Corruption

Gagged Former FBI Translator Claims U.S. Rep Bribe Evidence
By Andrew Kreig | Huffington Post

Seeking to overcome years of gag restraints, former FBI contract translator Sibel Edmonds reportedly claimed in an Aug. 8 deposition that several leaders in Congress and other high-level U.S. officials were suspected early this decade of being bribed by Turkey's government.

Edmonds, who had been silenced by a gag order obtained by the U.S. Justice Department from a federal judge under a "state secrets" doctrine after the FBI fired her in 2002, reportedly said in her deposition that her FBI work made her aware of high-level officials and lobbyists from both parties discussed as potential bribe-takers.

This account of her testimony was by Wayne Madsen, one of a handful of alternative media journalists talking to participants of the deposition held at the National Whistleblowers Legal Defense & Education Fund headquarters in Washington, DC. His subscription-only website cited sources who identified the suspected officials, including one in Congress allegedly trapped by a sex-sting using a prostitute. Read more.

Opinion: Angry at a Peace Convention
By PB Rose | Veterans Today

Recently, I went to the Veterans For Peace convention in Maryland and attended some very interesting workshops. The workshop that has angered and resonated the most with me was the Military Sexual Trauma workshop. I am angry that this workshop has to be held. I am angry that 1 in 3 women are raped by their brother in arms. I am angry that many female soldiers have died and will die during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflict of dehydration because they refuse to drink enough water so they will not have to go to the bathroom during the night and be ganged raped by American soldiers.

I am angry because three very strong, capable women lost their careers as soldiers for speaking out. Three survivors told their story of rape, ostraciziation, falsified documents, reputation smearing and other atrocities that would make you scream. Sadly, though, 1 of the 3 told of being raped more than one time. Read more.

Emails show Washington Post reporter coordinated attorney firing story with White House
By Muriel Kane | Raw Story

Update: Ombudsman to review email exchanges

When a scandal involving the Bush administration’s firing of US Attorneys broke in early 2007, initial coverage by the Washington Post supported the idea that the firings had been politically motivated. That approach, however, quickly changed to one that was far more friendly to the White House.

The House Judiciary Committee has now released over 5400 pages of Bush administration and Republican Party emails (pdf) related to the firings. Several of these emails suggest coordination between Post reporter John Solomon and Bush administration officials on how to manage the Post’s coverage of the widening scandal.

In one email to a Department of Justice spokesperson, Solomon even appears to be suggesting what spin to apply in order to minimize damage from the revelations.

“Thanks for any help you can give on this,” Solomon wrote to Brian Roehrkasse on the morning of March 2, 2007. “I think some tick tock along these lines will bring some perspective to how the process occurred. Of course, the White House counsel’s office had to sign off. Of course an administration in its last two years looks for some fresh blood to inject into jobs. Of course, DOJ’s analysis of prosecutors goes beyond performance evaluations to achievements or failures on policy issues like immigration. I think we can get this just right with your help.”

Solomon, who had gone to work for the Post just a few months earlier, in December 2006, left that paper to become executive editor of the conservative-leaning Washington Times in January 2008. Read more.

By Dave Lindorff

Bill Clinton was the worst thing to happen to the Democratic Party and to progressives since that racist warmonger Woodrow Wilson won the presidency and dragged the US into the utterly pointless and incredibly bloody First World War.

Clinton, by posing as a progressive, confused and undermined, and ultimately betrayed the liberal/progressive wing of the party, shattering what was left of the New Deal coalition and leaving the American left adrift and riven by the conflict between those who thought the Democratic Party was the only viable vehicle for progressive reform and those who thought it was hopelessly in the grip of corporate interests.

Barack Obama offers the hope of bringing that era of debilitating confusion to an end.

US Still Paying Blackwater Millions
By Jeremy Scahill | The Nation

Just days before two former Blackwater employees alleged in sworn statements filed in federal court that the company's owner, Erik Prince, "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," the Obama administration extended a contract with Blackwater for more than $20 million for "security services" in Iraq, according to federal contract data obtained by The Nation. The State Department contract is scheduled to run through September 3. In May, the State Department announced it was not renewing Blackwater's Iraq contract, and the Iraqi government has refused to issue the company an operating license.

