What Happens at a CIA 'Black Site'

What Happens at a CIA 'Black Site'

The kidnap and torture program of the Bush administration, with its secret CIA "black site" prisons and "torture taxi" flights on private jets, saw a little light of day this week. I spoke to Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah in his first broadcast interview. Bashmilah was a victim of the CIA's so-called extraordinary rendition program, in which people are grabbed from their homes, out of airports, off the streets, and are whisked away, far from the prying eyes of the U.S. Congress, the press, far from the reach of the courts, to countries where cruelty and torture are routine.

Bashmilah is being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and by the New York University School of Law International Human Rights Clinic in a lawsuit with four other victims of CIA rendition. They are suing not the U.S. government, not the CIA, but a company called Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing Corp. A former Jeppesen employee, Sean Belcher, entered an affidavit in support of Bashmilah, reporting that Jeppesen executive Bob Overby bragged, "We do all of the extraordinary rendition flights," further explaining to staff that he was speaking of "the torture flights," and that they paid very well.

Where Anti-Immigrant Zealots Like Lou Dobbs Get Their 'Facts'

Where Anti-Immigrant Zealots Like Lou Dobbs Get Their 'Facts'

Why do they have to break the law to protect us?

Why do they have to break the law to protect us?

I realize I have difficulty at times understanding things, but some of the arguments I have heard coming from the government lately baffle me and I hope other American citizens as well.

We need to "torture" people to protect us? since when? I thought we as Americans were the "good guys", didn't we win WW2 and beat the Nazis and the Japanese when they were trying to take over the world. Didn't we "win" the Cold War, without there ever being a real shooting war?

Big Coal's Dirty Plans for Our Energy Future

Big Coal's Dirty Plans for Our Energy Future

Just as the American people and the world are beginning to recognize the necessity of shifting to renewable energies, Big Coal, in collusion with an out-of-step administration, is pushing their dirty fossil fuel as the solution to our nation's energy crisis.

Big Coal and its cohorts envision a "clean coal technology" future fueled by liquifying and gasifying coal, capturing the carbon emissions and injecting them underground. By 2030 the West Virginia Division of Energy -- a nascent state agency formed in July, 2007 -- wants to oust oil and exalt coal by displacing the 1.3 billion gallons of foreign oil the state currently imports every year.

The WVDoE believes "that higher energy prices are providing and will continue to provide market opportunities" for a variety of alternative coal technologies including "coal waste, coal fines and coal bed methane," according to a document released in December 2007 called, "A Blueprint for the Future."

But scientists and environmentalists say "clean coal" does not exist; it is a misnomer and an oxymoron. The National Resources Defense Council has said, using the term "clean coal" makes about as much sense as saying "safe cigarettes." The extraction and cleaning of coal inevitably decimate ecosystems and communities.

Huckabee wives should 'graciously submit'

Huckabee wives should 'graciously submit'

In June 1998, the Southern Baptist Convention issued a "statement on the family" that asserted, "A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ." Two months later, then-governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee was one of 131 signatories to a full-page ad in USA Today specifically endorsing the Convention's view on marriage..

Neocons Devastated by Iran Intel Bombshell, But Don't Count Them Out Yet

Neocons Devastated by Iran Intel Bombshell, But Don't Count Them Out Yet

But the neocons were dealt an unexpected body blow with the Dec. 3 release of a stunning U.S. intelligence assessment that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program four years ago, a finding that contradicted Bush's belligerent rhetoric about Iran's nukes possibly provoking "World War III."

The National Intelligence Estimate knocked the wind out of the neocons' hope for a military confrontation with Iran before the end of Bush's term.

At a Dec. 4 press conference, Bush was left sputtering an unpersuasive claim that his warning about "World War III" on Oct. 17 was uttered while his intelligence advisers were keeping him in the dark about the new information that supported the NIE.

On Dec. 5, Bush tried to regain his political balance by blaming Iran for the doubts about its nuclear program.

"The Iranians have a strategic choice to make," Bush said in Omaha, Nebraska. "They can come clean with the international community about the scope of their nuclear activities and fully accept the longstanding offer to suspend their enrichment program and come to the table and negotiate, or they can continue on a path of isolation that is not in the best interest of the Iranian people. The choice is up to the Iranian regime."

Still, the NIE represented a declaration of independence by professional U.S. intelligence analysts who had been bullied by the neocons over the past three decades and especially during the run-up to the war with Iraq. [For the fullest account of this history, see Robert Parry's Secrecy & Privilege and Neck Deep.]

How to Really Love Your Country: Five Objectives for True Patriots

How to Really Love Your Country: Five Objectives for True Patriots

1. How we spend our money

The U.S. is responsible for almost half of the world's annual military expenditures of over $1 trillion, yet President Bush approved another record increase in the U.S. defense budget for 2008. The total estimated cost of the Iraqi and Afghanistan conflicts is now $811 billion, much more than the $518 billion spent on the Vietnam War. Congressional Democrats estimate that the average American family of four has contributed over $20,000 to the war in the Middle East.

As 40% of each American citizen's tax bill - about $5000 a year - goes for military equipment that protects us from Cold War enemies, we spend only 1/10 of 1% of our GDP on infrastructure (in 2005), compared to 9% for China. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave D to D- grades to our drinking water, navigable waterways, and energy power grids. Every time our power structures go out or our roads and bridges crumble, the money needed to fix them is being spent in Iraq, or on unstable allies in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia.

2. What We Give to the World

According to the U.S. Congressional Research Service, nearly half of the guns sold to developing countries in 2005 came from the United States.

In 2003, 20 of the top 25 recipients of U.S. arms sales in the developing world were declared undemocratic or human rights abusers by the U.S. State Department's own Human Rights Report. --( the rest at the link)