mjh's blog

Happy New Calendar!

Cold Lang Syne

The coyotes
celebrated New Year’s Eve
down by
the frozen lake.

Their singing
at midnight
woke us
from a deep sleep
snug in our tent
piled high
with bags, blankets and clothes.

I’ve never heard
so devilish a song
so demented an
Auld Lang Syne.

Just when you feared
they might devour us,

the coyotes drove off
in their red minivan
with the bumper sticker that read
“Eat More Sheep”

class="sig">mjh

Donald Rumsfeld is Watching

Note that the Counterintelligence

Field Activity, or CIFA, with its Talon Reports, is different from earlier reports on the

href="http://www.edgewiseblog.com/mjh/nada/dump-duhbya/to-protect-and-uphold-the-constitution/">National Security Agency (which is

also a Defense Department agency, by the way). And it is different from the FBI spying on PETA and others. Or the CIA. Or your city,

county and state police. A vast network looking desperately for dots to connect. Are you a dot?

How much spying are we doing

domestically? That’s a secret. What’s it cost? That’s a secret. How many mistakes are made? That’s a secret.

Eisenhower warned

us about the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex. Raygun revved up military spending ostensibly to bankrupt the Soviets (a model

bin Laden is well-aware of). With the winding down of the Cold War, what was a militarist-money-maker to do? Thank god we have an endless

war on a shadowy enemy who can never surrender.

I’m not saying that Our Savior is destroying our village to save it just because

it makes lots of money for his friends. No, I’m convinced Duhbya is mentally ill with Post Traumatic Shock Syndrome and guilt for 9/11

(perhaps coupled with prolonged oxygen deprivation after that pretzel choking incident). Perhaps Rumsfeld and Cheney are just as

deranged. These guys need help, but our healing begins with their departure. mjh

href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/10/AR2005121000893.html">Defense Facilities Pass Along Reports of

Suspicious Activity
Raw Information’ From Military, Civilians Is Given to Pentagon
By Walter Pincus, Washington Post Staff

Writer

Day after day, reports of suspicious activity filed from military bases and other defense installations throughout the

United States flow into the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, a three-year-old Pentagon agency whose size and budget

remain classified.

The Talon [which stands for "threat and local observation notice"] reports, as they are called, are

based on information from civilians and military personnel who stumble across people or information they think might be part of a

terrorist plot or threat against defense facilities at home or abroad. …

Talon reports grew out of a program called

Eagle Eyes, an anti-terrorist program established by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations that “enlists the eyes and ears of

Air Force members and citizens in the war on terror,” according to the program’s Web site. …

A former senior CIA official with

wide counterintelligence experience, who is familiar with CIFA’s growth, said the agency’s mandate is “ambiguous, but the Defense

Department is using its assets in its broadest terms.” He added that efforts such as Talon “could be a well-intentioned effort and it

could develop important information.” But, he said that in his view, “the Pentagon has chosen to err on the side of over-collection” of

information.

His concern, he said, was who does the intelligence “go to, and what do they do with it.”

href="http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=2005121510522317">Infoshop News – 1-800-CALL-SPY: Military intelligence database

short on threats, long on stupid Contributed by: arch_stanton

[T]he database, which contains reports such as those called in

to the DOD’s 1-800-CALL-SPY hotline, contains almost 50 anti-war meetings or protests, such as an anti-war meeting held by Quakers last

year. …

In the program’s first year, the agency received more than 5,000 TALON reports. The database obtained

by NBC News is generated by Counterintelligence Field Activity.

I’m a Soldier, Not a Spy by Grant Doty, a lieutenant colonel in

the Army

Yes, I took an oath to defend the United States against all enemies “foreign and domestic,” but the implication of

domestic intelligence-gathering by the military, even by a limited number of soldiers, should be sufficiently disturbing for American

citizens in and out of uniform that we think long and hard about crossing the line, even a little.

class="mine">Remember right after 9/11, when AssKraft came out in favor of folks like UPS, USPS, & FedEx delivery people, plus meter

readers, et. al., keeping their eyes open and letting the government know of anything suspicious. Even in the moment of our deepest shock

most people recoiled against that idea. AssKraft is gone (awaiting a Supreme Court nomination), but the ideas live on.

