San Bernardino County hosts the military's most cherished clubhouse, Ft. Irwin, and several other bases, active and closed. The county population is rich in military denizens, their derelicts, offspring, misfits and buffs. With the consequent prevalence of the classic sociopathy found in these people, predation, exploitation, corruption and virtual tyranny have spread throughout our courts, law enforcement and government. Discuss the disgraceful prison and military industrial complexes here.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) _ A former Army soldier accused of raping and killing an Iraqi teen and slaying her family was a "chatterbox" after his arrest, voluntarily making nearly two dozen statements while in custody, prosecutors said in court documents filed Wednesday.
Pfc. Steven D. Green, 22, told FBI agents that "George Bush and Dick Cheney ought to be the ones that are arrested," according to court documents. He also said "You probably think I'm a monster" and "Guess I'm looking at spending the rest of my life in jail," the documents said.
He never specifically addressed the allegations against him.
Federal Public Defender Scott Wendelsdorf has said a judge should throw out Green's statements because he asked for an attorney.
But prosecutors said Green made the statements voluntarily and was not questioned after asking for an attorney.
"The fact of the matter is that Steven Green was a chatterbox during his transportation," prosecutors said.
Green, 22, faces 16 charges that include premeditated murder and aggravated sexual assault. He has pleaded not guilty and claims he was insane at the time of the March 2006 attack.
He was arrested a few months later at his grandmother's house in Nebo, N.C., about 80 miles northwest of Charlotte. Eventually he was brought back to Kentucky his unit was based. Green had been deployed in Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division, which is based at Fort Campbell, an Army post on the Kentucky-Tennessee border about 185 miles southwest of Louisville. His remarks to the FBI agents came as he was being taken to jail, then to court in Charlotte, N.C. after his arrest.
Four other soldiers pleaded guilty or were convicted for their roles in targeting the girl from a checkpoint near Mahmoudiya, a village 20 miles south of Baghdad, and helping rape and kill her.
Two of the soldiers testified they took turns raping the girl while Green shot and killed her mother, father and younger sister. They also testified that Green raped the girl and shot her.
Green is being prosecuted in federal court because he was discharged from the military before being charged.
A judge has scheduled a hearing for next Wednesday on whether to allow Green's statements.
By Melissa Pinion Whitt on October 22, 2008 12:03 PM
Two Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies have been charged with beating an off-duty firefighter. According to an indictment unsealed Tuesday, deputies Joshua Titel and Brian Richards have been charged with assault and face a maximum of seven years in prison.
A judge Tuesday allowed both men to be free on their own recognizance pending a bail hearing next month. Authorities allege the two beat firefighter Stephen Paige and caused him "great bodily injury" in Pomona on June 24. All three men were off duty at the time.
Prosecutors say Paige had to have several weeks of medical treatment before he could return to work. A Los Angeles County Grand Jury handed down the indictment on Sept. 23
LOS ANGELES (AP) --A federal judge in Los Angeles has barred the Mongols motorcycle gang from selling or distributing its trademarked logo after authorities arrested dozens of its members in six states.
U.S. District Court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper granted an injunction requested by prosecutors late Tuesday that prohibits gang members, their family members and associates from licensing, selling or distributing the logo.
The order, however, did not include language that would prohibit Mongols members from wearing or displaying the logo. Prosecutors are seeking to take control of the gang's trademarked name.
At least 61 members were arrested under a racketeering indictment that accuses some of murder, attempted murder and drug sales.
The battle: 1st District Supervisor Mitzelfelt supports the Marine base expansion, but hopes to protect the local economy and the country's largest off-roading site.
The issue: The largest Marine Corps training center in the country, the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, is looking to expand by as much as 420,000 acres.
An application was filed on Sept. 15, 2008, by the U.S. Department of the Navy for the land withdrawal.
The proposal: The application for withdrawal includes 135,000 acres — or 70 percent — of the Johnson Valley off-highway vehicle area.
Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt is hoping to pass a county-wide resolution urging decision makers to look east for expansion — away from Johnson Valley.
By KATHERINE ROSENBERG, Editor
LUCERNE VALLEY - Although county officials have consistently shown their support for the expansion of the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps base’s training center, 1st District Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt Monday released a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors geared towards protecting Johnson Valley off-highway vehicle area.
The report was to be an agenda item at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, but it was indefinitely postponed until a later meeting, as county officials would like to further examine the consequences of backing an eastern expansion plan.
The recommendation item was to, “adopt resolution No. 2008 in support of proposal to expand U.S. Marine Corps Training Facilities in Twentynine Palms to the east, and in support of maintaining the status of the BLM Johnson Valley Open Area and maintaining all current uses therein.”
But at the suggestion of another county official, the recommendation was postponed until such a time that the board can look at the ramifications of an eastward push.
“I have expressed my concern with expansion into the Johnson Valley open area. But the eastern expansion currently could very likely close Amboy Road, which is a very significant highway. That is very worrisome to me and I think we need to address that as well in our position. As a former Marine, I'm very familiar with the type of training they do there. They do need more space, but we do need to study the impact on our constituents,” Mitzelfelt said at Tuesday’s meeting.
David Zook, spokesman for Mitzelfelt said that the Supervisor still believes that an eastward move —away from Johnson and Lucerne Valleys is the way to go, but the county as a whole has not decided on a position.
