Erick Erickson, the editor of the far right Republican blog RedState, sent an e-mail to RedState supporters this morning urging the University of Illinois/Chicago to release documents related to Barack Obama's participation in the Annenberg Challenge on Excellence in Education, founded by Bill Ayers. For those of you not familiar with Ayers, he was a co-founder of the militant Weather Underground that took over Students for a Democratic Society in 1969. He has since reformed and is now a distinguished professor at the University of Illinois/Chicago.

Ayers' past is now being exploited by the far right in a shameless attempt to connect him to Barack Obama. In fact, there is absolutely no evidence that Obama and Ayers have had anything but an academic and philanthropic relationship. This is nothing more than an attempt to associate Barack Obama with a so-called "terrorist," who was never convicted, in the far right's broader attempt to cast Obama as different, foreign, "the other."

Erickson's e-mail and more commentary beneath the fold.

Charles J. Hanley, special correspondent for Associated Press (AP), has written a compelling, fascinating and sad tale of the execution of purported Korean "Mata Hari", Kim Soo-im, at the start of the Korean War. He linked her torture and death to the recent revelations about the more than 100,000 murders of leftists or suspected leftists sympathizers in 1950 by the U.S.-allied (and some would say puppet) regime of South Korea.

I'm sure you've already read theSullivan article that mentions that according to the Bush Administration's definitions McCain was not actually tortured during his time in Vietnam.

The fact McCain voted against a bill that would have prohibited the CIA from using some of these said techniques makes it an issue that sticks to McCain as well.  Soon the thought came to me, how could this be better brought out to the general public.  I could actually make a blog and write about it, or make yet another diary on the subject, though kosand  jpadgetthave beaten me to it.  What would be better would be if some collective internet action could generate attention.  A sort of internet protest...a wikipedia bomb.  The problem is I don't know if this would be a grand gesture or just ignored as random wikipedia vandalism.  

Details below the fold.

Andrew Sullivan makes an excellent point.

In all the discussion of John McCain's recently recovered memory of a religious epiphany in Vietnam, one thing has been missing. The torture that was deployed against McCain emerges in all the various accounts. It involved sleep deprivation, the withholding of medical treatment, stress positions, long-time standing, and beating. Sound familiar?

According to the Bush administration's definition of torture, McCain was therefore not tortured.

Cheney denies that McCain was tortured; as does Bush. So do John Yoo and David Addington and George Tenet. In the one indisputably authentic version of the story of a Vietnamese guard showing compassion, McCain talks of the agony of long-time standing. A quarter century later, Don Rumsfeld was putting his signature to memos lengthening the agony of "long-time standing" that victims of Bush's torture regime would have to endure. These torture techniques are, according to the president of the United States, merely "enhanced interrogation."

No war crimes were committed against McCain. And the techniques used are, according to the president, tools to extract accurate information. And so the false confessions that McCain was forced to make were, according to the logic of the Bush administration, as accurate as the "intelligence" we have procured from "interrogating" terror suspects. Feel safer?

Crazy, huh?

There is one thing most Americans identify with and take pride in, they believe in freedom and justice, under a rule of law that is fair to all. The idea that is America allows anyone to define themselves as they see fit. They are free to practice and preach their concept of life to others in the marketplace of ideas. As long as you follow the laws of the land, you have nothing to fear but fear itself. If your version of the "idea" takes hold among the consensus, so be it.

It should be noted from the outset that this diary is not moralistic--it is not cut from a we're-above-this-type-of-ugly-campaigning cloth. But this diary also is not a case for a new, Democratic Swiftboating campaign to be waged against McCain.

Instead, what follows is a brief exploration of how, in both substance and form, the "McCain wasn't tortured" line mirrors almost perfectly the attacks waged against Kerry in 2004.

Whether it's an attack strategy that WE should use is up to the masses, or Obama, or both. (Or some rogue 527.)

Andrew Sullivan reminds us today of something that is missing in all this talk of crosses in the dirt.

More below the fold!

When: January 20, 2009

What: A twilight of relevancy

WTF: There’s no shortage of memorabilia celebrating Dubya’s final 24 hours of power, by which I mean someone of extreme prescience has trademarked the date itself. Well you can stop looking forward to the third Sunday of the first month right now, my friends, because that’s exactly when the worst shit comes to pass and hits the fan in the process and the resultant shit fallout seeps into your drinking water.

Have your ordered yours yet?

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program. Jennifer is in Guantánamo for the pre-trial hearings of Mohammed Jawad, Omar Khadr and Ali Hamza al-Bahlul.

Friday morning, a determined and defiant Ali Hamza Ahmed Sulayman al-Bahlul (PDF) appeared before the military commission. Escorted by military police holding each of his wrists, al-Bahlul wore a tan prison uniform and flip-flops. He wasn’t carrying his "boycott" sign, which he created back in January 2006 and has held during subsequent hearings. We soon realized that this was the reason for a half-hour delay in the hearing’s start time.

Cross-posted (with some mods from MuslimMatters.org)

A new chapter in the long and painful saga of the "War on Terror" has been revealed to the public. The facts are murky, the details impossible to confirm.

While there are several possibilities, there is one that most will find almost impossible to believe. We are not ready to believe that Dr. Aafia is a star terrorist-- a claim that is ironically being jointly pushed by both the US Government and Al-Qaeda. Why are these opposing sides pushing forth this nearly consistent portrait? The answer lies in each group's malicious agenda.

The McCain campaign wants to use the POW thing as a positive thing.
Either McCain's POW experience made him unstable or he's been unstable all along. The American people need to know more about McCain before and after he was shot down in Viet Nam.

Like he lost 5 planes while flying in the Navy.

http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjoh...

It is Sunday.  I open my Washington Post, B Section, and on the inside is a piece with a long introduction by Josh White, explaining of his long interest in a man originally known as Detainee #261, who tried to kill himself when his lawyer stepped out of the room, whom the U. S. long asserted was a dangerous terrorist who had tried to recruit others and who was arrested in Afghanistan, where he had ostensibly gone to fight for the Taliban.   And yet, despite having been held  at Gitmo since January 2002 and having been subjected to brutal treatment,

Nevertheless, he was never charged with a crime, never admitted any connection to terrorism and was ultimately released to Saudi Arabia in July 2007.

White has stayed in touch with the man, whose real name is Jumah al Dossari.  And the bulk of the piece are his words, and they are entitled I'm Home, but Still Haunted by Guantanamo.  Remember, he was in the custody of our government, held and mistreated by our personnel.  This was done in our name.  And miraculously, he offers no bitterness in his words.

U.S. Appeals Court to Rehear Case of Deported Canadian

http://www.nytimes.com/...

I think its going to take a long time for the American people to digest their passive participation in the performance of torture.  Massive psychological traumas can take years to fully process, especially considering the scale of other events in which American torture took place.  There are varying degrees of recognition though, much among arts, film and television, like this.  Coney Island has a new ride:

But it was still shocking to many when artist Steve Powers created a Coney Island attraction called the Waterboard Thrill Ride. It's not really a ride, it's more of a peep show.

This is an act of artistic brilliance I believe.  In the historic heart of urban American leisure, we are confronted with our collective guilt.  

The REPUBLICAN congressional years 1994 - 2006 (and 2000-2008 President Bush years) will be remembered for all they've accomplished...

Seven year war in Afghanistan, 5 year war in Iraq with close to 660 billion dollars spent, part of which we now owe China to pay for them.

North Korea, Iran and now Russia, are all greater powers then before the GOP took control of government. Pakistan with nukes is about to lose their (U.S. picked) leader. China is now listed as having the most manufacturing companies in the world.

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program. Jennifer is in Guantánamo for the pre-trial hearings of Mohammed Jawad, Omar Khadr and Ali Hamza al-Bahlul.

Thursday’s hearing in Afghan national Mohammed Jawad’s case brought stunning testimony on serious abuse he suffered at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan as a teenager, as well as military psychologists’ role in crafting abusive interrogation methods for use on Jawad and other prisoners at Guantánamo Bay.

I think someone should ask John McCain about some of the villains in Jane Mayer's book "The Dark Side".  If a presidential debate moderator does not ask, then Obama should ask.  If McCain continues his attempts to reassure the conservative movement, he will have to support the men who instituted torture as government policy.