Seeing

Wolfowitz’s name throughout this report did nothing to reassure me. mjh

Whatever it takes

href="http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/12/23/bushs_false_choices?mode=PF">Bush’s false choices

By Ellen Goodman

We have been handed yet another in an endless series of false choices. Those who don’t blindly trust the

president are dismissed as amnesia victims. Americans who don’t connect the dots from 9/11 to Iraq or spying or torture are cast as

actors living in a foolish, fearless, fantasy world. Indeed, 9/11 was the day the president became the commander in chief. The words he

often repeats were spoken to him by a rescue worker at the World Trade Center: ”Whatever it takes.” …

But gradually, 9/11

became the all-purpose excuse for . . . whatever it takes. …

”Whatever it takes” does not mean ”whatever the

president says it takes.” It does not mean becoming our own worst enemies. It does not mean approving torture or domestic

spying. And it most certainly does not mean watching silently as a commander in chief takes on the uniform of a generalissimo.

Who

owns September 11? The White House has built its own memorial and raised a stiff price of admission. It only allows in those who agree

with the president. …

The Beast Master

I’ve long thought that the selection

of Duhbya, so obviously unqualified for the presidency, by the Radical Right was part of their campaign to prove government feckless and

worthless. Like putting an idiot in charge of a business you want to run into bankruptcy for tax purposes.

If that seems a bit off

to you, consider that the Radical Right is deliberately running up the deficit to “starve the beast.” Why not give “the beast” an inept

handler? mjh

American Prospect Online – The Death and Life of American Liberalism By Robert

Kuttner

The conservative movement is rooted in a coherent, easy-to-summarize ideology: Government doesn’t work, except to

protect you from terrorists; you deserve to keep more of your own money; cherished American family values, including national security,

are under assault from liberals. The right has fine-tuned and segmented its rhetorical symphony so that the bass notes rock its

political primitives while a softer timbre appeals to the moderate ear.

The right’s famed echo chamber now can “narrowcast”

complementary messages to every major demographic group. “For conservative voters in Peoria,” says Rob Stein of the Democracy Alliance,

“there’s something for everyone. The businessman gets it from The Wall Street Journal editorial page. The soccer mom has FOX News. The

24-year-old beer-drinking guy has Rush [Limbaugh]. The religious right can get the word from Pat Robertson.”

A movement ideology

also produces unity. Despite schisms, the right is simply more disciplined. The discipline is reinforced by new forms of patronage — tax

breaks for the elite, godliness for the base. Worldly sinners among Wall Street Republicans may smirk at the fundamentalists in their

governing coalition, but are happy to share the bounty. They may privately oppose the immense budget deficits, but the heavily

Republican Concord Coalition, so publicly alarmed at the (Republican legacy) deficits of the 1990s, is today prudently silent.

Conversely, social conservatives may wince at the antics and views of Rudy Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger, but the coalition holds.

Genuine Republican moderates, meanwhile, have been coerced or co-opted into near silence. The resulting legislative unity is also

unprecedented.

Finally, there’s a war on, a conveniently permanent one. The right manipulates fear of terrorism

into public and media acquiescence for a politics that would never prevail in normal times.

And yet, this overpowering structural

tilt conceals some surprisingly good news. Despite its immense advantages, the right barely prevailed in the last two presidential

elections, even against feckless Democratic campaigns. The superior infrastructure just offset the extremism. The country remains

skeptical about most Republican policies, from Social Security privatization to the assault on the courts. As John B. Judis and Ruy

Teixeira have documented, potentially liberal groups are demographically ascendant. There is a latent liberal majority, if liberals can

once again learn to do politics.