On Sept. 15 the U.S. Department of the Navy filed an application requesting the Secretary of the Interior to process a land withdrawal ad reservation of public lands for military training exercises at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center —the nation’s largest such training center.
The request was for 420,000 acres, including 348,000 acres of BLM land, some of which comprises the 135,000 acres requested from the Johnson Valley off-highway vehicle site. At its current 188,000 acres, that represents 70 percent of the area that would be off-limits to recreators.
“Johnson Valley is ... providing economic benefits to the surrounding communities and opportunities for off-highway vehicle enthusiasts and many others to enjoy recreation in the desert,” the recommendation said. “Additionally, Johnson Valley is a popular site for photography and filming of movies, commercials and other productions which generates additional economic benefits.”
As to the push to move east, the report goes on to say that they are “mostly unpopulated, are not heavily used for recreation, and have been used in the past for military training. They do not have surrounding communities as is the case in the Johnson Valley, and they would provided a viable alternative to the original proposal.”
Now, looking at possibly having to close Amboy Road, which leads to Interstate 40, officials are saying they need more time to secure their position. “Obviously we need to study a little bit more,” Mitzelfelt concluded.
By Joe Nelson on October 22, 2008 5:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) |
An attorney representing the mother of a 14-year-old Highland boy killed after he was struck by a sheriff's deputy's patrol car in August plans to file a lawsuit against the city of Highland, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department and the county no later than Friday.
The city and county have rejected a claim, the predecessor to a lawsuit, filed by San Bernardino attorney Mark McDonald in September. McDonald represents Stacey McCombs, mother of 14-year-old Justin Taylor Ames, who was struck by an unnamed Highland sheriff's deputy at the intersection of Ninth Street and Drummond Avenue on Aug. 22.
This much is fact: Two deputies responding to a disturbance call in the area passed through the intersection where Justin was struck. Justin and a friend were riding their bicycles south on Drummond Avenue about 6:30 p.m. The two deputies were headed west down Ninth Street.
One of the patrol cars, which didn't have its lights or siren on, collided with Justin, who was not wearing a helmet when he rode into the intersection.
At least one witness said the boys did not stop at the intersection, and the deputy didn't have time to stop.
But other witnesses say the deputy was at fault, and actually accelerated prior to the collision, perhaps due to being blinded by the sun and not seeing the boy, said paralegal Denise McDonald, who is assisting Mark McDonald in the litigation.
The boy who was with Justin at the time of collision was never interviewed at length by sheriff's investigators, she said.
ELGIN (STNG) ― The director of a northern Kane County emergency dispatch center indicted on multiple counts of misconduct for allegedly misusing a criminal background search database surrendered to Illinois State Police on Wednesday.
Steven R. Cordes, 43, of the 500 block of Ryan Lane in Dundee Township was indicted Friday by a Kane County grand jury of 18 counts of official misconduct, a Class 3 felony.
Following the indictment, an arrest warrant with a $25,000 bond was issued. On Wednesday, Cordes surrendered at the Illinois State Police District 2 office in Elgin, posted bond and was released, according to a release from the Kane County State's Attorney's office.
The indictment alleges that on multiple occasions in 2006, 2007 and 2008, Cordes accessed the state Law Enforcement Agencies Data System to gain information on four persons for his personal use.
Misuse of LEADS is a violation of the Illinois Criminal Identification Act and the Administrative Rules for Department of State Police Law Enforcement Agencies Data System. If convicted, Cordes faces up to five years in prison, the release said.
Cordes has been director of QuadCom, a 911 emergency dispatch center in northern Kane County, since 2000. QuadCom serves the Carpentersville, West Dundee, East Dundee, South Barrington and Sleepy Hollow police departments, as well as the Carpentersville and West Dundee fire departments, East Dundee Countryside Fire Protection District and Rutland-Dundee Fire Protection District.
He is scheduled to appear in court at 9 a.m. Nov. 14 before Associate Judge Allen Anderson in Room 217 of the Kane County Courthouse in St. Charles, the release said.
Stanford, CA – October 23, 2008 – Successful democracies depend on an informed, thoughtful, and engaged electorate. However, social scientific research shows the American electorate to be poorly informed and often disengaged. In an article in the 2008 Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Eamonn Callan contends that civic education in America nonetheless has an important role to play in mitigating these civic vices.
There exists a "democratic elitist" theory that says we should not worry about the ignorance and disengagement of ordinary citizens. However, the problem with that theory is that it assumes rashly that unaccountable elites will rule in the interests of the rest of society.
Callan worries both about the unwarranted trust in the capacity of elites to protect democracy and the abandonment of hope in the capacity of citizens. Instead, he argues for "rational social hope" in which teachers can educate in ways that promote civic virtue.
Teachers, journalists, political activists, and the like must commit to helping to create a citizenry whose self-government is adequately grounded in relevant information, understanding, and civic virtue.
"All citizens who care about good government have to care about the competence and commitment of their fellow citizens," Callan notes. "We should care about the education that would support the necessary competence and commitment."
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This study is published in the Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education. Media wishing to receive a PDF of this article may contact journalnews@bos.blackwellpublishing.net.
Eamonn Callan is affiliated with Stanford University and can be reached for questions at ecallan@suse.stanford.edu.
The National Society for the Study of Education (NSSE) was founded in 1901 and began publishing its annual Yearbook the following year. Each volume of the Yearbook examines a separate topic of concern to educators from multiple perspectives. With knowledgeable scholars and practitioners as contributing authors and editors, the Yearbook is a reliable and authoritative source of information on timely educational issues. Some Yearbooks have become landmark publications, and contributors rank among the most prominent and influential scholars and leaders of education in the United States and the world.
