What kind of military "medical test" confirms one is telling the truth? Did they inject the bomber with scopolamine? Or is a lie dector now a "medical test?" If the military used scopolamine, did the bomber consent or was he given a choice?

A suicide bomber captured before he could blow himself up in a Shiite mosque claimed he was kidnapped, beaten and drugged by insurgents who forced him to take on the mission. The U.S. military said its medical tests indicated the man was telling the truth.

by Last Night in Little Rock

The NY Times reports today that the Canadian government is undertaking a judicial inquiry into whether four Canadian citizens were detained in NYC and then flown by U.S. government planes to Jordan and Syria for interrogation, possibly under torture, by the U.S. and Canada.

by TChris

Two hundred prisoners may be participating in the hunger strike at Guantánamo (discussed by TalkLeft here and here and here), although the military admits to only about half that number. According to the NY Times, the hunger strike "has unsettled senior commanders there and produced the most serious challenge yet to the military's effort to manage the detention of hundreds of terrorism suspects."

One law enforcement official who has been fully briefed on the events at Guantánamo said senior military officials had grown increasingly worried about their capability to control the situation. A senior military official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, described the situation as greatly troublesome for the camp's authorities and said they had tried several ways to end the hunger strike, without success.

Here's a suggestion: charge and prove the offenses they committed against the United States or let them go home.

by TChris

The Republican chairs of the House and Senate intelligence oversight committees have joined Democrats in asking the CIA to make public a report that criticizes former senior CIA officials, including George Tenet, for their actions (and inaction) regarding terrorism prior to 9/11.

They add to the pressures on [CIA Director Porter] Goss, who has made clear that he would prefer not to make the report public, at least in part because its publication could be damaging to the agency's morale.

by TChris

The hunger strike at Guantanamo (last reported by TalkLeft here) continues to grow. At least 128 detainees are participating in the protest, although the actual number is probably larger.

The hunger strike began in the first week of August, and, according to newly declassified accounts of detainees provided by their lawyers, has gradually spread across several camps at the prison. Detainees allege they have been severely beaten and are deeply frustrated at their indefinite detentions. Some have been held for 3 1/2 years without facing charges.

Lawyers for the prisoners assert that more than 200 detainees are refusing food. An earlier hunger strike in June and July ended after military authorities met with a small group of detainees and promised improvements in their living conditions.

A video tape threatening a terror attack on Los Angeles has been delivered to ABC News in Pakistan. The big question, as Suburban Guerilla asks, is it real?

A tape delivered to ABC News in Pakistan this weekend features a masked man making terrorist threats against Los Angeles and Australia. ABC News reported that the man is believed to be Adam Yahiye Gadahn, an American from California purported to be an al-Qaida member and wanted by the FBI. The CIA said Sunday it was aware of the report but had no immediate comment about the tape's authenticity. Counterterror officials believe Gadahn also may be the person on a 75-minute video given to ABC News last year in Pakistan.

by TChris

Encouraged by the astonishing success of the pre-emptive war against Iraq, made necessary by all those WMD’s Saddam Hussein was storing for his imminent attack on the US, the Pentagon is updating “guidelines” for the use of nuclear weapons in other pre-emptive strikes.

A copy of the draft document dated March 15 was posted on a Pentagon Web site for several months but was removed over the summer, according to the Pentagon official, who said he could not explain why it was taken down.

The draft says that to deter a potential adversary from using unconventional weapons, the United States must make it "believe the United States has both the ability and will to pre-empt or retaliate promptly with responses that are credible and effective." The draft also says American policymakers have "repeatedly rejected calls for adoption of 'no first use' policy of nuclear weapons since this policy could undermine deterrence."

That policy didn't deter 9/11. Could it be time for a new approach?

What Really Happened tracks past news accounts to make the case that Osama bin Laden is dead. It begins:

Osama bin Laden is dead. The news first came from sources in Afghanistan and Pakistan almost six months ago: the fugitive died in December [2001] and was buried in the mountains of southeast Afghanistan. Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, echoed the information. The remnants of Osama's gang, however, have mostly stayed silent, either to keep Osama's ghost alive or because they have no means of communication.

With an ego the size of Mount Everest, Osama bin Laden would not have, could not have, remained silent for so long if he were still alive. He always liked to take credit even for things he had nothing to do with. Would he remain silent for nine months and not trumpet his own survival? [New York Times. July 11, 2002]

So what do you think? Is he alive or dead? Does the Administration benefit from us believing he's still alive and a present danger? On a related topic, don't miss Michael Tomasky's new article in American Prospect, Day 1,461 and Counting.

by TChris

American Muslims, tired of being the targets of venom after 9/11, are starting to respond to their critics. Attendees at a weekend conference of the Islamic Society of North America are learning “how to apply pressure on politicians who smear the faith, the benefits of corporate boycotts and what constitutes legal grounds for defamation suits.” Those tactics have been used with some success by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

CAIR, for example, sued a North Carolina congressman after he accused the organization of acting as a fundraising arm for Hezbollah, a militant Palestinian group. The council also organized a boycott against a radio station until it fired a disc jockey who called Islam a terrorist organization. CAIR also brought considerable pressure on a Colorado lawmaker who asserted that America should take out Islam's holy sites in the event of another terrorist attack.

The conference also discussed how American Muslims can “counter extremists who cite the religion to justify violence and terrorism.”

The right-wing blogosphere has launched a coordinated assault on former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick as part of a larger effort to blame the Clinton administration for 9/11. Think Progress sets the record straight and explains why the smear is a lie.

Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer claims a “highly classified intelligence program, known as Able Danger, had identified the terrorist ringleader, Mohamed Atta, and three other future hijackers by name by mid-2000, and tried to arrange a meeting that summer with agents of the Washington field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to share its information.” Shaffer says those efforts were blocked by military lawyers.

....Shaffer’s story, if it’s true, involved communications between the Department of Defense and the FBI. Gorelick’s 1995 memo was only about communications between the FBI and the criminal division of the Justice Department. (It also didn’t create a wall between the FBI and the Justice Department but that’s another story.) Whatever problems Shaffer had trying to communicate with the FBI it had absolutely nothing to do with Gorelick.

Gorelick's memo is here. She explained herself in the Washington Post which I wrote about here, where I also explain why the "the wall" often is a good thing.

Nicholas von Hoffman writing in the Observer:

If random searches of people in the subways are being done for anything except political effect, it's nonsense. The decision to search is a confession of helplessness. It is saying that the police and Homeland Security don't know who the enemy is, so maybe they can get lucky and spot one among the thousands racing to catch the A train.

Analyze it: The chances of seizing a terrorist in the middle of rush hour are almost zero. If the authorities had any idea who the would-be terrorists are or where they're lurking or what kind of terror weapon they intend to use, they would grab them and clap them onto an airplane for "rendition" to some far-off place where the ACLU cannot get at them.

by TChris

New details are emerging regarding the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian who British police misidentified as a terrorist.

Leaked documents, believed to be from the IPCC inquiry suggest Mr de Menezes was sitting calmly in the Tube carriage, surrounded by surveillance officers, moments before police stormed in and fired eight bullets into him.

The Police Commissioner reportedly tried to subvert an independent inquiry into the shooting, arguing that the law requiring the inquiry should give way to the interests of national security. The Brazilian's family wants answers that the inquiry could reveal, including "who issued the shoot-to-kill order and who incorrectly identified him as one of the suspected would-be bombers from the failed attacks on July 21."