Bharat Rakshak

the hyppi/rock anti culture movements after WW2 really had moved the value system of the Americans, which made a chain reaction around the world even behind the Iron Curtain. My point was that the Eastern European offspring that lived through the conversion from the communist value system to the democratic/market/capitalist value system and the offsrpings afterwards have several bolts unscrewed in their head.

....
Lesson # 2:

Here's another way to look at the Debt Ceiling:

Let's say, you come home from work and find there has been a sewer backup in your neighborhood.... and your home has sewage all the way up to your ceilings.

What do you think you should do ......

Raise the ceilings, or remove the shit?

By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times
January 19, 2013
Though we profess to hate it, lying is common, useful and pretty much universal. It is one of the most durable threads in our social fabric and an important bulwark of our self-esteem. We start lying by the age of 4 and we do it at least several times a day, researchers have found. And we get better with practice.

In short, whatever you think about Lance Armstrong's admission this week that he took performance-enhancing drugs to fuel his illustrious cycling career, the lies he told may be no more persistent or outsized than yours, according to psychologists and others who study deception. They were just more public. And the stakes were bigger.

"People do it because it works," said Robert Feldman, dean of social and behavioral sciences at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and a leading researcher on the psychology of lying. "We get away with lies all the time. Usually they're minor: 'I love your tie.' 'You did a great job.' But in some cases they're bigger, and in Armstrong's case, he was pretty confident he could get away with it."

He also has his eyes set on vouchers. After an Alternet story came out about a school in the Louisiana voucher program teaching that the Loch Ness Monster was real and disproved evolution, Kopplin looked deeper into the program and found that this wasn't just one school, but at least 19 other schools, too.

School vouchers, he argues, unconstitutionally fund the teaching of creationism because many of the schools in these programs are private fundamentalist religious schools who are teaching creationism.

"But it also violates the separation of church and state," he says. "Teaching Biblical creationism is promoting one very specific fundamentalist version of Christianity, and violating the rights of every other American citizen who doesn't subscribe to those beliefs. So it would be stomping on the rights of Catholics, Mainline Protestants, Buddhists, Humanists, Muslims, Hindus, and every other religious group in the country.

These creationists, he argues, would be horrified to see the Vedas being taught in science class. "And they would have every right to be," he says, "That's how the separation of church and state works and it's the foundation of our country."

PREFACE

Alex Jones & Aaron Dykes
Infowars.com
August 18, 2010

“Tonight is a particular honor for me because, let’s face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely. My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. His father — my grandfather — was a cook, a domestic servant to the British. But my grandfather had larger dreams for his son. Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place, America, that shone as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before.”
- Barack Obama, 2004 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address

Far from being the mere ‘son of a goat herder’ (as he deceptively paraded during and even before his candidacy), strong evidence has emerged that President Barack Obama is the product of the intelligence community. Investigative reporter and former NSA employee Wayne Madsen has put together an extensive three-part (and growing) series with conclusive proof and documentation that Barack Obama Sr., Stanley Ann Dunham, Lolo Soetoro and President Barack Obama himself all hold deep ties to the CIA and larger intelligence community. And that’s just the beginning.

After his election, President Obama quickly moved to seal off his records via an executive order. Now, after two years of hints and clues, there is substantial information to demonstrate that what Obama has omitted is that his rare rise to power can only be explained by his intelligence roots. However, this is more than the story of one man or his family. There is a long-term strategic plan to recruit promising candidates into intelligence and steer these individuals and their families into positions of influence and power. Consider that it is now declassified former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was recruited into MI5 before becoming a labour leader, or that George H. W. Bush not only became CIA director in 1976 but had a deeper past in the organization. While we may never know many pertinent details about these matters, one thing that is certain is that the American people have never been told the truth about who holds the real power, nor who this president– and likely many others– really is. Thus, we urge everyone to read Wayne Madsen’s deep report and seek the truth for yourself.

——————-

The Story of Obama: All in The Company (In Three Parts)

Several members of Guantanamo’s Initial Reaction Force were lolling about in a large wooden shed at the back of the detention center. As a small-scale riot squad, the soldiers were under orders to steamroller any detainee who posed a threat to the military or to other prisoners. But when the camp was quiet, there was nothing for them to do but wait.

A call came in on the radio. The team was needed immediately at Bravo Block. The soldiers snatched up their equipment and scrambled over; the officer in charge was waiting alongside a member of the military police. The MP pointed at one of the detainees.

“This guy over here called me a bitch a couple of times,” she said angrily. “Whip his ass!”

The response team decided to storm the detainee’s cage and hog-tie him. The squad assembled at the door. Inside, the man was screaming.

“Shut up and lie down!” one of the soldiers yelled.

The detainee stared at the team, unmoving.