"They are still there, but we are transitioning them out," a State Department official told The Nation. According to the State Department, the $20 million represents an increase on an aviation contract that predates the Obama administration.

Despite its scandal-plagued track record, Blackwater (which has rebranded itself as Xe) continues to have a presence in Iraq, trains Afghan forces on US contracts and provides government-funded training for military and law enforcement inside the United States. The company is also actively bidding on other government contracts, including in Afghanistan, where the number of private contractors is swelling. According to federal contracting records reviewed by The Nation, since President Barack Obama took office in January the State Department has contracted with Blackwater for more than $174 million in "security services" alone in Iraq and Afghanistan and tens of millions more in "aviation services." Much of this money stems from existing contracts from the Bush era that have been continued by the Obama administration. While Obama certainly inherited a mess when it came to Blackwater's entrenchment in Iraq and Afghanistan, he has continued the widespread use of armed private contractors in both countries. Blackwater's role may be slowly shrinking, but its work is continuing through companies such as DynCorp and Triple Canopy. Read more.

Selling children into prostitution - Christian "Blackwater" values...
By Larisa Alexandrovna | at Largely

The latest horror show from the Blackwater saga illustrates how absolutely dangerous white supremacy is when empowered with federal dollars and the power to kill.

Instead of being run out of all civilized society, Erik Prince's huge donations to the GOP earned him massive federal contracts and the backing of the US government as his employees raped children under the banner of an American flag.

White power politics is not a matter of free speech when used by the state as a tool of war. It is a war crime. Erik Prince is a war criminal. The fact that he and his black-booters are part of a private entity does not exempt their crimes under the Geneva Conventions. Why? Because Prince and his black-booters were employed by and empowered by the US government. The actions of Prince and the black-booters are carried out under the banner of the American flag. Their crimes are our crimes, especially since we - the tax- payer - paid for them. So, have a stiff drink and read the latest horror of this warped version of the so called Christian army: Read more.

IRAQ: Shi’a Unity Deal Explodes U.S. Proxy War Myth
Analysis by Gareth Porter | IPS News

The agreement announced Monday between Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and a Shi’a resistance group called the "League of the Righteous" (Asa'ib al-Haq) formally ended the group’s armed opposition to the regime in return for the release of its leader and eight other Shi’a detainees. This deals a final blow to the U.S. military’s narrative of an Iranian "proxy war" in Iraq.

The U.S. command in Iraq has long argued that Iran was using "special groups" of Shi’a insurgents who had broken away from cleric Moqtada al- Sadr’s Mahdi Army to destabilise the U.S.-supported Iraqi regime - but pro- Iranian groups were weakened by U.S. military pressures throughout 2007 and defeated by the al-Maliki regime in 2008.

The history of the new agreement confirms what was evident from existing evidence: the "League of the Righteous" was actually the underground wing of the Mahdi Army all along, and the Sadrist insurgents were secretly working closely with the al-Maliki regime against the Americans and the British - even as it was at war with armed elements within the regime.

The contradictory nature of the relationship between al-Maliki and the Sadrists reflects the tensions between pro-Sadrist elements within the regime - including al-Maliki’s Da’wa Party - and the anti-Sadrist elements led by the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

The relationship between al-Maliki and the U.S. was also marked by contradictions. Even through he was ostensibly cooperating with the U.S. against the Sadrists in 2007 and 2008, the al-Maliki regime was also cooperating secretly with the Sadrist forces against the Americans. And al- Maliki - with the encouragement of Iran - was working on a strategy for achieving the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq through diplomatic means, which he did not reveal to the Americans until summer 2008. Read more.

Who is funding the Afghan Taliban? You don’t want to know
By GlobalPost | Reuters Global News Blog

The manager of an Afghan firm with lucrative construction contracts with the U.S. government builds in a minimum of 20 percent for the Taliban in his cost estimates. The manager, who will not speak openly, has told friends privately that he makes in the neighborhood of $1 million per month. Out of this, $200,000 is siphoned off for the insurgents.

