Bush's War against the Environment

Bush Threatens U.N. Over Clinton Climate Speech

By Greg Sargent

(Photo credit: AP Photos)
Bush-administration officials privately threatened organizers of the U.N. Climate Change Conference, telling them that any chance there might’ve been for the United States to sign on to the Kyoto global-warming protocol would be scuttled if they allowed Bill Clinton to speak at the gathering today in Montreal, according to a source involved with the negotiations who spoke to New York Magazine on condition of anonymity.

Bush officials informed organizers of their intention to pull out of the new Kyoto deal late Thursday afternoon, soon after news leaked that Clinton was scheduled to speak, the source said.

The threat set in motion a flurry of frantic back-channel negotiations between conference organizers and aides to Bush and Clinton that lasted into the night on Thursday, and at one point Clinton flatly told his advisers that he was going to pull out and not deliver the speech, the source said.

“It’s just astounding,” the source told New York Magazine. “It came through loud and clear from the Bush people—they wouldn’t sign the deal if Clinton were allowed to speak.” Clinton spokesman Jay Carson confirmed the behind the dustup took place and that the former president had decided not to go out of fear of harming the negotiations, but Carson declined to comment further.

On Friday afternoon, Clinton did end up speaking at the conference, a global audience of diplomats, environmentalists, and others who were in the final hours of a two-week gathering devoted to discussing the future of the protocol, the existing emissions-controls agreement. In 1997, Al Gore, then vice-president, helped negotiate the protocol, but it never passed the Senate. In 2001, it was formally renounced by the Bush administration, which argues that cutting greenhouse-gas emissions would hurt the American economy.

New York Magazine

.....As if the Bush Administration is giving the slightest thought to joining Kyoto. Rather than having any open or honest debate they instead attempt to control information about Global Warming. It is no surprise as science has rarely (if ever) been on their side.

Qaeda-Iraq Link Coerced from Libi

Ya gotta love the way the Carl Levin sticks it to them at the end of this article. Why would the administration relie so heavily on the statements by Mr. Libi if he was "identified as a probable fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements"?

Qaeda-Iraq Link U.S. Cited Is Tied to Coercion Claim

By DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: December 9, 2005

The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.

The new disclosure provides the first public evidence that bad intelligence on Iraq may have resulted partly from the administration's heavy reliance on third countries to carry out interrogations of Qaeda members and others detained as part of American counterterrorism efforts. The Bush administration used Mr. Libi's accounts as the basis for its prewar claims, now discredited, that ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda included training in explosives and chemical weapons.

The fact that Mr. Libi recanted after the American invasion of Iraq and that intelligence based on his remarks was withdrawn by the C.I.A. in March 2004 has been public for more than a year. But American officials had not previously acknowledged either that Mr. Libi made the false statements in foreign custody or that Mr. Libi contended that his statements had been coerced.

A government official said that some intelligence provided by Mr. Libi about Al Qaeda had been accurate, and that Mr. Libi's claims that he had been treated harshly in Egyptian custody had not been corroborated.

A classified Defense Intelligence Agency report issued in February 2002 that expressed skepticism about Mr. Libi's credibility on questions related to Iraq and Al Qaeda was based in part on the knowledge that he was no longer in American custody when he made the detailed statements, and that he might have been subjected to harsh treatment, the officials said. They said the C.I.A.'s decision to withdraw the intelligence based on Mr. Libi's claims had been made because of his later assertions, beginning in January 2004, that he had fabricated them to obtain better treatment from his captors.

At the time of his capture in Pakistan in late 2001, Mr. Libi, a Libyan, was the highest-ranking Qaeda leader in American custody. A Nov. 6 report in The New York Times, citing the Defense Intelligence Agency document, said he had made the assertions about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda involving illicit weapons while in American custody.

Mr. Libi was indeed initially held by the United States military in Afghanistan, and was debriefed there by C.I.A. officers, according to the new account provided by the current and former government officials. But despite his high rank, he was transferred to Egypt for further interrogation in January 2002 because the White House had not yet provided detailed authorization for the C.I.A. to hold him.

While he made some statements about Iraq and Al Qaeda when in American custody, the officials said, it was not until after he was handed over to Egypt that he made the most specific assertions, which were later used by the Bush administration as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons.

Beginning in March 2002, with the capture of a Qaeda operative named Abu Zubaydah, the C.I.A. adopted a practice of maintaining custody itself of the highest-ranking captives, a practice that became the main focus of recent controversy related to detention of suspected terrorists.

