Half Coke Half Port With Ice

VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: We have to work the dark side, if you will. We’re going to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies.



AMY GOODMAN: In her new book The Dark Side, Jane Mayer chronicles how the Bush administration crafted its interrogation and detention policies. She writes, “As part of the war on terror, for the first time in its history the United States has sanctioned government officials to physically and psychologically torment American-held captives, making torture the official law of the land in all but name.”


Jane Mayer joins us now in our firehouse studio for the hour, staff writer at The New Yorker magazine. Again, her book called The Dark Side. Welcome to Democracy Now!


JANE MAYER: Thanks so much. I’m really glad to be with you.


AMY GOODMAN: It’s great to have you here. Talk about the Red Cross report that got a lot of coverage, but not quite the way you cover it in this book.


JANE MAYER: Well, I think it’s particularly interesting today and the day after former Attorney General Ashcroft testified in Congress, saying that everything they did was not torture, that waterboarding did not constitute torture, because that is absolutely not the point of view of the Red Cross, which is really the world’s authority on the subject of treatment of prisoners of war. And the Red Cross sent investigators down to Guantanamo. They were the first independent outside people to be able to talk to the CIA’s prisoners. There were fourteen of them who had been emptied out of the black site prisons and were down in Guantanamo.


AMY GOODMAN: Where were the black site prisons?


JANE MAYER: The black site prisons—well, there’s been a lot of speculation about where they were. They seem to have been, among other places, ironically in eastern Europe and possibly even facilities that had been used by the communist world before the fall of the Soviet Union.


So, at any rate, when the Red Cross talked to these prisoners, the stories they got were harrowing and, in the view of the Red Cross, constituted torture. It was not—there had been earlier Red Cross reports that have said that mistreatment by the US government of prisoners was tantamount to torture. This was no longer just tantamount; this was categorically torture, in their view, and constituted grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, which is why we say—I say in the book that they were warning that the top officials of the United States could be prosecuted.


AMY GOODMAN: How do you know what was in the Red Cross report?


JANE MAYER: Well, you know, it comes from not seeing the Red Cross report, which is a confidential report that’s only circulated into the hands of a few people at the very top of our government. It comes from interviewing a number of sources who have seen it and cross-checking with them the details over and over again ’til I had a level of confidence that what I’ve got in here is absolutely correct. And I hope—we can note that nobody has contradicted it yet.


AMY GOODMAN: And just to be clear, the Red Cross gives their reports to a government. That’s why people, the public, doesn’t see it.


JANE MAYER: Yes, they work behind the scenes. The whole—and this is—it was, you know, an ethical decision—complication about whether or not to report on this, because I certainly support the work of the Red Cross and what they are doing all around the world. And so, in order to get the access they need to monitor these cases, they agreed to do it quietly and behind the scenes and to just talk to the convening authorities—is what they call the government—that are holding the prisoners. But after seven years since 9/11, I thought that it was important, as a journalist, for the country to understand what’s being done in—by our government. And so, it was in this—weighing the scales, I thought, time for people to understand this.


AMY GOODMAN: Jane Mayer, you also report that back in 2002, the CIA warned that up to a third of the prisoners at Guantanamo may have been imprisoned by mistake.


JANE MAYER: Isn’t that—to me, this is one of the amazing anecdotes in this book. It’s not the ACLU. It’s not, you know, some kind of outside human rights group. It’s the CIA that warned the government. They sent—the CIA sent a particular expert down to Guantanamo in the summer of 2002 to figure out what’s going on. Why are we not getting better intelligence out of these detainees down in Guantanamo? And he was an Arab speaker and an expert in Islamic fundamentalism.


He interviewed a number of the detainees in Guantanamo, and he came back saying, “Bad news. The reason we’re not getting better intelligence, part of the reasoning anyway, is that about a third of the people are innocent.” From what he could tell, they were just mistakes. They were locked up—you know, they were just brought in by—herded in by mistake. And—


AMY GOODMAN: Mistake, like, for example, bounty hunters.


JANE MAYER: Right, sure. Bounty hunters who were—you know, and people who were put—there were people put in to—because of personal grudges. There was one—one detainee was there because he had been a teacher of somebody and given them a bad grade, and the person that he’d flunked pointed him out as a terrorist, and he was rounded up.


So there were all kinds of stories, but—and it’s not to say, you know, that there aren’t people down there who are probably serious suspects. It’s just that they mix them all in together, which was a consequence of when they got rid of the Geneva Conventions, they got rid of the screening process. And so, there was—it’s just kind of collective guilt instead of individual guilt. They didn’t give people a chance to say whether they were innocent or not.


AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to President Bush’s statement on September 6, 2006. He acknowledged for the first time the CIA has been operating a secret network of overseas prisons, but he denied the United States ever used torture.


PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: We knew that Zubaydah had more information that could save innocent lives. But he stopped talking. As his questioning proceeded, it became clear that he had received training on how to resist interrogation. And so, the CIA used an alternative set of procedures.


These procedures were designed to be safe, to comply with our laws, our Constitution and our treaty obligations. The Department of Justice reviewed the authorized methods extensively and determined them to be lawful.


I cannot describe the specific methods used. I think you understand why. If I did, it would help the terrorists learn how to resist questioning and to keep information from us that we need to prevent new attacks on our country. But I can say the procedures were tough, and they were safe and lawful and necessary.


I want to be absolutely clear with our people and the world, the United States does not torture. It’s against our laws, and it’s against our values. I have not authorized it, and I will not authorize it.



AMY GOODMAN: That’s President Bush in 2006. Jane Mayer, on that last assertion, and then let’s talk about Abu Zubaydah.


JANE MAYER: OK. Well, I mean, it’s absolutely contradicted by so many facts. I have to say the President’s words are—if you read this book, you can see that there’s many experts in the military and the FBI, even some of the lawyers inside the Bush administration, have a completely different view from what the President said. And he was warned, as was the Vice President, very early on that you may be crossing criminal lines here.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/18/the_dark_side_jane_mayer_on



Oh cry, sour country, he wrought his wide hand across the steppes, persperation across the sky, dark shadows and warnings, squirrels on happy summer days, he wanted to take in everyting, know everything, be warned and be a warning, embracing all. They stood still, the three of them, the woman standing behind the two useless blokes, the blokes with a beer in their hands, the beers neatly placed inside a cooler, as always. They hadn't shaved. They certainly hadn't dressed up. The sky was full of the history of humanity, the whole world, caught up in the sweeping flow of the atmosphere across the plains, he could smell them, he could hear them, the millions far away.

And the three of them stood in a haphazard tableau, staring towards the mountain as if there was a message in the wind. But more, as if the meanig of their whole lives, his life, their reason for being here in this isolated spot, was there for the taking. He bowled up, only to be struck instantly by their silence. They felt no need to talk, unlike these city folk. He was crass and beaten and full of babble. Smoke stained from the city. Crass with the barbaric urgency that had overtaken that terrible place. They looked at him, suprised, perhaps, by his need to say anything. What was there to say, after all, about this life, the messy garden, the chaotic loungeroom, the kitchen that looked like a health threat, despite, or perhaps because, of the five children.

What's happening, he asked, embarrassed by the infinite depth of the moment, the time when he was not on his own turf, but on their patch, their life, their country. Nothing much, Waynie answered, stating the obvious. Nothing much. As if it bore repeating. He couldn't tell what they were looking at, why they were all looking in the one direction, what could possibly be revealed from the low mountain hanging over them. There was the sound of insects and the heat in a swirl of wind. Waynie turned his weather and alcohol beaten face towards him, making a friendly gesture, swilling his beer.

The woman's presence made him feel awkward. It was alright for a couple of half pissed blokes to be standing in the front yard staring at the mountain for no good reason, but didn't she have better things to do? That mountain of unwashed clothes? That pile of unwashed dishes? She sensed his embarrassment quickly, there was always an awkwardness between them. It was all about status. She was worried that he was going to make his house better than theirs, and therefore alter the hierarchy of the village, make them look as feral as their reputation. He wasn't used to people who just did nothing, who just got pissed.

I'll be doing things, she said, and headed indoors, as if she needed an excuse in her own front yard. He grunted. I should probably get back to painting, he said. And instead just stood, staring at the mountain, as the woman bustled inside. There was everything in the known universe whirling in the dust, all the stories of this distant place. Phillip drained the bottom of his beer, a sign for action of some sort. He turned it upside down to drain the last drop, as if to make a point. Then he ordered one of the kids to go and get him another out of the fridge. And one for Waynie. There was some mumbling from Waynie about paying him back. He brushed it aside.

Want one? He asked, for the umpteenth time. Nup, can't drink, my liver's shot, he said. One won't hurt, Waynie pushed, but he shook his head again. One day you'll be as old as me, and you won't be able to drink either, he said. Not the way you two drink. They looked at him with some vague sense of disbelief, as if they would rather be dead. Phillip never had a drink out of his hand from morning to night, and when he wanted to get truly snickered drank schooner glasses of half coke half port with ice, downing them until he was no longer lucid and no longer knew where he was, stumbling around the paddocks in the middle of the night, searching for something he would never find.