One of the officers unlocked the cage door. Immediately the detainee turned around, dropped to his knees, and put his hands behind his head. The lead soldier tossed aside the protective plastic shield he was holding, ran a couple of steps, and hopped into the air. His knee slammed into the detainee’s back, smashing his face onto the cement floor. With the first soldier still on top of the man, the other team members ran in and piled on, slugging and kicking him.

Someone yelled out for the MP. She walked inside the cage, approached the man, then punched him twice in the head. Once the detainee was handcuffed, the soldiers stood. The man didn’t move; blood seeped onto the concrete. One of the soldiers pushed him to get up. No response.

A stretcher was brought into the cage and the detainee was carried to a military ambulance. Response team members climbed inside the vehicle for the ride to the main medical facility at Guantanamo. No one spoke during the drive.

Later that night, the soldiers returned and sat down with a few friends. The group recounted the confrontation inside the cage. The detainee was in bad shape. One of the team members said that the man had gone into cardiac arrest in the ambulance.

The conversation was laced with anxiety. All of the soldiers knew that video cameras kept watch on the detainees. Could the attack this evening have been recorded? One of the soldiers reassured them that all would be fine.

“The videotape has been destroyed,” he said. “So we have nothing to worry about.”

The agents sat with Zubaydah and spoke kindly to him. It took time to regain his trust, but finally, the relationship was restored and Zubaydah started talking again. He told the agents that he had heard about an Islamist with a Latino name who had plans to use a “dirty bomb” that would spread radiation over a small area inside the United States. Sheikh Mohammed had instructed the man to get a new passport in Jordan, then head to America for the attack.

The agents contacted the American embassy in Amman and asked officials to search their records for a Hispanic man who had recently applied for a passport. The name José Padilla turned up. The embassy sent the photo on file back to Thailand, and Soufan showed it to Zubaydah.

“Is this the guy?” Soufan asked.

Zubaydah nodded. Padilla was the terrorist.

This breakthrough did nothing to persuade the CIA to change course. With Zubaydah no longer resistant to talking, Mitchell proclaimed, he could now be induced to spill more information under aggressive questioning.

The CIA took over. And again, Zubaydah went silent. Increasingly frustrated, the intelligence agents issued a murder threat.

“If one child dies in America and I find out you knew something about it,” one of the CIA officers shouted at Zubaydah, “I will personally cut your mother’s throat!”

The Yoo memo had specifically forbidden interrogators from telling a detainee that either he or another person would be killed. But a later review by CIA lawyers declared that the threat that Zubaydah’s mother would be killed was lawful. Grammatically, the sentence began with the subordinate conjunction 'if'. That meant it was conditional. And that, the lawyers declared, was fine.

At that moment, just over a mile away, lawyers at the Office of Legal Counsel were reviewing the latest memo defining torture.

They had successfully located the words severe pain in other statutes. But those laws had nothing to with punishment or the intentional infliction of harm; rather, they regulated government health care programs.

Still, just as in the antitorture laws, the phrase severe pain was not defined and instead was used as a descriptor for something else— in this case, an emergency medical condition. The language of the law identified such urgent threats as: .

. . a condition manifesting itself by acute symptoms of sufficient severity (including severe pain) such that the absence of immediate medical attention could reasonably be expected to result in placing the individual’s health [or the health of an unborn child] in serious jeopardy, serious impairment to bodily functions, or serious dysfunction of bodily organs.

Even without a definition of severe pain, the language of the health care law made clear that the phrase referred to a symptom. Severe pain did not cause jeopardy to health, impairments of bodily functions, or dysfunction of bodily organs. Quite the opposite— those conditions could cause severe pain.

There was another issue: The wording of the health care statutes was as vague as that found in the antitorture laws. How could an interrogator determine whether a harsh technique caused “a jeopardy to health” or any of the other outcomes those laws listed?

To solve that puzzle, the lawyers resorted to creative linguistic license— they changed the words. Jeopardy to health became death. Dysfunction of bodily organs became organ failure. Serious impairment to bodily functions became the more unwieldy permanent damage resulting in a loss of significant bodily functions.

With that, the lawyers concluded, severe pain rising to the level of torture had been clarified.

The next phrase to parse: specific intent.

The antitorture statute didn’t just say that inflicting severe pain was illegal. Rather, its wording required that an individual had to have the “specific intent” to cause pain. That wording had always been applied in a simple way— essentially, if an action taken by an official accidentally caused severe pain, it was not illegal. If a prisoner tripped and landed on his face while being moved from one place to another, it didn’t qualify as torture under the law.

The attorneys at the Office of Legal Counsel concluded that they needed to provide a more detailed analysis of the term, at least in regard to its application to aggressive interrogation techniques.

Such questioning, they decided, did not fall under the specific intent to cause severe pain. When they used the harsh techniques, the interrogators did not have the objective of hurting detainees; rather, they were applying the tactics for the purpose of compelling answers to questions. They believed that the aggressive methods would not harm detainees— whether that belief was reasonable, the lawyers concluded, was irrelevant. And the fact that individuals with medical training would be observing the interrogations— and could stop them at any time— also suggested a lack of specific intent.