The agency currently holds between two and three dozen high-ranking terrorist suspects in secret prisons around the world. Reports that the prisons have included locations in Eastern Europe have stirred intense discomfort on the continent and have dogged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit there this week.

Mr. Libi was returned to American custody in February 2003, when he was transferred to the American detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, according to the current and former government officials. He withdrew his claims about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda in January 2004, and his current location is not known. A C.I.A. spokesman refused Thursday to comment on Mr. Libi's case. The current and former government officials who agreed to discuss the case were granted anonymity because most details surrounding Mr. Libi's case remain classified.

(Page 2 of 2)

During his time in Egyptian custody, Mr. Libi was among a group of what American officials have described as about 150 prisoners sent by the United States from one foreign country to another since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks for the purposes of interrogation. American officials including Ms. Rice have defended the practice, saying it draws on language and cultural expertise of American allies, particularly in the Middle East, and provides an important tool for interrogation. They have said that the United States carries out the renditions only after obtaining explicit assurances from the receiving countries that the prisoners will not be tortured.

Nabil Fahmy, the Egyptian ambassador to the United States, said in a telephone interview on Thursday that he had no specific knowledge of Mr. Libi's case. Mr. Fahmy acknowledged that some prisoners had been sent to Egypt by mutual agreement between the United States and Egypt. "We do interrogations based on our understanding of the culture," Mr. Fahmy said. "We're not in the business of torturing anyone."

In statements before the war, and without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, and other officials repeatedly cited the information provided by Mr. Libi as "credible" evidence that Iraq was training Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons. Among the first and most prominent assertions was one by Mr. Bush, who said in a major speech in Cincinnati in October 2002 that "we've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases."

The question of why the administration relied so heavily on the statements by Mr. Libi has long been a subject of contention. Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, made public last month unclassified passages from the February 2002 document, which said it was probable that Mr. Libi "was intentionally misleading the debriefers."

The document showed that the Defense Intelligence Agency had identified Mr. Libi as a probable fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda involving illicit weapons.

Mr. Levin has since asked the agency to declassify four other intelligence reports, three of them from February 2002, to see if they also expressed skepticism about Mr. Libi's credibility. On Thursday, a spokesman for Mr. Levin said he could not comment on the circumstances surrounding Mr. Libi's detention because the matter was classified.

Iran. . .You're on Notice

The following excerpts are from a NY TIMES article titled "U.S. and Britain Try a New Tack on Iran," published: December 4, 2005:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 - In a new effort to pressure Iran to allow strict controls on its nuclear program, Britain and the United States are trying to persuade Russia and China to endorse their conclusion, derived from what officials call new evidence, that Tehran intends to build nuclear weapons, American and European diplomats said.

Until now, the effort to rein in Iran's nuclear program has occurred largely in the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, which has described a pattern of highly suspicious behavior by Iran. But the agency focuses on identifying possible diversions of nuclear material and has little weapons expertise.

. . .

The British, as part of the effort to persuade Russia and China to join a declaration on Iran, are citing documents turned over to the nuclear agency by Iran apparently showing that it was offered technology to make metallic hemispheres from highly enriched uranium.

Hmm. . .sounds awfully familiar.

Also, maybe I’ve played RISK too much during my childhood, but it seems rather suspicious that during our protracted “war on terror” we’ve flanked the country we are currently threatening in so many words. If I was the head of a country and saw the neighboring nations to my left and right fall to invaders, you’d bet I’d be stockpiling the weapons (that’s what you do when playing RISK, isn’t it)?

The Duke vs Maverick

Today’s Google Fight is in honor of the fallen American hero Randy “Duke” Cunningham:

The Duke vs Maverick (Maverick is Tom Cruise’s character from Top Gun that was inspired by Cunningham's career).

See the fight HERE (good luck, Duke!)

US Military Tactic: Hit the Hospitals First

Let me preface this post with the following: 1) Yes, the following quoted material is obviously very biased/slanted with a socialist perspective (it is taken from a 2004 article from The Internationalist, after all), and 2) it is not meant [or at least I do not mean it to be] an anti-troop statement.

I posted this because I am interested in people’s opinions on this (supposed) US Military practice of “hitting the hospitals first.” The article suggests this is a practice perpetrated by political and military high commanders who run things and give the orders.

Do you think this is all just leftist propaganda, or do you think that bombing and raiding hospitals is a legitimate military practice?

