G
Gandalf Grey
Guest
2007: The Year in Evidence
By David Swanson
Created Dec 29 2007 - 9:34am
The past year has seen the public exposure of enough evidence of old,
ongoing, and new crimes, abuses of power, and impeachable offenses by George
Bush and Dick Cheney that in any remotely representative democracy, these
two thugs would be out of office and behind bars. The chief reason this does
not shock us is that the same could be said, and was said, of each of the
previous six years. It's been quite a millennium so far for Washington, D.C.
Some of us began this year expecting something different. We had worked to
elect Democratic majorities in Congress so that we might move in the
direction of impeachment. If we didn't get to impeachment right away, we
thought, at least real investigations with the power of subpoena would push
a reluctant Congress in the right direction. With House committees having
come within a vote of starting investigations, with the Democrats having
shut down the Senate to try to force an investigation, with Chairman-to-be
John Conyers having published a book on Bush and Cheney's crimes and held
unofficial hearings in the basement, we had reason to be hopeful.
We are, alas, forced to place our hopes in 2008. Some of the 2007 evidence
below was exposed by Congress, but most of it was unearthed by book authors,
bloggers, independent reporters, federal prosecutors, and the corporate
media. With the Democratic majorities came a complete ban on congressional
investigations of war lies (not to mention an end to serious efforts to end
the occupation of Iraq). Other investigations proceeded cautiously and at a
glacial pace - and with no ultimate objective, Speaker Nancy Pelosi having
declared impeachment "off the table." It took over 4 months for the
opposition party to issue its first subpoena. In June there was a minor
burst of subpoenas. But it was quickly established that Bush, Cheney, Condi,
and their underlings, would never comply with subpoenas, and that Bush would
even (feloniously) order former staffers not to comply. The Democrats let it
go at that and largely stopped trying to compel incriminating testimony.
That the House Judiciary Committee had, a single generation back, passed an
article of impeachment against a president for refusing a subpoena was
buried in our national amnesia.
In 2007 we saw the departure of Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales, Doug Feith, and
other Bush cronies, but without public accountability or criminal
punishment, and without accountability for their bosses. Having unilaterally
disarmed by stripping impeachment from the Constitution, the Democrats in
2007 could only play at oversight on television, which left them subject to
the owners of the television networks. This was a replay of the Democrats'
restraint in the rigged Iran-Contra hearings. The goal of that
unconstitutional restraint had been electoral victories, but the result had
been losses and the creation of the Bush dynasty.
The result in 2007 was a lot of smoke, but no fire. In fact, the new
Congress passed new legislation further stripping us of our Constitutional
rights, and every now and then let slip a hint at the depth of bipartisan
complicity. The year began with Senator Dick Durbin explaining that he had
known before the Iraq invasion that the White House was lying to the public,
but that he had not dared to say so for fear of disclosing classified
information. The year closed with the revelation that Nancy Pelosi was one
of a group of leading Congress Members informed of U.S. torture policies
five years ago. She, too, dared not say anything, and still has said
nothing. Maybe 2008 will be the year in which she finds her voice.
As you read through the following evidence, please bear in mind a couple of
key points.
1. We didn't need any of it, or any of the previous year's evidence. We've
had enough solid evidence for a 5-minute slam-dunk (than you, George)
impeachment for years now. Here are the highlights:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/keydocuments [1]
2. While none of this is about sex, and all good impeachments simply must be
about sex, we have learned in recent years of CIA prostitute parties and
Halliburton gang rapes. And if that's not enough to convince you that
something is rotten in the state of the Homeland, we learned in 2007 that
(quick, cover your children's eyes) . . . "Bush Promised to Kiss Blair's
Ass."
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24493 [2]
SECRECY AND COVERUPS
Here is a collection of the outstanding subpoenas yet to be obeyed:
http://democrats.com/subpoenas [3]
Here are a few choice related headlines with links to the articles you'll
want to savor as you look back across the past year of not having a clue
what your government was up to:
A National Archives official reveals what the veep wanted to keep
classified--and how he tried to challenge the rules
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29579 [4]
Cheney Won't Even Say Who Works in His Office
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/17866 [5]
Bush Won't Say Where His Prisons Are
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/21434 [6]
Vice President Exempts His Office from the Requirements for Protecting
Classified Information
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23834 [7]
Bush Claims Oversight Exemption Too
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23932 [8]
Bush Orders Miers Not to Testify
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24568 [9]
Justice Dept. to White House officials: Ignore Congress
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24585 [10]
Whistle-blowers Face Punishment in Iraq; Contractors Say U.S. Military
Jailed, Tortured Them for Reporting Fraud
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/26094 [11]
SIGNING STATEMENTS AND ASSERTIONS OF DICTATORIAL POWER
2007 was the year of the unitary executive, as Congress and the courts
largely stepped out of the picture. And the unitary executive had a lot of
executivizing to do:
New Report Shows Bush's Presidential Signing Statements Have Been Used to
Nullify Laws
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23764 [12]
New Index of Presidential Signing Statements
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/26476 [13]
Cheney Exempts His Office from Requirement to Protect Classified Information
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23834 [14]
Cheney Destroys Visitor Logs
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23085 [15]
A New Dick Cheney-Alberto Gonzales Mystery
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23979 [16]
Bush Anoints Himself as the Insurer of Constitutional Government in
Emergency
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/22710 [17]
Bush Uses Signing Statement to Announce Refusal to Obey New Military
Appropriations Law
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29071 [18]
TURNING GOVERNMENT AGENCIES INTO REPUBLICAN PARTY MACHINE
This was the big new story of 2007, and Congress does get some credit for
stirring the dirt on this one. It turns out that most of the executive
branch of the government now works for the Republican party. U.S. attorneys
who had failed to grasp that fact were fired. Emails that exposed it were
destroyed. State governors who got in the way became political prisoners.