The antitorture prohibitions, the lawyers decided, did not apply to harsh questioning of suspected terrorists— in this case, Abu Zubaydah. No specific intent to cause severe pain, no legal violation.

The first inklings of a planned terrorist attack in Indonesia were picked up in mid-September by MI5, Britain’s Security Service. Based on electronic intercepts and reports from informants, the intelligence agency determined that the plot included a weekend bombing of nightclubs frequented by American, British, and other Western tourists. Most likely, the strike would take place in Bali. Word of the threat was passed on to Britain’s diplomatic service, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which was responsible for issuing travel advisories. But MI5 didn’t inform Britain’s government outposts or other interests in Indonesia of the growing danger.

At the center of the debate were the Geneva Conventions, a group of four treaties that set international standards for the humanitarian treatment of enemy soldiers and civilians during wartime. The treaties were adopted over many decades, the natural outcome of the horrors of war. At one time, abuse of enemy soldiers and civilians was something that took place in secret— rumored, but unseen and often unreported. With the growth of international communications and the evolution of increasingly brutal weaponry, images and tales of ever more gruesome abuse came out of the shadows, shocking the public consciousness. Nations decided that all was not fair in war, that rules had to be established to ensure that anyone captured by the enemy was treated humanely.

Then came World War II and with it the onset of some of history’s most vicious and abhorrent cruelty during international hostilities. The Holocaust, the Bataan death march, the Malmédy massacre, the Katyn Forest massacre— these crimes demonstrated a willingness on the part of combatants to torture and murder wantonly. In response, the conventions were updated and expanded.

In the years that followed, three parts of the revised conventions grew to particular significance. Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention spelled out who would qualify for prisoner-of-war status during a conflict. In turn, Common Article 3, which appears in each of the treaties, governed the treatment of prisoners of war.

That did not mean, however, that people who did not qualify as prisoners of war could be abused. The Fourth Geneva Convention dictated requirements for humane treatment of civilians. That left one question seemingly unanswered: Do fighters who are not part of a regular army and who violate the laws of war— placing them outside the requirements for POW status— qualify for protection under the Fourth Convention? While that had been a subject of debate for some time, in 1998 a United Nations war crimes tribunal stated that everyone held by an enemy during a military conflict fell under the protections of either the Third Convention or the Fourth Convention.

...

While he fell far lower than almost everyone else in the room on the bureaucratic ladder, John Yoo was easily the most important person there. Weeks before, Gonzales had instructed him to prepare a memo that would provide the analysis of both the conventions and the War Crimes Act which Bush could then use to reach a decision. All the other officials there could only make suggestions; it was Yoo who would ultimately put everything on paper. Gonzales took his seat at the center of the table.

“I’ve asked you all here to discuss the options under the laws of war,” he said. “Because we’re definitely capturing people, and we need to know how we’re supposed to treat them.”

The first to respond was William Taft IV, the general counsel at the State Department. Al-Qaeda, he said, was an easier issue— no one thinks terrorists are prisoners of war. But Taliban fighters were a different matter.

“The plain language of Geneva demands that they be granted POW status,” he said. “The Taliban is the government in Afghanistan. The Taliban we’re capturing are their armed forces.”

Yoo spoke next. He agreed that the status of al-Qaeda under the Geneva Conventions was an easy call— it was a criminal organization, not a nation. The issues involving the Taliban, on the other hand, were more complex. They were not the leaders of Afghanistan. Indeed, he said, the State Department had maintained for years that there was no central Afghani government, just groups of warring factions. The Taliban controlled only 90 percent of the country, and its borders of authority were continually shifting. They were incapable of maintaining government institutions or law and order. Civil society had been destabilized by violence. “Throughout the time of Taliban’s existence, Afghanistan has been incapable of meeting the conditions and responsibilities of a sovereign nation,” he said. “It is a failed state, and the United States can’t apply a treaty to a country that effectively doesn’t exist.”

...

Copies of a draft legal opinion were laid out on the conference table in the Situation Room. John Yoo sat near the center, looking satisfied as lawyers from other government departments and agencies studied the document. It had taken several weeks, but he and his colleague Robert Delahunty had finally produced this preliminary version of the memo about the application of the Geneva Conventions to the Afghan War.

The passionate debate hadn’t diminished, so Gonzales had once again called a meeting trying to reconcile the conflicting opinions. If nothing else, Yoo could incorporate elements of the different outlooks into the next draft.

Will Taft, the State Department legal advisor who had emerged as Yoo’s primary opponent on the topic, was the first to speak.

“Geneva has defined our wars,” he said. “It is not possible to have a war unless Geneva applies. We—”

“Well,” Yoo interrupted, “does that mean we can’t have a war with a country that never signed the Geneva Conventions?”

