February 02, 2008

Israel gearing up for another war -- Signs of the Times News

Israel calls for shelter rooms to be set up in a bid to prepare the public for yet another war, this time, one of raining missiles. "The next war will see a massive use of ballistic weapons against the whole of Israeli territory," claimed retired general Udi Shani.

read more | digg story

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

[for public comment: Do not attribute to "anonymous", just post it, and see who is looking at it. You'll see some law firms swooping in. Check their names of their firms as the appear on your register.]

[public comment:]

There's a crack in the President's efforts to thwart a war crimes investigation. Former and currently assigned legal counsel have a major problem. Evidence developed supports the allegations the NSA did rely on illegally captured information to violate FISA, target Americans, and render innocents in violation of the laws of war.

The CIA and NSA appear to have worked with the OVP to destroy the link between Geneva violations, unlawful FISA violations, prisoner abuse, and warrantless interrogations of US citizens, in breach of domestic and international law.

There is no statute of limitations for war crimes. The alleged evidence destruction appears well connected from concerns the JAGs well raised in re Geneva. The penalty of war crimes evidence destruction could include the death penalty.

The WH e-mail destruction is not linked with a sole event, but the broader effort to hide the use of unreliable information to justify bypassing the Congress and Courts. The basis for the state secrets claims have less to do with national security, and more to do with hiding evidence of war crimes, impeachable offenses, and violations of the Supreme Law including the Bill of Rights.

The President, Congress, and US Courts have been complicit with illegal US government activity to hide from public view evidence of the US government official's illegal conduct. They've been turning a blind eye to illegality to avoid paying attention to their complicity with the illegalities.

This misconduct and malfeasance spans all three branches, including legal counsel, court officers, and legislators. The alleged malfeasance relates to failures to enforce the laws of war, investigate, and enforce the law as required by oath.

[end public comments]

[NOTE: private comment: ]

- What role does DOJ AG have in thwarting a real investigation given his relative with Verizon could be implicated in alleged war crimes?

AG is asserting silence on waterboarding because: Verizon was connected with the fiber optics interceptions, and the transfer of that data for subsequent use during abuse of POWs, in violation of Geneva.

You may assume the AG is tainted; and has a personal interest in protecting his relative from an alleged war crimes indictment. Evidence could be destroyed; and lines of inquiry not followed, as they should.

[I'm still mulling this over: This isn't ready for publication. Maybe put this up as a draft . . .not yet. Save this for future reference. Something is new here. ]

[Feel free to use the "gist" of the comments, but do not quote directly. Feel free to rewrite for your own purposes/publication, but do not post any of this word-for-word publicly.]

Subj: CIA IG ombudsman, TPM posting problems

Something occurred to me in response to:" The results suggest CIA officers were concerned there was a presumption of guilt and they were not treated fairly by Helgerson's team of investigators" from

The "presumption of guilt"-assertion is jut that, an assertion. Perhaps the CIA agents _were_ guilty; and were sensitive to the probing questions.

Conversely, now the CIA knows about the "problems with presumption of guilt"-approach, and may have a sense of how the US public feels after 9-11: We're treated as if guilty until proven innocent.

Now, consider this, current at top on Kos, with only 5 comments: here. Notice Clarke is saying, in effect, the President got it all backwards.

Clarke is essentially saying, "We've destroyed our rule of law, and we're worse off. Rather than go after the enemy, this President treats the US public, rule of law, and facts as if they were the enemy."

Going back to the CIA ombudsman issue: We still don't know for sure whether the CIA IG really did anything wrong. Rather, based on the Hayden promises, it appears he's offering CIA agents things they already had: Access to legal counsel.

The only thing we're seeing is that investigations will be "faster": That's curious: What if it does take time to get through the CIA agents' stonewalling. "Oh, we can't go on, we have a time limit." Maybe the investigation was long because the CIA agents were delaying; and the CIA IG was going after the right things. We don't know.

Let's consider what little we've been told: We haven't been told about the scope of the CIA IG review, although it appears it involves Guantanamo; but it may have included Eastern Europe detention/abuse.

The 9-11 Commission reports that the footnotes relied on information gleaned from torture: from. 9-11 commission has been discredited when they say, "We had no idea about torture": The answers to their questions allegedly relied on torture for them to complete their report.

Did you catch that: "Torture" as an unreliable source of info was the means by which the 9-11 COmmission told te public "what happened":

9-11 was about FISA failures; NSA failures.

We don't know for certain what happened on 9-11, because the conclusions are based on data relying on abuse, dubious information, and NSA targeting that used that illegally captured information to then request more data. Cycle is this: US government before 9-11 messes up; action occurs; US government uses unreliable information to conclude what happened; then uses unreliable information to expand illegal warfare.

Key point: Appearance of CIA use of illegally captured information, as suspected. If the 9-11 Commission was using this data/abuse to gt information, seems logical NSA was also doing the same when bybassing the FISA court and going after US citizens' data: On absurd accusation alone, relying on worthless information.

That may be the key: Was torture/abuse of POW used to get informatoin that the NSA used to "justify" ignoring the FISA court, and directly target US citizens? Appears to be supported as a conclusion, line of inquiry.

[for public comment:]

Information developed suggests the NSA did rely on illegally captured information to violate FISA, target Americans, and render innocents in violation of the laws of war.

[end public comments]

[re-start/begin private comment:]

It remains unclear how much of the prextextual stops/warrantless interrogations are linked with dubious information gleaned from POW abuse.

