Flesh and Stone

War Crimes in Libya - The Smoking Guns

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 01:32:00 -0600

The UN said in its resolution said that they wanted to protect civilians. I am a civilian. I'm asking the United Nations and the National Transition Council for help for the citizens of Sirte. Ali Salah Arzaga, Sirte, Libya. (His home and business were destroyed in the final assault on his city.)

There are very public smoking guns that inculpate the rulers of the United States, the United Kingdom, France and others in war crimes in Libya.

The rationale for NATO's entry into the Libyan conflict was based on humanitarian principles, correctly noted by Mr. Arzaga. (left, text and image: VOA video). The United Nations Security Council passed resolution 1973 on March 17 and NATO followed up with actions that the alliance and its partner Qatar claimed conformed to the resolution. The sole purpose of NATO’s involvement was to "protect the Libyan population," we were told.

The outcome has been anything but humanitarian. Tens of thousands of Libyans are injured or dead. The nation's infrastructure is in tatters. One city, Sirte, was destroyed during the final push while another city, the non-Arab Black Libyan town of Tawergha, is absent its entire population, 25,000 residents. They were there just a few weeks ago.

To understand what was done by participating NATO nations and Qatar, which joined the effort, and answer questions about war crimes, consider the following: the United Nations authorization for NATO assistance, the NATO declarations of intent and actions, plus reports of behavior, and the Protocol 1 of the Geneva Convention, 1977. With this foundation, it will be possible to evaluate the behavior of NATO and Qatar.

The following evidence will demonstrate that the UN, NATO, and Qatar donned the mask of humanitarian aid while engaging in a systematic act of war against Libya to achieve regime change. Furthermore, it will be abundantly clear that the participants by their own admission actively collaborated in acts of war that were not authorized by the UN and that resulted in violence against civilians and the infrastructure of the nation.

Please note that criticisms and negative judgment concerning the behavior of the NATO do not imply support for the actions over time or for the human rights record of the late Muammar Gaddafi and his government. Regardless of Gaddafi’s record, clear analysis is required when the leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom, and France make war the way they did in Libya. This was done in the name of the citizens of those nations, without consultation or formal consent.

UN Security Council Resolution 1973 (2011) on Libya

The overriding purpose of the Security Council resolution was to protect civilians. The resolution affirmed that member states of the UN will, "take all necessary measures … to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory…" UN, March 17

The first military action authorized by the mandate was a no-fly zone. Participating nations were mandated to "establish a ban on all flights in the airspace of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya in order to help protect civilians" and "to take all necessary measures to enforce compliance with the ban on flights." UN, March 17

The second military action was an arms embargo: "ensure strict implementation of the arms embargo" outlined in UN Security Council resolution 1970 (2011). That resolution is clear: "all Member States shall immediately take the necessary measures to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer to the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, from or through their territories or by their nationals, or using their flag vessels or aircraft, of arms and related materiel of all types." UN, February 25, 2011

Additionally resolution 1973 required that any flights originating in Libya be cleared by NATO, froze all Libyan government funds overseas, and authorized the creation of a panel of experts to inform the UN of any deviation from the NATO action’s main mission of protecting the people of Libya.

At no point did any UN Security Council resolution authorize NATO and Qatar to take sides in the conflict, to commit acts of war that benefitted one side, or to assure that one side or the other emerged victorious.

NATO Declarations

NATO's main web page on its Libyan effort states that its mission conforms precisely to the authorizing resolutions from the UN:

"Since March 24, an unprecedented coalition of NATO Allies and non-NATO contributors have been protecting civilians under threat of attack in Libya, enforcing an arms embargo and maintaining a no-fly zone. As NATO Secretary General Rasmussen explained, under Operation Unified Protector, NATO is doing 'nothing more, nothing less' than meeting its mandates under United Nations Security Council resolutions." NATO, October 2011

A NATO fact sheet describes the use of military assets and personnel employed in the Libyan effort:

"NATO conducts reconnaissance, surveillance and information-gathering operations to identify those forces which present a threat to civilians. NATO air assets can then engage targets on the ground, at sea or in the air. Ships and submarines policing the arms embargo contribute to the mission on a case-by-case basis." NATO, October 2011 (author's emphasis)

NATO's task was to bring to life the UN resolution designed to "protect civilians." There was no mention of assisting the military operations of the Libyan rebels fighting the Gaddafi regime. There was no authorization to attack and destroy civilian targets. Most importantly, there was no authorization whatsoever, no matter how tortured the logic, that enabled the coordination of land and air forces to win a military victory. The stated purpose of the UN resolution was to protect civilians.

What Really Happened in Libya - the Smoking Guns

Three smoking guns destroy the claim that the UN and NATO intervened in Libya to protect civilians. They are the brutal bombardment and sacking of Sirte, the recently revealed supply of arms to the rebels by coalition partner Qatar, and the coordination and link between Libyan rebel land forces and NATO air efforts. These events took place. They are acknowledged by the parties in public media. The actions represent violations of Protocol 1 of the 1977 Geneva accord on protecting civilians and violations of the UN mandate and stated principles of NATO. Taking sides with the National Transition Council (NTC), the umbrella group for the Libyan rebels, is clearly outside the bounds of preemptive wars, even as allowed in very narrow cases in the UN Charter.

Destroying the City of Sirte

In early September, the commander of the NTC demanded that the town of Sirte surrender. While town leaders tried to negotiate a peaceful resolution, the presence of Gaddafi loyalists prevented this from happening. The population of Sirte was 80,000, the vast majority of them civilians. On October 8, NATO began a furious aerial bombing of Sirte. The entire city was affected.

The Associated Press reported on October 27 that, "Resistance in Sirte was fierce, and three weeks into the battle, anti-Gadhafi forces had advanced only a few hundred yards (meters) into the city." NATO's air bombardment broke the stalemate on the ground:

"It all changed after a NATO bombing assault on October 8, when the ground did not stop shaking all night. Next morning the rebels pushed forwards, expecting the usual fierce resistance. There was none." The Australian, October 24

Even without resistance, upon entering Sirte, "the rebels flattened the area with everything they had, bringing their tanks and heavy guns into the city and blazing away at every building standing between their own positions and the sea." The Australian, October 24

The city of Sirte was not an aggressor in the civil war in Libya. The city did not organize attacks or officially endorse attacks. It was filled with civilians. There were also remnants of Gaddafi forces that resisted the NTC rebels’ entrance into the city. These were defensive actions, at this point in the conflict. No aggressive campaign by these forces could have been envisioned. The city just happened to be Gaddafi's hometown and unable to join the new government. This was understandable since it had been bombed by the NATO-NTC alliance.

Indiscriminate Attacks on Civilians by NATO

Protocol 1 Additional to the Geneva Conventions, 1977, outlines the protections for civilians in war zones agreed to by the signatories. All of the NATO participants as well as Qatar had signed Protocol 1 concerning "any land, air or sea warfare which may affect the civilian population, individual civilians or civilian objects on land" (Article 49).

The fact that there were Gaddafi loyalists among the 80,000 civilians in Sirte did not provide NATO and the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) fighters with an excuse to attack the city indiscriminately. Article 50 states that "The presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come within the definition of civilians does not deprive the population of its civilian character."

The attacks by NATO and the NTC were indiscriminate according to Article 51: "Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are: a) those which are not directed at a specific military objective; [or] b) those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective." When an entire city is devastated and systematically demolished by military forces, as reported, the attack is on the entire city, not just a specific military target.

The bombing was so comprehensive that it eliminated both resistance and most of the people of the city, who either fled or were killed or injured. It was indiscriminate. In Sirte, "the ground did not stop shaking all night" before the NTC troops entered and began their destruction.

NATO knew or should have known that fierce bombing would impact civilians. The fact that many were killed and many more fled is further evidence of the indiscriminate nature of the attacks. NATO acted in coordination with the NTC rebels and those rebels likely used Qatar-supplied arms, as admitted by the commander of Qatar's forces (see below).

NATO alliance partner Qatar provided arms to the NTC rebels and put troops on the ground to train the NTC. Those troops coordinated between NTC rebel and NATO military forces. This violates the UN mandates for NATO and contradicts NATO's own claims about its behavior in Libya.

UN Security Council Resolution 1973 (2011) stated that the goal of the Libyan intervention was to protect civilians. It authorized the creation of a no-fly zone, an arms embargo, a freezing of Libyan assets, a ban on all flights from Libya of any type without NATO permission, and a panel of experts to assure that the resolution was followed by NATO.

NATO claimed to follow the UN resolution to the letter. On its web page, NATO asserted: "No NATO ground troops have participated in the operation – NATO’s success to date has been achieved solely with air and sea assets." NATO, October 2011

But Qatari ground troops were on the ground training and coordinating NTC ground efforts with NATO air power. "NATO's success to date" had an additional essential and highly relevant component -- the coordination of its air efforts with ground strategies, tactics, and information that that was offered by Qatar as described by Qatar's Major General Hamad bin Ali al-Atiya on October 26 (see below).

The resolution did not authorize NATO to take sides in the conflict since that would have been an act of war, a preemptive war to be specific.

But isn't aligning with the NTC rebels taking sides? Qatar was part of the NATO effort in Libya.

"We were among them and the numbers of Qataris on ground were hundreds in every region," said Qatari chief of staff Major General Hamad bin Ali al-Atiya.

Speaking on the sidelines of a meeting in Doha of military allies of Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC), Atiya said the Qataris had been 'running the training and communication operations.'

'Qatar had supervised the rebels' plans because they are civilians and did not have enough military experience. We acted as the link between the rebels and NATO forces,' he said.

Libya’s interim leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil told the meeting that Qatar had been "a major partner in all the battles we fought." Al Arabiya News, October 26 (author's emphasis)

The scenario outlined by General Hamad was confirmed by an extensive report in the Wall Street Journal by Sam Dagher and Charles Levinson in Tripoli and Margaret Coker in Doha, Qatar.

