Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

I wonder if one year ago (or however long ago the NY Times agreed to a request from the Bush Administration to mothball the Lichtblau-Risen story about NSA spying) Eric Lichtblau could’ve pictured himself one day well on the way to earning his first Pulitzer Prize. In fact, if I were on the Pulitzer Committee I’d just close down the category for Best Series because it’s got to go to this intrepid reporting team which first uncovered the scandal that will rock the Bush Administration perhaps till the end of its final term.

(cartoon: Nick Anderson)

In today’s Times, Lichtblau amplifies on a report from Salon.com published December 23rd (which I just blogged about here), regarding Iyman Faris’ potential claim against Bush for using illegal NSA intercepts in its case against him:

Defense lawyers in some of the country’s biggest terrorism cases say they plan to bring legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to Al Qaeda.

The lawyers said in interviews that they wanted to learn whether the men were monitored by the agency and, if so, whether the government withheld critical information or misled judges and defense lawyers about how and why the men were singled out.

The expected legal challenges, in cases from Florida, Ohio, Oregon and Virginia, add another dimension to the growing controversy over the agency’s domestic surveillance program and could jeopardize some of the Bush administration’s most important courtroom victories in terror cases, legal analysts say…

David B. Smith, a lawyer for [Iyman] Faris, said he planned to file a motion in part to determine whether information about the surveillance program should have been turned over. Lawyers said they were also considering a civil case against the president, saying that Mr. Faris was the target of an illegal wiretap ordered by Mr. Bush.

When I write here and elsewhere that Bush’s NSA spying may cost him almost every one of the hitherto successful Justice Department prosecutions of U.S. supporters of Al Qaeda, I write this not out of vindication or triumph. The fact is that a good number of these people are real terrorists with real malevolent motives against this country and its citizens. We should all mourn that George Bush’s monarchical pretensions may have in effect destroyed his ability to fight terror effectively in this country. It seems highly likely to me that NSA intelligence would have been used in most or all of these cases. And once (notice I do not say “if”) Bush’s order is found to be illegal, any such cases go up in a whiff of smoke. And that is a tragedy, but one of Bush’s making and for which he must take responsibility (fat chance that happening).

There’s another point worth mentioning–this legal strategy is not a slam-dunk. The Justice Department will be fighting tooth and nail every single request for information about the NSA program and its relevance to individual cases. These defendants turned plaintiffs will first have to prove standing and then they’ll have to get a federal judiciary which often finds in favor of the executive in national security matters to find in favor of some very unsavory individuals who mean the United States no good. But in the end, these judges will realize that while the plaintiffs may be unsavory, the constitutional principle represented in their claim is intrinsic to our liberty as Americans. And that can never be unsavory.

Salon carries a story about the only person who may currently have standing to challenge the constitutionality of Bush’s executive spying order. He’s Iyman Faris and he’s not a pretty picture either as a plaintiff or human being. But he has several very important things going for him in terms of providing legal standing to strike back at George Bush’s usurpation of civil liberties in federal court. First, he is one of the only individuals whom government officials explicitly admitted was a victim of the NSA’s wholesale spying operation. Second, it would appear likely that some of the intelligence gathered about him came from these NSA intercepts and was used against him at trial. Third, he’s currently doing time in federal prison after pleading guilty to charges he planned to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches.

Faris’ attorney, David Smith seems to be shopping for a good constitutional lawyer for his client:

“I am sure he would be delighted to sue President Bush,” said Smith, of the law firm English & Smith in Alexandria, Va., who is representing Faris in his criminal appeals. “He may be the only person in the country who can.”

To accomplish this goal, Smith has issued an all points bulletin for civil liberties attorneys and constitutional scholars interested in taking up his client’s case. “If some lawyer would like to sue on behalf of Faris, I would be happy to introduce them,” Smith told Salon Thursday evening. “I’ve got the man here.”

Michael Scherer’s article quotes an American University law professor who provides a rationale for a potential Faris suit:

Legal scholars said that there could be several legal options open to Faris. “The defendant can argue that the search was unlawful so all of the evidence to follow was fruit of the poisonous tree,” said Jamin Raskin, a law professor at American University. Faris may also be able to sue for civil penalties under Title III, the federal wiretap statute, which bars illegal monitoring of electronic conversations. He could also bring a constitutional tort alleging violation of his Fourth Amendment rights, said Raskin.

