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Top US lawmaker threatens contempt proceedings against Bush administration officials

Tuesday, August 21st, 2007

A top Senate Democrat on Monday threatened to hold members of the Bush administration in contempt for not producing subpoenaed information about the legal justification for President George W, Bush’s secretive wiretapping program.

“When the Senate comes back in the session, I’ll bring it up before the committee,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I prefer cooperation to contempt. Right now, there’s no question that they are in contempt of the valid order of the Congress.”

Leahy’s committee on June 27 subpoenaed the Justice Department, National Security Council and the offices of the president and vice president for documents relating to the National Security Agency’s legal justification for the wiretapping program.

Since taking over the House and the Senate in January from Bush’s Republicans, Democrats have pressed a series of investigations into administration operations arguing that when the Republicans were in charge they rarely probed activities at the White House. In the United States, Congress, the legislative branch, is supposed to serve as a check on the executive branch.

White House lawyer Fred Fielding, in a Monday letter to Leahy, said that the administration needed more time.

“A core set of highly sensitive national security and related documents we have so far identified are potentially subject to claims of executive privilege and that a more complete collection and review of all materials responsive to the subpoenas will require additional time,” Fielding said.

The White House said it was not looking for a conflict with Congress over FISA.

“Extending and modernizing FISA is critical to our national security, and our intelligence professionals consider it imperative that we do not weaken the tools they feel are necessary to protect America’s national security interests,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.

Leahy said they had waited long enough.

“It has been almost two months since service of the subpoenas, three weeks since the time they asked for additional time. And still, we have nothing at all,” Leahy said.

Leahy also questioned whether the Senate would again reauthorize laws that expand the government’s authority to spy on foreigners without the subpoenaed information.

Congress, before it left for its August recess, approved an update to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, allowing the government to eavesdrop on terror suspects overseas without first getting a court warrant.

The overhaul was the result of a recent Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruling that banned eavesdropping on foreigners when their messages were routed though communications carriers based in the United States.

The provisions expire after six months, but the White House wants them made permanent.

“For Congress to legislate effectively in this area, it has to have full information about the executive branch’s interpretations of FISA,” Leahy said. “We cannot, and certainly, we should not legislate in the dark, where the administration hides behind a fictitious veil of secrecy.”

Leahy also indicated that the committee would continue to seek recently resigned White House adviser Karl Rove’s appearance on the U.S. attorney firings.

Fielding has said Bush would invoke executive privilege to keep Rove from answering questions or submitting documents to Senate Judiciary Committee. The committee has been investigating whether the White House ordered the prosecutor firings in ways that might help Republicans in elections.

“I don’t think he had a valid claim of executive privilege, because all the testimony has been it wasn’t discussed with the president. If it wasn’t discussed with the president, there’s no executive privilege,” Leahy said. “And they’ve just lost the other claim they could make that he’s too important to the operation of the White House to be able to take time to testify. That’s not going to be the case anymore.”

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Shock toll of British injured in Afghan war

Tuesday, August 21st, 2007

· Half of frontline troops ‘patched-up’
· Senior officers fear exodus

Mark Townsend, defence correspondent
Sunday August 19, 2007
The Observer

A British soldier patrols in poppy fields in Sangin, a district Helmand province, Afghanistan. Photograph: Rafiq Maqbool/AP

The human cost of the war in Afghanistan to British soldiers can be revealed today as figures show that almost half of frontline troops have required significant medical treatment during this summer’s fighting.In a graphic illustration of the intensity of the conflict in Helmand province, more than 700 battlefield soldiers have needed treatment since April - nearly half of the 1,500 on the front line. The figures, obtained from senior military sources, have never been released by the government, which has faced criticism that it has covered up the true extent of injuries sustained during the conflict.

The Ministry of Defence releases the number of soldiers taken to hospital, a fraction of those who require treatment on the battlefield. The new figures relate to the number of soldiers patched up and sent back to the front line and who do not appear in official casualty reports.

By contrast, US official figures take into account soldiers treated on the front line. In their figures, wounded troops include those away from the front line for 72 hours or more.

One British army official said the 700 cases include a ‘handful’ of officers who suffered injuries and chose to carry on fighting. The injuries include shrapnel wounds, cuts, burns, acute heat stroke and diseases such as ‘DnV’ - diarrhoea and vomiting that can incapacitate a man for days. Of the 700 cases, 400 combat troops were described as being so ill they were forced to ‘lay down their bayonets’.