"Qatar provided anti-Gadhafi rebels with what Libyan officials now estimate are tens of millions of dollars in aid, military training and more than 20,000 tons of weapons. Qatar's involvement in the battle to oust Col. Gadhafi was supported by US and Western allies, as well as many Libyans themselves." Wall Street Journal, October 17

The article goes on to explain why Qatar was chosen as the agent for the war effort masquerading as a humanitarian mission.

"As violence escalated in Libya, Western diplomats said it soon became clear that without an armed ground effort by the rebels, the NATO strikes would only enforce a stalemate. But U.S. and European governments thought it too risky to directly arm a rebellion against a sitting leader." Wall Street Journal, October 17

NATO knew of and supported the actions of its alliance partners, the Qataris. The UN knew or should have known that NATO was supporting actions that violated the arms embargo and that provided ground troops and coordination between air and ground military efforts.

The acts of the UN and NATO show that the UN Security Council resolution and NATO claims of honoring that resolution were fraudulent.

U.S. Ambassador to Libya Cretz provides the proof of NATO knowledge of the major violations of the UN resolution. From the article:

Qatar has played 'a very influential role in helping this [Libyan] rebellion succeed,' U.S Ambassador to Libya Gene A. Cretz said in an interview. Wall Street Journal, October 17

The NATO alliance was obliged to keep foreign weapons, troops, and assistance out of Libya as required by the UN resolution. The ambassador makes it clear that the actions of the Qataris were helpful and clearly implied that regime change was the goal, not the protection of civilians.

The UN knew or should have known that its resolution was being violated. Section 24 of Security Council resolution 1973 calls for the creation of a "panel of experts" to monitor the Libyan conflict, assure compliance with the UN mandate, and "Make recommendations on actions the Council, or the Committee or State, may consider to improve implementation of the relevant measures." UN, February 26, 2011

If the panel of experts spoke to Ambassador Cretz or one of his peers, for example, they would have known that the actions in the name of the UN were diametrically opposed to the stated goals of the UN. If the "panel of experts" didn't know that the mission was a fraud on the UN and the people of the world, they should have. In either case, the UN is responsible for the acts of NATO done in the name of the UN.

The NATO mission was an attack on the Libyan government at that time without an imminent threat to any of the nations involved. It was a violation of international law.

International law places very strict limits on preemptive wars. This is the general outline for "anticipatory self-defense."

"The right of anticipatory self-defense assumes that an aggressor is poised to strike, and that one acts defensively in anticipation of the attack rather than waiting for the attack to occur. Traditionally, it was deemed theoretically possible that even a first-strike could be deemed defensive in nature, and lawful, if it was to forestall an attack that was imminent." Center for Defense Information, 2003

The UN has some provisions in its charter for anticipatory self-defense arising out of Security Council actions. However, there was no self-defense asserted, no imminent danger, no war outlined. The mission was mandated solely to protect Libyan civilians through the no-fly zone, arms embargo, asset freeze, etc.

NATO misrepresented its role as "nothing more, nothing less" than those actions mandated by the Security Council resolution, 1973. By allowing in ground troops as well as thousands of tons of weapons, and coordinating air strikes for the benefit of opponents of the Libyan government, NATO engaged in war that meets even the narrowest definitions of preemptive war. That is a violation of international law.

Justice Will Not Be Forthcoming

NATO went well beyond the bounds of the UN mandate. It allowed the mission’s one nation that was not a part of NATO, Qatar, to violate the arms embargo, to provide troops, and to use those troops to coordinate NATO air strikes with NTC rebels on the ground. As a result, NATO and the NTC rebels were acting as one, fighting an aggressive war against the Libyan government. It was a series of lies that provided the foundation for the Libyan effort, lies that repeated principals that those directly involved were never expected to follow.

By waging war instead of protecting civilians, all parties to the effort engaged in an elaborate ongoing war crime against the very civilians that they were supposed to protect.

END

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Quds Force II - The Storyline Repeats Itself

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 23:39:00 -0600

By Michael Collins

(Washington, DC) A faction of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard called the Quds Force (QF) is center stage in the War on Terror for the second time in five years. In 2007, President George W. Bush hauled out the group of middle and upper level Iranian government officials as a rationale for military action against Iran. The decisive shutdown of the Bush effort marks a critical turning point in recent history and will be discussed later in the article.

QF II began last Tuesday when FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Eric Holder unified the terror storyline between the rabid neoconservatives of the Bush era and the low key loyalists to the national security state in the Obama administration.

Holder and Mueller accused, "elements of the Iranian government of plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington," the Washington Post reported on Tuesday. In essence, this military faction allegedly hired an outsider to murder the Saudi ambassador to the United States. With the full knowledge of the Iranian government, the outsider tried to hire a Mexican drug lord for the high level hit. Attorney General Holder announced that the United States is "holding the Iranian government accountable." Holder went on to state the official position of the government, namely that the Iranian government entity behind the plot was the Quds Force.

The current version of Quds Force-as-archvillain was met with challenges from the start. Early on in the Post article, an unnamed White House official offered this qualifier: "There’s a question of how high up did it go." That makes sense. The QF is not the entire Iranian government. The anonymous spokesman said that the Iranian government has a "responsibility to explain that."

The broader reaction has been more direct. The Christian Science Monitor ran three articles questioning the link between QF and the alleged plot to kill the Saudi Arabian Ambassador, Adel A. Al-Jubeir. Commenting on the hearing for accused plotter, Manssor Arbab Arbabsiar, the Monitor's Scott Peterson reported widespread skepticism, "Why the plot doesn't add up?" He quoted a Rand Corporation researcher who noted that the case doesn't fit Iran's normal mode of operation. Peterson went on to report that when Iran's government murders individuals overseas, they do it with trusted insiders to kill, not rookies who contract with drug dealers. The second Christian Science Monitor story was a report by Roy Gutman of McClatchy News noting the refusal of Saudi Arabia's government to implicate Iran in the plot.

CNN carried the outline of the charges but hedged by quoting former CIA agent Robert Baer and former National Security Council mainstay Gary Sick, both of whom voiced serious doubts.

The most comprehensive critiques of the allegations by Holder and Mueller came from Glenn Greenwald and Cenk Uygur. On the Young Turks, Uygur openly mocked the claimed plot. Glenn Grunwald delivered a scathing critique of the facts, logic, and motivation of the alleged plot.

When President Bush held the Quds Force responsible for killing U.S. soldiers in 2007, the stakes were higher since the charge was close to, if not an actual act of war. The response at that time was forceful but not well covered in the news, even though it came from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, and longtime foreign policy actor and scholar, Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Quds Force I, February 2007 - Revving Up to Go After Iran

This is the second time that the Quds Force has been accused of attacking the United States. In 2007, when President George W. Bush was making his case for going after Iran, he and the neoconservatives claimed that the group provided weapons to Iraqis who, in turn, were using those weapons to kill U.S. soldiers. The following sequence of events demonstrates how elements of the power structure at the time undercut Bush.

February 9, 2007: Seville, Spain. Gates surfaces the Iranian connection to Iraqi weapons with tentative statement: "'I think there's some serial numbers, there may be some markings on some of the projectile fragments that we found' that point to Iran, he said.' (Washington Post)

February 11: "Senior military officials" in Baghdad give an anonymous press briefing with evidence of Iranian weapons used to kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq. The Quds Force is named as the supplier. (Washington Post)

February 12: Canberra, Australia. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, denies that there is a demonstrated link between weapons found in Iraq and the Iranian government. "We know that the explosively formed projectiles are manufactured in Iran. What I would not say is that the Iranian government, per se [specifically], knows about this." (Voice of America)

February 13: Jakarta, Indonesia. General Pace reiterates that the military briefers, under his command, are over reaching: "That does not translate that the Iranian government per se, for sure, is directly involved in doing this." (Like the skeptical anonymous Obama White House source on QFII, Pace said Iran had to explain how its weapons got to Iraq.) (Associated Press)

February 14: Washington, DC. President Bush claims that Iranian weapons found in Iraq are from the QF and, as such, from the Iranian government. "What we do know is that the Quds force was instrumental in providing these deadly IEDs to networks inside of Iraq. We know that. And we also know that the Quds Force is a part of the Iranian government. That's a known." (CNN)

February 14: Honolulu, Hawaii. General Pace states for a third time that there is no proven link between the weapons found in Iraq and the Iranian government. He repeats the statement quoted above from February 13, exactly. (Voice of America)

February 15: Washington, DC. President Bush holds a press conference and backs off on the link between the weapons found in Iraq and the Iranian government: "Whether (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad ordered the Qods Force to do this, I don't think we know." (ABC) Had Bush asserted the claim as fact, he would have had a rationale for a military response to Iran and a likely war. He would have been obliged to fire General Pace as well, since his head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had directly contradicted Bush as commander in chief. The first QF storyline failed. It was not forgotten.

Most remarkably, before the intensity of the claims and counter claims from February 11 through the 16th, long time actor and insider, Zbigniew Brzezinski testified before Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He said:

February 1, 2007: "If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a "defensive" U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan…" (Zbigniew Brzezinski, Senate Foreign Relations Committee)

Brzezinski predicted a terrorist act committed by some entity that would be "blamed on Iran." If he had some intelligence that Iran had plans to do this or a strong belief based on evidence, he wouldn't have used the phrase, "blamed on Iran." He would have simply said, 'Iran will commit an act of terror.' This is an extremely strong statement. Brzezinski is a pillar of the foreign policy community. He was a founding member of the Trilateral Commission. Is he saying that some in the Bush administration were going to create a false flag event with Iran as the target and patsy? What did he know?