Taft gave Yoo a quizzical look. “What do you mean?”

“We had the Korean War. North Korea hadn’t signed the Geneva Convention, but we had the war. So how could you be right?”
Taft listened, lost in thought. The argument seemed so misplaced— this wasn’t some technical question about who put what ink on what document. This was about the policies of the United States, about its unwavering application of the conventions to all hostilities involving its troops.

Everyone began speaking at once. What, someone asked, was the Pentagon’s position? Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy, took that.

“It’s a matter of policy that we want our troops to have the protection of the Geneva Conventions, but we don’t want to give these terrorists Geneva protections,” he said.

Eyes turned to General Peter Pace, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the only member of the military at the meeting. He laced his fingers together as he set his hands on the conference table.

“Look, you’re the law side,” Pace said in a rich baritone voice. “What’s important for us is that we train our troops to obey Geneva.”

The commitment of America’s troops to the conventions did not come with an off switch. The terms and meaning of the treaties were beaten into the heads of new soldiers; it was a foundational part of military training.

“We tell them that if they follow Geneva, then they will be honorably treated when they’re captured. That’s—”

“General,” Yoo said, interrupting, “I just read this report that says that any American soldier who falls into al-Qaeda’s hands will get killed right away. They’re not interested in taking prisoners. That’s one of the reasons they’re terrorists. No matter what position you take, they’re not going to follow any rules.”

Pace didn’t back down. “It’s important for the United States to be seen as standing for the Geneva Conventions and complying with them in our situation,” he said.

Taft and Yoo fell into a discussion about Common Article Three, part of all four of the Geneva Conventions, which dictated that detainees in military hostilities had to be treated humanely, meaning that they couldn’t be subjected to pain, humiliation, or degradation. Others listened as the two lawyers dissected individual words, trying to classify the current war. But no matter how many times they examined the text, Yoo said, the law was clear; Geneva didn’t apply. Still, he was not there to dictate policy; his job, Yoo said, was to let the decision makers know their legal options.

“You could certainly make the argument that we’re not legally bound by Common Article Three but just say that we’re going to follow it on our own decision, for foreign policy purposes,” Yoo said.

Taft nodded. “I like that idea,” he said.

“Wait,” Feith said. “Why don’t we just publicly say we’re going to follow Common Article Three, but then not do it?”

There was an awkward silence.

...

That same day, Gonzales was on the telephone with Bush. He called because Yoo and Delahunty had just issued their formal opinion on the applicability of the Geneva Conventions to the Afghan War. Gonzales was detailing the findings so that Bush could make the decision.

None of the conclusions were a surprise. Yoo and Delahunty had already submitted their less comprehensive memo to the Pentagon nine days ago, but this was the first time Bush heard their judgment.

Common Article Three— dealing with the treatment of prisoners of war— did not apply in the fight against al-Qaeda. There were also strong reasons, Gonzales explained, that the Taliban could not claim its protections. According to the legal analysis, the Taliban were not a constituted government and Afghanistan was not a sovereign country. It was, instead, a failed state with multiple tribal groups battling for control.

The Taliban also did not meet three of the four requirements to be deemed POWs if captured— they did not wear uniforms, did not have a command structure where a military leader was responsible for the actions of subordinates, and did not obey the laws of war. For those reasons, the United States was not bound to grant either al-Qaeda or Taliban members the protections offered POWs.

The briefing persuaded Bush. That day, he decided that Common Article Three did not apply to the conflict with either the Taliban or al-Qaeda.

...

Addington reviewed that portion of the memo. Too many people seemed to be unaware of the scope of Geneva’s requirements. He wanted some way to emphasize how off the mark the conventions were in this new world.

He started typing.

“This new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on the questioning of enemy prisoners,” he wrote, “and renders quaint some of its provisions requiring the captured enemy to be afforded such things as commissary privileges, scrip [i.e., advances in monthly pay], athletic uniforms and scientific instruments.”

...


By 3: 30 that afternoon, Flanigan and Addington were running up against a deadline. Gonzales had promised to have a draft of the memo sent to other officials, particularly Powell, and the time had come to ship out what had been written so far.

Flanigan printed Addington’s edited version and handed it off to Gonzales, who wrote in a few revisions by hand. Flanigan typed in the changes, printed the draft again, then sent it to be faxed from the Situation Room.

He took a moment to catch his breath, then gave Addington’s edit a careful read. While going over the second page, he winced.

“. . . and renders quaint some of its provisions . . .”

A little too snide, Flanigan thought. He liked the idea Addington was trying to convey, but hated the words. He edited out the line.

Powell was annoyed. Gonzales’s draft memo was wrong, or at least misleading.

The memo said that Powell wanted Bush to rule that the Geneva Conventions applied to both al-Qaeda and the Taliban, but gave no further explanation what that meant. Then it suggested Powell was willing to settle on an agreement whereby al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters could be determined not to qualify as POWs under the conventions, but only on a case-by-case basis.