Without knowing all the details about Faris’ case, I’d guess that a strong case presented by Faris’ attorneys might get his conviction overturned. That would leave just about every major Al Qaeda-related criminal prosecution undertaken by the Bush Justice Department in a shambles. It would also incrementally strengthen the case for impeachment since it’d be another judicial nail in Bush’s coffin.

Condi Rice’s made it official. Not only is Romania the hush-hush site for at least one of the European CIA secret torture facilities, now it’s gone public as our newest vassal state and accomplice in projecting U.S. power. You’ll remember that before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan Uzbekistan was our vassal state flavor of the month. Before that it was Saudi Arabia. I guess things didn’t turn out so well in either place, did they Ms. Secretary?

According to Defense News, Condi signed a new base deal with the government:

Condi to Romania Prez. (wink-wink): “What, me torture?!”… (source: EPA/Robert Ghement

Rice will make a lightning visit to Bucharest on Dec. 6, where she will sign a deal to open U.S. military facilities in Romania.

The deal is the first in Washington’s strategy to redeploy some 60,000 to 70,000 personnel from bases in Germany and South Korea to Eastern Europe.

The locations of the new U.S. military facilities have not yet been disclosed but sources suggest that the Black Sea air bases of Mihail Kogalniceanu and Fetesti will be used.

The U.S. Army previously used Mihail Kogalniceanu airport as a rear base during the Iraq war and it has been cited as the possible location of a secret CIA prison, though Romania has repeatedly denied any such operations on its soil.

The new U.S. facilities would not be “bases in the traditional sense of the word” like those in Germany with “thousands of soldiers”, Romanian President Traian Basescu told AFP in an interview in mid-November.

Rather, they would be “more restrained facilities” which still had “large deployment and rapid intervention capacities”.

The Romanian foreign ministry [called] the…agreement…“an important step in the consolidation of the strategic partnership between Romania and the United States” and demonstrated their “reciprocal confidence and solidarity”.

Read the full transcript of her Bucharest press briefing following the signing.

I like that, “more restrained facilities.” How is a U.S. military base restrained? How is a CIA torture facility “restrained?” Don’t you just love what political gooks do to the language in seeking to soften or evade truth? I know Romania is a very poor country. And I know the hundreds of millions of greenbacks that Condi flashed before their eyes in today’s signing ceremony was too good to be true for them and their economy. But must they? Really must they? To become the new Saudi Arabia of fortress America is deeply saddening.

Condi Having Hard Time Defending U.S. Torture

In addition to looking for new American vassal states, Condi’s been trying to explain and defend the U.S. habit of exporting its dirty work to willing foreign nations. The Post published a brilliant editorial “take-down” of her arguments:

[Her] defense [is] based on the same legalistic jujitsu and morally obtuse double talk that led the Bush administration into a swamp of human rights abuses in the first place. Ms. Rice insisted that the U.S. government “does not authorize or condone torture” of detainees. What she didn’t say is that President Bush’s political appointees have redefined the term “torture” so that it does not cover practices, such as simulated drowning, mock execution and “cold cells,” that have long been considered abusive by authorities such as her State Department.

Ms. Rice said, “It is also U.S. policy that authorized interrogation will be consistent with U.S. obligations under the Convention Against Torture, which prohibit cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.” What she didn’t explain is that, under this administration’s eccentric definition of “U.S. obligations,” cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment is not prohibited as long as it does not occur on U.S. territory. That is the reason for the secret prisons that the CIA has established [abroad]: so that the administration can violate the very treaty Ms. Rice claims it is upholding.

Nicely put, with a fine rhetorical dagger-thrust at the end.

Al Qaeda Torture Detainees: Which Way Did They Go?

Finally, ABC News (video link) had a big scoop yesterday quoting former CIA officials saying the top Al Qaeda operatives held in those secret European prisons were whisked off to North Africa just before Rice’s visit. The sheer mendacity of this action is breathtaking. In order to appear to be speaking the truth when she denies charges of U.S. torture on European soil, they spirit these guys to new locations so she can say: “we don’t torture.” Sure we don’t now (in Europe). Now we’re doing it in Egypt. I’ve got my money on Mubarakville as the new location for our Cheney torture labs–Mr. M’s doing so well beating up the Muslim Brothers and innocent bystanders who threaten his electoral hegemony. His knife-wielding security thugs might be able to teach the CIA interrogators a thing or two about how to beat someone up properly.

