Wiretaps, war crimes and Iran
Here is an interesting article that looks at Rumsfeld’s involvement in war crimes, I have only shown the paragraph that first grabbed my interest below but click on the link for the full article.
Mel
Prosecute Rumsfeld, Now
Mark LeVine, Common Dreams
Thursday, November 9, 2006
At the very least Rumsfeld and Co., and that includes President Bush, are guilty of politicide, defined by Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling in the context of Israel’s war against Palestinians, as a gradual but systematic attempt to cause their annihilation as an independent political and social entity.
Warrantless wiretaps unlikely to be OK’d
Sat Nov 11
Legislation aimed at President Bush’s once-secret program for wiretapping U.S.-foreign phone calls and computer traffic of suspected terrorists without warrants shows all the signs of not moving ahead, notwithstanding President Bush’s request this week that a lame-duck Congress give it to him.
Senate Democrats, emboldened by Election Day wins that put them in control of Congress as of January, say they would rather wait until next year to look at the issue. “I can’t say that we won’t do it, but there’s no guarantee that we’re going spend a lot of time on controversial measures,” Democratic Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois said Thursday.
In Senate parlance, that means no.
Republicans for months have known that no bill accomplishing Bush’s goal could get filibuster-proof support from 60 senators. Sealing off any hope was what Democratic leader Harry Reid put on his lame-duck to-do list. The warrantless domestic surveillance bill was conspicuous in its absence.
As for next year, Bush should not expect Democrats to allow such legislation to pass without language establishing considerable congressional oversight of any expansion of warrantless wiretaps.
“We have been asked to make sweeping and fundamental changes in law for reasons that we do not know and in order to legalize secret, unlawful actions that the administration has refused to fully divulge,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the next Judiciary Committee chairman. “If legislation is needed for judicial review, then we should write that legislation together, in a bipartisan and thoughtful way.”
The Bush administration has a backup plan. In speeches over the next few weeks, the Justice Department will launch a new campaign for the legislation by casting the choice as one between supporting the program or dropping it altogether — and appearing soft on al-Qaida.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will make the eavesdropping program the focus of a Nov. 18 speech at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Kenneth L. Wainstein, assistant attorney general for the national security, will make a similar pitch Wednesday to the American Bar Association.
Leahy said that monitoring communications of suspected terrorists is essential but that “it needs to be done lawfully and with adequate checks and balances to prevent abuses of Americans’ rights and Americans’ privacy.”
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Bush ordered the National Security Agency to monitor communications potentially related to al-Qaida between people in the U.S. and those overseas. He bypassed normal requirements for court approval of such eavesdropping, and the program came under harsh criticism after it was disclosed last December by The New York Times.
Democrats and Republicans on the intelligence and judiciary committees spent much of the year trying to find out details from the administration, to little avail. Much of the information is classified, and the White House has insisted that revealing it would mean compromising the war on terrorism.
The House passed a bill in September to allow warrantless wiretaps under certain restrictions. House and Senate intelligence committees and congressional leaders would have to be notified, the president would have to believe that a terrorist attack is imminent, and certification would have to be renewed every 90 days.
A Republican measure in the Senate favored by the administration would require the Justice Department to report twice a year to the House and Senate intelligence committees the number and kind of any such operations. It would permit the surveillance to continue for up to one year without a warrant.
Israel Official: Strike on Iran Possible
Amy Teibel, TruthOut
Friday 10 November 2006
The deputy defense minister suggested Friday that Israel might be forced to launch a military strike against Iran’s disputed nuclear program - the clearest statement yet of such a possibility from a high-ranking official.
“I am not advocating an Israeli pre-emptive military action against Iran and I am aware of its possible repercussions,” Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh, a former general, said in comments published Friday in The Jerusalem Post. “I consider it a last resort. But even the last resort is sometimes the only resort.” Sneh’s comments did not necessarily reflect the view of Israel’s government or of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said government spokeswoman Miri Eisin
Olmert, who was arriving in Washington on Sunday, said he was confident in the U.S. handling of the international standoff over Iran’s nuclear program. The Bush administration and other nations say is a cover for developing atomic weapons, but Tehran says the program is peaceful.
“I have enormous respect for President Bush. He is absolutely committed,” Olmert said in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show. “I know that America will not allow Iran to possess nuclear weapons because this is a danger to the whole Western world.”
The United States and its European allies have proposed a raft of sanctions to try to curb the country’s nuclear development.Israel sees Iran as the greatest threat to its survival. Hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for Israel ’s destruction, and Israelis do not believe his claims that Iran ’s nuclear program is meant to develop energy, not arms.
Israel crippled Iraq’s atomic program 25 years ago with an airstrike on its unfinished nuclear reactor. Experts say Iran has learned from Iraq ’s mistakes, scattering its nuclear facilities and building some underground.
Sneh’s tough talk is the boldest to date by a high-ranking Israeli official. Olmert and other Israeli leaders frequently discuss the Iranian threat in grave terms, but stop short of threatening military action. Years of diplomacy have failed to persuade Iran to modify its nuclear program so it can’t develop weapons.
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