I’m no fan of Wilson, but I am happy to see her break with the House

leadership and the White House. Duhbya wants the CIA to remain free to torture as needed — and surely wants more than just the CIA to be

free to torture. How can anyone doubt that torture isn’t supported from the top down. mjh

ABQjournal: Rep. Wilson Favors Anti-Torture Rules By Michael

Coleman

On Tuesday, the Washington Post reported that the Bush administration wants to exempt the Central Intelligence Agency

from new anti-torture rules under consideration in the Senate.

The Senate voted 90 to 9 earlier this month to change a defense

spending bill in a way that would prohibit harsh or degrading treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody anywhere in the world. According to

the Post, the Senate wanted to close a loophole in current law.

The White House reportedly opposes the Senate’s broad

such change.

Wilson, a New Mexico Republican, Air Force veteran and member of the House Permanent Select Committee on

Intelligence, said the news report troubled her.

“It makes no sense to me,” Wilson said. “The United States government has a

responsibility to live up to our obligations in both the Convention on Torture and the Geneva Conventions.”

Truth About Torture By Michael Hirsh

The Bush administration has

consistently maintained that it is not U.S. policy to abuse prisoners. But Bush has threatened to veto the entire appropriations bill if

it contains McCain’s language — all in an effort to preserve the right to treat prisoners in whatever way the president decides

is necessary. Last week Vice President Dick Cheney, with CIA Director Porter Goss in tow, met with McCain to try to persuade him

to exclude the CIA from any restrictions. The administration also sought to cut out the term “regardless of physical location,” McCain

said in an interview. The Washington Post, in a harsh editorial, later branded Cheney “the vice president for torture.”

Cheney’s spokeswoman, Lea Anne McBride, said she had no comment on the McCain meeting. CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Dyck also declined to

talk about it. But John Yoo, a former Justice Department official who drafted an August 2002 memo that justified rough methods, said last

week that the administration should continue to treat terrorists differently overseas because they “do not operate according to the

Geneva Conventions.”

I think the important part of this story is not that bodies were burned — our culture says that’s hygienic, not

desecration. What’s important it that we turned that against the Taliban, that we taunted them for being "women" — yes,

repeatedly. We have a "Psy-Ops", a concept worthy of 1984, a corp whose job it is to fuck with people heads. Who is to say we

don’t have a domestic version of the same?

It is stunning and almost hilarious that Rumsfeld has said he wants to get to the

bottom of this. The taunts could have been written by him and, whichever commanding officer did write them must have thought he was doing

what his bosses — Rumsfeld and Duhbya — want. We need for officers and soldiers to come forward, to say, to hell with the Commander-

in-Chief, your loyalty is to the nation. Tell us what these bastards are making you do! mjh

Alleged Desecration of Bodies

Investigated

U.S. Military Acts to Control Muslim Backlash After Incident in Afghanistan
By Bradley Graham,

Washington Post Staff Writer

Stephen Dupont, the Australian journalist who took the video, said the airborne troops who burned

the bodies indicated they had been ordered to do so purely to dispose of them. "They said to me, ‘We’ve been told to burn the

bodies because the bodies have been here for 24 hours and they’re starting to stink,’ " Dupont said in an interview on the

network’s Web site. "So for hygiene purposes, this is what we’ve got to do." It was later, he said, that the

from the Taliban, so the Taliban could attack them," he said. [mjh: who gave the order?]

USATODAY.com – Pentagon probing taped burning of bodies

Stephen Dupont, an Australian cameraman who shot the

video, said the troops who burned the bodies were U.S. Army paratroopers he joined during combat missions. He said that other American

soldiers used a loudspeaker later to goad Taliban members, calling them “cowardly dogs” and “lady boys” for not retrieving the bodies.

… Later, Dupont said, psychological operations troops gave the taunting statements over loudspeakers to anger and flush out other

Taliban.

A few conservative blogs take some delight in Democratic frustration at not

having the usual mugshot of Tom "The Hammer" DeLay ("I am the federal government"). Must be nice for DeLay to have

connections protecting him.

Actually, I’ll take the picture of the grinning fool who thinks he can fake his way out of this.

There are limits to "making your own reality." DeLay is a certifiable scoundrel who deserves shunning, if not imprisonment.

mjh

||

RedState.org

This is the best-looking mug shot I have ever seen. As such, it is an oddly compelling portrait of this oddly

compelling man at this oddly compelling moment in his life. On CNN this morning, correspondant (sic) Sean Callebs said, "[b]ut think

about it, at some point later today, pictures of DeLay’s mug shot could be plastered all over the TV, plastered all over the Internet.

Certainly something the GOP doesn’t want to see." Gosh, I’m not so sure. Tom DeLay has never looked better. He looks

bright, personable, confident–certainly not guilty. Who would have thunk a mug shot could turn out to be

good propaganda?

DeLay

Smile May Foil Democrat Campaign Ads

DeLay, an 11-term Texas congressman and former pest exterminator famous for enforcing

GOP loyalty, faced a tough reelection campaign even before the indictment.

In the 2004 elections, DeLay won 55 percent of the

vote, a relatively weak showing for a veteran House leader. His challenger next year is expected to be former Rep. Nick Lampson,

who lost his seat in 2004 after he was forced to run in a new district under a redistricting plan pushed by DeLay.