Completely false. Powell never said any such thing. But that was why he needed to see the draft. Gonzales wanted Powell’s comments, and now he could try to get the memo to be accurate.

His comments filled up a one-page, single-spaced memo. At the top, he rewrote the summary of his position.

The Secretary of State believes that al Qaeda terrorists as a group are not entitled to POW status and that Taliban fighters could be determined not to be POW’s either as a group or on a case-by-case basis.

Somehow, his argument had just slid by others in the administration. Powell was not demanding that anyone to be granted POW status. He just wanted Bush to publicly proclaim that the Geneva accords applied to the Afghan War. That’s all. Under Geneva, the administration would be in its right to declare that neither group qualified as POWs. There was no need to take the extreme step of announcing that the United States was going to ignore the conventions, Powell thought, when the same result could be reached by following them.

From there, Powell tore at the underpinning of the memo’s logic. The “failed state” argument that had been advanced by Yoo and Delahunty was problematic— it contradicted the policies of the United States and the international community, which consistently held Afghanistan to its treaty obligations and identified it as a party to the Geneva Conventions. If Afghanistan was no longer a sovereign nation, then there could be no consequences for its failure to abide by any treaties. Again, a serious and unnecessary outcome, growing from a flawed legal interpretation.

Powell attached his summary comments to his own letter for Gonzales. In it, he presented his real argument. There were two choices— the president could choose to determine that Geneva did not apply to the Afghan War and deny POW status to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Or the president could determine that Geneva did apply to the Afghan War and deny POW status to the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Both options, he wrote, provided the same flexibility on how detainees were treated, including with respect to interrogation, detention, and trials. Both allowed the administration to withhold the benefits and privileges of POW status. Neither option entailed significant risk that American officials would be prosecuted under domestic law on the grounds that they had committed a grave breach of the conventions.

By applying Geneva to the Afghan War, the president would be continuing to espouse the country’s unwavering support for the conventions. It would preserve America’s credibility and moral authority, provide the strongest legal foundation for the administration’s actions, and maintain the POW status for American soldiers.

His argument, Powell thought, was hard to refute.


The next morning, Gonzales checked his BlackBerry and saw that the Washington Times had an exclusive story on its front page.

POWELL WANTS DETAINEES TO BE DECLARED POWS, the headline read. MEMO SHOWS DIFFERENCES WITH WHITE HOUSE.

...

Three days later, on the morning of February 1, members of the war council arrived at the Situation Room for another meeting about the Geneva issue— this time with the president.

Everyone stood when Bush walked into the room. He said a few pleasantries, then took a seat. He already had a good sense of what was coming; Gonzales had just briefed him again on everyone’s opinion.

After Condoleezza Rice opened the meeting, Powell calmly stated his case. He laid out the two choices he had described in his memo, underscoring that Bush could accomplish everything he wanted without abandoning the conventions.

“We have an image to uphold around the world,” Powell said. “If we don’t do this, it will make it much more difficult for us to try and encourage other countries to treat people humanely.”

Every day, Powell said, they were working on persuading more nations to work with the United States in the war on terror. Deciding not to apply Geneva could make that job much more difficult.

General Pace spoke next, giving his now-familiar refrain about the military’s commitment to the accords. The discussion went around the table, and then Cheney spoke.

“This is a matter of law,” he said. The Taliban and al-Qaeda were not lawful combatants; they didn’t follow the rules of war.

“We all agree that they’ll be treated humanely,” Cheney said, “But we don’t want to tie our hands. We need to preserve flexibility. And under the law, we can do that.”

After about forty-five minutes, Bush gave a nod and thanked everyone for their input. The discussion was over.

...

The lawyers took another shot, but Ashcroft rejected it again. He took a deep breath in frustration. “Okay!” he said. “Everybody out! I’m going to write this myself.”

As his staff lawyers left the room, Ashcroft began composing the letter in longhand. He agreed with Powell that there were two basic theories establishing that neither al-Qaeda nor the Taliban was entitled to POW status.

But, it was risky to declare the conventions as relevant to this war. There was a higher chance of litigation against administration officials— or even criminal prosecution. Plus, there was no need to fear that some other country might someday declare that American forces didn’t qualify for Geneva protections. His department’s analysis was based on the concept that Afghanistan was a failed state; other countries would not be able to reasonably make that same argument about the United States. The legal opinion could never be turned back against the country that produced it.

...

Bush reached his final decision about the Geneva Conventions issue on February 7. Colin Powell won.

In a written order, Bush stated that he accepted the Justice Department’s legal opinion that the provisions of Geneva were irrelevant to the global conflict with al-Qaeda, meaning that none of its members qualified for prisoner-of-war status. He also maintained that, while he had the authority to suspend the conventions, he would not do so in the Afghan War.

