Sunday, October 02, 2005
Saturday, October 01, 2005
British Terrorism in Iraq
Arab2000.net - the first online Arabic news site in North America.
[9/30/2005 8:28:00 AM]
By Dr. Elias AklehIt had been long known to the Iraqis, to the Arabs, and to all Moslems in countries bordering Iraq that the majority of the terrorist attacks in Iraq, especially car bombing, are perpetrated by covert British, American, and Israeli operatives. It is also well known to them that the terrorist Abu Musab Al Zarqawi and his “Al-Qaeda in Iraq” are just inventions of the coalition forces to justify their existence. More and more evidences are coming out of Iraq to support this fact. The arrest of two undercover British SAS operatives last week, disguised as Arabs trying to plant a car bomb in the middle of Basra during the Karbala Festival, which draws as many as 3 million pilgrims to the city, is just the latest of such revelations.
In previous article - “American Terror Strategy in Iraq”, published first week of last August) I wrote about the American covert terrorist activity in Iraq aimed at inciting civil war and alienating Iraqi resistance. The good citizens of Great Britain and US, including their troops fighting in Iraq, would not believe that their governments would do such terrible acts. After all these two countries are sacrificing the lives of their young troops to liberate Iraqis and not to murder them. The article was criticized harshly by American troops, who served in Iraq, and claimed that they were helping Iraqis re-building their lives. Yet many other Americans and Britons – troops as well as independent reporters – speak loudly about the African, Latin American, American and British mercenaries operating in Iraq and are paid thousands more than the regular troops to perpetrate the terror attacks. British and American leaders had lied their troops into the war in Iraq. Studying history one discovers a long history of these leaders deceiving their people and leading them to terrorize other countries.
The two British operatives, arrested by Basra police and later freed by a British military operation, were identified by the BBC as “members of the SAS elite special forces” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/424614.stm). They were disguised by wigs and Arab dress. Iraqi sources reported that the Iraqi police were watching the two, and when they tried to approach them they shot two policemen and tried to escape the scene. The Iraqi police chased and captured them, to discover large amount of explosives planted in the car, which apparently was planned to be remotely detonated in the busy market of Basra. The SAS involvement in Iraq was discovered on the 30th of January 2005 when an RAF Hercules plane crashed near Baghdad killing then British servicemen after dropping off fifty SAS members north of Baghdad to fight Iraqi guerillas.
SAS (Special Air Service) is a secret regiment in the British Army. It was formed in 1941 to conduct raids behind the German lines in North Africa. At the present it forms part of the United Kingdom Special Forces alongside the Special Boat Service and the Special Reconnaissance Regiment. The role of the SAS includes intelligence gathering, behind enemy lines target attacks, counter revolutionary warfare, guarding of senior British dignitaries, conducting military missions without official British Government involvement, training special forces of other nationalities, and counter-terrorism operations. The SAS conducted many military missions throughout the world. From 1958 – 1959 they fought the anti-sultan rebels in Jebel Akhdar in Oman. They also fought against another insurrection in Dhofar, Oman in 1970 - 1977. They fought Indonesian-supported guerillas during the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation in Borneo in 1963 – 1966. They operated in Aden in 1964 – 1967 before the withdrawal of the British troops. During the Falklands War in 1982 SAS were involved in covert operation in San Carlos before the landing of the main British forces. In the Gulf War of 1991 they were deployed deep behind the Iraqi army lines to destroy Scud missiles launchers and to gather intelligence. It was also reported that they had set fires to the Kuwaiti oil wells.Some of the SAS had helped Afghani fighters during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan during the 1980s. They also had special training camp in Scotland to train them on shooting down Russian Helicopters. The SAS was deeply involved in the British conflict in Northern Ireland since its start in 1969. At the beginning they operated openly in their own uniform, and later on they planted moles in the IRA, who were involved in terror bombing. The well known August 15th, 1998 Omagh bombing attack, which killed 29 civilians was done by an SAS double agent as reported by Sunday Herald (http://www.sundayherald.com/17827). The Paper also reported the confession of another SAS member, who operated as an IRA mole from 1981 to 1994 while on full British army pay. He helped to develop a new type of bomb activated by photographic flashes to overcome the problem of IRA remote-control devices being signal jammed by army radio units. (http://www.sundayherald.com/print25646). Another mole, known by his codename “Stakeknife”, was still active in December of 2002 as one of Belfast’s leading provisionals. His military commander “allowed him to carry out large numbers of terrorist murders in order to protect his cover within the IRA”. (http://www.sundayherald.com/29997). In late 2002 the paper reported reliable evidence that the British army had used its moles in terrorist organizations to “carry out proxy assassinations”, such as the case of the human rights activist Pat Finucane, who was murdered in 1989 by the Protestant Ulster Defense Association (UDA). The mole supplied the UDA with necessary information to assassinate Finucane. (http://sundayherald.com/29997). Car bombings in Iraq started few months after the occupation. The first attacks were directed against the U.N. Headquarters in Iraq prompting the U.N. to withdraw its employees. The Red Cross and the Jordanian Embassy were also initially targeted. Later on car bombing targeted several mosques and religious leaders, and lately the fragile Iraqi Police became the main target. Oddly enough the common denominator in these attacks is that they targeted exclusively Iraqis rather than the occupying forces. It does not make any sense for Al-Qaeda and Al-Zarqawi, allegedly came to Iraq to fight Americans, to attack Iraqi civilians and Iraqi police. In doing so the occupying forces find excuses to stay longer in Iraq. As Bush and Blair continue to remark that since the Iraqi Forces are very week and could not defend the Iraqi against terrorist, it is imperative for the British/American troops to stay in Iraq in order to fight terrorists and help Iraqis defend themselves. There is a common belief that these car bombings are orchestrated by foreign forces (Americans, British, and Israelis) in Iraq to spread chaos. Imad Khadduri, the Iraqi-exile physicist, reported of Arab drivers discovering bombs planted in their cars after being stopped and interrogated at an American checkpoint. Baghdad Burning blog reported in May 2005 of eyewitnesses to American patrols planting bombs in Ma’moun area in west Baghdad. Abdel Hadi Al-Daraji, Al-Sadr’s top official in Sadr City, accused Britain of plotting to start an ethnic war by carrying out car bombings targeting Shia civilians and then blaming the attack on Sunni Arabs. He said: “Everyone knows the occupiers’ agenda. They are in bed with the Mossad (the Israeli secret service) and their intention is to keep Iraq an unstable battlefield so they can exploit their interests in Iraq”. Sheik Hassan Al-Zarqani, a spokesman for Mahdi Army militia described the two British SAS operatives as terrorists. He stated that the Iraq police found weapons, explosives and remote control detonators in their car. He explained “We believe these soldiers were planning an attack on a market or other civilian targets”. The quick fierce action of the British army to release the two SAS operatives before being interrogated tends to support the view that this incident has deeper implications beyond what appears on the surface.