Wiley-Blackwell was formed in February 2007 as a result of the acquisition of Blackwell Publishing Ltd. by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., and its merger with Wiley's Scientific, Technical, and Medical business. Together, the companies have created a global publishing business with deep strength in every major academic and professional field. Wiley-Blackwell publishes approximately 1,400 scholarly peer-reviewed journals and an extensive collection of books with global appeal. For more information on Wiley-Blackwell, please visit www.wiley-blackwell.com or http://interscience.wiley.com.
In the 1976 case U.S. v. Martinez-Fuerte, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that contra the Fourth Amendment, the government can set up roadblock checkpoints within 100 miles of the nation's borders in order to check for illegal immigrants and smuggling. The Court ruled that if the stops are brief, limited to that purpose, and not fishing expeditions, the minimal invasion to personal privacy is outweighed by the government's interest in protecting the border.
The ACLU says that since September 11, 2001, the government has been steadily stretching the limits of Martinez, to the point where the Department of Homeland Security is using that case and the terrorism threat to conduct more thorough, more invasive searches at dozens of checkpoints across the country. With 33 checkpoints now in operation, we're not exactly to the point of "Ihre Papiere, bitte" Berlin yet, but the ACLU does warn that the area of the country 100 miles from every border and coastline would include about 190 million people, or nearly two-thirds of the U.S. population (see map below).
Moreover, post-9/11, the courts have been pretty deferential to increasingly invasive searches the government says are necessary for national security purposes. For example, federal courts have given the okay to airport seizures and thorough searches of laptops and other electronic devices belonging to people returning from abroad. Such searches can be conducted with no individualized suspicion at all. Some of those subjected to them have said it took weeks for the government to return their computers.
Should the courts uphold these increasingly invasive "border searches" under some vague national security exception, I don't think it's too much of an exaggeration to say that the Fourth Amendment would be close to non-existent for a large portion of the country.
Two former Border Patrol agents were arrested in Mexico after more than two years on the run and were charged in the U.S. with taking bribes to help illegal immigrants cross the border, authorities said Monday.
A federal indictment unsealed Monday in San Diego accuses brothers Raul and Fidel Villarreal of taking bribes, smuggling illegal immigrants, tampering with witnesses and conspiring to launder money.
The brothers were captured by Mexican authorities Saturday at a gated apartment complex near the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana, said Mike Unzueta, special agent in charge of investigations at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego. They vanished in July 2006.
"I think they were very, very surprised," Unzueta said.
ICE spokeswoman Lauren Mack said Raul, who was a Border Patrol spokesman, looked as if he had aged 10 years.
The indictment charges that Raul, 39, and Fidel, 40, picked up illegal immigrants in their Border Patrol vehicles and released them since at least the spring of 2005.
The U.S. attorney's office in San Diego said it would seek to extradite the Villarreal brothers and two others charged in the indictment, a Mexican man and woman who were also arrested Saturday at the apartment in connection with the alleged smuggling operation.
"Those who betray their offices and the public trust will find this office's pursuit of justice thorough, unrelenting and uncompromising," said U.S. Attorney Karen Hewitt.
An attorney for Raul Villarreal, Jan Ronis, said his client would plead not guilty.
The Villareals are naturalized U.S. citizens from Mexico, which means they can be deported, Ronis said.
"There is no need to go through extradition proceedings," Ronis said. "That would be time-consuming and expensive and they can simply be deported."
The Villarreals were veteran agents in the San Diego area. Raul served as a public face for the agency, often granting interviews to Spanish-language media.
The former agents are suspected of helping to smuggle Mexicans and Brazilians into the United States, Unzueta said. It was unclear how long or how many people were allegedly involved.
Their disappearance in July 2006 derailed the investigation, which was led by ICE.
"We're interested to see what happens next," said Border Patrol spokesman Daryl Reed. The allegations, he said, "were a complete shock to all of us."
Mexico's attorney general office in Tijuana did not respond to a request for comment.
A federal law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the investigation, previously told the AP that the brothers failed to show up for work one Monday morning in July 2006 and later told supervisors they were quitting due to a family illness.
The indictment handed down in April also charges that Armando Garcia, 40, served as a foot guide in the operation and that he and Claudia Gonzalez, 32, bribed the Border Patrol agents. Besides bribery, the Tijuana residents were also charged with smuggling illegal immigrants, witness tampering and conspiring to launder money.
The indictment says the Villarreal brothers and the other defendants threatened witnesses in the grand jury investigation with "physical force."
The AP could not locate attorneys for Fidel Villarreal, Garcia or Gonzalez.
How 21-year-old soldier Blake Ivey came to see war as "flat-out murder."
"I believe war is the crime of our times," Blake Ivey, a specialist in the U.S. Army, said over the phone in a slow, deliberate voice.
Ivey, currently stationed in Fort Gordon, Ga., is publicly refusing to deploy to Afghanistan. The 21-year-old soldier filed for conscientious objector status in July but was ordered to deploy while his application was being processed. He is determined not to go, and as of our last phone call, was still actively serving on his base, weighing his options for refusal.
