Weekend Reading and Open Thread
Some things to read today if you're online:
As the President readies himself to go to the map for his right to order torture in violation of America's laws and international commitments, it's worth putting this in some context.
- The Talking Dog interviews Dr. Steven Miles, medical professor at the U. of Minnesota, and author of "Oath Betrayed" discussing medical complicity in torture, prisoner abuse, et al, in the war on terror.
- Law Professor Jordan Paust's plea to Congress urging that minimum due process guarantees under customary international law must not be denied when Congress attempts to articulate forms of procedure for new US military commissions
- A report in the San Francisco Chronicle about the interesting make-up of the California lethal injection team members.
- Warren Strobel and John Walcott on how Bush is gearing up for an attack on Iran -- based once again on faulty intelligence:
Some officials at the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the State Department said they're concerned that the offices of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney may be receiving a stream of questionable information that originates with Iranian exiles, including a discredited arms dealer, Manucher Ghorbanifar, who played a role in the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal.
Officials at all three agencies said they suspect that the dubious information may include claims that Iran directed Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, to kidnap two Israeli soldiers in July; that Iran's nuclear program is moving faster than generally believed; and that the Iranian people are eager to join foreign efforts to overthrow their theocratic rulers.
The officials said there is no reliable intelligence to support any of those assertions and some that contradicts all three.
Larisa at Raw Story has been writing similar reports for a long time.
The Department of Defense and Vice President Dick Cheney have retained the services of Iran-Contra arms dealer and discredited intelligence asset Manucher Ghorbanifar as their "man on the ground," in order to report on any interaction and attempts at negotiations between Iranian officials and US ambassador to Iraq, Zelmay Khalilzad, current and former intelligence officials say.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, three intelligence sources identified the Iran-Contra middleman as having been put back on the payroll, acting as a human intelligence asset and monitoring any movement in discussions about Iran's alleged burgeoning nuclear weapons program.
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