Most Americans believe that we are in a terrible dilemma. An increasing number are uncomfortable with the continuing carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan and fearful of the consequences of yet another Middle East war, this time against Iran, but most also believe that our country is threatened by dark forces that seek to destroy us and that extreme measures are justified. Few realize that fear alone is bringing about our transformation into a country driven by constant warfare to the detriment of our constitutional liberties.

Those who believe that a change of course is essential if we are to survive as a nation quite rightly demand the disengagement of the United States from two wars and the avoidance of further conflicts. They understand that the United States has acted unwisely and illegally in its interference in the affairs of others and also that the presence of American military forces all over the world has not made us safer and has in fact served as a catalyst for escalating violence. But those who see the state of the world with such clarity must first convince a majority of their fellow citizens that disengagement is not another word for national suicide. In short, the American people must come to understand that their safety is best assured when our government does not go around the world looking for dragons to slay. A key element in being able to reassure the American people could be the development of a positive and proactive intelligence program that speaks the truth and, inter alia, could actually help avoid conflicts and demonstrate that every citizen benefits when the United States is at peace and a friend to all nations.

By Ray McGovern
August 30, 2009
ConsortiumNews.com

EXTRA! Read all about it in the Washington Post: Torture worked;
Cheney and torture practitioners vindicated.

It seems coverage of the Bush administration's "war on terror" has been put back on track by the editors of the Washington Post and their "sources" who are determined to highlight the supposed successes of waterboarding and other forms of torture.

Frankly, I was wondering when this return to form would happen at the Post. I was surprised to see Post journalists recently lose their grip, so to speak, and fall into the practice of reporting real facts -- like the sickening revelations in the long-suppressed CIA Inspector General's report on torture.

Apparently they have now been reminded of the biases of the newspaper's top brass, forever justifying the hardnosed "realism" of the Bush administration as it approved brutal and perverse methods for stripping the "bad guys" of their clothes, their dignity, their sense of self -- all to protect America.

By Debra Sweet
August 24, 2009
Worldcantwait.org

CIA Torture Report to be Released

The release of the long-anticipated CIA report, quashed since 2006 by the Bush regime, and then postponed several times by the Obama administration, is set for Monday August 24. It's been leaked. Newsweek and the Guardian UK, "Bombshell report on CIA interrogations is leaked" report the CIA used mock executions to terrorize detainees through threatening the use of pistols and electric drills.

It's reported that the Attorney General will make a decision in the next few days on whether to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate allegations of torture.  The New York Times analyzed the problem Eric Holder is up against, having been instructed by Barack Obama not to look "backward" while saying "we do not torture":

By Brad Knickerbocker
August 20, 2009
The Christian Science Monitor

For those who had their doubts about the politics behind the Bush administration’s “war on terrorism,” Tom Ridge’s new book will fuel long-held suspicions.

The former Republican governor of Pennsylvania, who was the first head of the Department of Homeland Security, says two top Bush officials – Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft – pressured him to up the terror alert level before the 2004 election, according to promotional materials by publisher Macmillan.

“Ridge also charges that he was often ‘blindsided’ during daily morning briefings with Bush because the FBI withheld information from him, and says he was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings,” reports AFP.

Former Bush officials have been quick to push back on Ridge’s revelation.

Frances Frago Townsend, who coordinated homeland security matters at the National Security Council under President Bush, said Ridge is “absolutely wrong” in his allegation. “Politics played no part in any discussion” of the Homeland Security Council, Ms. Townsend insists in The Atlantic.

August 19, 2009
by Jason Leopold
The Public Record

Nine Republican lawmakers sent a letter to Eric Holder Wednesday saying the U.S. could face a terrorist attack if the attorney general appoints a special prosecutor to investigate the CIA's use of torture against “war on terror" suspects.

Holder is under pressure to resist launching a criminal probe, even one limited to rogue CIA interrogators. At the same time, he is facing mounting pressure from some prominent Democrats and civil liberties and human rights groups to not only sign off on a criminal investigation but to expand it to include top Bush administration officials.

The latest correspondence came on Wednesday, in a letter to the attorney general that said an investigation into the CIA’s interrogation practices, no matter how limited in scope, would jeopardize the “security for all Americans, “chill future intelligence activities,” and could “leave us more vulnerable to attack.”

The senators resorted to fear-mongering, invoking the terrorist attacks on 9/11 to try and dissuade Holder

By Stephanie Gaskell
Wednesday, June 17th 2009
NYDailyNews.com

A New Jersey hospital that treats sick 9/11 first responders got a last-minute reprieve Tuesday when the feds vowed to send cash to keep it open through September.

The Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences Institute at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick had told its 1,800 patients it wasn't sure it could stay open past next month.

Federal funding had been held up over an accounting dispute, but late Tuesday the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health said it was sending $575,000 to cover summer expenses.

John Feal, founder of the Fealgood Foundation, which pushes for health care for 9/11 workers, said the money isn't enough.

