CIA official: no proof harsh techniques stopped terror attacks + Countdown: Haynes was told methods were torture

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By Mark Seibel and Warren P. Strobel
McClatchy Newspapers
April 24, 2009

WASHINGTON — The CIA inspector general in 2004 found that there was no conclusive proof that waterboarding or other harsh interrogation techniques helped the Bush administration thwart any “specific imminent attacks,” according to recently declassified Justice Department memos.

That undercuts assertions by former vice president Dick Cheney and other former Bush administration officials that the use of harsh interrogation tactics including waterboarding, which is widely considered torture, was justified because it headed off terrorist attacks.

The risks and effectiveness of waterboarding and other enhanced techniques are at the center of an increasingly heated debate over how thoroughly to investigate the CIA’s secret detention and interrogation programs.

[…]

via CIA official: no proof harsh techniques stopped terror attacks | McClatchy.

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Haynes was told methods were TORTURE and were UNRELIABLE by JPRA

firedoglake

Haynes was told methods were TORTURE and were UNRELIABLE by JPRA
04_24_09 visit: http://firedoglake.com

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Countdown-Maj. Gen. John Batiste (Ret.) on torture – fess up, own it, heal.

Where’s My Change? by Ralph Nader

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by Ralph Nader
The Nader Page
April 24, 2009

“No more fine print; no more confusing terms and conditions.” This is what Barack Obama told a White House gathering of leading credit card issuers this week.

Right afterward, President Obama told the press that “there has to be strong and reliable protections for consumers, protections that ban unfair rate increases and forbid abusive fees and penalties.”

This soaring rhetoric places a heavy burden on Mr. Obama to stand up to the giant power of the credit card bosses and their monetized allies on Capitol Hill. Yet he has shown little interest in re-instating a Presidential consumer advisor as did Lyndon Johnson with the formidable Betty Furness and as did Jimmy Carter with the legendary Esther Peterson.

Deep recession times are tough for the nation’s over 200 million consumers. Still, no consumer voice in the White House, though consumer groups asked Mr. Obama to move promptly on this tiny advocacy office months ago.

Just a Jesus-Christ’s phase: more genocides! By Roland Michel Tremblay

By Roland Michel Tremblay
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
The Marginal
24 April, 2009

In history
At some point or another
Someone just reaches critical stardom
Preaching some sort of distorted love
Some sort of distorted truth about the world

This is referred to
As going through a Jesus-Christ’s phase
Many people die as a consequence
And the star eventually usually regrets
Ever going through that phase

I think I have just reached
My very own
Jesus-Christ’s phase
I’ve grown a beard
I’ve grown long hair
I no longer brush my teeth
Boy, do I smell!

I’m a preacher
Please bring me blood!

I am now preaching
To the whole world
All sorts of things
Making absolutely no sense
And when I wake up the next day
With such a hangover
From too much alcohol
From too much hallucinogenic drugs
I curse this existence
I curse the world
I curse this phase I’m going through
I curse my Jesus-Christ’s phase

All very well
That I will save this world
All very well
That I will show you salvation
All very well
That I will open up the door to the Heavens
All very well
That I will bring peace upon Earth

Without alienating the world
Without bringing destruction
Without causing a nuclear third world war
Without annihilating us all

I’m a preacher!
Please bring me blood!

All is very well
I’m just going through
My Jesus-Christ’s phase
Please pay no attention
I’ll eventually wake up
I’ll eventually understand
This world is beyond salvation

I’ll get back to Earth
Buy myself a cheesy sandwich
In Toronto Central down Church Street
Feel shame for my Jesus-Christ’s years
Just like all the hippies out there
And all those religious priests
I will see the light
As I will bring you the God of Light!
And be shot right after

No matter
How much destruction
Is required
For such a miracle

I’m a preacher!
Please bring me blood!

Oh my God!
Jesus!
I wonder
I truly wonder
Will I be able
To reach the toilet in time?
I need to get this thing out of me!

You know
I’ve never seen a flower before
What does it look like?
Please not in so many words
Remain simple
For simple minded people
Who’ve lost their mind a long time ago
Going through
Only a phase
Their very own
Jesus-Christ’s phase

Don’t you just love
To be Jesus-Christ?
Does it not feel great
To be off your head!
And save the world
In your mind?

I’m a preacher
Please draw blood

Shame it’s only a phase
Shame we’ll be ashamed of it one day
What were we thinking of
Bringing more genocides to the world?
Through our very own Jesus-Christ’s phase
After all, it was only a phase

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“Without irony, this life would hardly be worth living.”

Roland Michel Tremblay, A Poet for Human Rights
http://poetsforhumanrights.ning.com/profile/RolandMichelTremblay

see

Genocides are no surprise in a world built on hate By Roland Michel Tremblay

Death and Taxes by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH

by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted on Buzzflash.com 04/21/2009
April 24, 2009

Oh those “tea parties.” They just go to show you how much publicity you can get for a cause that troubles not very many people when you’ve got a powerful Privatized Ministry of Propaganda behind you. And boy, was the Fox “News” Channel there for several weeks running up to the event. They ran both paid and unpaid ads for it incessantly. The main line? The Republican mantra that has been tried-and-true since the time it first worked in the battle over “Prop. 13” in California in 1977. That was the one that slashed funding for education in California under the guise of “cutting your taxes.”