And an intellectually challenged Attorney General who could take orders but
not remember what he'd had for breakfast was scared out of town after
committing perjury on television. His bosses laughed and replaced him with a
clone. Congress complied.
Not that Congress wasn't very, very concerned. In fact, Rep. Henry Waxman
alone destroyed a forest writing letters to the White House and publishing
reports like this one:
http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20070618105243.pdf [19]
By the end of 2007 I saw an editorial cartoon in the paper with holiday
lights on the White House spelling out: "No Comment: Ongoing Investigation."
A man in the cartoon commented: "They just leave them up all year now."
These were some of the choice headlines from 2007 on the
your-tax-dollars-pay-for-the-Republican-Party theme:
Administration Withheld Emails About Rove
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/22360 [20]
GSA Chief Is Accused of Playing Politics
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/20480 [21]
DOJ Made Immigration Judgeships Political
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/22965 [22]
New Justice Department documents show White House involvement in Attorneys
firings
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23628 [23]
Legal Memo Confirms White House Led Effort To Target And Remove U.S.
Attorneys
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24124 [24]
Politicization of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24781 [25]
Conyers' Staff Documents More Crimes and Abuses, But He Still Won't Impeach
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/25054 [26]
Emails Detail RNC Voter Suppression in Five States
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/25135 [27]
Commerce, Treasury Funds Helped Boost GOP Campaigns
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/25929 [28]
State Department Agents Say Jobs Were Threatened
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27292 [29]
The United States Attorneys Scandal Comes to Mississippi
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27631 [30]
Daughter of jailed governor sees White House hand in her father's fall
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28972 [31]
Bush Tries to Seize Control of Military Lawyers
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29429 [32]
(Here's Why) Meet Tom Fiscus
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29041 [33]
White House Illegally Deleted Over TEN MILLION Emails
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29258 [34]
ELECTION FRAUD
Of course, the point is to continue stealing elections. But some of the past
crimes of that nature continued to bubble up unnoticed in 2007:
Former DoJ Attorneys Accuse Bush Admin of Restricting African American Vote
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/21712 [35]
Ohio Secretary of State confirms 2004 election could have been stolen
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29380 [36]
NH Phone jamming scheme
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/20/rnc-phone-jamming-doj/ [37]
SPYING
What would a 21st century year be without further shredding of the Fourth
Amendment? Bush opened it with a bang by seizing a power Hitler too had
seized early on: the power to open your mail.
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/16946 [38]
It was all downhill without resistance from there.
NY Times: "Dick Cheney sent Mr. Gonzales and another official to Mr.
Ashcroft's hospital room to get him to approve the wiretapping."
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/25214 [39]
Unimpeachably Impeachable
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24216 [40]
Cheney Urged Illegal Wiretaps
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23408 [41]
Ashcroft's ex-no. 2 says Gonzales, Cheney tried to take advantage of sick
Attorney General.
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/22509 [42]
Two FBI Whistleblowers Confirm Illegal Wiretapping of Government Officials
and Misuse of FISA
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/19269 [43]
Bush Decides to Continue FISA Violations After All
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/22086 [44]
Bush Dodges Comey's Accusations That He Personally Arranged Ashcroft
Hospital Visit
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/22623 [45]
FBI Finds It Frequently Overstepped in Collecting Data
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23655 [46]
New NSA Whistleblower Speaks
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24183 [47]
IRS tracked taxpayers' political affiliation
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24415 [48]
Cheney On Whether He Ordered Hospital Visit To Ashcroft: I Have 'No
Recollection'
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/25295 [49]
Bush "Authorized" Illegal Spying Programs
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/25344 [50]
Collecting of Details on Travelers Documented
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27060 [51]
White House Spy Docs Show Surveillance Was Illegal, Senator Feingold Charges
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27848 [52]
GLOBAL WARMING
Now, admittedly there's no clause in the Constitution banning the warming of
the planet, but 2007 was chock full of headlines like this one, that weren't
really news, but were louder than they'd been before:
Over 4.5 Billion people could die from Global Warming-related causes by 2012
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/17148 [53]
It's that sort of thing that makes these headlines fit into the crime
section:
Cheney Bypassed Environmentally 'Clueless' Bush To Craft Administration's
Climate Change Agenda
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/23/cheney-climate-clueless/ [54]
Scientists 'pressured on climate findings'
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/17993 [55]
Ex-Bush Official: I Fixed The (Climate) Facts Around The Policy
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/20207 [56]
The Secret Campaign of President Bush's Administration to Deny Global
Warming
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23938 [57]
Not an environment scare story
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28262 [58]
CALIFORNIA ENERGY CRISIS: NEW EVIDENCE
Here's an oldie but goodie that came back for a cameo:
Cheney Suppressed Evidence in California Energy Crisis
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24875 [59]
ONGOING INTENTIONAL DESTRUCTION OF NEW ORLEANS