The following is taken from HERE:

Doctors at Falluja General Hospital handcuffed and pushed to the floor when U.S. troops seize the facility, November 8


(Photo: New York Times)

“The hospital was selected as an early target because the American military believed that it was the source of rumors about heavy casualties,” when the U.S. attacked Falluja in April, wrote the New York Times (8 November). “It’s a center of propaganda,” a senior American officer said. Rumors? Propaganda? Iraq Body Count, whose tallies of Iraqi dead since the invasion have been extremely conservative, has done a detailed analysis of all available figures, concluding that out of 800-plus persons killed during the U.S.’ April attack (336 buried in Falluja’s soccer stadium), some 600 were civilians, half of them women and children. A hospital is a place where civilian casualties could receive treatment. But according to the U.S. military spokesmen, there were “no civilian casualties,” so no hospital was needed. Likewise, a hospital is a place where injured Iraqi insurgents might be treated. But the objective of the assault on Falluja was to kill the insurgents, every last one, so again, no hospital was needed. The Fourth Geneva Convention on Warfare declares in no uncertain terms, “Civilian hospitals organized to give care to the wounded and sick, the infirm and maternity cases, may in no circumstances be the object of attack but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict.” That was written in 1949, after World War II. The Geneva Conventions also outlaw practices like torture of prisoners. But according to the White House legal counsel, Alberto Gonzales, now promoted to Attorney General of the United States, the strictures of the Geneva Convention are outdated and “quaint.”

So doubtless after careful study by the Center for Army Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the Pentagon’s first rule in its terrorist “war on terror” is now: hit the hospitals first. There are to be no statistics about women and children killed, no pictures of maimed bodies, no medical care for the insurgent or civilian wounded. The “born again” Christian George W. Bush goes by the mercenary motto, “Kill ’em all and let god sort ’em out.” But it isn’t just Republican Bush. In the 1999 war on Yugoslavia, by Democrat Bill Clinton, the U.S. deliberately bombed the Belgrade maternity hospital, all the while cynically claiming that no hospital was on the target list. (They also targeted the Chinese embassy, to teach Beijing a lesson, lamely claiming they got the address mixed up with a military warehouse.) In short, the political and military commanders of the United States are rabid mass murderers and torturers, and conscious war criminals to boot. U.S. imperialism with its mad dog leadership is, by far, the greatest threat to humanity today. The colonial occupation of Iraq (and Afghanistan) must be defeated, and the imperialist system smashed through world socialist revolution.

As an aside, Noam Chomsky has the following to say about “The Conquest of the Falluja General Hospital” on his new spoken word CD put out by AK PRESS:

"In early November, the New York Times featured a front-page story reporting the conquest of the Falluja General Hospital. It reported, 'Patients and hospital employees were rushed out of rooms by armed soldiers and ordered to sit or lie on the floor while troops tied their hands behind their backs.' An accompanying photograph depicted the scene. That offensive also shut down what officers said was a propaganda weapon for the militants: Falluja General Hospital, with its stream of reports of civilian casualties. These 'inflated' figures--'inflated' because our leader so declares--were inflaming public opinion throughout the country and the region, driving up the political costs of the conflict.”

"Let's go back to the New York Times picture and story about the closing of the 'propaganda' weapon. There are relevant documents, including the Geneva Conventions, which state: 'Fixed establishments and mobile medical units of the Medical Service may in no circumstances be attacked, but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict.' So page one of the world's leading newspaper is cheerfully depicting war crimes for which the political leadership could be sentenced to death under U.S. law."

Noam Chomsky is “a world-renowned linguist, lecturer, and critic of U.S. policy and authoritarian structures. He is the author of more than 100 books and ten spoken word CDs.” The CD was recorded in November 2004, just after the reelection of George W. Bush.

Welcome Aboard, Y@TR!

PDG and Cornelius, if you still check the blog now and then, welcome yelling_at_the_radio to the board. Y@TR is an old friend of mine that I met at Grand Valley. Check out his blog “The Skunk and Tiger” sometime.

The Duke-Stir

Rep. Cunningham and Top Gun Inc.

In 1987, Rep. Cunningham established Top Gun Enterprises, Inc. The company's web site, www.topguninc.com, sells knives, including the "Randy 'Duke' Cunningham Fighter Ace Kalinga Style Buck Knife." According to the company web site, the knife includes the emblem of the American Fighter Aces Association and the "Official Seal of the United States Congress." Notably, the web site was recently taken down.

Federal law prohibits anyone, except as directed by the United States House of Representatives or the Clerk of the House, using the likeness of the congressional seal. 18 U.S.C. §sect;713(d). Violations of this title are punishable by fine or imprisonment of up to six months or both. The Committee should investigate this clear violation of law.

I found this at www.beyonddelay.org which lists 13 questionable congressman. Eleven Republicans and two Democrats.