We must congratulate Brian Ross and ABC News for finally beginning to get this torture story right. Of course, I wish they’d been revealing stuff like this three years ago during the worst of the WMD fantasy fest. But I’m glad the MSM are getting feisty now. May they continue to do so.

Osama & Cheney–believers in the Caliphate (credit: Elena Steier)

Dick Cheney’s speech today to the American Enterprise Institute was a stellar example of political argument that leaves the realm of reason descending into the black hole of delusion and paranoia:

Mr. Cheney said an early withdrawal from Iraq would be a “terrible blow” to the security of the United States, and painted a bleak picture of terrorists’ ambitions in Iraq.

“The terrorists believe that by controlling an entire country,” he said, “they will be able to target and overthrow other governments in the region, and to establish a radical Islamic empire that encompasses a region from Spain, across North Africa, through the Middle East and South Asia, all the way to Indonesia. They have made clear, as well, their ultimate ambitions: to arm themselves with weapons of mass destruction, to destroy Israel, to intimidate all Western countries and to cause mass death in the United States.”

Why does Cheney always look madder’n a hornet’s nest? It’s tough work stopping the Muslim quest for worldwide domination. (credit: Doug Mills/NYT)

Can you imagine what’s going on in that brain of his? It’s a veritable miasma of conspiracies, mass murder and religious terror. He really should be seeing a psychiatrist and taking psychotropic drugs. And if they didn’t work then maybe someone should just put him to sleep. Hey, just kidding–we don’t go in for that sort of thing even against our political enemies.

You remember some of the more outrageous accusations leveled by Condi, Dick and friends before we went to war? It appears that Tricky Dick (should I call him ‘II’ since Nixon was the first?) hasn’t learned a lesson from his previous excesses. But this time, the American people “won’t be fooled again” (don’t you just love using the Who to denigrate Dick Cheney?). The first time his over-the-top rhetoric sounded believable to many Americans. Now, he comes off as a truly paranoiac parody of himself. Notice how he continues to conflate the Iraq insurgency with Al Qaeda? Actually, because of Al-Zarkawi’s role in Iraq (a fuse we lit through our occupation) there now IS a link between the two groups that had never existed before.

As for the substance of his statement, WE are the ones who created the Iraq insurgency. Had we done things differently (even if we HAD toppled Saddam), there might not have been one. But I predict that after we leave most Iraqis will tend to their own affairs. That might mean killing each other. But very few will graduate to world terrorism. But of course that leaves Al Qaeda, which will feel emboldened by such a victory. But neither Al Qaeda nor any other similar entity will ever come close to being able to mastermind all the perfidy Cheney outlines above.

It’s remarkable that Dick Cheney and Osama bin Laden (and their respective followers) are the only people in the world who take Al Qaeda’s Muslim Caliphate plan seriously. I’ve been thinking that if you shaved Osama’s and Al-Zwahari’s beards off they’d probably look remarkably like George Bush and Dick Cheney. Whata ya think?

After thinking more about this post and Cheney’s warped mindset, I was reminded of Communism, which played the same role in the thinking of Cold Warriors from just after WWII, when Stalin took over Eastern Europe until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. You remember those speeches about the dangers of Communism and its attempt at worldwide domination? Others before me have noted that the Bush Administration’s terrorism mantra has taken the place of Communism as the motherlode of the neoconservatives, who are the natural offspring of the Cold Warriors. These guys need a scary enemy (even if it’s one practically made up out of whole cloth) to make the U.S. public malleable to their machinations. Reminds me of those scary handpuppets which as children we projected on the bedroom wall in menacing poses. When you turned the lights back on, they didn’t look scary at all.

I’m not arguing that Al Qaeda is not a serious enemy of the U.S. and all freedom-loving people. I am arguing that the threat from Al Qaeda needs to be placed into the context of all the other threats we face. It is not a greater threat than say, Hurricane Katrina essentially incapacitating an entire American city for months. Al Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalism is a threat, not THE threat.