Another Victim of American Torture: Maher Arar

Maher Arar is yet another victim of American torture, like

href="http://www.edgewiseblog.com/mjh/nada/dump-duhbya/america-kidnapped-me/">Khaled El-Masri. How many more are there that we will

never hear about? mjh

Maher Arar
Maher Arar is a

34-year-old wireless technology consultant. Arar was born in Syria and at the age of 17, came to Canada with his family. He became a

Canadian citizen in 1991 and in 1997 moved to Ottawa.

In September 2002, Arar was in Tunisia, vacationing with his wife Monia

Mazigh and their two small children. On Sept. 26 while in transit in New York’s JFK airport, he was detained by US officials and

from there transferred to a Syrian prison.

In Syria, he was held in a tiny “grave-like” cell for ten months and ten days

before he was moved to a better cell in a different prison. He was beaten, tortured and forced to make a false confession.

href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/arar/">CBC News Indepth: Maher Arar: Timeline

Oct. 27, 2005
A fact-finder appointed

by the Arar inquiry releases a report concluding that Arar was tortured when in Syrian custody three years ago. “I am convinced that his

description of his treatment in Syria is accurate,” Stephen Toope wrote. …

Oct. 6, 2003:
Arar returns to Montreal, 375 days

after U.S. immigration officials arrested him. …

Oct. 29, 2002:
Canada issues travel advisory to all Canadians born in Iran,

Iraq, Libya, Sudan or Syria to reconsider entering the United States. It follows a U.S. decision to photograph and fingerprint people

born in those countries who enter the U.S.

mjh’s

blog — America kidnapped me

Let Me See Your ID

Ohio

leads the way to a New American Fascism. If you look at the list of those voting, you’ll find Republicans and Democrats on both sides of

the vote. Stopping the erosion of our freedoms is a non-partisan activity. mjh

href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/wews/3133362;_ylt=ArGReUW1ECq12DeewBwxK6gDW7oF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl">Bill Would Allow

Arrests For No Reason In Public Place

The Ohio Patriot Act has made it to the Taft’s desk, and with the stroke of a pen, it

would most likely become the toughest terrorism bill in the country. The lengthy piece of legislation would let police arrest people in

public places who will not give their names, address and birth dates, even if they are not doing anything wrong.

[I]t would also

pave the way for everyone entering critical transportation sites such as, train stations, airports and bus stations to show ID.

“It brings us frighteningly close to a show me your papers society,” said Carrie Davis of the ACLU, which opposes the Ohio Patriot

Act.

ACLU Urges Governor Taft to Veto

Ohio’s Patriot Act

The most controversial provisions were sections requiring people to provide identification to police

officers if they are traveling though “transportation infrastructure sites”, a provision requiring those applying for certain types of

licenses to fill out a questionnaire about ties to terrorism, and a section that aimed to discourage municipalities from speaking

out against the USA PATRIOT Act.

mjh’s blog — FBI Papers Show Terror Inquiries Into PETA; Other Groups Tracked

Police Infiltrate Protests

So, cops are free to pretend to be part of any group and even to agitate?

mjh

Police Infiltrate Protests,

Videotapes Show – New York Times By JIM DWYER

Undercover New York City police officers have conducted covert

surveillance in the last 16 months of people protesting the Iraq war, bicycle riders taking part in mass rallies and even

mourners at a street vigil for a cyclist killed in an accident, a series of videotapes show.

In glimpses and in glaring detail,

the videotape images reveal the robust presence of disguised officers or others working with them at seven public gatherings since August

2004.

The officers hoist protest signs. They hold flowers with mourners. They ride in bicycle events. At the vigil for the

cyclist, an officer in biking gear wore a button that said, “I am a shameless agitator.” She also carried a camera and videotaped the

roughly 15 people present.

Beyond collecting information, some of the undercover officers or their associates are seen on

the tape having influence on events. At a demonstration last year during the Republican National Convention, the sham arrest of

a man secretly working with the police led to a bruising confrontation between officers in riot gear and bystanders.

