Shock resounded through America when it was learned that waterboarding and rendition were among the international crimes being conducted on the pretext of fighting the war on terror.

The 9/11 tragedies had been used in addition to generating the Iraq War to justify virtually any action, no matter how contrary to the U.S. Constitution and international law.  

The government run by executive office signing statements engaged in  preventive detention, electronic surveillance and dropping into residences when the occupants are out, all without court orders.

There was even the removal of materials to be later used as evidence without legal remedy based on these home invasions, the same province that was supposed to be a citizen's castle.

When John F. Kennedy was running for president in 1960 he used to say, "Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a good neighbor in Latin America because he was a good neighbor right here at home."

Kennedy was referring to Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy which increased America's popularity to people in that region.  The future president was correct in citing the connection between how people of other nations see us relative to what we are doing at home, and the parallel between adopting a humane attitude domestically and extending it to other nations with which we interact.

Now we are regrettably in a negative cycle in which other nations see America as marauders based not on what the typical American has done, except in instances where voters have overlooked the obvious when some kind of choice was afforded, but what has been done in the name of greed to serve the interest of a tiny handful.

As Mitch McConnell and John Boehner struggle mightily to preserve Bush tax cuts to aid the top two percent of Americans we see the level of resistance against America extending political and economic influence.  

One of the areas among many where candidate Barack Obama promised fundamental change from predecessors George W. Bush and Dick Cheney was in the national security realm.

Progressives were highly incensed over the use of torture under the Bush-Cheney team that made Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib household terms denoting harsh abrogation of fundamental liberties under the U.S. Constitution and international law.

As Massimo Calabresi noted in the July 12 issue of Time, the Obama "White House ... has moved steadily to the right on national security in the past 18 months."

This movement by the Obama Administration has led to a rare clash between the executive branch and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

The current Gulf tragedy and the dangers of an enthusiastic "Drill, baby, drill!" pattern highlights the issue of how big oil has flexed its mighty muscles in the international political sphere.

Today's ongoing tragedy involves the same British Petroleum that in 1953 used the CIA in a menacing way to overthrow a popularly elected leader.

Iran had just elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, that nation's most popular political figure.  

The fact that Mossadegh was elected by the will of Iran's citizens did not deter the efforts of an invigorated CIA that used the Cold War as a pretext to move away from the fact finding agency conceived of by President Harry Truman to an aggressive international political body willing to overthrow nations in contravention of popular national will.  

What is more frightening -- that the C.I.A. got its jollies by torturing, even murdering human beings in its secret sodomy frat-houses -- or that the F.B.I. took one look, fled the scene and remained silent for years?

President Bush recently vetoed legislation that would stop the CIA from using water-boarding and other harsh methods of interrogation because such methods "have a proven track record of keeping America safe."  

Mr. Hannity (Quoting Jeane J. Kirkpatrick): "'[The] Carter administration...actively collaborated in the replacement of moderate autocrats friendly to American interests with less friendly autocrats of extremist persuasion.'" (p. 66)

My response: This statement typifies a biased Republican slant on history, which holds that Carter openly surrendered our national interests to foreign extremists, particularly to Iranian radical Ayatollah Khomeini. In fact, this incorrect yet ingenious claim exhibits a quadruple negative, propounding a lie within a lie within a lie within a lie.

I am sick to death of all the pussyfooting around the subject that has occupied the media for the duration of this premeditated, illegal war of terror that we the people of the United States have allowed to be waged against the people of Iraq, in our name, for the last several years.

No matter how much lipstick and rouge we smear on the face of this war no matter how we attempt to  dress up the evil and bestial acts that have been performed in its unholy name, it still has the hideous countenance of an evil swine from hell.

It is an illegal war, begun and conducted under false pretenses, by a group of criminal liars and thieves in the United States Government, abetted by a cowardly congress who abrogated their constitutional duties in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign funds and furthered by a complaisant press that ignored their obligation to remain independent from government, from their sponsors and report the facts. 

The members of the completely rogue executive department acted in their own self interest in a quest for personal power and wealth, in concert with the usual domestic and international corporate pirates who, in the depths of their insatiable greed, continually amplify human conflict to their own ends and bring poverty, war, suffering and death down upon the world.

There is no such animal as extraordinary rendition, nor do I know of the existence of any beasts called enhanced interrogation methods.

The first is kidnapping, it is illegal, a felony and the second word is torture, its meaning is clear:

NOUN:

  1. Infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment or coercion.
  2. An instrument or a method for inflicting such pain.
  2. Excruciating physical or mental pain; agony: the torture of waiting in suspense.
  3. Something causing severe pain or anguish.

Torture is illegal in this country, a felonious act, it is illegal in the world at large, according to several conventions that we are legally bound by. Anyone committing torture, causing it to be committed, directing its commission, or training others in its techniques is guilty, guilty of war crimes, of crimes against humanity and crimes against "Nature's God.

Most of you that have been reading my work over the past year know that I am one of the enlisted men that was used in the program described in this book Forgotten Secrets although the author states the program ran from 1955 thru 1972 Army records show that is was not stopped until 1975.