In fact, this statement aligns with one of the core arguments of the 9/11 Truth movement. Their literature is replete with references to the Project for a New American Century statement that the timeline for a "revolutionary change" in U.S. foreign policy "is likely to be a long one absent some catastrophic and crystalizing event - like a new Pearl Harbor." 9/11 is viewed as the rationale that provided the excuse to begin the "revolutionary change" by invading Iraq.

Brzezinski's message was clear. A major path to justify attacking Iran involved a fabricated act of terror, a false flag, as an excuse for military aggression.

Back to the Future

Here we are again with the same storyline used in 2007, revived to justify a violent response to Iran for acts they likely didn't commit. Is this a reprise of the tactic that Brzezinski warned us about in his Senate testimony in February 2007?

Shame on the Iranian government, if it tried to hire a Mexican drug lord to kill the Saudi Ambassador (or anyone else).

If the alleged conspiracy lacks any real credibility and coherence as reported in the public media, the implications are chilling. The nation's top two law enforcement officials have either dropped the ball in a way that complicates an already hostile relationship with Iran or they're pushing a fictional conspiracy theory that represents a real danger to every citizen; a harbinger for another endless war that we shouldn't fight, one that we can't even begin to afford.

It is time to review what Dr. Brzezinski said about the uses of terror, misdirection and blame to create a pretext for war.

END

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Why the New Security Zone along the Canadian Border?

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 23:57:00 -0600

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) just issued an environmental report on its enhanced security plan to cover an area extending from the East Coast to the West Coast, from the northern border of the United States to 100 miles south of the border. While there are few specifics on the new security measures, the environmental report offers enough to see how we will be protected against threats to national security coming from Canada. The Department of Homeland security will enhance efforts and technologies to reduce the danger from "known terrorist affiliates and extremist groups [that] have an undisputed presence along the Northern Border in both the United States and Canada." Northern Border Security Programs, p. 1-3, September 2011 (Northern Border) (Image: thelastminute)

In 2006 the American Civil Liberties Union exposed the expansion of border control activities to within 100 miles of any point on the U.S. border. ACLU labeled this area the Constitution Free Zone. Search and seizure options at border checkpoints are not constrained by the Fourth Amendment to the U.S Constitution, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure. Now, thanks to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), just because they're within 100 miles of the nearest border nearly 200 million citizens are subject to searching and procedures that previously were used exclusively at border checkpoints.

Photo courtesy Duncan Rawlinson, lead instructor at PhotographyIcon.com

What do they have in store for citizens on the northern border?

Some highlights of the program include: checkpoints far from the border (but within the 100-mile limit); increased patrol activity; remote video surveillance system systems; upgraded surveillance and telecommunications systems; high-powered X-ray machines of various kinds; and fencing or vehicle barriers at selected points along the border.

The new and improved "High-Energy X-Ray Imaging Scanners" (Northern Border, p. 2-12) expand national security radiation exposure from airline passengers to the much broader audience of drivers and their families, for example, who choose to visit and return from Canada, as well as those who choose to visit the United States from Canada, and anyone unlucky enough to drive into a checkpoint in the Constitution Free Zone.

Buried within the report was this findings, DHS asserts that even though “exposure to high levels of radiation would increase a person’s probability of developing cancer and hereditary genetic damage,” (Northern Border, 8-13-10, p. 201), the impacts of this program will be “negligible.” One wonders if their analysis has considered the kids sitting in the back seat of the car, protected by nothing more than that back seat and their clothing, while a CBP agents X-rays the car’s trunk with a mobile device. It’s hard to feel warm and fuzzy about impacts being negligible when you can’t see any analysis to support that assertion.

With the expanded territory and array of new technologies, one can argue that the security measures represent a militarization of the Canadian border. The following illustration from the environmental report makes that point:

Northern Report, 1-6

The possibilities for a one-sided encounter with those who claim to protect us are endless. You may be driving to visit a friend in a car once owned by someone one on the Automated Targeting System (ATS), "a security and tracking program for cargo that DHS has extended to travelers by assigning all who cross the nation's borders with a computer-generated risk assessment score that will be retained for 40 years -- and which is secret and unreviewable." A Homeland Security drone spots you and relays the message to the Customs and Border Protection command center. That alert sends a message to the "mobile data terminal" in a Border Patrol "agent vehicle" and it’s game on. You're pulled over. Good luck explaining why you're in a "dirty car."

O Canada!

"CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) is the largest law enforcement component of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It has a priority mission of keeping terrorists and their weapons out of the United States." Introduction, p. 4

An enhanced security zone along the longest peaceful border in the world should raise suspicion. As Paul Craig Roberts has pointed out, there have been no successful terrorist attacks on the United States since 9/11, at least none conducted by foreign governments (arguably, the response to Hurricane Katrina can be seen as a de facto terror attack on the people of New Orleans). There were two cross-border threats intercepted in December, 1999 through the efforts of Customs and Border Protection agents and others at the Canadian border in Vermont and Washington state. But that was with the systems and technologies of that time.

Has Canada suddenly become a hotbed of virulent anti-American activity? Are the Mounties and other law enforcement agencies in Canada turning a blind eye to known threats? Are we expected to believe that the nation that turned down a featured role in the coalition of the willing has suddenly become lax on enforcing international law?

Keeping them out or us in? (Or is it all about the money?)

Is there another motive behind the seeming militarization of the Canadian border

My choice for primary motive is enhanced revenue opportunities for the defense and national security industries. The U.S.-Canada border is over 4,000 miles long. The opportunities of a 100-mile ribbon along that border are expanded by all those people living there, approximately 50 million. This could be a huge payday. After all, Iraq and Afghanistan must end at some point. What better project to take up the slack for defense industry taxpayer subsidies than a massive border build up in areas that provide safe working conditions?

Look how quickly the government deployed full body scanners in airports across the country after the underpants bomber affair. Even though highly reliable witnesses saw that bomber bypass a security check at his point of departure, Amsterdam, the administration and security experts acted like a scanner would have somehow prevented events that had nothing to do with any type of security check.

The absurdity of government policies on war, defense spending, and the economy, and the elimination of more and more constitutional and other protections, opens the door for more sinister interpretations. There will be speculation that just maybe, the financial elite who run things see a total collapse of the economy. They should know, they created it. Or maybe they see a total loss of rights and an end to the pretense of freedom. Instead of letting all those consumers (aka citizens) cross the border in search of a reasonable life, they may just want to keep us around for the next big holiday shopping spree.

The border security program as prison bars for citizens is far-fetched but, arguably, it is no more far-fetched than a plan to beef up the border with a friendly, cooperative neighbor.

We live in a time of great decline. The cause of that decline is the ownership of virtually all of the tools of political control by those whose sole motive is to make more money than the huge sums they've already accumulated. For positive change to become an alternative, those who have failed so miserably need to be sent packing, replaced by true servants of the people.

END

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Special thanks to the anonymous source who explained the significance of the report and to Cryptome, which listed the report summary and links on the date of publication.

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Appendix I: Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Fourth Amendment, US Constitution, FindLaw

Appendix II: Becoming Part of the Process

Public Meetings

CBP will hold a series of public meetings on the environmental report in October. At these meetings you may learn more about the project and you may also submit comments. The public meetings will be held from 7-9 pm and are scheduled as follows:

Click for pdf of public meeting dates, city, and location. Source

Public Comment

You may submit comments via Internet at http://www.northernborderpeis.com/get-involved.html, via telephone at 1-(866) 760-1421, or via mail by posting written comments to: CBP Northern Border PEIS P.O. Box 3625 McLean, Virginia, 22102. Comments must be received by October 31, 2011.

20 Dems in House Call for Clarence Thomas Investigation

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:42:00 -0600

By Andrew Kreig
Justice Integrity Project

Twenty Democratic members of Congress wrote federal judicial authorities on Sept. 29 to request a formal Justice Department probe of Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas for long-term failures to disclose junkets, other gifts and income.

A coalition of both black and white Democrats told the Judicial Conference of the United States that it is required by law to seek a Justice Department investigation of the new allegations against Thomas and his wife, the Republican political activist Virginia Lamp Thomas. Most of the allegations became public this year. They involve claims of undisclosed gifts, junkets, income and other conflicts, along with the justice's failure to report his wife's earnings on annual judicial disclosure forms that he signed under oath.

“Due to the simplicity of the disclosure requirements, along with Justice Thomas’s high level of legal training and experience,” said the congressional letter to the conference secretary James C. Duff, “it is reasonable to infer that his failure to disclose his wife’s income for two decades was willful, and the Judicial Conference has a non-discretionary duty to refer this case to the Department of Justice.”

To be sure, the 20 signatures are relatively few from a 435-member, Republican-run House. Their names are here. Still, the letter marks a significant step in clarifying a potential criminal component to what Thomas defenders and the nation's timid watchdog institutions often trivialize as either oversights by a busy public servant or potential “ethics” issues that have scant remedy as a practical matter.

Our Justice Integrity Project, among a handful of watchdog groups, has long focused upon seemingly flagrant abuses throughout the Thomas era, which I observed first-hand at the outset by attending his 1991 confirmation hearings. The hearings reached a dramatic point 20 years ago in early October as Thomas faced sexual harassment claims by law professor Anita Hill, who had been a Thomas subordinate at two different federal agencies during the early 1980s.

In February of this year, I hosted Common Cause Vice President Mary Boyle on my “MTL Washington Update” radio show just after her group disclosed that Thomas had been hiding his wife’s income. Last week, our radio audience heard also from retired federal judge Lillian McEwen, a former Thomas lover from the early 1980s and author of the compelling memoir, DC Unmasked and Undressed, published earlier this year. She said -- based on her experience hearing Thomas discuss “Long Dong Silver” and other shared experiences -- that he apparently perjured himself during his confirmation hearings when he denied under oath using the kind of pornography that Hill swore he had described.