2007 closed out with the use of tazers and brutal crowd repression in New
Orleans as people protested the ongoing intentional destruction of good
housing. There was also this:
Two Years After Katrina, Billions in Relief Funds Are Missing
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/26123 [60]
LYING TO CONGRESS AND PUBLIC IN STATE OF THE UNION - AN ANNUAL RITUAL
Bush began 2007 with a claim in a State of the Union Address that he had
thwarted a number of terrorist plots. They all turned out to be fictional:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/17806 [61]
When no corporate media other than Keith Olbermann called Bush on his lies,
he must have felt empowered to tell more:
Transcripts show evidence against Muslim charity fabricated
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18982 [62]
Bush-Cheney Blocked and Falsified Reports on Health and Medicine
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24538 [63]
Your Tax Dollars Are Used to Tell You Lies
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/25828 [64]
Bush Used Bogus Terror Threat To Scare Votes For FISA Bill
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27129 [65]
Oh, and you know that one about "America does not torture"? It looks like
Bush watched the missing torture tapes before saying that:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29596 [66]
And this one just won't go away:
France (and CIA) knew in 2001 al-Qaida had a plot
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/21327 [67]
THREATENING A WAR OF AGGRESSION IN IRAN
This violation of the U.N. Charter and U.S. Constitution has been well
documented by Congressman Dennis Kucinich:
http://kucinich.house.gov/SpotlightIssues/documents.htm [68]
We also learned in 2007 that Bush and Cheney were doing more in Iran than
threatening it:
"Explosive" new Hersh scoop: Bush funneling money to Al Qaeda-related groups
[VIDEO]
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18963 [69]
Report: U.S. Sponsoring Kurdish Guerilla Attacks Inside Iran
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/20561 [70]
IRAN LIES
And we heard lots of lies about Iranian roadside bombs in Iraq or Iranian
activities in Iraq or Iranian nuclear weapons. As each lie failed to stick,
it was forgotten and replaced with a new one. But who will hold our
so-called elected leaders accountable for the ones we were smart enough not
to believe?
More Cheney War Lies Exposed - And This Time Pre-War
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23528 [71]
Cheney Tried to Stifle Dissent in Iran NIE
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28544 [72]
IRAQ LIES: NEW EVIDENCE
This is such fertile ground that although no more evidence is needed, it
just keeps piling up. In fact, some of the old evidence is being buried In
2007 the White House deleted from its website the old claims by Cheney that
Iraqis would welcome an occupation "as liberators" and so forth.
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18991 [73]
But deleting old Cheney lies only goes so far, when he keeps repeating them.
In 2007, Cheney was still claiming that Iraq was to blame for 9-11.
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/19629 [74]
The closest Congress came to touching the topic was a brief Senate committee
hearing on a report on the Pentagon written by... the Pentagon. Even that
report was fairly damning:
http://dodig.mil/IGInformation/archives/Unclass Executive Summary.pdf
[75]
It dealt with the Feith Based Intelligence work of Doug Feith:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18368 [76]
Pentagon Report Corroborates the Downing Street Memo, Intelligence and Facts
Fixed Around the Policy!
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/20958 [77]
Also in 2007, all pretense was abandoned that the invasion of Iraq was not
driven by oil, as the Bush Administration and Congress pressured the puppet
Iraqi government to pass a new law turning over much of the oil to foreign
corporations: http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/22838 [78]
Here's the text of the law:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/19017 [79]
And, of course, the original lies continued to be documented:
Two Explosive Books Tell the Inside Story of the Forged Iraq-Niger Docs That
Helped Build the Case for War
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/21092 [80]
Tenet's Book of Lies Leads to New Revelations
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/22110 [81]
Senior CIA Analyst Believed Iraq Had No WMD
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/22977 [82]
Two former CIA officers say the president squelched top-secret intelligence,
and a briefing by George Tenet, months before invading Iraq.
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/26521 [83]
Bush-Aznar Smoking Gun
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27199 [84]
Faulty Intel Source "Curve Ball" Revealed
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28355 [85]
U.S. Plan Envisioned Nuking Iran, Syria, Libya
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28438 [86]
PLAME
With the I Lewis Scooter Libby trial finally held in 2007, there was good
growth in the Plame industry. Perhaps the biggest news came late in the year
when former White House Press Secretary Scotty McClellan implicated Bush and
Cheney
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28856 [87]
But evidence in the trial had already done that as well:
Cheney's Handwritten Notes Implicate Bush in Plame Affair
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/17987 [88]
FBI Agent Testifies Libby Learned About Plame from Cheney
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18045 [89]
Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's comments to the press at the end of the
trial suggested that he and they (the media) expected Congress to pursue the
matter further. Congress never has. Late in the year, Fitzgerald again
pointed his finger at Cheney:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23081 [90]
Also coming out of the Libby trial came this insight, yet to be fully
developed:
Bush Admin Targeted Wilson's Wife Long Before Wilson's Article Appeared
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18952 [91]
LIBBY COMMUTATION
James Madison and George Mason wanted impeachment in the Constitution in
case a president ever pardoned someone for a crime that he himself was
associated with. They did get impeachment into the Constitution. Nancy
Pelosi removed it in 2007.
