This is a great article by our friend Larry Johnson.
Reprinted with permission from NoQuarterUsa

I am not sure who angers me more–the Republicans who insist that Barack Obama is criminalizing terrorism or the Democrats–Obama in particular–for being so inept in defending themselves from this bogus lie. The latest to push this nonsense is ditzy Senator from Maine, Susan Collins. Collins did the Republican radio address today and leveled this outrageous charge (transcript here):

President Obama recently used the phrase that ‘we are at war’ with terrorists. But unfortunately his rhetoric does not match the actions of his administration.

The Obama administration appears to have a blind spot when it comes to the War on Terrorism.

And, because of that blindness, this administration cannot see a foreign terrorist even when he stands right in front of them, fresh from an attempt to blow a plane out of the sky on Christmas Day.

There’s no other way to explain the irresponsible, indeed dangerous, decision on Abdulmutallab’s interrogation. There’s no other way to explain the inconceivable treatment of him as if he were a common criminal.

This charade must stop. Foreign terrorists are enemy combatants and they must be treated as such. The safety of the American people depends on it.

Actually Senator, there is another explanation and it is based in fact and history–Barack Obama was acting like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Read more »

There is little to be surprised about when it comes to the Cheney clique. I always can predict the garbage that will come out of the mouths of Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney, Frank Gaffney, Ron Christie, Mary Matalin, David Rivkin, and others associated with the disgraced former Vice President. These tools are entirely without compunction when they distort the public record and pitch to our base fear instincts as a way to maintain some pseudo moral high ground.

These people are not the center of my ire. They are liars. Their credibility is zero to none. There is almost nothing Dick Cheney says that isn’t parroted by his draft deferment daughter, Liz Cheney. I don’t expect her to change her tune. This isn’t going to be an examination of how Liz Cheney is wrong because the facts do that well all by themselves. No, my comment is entirely focused at CNN and ABC News for giving this blathering fool the space to talk in the first place.

THIS WEEK with George Stephanopolis has been quick to invite Liz Cheney to sit on their panel along side veteran reporters or politicians and give her equal voice as if she’s got something, equal, to say just because the nepotism that placed her in the State Department is its own endorsement of her credibility on security and foreign affairs.

CNN occasionally honors the Cheney the younger to stand up for her cowardly lying father by placing her up against James Carville. The combination never changes much. I remember her “debating” James Zobgy who looked at her as if she were nuts. (I mean how do you feel good about debating an zombie wingnut?)

Liz Cheney has launched “KeepAmericaSafe.com” as a bully pulpit on America’s “War on Terror”. Then this ‘organization’ is used to prop up the validity of Liz Cheney as a spokesperson. This is just like Judith Miller publishing an article in the NYTimes handed to her by Dick Cheney’s tool only to have Cheney do a call back for credibility. Might work on the ill-informed, but it insults my intelligence. The truth is, you can start a dot com by purchasing a name for about $10. If you seek to add privacy, you can do that for about $10. You can then get cheap hosting with few frills (won’t need them for this effort) for $10 or so….What’s our total? $30? Lets say, you go with deluxe sign up, $25 to $100. We total that up for a year’s expense…$20 for domain and privacy, $120-$1200 for hosting (high end of $100 is unjustified so the real total is $120-$200).

To get the layout, either pay lots of money or hire a zealot.
In many years of activism, I’ve never found it hard to give or get free labor for a cause we believe in. Not everyone will do all things, but they will likely contribute freely to a poster painting, web development, or publication. Some of the ideologues love to write copy so they can propagate their ideas of perfection to everyone. The Cheney clan is made up of almost nothing BUT ideologues and zealots so it shouldn’t be hard to do this.

If they are paying anyone beyond this, for what we’ve seen so far, then where is that money being spent?
If they are paying staff, who is the staff, what are they paying for?
Is this a 501(c)3 style organization or just another “think tank” sans office?

Truth is:
This is another canard.
This is another Weapon of Mass Distraction. No Traction, All Dis.

Nobody should say Liz Cheney can’t have an opinion. But her opinion isn’t there because she earned a right to the table. In the game of princes and pawns, Liz got access solely because her cowardly father won’t answer to his messages. His rantings are unchecked. He never faced a national referendum on his insanity. His continued cowardice is in the form of a ignorant Sourcrat who is now welcome to the Sunday talk show tables.

Yes, FoxNews has brought Liz Cheney on, but who cares. Fox News has no credibility for these matters as far as I’m concerned.
But ABC and CNN are really dragging bottom in continuing to allow this tool to talk at the table.

As of today, there are 23 agents who are international fugitives after an Italian court ruled in the abduction of a cleric in Milan.

NYTimes Article:
An Italian judge sentenced 23 Americans to up to eight years in prison on Wednesday for the abduction of a Muslim cleric, in a symbolic condemnation of the CIA “rendition” flights used by the former U.S. government.

Updates coming as they roll out…

First, here are the documents that have been released by the FBI detailing the interview with Dick Cheney:

Cheney Interview Transcript

FBI Outline Notes

FBI Interview Notes

BIG THANKS: To Melanie Sloan and the hard workers at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) for their tireless effort to keep accountability and access a priority. Without their effort much of what we know would be hidden and our work would be infinitely harder. We thank you CREW.

There are few aspects of the Cheney story as well as I know the CIA leak case. At first this case eluded my attention because I was more focused on the Iraq war, the lies that led to them and who was in a position of the most gain from this catastrophic historical decision. I remember early on that many in the media were more focused on Karl Rove than Dick Cheney. Names like I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby were unknown to the general population, but Karl Rove..was a known turd. Blossoming from there we learned more about how reporters gain access to the powers of our government and are subsequently or consequently used by those powers to feed the media cycle specific memes and directions for the general masses to chomp on while the oligarchic powers enjoy playing out their various ideologies on the world stage.

Take for example the story of Judith Miller who was used to foster the case to go to war on Iraq. She’d publish what the White House would say, then the White House would refer back to their interview with her and say, “see..the New York Times said”…It is ironic that she would also become the face of the oppressed “journalist” by being thrown in jail to force her to testify. Dick Cheney used her via Scooter Libby to manipulate the public into views that the raw facts might not have yielded. Could we have seen a war with Iraq if the New York Times was publishing articles that remained in doubt about WMD? The NYTimes relation to the same Dick Cheney who blasted the NYT for leaks about wiretaps and other programs is something that journalists should study as fundamental ethics for the next 10,000 years. He hated them?

There were several meetings between Judith Miller and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby regarding the Joe Wilson article and clearly Libby met with her 3 times in the days after Wilson’s op-ed, “What I didn’t find in Africa“, published. All of these were intended to foster a story, false at the root, about the case for Iraq. The story that follows is one of the biggest betrayals of national trust in modern times. We will not understand many of its consequences for many generations, I assume.

We should still ask the questions about the motivation to invade Iraq. The CIA leak case is only one of its aspects but we can learn much about manipulation and lies through this case because it became such a public spectacle. We are going to be representing the case in detail soon on this website complete with documents and archival news coverage. During this, I ask that you consider whether it is at all possible that Dick Cheney could forget the key details that he tells the FBI he “cannot recall”. I ask that you consider whether a person so intent on pushing a nation to war by toying with the reporters’ drive for a scoop can so easily forget how he was Right In The Middle Of The Action?

Dick Cheney is a bald face liar about the CIA leak. I’m not going to make bones about it. He lied to the FBI. His case for forgetting was a legalistic avoidance tactic that doesn’t even fool idiot gumshoes on TV.  Because he was not under oath doesn’t mean he didn’t lie or mislead without consequence. But we’ll consider the consequences after we represent the evidence.

Coming next, we’ll go back to the sworn testimony and evidence presented in the United States v Libby case and see if Dick Cheney’s memory can be restored.

Andy Worthington has a good new article on Judge Baltasar Garzon’s investigation of John Yoo, Alberto Gonzales, Donald Rumsfeld and others who set up the U.S. Guantanamo interrogations. Read Article

The investigation is being defined within the “universal jurisdiction” and whether a judge in Spain has the authority to investigate foreign leaders. Before this notion cements it is key to note that the United States policy abroad clearly demonstrates that the policy has been for universal jurisdiction so long as it is in the interest of the United States. When justice calls for toppling, trying, or even executing foreign leaders, the United States has been involved in all aspects. There seems little room for credibility to anyone criticizing Garzon for this endeavor.

If Eric Holder were to avoid prosecution despite evidence then the United States would be in violation of its treaties to investigate war crimes. If the accused are found innocent before a jury, then the jury has spoken. But don’t let the elephant in the room, the screaming lobby of people who call investigations politically motivated or somehow illegitimate, go unnoticed. These people who do so are almost 100% on record as favoring universal jurisdiction by their advocacy of toppling Saddam Hussein for what they didn’t approve of. He had never attacked the United States but he was a bad guy and that was enough for this same gaggle to launch a war. They would topple Iran using the same universal jurisdiction.

There may be no end to the shame the obstructionists of justice would subject this country to in order to prevent accountability by U.S. officials. There can be no moral high ground when U.S. officials or citizens commit crimes and face no prosecution. Nor is there justice when low level tools of these programs (torture, wiretapping, etc) get used and discarded to prevent culpability of the crafters and executors of such programs. When you have too many bad apples you need to investigate the tree.

http://www.cheneywatch.org/documents/torture/cia-ksm-docs08242009.pdf

The documents Cheney requested are now released, redacted of course, and they do little to foster his view. Reading over the reports above, its clear to see that normal interrogation techniques were clearly productive. There is no portion of these reports, unredacted portions, that defend Cheney’s views on torture as necessary and fruitful.

If you see anything in these that demonstrates this, we’d love to know. Its a busy news day.

http://www.cheneywatch.org/documents/torture/cia_oig_report.pdf

Here is the long awaited report. Many new details have been released. We are reading the document and will elaborate the details here. And we will publish the news coverage related to this story. Stay tuned….

Documents By Chronology:
The attacks on September 11, 2001 were the catalyst for the “war on terror”– and for a legal revolution in assertions of broad powers for the Commander-in-Chief. In this chronological library of 34 documents, it is possible to chart the decision-making that led to interrogations of prisoners in U.S. custody that were “at a minimum, cruel and inhuman treatment and, at worst, torture,” in the words of the former general counsel of the United States Navy, Alberto Mora.
Read more »

Reports are flying that Eric Holder has read the soon, supposedly, to be released, supposedly, CIA torture report. Will Eric Holder be compelled to investigate the torture program?

At the same time we are reading that Dick Cheney instructed the CIA to withhold information to the Congress about a “program” that background talkers saying never fomented into action. As our friend Larry Johnson pointed out, where are the bodies? But I don’t think that is ultimately the issue for me. I think the issue is, “how does the Vice President of the United States of America get this much power? How is he able to be outside the law? And why is he allowed to continue this if he has such contempt for the United States government he serves in?”
Read more »