Until Sept. 11, the secret monitoring of events where people expressed their opinions was among the most tightly

limited of police powers.

It’s not fascism when we do it!

I know this is rude, but it is very artfully done. mjh

From

href="http://oldamericancentury.org/">www.oldamericancentury.org/ via Cocoposts.

Power We Didn’t Grant

class="mine">Note that Bush asked for powers he was specifically denied by the Senate and then went on to act as if those powers were

granted, only later to claim they were granted when he knows they were not. He does what he want, when he wants, as he wants and lies

whenever he needs to — all for our good, of course. mjh

PS: I’m perfectly willing to believe Bush

either has no idea what was asked for and denied or can’t remember now. Does it really make things better if he is forgetful or stupid?

PPS: I’m looking for a poll that asks: “If you voted for Bush a year ago, would you vote for him today?”

href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/22/AR2005122201101.html">Power We Didn’t Grant By Tom Daschle

On the evening of Sept. 12, 2001, the White House proposed that Congress authorize the use of military force to “deter and pre-empt

any future acts of terrorism or aggression against the United States.” Believing the scope of this language was too broad and ill

defined, Congress chose instead, on Sept. 14, to authorize “all necessary and appropriate force against those nations,

organizations or persons [the president] determines planned, authorized, committed or aided” the attacks of Sept. 11. With this language,

Congress denied the president the more expansive authority he sought and insisted that his authority be used specifically against Osama

bin Laden and al Qaeda.

Just before the Senate acted on this compromise resolution, the White House sought one last change.

Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words “in the United States and”

States, potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for Congress to accede to this extraordinary

request for additional authority. I refused. …

[A] strong bipartisan majority could not agree to the administration’s

request for an unprecedented grant of authority.

The Bush administration now argues those powers were inherently

contained in the resolution adopted by Congress — but at the time, the administration clearly felt they weren’t or it wouldn’t

have tried to insert the additional language.

Bush Administration’s obsession with secrecy

IN THE KINGDOM OF THE HALF-BLIND By Bill Moyers

It has to be said: there has been nothing in our time like the Bush Administration’s obsession with secrecy.

This may seem self-serving coming from someone who worked for two previous presidents who were no paragons of openness. But I am only

one of legions who have reached this conclusion. See the recent pair of articles by the independent journalist, Michael Massing, in The

New York Review of Books. He concludes, “The Bush Administration has restricted access to public documents as no other before it.” And he

backs this up with evidence.

For example, a recent report on government secrecy by the watchdog group,

href="http://OpenTheGovernment.org/">OpenTheGovernment.org, says the Feds classified a record 15.6 million new documents in

Advisory Committee meetings in 2004 were completely closed to the public.

No wonder the public knows so little about how

this administration has deliberately ignored or distorted reputable scientific research to advance its political agenda

and the wishes of its corporate patrons. I’m talking about the suppression of that EPA report questioning aspects of the White House

Clear Skies Act; research censorship at the departments of health and human services, interior and agriculture; the elimination of

qualified scientists from advisory committees on kids and lead poisoning, reproductive health, and drug abuse; the distortion of

scientific knowledge on emergency contraception; the manipulation of the scientific process involving the Endangered Species Act; and the

internal sabotage of government scientific reports on global warming

It’s an old story: the greater the secrecy, the

deeper the corruption.

squarely on the side of the wealthy, the privileged and the connected

When

the Cutting Is Corrupted By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Only the voters can render a judgment on a politics of favoritism that has

created a new Gilded Age. It’s clear that the national government has placed itself squarely on the side of the wealthy, the

privileged and the connected. …

The Medicaid cuts include increased co-payments and premiums on low-income Americans,

and the budget assumes savings because fewer poor people will visit the doctor. …

Ah, say their defenders, but

these cuts will be good for poor people. According to the New York Times, Rep. Joe L. Barton (R-Tex.), an architect of the

Medicaid proposals, said the higher co-payments were needed to “encourage personal responsibility” among low-income people.