ONGOING AND WORSENING OCCUPATION OF IRAQ
Lost in the surge hype and the media's endless demand that we cease caring
about Iraq is the worsening crisis that was more heavily reported in early
and mid 2007:
ACLU Releases Files on Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/21207 [92]
More Iraqis Flee As Figure Tops Four Million: UNHCR
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/26221 [93]
Ignorance of Iraqi death toll no longer an option
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27066 [94]
Report says war on terror is fueling al Qaeda
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27539 [95]
2007 Oct 7 Towards Sustainable Security: Oxford Research Group International
Security Report 2007
http://oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/books/ar07.php [96]
UN Report on Iraq Details an "Ever-Deepening" Crisis
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27657 [97]
Bush, Maliki Break Iraqi Law to Renew UN Mandate for Occupation
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29502 [98]
WAR CRIMES
This is one of the harder topics for Americans to discuss by name, yet 2007
yielded a bumper crop of evidence of war crimes:
2007 May 4 Army Surgeon General's pentagon report on declining morale and
war crimes
http://armymedicine.army.mil/news/mhat/mhat.html [99]
US Attack on Iraqi Peace Parliamentarian
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/16887 [100]
US Electromagnetic Weapons and Human Rights
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/17011 [101]
'Shocking' video: Shi'a Iraqi soldiers beat Sunnis as US trainers watch
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/17779 [102]
Death Squads, American Style
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/17862 [103]
Fifth Marine Pleads Guilty in Murder of Innocent Man
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18557 [104]
Jailed Two Years, Iraqi Tells of Abuse by Americans
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18690 [105]
Bush Family War Profiteering
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/21215 [106]
Coerced Labor Building Baghdad Embassy?
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23182 [107]
Illegal Bases in Iraq Openly Constructed, Used, Announced
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23272 [108]
Marine Told to Destroy Haditha Photos
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23473 [109]
The Other War: Iraq Veterans Speak Out on Shocking Accounts of Attacks on
Iraqi Civilians
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24605 [110]
Marine says beatings urged in Iraq
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24762 [111]
Video: Marine on Hamdania Shooting
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/25661 [112]
U.S. soldier convicted of beating Iraqi detainee with baseball bat
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/25824 [113]
Marine tells of order to execute Haditha women and children
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/26350 [114]
Documents Show Troops Disregarding Rules
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/26439 [115]
U.S. Aims To Lure Insurgents With 'Bait'
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27114 [116]
Soldier: Sergeant from N.C. ordered me to shoot unarmed Iraqi man
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27233 [117]
US Violating Chemical Weapons Convention in Iraq
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28563 [118]
And still we do not end the supreme war crime, the crime that contains the
accumulated evil of the whole: the war of aggression.
MERCENARIES
2007 broke the corporate media ban on acknowledging the role of mercenaries
in the occupation of Iraq. And when that dam burst, blood gushed out:
2007 Oct 11 UN report on Blackwater and other mercenaries killing
indiscriminately
http://uniraq.org/FileLib/misc/HR Report Apr Jun 2007 EN.pdf [119]
Blackwater security shot Iraqi man
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18363 [120]
CIA Mercenary Gets 8 Years for Beating a Prisoner to Death
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18556 [121]
Blackwater guards killed 16 as U.S. touted progress
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27244 [122]
FBI Admits Blackwater Mercenaries Murdered at Least 14 People
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28704 [123]
Krongard Confirms 'Ugly Rumor': Brother Attended Blackwater Advisory Board
Meeting Yesterday
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/14/krongard-blacwater-brother/ [124]
TORTURE AND ILLEGAL PRISONS
Yes, torture is illegal. Yes, torture is unconstitutional. Yes, the U.S.
tortures. And, yes, the Congress just approved a new Attorney General who
protects torturers.
ACLU Announces Publication of Administration of Torture, a Groundbreaking
Account of Prisoner Abuse in U.S. Custody Abroad
http://aclu.org/about/staff/administrationoftorture.html [125]
FBI Details Possible Detainee Abuse
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/16890 [126]
Cheney's Leading Role in Torture
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney [127]
Uninvestigated Crimes: CIA Torture Flights Out of North Carolina
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/17997 [128]
Abu Ghraib: "Man In the Hood" provides testimony at War Crimes Conference
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18337 [129]
New Light Shed on CIA's "Black Site" Prisons
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/19084 [130]
Aspects of Padilla's Treatment Confirmed
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/19085 [131]
What happened to the Padilla interrogation videos?
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/19632 [132]
'We Were Torturing People For No Reason' -- A Soldier's Tale
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/20720 [133]
'Outsourced Guantanamo' - FBI & CIA Interrogating Detainees in Secret
Ethiopian Jails, U.S. Citizen Among Those Held
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/20977 [134]
CIA Tortured Me in Iraq, Claims Freed Iranian Diplomat
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/20992 [135]
Photos of 'tortured' Iraqi's corpse released
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/21391 [136]
Former Guantanamo inmate describes interrogations
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23719 [137]
Rumsfeld, Perjury, and Shoving Things Up Rectums
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23721 [138]
Guantanamo Man's Family Release 'Torture' Dossier
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/25717 [139]
CIA detention program remains active: U.S. official
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27486 [140]
Torture Victim Tells His Story to Congress
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27876 [141]
Guantanamo Military Lawyer Breaks Ranks to Condemn "Unconscionable"
Detention
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28147 [142]
Dozens of 'Ghost Prisoners' Not Publicly Accounted For
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28211 [143]
Torture Orders Came from Bush
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28347 [144]
Flight Logs Reveal Secret Rendition
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28955 [145]
Jordan's Spy Agency: Holding Cell for the CIA
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29065 [146]
Former chief prosecutor for the Office of Military Commissions resigned his
post
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29300 [147]
Kiriakou: White House Approved Abuzabaydah's WaterBoarding
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29335 [148]
And then, of course, there are the missing torture tapes. If they were
destroyed, please keep in mind the following points:
1. They are not needed to document the torture. The evidence is
overwhelming.
2. The destruction of tapes is not the major crime here.
3. The major crime is the American people's failure to force our
representatives in Congress to impeach these fascist bastards.