The general attitude of many Iraqis could be summarized in a statement made by a Shiite man. He said: “I believe it is the Americans who are doing this, pretending it is Sunnis, so there will be a civil war and they can control our wealth.” International reporters, such as the American journalists Dahr Jamail and Juan Cole, started viewing car bombings through the Iraqi point of view. When asking the important question of who benefits from these car bombings, we discover that the only beneficiaries are the occupying forces. Blaming car bombings on Iraqi resistance the Americans are trying to drive a wedge between the resistance and the sympathetic Iraqis. By bombing Shiite mosques in one day and Sunni mosques in another they are trying to incite hatred between the two religious factions. Civil war and division of Iraq is the ultimate goal of the occupation. Bush’s and Blair’s speeches are geared towards planting seeds of religious conflict. Corporate-owned media on both sides of the Atlantic seem to cultivate these seeds and repeatedly report that car bombing attacks causing casualties among Iraqi civilians are pushing Iraq towards a civil war between Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. To incite more religious hatred between the groups the corporate media report of “alarming ethnic cleansing” of Shiites in the predominantly Sunni Baghdad neighborhoods. To exacerbate the situation the American army has been deploying Kurdish Peshmerga troops and Shiite militias in their attacks on Iraqi cities, lately in Tal Afar and Ramadi, killing Sunnis and destroying their houses in a manner designed to inflame ethnic hatred. The policy is to divide in order to conquer, and the ultimate plan is to partition Iraq into three warring three ethnic sections; Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish. Such division entails civil war and ethnic cleansing on a massive scale to weaken any merging Iraqi government, so that it could not demand the withdrawal of the occupying forces. The division of the Yugoslav Federation in the 1990s into smaller weaker states has been taken as a model to slice Iraq. This plan falls perfectly within the Israeli strategic goal, proposed in 1982, of dividing Iraq, the strongest Arab nation, into three warring ethnic states. The same policy can be seen In Israel’s attempt to incite civil war between PA on one side and the other Palestinian factions on the other side.
YOUR COMMENTS
What utter rubish! Ian - UK 9/30/2005 2:13:00 PMRating
As far as the multi-national forces being the real beneficiary of the suicice car bombing, it is true this is the case due to the BLIND stupid fanatic Islamic Alqaeda leader in Iraq; Alzarqawi. He does not want Iraq to become democratic. He wants chaos and murder so that he keeps fighting Americans. He cannont fight Americans in the US, so he fights them in Iraq. Iraqis should kill those intruder terrorist to live in peace under democracy. David - New York 9/30/2005 3:12:00 PMRating
This would not be the first colonial game up the British sleeves. Andrew Olweny - Gulu 10/1/2005 1:03:00 AMRating
Nothing but a load of puerile twaddle mostly, the sad thing is, some people will actually believe parts of this vindictive nonsense. Travis - Canada 10/1/2005 9:05:00 AMRating
[9/30/2005 8:28:00 AM]
By Dr. Elias AklehIt had been long known to the Iraqis, to the Arabs, and to all Moslems in countries bordering Iraq that the majority of the terrorist attacks in Iraq, especially car bombing, are perpetrated by covert British, American, and Israeli operatives. It is also well known to them that the terrorist Abu Musab Al Zarqawi and his “Al-Qaeda in Iraq” are just inventions of the coalition forces to justify their existence. More and more evidences are coming out of Iraq to support this fact. The arrest of two undercover British SAS operatives last week, disguised as Arabs trying to plant a car bomb in the middle of Basra during the Karbala Festival, which draws as many as 3 million pilgrims to the city, is just the latest of such revelations.
In previous article - “American Terror Strategy in Iraq”, published first week of last August) I wrote about the American covert terrorist activity in Iraq aimed at inciting civil war and alienating Iraqi resistance. The good citizens of Great Britain and US, including their troops fighting in Iraq, would not believe that their governments would do such terrible acts. After all these two countries are sacrificing the lives of their young troops to liberate Iraqis and not to murder them. The article was criticized harshly by American troops, who served in Iraq, and claimed that they were helping Iraqis re-building their lives. Yet many other Americans and Britons – troops as well as independent reporters – speak loudly about the African, Latin American, American and British mercenaries operating in Iraq and are paid thousands more than the regular troops to perpetrate the terror attacks. British and American leaders had lied their troops into the war in Iraq. Studying history one discovers a long history of these leaders deceiving their people and leading them to terrorize other countries.
The two British operatives, arrested by Basra police and later freed by a British military operation, were identified by the BBC as “members of the SAS elite special forces” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/424614.stm). They were disguised by wigs and Arab dress. Iraqi sources reported that the Iraqi police were watching the two, and when they tried to approach them they shot two policemen and tried to escape the scene. The Iraqi police chased and captured them, to discover large amount of explosives planted in the car, which apparently was planned to be remotely detonated in the busy market of Basra. The SAS involvement in Iraq was discovered on the 30th of January 2005 when an RAF Hercules plane crashed near Baghdad killing then British servicemen after dropping off fifty SAS members north of Baghdad to fight Iraqi guerillas.
SAS (Special Air Service) is a secret regiment in the British Army. It was formed in 1941 to conduct raids behind the German lines in North Africa. At the present it forms part of the United Kingdom Special Forces alongside the Special Boat Service and the Special Reconnaissance Regiment. The role of the SAS includes intelligence gathering, behind enemy lines target attacks, counter revolutionary warfare, guarding of senior British dignitaries, conducting military missions without official British Government involvement, training special forces of other nationalities, and counter-terrorism operations. The SAS conducted many military missions throughout the world. From 1958 – 1959 they fought the anti-sultan rebels in Jebel Akhdar in Oman. They also fought against another insurrection in Dhofar, Oman in 1970 - 1977. They fought Indonesian-supported guerillas during the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation in Borneo in 1963 – 1966. They operated in Aden in 1964 – 1967 before the withdrawal of the British troops. During the Falklands War in 1982 SAS were involved in covert operation in San Carlos before the landing of the main British forces. In the Gulf War of 1991 they were deployed deep behind the Iraqi army lines to destroy Scud missiles launchers and to gather intelligence. It was also reported that they had set fires to the Kuwaiti oil wells.Some of the SAS had helped Afghani fighters during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan during the 1980s. They also had special training camp in Scotland to train them on shooting down Russian Helicopters. The SAS was deeply involved in the British conflict in Northern Ireland since its start in 1969. At the beginning they operated openly in their own uniform, and later on they planted moles in the IRA, who were involved in terror bombing. The well known August 15th, 1998 Omagh bombing attack, which killed 29 civilians was done by an SAS double agent as reported by Sunday Herald (http://www.sundayherald.com/17827). The Paper also reported the confession of another SAS member, who operated as an IRA mole from 1981 to 1994 while on full British army pay. He helped to develop a new type of bomb activated by photographic flashes to overcome the problem of IRA remote-control devices being signal jammed by army radio units. (http://www.sundayherald.com/print25646). Another mole, known by his codename “Stakeknife”, was still active in December of 2002 as one of Belfast’s leading provisionals. His military commander “allowed him to carry out large numbers of terrorist murders in order to protect his cover within the IRA”. (http://www.sundayherald.com/29997). In late 2002 the paper reported reliable evidence that the British army had used its moles in terrorist organizations to “carry out proxy assassinations”, such as the case of the human rights activist Pat Finucane, who was murdered in 1989 by the Protestant Ulster Defense Association (UDA). The mole supplied the UDA with necessary information to assassinate Finucane. (http://sundayherald.com/29997). Car bombings in Iraq started few months after the occupation. The first attacks were directed against the U.N. Headquarters in Iraq prompting the U.N. to withdraw its employees. The Red Cross and the Jordanian Embassy were also initially targeted. Later on car bombing targeted several mosques and religious leaders, and lately the fragile Iraqi Police became the main target. Oddly enough the common denominator in these attacks is that they targeted exclusively Iraqis rather than the occupying forces. It does not make any sense for Al-Qaeda and Al-Zarqawi, allegedly came to Iraq to fight Americans, to attack Iraqi civilians and Iraqi police. In doing so the occupying forces find excuses to stay longer in Iraq. As Bush and Blair continue to remark that since the Iraqi Forces are very week and could not defend the Iraqi against terrorist, it is imperative for the British/American troops to stay in Iraq in order to fight terrorists and help Iraqis defend themselves. There is a common belief that these car bombings are orchestrated by foreign forces (Americans, British, and Israelis) in Iraq to spread chaos. Imad Khadduri, the Iraqi-exile physicist, reported of Arab drivers discovering bombs planted in their cars after being stopped and interrogated at an American checkpoint. Baghdad Burning blog reported in May 2005 of eyewitnesses to American patrols planting bombs in Ma’moun area in west Baghdad. Abdel Hadi Al-Daraji, Al-Sadr’s top official in Sadr City, accused Britain of plotting to start an ethnic war by carrying out car bombings targeting Shia civilians and then blaming the attack on Sunni Arabs. He said: “Everyone knows the occupiers’ agenda. They are in bed with the Mossad (the Israeli secret service) and their intention is to keep Iraq an unstable battlefield so they can exploit their interests in Iraq”. Sheik Hassan Al-Zarqani, a spokesman for Mahdi Army militia described the two British SAS operatives as terrorists. He stated that the Iraq police found weapons, explosives and remote control detonators in their car. He explained “We believe these soldiers were planning an attack on a market or other civilian targets”. The quick fierce action of the British army to release the two SAS operatives before being interrogated tends to support the view that this incident has deeper implications beyond what appears on the surface.