Characteristically, Thomas has largely remained silent about the new allegations, aside from disclosing that he promptly corrected his financial statements after Common Cause exposed the problem via a Los Angeles Times article in late January. We’ll update today's report with any comment we obtain from him or Duff's Administrative Office. That office implements decisions by the Judicial Conference of the United States, which is chaired by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, a Republican colleague of Thomas.

Significantly, the congressional letter-signers demand an open-ended DOJ investigation, unlike the forgive-and-forget stance that most in Washington accord to the powerful. “Based upon the multiple public reports,” the letter said, “Justice Thomas’s actions may constitute a willful failure to disclose, which would warrant a referral by the Judicial Conference to the Department of Justice, so that appropriate civil or criminal actions can be taken.” [My emphasis added.]

Many reasons exist for those in Washington's power structure to ignore each others’ sexual and financial scandals, especially in this instance. For one, Thomas has influential friends who orchestrated his appointment. Also, he is the court’s only African-American justice, a status he uses to intimidate critics. For example, he denounced Hill and inquiring Senators alike at his hearing for what he described as a “high-tech lynching.”

The tactic worked. Senate Republicans Arlen Specter (PA), Orrin Hatch (UT) and Alan Simpson (WY) led vicious questioning of Hill. They slimed her without mercy for daring to speak up. Also, we know now from many books and other records that then-Sen. John Danforth (MO), a wealthy Thomas mentor and ordained minister, the White House, the DOJ, and federal court personnel led a similar behind-the-scenes assault on Hill. Taxpayers unwittingly funded part of that attack, of course, not simply via partisan elected office-holders but also via judicial and other personnel expected to stay above the fray.

That's not all. The confirmation was enabled also by vast, secret donations from private individuals who wanted Thomas on the court and who weren't shy about their methods. Part of this secret support included a cranked-up grass-roots campaign that included TV ads and bused-in black evangelicals targeting then-Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Biden (D-DE) and other Democrats, some of whom had their own staff-harassment and similar sex scandals to hide. There’s no point being coy at this point with the stakes so high. Read The Senator: My 10 Years with Ted Kennedy, a 1992 biography of the late Judiciary Democrat by his former chief of staff, Richard Burke. Burke describes sex and drug scandals, and lots of them. And there’s scant reason for those living in Washington to believe Kennedy was alone in such behavior.

Thus, our leaders rushed through the Thomas hearing without allowing on camera the most effective independent testimony that could have vindicated Hill. This enabled his confirmation, albeit by a 52-48 vote that represents the most negative votes in U.S. history for any Supreme Court justice. The White House photo above typifies the bipartisan fakery involved even in what might be expected to serve as a transparent occasion. Thomas, with wife gazing on, is shown at right taking a fake oath from Democratic-nominated Justice Byron White on Oct. 18, 1991. The ostensible elevation of Thomas to the court effectively ended simmering questions. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, unavailable Oct. 18 because of his wife's death, administered the real oath on Oct. 23 in his office, away from the cameras and other public view.

Imagine for a moment a different scenario: Suppose the Biden-led Judiciary Committee had delayed the hearing to allow more investigation of the allegations against Thomas? Suppose the senators had informed the public with more testimony? What might have happened if, for example, if they had encouraged their counsel Lillian McEwen to step forward and describe her experiences. She had been a brilliant former counsel to the committee in the early 1980s when it was chaired also by Biden. Later, she became a law professor before becoming a federal judge with Securities and Exchange Commission.

Suppose she had testified that she accompanied Thomas to New York’s Plato’s Retreat sex club? She described that, and lots more, in her compelling memoir. But that’s not what Biden and his colleagues wanted. Furthermore, the Senate avoids post-confirmation scrutiny of judges suspected of perjury under a constitutional separation of powers rationale. When it’s over it’s over, right?

Even so, commoners unschooled in the law’s fine points might get confused: Do Senators truly care about good government if they let nominees perjure themselves? Should those who capture judgeships by such chicanery also bask in lifetime appointments with no real oversight for their lavish gifts and family jobs, especially if the facts are hidden to litigants and everyone else with misleading disclosure statements? On a routine basis, Thomas and his colleagues piously imprison others who similarly mis-state or overlook such matters on a document, or even verbally to a federal official. Why should they be exempt themselves?

Let's look ahead: To commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Thomas confirmation hearings over the next few weeks, we can expect many accounts of his career. Some will be enlivened with nasty comments about him from a few academic, feminist or political critics. But Thomas and his allies can shrug that off. News reports suggest that real estate tycoon Harlan Crow is the kind of friend who lets Thomas and his wife relax in luxury, whether at a mansion or the iconic Bohemian Grove. At the same time, Thomas has fostered a politically useful image of a VIP who despises Ivy League academics and chills out with workers at the court cafeteria and with children who lap up his inspirational talks at their schools. In sum, the odds are overwhelming that Washington’s thought-leaders will raise a few eyebrows over allegations against him and ultimately will close ranks with one of their own, as usual, on a bipartisan basis. Big-time Democrats and their backers, like Republicans, have important business before the Supreme Court.

Still, keep an eye on the congressional letter sent Sept. 29, 2011 to Duff at the administrative office at the Judicial Conference.

Despite the name that the congressional signers put at the top of the page, their letter is probably addressed to a different court. Ordinarily, that tribunal's members are too distracted and too disrespected to have much impact. Even so, that court is potentially more powerful than the one run by Chief Justice Roberts and his colleagues.

It's called the court of public opinion.

Super Congress in Session - More of the Cruel Charade

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 22:09:00 -0600

Wall Street and the big banks owe $1.5 trillion for the bailout (at least). The Super Congress needs to cut $1.5 trillion over ten years. Get the money from Wall Street and cancel the Super Congress. Problem solved.

Last month’s debt ceiling crisis was resolved when Congress and the Obama administration made a deal to cut trillions in federal spending over the next ten years. Congress identified the easy cuts, the low hanging fruit so to speak, for a total of nearly $1.0 trillion. At the same time, Congress and the White House created the “Super Congress” committee of six senators and six representatives charged with cutting another $1.5 trillion. (Image: Lucy White with permission)

The committee has unparalleled power to draft legislation, without the normal legislative processes of debate, deliberation, modification, and amendments. If seven of the twelve committee members vote in favor of the budget cutting legislation by the November 23 deadline (see chart in appendix III), the bill will be submitted to the entire Congress for an up or down vote. The bill will not be subject to any modification or change. Debate will be very limited. (Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction Text-pdf)

A Lose–Lose Deal for Citizens

The Super Congress committee is a lose-lose deal for citizens. If the committee produces legislation that is passed into law, that law will be based on a violation of any number of democratic processes. If the committee fails to produce legislation then watch for another round of downgrades from the credit rating agencies that brought us the real estate bubble and the economic collapse.

The legislation that created this committee surrenders unrestrained authority to the committee of twelve. This excludes the input and votes of the remaining Senators and members of the House of Representatives in the process of cutting the federal budget.

The goal is to improve the economy and help citizens. It will do neither. By cutting government spending this way, the bill will inevitably take money out of the economy and cost jobs for public employees and government contractors. Cutting benefits, it will also harm citizens by reducing their ability to access basic services.

A majority of the House and Senate voted to create this committee, a compromise between the White House and reactionary leadership in the Republican and Democratic parties.

Did we elect these people to create illogical, harmful legislation as a solution to the crisis that many of them created in the first place?

We live in a world where public servants assume the role of autocratic masters without any regard to the realities of our current situation. The people are reduced to mere spectators watching the elected in crowd accumulate yet more power and operate without citizen input.

The committee is stacked to protect the status quo

The status quo is quite simply the following: corporate subsidies; ongoing bailouts for Wall Street; endless war; and, the unrestrained growth of the national security state. None of this is on the table for the vaunted Super Congress.

The committee was appointed by the Democratic and Republican leaders in the United States House of Representatives and Senate. One line of reasoning argues that the six to six split of Republicans and Democrats is a formula for stalemate. A more cynical view is that there is a “ringer” on the Democratic side who will vote with the highly conservative Republican faction. A third outcome is that there is an underlying unity on the committee. This will lead to a compromise "sacrifice” that will appear to be across the board but, In fact, favor those at the very top of the economy.

Let’s look at some evidence of political philosophy according to the voting records of the committee members. Republican members include Senators Kyl (AZ), Portman (OH), and Toomey (PA). The Republican Representatives are Camp and Upton (MI) and Hensarling (TX). Democratic Senators include Baucus (MT), Kerry (MA), and Murray (WA). Democratic Representatives are Becerra (CA), Clyburn (SC), and Van Hollen (MD).

Using the decades old Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) ratings and those of the American Conservative Union, we see a strong ideological split. Each organization rates members of Congress on a set number of bills each year to determine their loyalty to liberal or conservative causes. The ADA ratings for the 2nd session of the 110th Congress, 2010, shows the Super Congress Democrats with very liberal ratings averaging 93% (range, 85-100%). The Republicans scored higher on the ACU scale averaging 96% (range, 88-100%)

The supposed ideological strength on each side of the committee represents the argument for deadlock. The liberal–conservative divide will play out in the committee, the argument goes, and there will be no legislation.

The jaundiced view assumes a ringer among the Democrats, someone who will give in to heavy cuts in Social Security and Medicare. While Senator Baucus shows strong support for banking and corporate interests and might be pegged as the cross over vote, he strongly opposed cuts to Social Security and Medicare suggested by Obama's deficit reduction commission chairs (see December 2, 2010).

A better method of analysis involves looking at the crucial votes by members, the votes that got us into trouble with the federal debt.