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
By David Swanson
Created Dec 29 2007 - 9:34am
The past year has seen the public exposure of enough evidence of old,
ongoing, and new crimes, abuses of power, and impeachable offenses by George
Bush and Dick Cheney that in any remotely representative democracy, these
two thugs would be out of office and behind bars. The chief reason this does
not shock us is that the same could be said, and was said, of each of the
previous six years. It's been quite a millennium so far for Washington, D.C.
Some of us began this year expecting something different. We had worked to
elect Democratic majorities in Congress so that we might move in the
direction of impeachment. If we didn't get to impeachment right away, we
thought, at least real investigations with the power of subpoena would push
a reluctant Congress in the right direction. With House committees having
come within a vote of starting investigations, with the Democrats having
shut down the Senate to try to force an investigation, with Chairman-to-be
John Conyers having published a book on Bush and Cheney's crimes and held
unofficial hearings in the basement, we had reason to be hopeful.
We are, alas, forced to place our hopes in 2008. Some of the 2007 evidence
below was exposed by Congress, but most of it was unearthed by book authors,
bloggers, independent reporters, federal prosecutors, and the corporate
media. With the Democratic majorities came a complete ban on congressional
investigations of war lies (not to mention an end to serious efforts to end
the occupation of Iraq). Other investigations proceeded cautiously and at a
glacial pace - and with no ultimate objective, Speaker Nancy Pelosi having
declared impeachment "off the table." It took over 4 months for the
opposition party to issue its first subpoena. In June there was a minor
burst of subpoenas. But it was quickly established that Bush, Cheney, Condi,
and their underlings, would never comply with subpoenas, and that Bush would
even (feloniously) order former staffers not to comply. The Democrats let it
go at that and largely stopped trying to compel incriminating testimony.
That the House Judiciary Committee had, a single generation back, passed an
article of impeachment against a president for refusing a subpoena was
buried in our national amnesia.
In 2007 we saw the departure of Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales, Doug Feith, and
other Bush cronies, but without public accountability or criminal
punishment, and without accountability for their bosses. Having unilaterally
disarmed by stripping impeachment from the Constitution, the Democrats in
2007 could only play at oversight on television, which left them subject to
the owners of the television networks. This was a replay of the Democrats'
restraint in the rigged Iran-Contra hearings. The goal of that
unconstitutional restraint had been electoral victories, but the result had
been losses and the creation of the Bush dynasty.
The result in 2007 was a lot of smoke, but no fire. In fact, the new
Congress passed new legislation further stripping us of our Constitutional
rights, and every now and then let slip a hint at the depth of bipartisan
complicity. The year began with Senator Dick Durbin explaining that he had
known before the Iraq invasion that the White House was lying to the public,
but that he had not dared to say so for fear of disclosing classified
information. The year closed with the revelation that Nancy Pelosi was one
of a group of leading Congress Members informed of U.S. torture policies
five years ago. She, too, dared not say anything, and still has said
nothing. Maybe 2008 will be the year in which she finds her voice.
As you read through the following evidence, please bear in mind a couple of
key points.
1. We didn't need any of it, or any of the previous year's evidence. We've
had enough solid evidence for a 5-minute slam-dunk (than you, George)
impeachment for years now. Here are the highlights:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/keydocuments [1]
2. While none of this is about sex, and all good impeachments simply must be
about sex, we have learned in recent years of CIA prostitute parties and
Halliburton gang rapes. And if that's not enough to convince you that
something is rotten in the state of the Homeland, we learned in 2007 that
(quick, cover your children's eyes) . . . "Bush Promised to Kiss Blair's
Ass."
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24493 [2]
SECRECY AND COVERUPS
Here is a collection of the outstanding subpoenas yet to be obeyed:
http://democrats.com/subpoenas [3]
Here are a few choice related headlines with links to the articles you'll
want to savor as you look back across the past year of not having a clue
what your government was up to:
A National Archives official reveals what the veep wanted to keep
classified--and how he tried to challenge the rules
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29579 [4]
Cheney Won't Even Say Who Works in His Office
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/17866 [5]
Bush Won't Say Where His Prisons Are
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/21434 [6]
Vice President Exempts His Office from the Requirements for Protecting
Classified Information
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23834 [7]
Bush Claims Oversight Exemption Too
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23932 [8]
Bush Orders Miers Not to Testify
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24568 [9]
Justice Dept. to White House officials: Ignore Congress
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24585 [10]
Whistle-blowers Face Punishment in Iraq; Contractors Say U.S. Military
Jailed, Tortured Them for Reporting Fraud
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/26094 [11]
SIGNING STATEMENTS AND ASSERTIONS OF DICTATORIAL POWER
2007 was the year of the unitary executive, as Congress and the courts
largely stepped out of the picture. And the unitary executive had a lot of
executivizing to do:
New Report Shows Bush's Presidential Signing Statements Have Been Used to
Nullify Laws
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23764 [12]
New Index of Presidential Signing Statements
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/26476 [13]
Cheney Exempts His Office from Requirement to Protect Classified Information
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23834 [14]
Cheney Destroys Visitor Logs
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23085 [15]
A New Dick Cheney-Alberto Gonzales Mystery
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23979 [16]
Bush Anoints Himself as the Insurer of Constitutional Government in
Emergency
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/22710 [17]
Bush Uses Signing Statement to Announce Refusal to Obey New Military
Appropriations Law
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29071 [18]
TURNING GOVERNMENT AGENCIES INTO REPUBLICAN PARTY MACHINE
This was the big new story of 2007, and Congress does get some credit for
stirring the dirt on this one. It turns out that most of the executive
branch of the government now works for the Republican party. U.S. attorneys
who had failed to grasp that fact were fired. Emails that exposed it were
destroyed. State governors who got in the way became political prisoners.