The general attitude of many Iraqis could be summarized in a statement made by a Shiite man. He said: “I believe it is the Americans who are doing this, pretending it is Sunnis, so there will be a civil war and they can control our wealth.” International reporters, such as the American journalists Dahr Jamail and Juan Cole, started viewing car bombings through the Iraqi point of view. When asking the important question of who benefits from these car bombings, we discover that the only beneficiaries are the occupying forces. Blaming car bombings on Iraqi resistance the Americans are trying to drive a wedge between the resistance and the sympathetic Iraqis. By bombing Shiite mosques in one day and Sunni mosques in another they are trying to incite hatred between the two religious factions. Civil war and division of Iraq is the ultimate goal of the occupation. Bush’s and Blair’s speeches are geared towards planting seeds of religious conflict. Corporate-owned media on both sides of the Atlantic seem to cultivate these seeds and repeatedly report that car bombing attacks causing casualties among Iraqi civilians are pushing Iraq towards a civil war between Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. To incite more religious hatred between the groups the corporate media report of “alarming ethnic cleansing” of Shiites in the predominantly Sunni Baghdad neighborhoods. To exacerbate the situation the American army has been deploying Kurdish Peshmerga troops and Shiite militias in their attacks on Iraqi cities, lately in Tal Afar and Ramadi, killing Sunnis and destroying their houses in a manner designed to inflame ethnic hatred. The policy is to divide in order to conquer, and the ultimate plan is to partition Iraq into three warring three ethnic sections; Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish. Such division entails civil war and ethnic cleansing on a massive scale to weaken any merging Iraqi government, so that it could not demand the withdrawal of the occupying forces. The division of the Yugoslav Federation in the 1990s into smaller weaker states has been taken as a model to slice Iraq. This plan falls perfectly within the Israeli strategic goal, proposed in 1982, of dividing Iraq, the strongest Arab nation, into three warring ethnic states. The same policy can be seen In Israel’s attempt to incite civil war between PA on one side and the other Palestinian factions on the other side.
YOUR COMMENTS
What utter rubish! Ian - UK 9/30/2005 2:13:00 PMRating
As far as the multi-national forces being the real beneficiary of the suicice car bombing, it is true this is the case due to the BLIND stupid fanatic Islamic Alqaeda leader in Iraq; Alzarqawi. He does not want Iraq to become democratic. He wants chaos and murder so that he keeps fighting Americans. He cannont fight Americans in the US, so he fights them in Iraq. Iraqis should kill those intruder terrorist to live in peace under democracy. David - New York 9/30/2005 3:12:00 PMRating
This would not be the first colonial game up the British sleeves. Andrew Olweny - Gulu 10/1/2005 1:03:00 AMRating
Nothing but a load of puerile twaddle mostly, the sad thing is, some people will actually believe parts of this vindictive nonsense. Travis - Canada 10/1/2005 9:05:00 AMRating
Crime vs Crime Rate
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner - William Morrow, 2005
Blogger Thoughts: Blogger admits he said something stupid, but says if you dwell on that you are missing the point.
Blogger Thoughts: Blogger admits he said something stupid, but says if you dwell on that you are missing the point.
Dynamist Blog: Criminalizing Science
Dynamist Blog: Criminalizing Science
Blogger Thoughts: One of the flimsiest blog entries and Forbes articles I've seen in a while.
Blogger Thoughts: One of the flimsiest blog entries and Forbes articles I've seen in a while.
Discrediting Krugman (Not)
If you say things people don't want to hear, or that don't match their notions, woe be to you.....
Wayne Madsen Report, Blackwater Security
Wayne Madsen Report
September 29, 2005 -- Blackwater USA represents a return to "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition." According to a knowledgeable political insider in Washington, the private military contractor Blackwater USA has close ties to the Christian Right. The Prince Group, the McLean, Virginia-based parent company of Blackwater, recently hired Joseph E. Schmitz as its Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel. Previously, Schmitz was the Inspector General of the Department of Defense. Schmitz was a Special Assistant to-Attorney General Edwin Meese III, who is an official of the dominionist Christian Fellowship Foundation and a Heritage Foundation Fellow who recently authored a blueprint for rebuilding New Orleans and Louisiana. Perhaps not coincidentally, Blackwater USA and its sister company Presidential Airways, have been providing security for petrochemical industry and other installations damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Blackwater's Raven Development Group (RDG) advertises the following services, which should alarm current landowners in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mississippi: General Contracting, Construction Management, Design Build Services, Site Selection Assistance, and Municipal Interfaces for Site Plan Approvals -- Economic Incentives and Permitting.
Blackwater USA: "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition"
Joseph Schmitz is active in the Washington Lawyers' Chapter of the right-wing Federalist Society, the same group with which the new Chief Justice John G. Roberts was affiliated. Schmitz is also a member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
Schmitz was accused of covering up several investigations into fraud, waste and abuse within the Rumsfeld Pentagon. Schmitz is the son of the late GOP far right congressman and segregationist American Independent Party presidential candidate John G. Schmitz. Schmitz's sister is former Washington State school teacher Mary Kay Letorneau who was jailed for child rape after having sex with her 12-year old sixth grade student. After Letorneau was released from prison in 2004 and after she had two children with the student, she and the boy, Vili Fualaau, married. Their sexual relationship began in 1996 when Letorneau was 34.