Ivey joins what appears to be a growing number of troops refusing to fight in the so-called Global War on Terror. While there is no way to tell the exact number of resisters, military statistics indicate that resistance is on the rise. Since 2002, the Army has court-martialed twice as many soldiers for desertion and other unauthorized absences per year than for each year between 1997 and 2001. The Associated Press reports AWOL rates in the Army at its highest since 1980, with the desertion rate (defined as 30 or more days of unauthorized absence) having jumped 80 percent since the start of the Iraq War. More than 150 soldiers have publicly refused to fight in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and an estimated 200 war resisters are living in Canada.
Many war resisters are conscientious objectors (C.O.s) who were deterred at early stages of the C.O. application process or ordered to deploy before their C.O. paperwork went through. Just last week, 19-year-old conscientious objector Tony Anderson at Fort Carson, Colo., publicly shared his experience. Anderson had been discouraged by his commanding officers from applying for C.O. status, and he disobeyed orders to deploy to Iraq. He now faces steep punishment at the hands of the military.
Ivey, who grew up in Augusta, Ga., just a few miles from the Fort Gordon base where he is now stationed, joined the Army willingly. After the events of Sept. 11, 2001, he felt that it was "his generation's time to stand up in defense of the country." He states, "I went to the recruiter myself. No one approached me." So, in 2005 he joined the service out of high school, despite his mother's pleas that he take more time to think it over.
Yet once Ivey was in the military, his feelings about war changed. He found it unsettling to chant "Blood, blood, blood makes the grass grow" in basic training, and he wrote a letter home to his mother describing his discomfort. When he was deployed to Korea in 2006, he started questioning the value of military service. Halfway through his yearlong deployment, he began studying anarchist philosophers and nonviolent thinkers such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi.
The refusal of close friend Ryan Jackson to deploy to Iraq led Ivey to re-evaluate his own situation. They got to know each other in Advanced Individual Training in 2005 and were in the same unit together in Fort Gordon after Ivey's return from Korea. They discussed at length their reluctance to go to war. Ivey provided simple advice to Jackson: "I told him, you've got to do what you believe in." So, Jackson decided not to go. He attempted to gain administrative leave, but when his paperwork failed to go through, he decided to go AWOL rather than face deployment. Ivey remained close with Jackson throughout the process, giving him emotional support when he went AWOL in 2007 and was court-martialed and sentenced to 100 days of confinement. "When I talked to Jackson before he went to court-martial, that's when I decided I was going to start on my conscientious objector paperwork," says Ivey.
Meanwhile, Ivey continued to research alternatives to war, immersing himself in the texts of nonviolent philosophers. He also got involved in his local community, helping start a chapter of Food Not Bombs, a collective movement to serve free food, mostly vegan and vegetarian, to others. "I want to make a difference in people's lives," he says.
While his conscientious objector paperwork was being processed, Ivey was ordered to deploy to Afghanistan. Application for C.O. status cannot forestall deployment, but applicants are supposed to be assigned tasks that do not conflict with their C.O. convictions. However, this military directive is subject to ambiguous interpretation, and the commanding officer has considerable discretion in determining appropriate assignments. Furthermore, many conscientious objectors consider deployment to a combat zone by definition ethically compromising.
If Ivey refuses to deploy, he could be charged with "Missing Movement" -- Article 87 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice -- by a general court martial, punishable by up to two years in the stockade, loss of pay and a dishonorable discharge. There is also the danger that the military might try to pile on charges against him, such as Article 90, "willfully disobeying superior officer," and General Article 134, which covers all conduct "unbecoming" a service member.
Ivey is determined not to go to Afghanistan, and he is working with a civilian lawyer to explore his options. He has also enlisted the support of Courage to Resist, an organization that supports the troops who refuse to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan and has worked with several GIs in similar situations, including Anderson and Jackson.
Ivey's mother, who lives in Augusta a few miles from where Ivey is stationed, is supportive but worried about her son. "I am concerned because any time someone you care about is in a situation that could cause them turmoil in their life or legal charges, whether they are right or wrong, I am going to worry," she says. "But I would in no way encourage him to do anything different. He is following his moral beliefs, and he has to do that."
Despite the threat of steep punishment, Ivey remains steadfast in his commitment to nonviolence. "I am against organized war," he says. "It is flat-out murder."
By Ellen Knickmeyer Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, October 18, 2008; A01
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Oct. 17 -- Four of the five main online forums that al-Qaeda's media wing uses to distribute statements by Osama bin Laden and other extremists have been disabled since mid-September, monitors of the Web sites say.
The disappearance of the forums on Sept. 10 -- and al-Qaeda's apparent inability to restore them or create alternate online venues, as it has before -- has curbed the organization's dissemination of the words and images of its fugitive leaders. On Sept. 29, a statement by the al-Fajr Media Center, a distribution network created by supporters of al-Qaeda and other Sunni extremist groups, said the forums had disappeared "for technical reasons," and it urged followers not to trust look-alike sites.
For al-Qaeda, "these sites are the equivalent of pentagon.mil, whitehouse.gov, att.com," said Evan F. Kohlmann, an expert on online al-Qaeda operations who has advised the FBI and others. With just one authorized al-Qaeda site still in business, "this has left al-Qaeda's propaganda strategy hanging by a very narrow thread."
At the same time, in an apparently unrelated flare-up of online sectarian hostility, Shiite and Sunni hackers have targeted Web sites associated with the other sect, including that of a Saudi-owned television network and of Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric.