And an intellectually challenged Attorney General who could take orders but
not remember what he'd had for breakfast was scared out of town after
committing perjury on television. His bosses laughed and replaced him with a
clone. Congress complied.
Not that Congress wasn't very, very concerned. In fact, Rep. Henry Waxman
alone destroyed a forest writing letters to the White House and publishing
reports like this one:
http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20070618105243.pdf [19]
By the end of 2007 I saw an editorial cartoon in the paper with holiday
lights on the White House spelling out: "No Comment: Ongoing Investigation."
A man in the cartoon commented: "They just leave them up all year now."
These were some of the choice headlines from 2007 on the
your-tax-dollars-pay-for-the-Republican-Party theme:
Administration Withheld Emails About Rove
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/22360 [20]
GSA Chief Is Accused of Playing Politics
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/20480 [21]
DOJ Made Immigration Judgeships Political
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/22965 [22]
New Justice Department documents show White House involvement in Attorneys
firings
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23628 [23]
Legal Memo Confirms White House Led Effort To Target And Remove U.S.
Attorneys
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24124 [24]
Politicization of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24781 [25]
Conyers' Staff Documents More Crimes and Abuses, But He Still Won't Impeach
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/25054 [26]
Emails Detail RNC Voter Suppression in Five States
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/25135 [27]
Commerce, Treasury Funds Helped Boost GOP Campaigns
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/25929 [28]
State Department Agents Say Jobs Were Threatened
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27292 [29]
The United States Attorneys Scandal Comes to Mississippi
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27631 [30]
Daughter of jailed governor sees White House hand in her father's fall
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28972 [31]
Bush Tries to Seize Control of Military Lawyers
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29429 [32]
(Here's Why) Meet Tom Fiscus
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29041 [33]
White House Illegally Deleted Over TEN MILLION Emails
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29258 [34]
ELECTION FRAUD
Of course, the point is to continue stealing elections. But some of the past
crimes of that nature continued to bubble up unnoticed in 2007:
Former DoJ Attorneys Accuse Bush Admin of Restricting African American Vote
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/21712 [35]
Ohio Secretary of State confirms 2004 election could have been stolen
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29380 [36]
NH Phone jamming scheme
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/20/rnc-phone-jamming-doj/ [37]
SPYING
What would a 21st century year be without further shredding of the Fourth
Amendment? Bush opened it with a bang by seizing a power Hitler too had
seized early on: the power to open your mail.
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/16946 [38]
It was all downhill without resistance from there.
NY Times: "Dick Cheney sent Mr. Gonzales and another official to Mr.
Ashcroft's hospital room to get him to approve the wiretapping."
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/25214 [39]
Unimpeachably Impeachable
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24216 [40]
Cheney Urged Illegal Wiretaps
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23408 [41]
Ashcroft's ex-no. 2 says Gonzales, Cheney tried to take advantage of sick
Attorney General.
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/22509 [42]
Two FBI Whistleblowers Confirm Illegal Wiretapping of Government Officials
and Misuse of FISA
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/19269 [43]
Bush Decides to Continue FISA Violations After All
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/22086 [44]
Bush Dodges Comey's Accusations That He Personally Arranged Ashcroft
Hospital Visit
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/22623 [45]
FBI Finds It Frequently Overstepped in Collecting Data
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23655 [46]
New NSA Whistleblower Speaks
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24183 [47]
IRS tracked taxpayers' political affiliation
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24415 [48]
Cheney On Whether He Ordered Hospital Visit To Ashcroft: I Have 'No
Recollection'
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/25295 [49]
Bush "Authorized" Illegal Spying Programs
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/25344 [50]
Collecting of Details on Travelers Documented
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27060 [51]
White House Spy Docs Show Surveillance Was Illegal, Senator Feingold Charges
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27848 [52]
GLOBAL WARMING
Now, admittedly there's no clause in the Constitution banning the warming of
the planet, but 2007 was chock full of headlines like this one, that weren't
really news, but were louder than they'd been before:
Over 4.5 Billion people could die from Global Warming-related causes by 2012
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/17148 [53]
It's that sort of thing that makes these headlines fit into the crime
section:
Cheney Bypassed Environmentally 'Clueless' Bush To Craft Administration's
Climate Change Agenda
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/23/cheney-climate-clueless/ [54]
Scientists 'pressured on climate findings'
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/17993 [55]
Ex-Bush Official: I Fixed The (Climate) Facts Around The Policy
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/20207 [56]
The Secret Campaign of President Bush's Administration to Deny Global
Warming
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23938 [57]
Not an environment scare story
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28262 [58]
CALIFORNIA ENERGY CRISIS: NEW EVIDENCE
Here's an oldie but goodie that came back for a cameo:
Cheney Suppressed Evidence in California Energy Crisis
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24875 [59]
ONGOING INTENTIONAL DESTRUCTION OF NEW ORLEANS