The Iraq war and the Wall Street bailouts are the twin pillars of our current troubles. According to figures from the 2012 US Budget (Office of Management and Budget), the total cost of the Iraq was through 2010 was $6.1 trillion (see graph here). Imagine the impact of $6.1 trillion worth of support for Social Security and Medicare, repairing infrastructure, and deficit reduction.

The cost of the bailouts is still being racked up. The SourceWatch Wall Street Bailout table shows that $4.7 trillion disbursed, $3.2 trillion was repaid, and $1.5 trillion is still outstanding.

Support of The Money Party agenda of endless war and bailouts for the wealthiest institutions and individuals represents the essence of our budget troubles. Liberal and conservative voting records are meaningless unless those voting are graded on their efforts against the wholesale looting of the US Treasury.

The real rating scale for members of the Super Congress committee is their record on the Iraq War authorization and the 2008 bailout that created a river of cash for Wall Street. Eight members were in lock step support of the Iraq War and the bailouts. Two opposed the Iraq war very early, Murray and Van Hollen. Hensarling, the Texas Republican, voted against both bailout bills in the House. Becerra was at zero for The Money Party opposing both the war and both House bailout bills (See voting record chart).

The committee members are ten to two in favor of bailouts and nine to three in favor of Iraq. Why should we expect anything to come out of this process other than a reaffirmation of the status quo? War and bailouts (corporate subsidies) will be left alone. It's a stacked deck. These legislators delivered before, they'll deliver again. They know who they work for. The best we can hope for is a deadlock and no action.

Here is a solution

The Super Congress committee is tasked with reducing the national debt by $1.5 trillion over ten years. The Wall Street crowd owes Treasury and the Federal Reserve $1.5 trillion for the bailout (Appendix I). Give them three years to pay it back. Conduct a comprehensive audit of supposed repayments to date and add any shortages. Apply that amount to the deficit and there is no need for a Super Congress to denigrate democracy, harm citizens, and engage in revolting histrionics on Capitol Hill. The ten year goal of $1.5 trillion would be taken care of in three years with no threat to Social Security and Medicare.

This type of solution explains why Congress and the White House created the tightly structured Super Congress in the first place. It’s The Money Party protection racket in full swing. Set up a needless goal, bar any discussion of real solutions, and make the public pay for it. Same as it ever was…

END

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Appendix I

Bailout recipients owe the US Treasury about $0.5 trillion and the Federal Reserve another $1.0 trillion. That money should go directly to the deficit reduction, eliminating the charade of the Super Congress. The Fed put out $4.0 trillion to save Wall Street and the big banks. It has nearly $3.0 trillion of assets. It can afford this with the right structure or the system can just consider it a franchise fee. If the Fed can’t handle it, Congress can legislate it out of existence and create a Bank of the United States or a network of 50 state banks with a limited Fed for the money supply. The assets of a truly national bank would make it viable instantaneously.

Appendix II

Super Congress Proxy Voting is Unconstitutional

Deliberative assemblies in representative democracies have one common characteristic: equality of membership. The elected representatives act as a body to create and deliberate bills that become national law. Not just some of the representatives, all of them take part in this process before a bill becomes law.

When a very few assume the tasks of the many in an assembly, namely the twelve members of the Super Congress committee, the net result is the ceding of deliberative and voting power from the many to the few. That is called proxy voting. It’s fine for shareholder meetings but not a representative democracy.

Robert’s Rules of Order is clear on proxy voting:

“It is unknown to a strictly deliberative assembly, and is in conflict with the idea of the equality of members, which is a fundamental principle of deliberative assemblies. There can be but little use for debate where one member has more votes than another, possibly more than all the others combined.” Roberts Rules of Order

You won’t find proxy voting allowed anywhere in the Constitution. The authorizing legislation was illegal as is any legislation that may flow from the committee since it entails proxy voting.

But this is how they have to do business. The budget cuts forthcoming will be so painful and unpopular, the legislature, as a whole, is afraid to have roll call votes to make them accountable. They need the cover of a contrived national emergency.

Appendix III

Super Congress Timeline

The Congressional Budget Office told Congress that it needed legislative proposals weeks earlier than the initial schedule above. That will shorten the Super Congress deliberation process significantly. CNN September 13 Didn’t the bill authors talk to CBO before they put together this timeline? This is another example of how ridiculous this process is.

Countering Rhetorical Tricks - "9/11 and the Successful War"

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 12:17:00 -0600

By Michael Collins

(Washington, DC) Stratfor Global Intelligence just published an essay announcing that the nation's rulers have conducted a "successful war" on terror following the events of 9/11. The author, CEO and Stratfor founder, George Friedman, dressed up the standard Bush - Cheney justification for the past ten years of foreign misadventures and domestic decline:

"…one of the most extraordinary facts of the war that begin on 9/11 was that there have been no more successful major attacks on the United States." George Friedman, September 6

That's the argument pure and simple.

How do you counter that?

First, the statement excludes the most important fact about 9/11. It was a "successful major attack on the United States." The event caused human tragedies accompanied by the shock that the most powerful nation on earth left its centers of governance and finance unprotected.

Friedman and those he defends have one overriding imperative in discussing 9/11, exclude the event itself as a topic of discussion. Move on as though history starts after the successful attacks. Never ever let the topic focus on Bush administration's command negligence surrounding 9/11.

Second, keep in mind that the rhetorical imperative of the successful war argument requires that the following question is rarely asked and never considered at any length. How on earth could these attacks have been planned and executed without discovery? That question must be excluded at all costs. If asked, the clear answers obliterate claims for a successful war that supposedly followed 9/11. The answers completely undermine the arguments supporting the usurpation of the Constitution, the dire costs of the national security state, and endless wars.

The events leading up to the attack show a total disregard for the many warnings and red flags produced by various individuals and groups within law enforcement and the intelligence community. What follows is not an endorsement of the official conspiracy theory advanced by those in power. It represents an effective path to bypass polarizing labels and open the minds of the larger audience, the millions of citizens who have questions but no answers.

By showing the obvious internal contradictions in the official story, the larger audience is prepared to consider a much broader set of explanations and the urgent need for a true investigation into the events leading up to the attacks on the people and the nation.

What did they know and when did they know it?

Before the 9/11 Commission, there was the congressional Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001. The full report was published in December 2002 (838 pages). Eleanor Hill, staff director of the effort, put out a much shorter staff statement on September 18, 2002.

Hill began by stating the mission of the joint committee: to provide the public with an "understanding of why the Intelligence Community did not know of the September 11 attacks in advance." The staff report then provided more than enough evidence to show that the intelligence community had extensive knowledge of the attacks well in advance of 9/11. A total failure of leadership is the unstated conclusion that jumps off the pages of both the summary and full report. The leaders had the information but failed to act on it.

The few excerpts below show the importance of addressing the history leading up to 9/11. The findings lay the foundation for arguing that the post 9/11 efforts missed the point -- namely, that working within the assumptions of the official 9/11 narrative, the problem wasn't prior warning. The main problem was a complete failure to act by those in the White House on the many warnings over many years.

"In June 1998, the Intelligence Community obtained information from several sources that Usama Bin Ladin was considering attacks in the U.S., including Washington, DC and New York. This information was provided to senior U.S. Government officials in July 1998;

"In August 1998, the Intelligence Community obtained information that a group of unidentified Arabs planned to fly an explosive-laden plane from a foreign country into the World Trade Center. The information was passed to the FBI and the FAA. … The Intelligence Community has acquired additional information since then indicating there may be links between this group and other terrorist groups, including al Qaeda;

"In September 1998, the Intelligence Community obtained information that Usama Bin Ladin's next operation could possibly involve flying an aircraft loaded with explosives into a U.S. airport and detonating it; this information was provided to senior U.S. Government officials in late 1998;

"In the fall of 1998, the Intelligence Community received information concerning a Bin Ladin plot involving aircraft in the New York and Washington, DC areas."

Both the staff and full report go into much more detail on terror threats from 1982 forward. These four brief quotations show that there was extensive prior knowledge of a planned terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and targets in Washington in 1998. The reported findings are unambiguous.

As far as the successful war argument goes, where is the justification? The attacks should have been prevented because, by the assumptions of the main narrative, there was voluminous evidence from multiple intelligence sources that airplanes were going to be "slammed into buildings." That information was not acted upon by the leaders of this country. In fact, judging by the volume of warnings, ignoring this information required significant effort.

Instead of huge commitments, expenses, and structures for the War on Terror, the logical and most effective response would have been threefold: (1) recognize the wealth of information produced by intelligence agencies describing future events; (2) strictly enforce expanded collaboration between agencies and (3) commence impeachment proceedings against President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

The successful war argument covers up the logical remedies for future attacks drawn from the available evidence. It seeks to justify countless deaths as a result of two wars, a collapsed economy, and more than twenty million people out of work. Most importantly, this argument provides protection for those in charge, those who so miserably failed to carry out their duty to protect the nation.

END

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Coup Fears Stalled Obama on War Crimes Prosecution

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 22:11:00 -0600

by Andrew Kreig, Justice Integrity Project

President-Elect Obama’s advisors feared in 2008 that authorities would oust him in a coup and that Republicans would block his policy agenda if he prosecuted Bush-era war crimes, according to a law school dean who served as one of Obama’s top transition advisors.

University of California at Berkeley Law School Dean Christopher Edley, Jr., left, the sixth highest-ranking member of the 2008 post-election transition team preparing Obama's administration, revealed the team's thinking on Sept. 2 in moderating a forum on 9/11 held by his law school (also known as Boalt Hall). Edley sought to justify Obama's "look forward" policy on Bush-era lawbreaking that the president-elect announced on a TV talk show in January 2009.

