Friday Open Thread

14 killed at Iraqi Police Chief's home, others kidnapped. (link ) Analysts are saying stocks will go down again today. Lebron James and the Cavs didn't fare as well as they had hoped in game 1 of the NBA finals.

What's on your mind this Friday? This is an open thread.

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traveling

this afternoon and will be gone until Sunday. Have been extra busy the last week. Grrrrrr :)

Interesting special report on the frontpage of MSNBC.COM on the future technologies. Interesting subject.

Oh, also the immigration bill is dead.

"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR

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Glad to see your company is getting

their money's worth out of you for a change. :)

It is the economy, stupid.

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yea yea :)

They always get their money's worth out of me. I am one of their most beloved employees! hehehe

"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR

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maybe you will get a raise....

so you can get your gf something special..... :+)

It is the economy, stupid.

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yeah

let's hope so :) The raise part that is!

"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR

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Rudy 'helps the bad guys'

Chris Matthews rips Rudy a new one:

qui tacet consentire

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Wow!

Chris Matthews said that!

It is the economy, stupid.

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Juicy Tidbit

in case you missed it.....

If you read carefully Wolfowitz’s letter to the Judge Walton, begging for mercy, Wolfowitz accidently outed Libby with his pleadings on behalf of Libby’s good character, describing how tirelessly he worked alone and late in his office to keep the story outing Wilson’s wife, out of the papers knowing that Plame was a covert agent. Hmm.... interesting.

Will Bush pardon Libby. I am going to go against the tide and say No!

Why? Because it means Bush would have to admit that Cheney was in charge.

Wouldn't you think that Bush would be privately fuming on what a miserable job Libby and the gang did covering their tracks?

And who reinserted the sixteen words in the state of the union after they had been stricken. If it was the VP's office (Addington?) then Bush is taking the heat for Cheney's screw up. And Libby is the scapegoat for the whole mess. So if Bush is mad at Cheney for screwing up his legacy, one way to get even would be to NOT pardon Libby.

It is the economy, stupid.

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this is not very juicy

I am guessing Bush will not pardon Libby as that is not a good idea politically. It's not like Libby will be stuck in jail for a long time. He'll be out soon anyways.

There are no positives and a bunch of negatives to the pardon so it makes no logical sense.

"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR

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oh come on

It's dripping with juiciness and you know it. ;}

It is the economy, stupid.

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The pardon

...it makes no logical sense.

And that would prevent Bush from doing it why? (Sorry, couldn't resist!)

:)

We are the environment. There is no distinction. What we do to the earth we do to ourselves. —David Suzuki

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Speaking of juicey is our girl P. Hilton okay? n/t :ol

It is the economy, stupid.

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I dunno

first they let her phone into the court hearing... which sounded just peachy. Then now I get breaking news that she will be brought into the courthouse anyways because the judge must be pissed.

I just bet we getting this play by play because America can't get enough of this juicy, exhilarating drama.

"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR

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Human nature is fascinated with the foibles

of the rich and the powerful.

It makes great copy.

It is the economy, stupid.

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Anyone else finding these 200 comment open threads

annoyingly hard to follow?

I suggest we consider either allowing indenting a few more levels (at decent resolution it's not a problem) or else splitting up the discussion, maybe instead of one big open thread have a few on specific topics and one small open thread for everything else. It's tough to predict where the conversation will go, though...

Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson

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heh

I think I am indenting 14 times right now (or at least 12). I could widen the screen with more indents, or shorten the width of the indent itself... Shortening the width of the indent will make it slightly tougher to follow, while widening the screen will potentially break out horizontal scrollbars on the bottom...

Either way it will kinda be uglier :)

"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR

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I vote for pretty confusion.

It is the economy, stupid.

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Suggestion

Whomever is participating, someone transfer to a diary (or another fp thread) before it gets too big. Keeps it easier to follow and easier to refer to later.

"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran

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Given the adverserial nature of the site

and all.

Where's pico!

It is the economy, stupid.

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New war czar says the "surge" isn't working.

Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, tapped by Bush to serve as a new high-powered White House coordinator of the war, told senators at a confirmation hearing that Iraqi factions "have shown so far very little progress" toward the reconciliation necessary to stem the bloodshed. If that does not change, he said, "we're not likely to see much difference in the security situation" a year from now.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/07/AR200706...

