Gore Vidal – “The most important election in my lifetime”

Gore Vidal speaks with Truthdig’s Robert Scheer about the significance of the upcoming 2006 election.

Bush administration: Ex-CIA prisoner shouldn’t speak to attorney

A suspected terrorist who spent years in a secret CIA prison should not be allowed to speak to a civilian attorney, the Bush administration argues, because he could reveal the agency’s closely guarded interrogation techniques.

Everything the government does is something that cannot and should not be discussed. In fact, I’m sure Bush thinks that the very fact that we’re talking about the CIA’s “techniques” is aiding the enemy.

Human rights groups have questioned the CIA’s methods for questioning suspects, especially following the passage of a bill last month that authorized the use of harsh—but undefined—interrogation tactics.

In recently filed court documents, the Justice Department said those methods, along with the locations of the CIA’s network of prisons, are among the nation’s most sensitive secrets. Prisoners who spent time in those prisons should not be allowed to disclose that information, even to a lawyer, the government said.

That prisoners should not be allowed to disclose “interrogation techniques” to their attorneys conveniently crushes their cases against the government, since their attorneys don’t have any testimony as to what occured in the CIA’s prisons.

“Improper disclosure of other operational details, such as interrogation methods, could also enable terrorist organizations and operatives to adapt their training to counter such methods, thereby obstructing the CIA’s ability to obtain vital intelligence that could disrupt future planned terrorist attacks,” the Justice Department wrote.

In related news, President Bush has recently urged Congress to ban sledgehammers across the nation. “Sledgehammers, once used for driving stakes into the ground for fences and scarecrows and such are increasingly being used to demolish houses and attack people. Terr’ists can easily purchase sledgehammers at local hardware stores and utilize them as weapons when attempting to hijack an airliner.” When it was pointed out that sledgehammers aren’t allowed on commercial flights, the president responded: “The very fact that we’re discussing illegal and dangerous uses of sledgehammers gives the terr’ists priceless knowledge about how to utilize them to carry out the plans.” When the reporter pointed out that it was the president himself who not only initiated sledgehammer discussion but also revealed the dangerous uses, the president responded: “How about a little dunk in the water for the reporter pesterin’ me?” The reporter was seized by two Secret Service agents and dragged out of the press room yelling.

According to documents filed on his behalf by the Center for Constitutional Rights, Khan was arrested in Pakistan in 2003. During more than three years in CIA custody, Khan was subjected to interrogation techniques that defense attorneys suggest amounted to torture.

The biggest issue I have with the Big Media and Big-Government Idiots is that they treats the government’s word as gold and dismiss any allegations. They don’t look at what is actually being said; they just assume that the government is right and the proles are wrong. “The government says rape and waterboarding aren’t torture? All right, they’re not. Former prisoner says he was raped and waterboarded and claims that he was, therefore, tortured? He wasn’t.”

There is a poll located in the column left of the article. The question it poses is this: “Should CIA interrogation tactics be a state secret?” I voted “No,” of course, and when the results window opened, I was not shocked but depressed.


The results were 51% for “No“ and 49% for “Yes”—practically a tie. I never thought I’d see the day that the people of the United States would be evenly split on whether or not the government should keep its illegal and immoral “harsh interrogation techniques” a secret.

Come to think of it, I never thought I’d see the day where the United States federal government would admit to torturing, either.

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Communication without bloggication

There are several stories that make it to the news that I don’t talk about simply because there’s nothing I have to say other than a few cursewords and a sigh of depression. Back when I started Little Blue Racquetballs, I started a message board for any readers that the blog might accumulate. I don’t have too many readers (I think three), but I still want to actually make a post about the message board that’s been available since the beginning.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Racquetboard.

Army recruiters mislead students to get them to enlist

ABC News and New York affiliate WABC equipped students with hidden video cameras before they visited ten Army recruitment offices in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

But isn’t that illegal? If the recruiters knew they were being videotaped, then they wouldn’t have resorted to their tactics! That’s entrapment!

“Nobody is going over to Iraq anymore?” one student asks a recruiter.

“No, we’re bringing people back,” he replies.

Someone in my church has a husband fighting in Iraq. Earlier this year he was wounded and was supposed to be sent back to Alaska for medical treatment. Instead, the army kept him in Iraq, did a quick job, and sent him back out. That’s definitely “bringing people back.”

“We’re not at war. War ended a long time ago,” another recruiter says.

Ass.

One Colorado student taped a recruiting session posing as a drug-addicted dropout.

“You mean I'm not going to get in trouble?” the student asked.

The recruiters told him no, and helped him cheat to sign up.

The army’s really desperate for recruits these days, isn’t it? That’s ok, just ban freedom of the press, and you’ll be able to get boatloads more recruits without having to lie!

“It’s hard to believe some of things they are telling prospective applicants,” Manning said. “I still believe that this is the exception more than the norm....”

The first stage is always denial.

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Britons warier of Bush than of Kim Jong Il

The United States is seen as a threat to world peace by its closest neighbors and allies, with Britons saying President Bush poses a greater danger than North Korea’s Kim Jong Il, a survey found Friday.

Their apprehension is not misplaced. Our president—and every president before him back to FDR—has threatened to attack and invade any country that doesn’t agree with the United States and the United Nations.

A majority of people quizzed in three out of four countries polled also rejected the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

I wonder how many Americans reject the Iraq invasion. I know that most are ready for the U.S. to pull out of Iraq, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that most opposed the war itself.

In Britain, which alongside Israel is traditionally a close Washington ally, 69% of those questioned said they felt U.S. policy had made the world less safe since 2001.

A majority of Canadians and Mexicans agreed, with 62% of those polled in Canada and 57% in Mexico saying their neighbor’s policy had made the world more dangerous.

As for Israel, just 25% of people asked said Bush had made the world safer, while 36% felt he had upped the risk of conflict and a further 30 percent said at best he had made no difference.

Well, Mr. Bush, it looks like it’s time to invade the UK, Canada, Israel, and Mexico. After all, they don’t agree with us. They think our war is wrong. Yes, Mr. Bush, our war. And by our, I mean the U.S. and UN’s.

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