Spoken like a congressman who never has to worry about his taxpayer-provided health coverage.

And that

is just one instance among many of corporate interests being shielded from cuts, while child support enforcement and foster care programs

were sliced.

Bosque del Apache

src='http://mjhinton.net/mjh/graphics/bosque004WinCE.jpg' alt='bird watching' class="alignright" />We made our annual pilgrimage to

Bosque del Apache last week. This is the third year we have rented a van to carry six of us: Mer, me, Melissa, Lew, Kathleen and Dave,

our ornithologist. Dave’s ability to identify birds with the briefest of sightings or just by sound is very impressive. Where I see “a

bunch of birds in a bush,” he sees a dozen or more species.

alt='birding technology' class="left" />Overall, I think we saw fewer individual birds. In particular, there seemed to be far fewer cranes than usual.

Still, we got to see plenty of birds between noon and sunset, including coots, grebes, a pheasant, kestrels, pintails, bald eagles,

harriers, red tail hawks, a merganzer, a great blue heron, and a road runner.

A key part of our expedition is grazing. Everyone

contributes great food, most of it homemade and gourmet. We munch at stops and have a real meal at on one of the decks. After dark, we

stop in San Antonio for burgers, usually at the Owl, but this time at the Buckhorn, which most of us liked more.

src='http://mjhinton.net/mjh/graphics/bosque214WinCE.jpg' alt='sunset at Bosque del Apache' class="left" />My favorite bird-specific

moment was seeing a harrier (aka marsh hawk) harassing a red-tailed hawk.

The big show is the fly-in at sunset (or fly-out at

sunrise, which I think is a little more spectacular — one year Mer and I saw both). There is nothing like the symphony of geese and

cranes and the rustle and squeak of the feathers in their wings.

The colors of this sunset were stunning. Though the groups

flying in seemed smaller and fewer, we lingered past dark, delighted as always. mjh

PS: See

href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjhinton/tags/bosquedelapache/">some of my photos from the trip; from there, follow the link to

similarly tagged photos from other photographers. My blog-bud, johnny_mango, rode bikes with MaryAnn around the bosque last week;

href="http://albloggerque.blogspot.com/2005/12/biking-bosque-del-apache.html">read his entry and see his photos.

Technical

Note: if these pictures don’t align to the left or right with text flowing around them, you may need to force a refresh of the

stylesheet — try Ctrl+Refresh (hold down the Ctrl-key as you click the Refresh/Reload button).

Defending the King

Arch-conservative Krauthammer speaks about Bush “circumventing” the law. Where does “circumvent” lie

between enforcing and breaking the law? mjh

href="http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer122305.asp">Charles Krauthammer Impeachment nonsense

Contrary to the

administration, I also believe that as a matter of political prudence and comity with Congress, Bush should have tried to get the law

changed rather than circumvent it. This was an error of political judgment. But that does not make it a crime. And only the most brazen

and reckless partisan could pretend it is anything approaching a high crime and misdemeanor.

href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/26/politics/26powell.html">Powell Speaks Out on Domestic Spy Program By STEVEN R. WEISMAN

Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said on Sunday … “My own judgment is that it didn’t seem to me, anyway, that it

would have been that hard to go get the warrants,” Mr. Powell said. “And even in the case of an emergency, you go and do it.

The law provides for that.”

But Mr. Powell added that “for reasons that the president has discussed and the

attorney general has spoken to, they chose not to do it that way.”

“I see absolutely nothing wrong with the president authorizing

these kinds of actions,” he said. …

Mr. Powell said he had not been told about the eavesdropping activity when he served as

secretary of state. … Though Mr. Powell stopped short of criticizing Mr. Bush, his suggestion that there was “another way to handle it”

was another example of his parting company on a critical issue with the president he served for four years.