On several occasions over the past three years, unknown hackers have shut down al-Qaeda-affiliated Web sites after they announced the imminent release of a new video message from Osama bin Laden or another extremist leader. It is often impossible to pinpoint the source of such online attacks, though some experts say the culprits could be independent activists.
A U.S. intelligence official, asked about the online attacks, declined to say whether U.S. spy agencies engage in them. American and British security forces each have joint commands overseeing online operations against extremists.
"There had been this aura of invincibility" about al-Qaeda's media operations, said Gregory D. Johnsen, a U.S.-based expert on violent Sunni groups in Yemen. "Now this has really been taken away from them."
In early September, the al-Fajr forums were drumming up anticipation of al-Qaeda's annual video marking the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "Await Sept. 11!" one message declared.
Instead, on Sept. 10, the forums vanished.
Rapid changes in domain-registration information and in servers suggested that the sites' webmasters were working intently to bring the forums back up, according to a statement from the SITE Intelligence Group, a leading private monitor of Web sites of extremist groups.
After about 24 hours, one forum, al-Hesbah, reappeared, according to Kohlmann, a senior investigator with the NEFA Foundation in Charleston, S.C.
Al-Qaeda's Sept. 11 video eventually appeared on al-Hesbah, which means "one who holds others accountable," on Sept. 19. By then, the shine had been taken off the anniversary for al-Qaeda supporters.
"Oh, my God, save my brothers on the jihadi forums," one user posted on al-Hesbah, according to Kohlmann.
"My dear brothers . . . increase your supplications for Allah to guide the bullet and to restore al-Ekhlaas successfully so that the message is spread," another user wrote, according to SITE, referring to the most prominent of the downed forums.
Johnsen said that on extremist "forums that are still up, you have people who are quite paranoid and quite confused" about what's going on. He said it is "certainly normal for jihadi chat rooms and forums . . . to have some kind of disruption. It was very clear this is something entirely different."
Al-Qaeda has continued posting videos and statements on al-Hesbah. But Kohlmann said comparatively few followers have passwords to that site.
Al-Qaeda webmasters may be too concerned about letting in infiltrators to issue more passwords for al-Hesbah or to move to an alternate forum with new passwords, Kohlmann said.
"It's the first time it's happened now in three years for al-Qaeda to have only one forum left carrying al-Qaeda's propaganda stream," Kohlmann said. The al-Fajr center was created in late 2005.
Al-Qaeda has had to rely on the sites of others to help distribute its videos, costing the organization some control of its message and shrinking its audience, monitors said.
The sabotage of sites operated by extremist groups makes it more difficult for those groups to inspire attacks and recruit attackers, said Erich Marquardt, editor in chief of the Sentinel, a monthly online publication by the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
However, "the downside of knocking jihadist Web sites offline is that you lose the ability to monitor jihadist activities," eliminating opportunities for Western monitors to search for ideological weaknesses or clues to future operations, Marquardt said. "When these Web sites are taken offline, it closes an important window."
Separately, Sunni and Shiite Internet partisans are waging a tit-for-tat hacking war. For now, Sunni extremist sites are taking the brunt.
In September, hackers targeted what Iranian news media estimated to be 300 Shiite sites, many of them operated by Shiite religious leaders in Iran. Targets included the official site of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the leading Shiite cleric in Iraq. For several days, visitors to that site were connected instead to a YouTube video featuring American talk-show host Bill Maher mocking what he said were the cleric's edicts, or fatwas, on sexual matters. Aides to Sistani later denied that he had issued such edicts.
A group called Ghoroub XP, based in the United Arab Emirates, asserted responsibility. Its claim has not been publicly confirmed by any authorities.
Alleged Shiite hackers responded in force. By Oct. 1, hundreds of sites run by Sunnis, including those of religious figures, had vanished. In their place appeared a site featuring an Iranian flag superimposed over the intense gaze of a smiling woman.
There also was a message, citing a Koranic verse: "And one who attacketh you, attack him in like manner as he attacked you."
The site of the Saudi-owned network al-Arabiya was among those attacked, forcing the news organization to move its site briefly to another domain. Al-Arabiya managers issued statements saying their coverage was balanced and neutral.
One Iranian, who answered questions submitted in writing and was identified as a hacker by sources familiar with the online religious world in Tehran, asserted responsibility for disrupting one Sunni site and said Sunni extremists online provoked the attack.
"The war is only between Shiite groups in Iran and Wahhabis," said the writer, who declined to be further identified. Wahhabis are followers of a stringent Saudi-born branch of Sunni Islam.
"The way of hacking is that they attack and we respond," he wrote. "The future will reveal our next step."
Correspondent Thomas Erdbrink in Tehran and staff writer Joby Warrick and staff researcher Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.
An American flag waves within the razor wire-lined compound of Camp Delta prison, at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, Cuba, June 27, 2006.
Oct. 23, 2008 | When Army Lt. Col. Darrell Vandeveld began his work in May 2007 as a prosecutor at the Guantánamo Bay military commissions, the Iraq war veteran was one of the most enthusiastic and tenacious lawyers working on behalf of the Bush administration. He took on seven cases. In court hearings he dismissed claims of prisoner abuse as "embellishment" and "exaggeration." Once, when a detainee asked for legal representation only for the purpose of challenging the legitimacy of the military commissions, Vandeveld ridiculed the request as "idiotic."
So it came as a shock in mid-September when Vandeveld announced that he was resigning as a prosecutor because he had grave doubts about the integrity of the system he had so vigorously defended.