But Edley's rationale implies that Obama and his team fear the military/national security forces that he is supposed be commanding -- and that Republicans have intimidated him right from the start of his presidency even though voters in 2008 rejected Republicans by the largest combined presidential-congressional mandate in recent U.S. history. Edley responded to our request for additional information by providing a description of the transition team's fears, which we present below as an exclusive email interview. Among his important points is that transition officials, not Obama, agreed that he faced the possibility of a coup.

Overview

As the nation approaches the third anniversary of Obama's election, many of his proposals have been thwarted by Republicans in Congress despite his cave-in on ja wide variety of justice issues. His poll numbers have rapidly dropped this year, including results reported Sept. 6 by two polls putting his approval rating at 43 percent. Top it off, former Vice President Dick Cheney, who left office with a 13% approval rating in one national poll, is now staging a comeback. Cheney's return to the public arena includes his boasts during his book tour about the supposed legality of his never-investigated Bush-era initiatives that have long been suspected as criminal under U.S. and international law, with potential execution for violators.

Longtime peace advocate Susan Harman, a Californian, elicited Edley's opinions during Q&A at the Boalt Hall forum, which was organized by the school's Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law. Boalt Hall's faculty advisor includes Professor John C. Yoo. The former Justice Department attorney is nicknamed by war crimes critics as the "torture memo lawyer" for his legal justifications for interrogation techniques for those suspected of terror. Also, Harman erroneously believed last week that Edley had named Yoo to be an adviser to the Miller Institute, but Edley responds that he co-directs the institute. Edley, a former White House aide and otherwise a longtime player at high levels in legal and political circles, was so high-ranking on the transition team that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Arizona's governor, was listed six spots below him.

After the forum, Harman described the prepared remarks by Boalt Hall speakers calling for accountability, human rights and the rule of law as being so "surreal" in such circumstances that, "I felt dizzy, and could barely speak" during Q&A.

But she did ask questions. Edley responded that Obama’s team feared that leadership in the U.S. armed forces, the CIA and NSA might “revolt” if the new Obama administration prosecuted war crimes by U.S. authorities and lower-ranking personnel. Also, Edley told Harman that his fellow decision-makers on Obama's team feared that a prosecution inquiry could lead to Republican efforts to thwart the Obama agenda in Congress.

Harman shared this account by email and Google Groups with our Justice Integrity Project and others. Among recipients was David Swanson, an antiwar activist who since last January has been organizing a grassroots effort to replace Obama on the Democratic 2012 ticket. Swanson published, Insider Tells Why Obama Chose Not to Prosecute Torture, the only such blog or news report I've found of Edley's explanation of how Obama decided justice issues. Swanson's blog recalled that accountability under the law was a top concern of Obama supporters, as illustrated by the incoming administration's own 2008 poll of supporter suggestions. Here is Swanson's description of the Obama transition:

They had questions from ordinary people for the President Elect submitted on their website and voted up or down. The top question at the end of the voting had come from Bob Fertik of Democrats.com and it was this: “Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor – ideally Patrick Fitzgerald – to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?”

Not only was the answer no, but it had to be inferred because President Change U. Wish refused to answer the question. I’ve always assumed I could guess why: a president wouldn’t want previous presidents subject to the rule of law, because then he would be too. Just this week I was suggesting that allowing the Justice Department to enforce laws against Cheney could save Obama’s electoral prospects at the risk of seeing Obama, too, land in prison some day. I have no doubt that this really is a factor. However, we now have an account from someone involved in the decision process way back when.

In similar fashion, I published on Huffington Post an Inauguration Day scoop: Why the President ‘Stepped Out’ During His Inaugural Parade. The front-page column extolled the new president's "ability to mix action with powerful symbolism" as he emerged from his limo to walk on foot and thereby honor national traditions exemplified by the National Archives, Navy Memorial and Justice Department, portrayed from left to right in my photo at right. A finger points to the President and First Lady (in a yellow dress), with both more clearly visible at the far left in my photo below. My next Huffington Post column, Probe the Past to Protect the Future, argued for the new administration and Congress to protect the nation's legal traditions by investigating suspected law-breaking under the Bush administration.

Justice Accountability As 2012 Campaign Issue

Since then, justice and accountability issues have become important wedge-issues (along with jobs, the economy, war policies and environment) in dividing Democratic factions. To take one example, more than 1,200 environmental protesters against Obama policies have recently been arrested outside the White House. That's the forerunner of much larger protest demonstrations planned during the next two months near the White House on a variety of issues. Congressional Black Caucus leader and former House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Michigan) has encouraged those seeking to protect Social Security and Medicare to aim their protests at the Obama White House since, in his view, they are the prime actors in setting the scene for bipartisan agreement on cuts.

The issue of accountability for Bush-era lawbreaking resonates especially strongly in some quarters, with crossover appeal beyond party lines. The above-mentioned question in 2008 by Bob Fertik received some 22,000 votes on the Obama transition website, some 3,000 more than the next highest vote-getter in the Obama team's poll.

Similarly, a list-serve run by Alabama Democrat Pam Miles that reaches tens of thousands of Democratic voters around the nation has been abuzz this weekend with grassroots opposition to Obama on a variety of issues. Miles is a tireless advocate for Democratic causes and candidates. She started her list because of the Bush frame-up on corruption charges of her state's most recent Democratic governor, Don Siegelman. One of many blogger readers is the intrepid Alabama blogger Roger Shuler, who last week posted on his Legal Schnauzer site a citizen's guide to self-protection from anonymous threats of the kind frequently sent his way. Shuler's near-daily investigative commentaries include scores about the imprisonment of Mississippi trial attorney and Democratic donor Paul Minor on corruption charges in a cruel and obviously unfair Siegelman-style frame-up by the Bush administration. Over the weekend, Shuler posted this comment about the Obama administration's reaction to the many injustices in the legal system that Shuler has chronicled in the Deep South:

Obama's first betrayal came before he even took office, when he said he would "look forward, not backwards" on Bush-era crimes. That meant he was going to sell out the victims of torture and political prosecutions, the U.S. attorneys who were unlawfully fired, and so on. He's been selling out ever since. One of our political parties must believe in the rule of law; Republicans obviously do not, so it's up to Democrats.

Obama should be forced out and replaced with a Democrat who believes in the 14th Amendment protections of due process and equal protection. The erosion of those protections is what led to the Siegelman and Minor cases. Obama's refusal to examine such abuses indicates he is not fit to be president. He took an oath to uphold the constitution -- and he has not done it from day one. I, for one, will not go to the polls in November 2012 if he is the Democratic nominee and there is no viable third-party option.

As a reaction to such comments, some of the Miles list-serve readers continue to post pro-Obama comments and denounce the president's critics as fools and ingrates. Another reaction was by Steve Walker, the Democratic National Committee Southern Regional Coordinator for the Obama re-election effort: He bluntly demanded this weekend that Miles remove him from her distribution list, saying he was not interested in postings by those who believe Obama has failed. She promptly complied and sent an apology, explaining that she was under the impression that he'd asked to be included. Loyal also to her readers, she posted the correspondence as a news item. That enables bloggers and Democratic grassroots sympathizers around the nation to observe first-hand how the Obama re-election campaign, like most such efforts, apparently relies on top-down messaging to voters, with scant interest in meaningful feedback.

Summing Up

With this context, last Friday's Boalt Hall forum could provide important new insight on why the White House and Justice Department have, in effect, ignored countless news reports and what must be hundreds of thousands of reader phone calls, letters and emails seeking accountability for Bush-era injustices.

As a routine precaution, our non-partisan Justice Integrity Project wrote Edley to confirm Susan Harman's quotations, which he did. Also, we invited Edley, Yoo and the DNC's Walker to provide any further comment. An addendum below includes the comments we have received. For now, read Harman's account below of her comments during the audience Q&A segment at Boalt Hall's forum Sept. 2:

I said was overwhelmed by the surreality of Yoo being on the law faculty....when he was singlehandedly responsible for the three worst policies of the Bush Adm. They all burbled about academic freedom and the McCarthy era, and said it isn’t their job to prosecute him. Duh.

Then Dean Chris Edley volunteered that he’d been party to very high level discussions during Obama’s transition about prosecuting the criminals. He said they decided against it. I asked why. Two reasons: 1) it was thought that the CIA, NSA, and military would revolt, and 2) it was thought the Repugnants would retaliate by blocking every piece of legislation they tried to move (which, of course, they’ve done anyhow).

Afterwards I told him that CIA friends confirmed that Obama would have been in danger, but I added that he bent over backwards to protect the criminals, and gave as an example the DoJ’s defense (state secrets) of Jeppesen (the rendition arm of Boeing) a few days after his inauguration.

He shrugged and said they will never be prosecuted, and that sometimes politics trumps rule of law.

“It must not," I said.

“It shouldn’t," he said, and walked off.

This is the Dean of the Berkeley School of Law.

Contact the author Andrew Kreig or comment.

Professor Yoo's Response

"I've no idea who this is, but you should ask the people who claim to have been party to this alleged conversation to confirm it, not me."

Dean Edley's Response

Thanks for the opportunity.

1. You can read about the Miller Institute at http://www.law.berkeley.edu/1194.htm. The faculty cochairs of it are me and Prof. David Caron, who also happens to be Honorary President of the American Society of International Law. I don't know why Ms. Harman thinks Professor Yoo has received a "promotion" or special position.

2. I didn't hear anyone burbling. I think the panelists, along with me, were perfectly cogent and articulate. I've also written about it to my students and alumni several times. Ms. Harman strongly disagrees. She did not specifically engage our points about academic freedom, including the McCarthy era precedents. Those examples are especially important to Californians for whom the ugliness of that era had special significance for Hollywood and state universities. Remember, too, that Berkeley was the home of the Free Speech Movement.