“I determine that the provisions of Geneva apply to our present conflict with the Taliban,” the order said.

As a result, the status of the Taliban had to be examined under the terms of the accords. Based on that review, Bush declared that the Taliban were unlawful combatants, so they, too, did not qualify for POW status.

The analysis was incomplete. Bush made no finding as to whether the Taliban would be covered as civilians, given that a human rights tribunal had ruled that everyone fell under the terms of either Geneva Convention 3, which dealt with armed forces, or Geneva 4, which applied to civilians.

Still, Bush declared, the detainees would be treated humanely. “As a matter of policy, the United States Armed Forces shall continue to treat detainees humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva,” the order said.

...

Nechemya Weberman, a prominent figure in the ultra-strict Satmar branch of Hasidic Jews, was convicted of abusing the girl over the course of three years in the Brooklyn neighbourhood where their community has a huge enclave and he worked as an unlicensed counsellor.

The case caused an uproar in the Satmar community, shattering a code of silence imposed by the group's insistence on dealing with matters internally and not going to the police.

The trial was marred by allegations of intimidation by Weberman's supporters, including an attempt to bribe the girl into dropping her case. Several men were also accused of illegally taking pictures of the accuser and putting them online.

The defence claimed that the girl made up the accusations to take revenge against Weberman for informing her parents that she'd revealed to him she was romantically involved with a boy - something banned in their community.

Over the course of the trial, in a Brooklyn courtroom packed with Hasidic men wearing traditional black coats and women in wigs, a picture of a closed community that has little in common with the rest of America's biggest city.

Witnesses told of pressure to keep away from the authorities, rules against using everyday modern tools like computers, and the dominance of internal Satmar institutions, including schools.

The first inklings of a planned terrorist attack in Indonesia were picked up in mid-September by MI5, Britain’s Security Service. Based on electronic intercepts and reports from informants, the intelligence agency determined that the plot included a weekend bombing of nightclubs frequented by American, British, and other Western tourists. Most likely, the strike would take place in Bali. Word of the threat was passed on to Britain’s diplomatic service, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which was responsible for issuing travel advisories. But MI5 didn’t inform Britain’s government outposts or other interests in Indonesia of the growing danger.

The next morning in London, an official with Britain’s diplomatic service finished editing a travel advisory warning of a heightened danger in Indonesia. The information had been received days before from M15, but the e-mail hadn’t been ready to send until now.

Much of the advisory was filled with routine language that had appeared in official warnings for months. No key points were highlighted; the text was paragraph after paragraph of mind-numbing bureaucratese. The new information was slipped in almost haphazardly, worded in the same cumbersome language.

In the run up to the fasting month which starts around 5 November, activists are more likely to show their disapproval of many of the bars and nightclubs which are popular with Indonesians and foreigners, especially on Friday nights. British citizens should avoid these establishments.


Terrorists had become activists. Attack had become the more delicate show their disapproval. Ramadan had become the fasting month. And neither Islamic nor Muslim— words that would have leaped out at any reader who waded through the familiar verbiage— appeared at all. Someone had couched the alert in terms so benign that they seemed almost designed not to sound an alarm.

Almost daily, Washington grilled the officers running Guantanamo about their floundering efforts at interrogating Mohammed al-Qahtani. How, the officials demanded, could a terrorist who had been one of the conspirators in the 9/ 11 attacks not know volumes of information about al-Qaeda?

Immediately after their October 2 meeting with the CIA about counterresistance methods, military interrogators at Guantanamo began employing SERE techniques against al-Qahtani— depriving him of sleep, blaring loud music, and flashing bright lights into his cell, confronting him with military dogs to scare him. But nothing had worked.

So, on October 11, Guantanamo officials sought permission to get tougher with al-Qahtani. The director of intelligence, Lieutenant Colonel Jerald Phifer, prepared the requests.

He broke them into three groups, from least to most aggressive. The first category would allow interrogators to yell at the detainee and deceive him, specifically by misrepresenting themselves as being from a foreign country with a reputation for torturing prisoners. Category II stepped things up a bit— interrogators could force detainees into stress positions, like standing, for up to four hours; show them documents and reports; isolate them for up to thirty days; deprive them of light, sound, or anything else that would give them comfort, including religious materials; question them for twenty hours at a time; remove their clothing; forcibly shave off their facial hair; and exploit their phobias by exposing them to whatever they found frightening.

The techniques in Category III were the most drastic— convincing detainees that either they or their families were about to be killed; exposing them to cold weather; waterboarding; and using noninjurious physical contact, such as grabbing or poking them.

Phifer’s memo went to Diane Beaver, the chief legal advisor at Guantanamo, and she prepared an analysis concluding that the suggested tactics were lawful.

Beaver noted that, by Bush’s order, the Guantanamo detainees were not protected by the Geneva Conventions. What that meant, she wrote, was that only domestic laws against torture were relevant. “An international law analysis is not required for the current proposal because the Geneva Conventions do not apply to these detainees.”