Oh and the intelligence agencies agree:

Lute's dour assessment mirrored the views of U.S. intelligence officials, who told the Senate Armed Services Committee in a closed session last month that trends in Iraq remain negative and that the prospect for political movement by the nation's feuding Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds appears marginal. The secret intelligence conclusions were disclosed during yesterday's hearing by Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and confirmed by a Republican official.

The conclusions largely tracked the findings of the last National Intelligence Estimate, released in January, before Bush announced his decision to send nearly 30,000 more troops to Iraq, suggesting that the intelligence community does not think the force buildup has changed the outlook nearly five months later. Bayh quoted a CIA expert on radical Islam as saying that "our presence in Iraq is creating more members of al-Qaeda than we are killing in Iraq," though it was unclear whether that came during the May 24 briefing.

I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.

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Of course

It was only a matter of time til this stuff started coming out.

WASHINGTON - At least 39 people from a half-dozen countries have been held in secret U.S. detention centers worldwide for three or more years, and their fates remain unknown, six human-rights groups say in a report to be released today.
Human-rights advocates said the report, which they called the most comprehensive account yet of so-called ghost detainees, raised new alarms about the Bush administration's practice of secretly detaining terror suspects without legal proceedings.

In five instances, the report says, U.S. authorities detained the wives or young children of suspects held in secret prisons. And in four instances, terror suspects in U.S. custody may have been transferred to Libya, once a major U.S. adversary.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/special/iraq/7878761.html

So now we're not only disappearing and torturing men who we think might be terrorists but also their wives and children.

I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.

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Interesting how your definitions change.

The bold text in your quote simply states that the wives and young children were "detained".

In this statement:

So now we're not only disappearing and torturing men who we think might be terrorists but also their wives and children.

which is clearly meant to say that the women and children are also being "disappeared and tortured", presumably as part of their detention.

So, in this instance, you prefer "Detained = Disappeared and Tortured".

But not long ago in a thread not so very far way (apologies to George Lucas), you were arguing that merely stopping someone to ask them a few questions was what detention meant:

The facts are that they were questioned on the spot, not "detained",

So you don't know what detained means. Got it. If the Police compell you to stay in a place you are being "detained." Doesn't matter where it is, the only thing that matters is that you aren't allowed to leave.

Now, a very realistic scenario might be that when the individuals in question were being "arrested" that their wives and their children were interfering with the "arrest" and were thus were taken aside and prevented from interfering for their own protection in the event of a struggle.

This scenario is completely consistent with your previous argument about the meaning of the word "detained".

Do you have any evidence to actually back up your clear assertion above that the women and children were being "disappeared and tortured", or were you just trying to be "misleading"?

Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree

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Question

Before we go down the road of who said what when, let's leave aside Tlaloc's commentary and just focus on the story.

How do you feel about the story?

Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson

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Sorry...

...I have in fact read more on this story and you're right the part I pointed to does not, by itself, support what I said. But then again it requires some serious naivete on your part to ignore the obvious.

So here we'll make it even more obvious inthe hopes you can understand:

"In September 2002, Yusuf al-Khalid (then nine years old) and Abed al-Khalid (then seven years old) were reportedly apprehended by Pakistani security forces during an attempted capture of their father, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was successfully apprehended several months later, and the U.S. government has acknowledged that he was in the U.S. Secret Detention Program. He is presently held at Guantánamo Bay.

In an April 16, 2007 statement, Ali Khan (father of Majid Khan, a detainee who the U.S. government has acknowledged was in the U.S. Secret Detention Program and is presently held at Guantánamo Bay) indicated that Yusef and Abed al-Khalid had been held in the same location in which Majid Khan and Majid’s brother Mohammed were detained in March/April 2003. Mohammed was detained by Pakistani officials for approximately one month after his apprehension on March 5, 2003 (see below). Ali Khan’s statement indicates that:

Also according to Mohammed, he and Majid were detained in the same place where two of Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s young children, ages about 6 and 8, were held. The Pakistani guards told my son that the boys were kept in a separate area upstairs, and were denied food and water by other guards. They were also mentally tortured by having ants or other creatures put on their legs to scare them and get them to say where their father was hiding.

After Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s arrest in March 2003, Yusuf and Abed Al Khalid were reportedly transferred out of Pakistan in U.S. custody. The children were allegedly being sent for questioning about their father’s activities and to be used by the United States as leverage to force their father to co-operate with the United States. A press report on March 10, 2003 confirmed that CIA interrogators had detained the children and that one official explained that:

“We are handling them with kid gloves. After all, they are only little children...but we need to know as much about their father's recent activities as possible. We have child psychologists on hand at all times and they are given the best of care.”

In the transcript of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s Combatant Status Review Tribunal, he indicates knowledge that his children were apprehended and abused:

“They arrested my kids intentionally. They are kids. They been arrested for four months they had been abused.”"

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2007/06/are_we_disappea.html

US secret prison in Pakistan, disappearing and torturing children according to the reports of people who were there.

Is it incontrovertible proof? No. But sadly it is entirely too plausible given the steady stream of information about our activities. And the CIA assurances that the kids were handled nicely ring a little hollow after all we've found out about the torturing elsewhere. If the kids were being handled so nicely why did they have to be kept in a secret prison in a country tht practices torture?

I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.

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Fair enough.

I asked for more evidence than the "detained" quote you provided earlier. This is clearly more in line with your charge.

I am not going to track down any more details in this example. This is what it is. Depending on your political affiliations you are likely to read more or less into the intent and level of interrogation that was performed.

I would pursue the following lines if I had more time to do so:

1) The guards were Pakistani, I believe. Were they reporting to the CIA or to other Pakistani authorities. If the latter, then your charge is against the Pakistanis not the US.

2) What was the real level of interrogation involved? Placing ants and bugs on kids legs hardly stands up to the charge of torture in my mind. Little brothers have been doing that to big sisters for as long as there have been people. Are they guilty of the charge of torture?

In answer to your question of why they were kept where they were kept, the answer obviously is secrecy and security. To achieve their goals the CIA required both and they were already in place at that location.

Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree

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Security and secrecy?

In answer to your question of why they were kept where they were kept, the answer obviously is secrecy and security. To achieve their goals the CIA required both and they were already in place at that location

Pakistan is right next door to Afghanistan. A goodly percentage of the population is sympathetic to AQ. Bin Laden himself is believed to be hiding on the edge of Pakistan among friendly natives. The Pakistani military called off any attacks on the area he's believed to be in. AQ was actually created in part by the Pakistani intelligence agency (ISI) who is ALSO sympathetic to the hardline islamists.

There is literally no place on earth WORSE for security and secrecy for detaining and interrogating prisoners supposedly connected to AQ. Even in Iraq they could use the green zone and be better off.

Your rationalization is less than paper thin. The reason they were kept there is simply because the CIA and military can operate there with essentially no oversight.

I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.

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Well if they weren't secret ...

why are you calling them secret, and why has it taken so long for the news to come out?

Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree

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Please...

Secret from the US media and secret from the local natives and intelligence bureaus are two more than slightly different things.

I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.

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You beat me, I was editing it.

This seems like it would have been a propoganda bananza for AQ, why would they not have capitalized on it?

And as for security, if it was so lax as you suggest, and this is where we were holding high-level AQ operatives to torture them, why wouldnn't AQ just go in and get their buddies out? Especially the little children?

Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree

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Well...

This seems like it would have been a propoganda bananza for AQ, why would they not have capitalized on it?

Well my guess is the story got out and spread further in the arab world than over here. In other words they may very well have used it for propaganda purposes. We wouldn't necessarily know seeing as we aren't really who they'd be targetting.

And as for security, if it was so lax as you suggest, and this is where we were holding high-level AQ operatives to torture them, why wouldnn't AQ just go in and get their buddies out? Especially the little children?

There are a number of possibilities.

Maybe the ISI doesn't want to tip their hand. Maybe the people we captured weren't really AQ at all (that happens an awful lot it seems). Maybe they were deemed to be more valuable as martyrs for propaganda purposes than as cannon fodder. Maybe some measure of factionalization got in the way. Maybe they thought it could be a trap because of just how outrageous it was (I know I often have to wonder if maybe just maybe Bush is suckering someone in, because he couldn't be that dumb could he? I'm always disappointed though). Maybe they think that the time isn't right for open action in Pakistan, that it'll be better later. Maybe despite the disadvantages the CIA managed to keep a good lid on things.

And so on. There are dozenss of plausible reasons why the enemy might not have taken advantage of a vulnerability, and at least several scenarios where they did take advantage we just don't know about it.

I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.

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