'s calculations.

Cofer Black, the State Dept.'s coordinator for counterterrorism, claims that the errors were "relatively minor" and argues that significant progress is being made. He blames poor proofreading as one of the causes of the error-filled report. Yet the magnitude of the errors belies the assertion that well-informed government officials simply overlooked the truth when approving or relying upon the report.

"The thing that was disturbing about this is that it was not a subtle error. These were glaringly obvious errors to anyone that has been following this issue," said Ben Venzke, CEO of IntelCenter, a private intelligence company that tracks the number of terrorist attacks and conducts terrorism analysis for the US government.

Finger-pointing might lead to an explanation for the report's inaccurate statements, but it won't explain why people who should have known better relied on a misleading report to tout the administration's progress in its war against terror.

Senator Patrick Leahy is one of our heroes in the Senate. His dedication to the Innocence Protection Act was above and beyond. Lately, he's been excellent in his opposition to the excesses of the Patriot Act and civil liberties abuses. Here's his latest, on "Subpoena Authority And Pretrial Detention Of Terrorists". He's frustrated with the Adminstration. For good reason. Here's a snippet:

My views are also colored by the lack of accountability and openness of this administration. Many on the Judiciary Committee have been seeking information about the implementation of FBI authorities after enactment of the USA PATRIOT Act. But it is like pulling teeth. One of these powers was the Section 215 subpoena – which gave the FBI the ability to seek a secret order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to require the production of tangible items and documents. A simple question was asked by many in Congress: How often had the FBI sought to exercise this power? A direct answer could not be obtained. After months and much public outcry, the Attorney General selectively “declassified” some data and announced that these Section 215 subpoenas had never been sought to obtain evidence. Ironically, he made this announcement amidst the Administration’s hard-court press for more authorities, despite having never used this particular law enforcement power.

Very sad but predictable news.

An Iraqi militant group has beheaded its South Korean hostage, Al-Jazeera television reported Tuesday. The pan-Arab station said it had received a videotape showing that Kim Sun-il had been executed. Kim, 33, worked for a South Korean company supplying the U.S. military in Iraq and was abducted last week, according to the South Korean government. Al-Jazeera, which had not broadcast the tape, said the execution was carried out by the al-Qaida-linked group Monotheism and Jihad.

No, we won't be linking to the video even if it becomes available. We're very sorry for Mr. Kim Sun-il and his family.

Update: South Korea confirms death.

by TChris

As he often does, Paul Krugman is asking the right question: "is Mr. Ashcroft neglecting real threats to the public because of his ideological biases?" Krugman wonders why Attorney General Ashcroft, who loves to make headlines when the Justice Dept. levels dubious accusations of terrorism against Muslims, hasn't said anything about the FBI's arrest of white supremacist William Krar, caught in possession of a lethal arsenal.

In the small town of Noonday, Tex., F.B.I. agents discovered a weapons cache containing fully automatic machine guns, remote-controlled explosive devices disguised as briefcases, 60 pipe bombs and a chemical weapon — a cyanide bomb — big enough to kill everyone in a 30,000-square-foot building.

Right-wing lunatics like Krar don't seem to merit Ashcroft's attention. His Justice Dept. instead focuses on the real bad guys: those who stand in the way of the concerns of big business.

Two weeks ago a representative of the F.B.I. appealed to an industry group for help in combating what, he told the audience, the F.B.I. regards as the country's leading domestic terrorist threat: ecological and animal rights extremists.

Animal rights activists and environmentalists don't go armed with cyanide bombs. They don't kill abortion doctors and they don't advocate the extermination of entire races. Funny how Ashcroft doesn't want to talk about the right-wing lunatics who are the real home-grown domestic terrorists.

Law Professor Marjorie Cohn at Jihad Unspun examines the Bush Administration's conflicting legal positions on torture in George Bush: Torturer-in-Chief. She concludes that his actions warrant impeachment. She's not the only one. This week more than 400 legal scholars signed a letter asking Congress to consider impeaching President Bush. If he had more time left in his term, we'd agree. Right now, we think it's easier just to elect John Kerry. But Cohn's article is insightful and well worth a read:

Cloaking themselves in the "War on Terror," Bush and his minions methodically wove an intricate web of deception to convince the American people that Saddam was about to launch the "mushroom cloud," ending civilization as we know it. It was our mission, Bush preached, to save the Iraqis from Saddam-the-torturer. But a telling phrase in Bush’s January 2003 State of the Union Address should have prepared us for the emergence of Bush-the-torturer.

Did Bush commit any crimes?

If Bush knew or should have known about the torture, and failed to stop or prevent it, he could be liable for "command responsibility" if prosecuted under the War Crimes Act or the Torture Statute. A federal court in Miami in July 2002 held two retired Salvadoran generals liable for torture, even though neither had perpetrated or ordered it.

That likely won't happen. Nor will impeachment so close to the election. But read once more some of the charges leveled by Iraqi prisoners against the U.S. As Cohn says, "These accounts do not describe conduct befitting a civilized country."

We wrote this morning of the strange twist in the speedy and convenient capture and killing of American hostage Paul Johnson's alleged kidappers/murderers. We said:

For three days they couldn't catch a lead. All of a sudden, they get a report of a sighting of a vehicle which they are immediately able to surround at a gas station and the suspects are shot to death. After dumping a body, who goes to fill up? Why would the leader of the pack go along for the ride to dump the body? That's a lackey's job....Now there's one more piece of news--in the same article: The Governor of Riyadh is denying that Mr. Johnson's body has been found.

It seems pretty clear someone is lying. Yesterday, the Saudi government official said a random witness called in a license plate from the car after seeing Mr. Johnson's body dumped from it. This was the key to authorities tracking the militants to the gas station where the shootout took place that killed al-Moqrin and three others. Today there is no body, and they are not even sure of the general location in which it might be found.

Here's our question: Why isn't the mainstream media all over this?

Update: Archy begins connecting the dots.

According to ChinaView news, this is the website that regularly publishes the statement of al Qaeda terrorists. We couldn't make heads or tails out of it since it's in Arabic, but ChinaView reports this is what appeared today:

"Fighting commander Abdul Aziz bin Issa al-Muqrin fell as a martyr on Friday ... in an ambush laid for him by the soldiers of tyranny in the Malaz district of Riyadh," said the statement signed by "Al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula. The Mujahideen are continuing the jihad (holy struggle)that they have pledged to God and the killing of their brothers will not weaken their resolve but only increase their determination and commitment," it said.

Daily Kos makes a good argument that Osama bin Laden will do what he can to ensure Bush's re-election.