- Were Americans told to put up with Consttutional violatins because of dubious information gleaned from prisoner abuse?

- How quickly was Congress told to act on the basis of unreliable information?

We've seen the results of "unrelaiable information" in re Iraq WMD. That was externally. But what about inernally: Against US citizens. Recall, CIA has a larger domestic role.

- How much of the CIA's powers -- abused during watergate, and constrained with laws -- were expanded to justify abusing US citizens on the pretext of dubious information gleaned from illegal abuse? A police state relies on non-sense to justify abuse, avoid oversight, and shift attention elsewhere -- overseas, other people, and to scapegoats with lies, misleading statements, and false "reasons" to violate rights:

- Bogus emergencies
- Shifting stories
- Inconsistent assertions
- Conduct that is not consistent with the asserted reasons for action
- Dubious claims
- Unreliable assertions
- abuse of those who question the dubious assertions (insults, accusations)
- Then using the "lack of a reaction to unfounded taunting" as evidence of "mental problems"; or using taunting to provoke a reaction to jutsify more intrusions . . .

That's what Geneva is about: A system like the US that is relying on non-sense, and ignoring the laws/rules of logic, is going to make other logic errors when conducting planning for warrants, combat, and nation building.

The entire 9-11/Iraq/Afghanistan story is about incompetent people violating the law/using imprudent methods to "respond" to the mess they created. This is why Rome collapsed: Rome wasn't bringing order -- it created a disaster that "it's governance failed, in the long run, to manage."

Let's take a look at the specifics with the CIA internal probe, and show how this imprudence continues:

1. Geneva

"Helgerson has also been highly critical in a classified report of how the CIA has treated its detainees." They've disclosed contents of a classified report; but are going after the NYT reporter. Seriously, where's the US Atty in going after Haydeon on this leak?

2. Assertions

"The CIA has declined to specify why the IG review was undertaken. The results suggest CIA officers were concerned there was a presumption of guilt and they were not treated fairly by Helgerson's team of investigators.

Notice: The CIA investigatyors are not give a chance to rebut this assertion.

3. Ombudsman

"Hayden said Helgerson has appointed an ombudsman to represent the interests of CIA officers under IG investigation.

INterests of the officers may not be the truth, or intersts of justice or oversight.

4. Justice

"He agreed to make a "greater effort" to include the views of those officers in his final reports, and to allow officers to review draft reports. What if the overwhelming evidence is against the CIA agent; are they going to forever have "the last word"? Appears so, in contravention to administrative law precedents: Provide your defense, and then turn it over for judgement.

When someone has a "minority" view, this is the same as giving the defendant, that lost a case, the last word.

5. Legal Counsel

He also agreed to help officers find attorneys with security clearances to represent them if they choose. They've always had this right. This isn't new. The question is whether the CIA agent can access classified information for their defense. Bush says, "Can't litigate that," and throws the case out. So much for oversight.

The trick of defense legal counsel is to attach the defense theory to a known state secret so the defendant cannot defend themselves; and this will get the charges dropped on what are otherwise war crimes hidden behind a veil of "state secrecy".

6. Speed

Officers will be told when interviews are being recorded, and investigations will be conducted more swiftly. Oh, so the assertion that they "weren't told there were recordings" is an issue? CIA looks like it is upset that they said things and couldn't back away from those false statements. Note, the CIA doesn't like recordings, but they destroy the tapes of their abuse.

Also, if the CIA delays long enough, they'll close the investigation. That rewards non-cooperation using arbitrary deadlines.

7. Ombudsman: Minority Voice

"Finally, Helgerson agreed to an internal watchdog of his own, a "quality-control manager" who will ensure that all exculpatory and mitigating information about the subjects of IG investigations is included in final reports.

Again, this asks that we give the minority-losing position another voice after the IG made a conclusion about laws. If the overwhelming evidence, despite the "mitigations", is a conclusion that there was misconduct, that's the conclusion. Period.

This asks that the CIA agent, despite losing a battle with The CIA IG, will get another, and another, and another chance to rebut what might be overwhelming evidence of war crimes, misconduct, or evidence destruction. "But, but. . ."

POINTS

The point is that the US public isn't given this kind of respect: We're told, and not given a chance to input our "minority" views: It's decided, without a debate, and they have no impeachment, investigation, or charge of war crimes.

CIA agents allegedly involved with war crimes are given more rights that US citizens! JTTF and law enforcement lie all the time, and that's removed from the record because there is "no evidence" and the courts give a deferential attitude toward the officers DESPITE THEIR LYING. They lie to justify pretextual stops; then they go on expansive fishing trips. When they cant' find anything, they'll grind a US citizen down with insults, abuse, and arrogant conduct. They're out of control. And the CIA/copes want to have "their input"?!? Where's our input?!?

Rather than lead and protect Americans from external threats, the US government is targeting US citizens: They're targets of convenience, not real threats. The government is using the public's opposition to the US tyranny as a pretext to expand illegal activity against US citizens.

It's feeding off itself. Congress is part of the problem, narrowly focusing on small issues, but not seeing the larger picture: It's a criminal enterprise that is out of control. That's tyranny.

CIA IG appears to have found some things the CIA agents assumed they could get away with doing, but improperly believed given the Geneva restraints. An "ombudsman" appears to be a Russian-komisar-like person to regulate the CIA IG fact finding, and insulate the CIA offers from needed confrontation Geneva violations.

ShareThis