In the days following his resignation -- now testifying, remarkably, for the defense counsel in one of his own cases -- Vandeveld said that he went from being a "true believer" in the military commissions to feeling "truly deceived" about them. His deep ethical qualms hinged foremost on the fact that potentially critical evidence had been withheld from the defense by the government.
Vandeveld says he was pressured explicitly by superiors not to talk about his work at Guantánamo. Until now, the details of his story have largely been kept from public view. He maintains that he is not ready to speak at length about his decision to resign, but in several e-mail exchanges with me this week, as well as in a series of recent e-mail exchanges he had with others involved in the military commissions, a picture emerges of a man who struggled through an intense crisis of conscience. When he took action, he was ridiculed and bullied by his bosses for questioning the fairness of the system. The military also subjected Vandeveld to a mental-health evaluation after he decided to resign, perhaps aimed at undercutting his credibility.
Vandeveld's story reveals the painful struggle of a devoutly religious Catholic who became increasingly disturbed by a process he came to view as fundamentally unjust. Unable to confide in his family and friends because so much of the information in the cases he was working on was classified, he took the unusual step of confiding in his opposing counsel. He also consulted a priest online.
Vandeveld is at least the fourth prosecutor to resign from the highly criticized military commissions, but his account is perhaps the most stark and will surely cast a lasting pall over the process. On Tuesday, the Department of Defense announced that it was dropping charges against five detainees whose cases Vandeveld was prosecuting -- though not the controversial case that prompted his resignation.
That case, the one that ultimately provoked Vandeveld's change of heart, was supposed to be a slam dunk for the government. But as Vandeveld would come to discover, it was plagued by problems.
Mohamed Jawad, a young Afghan who allegedly fought with the Taliban, was accused of throwing a grenade into a vehicle carrying U.S. troops, gravely injuring two of them and their translator. Unlike most of the other men charged before the military commissions, who are accused of seemingly abstract crimes like "providing material support for terrorism," Jawad was charged with "attempted murder in violation of the law of war." There were witnesses to the attack and Jawad had reportedly confessed. It was the kind of coldblooded act the government hoped would capture the public's imagination.
Yet, problems arose in the case as soon as Jawad entered the Guantánamo courtroom last March. To begin with, it turned out that Jawad was only 16 or 17 at the time of his alleged offense. Under both U.S. and international law, he should never have been detained with adults, and he should have been provided educational opportunities, as well as contact with his family. He appeared emotionally distressed, holding his face in his hands and asking why he was at Guantánamo.
His defense counsel, Maj. David Frakt, told the court that Jawad was a homeless, illiterate teenager who had been drugged and forced to fight with Afghan militia, then abused by the United States and transported halfway around the world to Guantánamo where he was imprisoned for five years without charge and was now being used as a guinea pig to test a new system of military justice. He said that Jawad was deeply traumatized by the experience, to the point that he might be incapable of aiding in his defense.
In the beginning, Vandeveld was openly dismissive of the story.
"What you have heard is a series of exaggerations," Vandeveld told the court. "It's clear from what you've seen here today that he is able to assist in his defense."
But over the next six months, as more information about the case came to light, Vandeveld began to have misgivings.
Initially Vandeveld did not believe that Jawad was a juvenile at the time of his arrest. Because Jawad did not know his birth date (which is common among Afghan villagers), and had at times given different ages for himself, the United States did not record him as a juvenile. However, in the process of examining Jawad's prison records, it emerged that Jawad had undergone a bone scan at Guantánamo in 2003, estimating his age to be 18, which would have made him 17 at the time of the alleged crime.
"Jawad should have been segregated from the adult detainees, and some serious attempt made to rehabilitate him," Vandeveld said in a declaration shortly after his resignation. "I am bothered by the fact that this was not done. I am a resolute Catholic and take as an article of faith that justice is defined as reparative and restorative, and that Christ's most radical pronouncement -- command, if you will -- is to love one's enemies."
Vandeveld also had not believed that Jawad had been mistreated by his American captors. But once again, evidence obtained in the process of discovery revealed a different story. Frakt asked the government to provide a copy of prison records on detainee movements at Guantánamo. In May, Vandeveld gave Frakt a stack of them.
The records showed that in mid-2003, Jawad had been removed from a Pashto-speaking wing in the detention center and isolated, as well as deprived of comfort items such as books or mail. In September 2003, after prolonged isolation, his mental health deteriorated. Interrogators observed Jawad talking to posters on his wall. Then, on Christmas day 2003, Jawad tried to commit suicide, first by banging his head against the metal structures in his cell, then by hanging himself.
They also showed that during a 14-day period in May 2004 -- several months after the suicide attempt -- Jawad was moved from cell to cell 112 times, an average of less than every three hours. These movements, which intensified between midnight and 2 a.m., turned out to be part of a sleep deprivation program known in Gitmo parlance as the "frequent flier program." The goal of the program was to disorient detainees and make them more compliant. The records, however, give no indication that Jawad was interrogated at this time.
Initially, Vandeveld did not realize the prison records showed that Jawad had been subjected to a regime of sleep deprivation -- the records consisted of many pages of detainee movements, much of it handwritten. The sleep deprivation was pointed out to him by Frakt, who had carefully scrutinized the records. However, Vandeveld had noticed the detainee's attempt at "self harm." Shortly thereafter, he told Frakt that he wanted to broker a plea agreement that would have given Jawad a minimal sentence and some rehabilitation before sending him home to Afghanistan.