No one mentioned what the reductions in state and local revenue would do to education in the state nor the fact that the bulk of the cuts would go to businesses, not individuals. But it did solve the problem that the so-called “small government” Republicans (that is small government for anything smacking of national domestic spending, not small government for matters ranging from freedom of religious belief as to when life begins to supporting a mountainous military-industrial complex) had. Goldwater had found that he couldn’t run against specific programs. But when his successors discovered running “against taxes,” away they went.

Mother Jones: Abu Ghraib Level 1 + Levels 4 and 5

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More at MoJo Video: Inside the Secret Cellblocks of Abu Ghraib | Mother Jones

MotherJonesVideo
April 20, 2009

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Mother Jones: Abu Ghraib Levels 4 and 5

The Daily Show: A Brief History of Torture + We Don’t Torture

Dandelion Salad

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
April 23, 2009

Mosaic News – 4/23/09: World News From The Middle East

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Warning

This video may contain images depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.

linktv

Mosaic needs your help! Donate here: http://linktv.org/contribute

Headlines coming soon. Produced for Link TV by Jamal Dajani.

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AIPAC, NSA Spying and the Corruption of Congress by Tom Burghardt

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by Tom Burghardt
Antifascist Calling…
April 22, 2009

A major scandal involving a top Democrat, the Israeli lobby-shop AIPAC and charges that former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales sought congressional help to suppress media reports of systematic, illegal warrantless surveillance of Americans by the National Security Agency (NSA) broke on Sunday.

Congressional Quarterly revealed that Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) “was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department [to] reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington.”

The former ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Harman is the co-sponsor of the shameful “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act” (H.R.1955) and its mutant relative in the Senate (S.1959). In other words, Harman’s “liberal” veneer is the perfect cover for currying favor with politically well-connected corporate grifters, major beneficiaries of the national security state’s largesse.

Harman was among the most vociferous defenders of the Bush regime’s warrantless wiretapping program. As Salon’s Glenn Greenwald reminds us, during an appearance on “Meet the Press” with Republicans Pat Roberts and Peter Hoekstra, Harman said that “the whistleblowers who exposed the lawbreaking and perhaps even the New York Times (but not Bush officials) should be criminally investigated, saying she ‘deplored the leak,’ that ‘it is tragic that a lot of our capability is now across the pages of the newspapers,’ and that the whistleblowers were ‘despicable’.”

[…]

via Antifascist Calling…: AIPAC, NSA Spying and the Corruption of Congress.

see

Scott Horton Interviews Jeff Stein on Jane Harman-AIPAC story

Countdown: Jeff Stein on Jane Harman-AIPAC story

Sources: Wiretap Recorded Rep. Harman Promising to Intervene for AIPAC By Jeff Stein

Senate Moves Forward on Orwellian “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act”

Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act

The Violent Radicalization Homegrown Terrorism Act

Spying on Americans: “Business as Usual” under Obama by Tom Burghardt

Dandelion Salad

by Tom Burghardt
Global Research, April 19, 2009
Antifascist Calling…

NSA “engaged in ‘overcollection’ of domestic communications”

New evidence that the National Security Agency (NSA) continues to systematically spy on Americans emerged on Thursday.

In an explosive report, The New York Times revealed that the agency “intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year.”

According to investigative journalists Eric Lichtblau and James Risen, “several intelligence officials” told the paper that the ultra-spooky NSA “had been engaged in ‘overcollection’ of domestic communications of Americans.”

As numerous critics have charged, the NSA’s driftnet surveillance of electronic communications would dramatically escalate precisely because of Congress’ passage of the shameful FISA Amendments Act (FAA) last summer.

When revelations that domestic spying have increased since Obama’s January inauguration are coupled with the Justice Department’s aggressive moves to suppress litigation that would hold former and present officials accountable, claims of “overcollection” by the agency become a code word for business as usual.

The Times points out that “classified government briefings have been held in recent weeks in response to a brewing controversy that some officials worry could damage the credibility of legitimate intelligence-gathering efforts.”

Gerald Celente: Commercial Real Estate is Next to Go!

Dandelion Salad

Replaced the videos March 9, 2019

April 21, 2009

Alex also talks with Gerald Celente, trend forecaster, author, and CEO of The Trends Research Institute. Celente predicts economic depression, tax rebellions, and food riots.

ACLU: New Prisoner Abuse Photos! Being Released By Defense Dept!

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VOTERSTHINKdotORG

http://earth2obama.org/
CNN

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Government Should Make Bagram Documents Public, Says ACLU

American Civil Liberties Union
(4/23/2009)

Group Files FOIA Request For Records About Detention And Treatment Of Prisoners At Afghanistan Detention Center

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union today asked the Obama administration to make public records pertaining to the detention and treatment of prisoners held at the Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records pertaining to the number of people currently detained at Bagram and their names, citizenship, place of capture and length of detention. The ACLU is also seeking records pertaining to the process afforded those prisoners to challenge their detention and designation as “enemy combatants.”