3. Ms. Harman accurately conveyed the substance of my comment about the Obama Transition. I'd add three points: I never discussed these matters with the President Elect; the summary offered by one of the senior national security folks was, "We don't want to engage in a witch hunt," to which I replied, "Neither do I, but I also care about the Rule of Law and, whether or not there ultimately are prosecutions, the question of whether laws were broken and where the lines should be drawn deserve to be aired"; that discussion as a whole was brief.

4. My point about politics is simple and non-controversial to people trained in law. I was not referring to politics trumping Law in the sense of President Nixon thinking he could do anything he wanted with respect to the Watergate scandal. I was referring to what every first year law student learns about prosecutorial discretion and the political accountability of prosecutors, which the "system" assumes will be a check on prosecutorial abuses more often than a source of them.

5. A frustrating thing to me about these discussions is that non-academics don't seem particularly to appreciate the fragility and importance of academic freedom. A university isn't equipped or competent to do a factual investigation of what took place at DOJ or in secret White House meetings. Nor should it make judgments about what faculty do outside of their professorial duties when there is no evident impermissible impact on their teaching. (For Professor Yoo, there is none.) The right forum investigating and punishing alleged crimes is in the criminal justice system, not a research university. Our job is already tough enough.

6. Finally, another frustrating thing is that advocates are often fierce in their belief that they know what the law is, and they know when someone else's view is extreme. Your typical law professor is, I think, far more humble. We tend to see multiple sides to important issues, and lots of gray. Even if we are convinced of something, we work hard to understand the counterarguments, just to be sure. If there aren't any, then MAYBE one could characterize the other position as extreme. My guess is that Professor Yoo's constitutional theories and statutory interpretation would win at least three votes among current justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. I don't like it, but that's my reading of the caselaw. Does 3 out of 9 make it extreme? If so, then a lot of my heroes are or were "extreme."

Editor's Note: Edley, dean of the law school since 2004, has written about the Yoo appointment here and earlier here.

For additional source material, click here for the Justice Integrity Project

Murdoch in Free Fall - Credibility Gone Billions to Follow

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 23:51:00 -0600

Rupert and James Murdoch conjured up a fictional report that serves as the fig leaf used to cover the naughty secret of News Corporation –- they never investigated phone hacking in general and they never tried to clean house.

The House of Commons committee investigating Rupert Murdoch’s United Kingdom media properties released new evidence this week. The evidence elaborates on themes generated at the committee hearing of July 19 and adds new information to the toxic brew that threatens to drown the largest media company in the world. (Images: Hubert Burda Media, L, World Economic Forum)

At the July 19 hearing of the House of Commons Media, Sport and Culture Committee (Commons committee), Member of Parliament (MP) Tom Watson asked both Rupert and his son James Murdoch if either was aware of the “for Neville” memo concerning the 2008 phone hacking settlement by the News of the World (NoW). The Murdoch paper’s on-staff private detective, Glenn Mulcaire, was caught tapping the voicemail of Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association.

Rupert and James Murdoch both denied any knowledge of the memo prior to the extraordinary £725,000 out of court settlement of the Taylor suit.

The memo described, “… the way senior staff at the NoW had been involved in systematic hacking – the very thing the paper had been strenuously denying all along, not only to Taylor's lawyers, but to its readers, parliament and public.” (Guardian.co.uk, July 22)

Had either Murdoch seen the summary legal memo seeking approval of the Taylor settlement, they would have known that NoW was involved in widespread phone hacking and other illegal surveillance of news figures. That would contradict their ongoing denials that these illegal activities were common practice. More troubling, if true, it would mean that one or both of them lied at the July 19 hearings of Commons committee.

This seemed to be the most explosive issue to be addressed by the evidence released by the Commons committee this week. As it turns out, there is even more devastating evidence of what seems like unmistakable, broad based deception of the House of Commons by the Murdochs starting in 2009.

Bad News for News Corporation from New Documents Released

Tuesday’s release of information contains letters from former NoW legal executive Tom Crone and former NoW editor Colin Myler that are unambiguous. Both were sure that James Murdoch had reviewed the “for Neville” memo outlining the rationale for a huge settlement in the Taylor phone hacking case. Crone said, “I have no doubt that I informed Mr. [James] Murdoch of it’s existence [the memo], of what it was, and where it came from.” (letter to Commons Committee, August 6). James Murdoch continues to claim he never saw the memo.

The evidence released contained a more sinister implication for Rupert and James Murdoch. They invented and described an investigation and report that provided NoW with a clean bill of health in 2007. There’s just one problem with that assertion, according to the News International executives and outside counsel who supposedly conducted the investigation and provided a report. No such activities took place. No such report was issued. This is outlined in two documents.

The first document is from former News International legal executive Jon Chapman. (letter to Commons committee, August 11) In 2007, Chapman and the head of IT were tasked with reviewing emails relating to the trial of a NoW employee for phone hacking, Royal Family correspondent Clive Goodman.

Chapman details how this limited review of emails relating to one case has been trumpeted as a thorough general investigation of phone hacking and other intrusive practices. Chapman’s letter cites extensive testimony by News Corporation executives at a 2009 Commons committee hearing claiming that the 2007 simple review was a major investigation and that NoW and News International thought there had been no broader illegal activity. Chapman makes clear that this was a limited investigation, a review of emails related to Goodman’s case only, and that there was no exculpatory report on NoW’s journalistic practices.

During the July 19 Commons committee testimony by Rupert and James Murdoch, there are clear references to a “report” from Chapman and outside counsel on the matter. In response to a question by Conservative MP Paul Farrelly (237) about investigations of phone hacking at NoW, James Murdoch responded: “I think it was Mr Chapman at the time, along with Mr Myler, who testified to this effect -- took a report. From then, the opinion was clear that as to their review, there was no additional illegality in respect of phone hacking in that file. As to their review, that opinion was clear. The company really rested on a number of things from then on.” (Commons committee, July 19, p. 30)

James quotes a report that doesn’t exist and a conclusion that could never be inferred from the limited review, as Chapman describes it. Of course, there was “no additional illegality” reported. The email review was focused only on one case, that of Clive Goodman. Through a slight of tongue, James implies that the Murdoch group had done their very best to investigate but could find no widespread hacking. This is pure fantasy.

Rupert Murdoch was asked about 2007 comprehensive efforts to assure there was no illegal surveillance. In response to a question from Mr. Farrelly (348) at the July 19 hearing, Murdoch says:

“Mr Chapman, who was in charge of this [the investigation of hacking etc.], has left us. He had that report for a number of years. It wasn’t until Mr Lewis looked at it carefully that we immediately said, :We must get legal advice, see how we go to the police with this and how we should present it.:” (July19, p. 36)

Rupert takes a swipe at Chapman for sitting on the report that never existed for a period of time that is entirely irrelevant since there was no report in the first place. Like son, like father. This report is the fig leaf used to cover the naughty secret of News Corporation –- they never investigated phone hacking in general, never tried to clean house. Now, in the context of a real investigation, Rupert and James Murdoch are relying on a fictional report that Rupert claims was hidden for years. The report never existed. At the very least, they are showing extreme contempt for Parliament.

In their testimony on July 19, he Murdochs referenced their outside legal counsel in the context of the review of the email investigation, Harbottle and Lewis LLP. The law firm provided an utterly devastating response to the committee that supported Jon Chapman’s version of events – a simple review of emails on one case, no wider investigation. The firm also added some devastating comments regarding how their involvement was used by News Corporation to imply some legal clearance. The law firm went further, clearly stating that it had never provided a “clean bill of health” to NoW.

"There was absolutely no question of the firm being asked to provide News International with clean bill of health which it could deploy years letter in wholly different contexts for wholly different purposes. If News International had ever approached the firm (as it should have done) to seek consent for the 29 May 2007 letter being deployed before Parliament as evidence of its corporate innocence, the Firm would not have agreed without further discussion. The reason for that is that the exercise which was done in 2007 was simply not one which was designed to bear the weight which News International now seeks to place upon it." (Response of Harbottle and Lewis LLP to the Culture, Media and Sports Committee and Home Committee, pp. 9 , 10)

A Development to Watch in the United States

The Guardian reported that News Corporation had settled three law suits brought by competitors for a total of $655 million dollars. (guardian.co.uk, July 17) This is of interest since one of the cases, that of Floorgraphics, is being reviewed by the Department of Justice as part a broader investigation of the Murdoch companies requested by Senator John D (Jay) Rockefeller two weeks ago. How guilty do you have to be to offer up $655 million to avoid going to court?

A Murdoch Family Dilemma – The BSkyB Media Property

News Corporation views its US media properties as its prizes. However, there’s considerable business at stake in the UK placed at risk by the charges of illegal activities and potential charges of contempt of Parliament. The corporation was candid about the risks their recent SEC filing. Deadline New York reported this from the News Corporation SEC Annual Report: “(We) are not able to predict the ultimate outcome or cost" of law enforcement investigations in the UK and U.S.,” it says. The proceedings "could damage our reputation and might impair our ability to conduct our business" in ways that "could affect the Company’s results of operations and financial condition."

An imminent risk is the highly profitable BSkyB cable network, the largest broadcaster in the UK. The are over 10 million subscribers and close to £5.9bn in revenue ($9.7 billion) for the 12 month period ending June, 2010. Pre-tax profits hit £875 million ($1.4 billion). News Corporation owns 39% of the network and planned to purchase the remaining 61% of the company, pending regulatory approval. That seemed a lock in January. After the Guardian’s July 4 expose of NoW’s phone hacking of the by then dead kidnap victim, Milly Dowler, things began to collapse. Just days after the Guardian article by Nick Davies, News Corporation announced it was withdrawing it’s bid for the remaining 61% of the company.

James Murdoch is the Chairman of the Board for BSkyB. The board recently endorsed James and his position as chairman.

At stake now is the 39% ownership share currently held by News Corporation. By UK rules, the owner of major media properties needs to be a “fit and proper person.”

