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NuclearStrikes * GitmoCoverUp * HowarDean


04 May 2005

"If I had only known,

I would have been a locksmith."


-- Albert Einstein

1) Regional Commanders May Get OK to Request Nuclear Strikes
- - Bush administration and Sudan
- - Sudan: Beyond the Corporate Media
2) ‘Torture, Cover-Up' - Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - US Prison Camps
- - Amnesty International Blasts US for Abu Ghraib Failings
- - Tom Hayden responds to Howard Dean
- - Cindy Sheehan's letter to Howard Dean
- - An Open Letter to Howard Dean Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich


Editor's Notes:

I appreciate your reading such concentrated news for interests of not getting blind-sided too many times.. Time is shrinking for an integrity in humanity to survive. Hot in this issue are the flames of hell promoted by the Bush administration push for tactical nuclear weapons, poised to strike preemptively, possibly. This atrocious report released by the US on the ides of March is called: "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations." What a way to basically sabotage the agenda of United Nation's convening for the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. And finally, grassroots' reporting on the Sudan, and potential US treachery in this region for oil-military gain.

And yet, the media can resist, but, inevitably, truth will rise to the surface. In item 2 learn of CBS TV News revelations of Guantanamo Bay abuse of prisoners, which was reported long ago by FN and world media. Sgt. Erik Saar, 'a soldier who spent three months in the interrogation rooms at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba' has written a book called: "Inside the Wire." This item include excerpts and links to the transcript of the interview of Sgt. Saar that reveal: ‘bizarre, even sadistic, treatment of detainees in the American prison camp' Also, in this item, please consider letting Howard Dean know, too, how you feel about his supporting a laissez-faire policy for the Bush administration in its policies in Iraq.



Upcoming Events - IMPORTANT - Time Sensitive


C-Span has decided to air David Ray Griffin's lecture presentation
in Madison, Wisconsin again, this Saturday,
May 7th, at 2:30 PM EST (11:30 AM West Coast).

One viewer who saw this program stated that he was "stunned."
This was a first for a mainstream network, and they are repeating it at a better time-slot.
Please share and copy this program.

Here is the announcement directly from C-span's website.

Or watch the
C-span program Online (WMV video)

Or listen to the audio here (mp3)

Also, recommended, is another presentation by David Ray Griffin on film, which includes visuals,
inserted to illustrate the actual events of what Dr. Griffin is talking about, like free-falling
(controlled-demolition) Towers. And, what was that about a third building collapsing,
inexplicably.. or an airplane disappearing into the Pentagon via an undersized hole?



Another time-sensitive event
is for the freedom of Leonard Peltier
Monday, May 9th, Washington, D.C.
in Front of the U.S. Supreme Court Building; 20543

For carpooling information, visit:
http://washingtongathering.croweagle.com/
For more information visit:
FN's Archives on Leoanrd Peltier.



Don't compromise yourself,

it's all you've got.


-- Janis Joplin



1) Regional Commanders May Get OK to Request Nuclear Strikes

- - Bush administration and Sudan
- - Sudan: Beyond the Corporate Media


- - Regional Commanders May Get OK to Request Nuclear Strikes

"Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations"

Japan Times Online
U.S. may allow nuke strikes over WMD
Proposal would reverse 10-year policy

WASHINGTON (Kyodo) The U.S. military is considering allowing regional combatant commanders to request presidential approval for pre-emptive nuclear strikes against possible attacks with weapons of mass destruction on the United States or its allies, according to a draft nuclear operations paper.

The March 15 paper, drafted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is titled "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations," providing "guidelines for the joint employment of forces in nuclear operations . . . for the employment of U.S. nuclear forces, command and control relationships, and weapons effect considerations."

"There are numerous nonstate organizations (terrorist, criminal) and about 30 nations with WMD programs, including many regional states," the paper says in recommending that commanders in the Pacific and other theaters be given an option of pre-emptive strikes against "rogue" states and terrorists and "request presidential approval for use of nuclear weapons" under set conditions.