2007 closed out with the use of tazers and brutal crowd repression in New
Orleans as people protested the ongoing intentional destruction of good
housing. There was also this:
Two Years After Katrina, Billions in Relief Funds Are Missing
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/26123 [60]
LYING TO CONGRESS AND PUBLIC IN STATE OF THE UNION - AN ANNUAL RITUAL
Bush began 2007 with a claim in a State of the Union Address that he had
thwarted a number of terrorist plots. They all turned out to be fictional:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/17806 [61]
When no corporate media other than Keith Olbermann called Bush on his lies,
he must have felt empowered to tell more:
Transcripts show evidence against Muslim charity fabricated
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18982 [62]
Bush-Cheney Blocked and Falsified Reports on Health and Medicine
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24538 [63]
Your Tax Dollars Are Used to Tell You Lies
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/25828 [64]
Bush Used Bogus Terror Threat To Scare Votes For FISA Bill
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27129 [65]
Oh, and you know that one about "America does not torture"? It looks like
Bush watched the missing torture tapes before saying that:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29596 [66]
And this one just won't go away:
France (and CIA) knew in 2001 al-Qaida had a plot
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/21327 [67]
THREATENING A WAR OF AGGRESSION IN IRAN
This violation of the U.N. Charter and U.S. Constitution has been well
documented by Congressman Dennis Kucinich:
http://kucinich.house.gov/SpotlightIssues/documents.htm [68]
We also learned in 2007 that Bush and Cheney were doing more in Iran than
threatening it:
"Explosive" new Hersh scoop: Bush funneling money to Al Qaeda-related groups
[VIDEO]
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18963 [69]
Report: U.S. Sponsoring Kurdish Guerilla Attacks Inside Iran
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/20561 [70]
IRAN LIES
And we heard lots of lies about Iranian roadside bombs in Iraq or Iranian
activities in Iraq or Iranian nuclear weapons. As each lie failed to stick,
it was forgotten and replaced with a new one. But who will hold our
so-called elected leaders accountable for the ones we were smart enough not
to believe?
More Cheney War Lies Exposed - And This Time Pre-War
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23528 [71]
Cheney Tried to Stifle Dissent in Iran NIE
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28544 [72]
IRAQ LIES: NEW EVIDENCE
This is such fertile ground that although no more evidence is needed, it
just keeps piling up. In fact, some of the old evidence is being buried In
2007 the White House deleted from its website the old claims by Cheney that
Iraqis would welcome an occupation "as liberators" and so forth.
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18991 [73]
But deleting old Cheney lies only goes so far, when he keeps repeating them.
In 2007, Cheney was still claiming that Iraq was to blame for 9-11.
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/19629 [74]
The closest Congress came to touching the topic was a brief Senate committee
hearing on a report on the Pentagon written by... the Pentagon. Even that
report was fairly damning:
http://dodig.mil/IGInformation/archives/Unclass Executive Summary.pdf
[75]
It dealt with the Feith Based Intelligence work of Doug Feith:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18368 [76]
Pentagon Report Corroborates the Downing Street Memo, Intelligence and Facts
Fixed Around the Policy!
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/20958 [77]
Also in 2007, all pretense was abandoned that the invasion of Iraq was not
driven by oil, as the Bush Administration and Congress pressured the puppet
Iraqi government to pass a new law turning over much of the oil to foreign
corporations: http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/22838 [78]
Here's the text of the law:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/19017 [79]
And, of course, the original lies continued to be documented:
Two Explosive Books Tell the Inside Story of the Forged Iraq-Niger Docs That
Helped Build the Case for War
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/21092 [80]
Tenet's Book of Lies Leads to New Revelations
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/22110 [81]
Senior CIA Analyst Believed Iraq Had No WMD
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/22977 [82]
Two former CIA officers say the president squelched top-secret intelligence,
and a briefing by George Tenet, months before invading Iraq.
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/26521 [83]
Bush-Aznar Smoking Gun
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27199 [84]
Faulty Intel Source "Curve Ball" Revealed
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28355 [85]
U.S. Plan Envisioned Nuking Iran, Syria, Libya
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28438 [86]
PLAME
With the I Lewis Scooter Libby trial finally held in 2007, there was good
growth in the Plame industry. Perhaps the biggest news came late in the year
when former White House Press Secretary Scotty McClellan implicated Bush and
Cheney
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28856 [87]
But evidence in the trial had already done that as well:
Cheney's Handwritten Notes Implicate Bush in Plame Affair
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/17987 [88]
FBI Agent Testifies Libby Learned About Plame from Cheney
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18045 [89]
Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's comments to the press at the end of the
trial suggested that he and they (the media) expected Congress to pursue the
matter further. Congress never has. Late in the year, Fitzgerald again
pointed his finger at Cheney:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23081 [90]
Also coming out of the Libby trial came this insight, yet to be fully
developed:
Bush Admin Targeted Wilson's Wife Long Before Wilson's Article Appeared
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18952 [91]
LIBBY COMMUTATION
James Madison and George Mason wanted impeachment in the Constitution in
case a president ever pardoned someone for a crime that he himself was
associated with. They did get impeachment into the Constitution. Nancy
Pelosi removed it in 2007.