The number of soldiers requiring front-line treatment was discussed at military briefings in Helmand during intensive fighting this month and relate to the current deployment, which began in April. An army spokesman said official casualty figures between April and the start of August stood at 204, with about half stemming from the battlefield.

Military sources said the willingness of soldiers to carry on fighting while suffering was indicative of the bravery being routinely displayed.

‘The courage of the soldiers has been remarkable. Many are getting patched up and just want to get on with it. Most do not want to leave their comrades,’ said the source in Helmand. Last week, details were released about how 26-year-old Captain David Hicks, of the 1st Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment, refused morphine after being mortally wounded by shrapnel so he could keep a clear head to lead his men. He later died of his injuries.

The MoD said the figures should not be confused with its published ‘casualty’ figures, claiming that cases treated by frontline medics often related to minor ailments and complaints that were not considered life-threatening or serious. The spokeswoman went on to say that, in serious cases, troops were not given the option to carry on fighting.

However, the number of serious injuries is rising. A spokesman for the British Limbless Ex-Service Men’s Association said that 27 British soldiers had lost limbs serving in Afghanistan and Iraq during the past 12 months.

The frenetic nature of the conflict in southern Afghanistan is underlined by the fact that many young infantrymen intend to leave the army because the firefights they have survived in Helmand could never be surpassed. In terms of soldiering, the conflict has offered some of the most intense fighting for 50 years, with two million rounds of ammunition so far fired by British forces.

‘You could be in the army for decades and you will never get anything like that again. Will it be bettered? I can’t see it,’ said one soldier. Commanders are understood to be concerned that the Helmand conflict could precipitate an exodus of combat troops who feel military life will never offer the same challenge again.

Campaigners have frequently argued that British troops are paying a higher price on the battlefield than has been made public. Casualty figures are expected to rise in the coming months as the current tour, from April to October, finishes, when regiments that have experienced the brunt of fighting push on to gain ground before they leave.

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Lily Allen slams George Bush at gig

Tuesday, August 21st, 2007

ANI

Pop star Lily Allen has slammed US President George W. Bush during her gig at England’s V Festival.

Hitting out at Bush and immigration officials, the 21-year-old, whose US Visa was revoked at the country’ airport, said that they are people who are ‘awkward on the train’.

The ‘Smile singer’ also slammed fashion magazines for making ladies feel awful and insisted that all women are beautiful, adding that it’s the heroin addict models who have to worry.

“This next one is about people who are awkward on the train, U.S. immigration officials and George Bush in general.” Contactmusic quoted Allen, as saying.,

“Who else can f**k off? People who edit fashion magazines… that makes us ladies feel awful. We’re all beautiful - it’s the heroin addict models who’ve got the problem,” she added.

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Bush is delivering Depleted Uranium to us all

Tuesday, August 21st, 2007

By John Blacker

Want to know why there are so many terrorists and who is arming them with Depleted Uranium WMDs to drop in our water, our air & poison our cities and kill our children - then check out this short article below, it tells you who & why without actually needing to give any specific details.

http://omega.twoday.net/stories/4177253/

Its like this folks - what goes around - comes around.

Well, how do you make a DU WMD?

1 - go out to the desert near your home and collect the sand in and around any burned out tank.

2 - put said sand in a plastic bag and tie it up.

3 - put the sand in the environment of your enemy infidel.

4 - Pray the infidel breathes just one whiff of your unholy sand and ingests the nanoparticles there within.

5 - Do the same over and over and over and over until the enemy infidel has taken back all the unholy particles they deposited on you and your wife and children.

Yes that is right folks - BUSH is killing your future by killing their future with Illegal Depleted Uranium tipped WMDs. Using DP is a well documented war crime - the radiation count is massive and the half life is 4.5 BILLION years (BILLION) - check it out.

And do you know what the best bit is, the prevailing winds will dump the radioactive highly toxic sand all over us in the UK and Eastern USA even if the terrorists do nothing but prey to god for an average windy day.

Now that is what I call holly Justice - lets hope it falls on Bush’s Ranch first.

Kind regards

J A Blacker MSc IMI (Physical Systems) (Lancaster England) [the home of Electrogravity Propulsion]

PS: If you want to know how you can best protect yourself & your family from Cancer via small additions to your diet then email me and I will let you know what and how it works - other wise, goodbye.

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People of Canada Protests Bush Visit‎

Tuesday, August 21st, 2007

By Andrew Thomson

A loud, but peaceful, crowd gathered Sunday on Parliament Hill to oppose talks on continental integration while anarchists claimed responsibility for weekend vandalism against Ottawa businesses connected to the Security and Prosperity Partnership.

Between 1,000 to 2,000 demonstrators — guarded by a sizable police presence — got a head start on the North American leaders’ summit, which begins Monday in Montebello, Que. with meetings between Stephen Harper, George W. Bush, and Felipe Calderon.

The nascent partnership plan, which seeks to harmonize certain security and regulatory protocols between the three countries, is expected to figure prominently on the agenda.

“Rallies at Parliament Hill are notoriously difficult to draw large crowds and I was impressed … because there were events happening in so many other centres,” Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said.

She cited no-fly lists as one example of an “Orwellian” chill forming over North America.

“This is a very anti-democratic process,” May said. “Mr. Harper, as a minority prime minister, has no business giving away the sovereignty of Canada in these negotiations.”

Ottawa police and RCMP officers, buoyed by memories of protests during the G20 finance minister’s summit in November 2001 and the G8 in the summer of 2002, fanned out across downtown well beforehand. They were reinforced by Toronto, York, and Peel police units.

The Centennial Flame was covered by steel fencing and green tarp as a safety precaution. Public access to Parliament Hill was limited to the front lawn and steps, with officers and their video cameras and binoculars perched atop the Centre and East Blocks.

“This is a family-friendly, peaceful demonstration and I would ask that everyone respect these parameters,” demonstration organizer Celeste Cete told the crowd before marching on the Mexican and U.S. embassies.

Three men were arrested: a 21-year-old male charged with carrying a concealed knife, a 17-year-old young offender seized on an unrelated outstanding arrest warrant, and a 16-year-old charged with mischief for allegedly painting graffiti on the pavement during the march.

The protest line snaked along downtown streets before swinging around the U.S. Embassy to Parliament Hill.

Police escorts led the way on foot, bicycle, and motorcycle. Dozens of RCMP, Ottawa, and Toronto officers stood behind reinforced barricades outside the embassy as the demonstrators marched past curious tourists and Sunday market shoppers.

One group, mostly dressed in black with bandannas and balaclavas, left the main march and were carefully watched by authorities the entire time.

Postings to an anarchist website had detailed a series of attacks Saturday morning against Ottawa businesses associated with the North American Competitiveness Council, a corporate advisory group attached to the SPP.

Windows were smashed at the Bell Canada building, according to the anonymous authors. At two Scotiabank branches, the door locks were glued and the entrance walls were spray painted and paint bombed.

Ottawa police said no such incidents had been brought to their attention yet.

Sunday’s protest was serene by comparison; dogs and baby strollers were far more common than broken windows or tear gas pellets, the fear of police and downtown business owners.

The diverse crowd ranged from organized labour and the Council of Canadians to environmentalists, communists, and the Raging Grannies. Demonstrators were from as far afield as southern Ontario, Quebec, Vancouver, and Mexico.

A supportive message was read from 93-year-old William Commanda, senior elder of the Algonquin Nation of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg. The in-person speakers included Council of Canadians chairwoman Maude Barlow and Chris Jones of the Canadian Peace Alliance, who called the SPP talks “horrible, incestuous negotiations.”

Kyle McQueston, 22, rode his bike three-and-a-half days from Toronto to demonstrate.

“The secrecy, the lies, the undemocratic approach,” the student and environmental activist said when asked about problems with the SPP.

A separate group of demonstrators started their “Bike to Bush” mission, a 71-kilometre ride from Gatineau, Que. to Montebello.

Two designated protest areas, each able to hold about 2,000 people, have been cleared near the Chateau Montebello. A video feed will beam the demonstrations inside for summit participants.

Protest flotillas are also planned on the Ottawa River with Gaetan Menard, secretary-treasurer of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, among those slated to pass the hotel compound on his own five-metre boat.

The City of Ottawa has cautioned residents to expect delays over the next two days, especially downtown. There were going to be some street closures during the summit and outdoor mailboxes downtown have been removed until Wednesday morning.

Airspace restrictions are also scheduled at the Ottawa airport both days as Bush arrives and departs. In Montebello, truck traffic on Hwy. 148 is being re-routed into Ontario.

Ottawa Citizen

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BUSH TERROR weapons - Murders untold civilians, many children - states Doctor

Tuesday, August 21st, 2007

By Dave Lindorff

The idea that the U.S. could be considering classifying the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a “terrorist” organization, based upon some dubious evidence that the organization is supplying some weapons — in particular those shaped charges that have been so effective in roadside bombs against U.S. military vehicles — is pretty preposterous when you consider the source.

Whatever the truth about the activities of the Iranians, certainly when it comes to terror, the U.S. is unrivaled in the world today.

By the latest estimate, over 1 million people have died in Iraq because of the American invasion of that country, and despite a virtual media blackout over that entire country and the self-censorship practiced by the U.S. media regarding Iraq, more and more evidence keeps trickling out that the vast majority of those deaths have been caused, directly or indirectly, by the American forces. While we read in lurid detail about every bomb blast detonated by Shia and Sunni fighters that hit Iraqis or that kill or wound Americans, we hear barely a word about the killing of Iraqi civilians by U.S. forces, and it’s clear that adding up all of those publicized Iraqi-on-Iraqi attacks, you don’t come close to a million dead. Guess who’s killing the rest?

Nor are we getting any figures on the numbers of dead innocents in Afghanistan, where the blackout on reporting is even more effective than in Iraq.

What is clear is that American tactics are causing an unending slaughter in both places — clearly not just part of but central to the policy, and that is so serious that it has led to protests from Britain and other NATO countries that have soldiers in Afghanistan.

And let’s be honest: this is no matter of “collateral damage.” It is a deliberate policy of terror. As I’ve written before, when your army is killing vastly more civilians than enemy fighters, the deaths of innocents cannot be termed “collateral damage.” The deaths of enemy fighters are the “collateral damage.” The innocents are the targets.

Just consider one of the weapons being used by American forces, the so-called GBU-31. Marc Herold, a professor at the University of New Hampshire, who has been documenting the violence in Afghanistan, has investigated the use of this weapon and in a new article available at the Traprock Peace Center offers this description of how it works:

“Dropped from a plane and hurtling toward its target at 300 mph, the 14-foot steel bomb uses small gears in its fins to pinpoint its path based on satellite data received by a small antenna and fed into a computer. Just before impact, a fusing device triggers a chemical reaction causing the 14-inch-wide weapon to swell to twice its size. The steel casing shatters, shooting forth 1,000 pounds of white-hot fragments traveling at speeds of 6,000 feet per second. The explosion creates a shock wave exerting thousands of pounds of pressure per square inch (psi). By comparison, a shock wave of 12 psi will knock a person down; and the injury threshold is 15 pounds psi. The pressure from the explosion of a device such as the Mark-84 JDAM can rupture lungs, burst sinus cavities, and tear off limbs hundreds of feet from the blast site, according to trauma physicians. When it hits, the JDAM generates an 8,500-degree fireball, gouges a 20-foot crater as it displaces 10,000 pounds of dirt and rock and generates enough wind to knock down walls blocks away and hurl metal fragments a mile or more.”

Herold notes that several of these terror weapons were dropped by a B-1B bomber earlier this month on a group of Afghans during an open air market outside the town of Baghran, killing an untold number of civilians, including children. The U.S. military described this bombing as a “successful” raid on a gathering of Taliban leaders, and claimed no civilians were present, but the severely injured men, women, and children delivered to various hospitals following the attack gave the lie to this cover-up. Furthermore, given the extensive 2,600-foot radius of this weapon’s kill-range, it clearly is no “precision” weapon for targeting fighters, if any were even present.

Nor is this weapon the only example of American terror. Far from it.

Stan Goff, in his excellent report on the killing of Cpl. Pat Tillman in Counterpunch magazine, notes that one reason Tillman was killed by his own unit is that the members of his own separated team that fired on him had launched their attack upon a village despite the fact that not a shot had been fired from that village — a clear violation of the Geneva Accords, but an instructive example of how U.S. forces are actually operating in the field. (Tillman himself was also shot while standing up with his arms raised in a sign of surrender — another violation of international law.)

Reports are mounting that make it clear that the U.S. is using a deliberate strategy of terror in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The documented (and illegal) use of white phosphorus bombs, which spray wide areas with a substance that burns through flesh down to the bone, first disclosed in the devastating assault and leveling of the city of Fallujah in 2004, the widespread use of helicopter and fixed-wing “gunships” that inundate football-field-sized areas with bullets and fragmentation weapons, the use of delayed action cluster bombs and shells, the use of concussion weapons and napalm, all speak to a policy of indiscriminate killing.

Americans need to wake up to what the rest of the world already knows: The United States is indisputably the number one terrorist nation in the world today.

Indeed, the very Administration that is talking about calling Iranian Republican Guard troops “terrorists” is at this moment developing plans for an unprovoked aerial assault on Iran that would feature the dropping of 30,000-lb. bombs, all manner of anti-personnel weapons, and possibly even tactical nuclear weapons, on Iranian targets, many of them in populated areas.

There is a word for this kind of behavior: terrorism.

DAVE LINDORFF, a Philadelphia-based investigative journalist and columnist, is author, most recently, of “The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now in paperback), co-authored by Barbara Olshansky. A veteran investigative journalist and columnist, his work is also available at thiscantbehappening.net.

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Seven-year-old Muslim boy stopped in US three times on suspicion of being a terrorist

Tuesday, August 21st, 2007

By JAYA NARAIN

For seven-year-old Javaid Iqbal, the holiday to Florida was a dream trip to reward him for doing well at school.

But he was left in tears after he was stopped repeatedly at airports on suspicion of being a terrorist.

The security alerts were triggered because Javaid shares his name with a Pakistani man deported from the US, prompting staff at three airports to question his family about his identity.

The family even missed their flight home from the U.S. after officials cancelled their tickets in the confusion. And Javaid’s passport now contains a sticker saying he has undergone highlevel security checks.

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Seven-year-old Javid Iqbal’s passport now contains a sticker saying he has undergone high-level security checks

The ordeal began in Manchester when Naushaba Nadeem, a doctor, and her children Sana and Fareeha, both nine, Javaid and five-year-old Iftikhar, tried to board a flight to Orlando.

Dr Nadeem, 35, said: “When we arrived at the front counter to check in at Manchester Airport, staff said there was a security block on Javaid’s name.

“I understand and agree security checks are important but he is only seven and a half years old.

“We had to stand at the desk for three hours while they checked everything out. Eventually, everything was fine and we were given our boarding passes.”

The family enjoyed their eightday holiday earlier this month, taking in Disney World and other attractions before returning to the UK on a route that began with an internal flight from Orlando to Philadelphia.

Dr Nadeem said: “It happened again at Orlando Airport and then Javaid’s name was blocked again at Philadelphia Airport.

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Javid Iqbal Javid’s ordeal began when he and his mother Naushaba Nadeem, tried to board a flight to Orlando, Florida via Philadelphia

“This time they had cancelled our tickets by the time they gave Javaid security clearance. I was all on my own, I don’t know anyone in Philadelphia.”

Javaid said: “All this was about my name. They said that it had a block on it. We felt scared and didn’t know what was going on.”

His father Nadeem Iqbal, 48, a consultant anaesthetist, said: “My son is psychologically traumatised by this experience and said he doesn’t want to fly to America again.

“The problem seems to be isolated to the US because this did not happen when we visited Tenerife. We don’t want to have to experience anything like this again.”

Javaid’s parents, who moved to Blackburn from Saudi Arabia in 2002, are now considering changing their son’s name.

Dr Nadeem said: “The system should cross reference the name, then a date of birth or some other information.”

The name Javaid Iqbal was blocked and flagged up as a security alert on each airport’s computer system set up by Homeland Security, a US organisation.

A 39-year-old Pakistani man of that name was arrested in New York two months after the terror attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001.

He was never charged with any terrorism offences, although he was convicted of fraud for having false papers and deported.

He is seeking compensation from the U.S. government, claiming to have been beaten up by guards during more than a year in detention.

Security sources say that as Iqbal was deported, any attempt to enter the US by someone with a similar name would trigger an alert.

Professor Eric Grove, director of the centre for international security and war studies at Salford University, said: “There are names on file which are checked and there are certain names in combination or singly which put people under scrutiny.

‘Intelligence-based analysis has been used to compile the list but it is unlikely a sevenyear- old child is a suicide bomber. I think there must be a right balance to counter terrorism without alienating people.”

Salim Mulla, secretary of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, said: “It is ridiculous, I’m shocked.

“They really should have known he was only a seven-yearold child. I do understand the reasons but this was over the top. I can understand the safety aspect but it doesn’t help relationships with different faiths.”

International airports will not discuss security policies and anti-terrorism measures and all those involved refused to comment on this case.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 21st, 2007 at 11:07 am and is filed under Surveillance, Civil Liberties & Human Rights News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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