In an e-mail exchange with Frakt on May 22, Vandeveld wrote: "If I ever thought this job required me to do anything I considered unethical, I'd be out the door."
"I appreciate that and I believe you," Frakt replied. "You may have to take back your comments about Jawad's complaints being embellished and exaggerated. It looks like he was telling the truth. Did you notice that he tried to commit suicide in 2003?"
"I did notice that saddening episode ... which is one of the reasons I am pushing for a plea in this case, and why I wanted to get this information in your hands asap," Vandeveld replied.
In a subsequent e-mail the same day, Vandeveld wrote, "BTW, I will correct my misstatements on the record the next time we're in session. I know I am obliged to do so."
A few days after that exchange, Frakt filed a motion with the court to dismiss the charges against Jawad based on evidence that he had been tortured.
When Vandeveld responded to Frakt's motion, he argued that although Jawad had suffered some abuse at Guantánamo -- an unusual admission by a government prosecutor -- the remedy was not to dismiss the charges, but rather to consider the abuse in mitigating the accused's punishment.
According to Vandeveld, when his superiors saw that he had conceded that Jawad had been abused, they were furious. They reprimanded him and made him withdraw the motion and resubmit it, conceding nothing regarding prisoner torture or abuse.
The new motion he submitted stated: "Jawad ... suffered no ill-effects from his alleged sleep deprivation."
As the summer wore on, Vandeveld began to have more doubts. A series of photographs emerged from the time of Jawad's arrest: They showed a naked and terrified teenager undergoing a strip search and medical examination.
Then, in late July, Vandeveld stumbled across a report that was sitting on a colleague's desk about an investigation into the death of an Afghan taxi driver named Diliwar who had been killed in U.S. custody. Investigators had come to Guantánamo to interview detainees who were held in Bagram at the time, and took a statement from Jawad.
In his statement, Jawad said that while at Bagram, he was made to wear a black bag over his head and that he was shackled and forced to stand for prolonged periods of time. If he sat down, guards would beat him, grab him by the throat and stand him up again. At one point, he said, they shackled him to the door so he was incapable of sitting down.
Vandeveld immediately informed Frakt about the report and said he was deeply disturbed by the abuse. Equally disturbing to him was that there seemed to be no system in place to provide such evidence to the defense.
"I am highly concerned, to the point that I believe I can no longer serve as a prosecutor at the Commissions, about the slipshod, uncertain 'procedure' for affording defense counsel discovery," Vandeveld wrote in a statement after his resignation. "One would have thought that after six years since the Commissions had their fitful start, that a functioning law office would have been set up and procedures and policies not only put into effect, but refined."
Vandeveld also said that he had feared retribution if he was perceived as being too cooperative with the defense. He cited another officer who was perceived to have done so and subsequently received a mediocre Officer Evaluation Report.
"I didn't express my concerns to Brig. Gen. Hartmann or Col. Morris before asking to be reassigned," Vandeveld told me by e-mail on Wednesday, "largely because I knew both are highly-indoctrinated ideologues whose likely response would have been to have my security clearance revoked as a punitive and preventative measure. (This concern is not happenstance; I could give examples were I not bound by my clearance itself.) The hostile, dismissive way I'd seen [another concerned officer treated by superiors] was enough for me to conclude my reservations would not be well-met."
Vandeveld's fears in this regard had a potentially devastating effect on the fairness of proceedings in Jawad's case: For example, Vandeveld said he did not provide the defense with information the government had about another suspect in U.S. custody who had confessed to the same crime Jawad is alleged to have committed. Nor did Vandeveld provide the defense with a report by a U.S. government intelligence analyst stating that Jawad may have been forcibly recruited into a militia group that targets young men, sexually abuses them and drugs them before forcing them to engage in violence -- a report that appears to have corroborated part of the defense counsel's case.
By August, Vandeveld was in despair. He had concluded that Jawad was in dire need of rehabilitation and he desperately wanted to broker a deal, but he could not persuade his superiors in the prosecutor's office.
Unsure of what to do, he consulted a priest online. In an Aug. 5 e-mail to the priest, which was first reported by the Los Angeles Times, Vandeveld wrote: "I am beginning to have grave misgivings about what I am doing, and what we are doing as a country. I no longer want to participate in the system, but I lack the courage to quit. I am married, with four children, and not only will they suffer, I will lose a lot of friends."
The priest, Father John Dear, known for his social activism, encouraged Vandeveld to quit. "God does not want you to participate in any injustice, and GITMO is so bad, I hope and pray you will quietly, peacefully, prayerfully, just resign, and start your life over," Dear wrote.
Vandeveld said he still didn't feel comfortable quitting. "One of the precepts of serving as a soldier is that one 'never quits,'" he told me. So he instead asked to be reassigned, to Afghanistan.
In the days after consulting with Father Dear, Vandeveld continued to try to broker a plea deal for Jawad. In an e-mail to Frakt, he complained that he had no pull in the prosecutor's office and that the chief prosecutor, Col. Lawrence Morris, seemed to have personal animus toward Frakt.
In early September, Frakt suggested in an e-mail that Vandeveld write a letter to the Convening Authority of the military commissions detailing his efforts to work out a reasonable pretrial deal for Jawad, and explaining that he was repeatedly overruled.
Vandeveld responded: "Let me think about that some more; I have to consider the impact on my family." In mid-September, he tendered his resignation.