Damian Collins is a Conservative MP and member of the committee that heard evidence from the Murdochs on July 19. Yesterday, Bloomberg News reported Collins saying that a “contempt of Parliament” finding against Murdoch would threaten his role as Chairman of the highly profitable BSkyB UK entertainment network. Collins said such a finding, “would raise the question about whether someone can pass the fit-and- proper person tests required to hold a broadcasting license if they have been found to be in contempt of Parliament.”

If and when James Murdoch is found in contempt of Parliament, there is a stark choice for Rupert Murdoch and his family enterprise – leave James in place and lose BSkyB, hardly acceptable, or remove James from the position of chairman of the board. The latter choice would be the second demotion for James in just a few weeks. Rupert Murdoch announced that his chief operating officer, Chase Carey, would become chairman of News Corporation should Murdoch become “suddenly incapacitated.” James Murdoch had been groomed for that role and was the likely heir up to this point. James may lose his position as head of the most lucrative media network in Europe. as well.

The ultimate nightmare scenario is a public outcry demanding that News Corporation sell off its 39% interest in BSkyB or a move by Parliament or the coalition government to force a sell-off.

This would bring to life the recent SEC filing by News Corporation. If it lost BSkyB entirely, that would take $3.8 billion away from the company top line. The investigations and findings could have a devastating impact on the ability to conduct business, particularly if News Corporation loses BSkyB entirely. This would "affect the Company’s results of operations and financial condition" by reducing gross revenues from $32.7 billion to $29 billion almost overnight. That’s a start.

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Who in the world would trust Standard and Poor's?

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 22:09:00 -0600

Standard and Poor's finally did it. They downgraded the credit rating of the United States from AAA to AA+. There are serious questions about the reliability of S&P. The White House pointed out that there is a $2 trillion error in the calculations used for the downgrade. Ths is of interest since the two other agencies failed to change the AAA status of the US. (See Robert Oak, Economic Populist)

Jack Tapper of ABC News reported late this afternoon:

"A third official says that S&P made a "serious mistake" in its analysis, "based on flawed math and assumptions," so the Obama administration is pushing back. But even though "S&P has acknowledged its numbers are wrong, it's unclear what they're going to do.," the official said.

"S&P's numbers were off by "roughly $2 trillion," the official said.

Fitch and Moody's reaffirmed the AAA US rating earlier in the week.

In addition to the question raised about a mathematical error, there are substantial reasons to doubt S&P for any credit rating, let alone the sovereign debt of the United States This material is from an article on April 25, 2011. It is highly relevant to the situation at hand.

They Helped Trigger the Financial Collapse

Along with Moody's, S&P abruptly burst the real estate bubble and triggered the 2008 recession. Their downgrading of mortgage backed securities followed years of the highest ratings for these risky financial products. According to a US Senate committee report:

"Although ratings downgrades for investment grade securities are supposed to be relatively infrequent, in 2007, they took place on a massive scale that was unprecedented in U.S. financial markets. Beginning in July 2007, Moody’s and S&P downgraded hundreds and then thousands of RMBS and CDO ratings, causing the rated securities to lose value and become much more difficult to sell, and leading to the subsequent collapse of the RMBS and CDO secondary markets. The massive downgrades made it clear that the original ratings were not only deeply flawed, but the U.S. mortgage market was much riskier than previously portrayed." (Author's emphasis) US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, April 13 (p. 263)

Did S&P and Moody's have a sudden epiphany about their ratings of risky investments?

The report goes on:

"The evidence shows that analysts within Moody’s and S&P were aware of the increasing risks in the mortgage market in the years leading up to the financial crisis, including higher risk mortgage products, increasingly lax lending standards, poor quality loans, unsustainable housing prices, and increasing mortgage fraud. Yet for years, neither credit rating agency heeded warnings – even their own – about the need to adjust their processes to accurately reflect the increasing credit risk." US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, April 13 (p. 268)

The Senate investigation found that S&P succumbed to pressure for AAA ratings from Wall Street and big banks for their very risky mortgage backed securities (MBS) and other financial instruments that fueled the real estate bubble. That pressure resulted in high credit ratings while, according to the report, S&P knew from 2003 on that there were "increasing risks" in the MBS market. It seems S&P succumbed to pressure from their customers on Wall Street and the big banks

"S&P Intentionally Underrates Public Bonds"

The heading above is a section title from the 2008 State of State of Connecticut complaint filed against S&P for "unfair and deceptive acts and practices in the courts of trade or commerce within the State of Connecticut."

The Connecticut Attorney General issued the following statement after filing the complaint against S&P:

"We are holding the credit rating agencies accountable for a secret Wall Street tax on Main Street"

"All three credit rating agencies systematically and intentionally gave lower credit ratings to bonds issued by states, municipalities and other public entities as compared to corporate and other forms of debt with similar or even worse rates of default, Blumenthal alleges" Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Attorney General, July 30, 2008 (Blumenthal is now governor of Connecticut)

Section V of the complaint, referenced in the heading above, teaches us something about how S&P treats government entities.

"Since at least 2001, S&P has known that it underrates public bonds as compared to corporate bonds and that this policy costs public bond issues money in the form of higher interest costs or unnecessary bone insurance costs. Despite knowing these facts, S&P continued to represent that its credit ratings are on the same scale, that public issuers have the same credit risks as similarly rated corporations, and that public bond issuers with lower credit ratings have a greater likelihood of not paying their bonds than a bond issuer or corporate bond issuer with a higher credit rating. These knowingly false representations harm public bond issuers when the buy bond insurance based on their own ratings and bond buyers who consider S&P's credit ratings when deciding to purchase public bonds." (Author's emphasis) State of Connecticut v. the McGraw Hill Companies (p. 12)

Here's a credit firm that takes money from local governments and citizens by issuing ratings it knows are flawed. This is the same credit rating firm wielding major influence on the US budget process. There is no doubt that S&P's influence will work against the interest of citizens.

The math error should be thoroughly examined. If the White House is right, S&P can withdraw their rating. If it's not, the critique and attack on S&P credibility needs to be met at a very high level Paul Krugman has already begun. Others should follow. These people have no right to impact US economics and politics in any way, let alone one that has a major influence.

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Michael Collins: Obama Budget Betrayal Q and A

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 13:32:00 -0600

This president will never do a single thing to oppose the the agenda of the ruling financial elite unless, of course, members of the ruling elite tell him to oppose something meaningless just for the sake of appearances.

Question: Why did President Obama put Social Security and Medicare on the table in the budget negotiations when 80% of the people oppose cuts to these programs?

Answer: The president is not in office to represent those people. He was selected, funded and carried over the finish line by corporate America. Look at the appointment of Wall Streeter Timothy Geithner, the bailouts, and the failure to prosecute any of the crooks who caused the current recession. He's serving the people who put him in office. Those people don't need Social Security and Medicare.

Q: Doesn't the president need to worry about reelection? Why would he risk that by going against such a large majority?

A: President Obama has no personal or financial risk if he loses his job.. He has a tidy lifetime pension and will, no doubt, be on plenty of corporate boards, not to mention the opportunities for huge speaking fees. There is less political risk than you might think. The only Republican presidential candidate who might be other than certifiable is the largely unknown John Huntsman, former governor of Utah and Obama's ambassador to China. The rest would do much more harm to seniors than Obama concessions this time around (if they materialize) and people know that.

Q: The national debt is at $14 trillion. Doesn't Obama have to do something decisive now?

A: If you assume that reducing the national debt is the primary challenge facing the nation, yes. But why do we have out of control spending? Social Security pays for itself. If Obama truly wanted to help Medicare, he would lift the ban on medicare negotiating 40% to 60% discounts on prescription drugs.

If the president wanted to cut the budget now,everything would be on the table. He would cut military spending and end the wars. He would demand an end to outsourcing and the multilevel scheme to give away the jobs of the citizens of the United States. He won't even consider and discuss these high yield options. Without any doubt, the president would never have allowed the Bush tax cuts to carry forward, if he wanted new revenue from those who could pay. He is not serious about lowering the national debt.

Q: Isn't Obama forced to negotiate some budget cuts due to the Republican threat to vote against raising the national debt ceiling?

A: Failing to raise the debt ceiling is pure insanity. The good faith and credit of the United States would be shattered. The AAA credit rating would drop, everything that the government does would be more expensive, causing even more debt. In addition, the impact on the US and world economy would be catastrophic, like a global tsunami. This is well known. Only the delusional believe otherwise.

Q: So why isn't the false drama between Republicans and Democrats made clear?

A: The corporate media has no interest in debunking this false drama. Their owners benefit greatly from this sort of contrived crisis. The drama by no-drama Obama and the shrill voices on the right in are in complete alignment with the very big money interests. Those interests can force cuts in Social Security and Medicare (already begun with cuts to the employee payroll tax). They can protect the Bush administration's tax breaks, a major factor in the deficit. They can sneak in all sorts of legislative and regulatory changes while the focus is on this false drama. This is a time honored technique. For example, the real threats from the 9/11 attacks were never addressed. Instead, the turmoil after the attack became the pretext for war against Iraq invasion and opened the door for huge increases in military spending. They do this whenever they have an opportunity.

Q: Aren't you saying that the president doesn't care about the typical citizen struggling through this serious recession and those who have lost their jobs, homes, and futures

A: Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying. The president might call it "shared sacrifice" or some other corny term. But, in fact, he is willing to to see people thrown out of their homes with few if any resources, denied medical care, and stay jobless for months and years. His first term in office has demonstrated that in the clearest terms.

Q: So there is no hope?

A: There hasn't been much hope for a long time. There will never be any change as long as just about everybody in elective office and much of the judiciary remain in office. You can't get there from here as long as they control the political scene for their patrons, The Money Party..

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