America kidnapped me

I did not want to read this account

by Khaled El-Masri, who was kidnapped by Americans in Europe. I would call what he endured prolonged torture. The way his was treated

degrades us all. I refuse to endorse or tolerate a system that shrugs off this abuse. He was terrorized on our behalf.

class="sig">mjh

America kidnapped me – Los Angeles Times By Khaled El-Masri, KHALED EL-MASRI, a German citizen born in

Lebanon, was a car salesman before he was detained in December 2003.

THE U.S. POLICY of “extraordinary rendition” has a human

face, and it is mine.

I am still recovering from an experience that was completely beyond the pale, outside the bounds of any

legal framework and unacceptable in any civilized society. Because I believe in the American system of justice, I sued George Tenet, the

former CIA director, last week. What happened to me should never be allowed to happen again. …

Eventually my blindfold was

removed, and I saw men dressed in black, wearing black ski masks. I did not know their nationality. I was put in a diaper, a belt with

chains to my wrists and ankles, earmuffs, eye pads, a blindfold and a hood. I was thrown into a plane, and my legs and arms were spread-

eagled and secured to the floor. I felt two injections and became nearly unconscious. I felt the plane take off, land and take off. I

learned later that I had been taken to Afghanistan.

There, I was beaten again and left in a small, dirty, cold concrete cell. I

was extremely thirsty, but there was only a bottle of putrid water in the cell. I was refused fresh water. …

[read it all -

href="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-masri18dec18,0,3748543.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions">America kidnapped

me By Khaled El-Masri]

America, United States, Times

Online, The Times, Sunday Times

In the end, the eagerness of a junior officer in the CIA’s Skopje office and a gut feeling on

the part of the head of the CIA’s al-Qaeda unit contrived to have Masri sent to a prison for terrorist suspects known as “The

Salt Pit” in Afghanistan.

“Masri was held for five months largely because the head of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center’s al

Qaeda unit ‘believed he was someone else’, one former CIA official said. ‘She didn’t really know. She just had a hunch,’” The

Washington Post reported.

Wrongful

Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake By Dana Priest, Washington Post Staff Writer

The Masri case, with new details gleaned

from interviews with current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials, offers a rare study of how pressure on the CIA to

apprehend al Qaeda members after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has led in some instances to detention based on thin or speculative

evidence. The case also shows how complicated it can be to correct errors in a system built and operated in secret.

The CIA,

working with other intelligence agencies, has captured an estimated 3,000 people, including several key leaders of al

Qaeda, in its campaign to dismantle terrorist networks. It is impossible to know, however, how many mistakes the CIA and its

foreign partners have made. [mjh: Because just reading this is giving aid to the enemy. Or so BushCo

claims.] …

Members of the Rendition Group follow a simple but standard procedure: Dressed head to toe in

black, including masks, they blindfold and cut the clothes off their new captives, then administer an enema and sleeping drugs. They

outfit detainees in a diaper and jumpsuit for what can be a day-long trip. Their destinations: either a detention facility operated by

cooperative countries in the Middle East and Central Asia, including Afghanistan, or one of the CIA’s own covert prisons — referred to

in classified documents as “black sites,” which at various times have been operated in eight countries, including several in Eastern

Europe.

In the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the CTC was the place to be for CIA officers wanting in on the fight. The staff

ballooned from 300 to 1,200 nearly overnight.

“It was the Camelot of counterterrorism,” a former counterterrorism official said.

“We didn’t have to mess with others — and it was fun.” [mjh: Join the CIA. See the World. Torture for fun.]

…

The process of vetting and evaluating information suffered greatly, former and current intelligence officials said.

“Whatever quality control mechanisms were in play on September 10th were eliminated on September 11th,” a former senior

intelligence official said. …

[I]n line with the responsibility Bush bestowed on the CIA when he signed a top secret

presidential finding six days after the 9/11 attacks. It authorized an unprecedented range of covert action, including lethal measures

and renditions, disinformation campaigns and cyber attacks…. [It] played well at the White House, where the president was keeping a

scorecard of captured or killed terrorists.