John G. Schmitz was discovered to have had an affair out of wedlock with one of his Santa Ana College political science students. In 1982, a 13-month old infant boy, who was the product of Schmitz's relationship with German national Carla Stuckle, was rushed to an Orange County, California hospital with a hair so tightly tied in a square knot around the boy's penis, it was almost severed. Child abuse charges were later dropped against the German college student and the infant was restored to her custody.
Joseph Schmitz is not the only connection between Blackwater and right-wing GOP politicians. Blackwater's CEO and co-founder is Michigan-based Erik D. Prince, an ex-US Navy SEAL, an heir to an automobile parts corporate fortune, a former intern for President George H. W. Bush, and a contributor to such right wing Republicans as recently indicted Tom DeLay. Prince also has strong political links to Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, one-time GOP presidential candidate Gary Bauer, a political action committee called "Restoring the American Dream," (whose board of directors included Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, Robert Bork, former Rep. Steve Largent, Domino's Pizza founder Thomas Monaghan, North Carolina Rep. Sue Myrick [appointed to the Joint Congressional "Review" panel for Hurricane Katrina relief], and former Rep. J. C. Watts) and, more interestingly, current House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) chairman Peter Hoekstra, who has been pressuring the CIA to accept more intelligence from HPSCI sources. The close connection between Hoekstra and Blackwater, a company that advertises its own intelligence gathering services: "Our mission is to provide the client with veteran military, intelligence and law enforcement professionals with demonstrated field operations performance tempered with mature experience in both foreign and domestic requirements," should be of concern to non-politicized and career U.S. intelligence professionals.
Erik Prince's sister Betsy, who is chairman of the Michigan GOP, is married to Dick DeVos, the son of Amway founder Richard DeVos, a member of the board of the conservative and Christian Dominionist Council for National Policy (CNP), an umbrella organization where he rubs shoulders with such leading right wingers as Jack Abramoff, Howard Ahmanson, the Leadership Institute's Morton Blackwell, Focus on the Family's James Dobson, Coral Ridge's Dr. D. James Kennedy, Edwin Meese III, Pat Robertson, Richard Viguerie, and Paul Weyrich. The DeVos family has used a corporate entities such as the Windquest Group, DP Fox Ventures, and Alticor, Inc. to funnel thousands of dollars to conservative GOP politicians and their PACs, including Restoring the American Dream board member Sue Myrick, South Dakota Sen. John Thune, and Louisiana Rep. Bobby Jindal. Erik Prince, through a Virginia entity called Prince Household LLC, as well as the Prince Group, has contributed to Tom DeLay, Peter Hoekstra, George W. Bush, South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, and Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn.
Blackwater maintains the largest private military training facility in the United States. Located on an abandoned U.S. military base at Moyock, North Carolina on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp near the North Carolina-Virginia border, Blackwater's Security Consulting subsidiary attracts military and paramilitary trainees from around the country and the world. Former Chilean and Honduran military personnel have been trained at Moyock prior to deployment to Iraq. What is even more attractive for the Bush administration and Blackwater is the fact that, as a private company, Blackwater is far removed from oversight by government inspectors general, Freedom of Information Act requests, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and snooping reporters.
Iraqi insurgents killed and mutilated the bodies of four Blackwater mercenaries near Fallujah, Iraq in April 2004, an act that triggered a massive U.S. military response that laid waste to the "city of mosques." Recently, Blackwater mercenaries have been patrolling the streets of New Orleans along with other mercenaries from the United States and Israel.
September 29, 2005 -- Blackwater USA represents a return to "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition." According to a knowledgeable political insider in Washington, the private military contractor Blackwater USA has close ties to the Christian Right. The Prince Group, the McLean, Virginia-based parent company of Blackwater, recently hired Joseph E. Schmitz as its Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel. Previously, Schmitz was the Inspector General of the Department of Defense. Schmitz was a Special Assistant to-Attorney General Edwin Meese III, who is an official of the dominionist Christian Fellowship Foundation and a Heritage Foundation Fellow who recently authored a blueprint for rebuilding New Orleans and Louisiana. Perhaps not coincidentally, Blackwater USA and its sister company Presidential Airways, have been providing security for petrochemical industry and other installations damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Blackwater's Raven Development Group (RDG) advertises the following services, which should alarm current landowners in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mississippi: General Contracting, Construction Management, Design Build Services, Site Selection Assistance, and Municipal Interfaces for Site Plan Approvals -- Economic Incentives and Permitting.
Blackwater USA: "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition"
Joseph Schmitz is active in the Washington Lawyers' Chapter of the right-wing Federalist Society, the same group with which the new Chief Justice John G. Roberts was affiliated. Schmitz is also a member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.
Schmitz was accused of covering up several investigations into fraud, waste and abuse within the Rumsfeld Pentagon. Schmitz is the son of the late GOP far right congressman and segregationist American Independent Party presidential candidate John G. Schmitz. Schmitz's sister is former Washington State school teacher Mary Kay Letorneau who was jailed for child rape after having sex with her 12-year old sixth grade student. After Letorneau was released from prison in 2004 and after she had two children with the student, she and the boy, Vili Fualaau, married. Their sexual relationship began in 1996 when Letorneau was 34.
John G. Schmitz was discovered to have had an affair out of wedlock with one of his Santa Ana College political science students. In 1982, a 13-month old infant boy, who was the product of Schmitz's relationship with German national Carla Stuckle, was rushed to an Orange County, California hospital with a hair so tightly tied in a square knot around the boy's penis, it was almost severed. Child abuse charges were later dropped against the German college student and the infant was restored to her custody.
Joseph Schmitz is not the only connection between Blackwater and right-wing GOP politicians. Blackwater's CEO and co-founder is Michigan-based Erik D. Prince, an ex-US Navy SEAL, an heir to an automobile parts corporate fortune, a former intern for President George H. W. Bush, and a contributor to such right wing Republicans as recently indicted Tom DeLay. Prince also has strong political links to Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, one-time GOP presidential candidate Gary Bauer, a political action committee called "Restoring the American Dream," (whose board of directors included Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, Robert Bork, former Rep. Steve Largent, Domino's Pizza founder Thomas Monaghan, North Carolina Rep. Sue Myrick [appointed to the Joint Congressional "Review" panel for Hurricane Katrina relief], and former Rep. J. C. Watts) and, more interestingly, current House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) chairman Peter Hoekstra, who has been pressuring the CIA to accept more intelligence from HPSCI sources. The close connection between Hoekstra and Blackwater, a company that advertises its own intelligence gathering services: "Our mission is to provide the client with veteran military, intelligence and law enforcement professionals with demonstrated field operations performance tempered with mature experience in both foreign and domestic requirements," should be of concern to non-politicized and career U.S. intelligence professionals.
Erik Prince's sister Betsy, who is chairman of the Michigan GOP, is married to Dick DeVos, the son of Amway founder Richard DeVos, a member of the board of the conservative and Christian Dominionist Council for National Policy (CNP), an umbrella organization where he rubs shoulders with such leading right wingers as Jack Abramoff, Howard Ahmanson, the Leadership Institute's Morton Blackwell, Focus on the Family's James Dobson, Coral Ridge's Dr. D. James Kennedy, Edwin Meese III, Pat Robertson, Richard Viguerie, and Paul Weyrich. The DeVos family has used a corporate entities such as the Windquest Group, DP Fox Ventures, and Alticor, Inc. to funnel thousands of dollars to conservative GOP politicians and their PACs, including Restoring the American Dream board member Sue Myrick, South Dakota Sen. John Thune, and Louisiana Rep. Bobby Jindal. Erik Prince, through a Virginia entity called Prince Household LLC, as well as the Prince Group, has contributed to Tom DeLay, Peter Hoekstra, George W. Bush, South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, and Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn.
Blackwater maintains the largest private military training facility in the United States. Located on an abandoned U.S. military base at Moyock, North Carolina on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp near the North Carolina-Virginia border, Blackwater's Security Consulting subsidiary attracts military and paramilitary trainees from around the country and the world. Former Chilean and Honduran military personnel have been trained at Moyock prior to deployment to Iraq. What is even more attractive for the Bush administration and Blackwater is the fact that, as a private company, Blackwater is far removed from oversight by government inspectors general, Freedom of Information Act requests, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and snooping reporters.
Iraqi insurgents killed and mutilated the bodies of four Blackwater mercenaries near Fallujah, Iraq in April 2004, an act that triggered a massive U.S. military response that laid waste to the "city of mosques." Recently, Blackwater mercenaries have been patrolling the streets of New Orleans along with other mercenaries from the United States and Israel.
Wayne Madsen Report - Plame / Fitzgerald...
Wayne Madsen Report
September 30, 2005 -- The Bush spinmeisters' Kabuki dance with Patrick Fitzgerald. There is an interesting stylized dance taking place between the White House and Patrick Fitzgerald, the Special Prosecutor in the CIA leak case.
For weeks, there have been rumors inside the Beltway that something big would be announced about the case during the last weeks of September. The silence and lack of substantial leaks were indications that a major turn of events would soon occur. Yesterday afternoon, the White House quickly swore in John G. Roberts as Chief Justice, just hours after his Senate confirmation. Rather than wait for the next morning and thus get two days of puff ball coverage by the media, the White House wanted to clear the calendar on Friday for a possible announcement by Fitzgerald. The White House, unsure of what might be coming from the prosecutor, floated the story that Bush would "definitely" name a replacement for Sandra Day O'Connor on Friday.
The White House Kabuki dance with Patrick Fitzgerald
But then New York Times reporter Judith Miller was quickly released from prison in Alexandria Thursday night. No one expected it. In fact, the cable news channels were forced to show over three month-old file footage of Miller entering the US Courthouse in DC because they were also caught unprepared by the surprise announcement and lacked lead time to get reporters to the US Courthouse in Alexandria where Miller had been held for 85 days.
It was then announced that Miller had decided to cooperate with Fitzgerald and testify today before the Grand Jury in Washington, DC. Not surprisingly, the White House spin Kabuki dancers, fully expecting a Friday announcement from Fitzgerald, altered course and announced that Bush would not name a replacement for O'Connor until some time next week. The White House, unsure of when Fitzgerald might announce indictments, wants to keep the Supreme Court announcement ace up its sleeve in order to compete for news coverage when Fitzgerald makes his announcement.
It is clear that Miller was the missing link in Fitzgerald's criminal probe of the leak that a number of CIA insiders have told this editor was "devastating" to the agency. Miller's attorney claimed that Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a target of the leak probe, had released her from a confidentiality pledge. But that agreement had already been reported months ago. Something has changed. A former Justice Department prosecutor told this editor that Fitzgerald is the type of prosecutor who starts low in the food chain and works his way up to nab the big fish. Fitzgerald is said to have, very early on in the case, "flipped" John Hannah, Libby's deputy.
One possible explanation for the sudden turn of events regarding Miller and Libby is that Fitzgerald may have also "flipped" Libby as a witness. A promise of limited immunity to Libby would have cleared the way for testimony from Miller on what she discussed with Cheney's chief of staff. That means the ultimate target of Fitzgerald could be Cheney.
There's an interesting footnote to the Cheney family's recent activities. Lynne Cheney was recently spotted at a Washington, DC Pottery Barn buying items for the Cheney's new $2.7 million house in St. Michael's on the eastern shore of Maryland. The Cheneys will be close neighbors of the Rumsfelds.
Dick Cheney recently had surgery on two aneurysms behind his knees, thus taking him out of the public spotlight more than is the usual case. The Soviet leadership, which the Bush administration has striven so much to emulate, used to exile their sacked leaders to dachas in the countryside. Might the same thing be in store for a Vice President named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the CIA leak case? A quick resignation prior to the 2006 elections and replacement by a Rudy Giuliani or George Pataki, or [shudders] Jeb Bush? And, of course, in traditional GOP fashion, a presidential pardon of unindicted co-conspirator Cheney (a la Gerald Ford and unindicted Watergate co-conspirator Richard Nixon).
Meanwhile, GOP congressmen are beginning to abandon former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. They are undoubtedly aware of the connections of DeLay to mobster money funneled by indicted GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Even a puff piece by reporter Mark Leibovich on DeLay in yesterday's Washington Post's Style section did little to stop the continual shark bites on DeLay from his GOP colleagues. Of course, DeLay's troubles come at the same time that one of his major supporters, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Israeli government, face an aggressive espionage probe by U.S. Attorney for Eastern Virginia Paul McNulty -- indicted Defense Intelligence Agency official Larry Franklin has agreed to a plea bargain in return for his cooperation as a prosecution witness.
After almost five years of incessant outrages by the Bush regime, I have never been more optimistic that the tide may be beginning to turn.
September 30, 2005 -- The Bush spinmeisters' Kabuki dance with Patrick Fitzgerald. There is an interesting stylized dance taking place between the White House and Patrick Fitzgerald, the Special Prosecutor in the CIA leak case.
For weeks, there have been rumors inside the Beltway that something big would be announced about the case during the last weeks of September. The silence and lack of substantial leaks were indications that a major turn of events would soon occur. Yesterday afternoon, the White House quickly swore in John G. Roberts as Chief Justice, just hours after his Senate confirmation. Rather than wait for the next morning and thus get two days of puff ball coverage by the media, the White House wanted to clear the calendar on Friday for a possible announcement by Fitzgerald. The White House, unsure of what might be coming from the prosecutor, floated the story that Bush would "definitely" name a replacement for Sandra Day O'Connor on Friday.
The White House Kabuki dance with Patrick Fitzgerald
But then New York Times reporter Judith Miller was quickly released from prison in Alexandria Thursday night. No one expected it. In fact, the cable news channels were forced to show over three month-old file footage of Miller entering the US Courthouse in DC because they were also caught unprepared by the surprise announcement and lacked lead time to get reporters to the US Courthouse in Alexandria where Miller had been held for 85 days.
It was then announced that Miller had decided to cooperate with Fitzgerald and testify today before the Grand Jury in Washington, DC. Not surprisingly, the White House spin Kabuki dancers, fully expecting a Friday announcement from Fitzgerald, altered course and announced that Bush would not name a replacement for O'Connor until some time next week. The White House, unsure of when Fitzgerald might announce indictments, wants to keep the Supreme Court announcement ace up its sleeve in order to compete for news coverage when Fitzgerald makes his announcement.
It is clear that Miller was the missing link in Fitzgerald's criminal probe of the leak that a number of CIA insiders have told this editor was "devastating" to the agency. Miller's attorney claimed that Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a target of the leak probe, had released her from a confidentiality pledge. But that agreement had already been reported months ago. Something has changed. A former Justice Department prosecutor told this editor that Fitzgerald is the type of prosecutor who starts low in the food chain and works his way up to nab the big fish. Fitzgerald is said to have, very early on in the case, "flipped" John Hannah, Libby's deputy.
One possible explanation for the sudden turn of events regarding Miller and Libby is that Fitzgerald may have also "flipped" Libby as a witness. A promise of limited immunity to Libby would have cleared the way for testimony from Miller on what she discussed with Cheney's chief of staff. That means the ultimate target of Fitzgerald could be Cheney.
There's an interesting footnote to the Cheney family's recent activities. Lynne Cheney was recently spotted at a Washington, DC Pottery Barn buying items for the Cheney's new $2.7 million house in St. Michael's on the eastern shore of Maryland. The Cheneys will be close neighbors of the Rumsfelds.
Dick Cheney recently had surgery on two aneurysms behind his knees, thus taking him out of the public spotlight more than is the usual case. The Soviet leadership, which the Bush administration has striven so much to emulate, used to exile their sacked leaders to dachas in the countryside. Might the same thing be in store for a Vice President named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the CIA leak case? A quick resignation prior to the 2006 elections and replacement by a Rudy Giuliani or George Pataki, or [shudders] Jeb Bush? And, of course, in traditional GOP fashion, a presidential pardon of unindicted co-conspirator Cheney (a la Gerald Ford and unindicted Watergate co-conspirator Richard Nixon).
Meanwhile, GOP congressmen are beginning to abandon former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. They are undoubtedly aware of the connections of DeLay to mobster money funneled by indicted GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Even a puff piece by reporter Mark Leibovich on DeLay in yesterday's Washington Post's Style section did little to stop the continual shark bites on DeLay from his GOP colleagues. Of course, DeLay's troubles come at the same time that one of his major supporters, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Israeli government, face an aggressive espionage probe by U.S. Attorney for Eastern Virginia Paul McNulty -- indicted Defense Intelligence Agency official Larry Franklin has agreed to a plea bargain in return for his cooperation as a prosecution witness.
After almost five years of incessant outrages by the Bush regime, I have never been more optimistic that the tide may be beginning to turn.
Hammer to the Slammer: Does Cruisegate Mean Curtains for GOPMOB?
Hammer to the Slammer: Does Cruisegate Mean Curtains for GOPMOB?
September 30, 2005-Venice, FL.
by Daniel Hopsicker
The investigation into the 4-year old murder of Sun Cruz Casino boat founder Konstantinos ‘Gus’ Boulis in Fort Lauderdale has begun to reveal hidden connections between Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s gargantuan fund-raising machine, essential to victory in the past two Presidential elections, and a cast of underworld characters not previously thought of as exemplifying what have come to be known as “Republican family values.”
The indictment of three men Tuesday in the Boulis "hit" exposes an unholy alliance in Florida between the national Republican party and the Mob, details of which were first reported in the MadCowMorningNews three months ago (“The Secret World of Jack Abramoff: Terrorists, Torpedoes and Republican ‘Muscle’”).
More indictments are expected soon.
The trail of suspicion leads directly to Abramoff’s doorstep: the three names already released clearly implicate Adam Kidan, the Casino line’s erstwhile President, in the crime, who wrote checks—duh-uh!—for over $250,000 to one of the indicted men, Gambino goombah Anthony “Big Tony”' Moscatiello, 67, of Howard Beach, N.Y, for no easily discernible reason.
Bush's Biggest Backer: Chief "Stands with Pair"
Although lawyers for Abramoff and Kidan, who face trial Jan. 9 on fraud charges, have repeatedly said neither man knows anything about Boulis' murder, since Kidan was hand-picked by Abramoff to run the unregulated collection of a dozen ships operating off the coast of Florida, Abramoff may even now be wondering who it might be safe to “roll on” if and when he’s indicted for murder.
Abramoff, of course, is best known as the target of a federal investigation in Washington into the tens of millions in fees he collected from casino-owning Indian tribes. But the wreckage from his brief and tumultuous time as owner of the gambling fleet threatens to overtake his Washington legal troubles.
The breathtaking scope of “Cruisegate” could make it the biggest American political scandal since Iran Contra. Should its tawdry details fully come to light, it might eclipse even the Watergate Scandal.
Already, the dramatis personae includes a familiar name from previous scandals: Barry Seal, called “the ghost haunting the Whitewater investigation” by the Wall Street Journal, who was himself murdered on orders, according to his own lawyer's testimony, of then-Vice President George Bush.
September 30, 2005-Venice, FL.
by Daniel Hopsicker
The investigation into the 4-year old murder of Sun Cruz Casino boat founder Konstantinos ‘Gus’ Boulis in Fort Lauderdale has begun to reveal hidden connections between Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s gargantuan fund-raising machine, essential to victory in the past two Presidential elections, and a cast of underworld characters not previously thought of as exemplifying what have come to be known as “Republican family values.”
The indictment of three men Tuesday in the Boulis "hit" exposes an unholy alliance in Florida between the national Republican party and the Mob, details of which were first reported in the MadCowMorningNews three months ago (“The Secret World of Jack Abramoff: Terrorists, Torpedoes and Republican ‘Muscle’”).
More indictments are expected soon.
The trail of suspicion leads directly to Abramoff’s doorstep: the three names already released clearly implicate Adam Kidan, the Casino line’s erstwhile President, in the crime, who wrote checks—duh-uh!—for over $250,000 to one of the indicted men, Gambino goombah Anthony “Big Tony”' Moscatiello, 67, of Howard Beach, N.Y, for no easily discernible reason.
Bush's Biggest Backer: Chief "Stands with Pair"
Although lawyers for Abramoff and Kidan, who face trial Jan. 9 on fraud charges, have repeatedly said neither man knows anything about Boulis' murder, since Kidan was hand-picked by Abramoff to run the unregulated collection of a dozen ships operating off the coast of Florida, Abramoff may even now be wondering who it might be safe to “roll on” if and when he’s indicted for murder.
Abramoff, of course, is best known as the target of a federal investigation in Washington into the tens of millions in fees he collected from casino-owning Indian tribes. But the wreckage from his brief and tumultuous time as owner of the gambling fleet threatens to overtake his Washington legal troubles.
The breathtaking scope of “Cruisegate” could make it the biggest American political scandal since Iran Contra. Should its tawdry details fully come to light, it might eclipse even the Watergate Scandal.
Already, the dramatis personae includes a familiar name from previous scandals: Barry Seal, called “the ghost haunting the Whitewater investigation” by the Wall Street Journal, who was himself murdered on orders, according to his own lawyer's testimony, of then-Vice President George Bush.
N.Y. Times reporter testifies in leak probe - Politics - MSNBC.com
N.Y. Times reporter testifies in leak probe - Politics - MSNBC.com: "As part of the deal, Fitzgerald agreed in advance that he would limit Miller's testimony to her communications with her source and that was very important to me, Miller added."
Friday, September 30, 2005
Ezra Klein: So Many Choices
Ezra Klein: So Many Choices
Prof. Bainbridge is joining the right's call for Bush to keep his campaign promises and nominate a judge in the mold of Thomas or Scalia.
Prof. Bainbridge is joining the right's call for Bush to keep his campaign promises and nominate a judge in the mold of Thomas or Scalia.
Bonfire of the Vanities: Tom Delay & the Apostate GOP
Bonfire of the Vanities: Tom Delay & the Apostate GOP
Blogger Thoughts: This post links to a Priest who sadly believes Repubs are have the possibiltiy of being honest and doing the right thing. This would seem to challenge the power of prayer, conversion, or any other force for a change in our world.
(By the way, I'd write the same words if he were referring to Dems.)
Blogger Thoughts: This post links to a Priest who sadly believes Repubs are have the possibiltiy of being honest and doing the right thing. This would seem to challenge the power of prayer, conversion, or any other force for a change in our world.
(By the way, I'd write the same words if he were referring to Dems.)
FPI 2005: US forces 'out of control', says Reuters chief
FPI 2005: US forces 'out of control', says Reuters chief
9/28/2005
Reuters has told the US government that American forces' conduct towards journalists in Iraq is "spiralling out of control" and preventing full coverage of the war reaching the public.
The detention and accidental shootings of journalists is limiting how journalists can operate, wrote David Schlesinger, the Reuters global managing editor, in a letter to Senator John Warner, head of the armed services committee.
The Reuters news service chief referred to "a long parade of disturbing incidents whereby professional journalists have been killed, wrongfully detained, and/or illegally abused by US forces in Iraq".
Mr Schlesinger urged the senator to raise the concerns with Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who is due to testify to the committee this Thursday.
He asked Mr Warner to demand that Mr Rumsfeld resolve these issues "in a way that best balances the legitimate security interests of the US forces in Iraq and the equally legitimate rights of journalists in conflict zones under international law".
At least 66 journalists and media workers, most of them Iraqis, have been killed in the country since March 2003.
US forces admitted killing three Reuters journalists, most recently soundman Waleed Khaled, who was shot by American soldiers on August 28 while on assignment in Baghdad. But the military said the soldiers were justified in opening fire. Reuters believes a fourth journalist working for the agency, who died in Ramadi last year, was killed by a US sniper.
'A serious chilling effect on the media'
"The worsening situation for professional journalists in Iraq directly limits journalists' abilities to do their jobs and, more importantly, creates a serious chilling effect on the media overall," Mr Schlesinger wrote.
"By limiting the ability of the media to fully and independently cover the events in Iraq, the US forces are unduly preventing US citizens from receiving information ... and undermining the very freedoms the US says it is seeking to foster every day that it commits US lives and US dollars."
Mr Schlesinger said the US military had refused to conduct independent and transparent investigations into the deaths of the Reuters journalists, relying instead on inquiries by officers from the units responsible, who had exonerated their soldiers.
He noted that the US military had failed to implement recommendations by its own inquiry into the death of award-winning Palestinian cameraman Mazen Dana, who was shot dead while filming outside Abu Ghraib prison in August 2003.
He said that Reuters and other reputable international news organisations were concerned by the "sizeable and rapidly increasing number of journalists detained by US forces".
He said detentions were prompted by legitimate journalistic activity such as possessing photographs and video of insurgents, which US soldiers assumed showed sympathy with the insurgency.
Earlier this week Reuters demanded the release of a freelance Iraqi cameraman after a secret tribunal ordered that he be detained indefinitely.
Samir Mohammed Noor, a freelance cameraman working for Reuters, was arrested by Iraqi troops at his home in the northern town of Tal Afar four months ago.
A US military spokesman has told the agency that a secret hearing held last week had found him to be "an imperative threat to the coalition forces and the security of Iraq".
The news agency has demanded that he be released or given a chance to defend himself in open court.
The US network CBS has raised concerns over the arrest of its cameraman, Abdul Amir Younes, who was arrested in hospital in April after he was shot by US troops.
CBS said it is concerned that he had no legal representation at the hearing and has had no chance to see the evidence against him.
posted by GREG ERICSON at 12:50 PM
9/28/2005
Reuters has told the US government that American forces' conduct towards journalists in Iraq is "spiralling out of control" and preventing full coverage of the war reaching the public.
The detention and accidental shootings of journalists is limiting how journalists can operate, wrote David Schlesinger, the Reuters global managing editor, in a letter to Senator John Warner, head of the armed services committee.
The Reuters news service chief referred to "a long parade of disturbing incidents whereby professional journalists have been killed, wrongfully detained, and/or illegally abused by US forces in Iraq".
Mr Schlesinger urged the senator to raise the concerns with Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who is due to testify to the committee this Thursday.
He asked Mr Warner to demand that Mr Rumsfeld resolve these issues "in a way that best balances the legitimate security interests of the US forces in Iraq and the equally legitimate rights of journalists in conflict zones under international law".
At least 66 journalists and media workers, most of them Iraqis, have been killed in the country since March 2003.
US forces admitted killing three Reuters journalists, most recently soundman Waleed Khaled, who was shot by American soldiers on August 28 while on assignment in Baghdad. But the military said the soldiers were justified in opening fire. Reuters believes a fourth journalist working for the agency, who died in Ramadi last year, was killed by a US sniper.
'A serious chilling effect on the media'
"The worsening situation for professional journalists in Iraq directly limits journalists' abilities to do their jobs and, more importantly, creates a serious chilling effect on the media overall," Mr Schlesinger wrote.
"By limiting the ability of the media to fully and independently cover the events in Iraq, the US forces are unduly preventing US citizens from receiving information ... and undermining the very freedoms the US says it is seeking to foster every day that it commits US lives and US dollars."
Mr Schlesinger said the US military had refused to conduct independent and transparent investigations into the deaths of the Reuters journalists, relying instead on inquiries by officers from the units responsible, who had exonerated their soldiers.
He noted that the US military had failed to implement recommendations by its own inquiry into the death of award-winning Palestinian cameraman Mazen Dana, who was shot dead while filming outside Abu Ghraib prison in August 2003.
He said that Reuters and other reputable international news organisations were concerned by the "sizeable and rapidly increasing number of journalists detained by US forces".
He said detentions were prompted by legitimate journalistic activity such as possessing photographs and video of insurgents, which US soldiers assumed showed sympathy with the insurgency.
Earlier this week Reuters demanded the release of a freelance Iraqi cameraman after a secret tribunal ordered that he be detained indefinitely.
Samir Mohammed Noor, a freelance cameraman working for Reuters, was arrested by Iraqi troops at his home in the northern town of Tal Afar four months ago.
A US military spokesman has told the agency that a secret hearing held last week had found him to be "an imperative threat to the coalition forces and the security of Iraq".
The news agency has demanded that he be released or given a chance to defend himself in open court.
The US network CBS has raised concerns over the arrest of its cameraman, Abdul Amir Younes, who was arrested in hospital in April after he was shot by US troops.
CBS said it is concerned that he had no legal representation at the hearing and has had no chance to see the evidence against him.
posted by GREG ERICSON at 12:50 PM
LSU: Army Corps levee story is bogus
TOTAL INFORMATION ANALYSIS: "LSU: Army Corps levee story is bogus"
Cover-up: U.S Army Corps moves in on levee evidence
TOTAL INFORMATION ANALYSIS: "Cover-up: U.S Army Corps moves in on levee evidence"
Nagin reported 25-foot crater beneath Industrial Canal
TOTAL INFORMATION ANALYSIS: "Nagin reported 25-foot crater beneath Industrial Canal"
Top Officials Told to Testify in Muslims' Suit - New York Times
Top Officials Told to Testify in Muslims' Suit - New York Times
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
September 29, 2005
Top Officials Told to Testify in Muslims' Suit
By NINA BERNSTEIN
A federal judge in Brooklyn ruled yesterday that former Attorney General John Ashcroft, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other top government officials will have to answer questions under oath in a lawsuit that accuses them of personally conspiring to violate the rights of Muslim immigrants held in a federal detention center in Brooklyn after 9/11.
The officials had sought to have the lawsuit dismissed without testimony, arguing in part that they had governmental immunity from its claims, that the court lacked jurisdiction because they live outside New York State, and that the Sept. 11 attacks created "special factors" outweighing the plaintiffs' right to sue for damages for constitutional violations.
But the judge, John Gleeson, of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, rejected those arguments, allowing the case to proceed - and opening the door to depositions of Mr. Ashcroft and the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, by lawyers for the two plaintiffs: Ehab Elmaghraby, an Egyptian immigrant who ran a restaurant in Times Square, and Javaid Iqbal, a Pakistani immigrant whose Long Island customers knew him as "the cable guy."
The lawsuit charges that, solely because of their race, religion or national origin, the two men were physically abused and deprived of due process while being detained for more than eight months in the harsh maximum-security unit of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
The men, who eventually pleaded guilty to minor criminal charges unrelated to terrorism and were deported, charged that they were repeatedly slammed into walls and dragged across the floor while shackled and manacled.
They said they were kicked and punched until they bled, cursed as "terrorists" and "Muslim bastards," and subjected to multiple unnecessary body-cavity searches, including one in which correction officers inserted a flashlight into Mr. Elmaghraby's rectum, making him bleed.
"Our nation's unique and complex law enforcement and security challenges in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks do not warrant the elimination of remedies for the constitutional violations alleged here," Judge Gleeson wrote in his decision.
Charles Miller, a spokesman for the United States Attorney's office, said the ruling was under review. "The government has made no determination yet as to what the government's next step will be," he said.
The decision was hailed as significant by the plaintiffs' lawyers, Alexander A. Reinert, of Koob & Magoolaghan, and Haeyoung Yoon, of the Urban Justice Center.
It was also celebrated by lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which brought a companion lawsuit as a class action on behalf of other immigrant detainees in 2002. The government's motion to dismiss that suit, using many of the same arguments, is pending before the same judge.
"The fact that Judge Gleeson ruled that this case can keep Ashcroft on the hook -that would never happen in a regular prison-abuse case," said Rachel Meeropol, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights. "The judge understood that this isn't just a case about individuals being abused in detention. These are people who were singled out according to a policy created on the highest levels of government."
Judge Gleeson cited a scathing 2003 report by the Justice Department's inspector general that found widespread abuse of detainees at the Brooklyn center.
The report said that Mr. Ashcroft's policy was to hold detainees on any legal pretext until the F.B.I. cleared them, even though such clearances took months and many had been picked up by chance, not because they were legitimate terrorism suspects.
"The post-Sept. 11 context provides support for the plaintiffs' assertions that defendants were involved in creating and/or implementing the detention policy under which plaintiffs were confined without due process," the judge wrote.
In effect, the judge gave the plaintiffs an opportunity to try to establish the personal involvement of Mr. Ashcroft and other high-ranking defendants through discovery, rather than simply accepting the defense's argument of immunity at this early stage of the litigation.
The "qualified immunity" that shields government officials "will not allow the attorney general to carry out his national security functions wholly free from concern for his personal liability," Judge Gleeson wrote, quoting a Supreme Court decision that involved then-Attorney General John N. Mitchell's unauthorized wiretap of a radical group. "He may on occasion have to pause to consider whether a proposed course of action can be squared with the Constitution and laws of the United States."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
September 29, 2005
Top Officials Told to Testify in Muslims' Suit
By NINA BERNSTEIN
A federal judge in Brooklyn ruled yesterday that former Attorney General John Ashcroft, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other top government officials will have to answer questions under oath in a lawsuit that accuses them of personally conspiring to violate the rights of Muslim immigrants held in a federal detention center in Brooklyn after 9/11.
The officials had sought to have the lawsuit dismissed without testimony, arguing in part that they had governmental immunity from its claims, that the court lacked jurisdiction because they live outside New York State, and that the Sept. 11 attacks created "special factors" outweighing the plaintiffs' right to sue for damages for constitutional violations.
But the judge, John Gleeson, of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, rejected those arguments, allowing the case to proceed - and opening the door to depositions of Mr. Ashcroft and the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, by lawyers for the two plaintiffs: Ehab Elmaghraby, an Egyptian immigrant who ran a restaurant in Times Square, and Javaid Iqbal, a Pakistani immigrant whose Long Island customers knew him as "the cable guy."
The lawsuit charges that, solely because of their race, religion or national origin, the two men were physically abused and deprived of due process while being detained for more than eight months in the harsh maximum-security unit of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
The men, who eventually pleaded guilty to minor criminal charges unrelated to terrorism and were deported, charged that they were repeatedly slammed into walls and dragged across the floor while shackled and manacled.
They said they were kicked and punched until they bled, cursed as "terrorists" and "Muslim bastards," and subjected to multiple unnecessary body-cavity searches, including one in which correction officers inserted a flashlight into Mr. Elmaghraby's rectum, making him bleed.
"Our nation's unique and complex law enforcement and security challenges in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks do not warrant the elimination of remedies for the constitutional violations alleged here," Judge Gleeson wrote in his decision.
Charles Miller, a spokesman for the United States Attorney's office, said the ruling was under review. "The government has made no determination yet as to what the government's next step will be," he said.
The decision was hailed as significant by the plaintiffs' lawyers, Alexander A. Reinert, of Koob & Magoolaghan, and Haeyoung Yoon, of the Urban Justice Center.
It was also celebrated by lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which brought a companion lawsuit as a class action on behalf of other immigrant detainees in 2002. The government's motion to dismiss that suit, using many of the same arguments, is pending before the same judge.
"The fact that Judge Gleeson ruled that this case can keep Ashcroft on the hook -that would never happen in a regular prison-abuse case," said Rachel Meeropol, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights. "The judge understood that this isn't just a case about individuals being abused in detention. These are people who were singled out according to a policy created on the highest levels of government."
Judge Gleeson cited a scathing 2003 report by the Justice Department's inspector general that found widespread abuse of detainees at the Brooklyn center.
The report said that Mr. Ashcroft's policy was to hold detainees on any legal pretext until the F.B.I. cleared them, even though such clearances took months and many had been picked up by chance, not because they were legitimate terrorism suspects.
"The post-Sept. 11 context provides support for the plaintiffs' assertions that defendants were involved in creating and/or implementing the detention policy under which plaintiffs were confined without due process," the judge wrote.
In effect, the judge gave the plaintiffs an opportunity to try to establish the personal involvement of Mr. Ashcroft and other high-ranking defendants through discovery, rather than simply accepting the defense's argument of immunity at this early stage of the litigation.
The "qualified immunity" that shields government officials "will not allow the attorney general to carry out his national security functions wholly free from concern for his personal liability," Judge Gleeson wrote, quoting a Supreme Court decision that involved then-Attorney General John N. Mitchell's unauthorized wiretap of a radical group. "He may on occasion have to pause to consider whether a proposed course of action can be squared with the Constitution and laws of the United States."
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