The skinny young girl arrived with their beers, and they went through the ritual of discarding the empty bottles and placing the fresh beers into their coolers, all done with an elaborate, reverent intensity. And then they went back to staring at the mountain, there in the front yard, just standing there drinking and staring and thinking of nothing much. For a minute he thought of going, getting on with his chores, but instead he stood with them, looking at the moment. Is there anything in particular you're looking at? he asked. City slcikers were allowed to be stupid. Nothing, Waynie said, nothing at all.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://awesternheart.blogspot.com/2008/09/that-would-be-courageous-very.html

Thursday, September 25, 2008
That Would Be Courageous, Very Courageous, Mr Prime Minister

According to Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd the most important challenge that Australia and indeed the world faces is global warming caused by man made carbon emissions. But what if its not? The issue is of such critical importance to the PM that during the last week's `one in a centuary" global financial meltdown, the Australian PM seemed hopelessly out of touch with reality.

As the global financial system and indeed Capitalism teetered on the verge of destruction, the PM's contribution was to announce the government was investing $100 million a year to make Australia the Hub of global climate change fighting technology. His other contribution was to announce a symposium of local government councilors. As Senator Barnaby Joyce put it so well on yesterday -

"This guy [the PM] is getting completely disconnected from what's going on and sooner or later he's going to realise that the main game is actually in this nation, not some other nation."


Indeed it is fair to say that the Kevin Rudd on the advice of his scientific adviser has staked his whole governments future on leading the world in the fight against global warming. But what if its not? What if James Hansen and his global spokesperson Al Gore are really the two swindlers from the fairy tale The Emperors New Clothes?



Certainly research from the Space and Science Research Center (SSRC) which quotes itself on its web site as "the leading science and engineering research company internationally, that specializes in the analysis of and planning for climate changes based upon the "Theory of Relational Cycles of Solar Activity," believes its not. In July of this year John L. Casey, Director of the Space and Science Research Center, Orlando Florida, issued what he described as a landmark declaration on climate change.

"After an exhaustive review of a substantial body of climate research, and in conjunction with the obvious and compelling new evidence that exists, it is time that the world community acknowledges that the Earth has begun its next climate change.

In an opinion echoed by many scientists around the world, the Space and Science Research Center (SSRC), today declares that the world's climate warming of the past decades has now come to an end. A new climate era has already started that is bringing predominantly colder global temperatures for many years into the future.

In some years this new climate will create dangerously cold weather with significant ill-effects world wide. Global warming is over - a new cold climate has begun."


In the statement Professor Casey specifically mentions the difficulty in over coming the dogma of political and media consensus on global warming.

"I have consulted with colleagues world wide who have reached a similar conclusion. They have likewise been attempting to advise their own governments and media of the impending cold era and the difficult times that the extreme cold weather may bring. They are to be commended for their bold public stances and publication of their research which of course has been in direct opposition to past conventional thought on the nature and causes of the last twenty years of global warming. "


Professor Phillip Stott in his article "Cogitative dissonance" details why the media and politician are having such difficulty with the world is not warming paradigm.

"How can you talk of the climate `warming' when, on the key measures, it isn't? .. Such media behaviour exhibits a classic condition known as `cognitive dissonance'

This is experienced when belief in a grand narrative persists blindly even when the facts in the real world begin to contradict what the narrative is saying.

Sadly, our media have come to have a vested interest in `global warming', as have so many politicians and activists.


Casey Goes on:

"Casey detailed the solar activity cycles that have been driving the Earth's climate for the past 1,200 years. He condemned the climate change confusion and alarmism which has accompanied seven separate periods over the past 100 years, where scientists and the media flip-flopped on reporting that the Earth was either entering a new `ice age' or headed for a global meltdown where melting glacial ice would swamp the planet's coastal cities.


Casey also touches on the impacts of the onset of global cooling on Agriculture.

"On the subject of cold climate effects on agriculture, Casey was not optimistic. "I can see," he added, "just like the last time this 206 year cycle brought cold, that there will be substantial damage to the world's agricultural systems. This time however we will have eight billion mouths to feed during the worst years around 2031 compared to previously when we had only one billion. Yet even then, many died from the combined effects of bitter cold and lack of food."


Casey called on all leaders to immediately move from the past global warming planning to prepare for the already started change to a cold climate.

"Now that the new cold climate has begun to arrive, we must immediately start the preparation, the adaptation process. At least because of the RC Theory we now have some advance warning. No longer do we need to wonder what the Earth's next climate changes will be two or three generations out. But we must nonetheless be ready to adjust with our now more predictable solar cycles that are the primary determinants of climate on Earth."


Now I'm not saying that John L Casey has got it right either. Readers should click on the links to his site and read the research. He certainly makes a compelling case and we will actually know if his research is ground breaking within the next 2 decades (as he predicts the planet will be 1-1.5 degrees C cooler between 2030 - 2040).

Certainly it is difficult to give the PM's science adviser James Hansen any where near the credibility that Kevin Rudd does after his warming predictions to date have been wildly inaccurate / over stated and his promotion of the universally discredited Mann Hockey Stick theory.



Is Prime Minister Rudd racing to far ahead of the science on global warming? If he is, he is doing the Nation of Australia and its people an enormous disservice and will be remembered by history as a "fool".

On the other hand if he has backed the right horse in James Hansen / Al Gores take on the science he will be viewed by history as a "great visionary" and will probably end up as head of the UN. One thing is for certain - ` he is willing to put it all on the line, no each way bets for our PM and he won't die wondering'. As a great fan of the BBC series Yes Minister, Sir Humphrey Appleby words of wisdom ring true: "That would be courageous, Minister, very courageous."

(leader of the Welsh), who is trying to impress the Prince, declares: “I can call spirits from the vasty deep.” Hotspur (Henry Percy, known as Hotspur, Northumberland’s son) responds dryly: “Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them?”


http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/Global_Warming_Politics/A_Hot_Topic_Blog/Entries/2008/9/24_Middle-Class_Greenery_Only_%E2%80%98Ski%E2%80%99_Deep.html


In his Labour Party Conference speech yesterday in Manchester, Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, was minded to raise his target of 60% for cutting carbon emissions by 2050 to 80% - “And I am asking the climate change committee to report by October on the case for, by 2050 not a 60% reduction in our carbon emissions, but an 80% cut.” This really is the very worst of political hot air, and I am afraid it is difficult to take seriously such blather, especially in the light of two highly-revealing surveys reported today.


The Beastly Bourgeois


First, a study carried out at Exeter University has exposed the mind-numbing depths of middle-class hypocrisy over ‘global warming’, of the very people who pontificate daily to the rest of us about carbon footprints and eco-lifestyles. Middle-class ‘greenery’, it seems, is only ski deep [‘Green idealists fail to make grade, says study’, The Guardian, September 24]:


“Stewart Barr, of Exeter University, who led the research, said: ‘Green living is largely something of a myth. There is this middle class environmentalism where being green is part of the desired image. But another part of the desired image is to fly off skiing twice a year’ ... ‘Some people even said they deserved such flights as a reward for their green efforts’, he added.”


A classic reply to the survey went as follows: “Questioned on their heavy use of flying, one respondent said: ‘I recycle 100% of what I can, there’s not one piece of paper goes in my bin, so that makes me feel less guilty about flying as much as I do.”


Don’t you just love it! In the (also hypocritical) words of D.H. Lawrence:


“How beastly the bourgeois is!

Standing in their thousands, these appearances, in damp England

what a pity they can’t all be kicked over

like sickening toadstools, and left to melt back, swiftly

into the soil of England.”


And nobody captured the beastly bourgeois better than Georg Grosz [see picture], granted in his case in 1920’s Berlin. Is Guardianista London any different? Unsurprisingly, Barr concludes:


“The findings indicate that even those people who appear to be very committed to environmental action find it difficult to transfer these behaviours into more problematic contexts.”


What a splendid piece of ‘academese’!


But Public Not Fooled


All this is then beautifully supported by the results of a new opinion poll carried out by Opinium [‘British public “unwilling” to pay for climate change costs’, The Guardian, September 24]:


“... seven out of 10 of the nearly 2,000 people questioned said they were unwilling to pay higher taxes to combat environmental issues, and a similar number believed the green agenda had been ‘hijacked’ to increase taxes.”


Gordon, you are talking absolute recycled rubbish. You claim “you can call spirits from the vasty deep.” “Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them?”


I think not. And, in those immortal words attributed to Abraham Lincoln:


“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”


80%! Your ‘global warming’ rhetoric has become worse than that of David Cameron and Nick Clegg. It really is that bad:


“Anything you can do,

I can do better.

I can do anything

Better than you.”


No, you can't. Not one of you!


The Guardianistas must be weeping into their lattes, poor things.