On the other hand, she wrote, military interrogators were bound by the federal antitorture statute, the Eighth Amendment’s prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The Constitution presented no problem. If an interrogation technique was used for a legitimate government purpose, then it wasn’t cruel or unusual.

Nor would any of the practices lumped into the three categories violate the antitorture statute, she wrote. So long as they were employed without the specific intent of causing physical or mental pain or suffering, they would pass legal muster. In al-Qahtani’s case, for example, the intent was to gain information, not to inflict pain. But it would be illegal if motivated by sadism.

To reach that conclusion required a mix of verbal gymnastics and Orwellian logic, where the word forbidden became the word permitted. The antitorture statute specifically stated that threats of imminent death violated the law. But, Beaver wrote, that didn’t mean such threats violated the law. The words of the statute could be ignored if the administration, by virtue of its duty to protect American citizens, declared it so. Black was black, unless the government decided that it should be white.

The call came through and the two men traded diplomatic pleasantries.

“Jacques,” Bush said, “Saddam is digging in. He is lying to the world and he is lying to Blix. We can’t let him think that the U.N. is a paper tiger that won’t enforce its own resolutions.”

“I understand your concerns, George, but the inspectors need more time. War should be the last option, and it will be our admission of failure. I am not convinced that the situation is urgent, or even that the weapons are there. Before we take an irreversible step, we need to be certain of our beliefs.”

Delay would serve only to embolden Saddam, Bush replied. “He has to hear a unified message from us, a declaration that the world is allied against him,” he said. “We know he will not comply unless he feels the pressure.”

Bush wasn’t listening to him, Chirac thought. Instead, he was jumping all over the rhetorical map in search of the magic words that would win him over. Saddam was lying; the U.N. had to prove itself; the allies had to work together. Perhaps, but all beside the point if illegal armaments weren’t found. What if, in fact, Saddam was telling the truth? With the U.N. staring him down and inspectors roaming the country, Saddam couldn’t do anything with his arsenal, even if it existed. War would change that. If foreign forces cornered the Iraqi leader, and if he really did have such weapons at his disposal, they wouldn’t remain hidden anymore. Instead, they would be trained on American soldiers and anyone allied with them.

Before Chirac could elaborate on that point, Bush veered in another direction.

“Jacques,” he said, “you and I share a common faith. You’re Roman Catholic, I’m Methodist, but we are both Christians committed to the teachings of the Bible. We share one common Lord.”

Chirac said nothing. He didn’t know where Bush was going with this.

“Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East,” Bush said. “Biblical prophecies are being fulfilled.”

Gog and Magog? What was that?

“This confrontation,” Bush said, “is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase His people’s enemies before a new age begins.”

Chirac was bewildered. The American president, he thought, sounded dangerously fanatical.

After the call ended, Chirac called together his senior staff members and relayed the conversation.

“He said, ‘Gog and Magog.’ Do any of you know what he is talking about?”

Blank faces and head shakes.

“Find out,” Chirac said.

Near Lake Geneva in Switzerland, Thomas Römer, a theology professor at the University of Lausanne, was in his office when the phone rang. On the line was the head of the Biblical Service at the Protestant Federation of France with an odd request: Jacques Chirac wanted to know the meaning of “Gog and Magog.”

“He recently spoke with the president of the United States, and he brought up Gog and Magog in relation to the recent events in the Middle East,” she said. “Could you write a page about it, explaining the meaning?”

The original appeal for help had come from Chirac’s aides at the Élysée Palace, she said. They had first sought out the Protestants for an answer, since Bush belonged to the evangelical Christian movement. But the question was beyond the federation’s expertise— its scholars focused on the New Testament, while the concept of Gog and Magog had its origins in the Old Testament. So they turned to Römer, a world-renowned expert on the Hebrew scriptures.

“I’d be happy to help,” Römer said. He understood Bush’s reference; it would be easy to put into plain words for Chirac.

At his computer, Römer typed the explanation. The phrase Gog and Magog shows up in two books of the Old Testament, Genesis and Ezekiel. The available translations of the text were quite cryptic and theologians had long debated their meaning. In Genesis, they appear to refer to two creatures, but Ezekiel used them in the description of a future war. Groups such as the evangelicals seized on the passages as a prophecy of an apocalyptic conflict between good and evil in the time of the Messiah.

That interpretation was reinforced by the use of the term in the New Testament’s Book of Revelation. Although that mention of Gog and Magog does not refer to the same people or events, it does pertain to a war fought at the end of the millennium, with Satan attempting to deceive the nations of the world and engage in a battle against Christ and His saints. According to that rendition, the righteous would emerge victorious, and Satan would be flung into a lake of fire.

That Bush was invoking this biblical concept as a justification for his foreign policy didn’t surprise Römer— for some reason, American presidents seemed to have a weakness for Gog and Magog. Ronald Reagan, for example, had proclaimed this biblical confrontation between good and evil would pit the United States against the Soviet Union, which had abandoned God at the time of the Russian Revolution.

Now, with America’s old enemy defunct, Bush had apparently decided that Moscow had nothing to do with the battle of Gog and Magog. Instead, the forces of evil had emerged in Baghdad.

•   •    •    

The response from Römer confirmed the worst of Chirac’s fears— biblical writings were influencing Bush’s decisions about war in the Middle East. A certainty of God’s will would surely blind any political leader to the evidence of man— weapons inspections would never persuade the administration if Bush believed a clash with Iraq was being guided by God. And that sealed it— Chirac would oppose all military action. France was not going to fight a war based on an American president’s interpretation of the Bible.

A chief petty officer at the Pentagon took an elevator down to the main level and found John Yoo waiting. The first meeting of the Detainee Interrogation Working Group was being held on this day, January 23, and Yoo had been invited to give a presentation.

The working group was already reviewing thirty-six aggressive techniques, including sleep deprivation, stress positions, use of phobias, and waterboarding. Before anything was approved, though, the military lawyers wanted to get a better understanding of Yoo’s reasoning and to challenge him on some of his conclusions.

Yoo arrived upstairs to find more than a dozen people waiting in a conference room. Walker introduced him.

“John’s here to discuss his draft memo and then answer whatever questions you have about it,” Walker said. “So, John, go ahead.”

Yoo explained each element of his analysis— the definition of torture, the requirement that an interrogator must intend to cause pain, and the sweeping powers a president was permitted to exercise during wartime. “Under the conventional doctrine, the president can order that the U.S. violate international law,” he said. “That doesn’t mean it’s legal under international law. It still could be a violation if a country gets harmed or asks for a remedy or whatever compensation it’s seeking. But we do have the right to violate international law.”

Across the table, an army officer with the Judge Advocate General’s Corps shook his head. “No, that’s not true,” he said. “International law binds us.”

Yoo leaned forward. This is going to be like being a law professor again.

“The Constitution creates certain powers and gives them to the president,” he said. “Where does it mention international law binding the constitutional powers of the executive branch?”

“That’s what we always teach to every soldier in basic training, that they are bound by international law.”

“But there’s a landmark case, Paquete Habana v. U.S., that says a president can order actions inconsistent with international law.”

“Well, we have to be bound by international law,” the army officer responded.

“Why?” Yoo asked.

“If we violate international law, the other side is going to violate it, too, in treating our soldiers when they’re captured.”

“Look, if you think al-Qaeda is going to follow any rules of war, that’s nice, but we have no factual evidence that’s true.”

The other issue to consider, Yoo said, was that their objections were about policy, and that wasn’t relevant in a discussion about constitutionality.

Another JAG officer spoke. “This is going to be very bad for the image of the military in other countries.” Yoo nodded. “That’s a very good point, and it could certainly be valid,” he said. “But again, that doesn’t tell us anything about how to interpret the law.” The meeting lasted for an hour and a half. The military lawyers raised objection after objection, but Yoo remained unflappable, batting down their arguments as being in the realm of policy, not the law.

Then, after Walker thanked Yoo for his input, he headed out.

The meeting was a disaster, Yoo thought. I knew we shouldn’t be doing this with the Pentagon. The use of harsh treatment by soldiers wasn’t going to work. The military was too big, and the resistance to adopting such a policy was going to be too strong.

But he fervently believed that it wasn’t his place to make such an argument to the Defense Department. He was just a lawyer, not a decision maker.

"In 1992, nearly fifty thousand Muslims arrived in the United States and received permanent residency status. In 2009, that number soared to 115,000. In truth, no one knows for certain how many Muslim immigrants are presently living in the country."

"In addition to the legal and illegal Muslim immigrants, eighty thousand refugees enter this country under resettlement programs. Nearly seventy-five thousand from Islamic countries."

"Islam, at present, is the most rapidly growing religion in the country, with outreach programs on college campuses, in prisons, and within the military."

In an earlier America, there were restrictions on immigrants from various parts of the world deemed antithetical to the nation's values. The early waves of immigrants came mostly from England and Nordic nations. They were followed by those from Italy, Germany and Eastern Europe as the need for more workers for America's growing industries required more immigrants. Asians were not particularly welcome and Arabs were even less welcome. This changed with the Hart-Celler Act, signed into law by President Johnson in the wake of the Civil Rights Act. It ended an immigration quota system that had governed America for most of his history. It was, for the record, widely opposed by a two-to-one margin. It is a legacy from Edward Kennedy who shepherded the bill through the Senate.

As Williams notes, "September 11, 2001, was not a day that changed everything. It was rather the day that revealed how much had changed. The real shock came not only from the devastation, but also the demographics. The world for many Americans became a place suddenly unrecognizable."