Yesterday the memories were ripped open again by some book reviews, in the USA Today paper and some other reviews on the web. Below the jump I will give the links and some of the quotes

The author of this book is a retired Army Colonel a pyschiatrist that worked at Edgewood Arsenal during two seperate time periods  early in the 1960's and again in the late 1960's his name is James Ketchum. I first heard of the book a few months ago by seeing this webzine article in 10 Zen Monkeys that led me to have some e mail exchanges with the man.

The topic below was originally posted in my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

Gerald R. Ford, a man fate placed on a stage far bigger than his modest persona suggested he belonged is dead at 93. In August 1974 he was appointed America's 38th president when Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace because of the Watergate scandal. Had he not resigned Nixon surely would've been impeached in the House of Representatives and convicted by the Senate.

2 CIA officials tell us Washington –twice– declined to send the reinforcements they asked for when bin Laden was cornered in Afghanistan in 2001.  By the time of the 2nd request by the CIA for troops, the special ops force could hear Osama on radio asking his followers for forgiveness for leading them to their imminent capture.  It was that close.

From Gary Bernsten, who led the CIA's paramilitary unit chasing bin Laden after he fled from Kabul (Christiane Amanpour interviewed him on CNN) –

AMANPOUR:  ... the CIA was sure it knew where he was, thanks in large part to a radio taken off a dead al Qaeda fighter.

BERNTSEN: We listened to bin Laden for several days using that radio, listened to his communications among him and his men. We listened to him apologize to them for having led them  –
          [-- crossposted at dailykos --]

I am a TEST VET.

We took an oath of secrecy.  Honorable men keep their oaths.  But there is no honor in protecting the predators who used us and then abandoned us.  It is time for the TEST VETS to speak out.

On August 25th, I will be 51 years old.  I have had a stroke, 7 heart attacks, a failed triple bypass, heart ejection fraction of 25%, COPD, skin abnormalities, foot fungus and rashes.  This all started in 1992 when I was 36.  I am in contact with 11 other "test vets" and we all have heart problems and multiple health issues. We are all ignored by the VA

Why the hell won't anyone ask Cheney and Rumsfeld about their Chemical Weapons and drug experiments in 1974 and 1975?   While they were in the Ford Administration, Cheney and Rumsfeld, violated the Nuremberg Codes of 1947 by using enlisted men as human test subjects for chemical warfare.   From 1952 thru 1975, they used 7120 enlisted men in these experiments.  

The health study contacted the participants in 2000 and found that 75% of them were either dead or disabled.

What would you say if I told you the NSA's "Puzzle Palace" is getting ready to exceed its electrical capacity?  You know what happens when computers exceed their electrical capacity?  Here's a clue:  This could bring a whole new meaning to "dark ops".

I wish I was creative enough to have invented that plot device.  It sounds like something Kurt Vonnegut might write ... but you wouldn't expect him to actually publish it because no one would accept the premise.  Now you know why they say truth is stranger than fiction; it really is.  

You're not going to believe this but The National Security Agency is running out of juice!

Wait! There's more....

I am having a hard time digesting the Bush Administrations claims of the article's about the "financial data tracking" is a setback to our "National Security" and the talk of the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times were asked not to run the story due to the risk to National Security, I watched Wayne Simmons (a Fox news contributor) calling them traitors, and the publishers should be jailed, he called them the "Jihad Times" funny they kept forgetting to mention that Cavuto's favorite newspaper ran the same story on the front page of today's Wall Street Journal, is that a "jihad Times" outlet to? Or is it okay for Republican papers to do "responsible" journalism and the only ones that have their patriotism questioned is the perceived left leaning papers?

Flashback...

For those nations and individuals who were somehow able to suppress their gag reflex when Bush announced his horrific "Pre-emptive Doctrine", there was only one logical alternative -- monkey see, monkey do.

As expected, Bush's demonic doctrine inspired others to follow:

RUSSIA: Russia assured the world that it's prepared to make 'pre-emptive' strikes on "terrorist bases" across the globe. Russia's Chief of Staff, General Yuri Baluyevsky said:

"With regard to preventive strikes on terrorist bases, we will take any action to eliminate terrorist bases in any region of the world."

NORTH KOREA: In February of 2003, North Korean officials argued that they have the right to a pre-emptive attack on the U.S. as the Bush Administration was preparing for the invasion of Iraq.

"The United States says that after Iraq, we are next", said the deputy director Ri Pyong-gap, "but we have our own countermeasures. Pre-emptive attacks are not the exclusive right of the US."

INDIA: Back in April of 2003, India, a nuclear power, called on the US to preemptively invade and conquer Pakistan, a neighboring nuclear power. They cited the opinion that given the Administration's own lax criteria for invasion, Pakistan is a far more dangerous and legitimate target than Iraq.

According to the External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha:

"I genuinely believe that if possession of weapons of mass destruction, absence of democracy and export of terrorism are the criteria, then no country deserves more than Pakistan to be tackled."

JAPAN: In May of 2003, Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi claimed that:

"Japan has the right to make a preemptive strike on any country preparing to attack it."

Koizumi, using fashionable "Bush-speak", cited justification for pre-emptive action because "We could not just let the Japanese people be harmed by doing nothing."