If negotiations fall through, the project will come to harm — road workers may be attacked or killed, bridges may be blown up, engineers may be assassinated.

It is the open secret no one wants to talk about, the unwelcome truth that most prefer to hide. In Afghanistan, one of the richest sources of Taliban funding is the foreign assistance coming into the country.

Virtually every major project includes a healthy cut for the insurgents. Call it protection money, call it extortion, or, as the Taliban themselves prefer to term it, “spoils of war,” the fact remains that international donors, primarily the United States, are to a large extent financing their own enemy.

“Everyone knows this is going on,” said one U.S. Embassy official, speaking privately.

It is almost impossible to determine how much the insurgents are spending, making it difficult to pinpoint the sources of the funds.

Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef, former Taliban minister to Pakistan, was perhaps more than a bit disingenuous when he told GlobalPost that the militants were operating mostly on air. Read more.

Global Depression and Regional Wars - Reviewing James Petras' New Book: Part I
By Stephen Lendman

James Petras is Binghamton University, New York Professor Emeritus of Sociology. Besides his long and distinguished academic career, he's a noted figure on the left, a well-respected Latin American expert, and a longtime chronicler of the region' popular struggles. He's also a prolific author of hundreds of articles and dozens of books, most recently his new one titled, "Global Depression and Regional Wars" addressing America, Latin America and the Middle East.

Part I - Global Depression

Variety's famous October 30, 1929 headline is again relevant: "Wall Street Lays an Egg," or as economist Rick Wolff puts it: "Capitalism hit the fan" following a familiar pattern of boom and bust cycles punctuated by bubbles that always burst. Petras explains it this way:

"All the idols of capitalism over the past three decades have crashed. The assumptions and presumptions, paradigms and prognosis of indefinite progress under liberal free market capitalism have been tested and have failed. We are living the end of an entire epoch (and bearing witness to) the collapse of the US and world financial system."

Grim prospects are ahead:

• a world depression with one-fourth of the labor force unemployed;
• global trade in free fall;
• a proliferation of bankruptcies with General Motors a metaphor for a decaying system;
• free-market capitalism in disrepute; and
• "planning, public ownership, nationalization(s and other) socialist alternatives have become almost respectable" because most sacred cow "truisms" and solutions have failed.

By Dave Lindorff

Some critics have written, in response to my article calling for extension of the single-payer plan called Medicare to all Americans, that actually Medicare is a badly flawed program that leaves America's elderly without coverage for many important health services, and which requires them to pay for supplemental insurance, or to go on Medicaid, too.

New Docs Show Effort to Oust U.S. Attorneys
Senior Bush Aides Including Karl Rove in Newly Released Documents of Closed-Door Congressional Testimony
By Jason Ryan and Pierre Thomas | ABCNews.com

Newly released emails from the Bush administration indicate that senior White House aides may have been directly involved in the firing of a U.S. attorney for apparently political reasons.

The documents released today by the House Judiciary Committee suggest that the White House was angry at then New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias because he was not aggressively pursuing the prosecution of a Democratic congressional candidate.

Iglesias was one of eight U.S. attorneys fired by the Justice Department during Bush's second term, when Alberto Gonzales was still attorney general. Fallout from the firings, seven of which came on one day, eventually led Gonzales and eight other top Justice Department officials to resign.

As early as 2005 it was clear the White House was very focused on removing Iglesias. Read more.

House Judiciary Committee Releases Rove and Miers Interview Transcripts and Over 5,400 Pages of Bush White House Documents - Press Release
Conyers: White House "Driving Force" Behind US Attorney Firings

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) today released over 700 pages of on-the-record interview transcripts of Karl Rove and Harriet Miers on the U.S. attorney firings and the Bush administration’s politicization of the Department of Justice. Conyers also released over 5,400 pages of Bush White House and Republican National Committee e-mails on these subjects.