ONGOING AND WORSENING OCCUPATION OF IRAQ
Lost in the surge hype and the media's endless demand that we cease caring
about Iraq is the worsening crisis that was more heavily reported in early
and mid 2007:
ACLU Releases Files on Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/21207 [92]
More Iraqis Flee As Figure Tops Four Million: UNHCR
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/26221 [93]
Ignorance of Iraqi death toll no longer an option
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27066 [94]
Report says war on terror is fueling al Qaeda
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27539 [95]
2007 Oct 7 Towards Sustainable Security: Oxford Research Group International
Security Report 2007
http://oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/books/ar07.php [96]
UN Report on Iraq Details an "Ever-Deepening" Crisis
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27657 [97]
Bush, Maliki Break Iraqi Law to Renew UN Mandate for Occupation
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29502 [98]
WAR CRIMES
This is one of the harder topics for Americans to discuss by name, yet 2007
yielded a bumper crop of evidence of war crimes:
2007 May 4 Army Surgeon General's pentagon report on declining morale and
war crimes
http://armymedicine.army.mil/news/mhat/mhat.html [99]
US Attack on Iraqi Peace Parliamentarian
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/16887 [100]
US Electromagnetic Weapons and Human Rights
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/17011 [101]
'Shocking' video: Shi'a Iraqi soldiers beat Sunnis as US trainers watch
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/17779 [102]
Death Squads, American Style
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/17862 [103]
Fifth Marine Pleads Guilty in Murder of Innocent Man
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18557 [104]
Jailed Two Years, Iraqi Tells of Abuse by Americans
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18690 [105]
Bush Family War Profiteering
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/21215 [106]
Coerced Labor Building Baghdad Embassy?
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23182 [107]
Illegal Bases in Iraq Openly Constructed, Used, Announced
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23272 [108]
Marine Told to Destroy Haditha Photos
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23473 [109]
The Other War: Iraq Veterans Speak Out on Shocking Accounts of Attacks on
Iraqi Civilians
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24605 [110]
Marine says beatings urged in Iraq
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24762 [111]
Video: Marine on Hamdania Shooting
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/25661 [112]
U.S. soldier convicted of beating Iraqi detainee with baseball bat
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/25824 [113]
Marine tells of order to execute Haditha women and children
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/26350 [114]
Documents Show Troops Disregarding Rules
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/26439 [115]
U.S. Aims To Lure Insurgents With 'Bait'
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27114 [116]
Soldier: Sergeant from N.C. ordered me to shoot unarmed Iraqi man
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27233 [117]
US Violating Chemical Weapons Convention in Iraq
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28563 [118]
And still we do not end the supreme war crime, the crime that contains the
accumulated evil of the whole: the war of aggression.
MERCENARIES
2007 broke the corporate media ban on acknowledging the role of mercenaries
in the occupation of Iraq. And when that dam burst, blood gushed out:
2007 Oct 11 UN report on Blackwater and other mercenaries killing
indiscriminately
http://uniraq.org/FileLib/misc/HR Report Apr Jun 2007 EN.pdf [119]
Blackwater security shot Iraqi man
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18363 [120]
CIA Mercenary Gets 8 Years for Beating a Prisoner to Death
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18556 [121]
Blackwater guards killed 16 as U.S. touted progress
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27244 [122]
FBI Admits Blackwater Mercenaries Murdered at Least 14 People
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28704 [123]
Krongard Confirms 'Ugly Rumor': Brother Attended Blackwater Advisory Board
Meeting Yesterday
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/14/krongard-blacwater-brother/ [124]
TORTURE AND ILLEGAL PRISONS
Yes, torture is illegal. Yes, torture is unconstitutional. Yes, the U.S.
tortures. And, yes, the Congress just approved a new Attorney General who
protects torturers.
ACLU Announces Publication of Administration of Torture, a Groundbreaking
Account of Prisoner Abuse in U.S. Custody Abroad
http://aclu.org/about/staff/administrationoftorture.html [125]
FBI Details Possible Detainee Abuse
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/16890 [126]
Cheney's Leading Role in Torture
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney [127]
Uninvestigated Crimes: CIA Torture Flights Out of North Carolina
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/17997 [128]
Abu Ghraib: "Man In the Hood" provides testimony at War Crimes Conference
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/18337 [129]
New Light Shed on CIA's "Black Site" Prisons
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/19084 [130]
Aspects of Padilla's Treatment Confirmed
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/19085 [131]
What happened to the Padilla interrogation videos?
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/19632 [132]
'We Were Torturing People For No Reason' -- A Soldier's Tale
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/20720 [133]
'Outsourced Guantanamo' - FBI & CIA Interrogating Detainees in Secret
Ethiopian Jails, U.S. Citizen Among Those Held
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/20977 [134]
CIA Tortured Me in Iraq, Claims Freed Iranian Diplomat
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/20992 [135]
Photos of 'tortured' Iraqi's corpse released
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/21391 [136]
Former Guantanamo inmate describes interrogations
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23719 [137]
Rumsfeld, Perjury, and Shoving Things Up Rectums
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/23721 [138]
Guantanamo Man's Family Release 'Torture' Dossier
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/25717 [139]
CIA detention program remains active: U.S. official
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27486 [140]
Torture Victim Tells His Story to Congress
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/27876 [141]
Guantanamo Military Lawyer Breaks Ranks to Condemn "Unconscionable"
Detention
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28147 [142]
Dozens of 'Ghost Prisoners' Not Publicly Accounted For
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28211 [143]
Torture Orders Came from Bush
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28347 [144]
Flight Logs Reveal Secret Rendition
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/28955 [145]
Jordan's Spy Agency: Holding Cell for the CIA
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29065 [146]
Former chief prosecutor for the Office of Military Commissions resigned his
post
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29300 [147]
Kiriakou: White House Approved Abuzabaydah's WaterBoarding
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/29335 [148]
And then, of course, there are the missing torture tapes. If they were
destroyed, please keep in mind the following points:
1. They are not needed to document the torture. The evidence is
overwhelming.
2. The destruction of tapes is not the major crime here.
3. The major crime is the American people's failure to force our
representatives in Congress to impeach these fascist bastards.
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson