I have a ridiculously long post on torture and some of the revelations we've seen this week, in the Jane Mayer book, the Omar Khadr tape, etc.  Those who have been paying attention know what has been done in our name.  Much of the torture and abuse was subjected on people who had no intelligence value and were never credibly charged with any crime.  The methods were based on decades-old survival techniques produced by the Navy to resist torture, and a manual from the Chinese that used torture to elicit false confessions.  They used psychologists to develop a program of "learned helplessness", reverse-engineered from the SERE techniques.  In the end, not one terror suspect has been convicted of anything since 9/11.  The "intelligence" gained from the likes of Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was of the wild goose chase variety.  Evidence of torture inflamed the Islamic world and became a recruitment poster for Al Qaeda.  And on and on.

I wanted to reiterate some of it here, because it's indicative of the fundamental rot at the heart of the American system these days, and why we'll forever be diminished until we cut the rot away.

"Any of us could be the man who encounters his double." -- Friedrich Durrenmat (1)

Jane Mayer's new book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals (not due out in the bookstores until tomorrow), is already creating headlines and generating controversy. This article will examine the issues around U.S. torture practice, in light of new allegations in the book, and review an email conversation between myself and a prominent nationally-known psychologist whom Mayer says assisted in the planning of U.S. government torture.

Glen L. Carle knows about the threat America faces from Islamic extremism. He should; during his stellar 23-year career as a member of the CIA’s Clandestine Service he’s personally drafted many of the government’s most senior assessments of the threats we’ve faced by al-Qaeda and just about every other Muslim extremist organization in the world over the past two-decades.

Mr. Carle devoted his entire career to understanding and combating the jihadist threat. Perhaps that’s why he's taking such exception to the constant fear mongering promulgated by both the Bush administration and the campaign of the presumptive Republican nominee for president, John McCain. He felt the need to speak out now and he has done so in a very heartfelt and eloquent way.

The following info is the first in a series of diaries that contain relationships that are probably mostly coincidence, but...on the slim chance that they aren't they might form an illustration about the attitude and the greed that keep and have kept us at war, or on a war footing:

The WWI war industries board is a good place to start. The chairman was Wall Street investment banker, Bernard Baruch. Assistant Chairman was Clarence Dillon, father of future US Treasury Sect'y and Jupiter Island, Fl, resident, C. Douglas Dillon. Clarence was described by Time, in 1957, as "one of the richest men in the United States". John Foster Dulles, "received an Army commission as Major on the War Industries Board"...and, "Samuel P. Bush became chief of the Ordnance, Small Arms, and Ammunition Section, with national responsibility for government assistance to and relations with munitions companies....."

Court Documents Shed Light on CIA Illegal Operations in Central Asia Using Islam & Madrassas

- Sibel Edmonds State Secrets Gallery Connects Pipeline Politics, Madrassas & the Turkish Proxies

It's beginning to look like the wheels are beginning to fall off this tricycle from hell called the Bush administration.

BREAKING 4:02 PM ET // FROM A HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE RELEASE.....

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Subcommittee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), and Foreign Affairs Chairman of the International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight Subcommittee, Bill Delahunt (D-MA), today called on Attorney General Michael Mukasey to appoint a special counsel to investigate the rendition of a Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, to Syria.

With the genuflection of the Democratic-led Congress to the Bush Administration for near-unlimited warrantless wiretapping privileges, I thought I would add some historical perspective to the ongoing analysis of this debacle. The fight against executive branch tyranny goes back a long time. The "flip" by Democratic presumptive nominee Barack Obama that led him to vote for the new FISA bill was not an electoral nod to a conservative electorate, but a necessary ticket to be rendered for entrance to the top spot at the apex of the national security state.

I have known and served with many military intelligence officers.  A handful of them were brilliant.  The preponderance of them validated the adage that says military intelligence is to intelligence what military music is to music.

I have also known and worked with many Air Force officers, and every one of those bug lovers is dedicated to the Air Force's primary mission, which is to prevaricate its way into possession of the entire defense budget.  

Since CIA director Michael V. Hayden is an Air Force intelligence officer and a Bush appointee to boot, anything he says tends to be standard issue effluvium, and what he's saying now about his agency's right to privacy stinks to high heaven.

Ex-CIA high official Victor Marchetti wrote:

"A 'limited hangout' is spy jargon for a favorite and frequently used gimmick of the clandestine professionals. When their veil of secrecy is shredded and they can no longer rely on a phony cover story to misinform the public, they resort to admitting - sometimes even volunteering - some of the truth while still managing to withhold the key and damaging facts in the case. The public, however, is usually so intrigued by the new information that it never thinks to pursue the matter further."

Scott Shane's New York Times article, China Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo (7/2/08), details the use of Albert Biderman's "Chart of Coercion" by members of the the military's Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape program, or SERE, program to teach torture techniques to interrogators. The article is a fine example of how to conduct a limited hangout, or selected revelation, of intelligence-related material. Its headline and story is disingenuous or betrays ignorance.

In a measured if frustrated piece in the Washington Times here, former FBI director William Webster examines the utter mess the Bush administration has made of the US's intelligence services. How any Republican can hold his or head up after Webster's analysis is beyond me: this is a national security scandal...and a tailor-made opportunity for Obama to go right at McCain on Bush's abysmal record.

Spread the word. The intell establishment is ripe for change, too.

Everybody has wondered when Obama was going to push back against the flip-flop meme that the media was tarring and feathering him with. Paul Krugman today went so far as to suggest that it had Rove's fingerprints written all over them. But Obama has begun pushing back against the flip-flop meme by releasing a fact sheet on Iraq. The fact sheet points out that Obama has the same positions on Iraq now that he did several months ago. You can read the fact sheet here.

[From the Frog Pond]

Hey, Happy Independence Day everybody.  Do you know what is patriotic?  Sticking up for the Constitution of the United States of America is patriotic.  So, let's review a little history, shall we?  Let me cut and paste a little snippet from the SELECT COMMITTEE TO STUDY GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS WITH RESPECT TO INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES, better known as the Church Committee:

Admit it. You thought twice about the timing of the operation to free the hostages in Colombia. McCain. Trailing in the polls. Goes to speak about Free Trade in Colombia. The week a CNN poll found that 51% of Americans now 'feel threatened by free trade.' As President Bush continues to try to push through a new Free Trade agreement with Colombia before leaving office. The Republican Presidential nominee. And one-time prisoner of war. Is briefed about the rescue operation prior to its execution. The raid is a success. Cable news headlines like "McCain Knew" and "McCain met with Colombians prior to Hostage Rescue" and "Colombian Hostages Free" are read by millions of Americans watching muted TVs in bars, gyms, and noisy households across America. Heading into the Fourth of July weekend. When those Americans will stand around the grill and say, perhaps jokingly, but with the same predictable effect:

The same CIA operative that tried to warn the agency about faulty intelligence on Iraq before the runup to the March 2003 invasion has now come out to say the agency is doing the same thing with Iran. A National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) in late 2007 said Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons program back in 2003.

Barred from using his real name, the onetime undercover agent, filed a motion in federal court late Friday requesting that the government declassify legal documents showing what he contends was a deliberate suppression of findings on Iran that were contrary to agency claims. He alleged in a 2004 suit that the CIA fired him after he repeatedly clashed with senior intelligence managers over his attempts to report direct challenges to the conventional wisdom at the time about weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. The CIA refuses to make the claims public because it deems the information top secret.

Of course I don't mean people here. I mean your average voters who watch some news and make attempts to educate themselves on the candidates. Do they know?

I mean it's all so incredible. A man who was himself tortured -- endorsing torture? It is unbelievable in the most literal sense of the word. And yet that's John McCain.

Earlier today when I was piecing this diary together, I asked the community whether people realize McCain is pro-torture. Kossack AnnCetera said that they do not, but added that accurate information might help people see the truth -- so long as it's palatable.

Unfortunately there's nothing palatable about the fact that torture is now a campaign issue in the year 2008 in the United States of America. But what is worse perhaps is people who are against torture voting for a man who is not.

Something very odd occurred during the hearings last week of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) on the use of torture against detainees. Something crucial was missed. But before we examine that, let's first examine how the so-called responsible U.S. press covered the revelations oozing out of Washington.

When the New York Times's Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane wrote their June 18 article on the testimony in the SASC hearings on torture of detainees at U.S. prison sites, they made a tremendous blunder in the very first paragraph. (At least I am going to grant it was a mistake, and not something more sinister.)

also on C-span 3

http://www.cspan.org

click on the watch link under Scottie's pic.

This more of a head's up than a diary, unless some of you want to live blog it.

Now, I need three hundred words to get this published and posted before the hearing begins.

Did I mention he is testifying to the Iraq/CIA leaks. John Conyers is about to speak.

John McCain's campaign launched a new effort this week to whitewash his calamitous record of egregious errors and flawed forecasts when it comes to Iraq.  As ThinkProgress reported, the McCain web site has unveiled a very elegant – and very selective - new timeline highlighting John McCain's "judgment" on Iraq.  Hoping that voters will forget his disastrous predictions throughout 2002 and 2003 in the run-up to the war, the McCain timeline unsurprisingly starts in August 2003.  Unfortunately, a timely Los Angeles Times interview with the infamous "Curveball" will remind Americans just how wrong John McCain has been about Iraq from the very beginning.