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Photo by: joanneleon. July, 2013.
Photo by: joanneleon. July, 2013.
Photo by: joanneleon. July, 2013.
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Donovan - Universal Soldier
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CIA whistleblowers? This whistleblower is talking about the case of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, the imam of Milan, renditioned in Milan, taken to Egypt. 26 CIA officers were indicted in Italy and many (13?) were convicted and sentenced in absentia. It was a huge case over a number of years. You'll recall that a week or so ago, Robert Seldon Lady (former CIA station chief in Milan), who has been convicted by an Italian court for Abu Omar's abduction, was detained briefly at the border of Panama and Costa Rica. This story has huge potential. I'm gathering some of my research materials from past years and more recent ones to do some writing on it in the not too distant future.
I've always had a strong interest in the rendition and torture programs and the lack of accountability and have read emptywheel's writings on them for nearly ten years now. But the recent CIA propaganda film, Zero Dark Thirty, and a number of other things have renewed and strengthened my interest in that, especially Scahill's book and movie, "Dirty Wars" and the horrific story of James Steele, reported by the Guardian, who also compiled a stunning documentary on him. And there are so many other ties, including joint Afghan police and US JSOC programs in Afghanistan. Those programs have never really died but instead have been driven further underground. In fact, connect dots back to the Iran Contra era, and you find, in Bradley Mannings words, "terrible things" that go back for a long, long time. This is just a recent incarnation.
Here is the McClatchy article.
U.S. allowed Italian kidnap prosecution to shield higher-ups, ex-CIA officer says
WASHINGTON — A former CIA officer has broken the U.S. silence around the 2003 abduction of a radical Islamist cleric in Italy, charging that the agency inflated the threat the preacher posed and that the United States then allowed Italy to prosecute her and other Americans to shield President George W. Bush and other U.S. officials from responsibility for approving the operation.
[...]
De Sousa said her assertions are based on classified CIA cables that she read before resigning from the agency in February 2009, as well as on Italian legal documents and Italian news reports. She denies that she was involved in the operation, though she acknowledges that she served as the interpreter for a CIA “snatch” team that visited Milan in 2002 to plan the abduction.
[...]
The Bush and Obama administrations have never acknowledged U.S. involvement in the Nasr rendition, which makes De Sousa’s decision to speak publicly about it significant, Singh said.
“Any public account of what happened and who was ultimately responsible is of considerable interest,” she said. “Despite the scale of the human rights violations associated with the rendition program, the United States hasn’t held a single individual accountable.”
Wikipedia has an excellent entry on this case, if you are not familiar with it, or familiar with the major players involved. It's important to know things about this case because so many key players here and in Italy (also in Egypt where he was detained and tortured, and don't forget our torture guy in Egypt for years was Suleiman, who the Egyptian military and I don't know who else tried to put into power after Mubarak was ousted) were involved, and there may be ties to the Niger yellow cake memo as well. Robert Seldon Lady was released a week or so ago, but why was he detained? Now this whistleblower is talking. The Bush administration never even admitted involvement in this case, though everyone knows it was our CIA and some Italian officials behind it. But I don't know why it's heating up now. Emptywheel has written some things about this case too over the years. It's just interesting to see all of this cropping up again.
Abu Omar case
The Italian government originally denied having played any role in the abduction. However Italian prosecutors Armando Spataro and Ferdinand Enrico Pomarici indicted 26 CIA agents, including the Rome station chief and head of CIA in Italy until 2003, Jeffrey W. Castelli, and Milan station chief Robert Seldon Lady, as well as SISMI head General Nicolò Pollari, his second Marco Mancini and station chiefs Raffaele Ditroia, Luciano Di Gregori and Giuseppe Ciorra.[4] Referring to the Italian military intelligence agency, the Italian press has talked of a "CIA-SISMI concerted operation." The prosecutors sent extradition requests for the indicted American citizens to the Italian Ministry of Justice, then headed by Roberto Castelli, for onward transmission to Washington. However Castelli refused to forward the demand for extradition.
The affair also created controversy within the CIA when the story came to light in 2005.[5] Porter J. Goss the director of the CIA at the time, ordered the agency's independent inspector general to begin a review of the operation.[5] Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then head of the National Clandestine Service (NCS), stopped the inspector general's review, stating that the NCS would investigate itself.[5] In June 2009 Robert Seldon Lady, Milan CIA station chief at the time, said "I'm not guilty. I'm only responsible for carrying out orders that I received from my superiors."[6] CIA officer Sabrina DeSousa, sentenced to five years in prison, said that the United States "broke the law ... and we are paying for the mistakes right now".[7]
Common Dreams article about the McClatchy interviews with the CIA whistleblower.
CIA Agent: Bush Officials Threw Us 'Under Bus' over Rendition
Clandestine operative speaks out for first time about CIA kidnapping and torture during Bush years
De Sousa has spoken to the media in the past, but always denied she was a member of the clandestine service by saying she was operating in Italy as a 'diplomat.'
“Despite the scale of the human rights violations associated with the rendition program," she said, "the United States hasn’t held a single individual accountable.”
Among the specific accusations leveled by De Sousa, McClatchy reports:
– The former CIA station chief in Rome, Jeffrey Castelli, whom she called the mastermind of the operation, exaggerated Nasr’s terrorist threat to win approval for the rendition and misled his superiors that Italian military intelligence had agreed to the operation.
– Senior CIA officials, including then-CIA Director George Tenet, approved the operation even though there were doubts about Castelli’s case – Nasr wasn’t wanted in Egypt and wasn’t on the U.S. list of top al Qaida terrorists.
– Condoleezza Rice, then the White House national security adviser, also had concerns about the case, especially what Italy would do if the CIA were caught, but she eventually agreed to it and recommended that Bush approve the abduction.
Margaret Sullivan, NYT ombudsman/Public Editor.
A Blow for the Press, and for Democracy
SOMETIMES James Risen feels like Jean Valjean, the beleaguered protagonist of “Les Miserables,” hounded for years by the authorities.
“They just keep coming at me,” Mr. Risen, a Times reporter in Washington, told me by phone last week. It has been 10 years since he learned of a secret C.I.A. program to interfere with Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons, and six since he got an ominous FedEx package containing a government subpoena. Since then, it has been one legal hurdle after another, trying to stay out of court.
Just over a week ago, another blow came: A federal appeals court panel ruled, 2 to 1, against his effort to avoid testifying in the government’s case against Jeffrey Sterling, a former C.I.A. official charged with leaking secret information about the matter.
Another Peace Prize For Bradley Manning
The Board of Directors of the US Peace Memorial Foundation is pleased to announce that the recipient of its 2013 Peace Prize is Bradley Manning for conspicuous bravery, at the risk of his own freedom, above and beyond the call of duty.
The award was presented during arally July 26 at Ft. McNair, Washington, DC. Michael Knox presented the plaque to Emma Cape, Bradley Manning Support Network Campaign Organizer, who accepted on Bradley Manning’s behalf. In his remarks, Knox thanked Manning for his courage and for all that he has sacrificed for this country and the world. See photos and read the details at: www.uspeacememorial.org/PEACEPRIZE.htm.
Technically the Manning court is in session today.
Wikileaks truck guy wrote an apology letter and may be admitted back to court.
There is a time lapse video in this article that's just amazing to watch. I have no idea how to even grasp the melting of the Artic and Antarctica.
North Pole Melting Leaves Small Lake At The Top Of The World (VIDEO)
The time-lapse video below comes from a webcam set up by the North Pole Environmental Observatory that has monitored the state of Arctic sea ice since the spring of 2000. Surprisingly, the pole has been melting since at least 2002, according to photos on the project's website.
July is usually the warmest month in the area, but temperatures were 1 to 3 degrees Celsius above average this year. The shallow lake you see at the pole is made of meltwater sitting on top of a layer of ice, according to the observatory.
How do you wreck the chances of a peaceful revolutionary movement with the goal of improving people's lives? Arm them and turn it into an armed insurrection and involve armed militias and militaries.
The Arab spring is being stifled by the force of arms
Middle East: there is no clear condemnation from the international community of political change delivered at gunpoint
Now, those same western leaders remain largely silent about the excesses of an army that was always the main power base of Egyptian despot Hosni Mubarak. No matter which way you look at it, the military's suppression of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood administration was a classic coup d'etat. Those who try to justify this triumph of military power are inevitably those who believe that martial force is the desired default position of any Arab country.
[...]
This comes as demonstrations proliferate in Tunisia following a number of political assassinations. There is even talk of a country once renowned for its almost blood-free jasmine revolution now descending into barbarism. The killing of secular opposition leader Mohamed Brahmi on Thursday in Tunis follows the murder of his colleague Chokri Belaid earlier this year. At least one person was killed in anti-government protests, and a bomb exploded in a police car soon afterwards.
Libya is the scene of daily killings, with the government there unable to control the armed gangs competing for power and influence. Abdelsalam al-Mismari, a prominent lawyer involved in the toppling of Gaddafi, and two security officials were shot dead in Benghazi, "the cradle" of the Libyan revolution on Friday. Mismari had become an outspoken critic of the gunmen, along with thousands of others who see no hope of democracy flourishing while they effectively control the streets.
Many of those who took part in the early pro-democracy gatherings in Syria in 2011 are among the 100,000 plus fatal casualties of the country's civil war. Hundreds of thousands more have been wounded, imprisoned or forced to flee. Predictably, it is the well-equipped and highly motived Syrian army, rather than any form of democracy, which provides President Bashar al-Assad with his best chance of lengthening his tenure of office.
Such savage reality leaves the initial aspirations of those who started the Arab spring looking rather dismal. Ideals such as equality between classes and sexes, efficient and just state institutions, a reduction in poverty, the fair administration of justice and education for all come to nothing when a nation cannot even protect its citizens from its own soldiers or the armed militias who have taken their place.
Wyden and Udall: Intelligence Community's Response Leaves Important Surveillance Questions Unanswered
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Mark Udall, D-Colo., released the following statement after receiving a response from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to their June 27, 2013 letter sent along with 24 fellow senators:
“This response is appreciated, but the intelligence community still has left many of the questions most important to the American people unanswered. Given the implications for the privacy of the millions of law-abiding Americans, intelligence leaders were specifically asked to demonstrate the unique value of the bulk phone records collection program. They did not. Instead, they persist in citing two cases where the government could have obtained a court order or emergency authorization for the information it needed. The bottom line is we still have yet to see concrete evidence that the dragnet collection of phone records provides any unique value.
It’s also deeply troubling that while the NSA claims no current plans to turn Americans’ cell phones into tracking devices, it clearly claims the authority to do so. This response leaves our question of past plans unanswered. Their violations of the rules for handling and accessing bulk phone information are more troubling than have been acknowledged and the American people deserve to know more details. And we are amazed that intelligence leaders deny that the PATRIOT Act has been ‘secretly reinterpreted’ when it is obvious that most Americans and many members of Congress had no idea that this law could be used for bulk collection of millions of law-abiding Americans’ personal records.
In addition, the intelligence community’s response fails to indicate when the PATRIOT Act was first used for bulk collection, or whether this collection was underway when the law was renewed in 2006. We believe that law enforcement and intelligence agencies should have the tools needed to protect the American people, but the collection of bulk phone records needlessly invades the privacy of law-abiding Americans without visibly enhancing their safety.
The responses of the intelligence community demonstrate once again how important it is to reform our surveillance laws and practices at this unique moment in our constitutional history.”
Recent op-ed in the WaPo by Wyden and Udall.
The White House should end the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records
The White House ought to end this dragnet and sharpen its focus on the terrorists and spies who truly threaten our nation’s security. For our part, Congress should pass the legislation that we have introduced that would stop the bulk phone records collection program and ensure that the executive branch does not have the authority to again intrude so far upon Americans’ constitutional rights. While still allowing law enforcement and intelligence agencies to obtain a wide range of records, our bill, which is supported by members of both parties, would require the government to demonstrate that any private records obtained for intelligence purposes are in some way connected to terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities — an explicit requirement that does not exist in the law today.
Emptywheel.
Wyden and Udall: They’re Blowing Smoke about Phone and Other Bulk Record Safety
Now, there are a couple of different things going on here.
First, as Wyden and Udall also note, Clapper didn’t answer their question, “How long has the NSA used the PATRIOT Act authorities to engage in bulk collection of Americans’ records? Was this collection underway when the law was reauthorized in 2006?” Clapper instead answered how long NSA was using Section 215 to get telephony metadata, answering May 2006. But we know that collection was briefed before passage of the PATRIOT reauthorization, and it appears the government used a kluged hybrid order to get it from at least the time the illegal program was revealed in 2005 until the reauthorization passed. So this earlier use may implicate earlier violations.
Nevertheless, what Clapper claims to be human error seems to be something more, the querying of records pertaining to phone numbers that aren’t clearly terrorists (or Iranians).
And given the revelation the government has gone three hops deep into this data, the reference to “highly sophisticated technology issues” suggests more sophisticated data mining than a game of half-Bacon.
- See more at: http://www.emptywheel.net/...
Fascinating and terrifying at the same time. The military is encouraging street protests "to give them a mandate" but also shooting to kill anti-Morsi protesters.
Aerials of night-time Tahrir Square protests: Deadly clashes in Cairo, Egypt
MASS PROTESTS in Tahrir Square Cairo as EGYPTS EX-LEADER MORSI is accused of having links with HAMAS
Benghazi jailbreak: Over 1,100 prisoners escape in Libya amid protests
Some 1,117 detainees have escaped from a prison in eastern Libya. It comes as hundreds of Libyans protest against the killing of a prominent anti-Brotherhood activist, blaming Islamists for his death.
The mass jailbreak occurred at Koyfiya prison in the eastern city of Benghazi on Saturday, according to security official Mohammed Hejazi.
Most of the inmates were being held on serious charges, according to another official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Head of security in Benghazi, Mohammed Sharif, told Reuters that some prisoners had turned themselves in and other had been recaptured.
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The verse that Donovan says was written by George Harrison:
"When the truth gets buried deep
Beneath a thousand years of sleep
Time demands a turn around
And once again, the truth is found."
Donovan - Hurdy Gurdy Man