Feal said, "$575,000 is like putting a Band-Aid on a machine-gun wound.

"Funding for three months is a joke when 9/11 first responders will need treatment for the rest of their lives."

Dick Uncut: "Daily Show" Calls Out Cheney For Blaming 9/11 On Richard Clarke (VIDEO)

June 6, 2009

HuffingtonPost.com:

Thanks to a recent appearance at the National Press Club, Dick Cheney blamed Richard Clarke for leaving the nation vulnerable to attack ahead of 9/11 saying, "He obviously missed it." Cheney was referring to the threat from al Qaeda which Clarke had emphatically warned the administration about several times before the fall of 2001.

Jon Stewart was not pleased with Dick Cheney for these accusations, nor the members of the National Press Club who failed to challenge him about the assertion. In a segment called "Dick Uncut," Stewart used dark humor to take both the former Vice President and the media to task for the events leading up to 9/11 through the waterboarding of detainees. It simultaneously makes you laugh and want to punch a whole through the wall.

June 2, 2009
Washingtonsblog.com

(Ed.: See related article below for more detail on Cheney's speech).

Cheney said in an interview on Fox News:

"On the question of whether or not Iraq was involved in 9-11, there was never any evidence to prove that," he told the Fox host. "There was "some reporting early on ... but that was never borne out... [President] George [Bush] ... did say and did testify that there was an ongoing relationship between al-Qaeda and Iraq, but no proof that Iraq was involved in 9-11."

How important is Cheney's admission?

Well, 5 hours after the 9/11 attacks, Donald Rumsfeld said "my interest is to hit Saddam".

He also said "Go massive . . . Sweep it all up. Things related and not."

May 27, 2009
by the writing team at World Can't Wait.org

1. Barack Obama did NOT end torture.

Many people think that, upon taking office, Barack Obama ended torture. This is just not true. Under Obama, the U.S has continued to torture prisoners at Guantanamo, where more than 200 detainees are still being held without charge or trial.

According to a February 2009 report by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), Guantanamo guards routinely subject detainees to vicious beatings, solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, suffocation, repeated use of tear gas, and the force-feeding of tubes through the nasal passages of hunger strikers. Much of this torture is committed by Guantanamo's Immediate Reaction Force (IRF) teams, which CCR president Michael Ratner has described as the "black shirts of Guantanamo."

Quoting from the CCR report: "Detainees are subjected to brutal physical assaults by the Immediate Reaction Force (IRF), a team of military guards comparable to a riot squad, who are trained to respond to alleged 'disciplinary infractions' with overwhelming force." And later in the report: "In Camps 5, 6 and Echo, detainees live in constant fear of physical violence. Frequent attacks by IRF teams heighten this anxiety and reinforce that violence can be inflicted by the guards at any moment for any perceived infraction, or sometimes without provocation or explanation."

By the now, it's maddeningly familiar. A scary terrorist plot is announced. Then it's revealed that the suspects are a hapless bunch of ne'er-do-wells or run-of-the-mill thugs without the slightest connection to any terrorists at all, never mind to Al Qaeda. Finally, the last piece of the puzzle: the entire plot is revealed to have been cooked up by a scummy government agent-provocateur.

I've seen this movie before.

In this case, the alleged perps -- Onta Williams, James Cromitie, David Williams, and Laguerre Payen -- were losers, ex-cons, drug addicts. Al Qaeda they're not. Without the assistance of the agent who entrapped them, they would never have dreamed of committing political violence, nor would they have had the slightest idea about where to acquire plastic explosives or a Stinger missile. That didn't stop prosecutors from acting as if they'd captured Osama bin Laden himself. Noted the Los Angeles Times:

The Newburgh Four -- And The Goverment Mole Who Betrayed Them

By Zachary Roth - May 22, 2009

We're starting to get a rich picture of the four hapless Jihadis who were arrested Wednesday night for plotting to bomb two New York synagogues, as well as the FBI informant who deceived them. And the overall portrait that's emerging is that of a group of struggling, disaffected petty criminals, who bonded at a Newburgh, NY mosque over having spent time in prison, before being taken in by a Pakistani immigrant looking to win leniency for a crime of his own.

May 11, 2009
washingtonsblog.com

The Red Cross is the organization charged with deciding what is torture and what isn't.

The International Committee of the Red Cross interviewed Khalid Shaikh Mohammed - the alleged 9/11 mastermind - at Guantanamo Bay.

Here's what KSM told the Red Cross (see below for more from a review of this report):

During the harshest period of my interrogation I gave a lot of false information in order to satisfy what I believed the interrogators wished to hear in order to make the ill-treatment stop. I later told the interrogators that their methods were stupid and counterproductive. I'm sure that the false information I was forced to invent in order to make the ill-treatment stop wasted a lot of their time and led to several false red-alerts being placed in the U.S.

Straight from the horse's mouth: