Cheney Mishap Takes Focus Off CIA Leak

Cheney Mishap Takes Focus Off CIA Leak

WASHINGTON - It's not Dick Cheney's hunting mishap that worries Republicans. It's his other scandal — the CIA leak case and the threat it poses to the embattled vice president.

Republican activists acknowledge that the accidental shooting of Cheney's friend is the talk of mainstream America and has made the vice president the butt of jokes. But they do not expect political fallout from the shooting or the clumsy way in which it was disclosed.

"It's hard to believe that anybody can make Dick Cheney a sympathetic figure," said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla. "That's what the media has done."

Republicans say they are pleasantly surprised that the intense media coverage of the hunting accident has shifted attention from the case of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff. Libby is accused of misleading investigators about who leaked the identify of a CIA official.

In documents released two weeks ago, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald said he understood that Libby's superiors authorized him to disclose to the media details of a secret report that is central to the investigation. What does Cheney know? "It's nothing I can talk about," he said in a television interview Wednesday. "I may well be called as a witness at some point in the case and it's, therefore, inappropriate for me to comment on any facet of the case."

That's the scandal to watch, Republicans said.

The hunting accident "really has gotten Scooter Libby out of the press," said Deb Gullett, a GOP activist from Phoenix, who is chief of staff to the city's mayor. "But it will come back."

"There are so many things going on that could be a great concern for Republicans, but this hunting thing is not one of them," she said. "Should he have said something sooner about the accident? Of course he should have. But is it the end of the world? Of course not."

Fellow Republicans said growing anti-war sentiment and President Bush's warrantless spying program are bigger political problems for the GOP.

"At the White House press briefing, I think two-thirds of the questions were about this (hunting accident) when we have Iraq and a whole slew of other issues to deal with," including the CIA leak case, said J. Everett Moore Jr., a Washington lawyer and former chairman of the Delaware GOP.

Cole said, "It does look to the average American that this is a self-indulgent exercise on behalf of the press when there are real debatable issues out there."

For now, the focus is on Cheney's shooting ability rather than whether he is shooting straight about the CIA leak case.

"The image of him falling is something I'll never ever be able to get out of my mind," Cheney told Fox News Channel about his friend, as the White House sought to cast him as a sympathetic figure. (yeah right, the VP who voted for torture...LIAR)

The vice president shot 78-year-old lawyer Harry Whittington while quail hunting in Texas on Saturday. "I fired, and there's Harry falling. It was, I'd have to say, one of the worst days of my life at that moment," Cheney said.

Even some Democrats weren't sure whether the latest Cheney controversy was good or bad for the White House.

"The bad news is he's talking about shooting a man, blaming the victim and covering it up," said Democratic consultant Jim Jordan. The White House initially suggested Whittington was at fault for putting himself in range of Cheney's rifle.

"The good news is he's not talking about his indicted chief of staff or ordering the leaking of classified information," Jordan said.

Political scientists outside Washington said they doubted Cheney would pay a political price for the hunting incident, though the case has reinforced his reputation as a secretive and controlling political power.

"It wasn't good huntsmanship, but it wasn't anything of national importance," said Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political science professor. "If it turns out that Scooter Libby is now willing to testify that he got directions from the vice president to leak the name of a CIA agent, that's a far more serious issue and damaging to Cheney."

"That other scandal is the one worth watching," he said.

I told you the leak was probably Cheney....

Outrage Spreads over New Images

Outrage Spreads over New Images
Images posted at : http:nojustcause.blogspot.com

BASRA - New footage of British soldiers beating up young Iraqi men in Amarah city in 2003, and the release of more photographs of atrocities by U.S. soldiers against Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib prison has spread outrage across Iraq.

The timing of the new images is potent, in the wake of violence spreading through Iraq and much of the Muslim world over cartoons of Prophet Mohammed carried by a Danish newspaper and then other European publications.

"We in Basra have decided not to cooperate in any way with the British troops," 43 year-old food merchant Ali Shehab Najim told IPS. "These occupiers of Basra are invaders and we will not sell them any of their requirements."

Najim added, "None of us will work with them any longer either. My cousin used to work with them inside their base, but not any more. He refuses to go to work, and we have decided to show our contempt for them in every way possible."

Najim said people are particularly angry over the Danish military presence in Iraq.

He said he had first accepted the presence of occupation forces, but now "I think it's about time to tell them we do not respect them since they are behaving in a very bad way."

After footage of British troops beating young Iraqis with fists and batons was aired earlier, the Governorate of Basra announced it has severed ties to the British military. This included cancellation of joint security patrols.

"We condemn any of those actions by British and American troops in torturing our young people," former head city councillor of Basra governorate Qasim Atta Al-Joubori told IPS.

"Iraqis suffered a lot during the past 35 years, but now they are tortured by foreigners who invaded our country," said Al-Joubori, who was a city councillor in Basra for 40 years. "We can't accept having them any more."

Far from cooperating, people in Basra are now prepared to fight the occupation forces, he said. "What these beatings and torture show is that the occupiers are both assaulting and insulting all of the Iraqi people."

Similar views are being echoed around Basra, a relatively quieter area in the south under charge of British troops.

"We are looking to the day we see those bastards out of our country," 55 year-old factory owner Abdullah Ibraheem told IPS. "Now they are torturing the citizens of Basra, Baghdad and Amarah, so they have not only lost the support of the Iraqi Sunnis but the Shias in this country as well."

He said most Iraqis know someone who has been in a military detention centre, but said the new video footage and photographic evidence of torture have "demolished whatever credibility may have remained for the occupiers."

The Australian television network Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) aired previously unpublished video footage and photographs Wednesday of abuse of Iraqis by U.S. soldiers inside the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in 2003.

The images are similar to those published in 2004 that led to furore across the Middle East. But many of the new images show a brutality and extent of sexual humiliation that many news outlets found too shocking to carry.

The American Civil Liberties Union had obtained the photographs from the U.S. government under a Freedom of Information request, but its members said they were not aware how the SBS came to air its new footage and the photographs.

There could be yet more photographs to come. "I believe major newspapers in the U.S. like the Washington Post have scores more photos which are evidence of torture at Abu Ghraib, but they won't publish them due to pressure from the U.S. government," an attorney at the Centre for Constitutional Rights in New York City told IPS.

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters, "The abuses at Abu Ghraib have been fully investigated." He added, "When there have been abuses, this department has acted upon them promptly, investigated them thoroughly and where appropriate prosecuted individuals."

He said the Pentagon believes that releasing of the new images would trigger greater violence, and endanger U.S. forces in Iraq.

Bush Plans Huge Propaganda Campaign in Iran

Bush Plans Huge Propaganda Campaign in Iran

· Congress asked for $75m to fund programme · Rice to visit Gulf states as nuclear crisis deepens

by Ewen MacAskill and Julian Borger

Bad Move

The Bush administration made an emergency request to Congress yesterday for a seven-fold increase in funding to mount the biggest ever propaganda campaign against the Tehran government, in a further sign of the worsening crisis between Iran and the west. Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, said the $75m (£43m) in extra funds, on top of $10m already allocated for later this year, would be used to broadcast US radio and television programmes into Iran, help pay for Iranians to study in America and support pro-democracy groups inside the country. Although US officials acknowledge the limitations of such a campaign, the state department is determined to press ahead with measures that include extending the government-run Voice of America's Farsi service from a few hours a day to round-the-clock coverage. The sudden budget request, which follows an outlay of only $4m over the last two years, is to be accompanied by a diplomatic drive by Ms Rice to discuss Tehran's suspect nuclear weapons programme. She is to begin with a visit to Gulf states. Ms Rice told the Senate foreign affairs committee that Iranian leaders "have now crossed a point where they are in open defiance of the international community". She added: "The United States will actively confront the aggressive policies of the Iranian regime. At the same time, we will work to support the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom and democracy in their country." BU*SH*IT The US is to increase funds to Iranian non-governmental bodies that promote democracy, human rights and trade unionism. It began funding such bodies last year for the first time since Washington broke off ties with Iran in 1980. A US official said all existing citizens' groups and non-governmental organisations in Iran had been heavily infiltrated by the Tehran government, so the US would seek to help build new dissident networks. US officials depicted the new pro-democracy spending as just one side of a multi-faceted diplomatic offensive aimed at increasing pressure on Tehran. They said Ms Rice would make Iran a focal point of her talks with Middle East leaders in her tour next week, put it centre-stage at the upcoming G8 meeting in Moscow, and call a meeting of political directors from the Nato alliance in late March or April solely to talk about policy towards Iran. US propaganda efforts in the Middle East since September 11 have been relatively unsuccessful. Analysts say its Arabic news station al-Hurra (the Free One) is widely regarded with suspicion in the Middle East and has poor listening figures. The move follows talks in Washington last week with British diplomats specialising in Iran. The Foreign Office yesterday welcomed the US move, noting it meant the continued pursuit of diplomatic means rather than hints of military action. The Foreign Office funds the BBC World Service, whose Persian service has built a following in Iran. This month Iran began blocking the Persian service website. A senior US official claimed there was now "a broad degree of concern" in the Middle East and around the world about the recent actions taken by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and that the proposed US offensive had been greeted "very enthusiastically". The stand-off between Iran and the west worsened on Tuesday when an Iranian official said Tehran had resumed small-scale uranium enrichment, a necessary step towards achieving a nuclear weapons capability.

National security vs. whistle-blowing | csmonitor.com

National security vs. whistle-blowing | csmonitor.com

Protections erode for those who allege governmental wrongdoing - especially if going public risks state secrets.

By Alexandra Marks

NEW YORK – Former intelligence officer Russ Tice wants to tell Congress about what he believes were illegal actions undertaken by the National Security Agency in its highly sophisticated eavesdropping programs.

But he can't. He's been warned by the NSA that the information is so highly classified that even members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees - who are charged with overseeing the work of the intelligence community - don't have clearance to hear about them. BU*SH*IT

If Mr. Tice talks at the hearings early next month, he could face criminal prosecution.

Tice is one of an increasing number of whistle-blowers in the national security realm who have come forth and found themselves in a bind.

According to the Government Accountability Office, the number of government employees coming forward to report allegations of wrongdoing within the government increased 46 percent in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

And surveys of government employees, particularly in the intelligence agencies and the Defense Department, show the terror attacks prompted an increase in concern about the competency of bureaucracy at all levels as well as a decline in morale.

So more employees have come forward. But new secrecy regulations and a series of judicial rulings have threatened the limited legal protections that are supposed to prevent retaliation against such whistle-blowers - even if they believe what they want to report is essential to national security.

"The laws on the books give the impression that people have somewhere to turn and they'll be protected, but they don't," says Beth Daley, an investigator for the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a nonprofit organization dedicated to government accountability. "There really isn't a functioning whistle-blower protection program right now." (It is written- but then so was the Constitution; and all other violations by the Bush regime)

The Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 and the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998 set out mechanisms for employees to report wrongdoing if they "reasonably believe" there's misconduct. Now we are being accused of being terrorists if we speak out against "This form of government"

Most whistle-blowers can go to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) and the US Office of Special Counsel. Those in the intelligence communities are supposed to go to their agencies' inspectors general or members of the congressional Intelligence Committees.

"Congress needs access to not only the information an agency head is willing to release, but things from the middle and the bottom, and that's whistle-blowing," says Louis Fisher, a senior specialist in the separation of powers at the Congressional Research Service.

"In a time of war and emergencies, it's particularly important because when you concentrate power, the chance of abuse and mistakes increases."

Yet some analysts believe it's vital that the executive branch have the prerogative to keep some information secret. "There are some ... programs that are so sensitive that distribution of information should be very limited. It's vital to our national security," says Peter Brookes, a senior fellow for national security at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington. "But I also believe there should be some oversight."

In 1999, a federal court ruled that employees can be protected from retaliation only if there is irrefutable evidence of wrongdoing - a standard that government accountability experts say is extremely difficult to meet. Prior to the ruling, 36 percent of whistle-blower cases that went to the MSPB won on the merits, according to the Government Accountability Project, another nonprofit government watchdog group. Since that 1999 ruling, only 7 percent have prevailed. Court rulings have also narrowed the scope of who qualifies as a whistle-blower and limited the MSPB's ability to remedy certain forms of retaliation.

The combination has stripped many employees intent on exposing wrongdoing of their congressionally promised protections, according to Sibel Edmonds, founder of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, a group of more than 100 employees from the nation's intelligence and defense agencies.

"These are experienced veterans who've been working for these agencies for a long time," says Ms. Edmonds. "The moment they reported wrongdoing, their whole lives changed. They became pariahs overnight."

Most lost their security clearance, were demoted, or lost their jobs altogether. Edmonds has firsthand experience. She was a language specialist in the FBI's Washington Field Office. After she reported another translator was omitting information vital to national security, she was fired.

Her case is currently in the courts, but the Bush administration has invoked the state's secrets privilege, which gives it the right to withhold all information on the case from the courts because of national security.

The FBI has declined comment on the case since it is still pending, but in an e-mail FBI spokesman Bill Carter wrote: "FBI Director Mueller has expressed his firm commitment to the protection of employees who report organizational wrongdoing."

Still, as a result of heightened concerns about terrorism, the Bush administration has significantly increased the amount of government material that is, or could be, classified. For instance, the Department of Homeland Security has a regulation that forbids disclosure of any document to the public that is marked "For Official Use Only," or any document that could be labeled that way. An employee who releases such information can be prosecuted.

Sudan: Oil Profits Behind West’s Tears for Darfur - Worldpress.org

Sudan: Oil Profits Behind West’s Tears for Darfur - Worldpress.org:

For at least 18 months now, Western governments have quietly stood by as the non-Arabic-speaking black farmers of the Darfur region in western Sudan have borne the brunt of a vicious ethnic-cleansing campaign carried out by state-sponsored bandits known as the Janjaweed.

Refugees report that attacks on farming villages are often preceded by raids by Sudanese air force fighter-bombers and attack helicopters. The Janjaweed, recruited from Arabic-speaking pastoralist tribes, then routinely murder any male villagers they can get their hands on. They systematically rape or kidnap the women, and plunder and destroy the villages and crops.

The attacks and their consequences have resulted in the deaths of up to 50,000 people** (more than that) and the displacement of 1.5 million; aid agencies warn that hundreds of thousands may die from disease or starvation in the coming months.

Why then have the governments of the United States and the European Union (EU) only now begun to express concern over the fate of the people of western Sudan and demand that the Islamist military regime in Khartoum bring the Janjaweed under control?

The answer-as it most often is when rich countries threaten to intervene in the Middle East and Africa-access to invest in and extract profits from Sudan's burgeoning oil export industry.
Pressure on Khartoum

Beginning in July, Washington, backed by the EU, began to ratchet up the pressure on Khartoum to rein in the Janjaweed. On July 1, US Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Khartoum, where he sternly warned Sudan's government: "Unless we see more moves soon ... it may be necessary for the international community to begin considering other actions, to include Security Council action."

**(State Department finding that 60,000 to 160,000 deaths: Other surveys had pegged the death toll much higher -- ranging from a low of 180,000 deaths just from health causes to an overall high of 400,000) That is a huge range of uncertainty but with hard figures difficult to get, the toll has been fiercely contested by Sudan.

Article Continues

Bush Calls For More Muscle In Darfur

Bush Calls For More Muscle In Darfur

I am glad Bush is stepping in finally to assist Darfur, yet Africa has lots of OIL
Is it a conflict of interest to intervene with Arab Militia?

ORLANDO, Fla., Feb. 17 -- President Bush on Friday called for doubling the number of international troops in the war-ravaged Darfur region of Sudan and a bigger role for NATO in the peacekeeping effort.

Bush has concluded that peace talks will not halt the violence that has left tens of thousands dead and more than 2 million homeless in Darfur and that a more muscular military response is required, administration officials said.

After private talks with world leaders, including U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Bush decided to call for an additional 7,000 or more troops to be placed under U.N. command, along with the 7,000 African Union troops already there, because such an expansion would be the quickest way to intervene in the bloody conflict, the officials said. But many details of the policy shift need to be worked out, including how many U.S. troops would be part of the beefed-up international peacekeeping effort. Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter, a Pentagon spokesman, said it is "premature to speculate" on potential increases in U.S. troops.

"I'm in the process now of working with a variety of folks to encourage there to be more troops, probably under the United Nations," Bush said in Tampa in a question-and-answer session after he made a speech on terrorism. The announcement caught senior White House aides by surprise because details of the new policy have not been finalized. Still, a top White House official said the Bush statement is part of a significant shift that will drive Darfur policy in the months ahead.

The change is essentially an acknowledgment that the previous policy did not stop the killings, which Bush had described as genocide. He had resisted calls for a bigger U.S. role and relied on the African Union to take the lead, with increased NATO assistance. U.S. officials had also pressed Sudan to rein in the militias.

But the violence continued, and almost no progress has been made in the peace talks between Sudan's government and Darfur rebels. The negotiations are taking place in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.
There are also growing fears of a military clash between Sudan and neighboring Chad, where several hundred thousand refugees from Darfur are living in camps.

Four U.S. military planners were sent to the United Nations this week to assist the U.N. peacekeeping department in coming up with a range of options for the military forces, according to a State Department official. NATO would provide planning and logistical assistance.

The latest conflict began in early 2003, when two Darfur rebel groups took up arms against the Arab-led Islamic government in Khartoum, citing discrimination against the region's black tribes. The Sudanese government armed and organized a local Arab militia, known as the Janjaweed, to target local communities that were suspected of sympathizing with the rebels. U.N. officials say as many as 200,000 people may have been killed by violence and disease as a result of the attacks.

In a break from current policy, which has emphasized peace talks and long-term solutions, Bush concluded this month that the 7,000-member African Union peacekeeping force has been hamstrung by its size and limited rules of engagement, one official said. With memories of the failed 1993 U.S. military operation in Somalia fresh in their minds, many U.S. policymakers have been reluctant to commit U.S. forces unilaterally or through multilateral organizations such as NATO.

But Bush brushed aside the resistance of some senior policymakers and sided with White House adviser Michael J. Gerson and others who have been lobbying for more assistance to Darfur. Bush this week also proposed $500 million for Darfur as part of a larger special budget request to Congress.

There is some bipartisan support for intervening in the troubled region. Sens. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) plan to introduce a resolution in Congress calling for NATO troops to help the African Union "stop the genocide" in the Darfur region.

CONTINUED 1 ('2') ('Next') NextNext >

Outrage Spreads over New Images

Outrage Spreads over New Images
*Inter Press Service*
Dahr Jamail and Arkan Hamed*

BASRA, Feb 16 (IPS) - New footage of British soldiers beating up youngIraqi men in Amarah city in 2003, and the release of more photographs ofatrocities by U.S. soldiers against Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib prisonhas spread outrage across Iraq.

*The timing of the new images is potent, in the wake of violencespreading through Iraq and much of the Muslim world over cartoons ofProphet Mohammed carried by a Danish newspaper and then other European publications.

"We in Basra have decided not to cooperate in any way with the British troops," 43 year-old food merchant Ali Shehab Najim told IPS. "These occupiers of Basra are invaders and we will not sell them any of their requirements."Najim added, "None of us will work with them any longer either.

My cousin used to work with them inside their base, but not any more. He refuses to go to work, and we have decided to show our contempt for them in every way possible."Najim said people are particularly angry over the Danish military presence in Iraq.

He said he had first accepted the presence of occupation forces, but now"I think it's about time to tell them we do not respect them since they are behaving in a very bad way."After footage of British troops beating young Iraqis with fists andbatons was aired earlier, the Governorate of Basra announced it hassevered ties to the British military.

This included cancellation of joint security patrols."We condemn any of those actions by British and American troops intorturing our young people," former head city councillor of Basra governorate Qasim Atta Al-Joubori told IPS."Iraqis suffered a lot during the past 35 years, but now they are tortured by foreigners who invaded our country," said Al-Joubori, who was a city councillor in Basra for 40 years.

"We can't accept havingthem any more."Far from cooperating, people in Basra are now prepared to fight theoccupation forces, he said. "What these beatings and torture show isthat the occupiers are both assaulting and insulting all of the Iraqi people."Similar views are being echoed around Basra, a relatively quieter area in the south under charge of British troops.

"We are looking to the day we see those bastards out of our country," 55 year-old factory owner Abdullah Ibraheem told IPS. "Now they aretorturing the citizens of Basra, Baghdad and Amarah, so they have notonly lost the support of the Iraqi Sunnis but the Shias in this countryas well."He said most Iraqis know someone who has been in a military detention centre, but said the new video footage and photographic evidence oftorture have "demolished whatever credibility may have remained for the occupiers.

"The Australian television network Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) aired previously unpublished video footage and photographs Wednesday of abuse of Iraqis by U.S. soldiers inside the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in 2003.

The images are similar to those published in 2004 that led to furoreacross the Middle East. But many of the new images show a brutality andextent of sexual humiliation that many news outlets found too shocking to carry.

The American Civil Liberties Union had obtained the photographs from the U.S. government under a Freedom of Information request, but its memberssaid they were not aware how the SBS came to air its new footage and thephotographs.There could be yet more photographs to come. "I believe major newspapersin the U.S. like the Washington Post have scores more photos which areevidence of torture at Abu Ghraib, but they won't publish them due topressure from the U.S. government," an attorney at the Centre for Constitutional Rights in New York City told IPS.

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters, "The abuses at Abu Ghraib have been fully investigated." He added, "When there have been abuses, this department has acted upon them promptly,investigated them thoroughly and where appropriate prosecuted individuals."He said the Pentagon believes that releasing of the new images wouldtrigger greater violence, and endanger U.S. forces in Iraq.

SBS in Australia broadcasts the real Abu Ghraib footage the US government will not allow you to see

SBS in Australia broadcasts the real Abu Ghraib footage the US government will not allow you to see.
*February 16, 2006*http://dahrjamailiraq.com

On Wednesday 16 February 2006, Australian public broadcaster SBS currentaffairs program DATELINE telecast a segment featring 60 new photos ofthe torture inflicted on prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

These photos were secured by court order - the ACLU figures prominentlyin the report - but these photos haven't yet been shown in the mediaanywhere in the United States. Because of the broadcast on SBS, you nowhave access to both Web-downloadable versions and BitTorrentfile-sharing network versions of the broadcast on this site.

*THESEPHOTOS ARE VERY DISTURBING. Please do not view this video if you areeasily disturbed by graphic imagery of torture and death

*.Download the SBS Abu Ghraib video (mp4)<http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/multi_media/SBS-Dateline-Abu-Ghraib-tiny.mp4>

<http://win20ca.audiovideoweb.com/ca20win15004/dahrjamail512K.wmv>

*Server busy? Then download the .torrent file (google bittorrenttutorial for information on how to do this

<http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial_s&hl=en&q=bittorrent+tutorial&btnG=Google+Search>
*.torrent mp4 tiny (13 megs)

<http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/multi_media/SBS-Dateline-Abu-Ghraib-tiny.mp4.torrent>.torrent mp4 small (45 megs)

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Learn about BitTorrent and see all of our torrents

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Patriot Daily :: Bush Tags Bloggers As Terrorists!

Patriot Daily :: Bush Tags Bloggers As Terrorists!

All bloggers should know that if the government views the substantive content of your blog as "activist calls" or "deliberate misinformation campaigns," then you may be a domestic "terrorist." hahahahahahaahaha

While not a surprise, given all that has transpired in Bush's term, it still was a shocker to read that bloggers are now "terrorists." The nature of blogger terrorist acts should be a concern for both liberal and conservative bloggers: "Deliberate misinformation campaigns" may well describe actions taken by right-wingers and "activist calls" describes actions by bloggers regardless of political affiliation.

Homeland Security completed its "Cyber Storm" wargame to test how our government "would respond to devastating attacks over the Internet from anti-globalization activists, underground hackers and bloggers." Voilate my 1st amendment and I'll sue you.

Given that homeland security ran the "wargame," one may infer that the nature of the attacks by bloggers must be national security related. And, given that the major national security fear of our government is terrorists, then it looks like bloggers have made our government's hit list of potential terrorists. But, what is the nature of this "terrorist crime" that was the subject of these wargames?

"Participants confirmed parts of the worldwide simulation challenged government officials and industry executives to respond to deliberate misinformation campaigns and activist calls by Internet bloggers, online diarists whose "Web logs" include political rantings and musings about current events."

There are other indications that the Bush administration deems bloggers well within the reach of any definition of terrorist, if for no other reason than the crime of dissent and criticism. There are also indicators that relevant parties would be somewhat prepared to assist in the nabbing of terrorist bloggers: Vaffanculo!

(1) In what may have been a precursor to US bloggers, the US military and government apparently were not offended (at least did not take any publicly disclosed action to free the blogger) when an Iraqi blogger was arrested, interrogated and imprisoned for the crime of reading comments on another blogger's website at a public café:

"Then finally I understood why I was there, after few hours. Security guards at the university had printed out all the websites I was reading while I was online there. They were accusing me of "reading terrorism sites" and "having communications with foreign terrorists"."

Do you know what these pages are?"I looked at them and figured out they were the comment section of Raed in the Middle!! I opened the comments section while browsing in the university, read some comments, and didn't even post anything.

But these people don't seem to know what the internet is, and they don't speak English, so I was a major suspect of being an assistant of al Zarqawi maybe! Or that I have a terrorist group of my own, with foreign connections!I was accused of terrorism, and sent to jail after they decided that I'm not helping myself because I am not helping them!!!

(2) US plans to data mine blogs for stated purpose of finding terrorist information to connect the dots to prevent a terrorist attack:

"The U.S. government is developing a massive computer system that can collect huge amounts of data and, by linking far-flung information from blogs and e-mail to government records and intelligence reports, search for patterns of terrorist activity." F-U

(3) "The CIA is quietly funding federal research into surveillance of Internet chat rooms as part of an effort to identify possible terrorists, newly released documents reveal."

(4) American Internet providers have assisted foreign countries to jail bloggers for substantive content posted on their blogs:

"Last December, Microsoft shut down the Web site of a dissident Chinese blogger. A few months earlier, Yahoo gave Beijing the name of a dissident Chinese journalist. He got ten years in jail for his Web postings. Ironically, Google's Chinese kowtow comes as the company is resisting efforts by the U.S. government for access to its records."

(5) Indymedia was a subject of a secret, international terrorism investigation in which US government seized its hard drives. A Texas Internet company turned over hard drives pursuant to a court order under an international treaty governing crimes of terrorism, kidnapping and money laundering.

(6) The MSM has shown its willingness to paint bloggers and any lefty journalists as the domestic evil axis of treasonists so that the American people will understand the need to arrest bloggers to make this country safe from terrorists. BU*SH*IT

(7) The CIA now has its own bloggers and a government website that are part of a revised CIA office for monitoring, translating and analyzing publicly available information. It is good news that the CIA is evaluating publicly available information in the fight against terrorism. The problem is we now know that when our government says "monitoring," it's not just al-Qaeda.

(8) The Bush administration refused to turn over control of the Internet to an international body, preferring to maintain unilateral control over the Internet. The fear is that "policy decisions could at a stroke make all Web sites ending in a specific suffix essentially unreachable."

It should be noted that some of these indicators on their face are equivocal, but perhaps should be considered in the context of actions and policies of this administration. In this context, the Bush wagons are circling bloggers.