The paper identifies nuclear, biological and chemical weapons as requiring pre-emptive strikes to prevent their use. Allowing pre-emptive nuclear strikes against possible biological and chemical attacks would effectively contradict a "negative security assurance" policy declared 10 years ago by the Clinton administration during an international conference to review the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Creating a treaty committing nuclear powers not to use nuclear weapons against countries without nuclear weapons remains one of the most contentious issues for the 35-year-old NPT regime. A Pentagon official said the paper "is still a draft which has to be finalized" but indicated that it is aimed at guiding "cross-spectrum" combatant commanders how to jointly carry out operations based on the Nuclear Posture Review report adopted three years ago by the Bush administration.

Citing North Korea, Iran and some other countries as threats, the report sets out contingencies for which U.S. nuclear strikes must be prepared. It calls for developing earth-penetrating nuclear bombs to destroy hidden underground military facilities, including those for storing WMD and ballistic missiles.

"The nature (of the paper) is to explain not details but cross spectrum for how to conduct operations," the official said, noting that it "means for all services -- army, navy, air force and marine."

In 1991 after the end of the Cold War, the United States removed its ground-based nuclear weapons in Asia and Europe as well as strategic nuclear warheads on warships and submarines. But the paper says the U.S. has the capability of reviving sea-based nuclear arms.

The Japan Times: May 2, 2005
(C) All rights reserved.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050502a3.htm
---
also posted:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8718.htm

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- - Bush administration and Sudan

From Democracy Now!:

* Bush Administration Allied With Sudan Despite Role in Darfur Genocide *

The Los Angeles Times has revealed that the U.S. has quietly forged a close intelligence partnership with Sudan despite the government's role in the mass killings in Darfur.

For the interview with Ken Silverstein, the reporter who broke the story, Salih Booker, the director of Africa Action as well as Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ).
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/03/1357228

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- - Sudan: Beyond the Corporate Media

A Forum on May 5 with Phil Taylor, Journalist & Defence Research Consultant to the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda in Arusha

Day: May 5, 2005 Time: 8:00 pm Location: McMaster University Medical Centre, Ewart Angus Centre, HS1A5

The media, concurrent with their sudden interest in the occurrences in Rwanda ten years ago, has presented an image of a genocide in Darfur that must be stopped. We are told that in order to 'prevent' "another Rwanda," the West must intervene - but that right now, our leaders are immorally silent. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The main backers of an intervention into Sudan are Colin Powell and Tony Blair, the same people who sold us the Iraq war. Internationally, the U.S., Britain, and Israel form the core of invasion proponents. Does George Bush truly care about the people of Sudan, or does he have other motives in this oil-rich country? And why is the corporate media now so active on this particular issue? Have George Bush and Tony Blair developed a sudden sympathy for the plight of Africans? Does a country with a record towards its African citizens like the United States have the moral authority to intervene in African affairs? Days ago, U.S.-ousted former Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide accused the U.S. of assisting in a Western "holocaust" against blacks in Haiti. So why should we believe that the West can help blacks in Sudan?

Don't believe the anti-Arab propaganda surrounding this issue, and start asking yourself where the money for the well-equipped anti-government guerilla army in the Sudan is coming from. This is not ethnic warfare so much as a continuation of the "great game." To learn more, come to the May 5 lecture with Journalist & Defense Research Consultant to the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda in Arusha

Phil Taylor.



2) ‘Torture, Cover-Up' - Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - US Prison Camps

- - One Year On, Amnesty International Blasts US for Abu Ghraib Failings
- - Tom Hayden responds to Howard Dean
- - Cindy Sheehan's letter to Howard Dean
- - An Open Letter to Howard Dean Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich


- - ‘Torture, Cover-Up' - Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - US Prison Camp

[Yes.. Old news but a new book shines new light and solid evidence of a breakdown in US Intelligence regarding the facade War on Terror.- but rather - War for Terror.]

Torture, Cover-Up At Gitmo?
CBSnews.com "Sixty Minutes"
May 1, 2005

The story that Sgt. Erik Saar, a soldier who spent three months in the interrogation rooms at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, tells Correspondent Scott Pelley paints a picture of bizarre, even sadistic, treatment of detainees in the American prison camp.

Experts in intelligence tell 60 Minutes that if what Saar says is true, some soldiers at Guantanamo have undermined the war on terror, bungling the interrogation of important prisoners.

60 Minutes also reveals previously secret emails from FBI agents at Guantanamo that warn FBI headquarters that prisoners are being tortured.

"I think the harm we are doing there far outweighs the good, and I believe it's inconsistent with American values," says Saar. "In fact, I think it's fair to say that it's the moral antithesis of what we want to stand for as a country."

Saar volunteered for Guantanamo Bay in 2002. He was a U.S. Army linguist, an expert in Arabic, with a top-secret security clearance. He was assigned to translate during interrogations. The prisoners, about 600 in all, were mostly from the battlefields of Afghanistan. And Saar couldn't wait to get at them after what the administration said: the men were "among the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth."

With that in mind, Saar went to work, but he was surprised by what he found.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

How many prisoners did he think were the worst of the worst – real terrorists?

"At best, I would say there were a few dozen," says Saar. "A few dozen [out of 600]."

Who were the rest of the guys? "Some of them were conscripts who actually were forced to fight for the Taliban, so actually had taken up arms against us, but had little or no choice in the matter," says Saar. "Some of them were individuals who were picked up by the Northern Alliance, and we have no idea why they were there, and we didn't know exactly what their connections were to terrorism."

However they got there, Saar and the rest of Guantanamo's intelligence personnel were told that the captives were not prisoners of war, and therefore, were not protected by the Geneva Convention.

"Your training in intelligence had told you what about the Geneva Conventions?" asks Pelley.

"That they were never to be violated," says Saar. "As a matter of fact, the training for interrogators themselves, their entire coursework falls under the umbrella of you never violate the Geneva Conventions."

"If the rules of the Geneva Convention did not apply, what rules did apply?" asks Pelley.

"I don't think anybody knew that," says Saar.

And so, Saar said, some U.S. military intelligence personnel used cruelty, and even bizarre sexual tactics against the prisoners. Saar has written a book, "Inside the Wire," about his experiences at Guantanamo. Penguin Press will release it on Tuesday.

He told 60 Minutes about one interrogation in particular, in which he translated for a female interrogator who was trying to break a high-priority prisoner — a Saudi who had been in flight school in the United States.

"As she stood in front of him, she slowly started to unbutton her Army blouse. She had on underneath the Army blouse a tight brown Army T-shirt, touched her breasts, and said, 'Don't you like these big American breasts?'" says Saar. "She wanted to create a barrier between this detainee and his faith, and if she could somehow sexually entice him, he would feel unclean in an Islamic way, he would not be able to pray and go before his God and gain that strength, so the next day, maybe he would be able to start cooperating, start talking to her."

But the prisoner wasn't talking, so Saar said the interrogator increased the pressure.

"She started to unbutton her pants and reached and put her hands in her pants and then started to circle around the detainee. And when she had her hands in her pants, apparently she used something to put what appeared to be menstrual blood on her hand, but in fact was ink," says Saar.

"When she circled around the detainee, she pulled out her hand, which was red, and said, 'I'm actually menstruating right now, and I'm touching you. Does that please your God? Does that please Allah?' And then he kind of got pent up and shied away from her, and she then took the ink and wiped it on his face, and said, 'How do you like that?'" Then, the interrogator sent the prisoner back to his cell with a message.

"She said, 'Have fun trying to pray tonight while there's no water in your cell,' meaning that she was gonna have the water turned off in his cell, so that he then could not go back and become ritually clean. So he then therefore could not pray," says Saar.

"I know that the individual that we were talking that night was a bad individual. Someone who I hope never -- I hope he's in captivity forever, I hope he never goes anywhere. But I felt awful that night. I felt dirty and disgusting."

"What you have here is a Saudi training at an American flight school, just like the 9/11 hijackers," says Pelley. "You know, there are people at home watching this right now, saying, 'Hey, you've got to do what you've got to do.'"

"I do understand that, and the fact is No. 1, it's ineffective," says Saar. "There are much better methods that were being employed at Guantanamo Bay, that yielded the little bit of intelligence that we did receive, and it wasn't methods like those."

60 Minutes talked to three interrogators who were at Guantanamo at the same time that Saar was there. And they told us the sexual tactics were well known, and even had a name they called it the "sex-up" approach.

Did it work?

"It did not work, and from what I later learned, the detainee remained uncooperative," says Saar. "It's impossible to try to build a connection and establish trust. We were now relying solely on fear to get the detainee to cooperate, and I think that's an enormous mistake. I think many of the FBI agents on the base felt as though that was a mistake also."

The FBI does its own questioning of prisoners at Guantanamo, and those agents have been writing emails, classified secret, to FBI headquarters. They detail abuse by military interrogators. The agents wrote of finding prisoners "chained hand and foot in a fetal position" for up to 24 hours at a time, and of prisoners who had "urinated or defecated on themselves."

Another FBI document says an interrogator grabbed a detainee's thumbs and "bent them backwards" and "grabbed his genitals." One FBI agent reported that he saw a detainee had been "gagged with duct tape that covered much of his head." The interrogator explained that the prisoner had been "chanting the Koran and would not stop."

60 Minutes ran the emails and Saar's story past one of the nation's most experienced military intelligence experts.

"Unimaginable to me, I just can not imagine what people think they were doing," says Army Col. Patrick Lang, who was head of human intelligence gathering at the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency.

Lang, who's now retired, wrote the Arabic and Middle-East studies curricula for West Point. "I mean, what is this?" asks Lang. "A scene from Dante's Inferno? I mean, what level of hell are we on to? Imagine that we could do such things to people? This is just absolutely wrong."

[EXCERPT]

If all this was well known on the base, how could it have been kept largely under wraps for three years, especially when congressmen and senators often inspected the camp? Well, Saar said it may be in part because those inspections were rigged to fool the visiting VIPs.

"Interrogations were set up so the VIPs could come and witness an interrogation, and in fact the interrogation would be a mock interrogation, basically," says Saar.

"They would find a detainee that they knew to have been cooperative. They would ask the interrogator to go back over the same information that they reviewed on whatever date they had previously interrogated the detainee," says Saar. "And they would sit across a table and talk as though you and I are talking, and this was a fictitious world that they would create for these VIP visits, because in fact, it's not what generally took place in Guantanamo Bay."

"They staged the interrogations?" asks Pelley.

"Yes," says Saar. "They staged the interrogations."

60 Minutes asked the Army to comment on Saar's story, or provide someone to talk about Guantanamo Bay. The Army declined.

For the complete article, see:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/28/60minutes/main691602.shtml

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- - Amnesty International Blasts US for Abu Ghraib Failings
Published April 28, 2005
by the Agence France Presse

One Year On, Amnesty International Blasts US for Abu Ghraib Failings

Amnesty International blasted the United States for failing to launch an independent probe into Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison scandal, a year after images of abused detainees first shocked the world. The London-based human rights organization also condemned signs of fresh torture and sexual abuse in the country by the Iraqi prison authorities.

{EXCERPT]

Amnesty International called for the anniversary of the publication of the photographs from Abu Ghraib "to be marked by the strongest condemnation of all forms of torture by the US and Iraqi governments. "One year on, the US authorities must establish an independent investigation into the abuses and bring the perpetrators to justice."

For the complete article, see:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0428-09.htm

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- - Tom Hayden responds to Howard Dean

Published on Friday, April 29, 2005 by The Nation
Open Letter to Howard Dean
by Katrina vanden Heuvel

[EXCERPT]

For those who believe that America needs to change course, Tom Hayden's open letter to Howard Dean appealing to him not to take the antiwar majority of the Democratic Party for granted is an eloquent and important document. Read it, share it. - Katrina vanden Heuvel

April 26, 2005

Dear Chairman Dean,

The anti-war movement must lead and hopefully, the Democratic Party will follow. But there is much the Democratic Party can do:

First, stop marginalizing those Democrats who are calling for immediate withdrawal or a one-year timetable. Encourage pubic hearings in Congressional districts on the ongoing costs of war and occupation, with comparisons to alternative spending priorities for the one billion dollars per week.

Second, call for peace talks between Iraqi political parties and the Iraqi resistance. Hold hearings demand to know why the Bush Administration is trying to squash any such Iraqi peace initiatives. (Bush Administration officials are hoping the new Iraqi government will "settle for a schedule based on the military situation, not the calendar." New York Times, Jan. 19, 2005).

Third, as an incentive to those Iraqi peace initiatives, the US needs to offer to end the occupation and withdraw our troops by a near-term date. The Bush policy, supported by the Democrats, is to train and arm Iraqis to fight Iraqis--a civil war with fewer American casualties.

Fourth, to further promote peace initiatives, the US needs to specify that a multi-billion dollar peace dividend will be earmarked for Iraqi-led reconstruction, not for the Halliburtons and Bechtels, without discrimination as to Iraqi political allegiances.

Fifth, Democrats could unite behind Senator Rockefeller's persistent calls for public hearings on responsibility for the torture scandals. If Republicans refuse to permit such hearings, Democrats should hold them independently. "No taxes for torture" is a demand most Democrats should be able to support. The Democratic Senate unity against the Bolton appointment is a bright but isolated example of how public hearings can keep media and public attention focused on the fabricated reasons for going to war.

Instead of such initiatives, the national Democratic Party is either committed to the Iraq War, or to avoiding blame for losing the Iraq War, at the expense of the social programs for which it historically stands. The Democrats' stance on the war cannot be separated from the Democrats' stance on health care, social security, inner city investment, and education, all programs gradually being defunded by a war which costs $100 billion yearly, billed to future generations.

This is a familiar pattern for those of us who suffered through the Vietnam War. Today it is conventional wisdom among Washington insiders, including even the liberal media, that the Democratic Party must distance itself from its antiwar past, and must embrace a position of military toughness.

The truth is quite the opposite. What the Democratic Party should distance itself from is its immoral and self-destructive pro-war positions in the 1960s which led to unprecedented polarization, the collapse of funds for the War on Poverty, a schism in the presidential primaries, and the destruction of the Lyndon Johnson presidency. Thirty years after our forced withdrawal from Vietnam, the US government has stable diplomatic and commercial relations with its former Communist enemy. The same future is possible in Iraq.

I appeal to you, Mr. Chairman, not to take the anti-war majority of this Party for granted. May I suggest that you initiate a serious reappraisal of how the Democratic Party has become trapped in the illusions which you yourself questioned so cogently when you ran for president. I believe that an immediate commencement of dialogue is necessary to fix the credibility gap in the Party's position on the Iraq War. Surely if the war was a mistake based on a fabrication, there is a better approach than simply becoming accessories to the perpetrators of the deceit. And surely there is a greater role for Party leadership than permanently squandering the immense good will, grass roots funding, and new volunteer energy that was generated by your visionary campaign.

Tom Hayden

For the complete letter, see:
http://www.thenation.com/edcut/index.mhtml?bid=7&pid=2356
also posted:
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0429-23.htm

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- - Cindy Sheehan's letter to Howard Dean

Cindy Sheehan's words follow:

(My response to Howard Dean after he advocated for the continued occupation of Iraq)

This is the article I am referencing
http://www.startribune.com/stories/587/5360513.html

http://www.dnc.org To send a letter of your own.

April 24, 2005

Mr. Dean,

My son was KIA in Iraq on 04/04/04.

I have in the past admired you for your steadfast efforts for truth and for your integrity. However, I seriously have to disagree with you when you say that the US can't leave Iraq now. I think that our mere presence in that country is fueling the insurgency that killed my son.

For the complete letter, see:
http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/what/latest.html

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- - An Open Letter to Howard Dean Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich

Dear Chairman Dean,

Speaking before an ACLU crowd last week in Minnesota, the home state of Paul Wellstone, the only senator to vote against the war, you were quoted as saying, "Now that we're there [in Iraq], we're there and we can't get out.... I hope the President is incredibly successful with his policy now." Did these words really come from the same man who claimed to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, and who had recently campaigned on the antiwar theme? What's changed?

For the complete Open Letter to Howard Dean from Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, see:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/thenation/20050503/cm_thenation/20050516kucinich_1


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