The released materials reveal that White House officials were deeply involved in the U.S. attorney firings and the administration made a concerted effort to hide that fact from the American people. "After all the delay and despite all the obfuscation, lies, and spin," Conyers said, "this basic truth can no longer be denied: Karl Rove and his cohorts at the Bush White House were the driving force behind several of these firings, which were done for improper reasons. Under the Bush regime, honest and well-performing U.S. attorneys were fired for petty patronage, political horsetrading and, in the most egregious case of political abuse of the U.S. attorney corps – that of U.S. Attorney Iglesias – because he refused to use his office to help Republicans win elections. When Mr. Iglesias said his firing was a ‘political fragging,’ he was right."

By Dave Lindorff

Many progressives are getting all bent out of shape over the "brown shirt" rabble organized by health industry PR firms to disrupt the so-called "town meetings" being organized all over the country by Democratic members of Congress.

What they are conveniently forgetting is that these are not really "town meetings" at all, at least in the sense of the town meetings I grew up with, and started out covering as a young journalist in Connecticut--that is, meetings called and run democratically, with leaders elected from the floor, open to all residents of a community.

Much more at the Brad Blog.

By Dave Lindorff

OMG! Those protesters showing up at Democratic “town meetings” to promote the president’s health care “reform” program are being bused in from out of town?

Scandal! Que horrible! (Gasp)

But wait! That’s exactly what we on the left always did when we held demonstrations—at least if we could. Who in the trade union movement hasn’t called on fellow workers in other unions to join them in rallies during struggles with an employer, or asked them to join sparse picket-lines? Who hasn’t pulled out the stops trying to get people from other cities to attend a local protest?

By Dave LIndorff

As I wrote months ago in an article titled America’s Stupid Health Care Debate: Keeping Some Ideas Off the Table and several subsequent pieces on my website, President Obama and the Democrats who currently run Congress have been hoist on their own collective petard by their craven and gutless refusal to consider adopting a Canadian-style single-payer system to finance health care in the US, or simply to expand Medicare, which is a successful single- payer program, to cover everyone, instead of just people over 65 and the disabled.

PANETTA SEEKS TO WHITEWASH CIA CRIMES
By Sherwood Ross

CIA Director Leon Panetta’s article titled “It’s Time To Move On” published in the August 4th Miami Herald is a stunning disservice to the principles of justice. It not only calls for whitewashing the Agency’s past horrific crimes, which have included torture and murder, but openly advocates the use of force and violence. Panetta writes, “the focus on the past, especially in Congress, threatens to distract the CIA from its crucial core missions: intelligence collection, analysis and covert action.” In CIA lingo, “covert action” has always meant dirty tricks, from blackmailing to assassinating foreign leaders, and from pouring bribe money to influence elections to overthrowing governments. Covert action is not your church Tuesday night bingo party. And these criminal acts are invariably performed in sneaky secret because if the American people learned of them they would never tolerate the spy agency’s cruelty and waste of tax dollars. Besides, not a few of the CIA’s crimes might make you puke.

And when Panetta charges that Congress “threatens to distract the CIA” he is revealing his fear that at any House or Senate intelligence committee hearings his Agency will have an awful lot of embarrassing crimes to account for. Yet, as reporter Tim Weiner points out in his aptly named “Legacy of Ashes, The History of The CIA(Anchor),” Congressional committees “need to do their work—ask hard questions, demand answers, and report back to the citizenry. They have been derelict in this duty for much of the past three decades, but their conduct since 9/11 has bordered on criminal negligence.” But when Congress changes course and tries to do its job, Panetta sees it as a “threat.”

About damn time this happened. What about the other 8? What about firing all the ones who SHOULD have been fired? What about undoing the political prosecutions and prosecuting the politically immune?

"How cute!" my adults would say when they passed a black baby or a small black child. They'd grin approvingly at the baby and smile their acceptance at the baby's mom. Sometimes they'd extend a hand to brush the baby's cheek to prove their gentility. And then they'd walk a bit further, lean into each other and snark the zinger that angered me then and now, "yeah, they're cute now but wait till they get older." There it was. There it is. The not so subtle prejudice I witnessed in my family that millions of impressionable children witnessed in theirs.

As far back as I can remember I was offended by this language. But others in my family, in my generation, were not. Many assumed the attitudes and language of our adults and continued these prejudices into their adulthoods. Some more strongly than others. Some used the "N word." Some used "ditsoon," the Italian pejorative for blacks. In my large extended family, that includes several police, racial insensitivity was the norm.

You're Appointing Who? Please Obama, Say It's Not So!
By Jeffrey Smith | Huffington Post

The person who may be responsible for more food-related illness and death than anyone in history has just been made the US food safety czar. This is no joke.

Here's the back story.

When FDA scientists were asked to weigh in on what was to become the most radical and potentially dangerous change in our food supply -- the introduction of genetically modified (GM) foods -- secret documents now reveal that the experts were very concerned. Memo after memo described toxins, new diseases, nutritional deficiencies, and hard-to-detect allergens. They were adamant that the technology carried "serious health hazards," and required careful, long-term research, including human studies, before any genetically modified organisms (GMOs) could be safely released into the food supply.

But the biotech industry had rigged the game so that neither science nor scientists would stand in their way. They had placed their own man in charge of FDA policy and he wasn't going to be swayed by feeble arguments related to food safety. No, he was going to do what corporations had done for decades to get past these types of pesky concerns. He was going to lie. Read more.

Honduran Coup Leader, General Velasquez in Miami THIS Saturday, July 25

Jeff Nall wrote:

Dear fellow activists,

I have just received an email from Just Foreign Policy indicating that General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, the military leader of the coup in Honduras, is scheduled to be in MIAMI THIS SATURDAY, JULY 25th, at the Miami Beach Convention Center, 1901 Convention Center Dr., Miami Beach, FL 33139.

Velasquez is scheduled to speak between 9:45am and 10:45am....after “Morning worship.”

How the 11th Circuit Cheated Don Siegelman: A Summary
Explosive news has been breaking in recent days from motions for a new trial in the case of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy.
By Legal Schnauzer | Legal Schnauzer Blogspot

It's worth noting that the Siegelman/Scrushy motions would not have been necessary if the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals had done its job. We showed in a recent series of posts that the 11th Circuit made multiple unlawful findings in upholding most of the convictions in the Siegelman case.

Now might be a good time to review the judicial hatchet job the 11th Circuit administered on the Siegelman/Scrushy appeal.
What did we learn from our multi-part series about the appeal? Clear law required the 11th Circuit to overturn the Siegelman/Scrushy convictions. But the appellate court botched its ruling on at least five key issues. And we're not talking about complicated stuff here. I don't have the first day of law school, and I could rather easily determine the many areas where the 11th Circuit got it wrong. All the court had to do was follow its own precedent--and it couldn't even do that.

How do you explain such judicial butchery? Two words come to mind--incompetence and corruption.

One member of the three-judge panel is in his mid 80s and another is about to hit 80. But I don't think these judges are senile, and thus, incompetent. So I think we are looking at corruption.

Why did the 11th Circuit uphold a trial-court judgment that it had to know was unlawful? I have some theories on that, and we will get to those in a bit. But first, let's review the five key issues where the 11th Circuit got it wrong: Read more.

The New Truth-Teller
By William Greider | The Nation

Phil Angelides, the former state treasurer of California, is a tough-minded liberal with hands-on knowledge of high finance and the social contradictions in modern capitalism. So it is remarkable that Angelides has been chosen to chair the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission newly created by Congress. The commission has enormous potential to generate deeper reforms than anything President Obama has yet proposed, simply by digging out the hard facts of what caused the financial collapse.

An honest investigation--like the Pecora hearings that famously revealed the truth of what caused the Great Depression--could splash embarrassment on both political parties and turn up shocking evidence of the political collusion between Washington and Wall Street. But can we really expect such a truth-telling creature to emerge from Congress? Maybe we can. The appointment of Angelides is a very promising start because of his record as an aggressive reformer on issues like corporate governance, social equity and environmental reform. The danger is that the Angelides commission will be paralyzed by the usual hard-nosed tactics of Washington partisans. Read more.

Sources: Tenet canceled secret CIA hit teams
Successors resurrected the plan, ex-officials say
By Associated Press | MSNBC

As CIA director in 2004, George Tenet terminated a secret program to develop hit teams to kill al-Qaida leaders, but his successors resurrected the plan, according to former intelligence officials.

Tenet ended the program because the agency could not work out its practical details, the officials told The Associated Press. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the classified program.

Porter Goss, who replaced Tenet in 2005, restarted the program, the former officials said. By the time Michael Hayden succeeded Goss as CIA chief in 2006 the effort was again flagging because of practical challenges. Read more.

Bush Has Widened Authority of C.I.A. to Kill Terrorists
By James Risen and David Johnston | NYTimes | Published: Sunday, December 15, 2002

Intelligence officials said the presidential finding authorizing the agency to kill terrorists was not limited to those on the list. The president has given broad authority to the C.I.A. to kill or capture operatives of Al Qaeda around the world, the officials said....Under current intelligence law, the president must sign a finding to provide the legal basis for covert actions to be carried out by the C.I.A. In response to past abuses, the decision-making process has grown into a highly formalized review in which the White House, Justice Department, State Department, Pentagon and C.I.A. take part. The administration must notify Congressional leaders of any covert action finding signed by the president. In the case of the presidential finding authorizing the use of lethal force against members of Al Qaeda, Congressional leaders have been notified as required, the officials said.

The Bush administration has prepared a list of terrorist leaders the Central Intelligence Agency is authorized to kill, if capture is impractical and civilian casualties can be minimized, senior military and intelligence officials said.

The previously undisclosed C.I.A. list includes key Qaeda leaders like Osama bin Laden and his chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, as well as other principal figures from Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups, the officials said. The names of about two dozen terrorist leaders have recently been on the lethal-force list, officials said. "It's the worst of the worst," an official said.

President Bush has provided written legal authority to the C.I.A. to hunt down and kill the terrorists without seeking further approval each time the agency is about to stage an operation. Some officials said the terrorist list was known as the "high-value target list." A spokesman for the White House declined to discuss the list or issues involving the use of lethal force against terrorists. A spokesman for the C.I.A. also declined to comment on the list.

Despite the authority given to the agency, Mr. Bush has not waived the executive order banning assassinations, officials said. The presidential authority to kill terrorists defines operatives of Al Qaeda as enemy combatants and thus legitimate targets for lethal force.

Mr. Bush issued a presidential finding last year, after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, providing the basic executive and legal authority for the C.I.A. to either kill or capture terrorist leaders. Initially, the agency used that authority to hunt for Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan. That authority was the basis for the C.I.A.'s attempts to find and kill or capture Mr. Bin laden and other Qaeda leaders during the war in Afghanistan.

The creation of the secret list is part of the expanded C.I.A. effort to hunt and kill or capture Qaeda operatives far from traditional battlefields, in countries like Yemen.

The president is not legally required to approve each name added to the list, nor is the C.I.A. required to obtain presidential approval for specific attacks, although officials said Mr. Bush had been kept well informed about the agency's operations. Read more.

The Man Who Knew Cheney's Secret
by Benjamin Sarlin | Daily Beast

The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh was mocked in March when he referred to Dick Cheney’s secret squad of CIA assassins. Now, he talks to The Daily Beast about the next shoe to drop.

Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh raised eyebrows back in March when he told an audience at the University of Minnesota that Dick Cheney ran a secret hit squad that he kept hidden from congressional oversight.

"Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on," Hersh said at the time. He added: "Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us."

“I said what I said, they can always say what they say,” Hersh told The Daily Beast. “The last time they said the government doesn’t torture, this time it’s the government doesn’t assassinate.” Read more.

Cheney Sweats Out the Summer
By Ray McGovern | July 14, 2009

So far the summer has been mild in the Washington, D.C., area. But for former Vice President Dick Cheney the temperature is well over 100 degrees. He is sweating profusely, and it is becoming increasingly clear why.

Cheney has broken openly with former President George W. Bush on one issue of transcendent importance — to Cheney. For whatever reason, Bush decided not to hand out blanket pardons before they both rode off into the sunset.