And, once the perception is created that bloggers are a danger to national security, that perception is hard to unravel. The danger is that the American people will continue to follow Bush's lead like sheep frightened by the terrorist wolf. Kiss my GERMAN american A**; you'll have to kill me before I'll go to jail.

Afghan Suicide Bombings, Tied to Taliban, Point to Pakistan - New York Times

Afghan Suicide Bombings, Tied to Taliban, Point to Pakistan - New York Times:

"KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Feb. 12 — Arrests and interrogations of suspects in a recent series of suicide bombings in Afghanistan show that the attacks have been orchestrated from Pakistan by members of the ousted Taliban government with little interference by the Pakistani authorities, Afghan officials say.
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In taped interviews by an Afghan interrogator, two Afghans and three Pakistanis who were among 21 people arrested in recent weeks described their roles in the attacks, which have killed at least 70 people in the last three months, most of them Afghan civilians but also international peacekeepers, a Canadian diplomat and a dozen Afghan police officers and soldiers.

In the tape, the men described a fairly low-budget network that begins with the recruitment of young bombers in the sprawling Pakistani port city of Karachi. The bombers are moved to safe houses in the border towns of Quetta and Chaman, and then transferred into Afghanistan, where they are provided with cars and explosives and sent out to find a target.

The tape appears to confirm Afghan officials' suspicions that the suicide bombings, which are largely a recent phenomenon in Afghanistan, were generated outside Afghanistan, and in particular from neighboring Pakistan. It was shown to The New York Times by an Afghan official who asked not to be identified because of the diplomatic implications of the contents.

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, dismissed the claims of the Afghan government. 'This is a propaganda campaign of the government,' he said by satellite telephone from an unknown location. 'Our mujahedeen don't send one group to one area so they can be found and arrested. Our mujahedeen send different people to different areas at different times."

He added that there was no need to recruit Pakistanis for the attacks. "They are all Afghans," he said of the suicide bombers.

But Afghan officials said the confessions provided the proof they needed to demand action from Pakistan. "I think there is a factory for these bombers," said Asadullah Khaled, the governor of Kandahar Province, where 15 attacks have occurred in the last three months.

President Hamid Karzai is traveling to Pakistan on Wednesday specifically to raise the issue with President Pervez Musharraf and in speeches to Parliament and officers at a military academy as well.
"If you are the ones blowing yourselves up, why are you making the explosion in front of the police headquarters, where people like you are standing in front getting passports?" Mr. Karzai said, addressing the bombers rhetorically, in a televised speech to elders from southern Afghanistan last week.

He has spoken increasingly of the need to tackle the problem at the source. Anti-Pakistan sentiment has been rising in Afghanistan, and a popular refrain is that if the hand of Pakistan were cut, the Taliban, many of whom fled over the border when they were ousted in late 2001, would be no more.
"Most of the attackers are non-Afghans," the governor of Kandahar, Mr. Khaled, said Saturday at a memorial service for 14 victims of the latest bombing. "We have proof, we have prisoners," he added. "We have addresses, we have cassettes."

Pakistani officials in the past have said the Pakistanis arrested in Afghanistan are usually illiterate laborers looking for work.

Judging by the tape, Pakistan appeared to be the base for the terror network, however. In the interviews, all of the men appeared to speak freely, some expressing regret for what they had done. Only one showed some nervousness, though the interrogations seemed relatively relaxed.

Three of the men, speaking in Urdu, said they were Pakistanis and had been recruited as bombers.
Two of the men, Akhtar Ali and Sajjad, who only gave one name, said they had been recruited by a man named Jamal, who was working for the Taliban and who owns a bookstore in Karachi. Sajjad had been staying with his brother in Karachi when Jamal showed him video cassettes in which Muslim clerics urged listeners to go and fight a holy war and earn a sure way to paradise.

"I was doing nothing, walking around, playing cricket and football," Sajjad said, adding in reference to a senior cleric: "The maulavi sahib talked to me and showed me a cassette, so I got involved. They were talking on the cassettes and telling us to do this and that, telling me to kill Americans."

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