For his mandatory booking Thursday, which caused him to miss voting on a gun industry bill popular in his home state, DeLay

did everything he could to prevent images of the event from being committed to film.

mjh’s Blog: Counterpoint to Eulogies by Tim Wise

It’s why a bona fide

moron like Tom Delay can brag about not having a passport (because, after all, why would anyone want to travel abroad and leave

”Amur’ca,” even for a day) and not be seen as the epitome of a blithering idiot, and why he could probably be elected again and

again in thousands of white dominated congressional districts in this country, and not merely in Texas.

mjh’s Weblog Entry – 07/29/2003: "Contempt for the public" by

Paul Krugman

Another answer may be that in modern America, style trumps substance. Here’s what Tom DeLay, the House majority

leader, said in a speech last week: "To gauge just how out of touch the Democrat leadership is on the war on terror, just close your

eyes and try to imagine Ted Kennedy landing that Navy jet on the deck of that aircraft carrier." To say the obvious, that remark

reveals a powerful contempt for the public: Mr. DeLay apparently believes that the nation will trust a man, independent of the facts,

because he looks good dressed up as a pilot. But it’s possible that he’s right.

mjh’s Weblog Entry – 05/27/2003: "Tom Delay: "I am the federal

government.""

[Speaker of the House Tom] DeLay recently revealed how he felt about rules of general applicability.

When he tried smoking a cigar in a restaurant on federal property, the manager told him it violated federal law. His response, according

to The Washington Post, was, "I am the federal government."

For President

Under Duress, Body Language Speaks Volumes By Dana Milbank

[T]his much could be seen watching the tape of NBC’s broadcast

during Bush’s 14-minute pre-sunrise interview, in which he stood unprotected by the usual lectern. The president was a blur of

blinks, taps, jiggles, pivots and shifts. Bush has always been an active man, but standing with Lauer and the serene, steady

first lady, he had the body language of a man wishing urgently to be elsewhere. [mjh: need to go to the restroom?]

The fidgeting clearly corresponded to the questioning. … Bush blinked 24 times in his answer. … Bush

blinked 23 times and hitched his trousers up by the belt. … Bush blinked 37 times in a single answer — along with a

lick of the lips, three weight shifts and some serious foot jiggling.

Dead giveaway – smh.com.au

Another

supposed sign of lying is rapid blinking. It’s true that when we become aroused or our mind is racing, there’s a corresponding

increase in our blinking rate. Our normal rate is about 20 blinks per minute, but it can increase to four or five times that figure when

we feel under pressure. When liars are searching for an answer to an awkward question, their thought processes speed up. In this kind of

situation, lying is frequently associated with blinking. But we need to remember that there are times when people have a high blinking

rate, not because they’re lying, but because they’re under pressure. Also, there are times when liars show normal rates.

Fidgeting and awkward hand movements are also thought to be signs of deceit ….

How the Republicans Let It Slip Away By David Ignatius

What’s interesting is that most of these wounds are self-inflicted. They draw a picture of a party that, for all its

seeming dominance, isn’t prepared to be the nation’s governing party. The hard right, which is the soul of the modern

GOP, would rather be ideologically pure than successful. Governing requires making compromises and getting your hands

dirty, but the conservative purists disdain those qualities. …

Bush and the Republicans had a chance after 2004 to become the

country’s natural governing party. They controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. The Democrats were in utter disarray,

leaderless and idea-less. When Bush took the podium in January to deliver his soaring second inaugural address, the future seemed to

belong to the Republicans.

Bush squandered this opportunity by falling into the trap that has snared the modern GOP — of playing

to the base rather than to the nation. The Republicans behave as if the country agrees with them on issues, when that

demonstrably isn’t so. …

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll in late August found 54 percent describing themselves as pro-

choice and only 38 percent as pro-life, roughly the same percentages as a decade ago.

Knowing that the FBI and CIA can already spy on us

— without telling us and while sharing their discoveries — doesn’t make me any more enthusiastic about adding DIA to the alphabet

soup.

Remember what Martha Stewart went to prison for? For lying to a federal agent (but not while under oath). Now, even if the

agent doesn’t identify himself or herself as such, you’ll probably go to prison if you don’t tell them everything they want to know.

Welcome to Duhbya’s Amerika! mjh

Request for Domestic Covert Role Is Defended By Walter Pincus,

Washington Post Staff Writer

As part of the expanding counterterrorism role being taken on by the Pentagon, Defense Intelligence

Agency covert operatives need to be able to approach potential sources in the United States without identifying themselves

as government agents, George Peirce, the DIA’s general counsel, said yesterday.

“This is not about spying on

Americans,” Peirce said…. [mjh: of course, it is]

The CIA and the FBI already have such

authority, he added, and the DIA needs it “to develop critical leads” because “there is more than enough work for all of

us to do.”

The legislative proposal has been controversial on Capitol Hill and has drawn criticism from groups concerned

with privacy and civil liberties.

Cal Thomas

say “not in time of war,” knowing that we are in an endless war, guaranteeing the Republicans, and the Radical Right that controls the

GOP, power for a generation or more. Or, so they thought a year ago. The War President has become the Disaster President and the

Republican monolith shows huge cracks. mjh

Cal Thomas

Democrats think that by launching their vast left-wing

political and media conspiracy against Tom DeLay and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist … they will elbow their way back into power.

That strategy occasionally worked for Democrats in the past, but not in a time of war.