Reprisal from the prosecutor's office was swift.
Vandeveld was directed to undergo a psychological evaluation. He was ordered to stay at home and prohibited from coming into his office pending his official release from military service.
"Those in charge of [the Office of Military Commissions] saw my actions as an abrupt volte face, an aberration borne of emotion, and were hence concerned about my mental well-being," Vandeveld told me. "As I've said before, the humiliating experience of undergoing a mental health assessment quickly showed that their concerns were unfounded."
In what may be an effort to prevent Vandeveld from testifying for the defense -- and possibly providing additional damning information about the government's conduct at Guantánamo -- the Pentagon on Tuesday announced that it was dropping charges against five of the detainees whose cases Vandeveld was working on. The prosecutor's office insisted that the announcement was unrelated to Vandeveld's allegations and that there were no plans to drop charges against Jawad.
Vandeveld is now back home, with his wife and children in Erie, Pa.
"Now that I'm home in Erie, far removed from DC not only in distance, I'm regaining my bearings and sense of self," he said by e-mail. "I've learned, to my immense surprise and gratitude, that outside the Commissions and military bubble, there are many, many fine people whose views are sincere and supportive. I've also heard from my buddies from my time in Iraq, all of them expressing fundamental support -- the connection doesn't get any deeper than that."
Jawad, meanwhile, remains at Guantánamo, going into his sixth year of confinement. The next hearing for his case is scheduled for Dec. 9.
Christian missionaries make no secret of the fact that they use medical services, education, and employment opportunities to lure impoverished indigenous populations throughout the world into conversion to Christianity.
According to the popular and scholarly history of Christianity, the early Christian Church found its greatest appeal and attracted its greatest number of converts from the poor people of the Roman Empire. The early Christian churches raised money through a tithe, or ten per cent income tax, levied on their members, and the early Christian church is said to have had a strong 'sense of community', which implies that it had a well-organized social, financial, and political network among its membership.
Using your wealth to purchase other people's loyalty is a game as old as humanity itself. Rich men use their wealth to attract women, unscrupulous employers use material incentives and disincentives to manipulate their workers, and wealthy countries like the USA use their national wealth to keep their citizens loyal to the cause of aggressive and genocidal Imperialism. But historical longevity and common practice don't make the manipulation or exploitation morally or ethically right.
Organized religions are inherently POLITICAL organizations. There is a fundamental difference between the financial enterprise and political machinations of an organized religion versus a mass of independent, unaffiliated believers, philosophers, and mystics who do not support any organized religion.
Christianity and Islam are known as proselytizing religions because they make an organized and systematic effort to gain converts, and they often provide services, products, or employment to attract converts. Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism show far less zeal about gaining converts, which is why you almost never hear about Jewish, Hindu, or Buddhist missionaries.
Modern medical and nursing schools usually teach their students the moral principle that the provision of medical services should never be used as a means to proselytize or promote a religion, but that does not deter many Christian health care providers from doing exactly that. Most of the medical and charitable organizations based in Christian countries are fronts for Christian proselytizing activities.
One of the largest international medical relief organizations based in the USA, Northwest Medical Teams, states in their recruitment brochure that their chief 'mission' is to 'spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ', that their medical relief services are subordinate to their stated goal of proselytizing Christianity, and that their medical relief work is merely an 'aegis', or facade, for spreading Christianity.
The religious and cultural Imperialism performed by missionaries nearly always goes hand-in-hand with political and economic Imperialism. Christian missionaries often work in partnership with the CIA, with the US government, and with wealthy corporations to subvert the religion, the culture, the economy, and the politics of vulnerable indigenous populations. The CIA often uses planes owned by Christian missionary organizations and flown by Christian missionary pilots to smuggle drugs, arms, and prisoners.
During the CIA's illegal Iran/Contra scam of the 1980s, Christian missionary pilots and planes smuggled drugs into the USA and arms into Central America and Iran. Now the CIA is using Christian missionary planes to smuggle heroin from Afghanistan, cocaine from Latin America, and for 'rendition' flights of 'Terrorist' prisoners to secret prisons that practice torture and commit extra-judicial executions.
The USA's Faith Based Initiative law provides Christian missionary organizations with taxpayer funds that are used to proselytize Christianity to indigenous populations throughout the world. Christian missionaries are the leading edge of a religious, cultural, economic, and political aggression supported by the US government.
When missionaries bring outside wealth to an impoverished Third World country and use that wealth to provide services that are meant to attract converts, they are interfering with the local social and economic structure as well as the local cultural traditions. Indigenous people who take advantage of the privileges provided by the missionaries and convert to Christianity partake in a social organization that uses foreign wealth as a tool to eliminate the indigenous culture and replace it with Christianity.
A small and reclusive population of a few hundred people with a primitive Stone Age culture lives on North Sentinel Island, in the Andaman chain, which is administered by the government of India. To protect the culture of the inhabitants of North Sentinel Island, the Indian government has wisely banned anyone from visiting the island. I approve of the Indian government's policy of protecting the unique culture of the North Sentinels from outside influence. If anyone on North Sentinel Island should ever desire to leave, they can build a boat and do so.
Among a total of 195 nations in the world today, fifty-seven of those nations have a legally established, official State Religion. There are fourteen nations that claim Christianity as their State Religion, twenty-six nations that claim Islam as their State Religion, six nations that claim Buddhism as their State Religion, and the Jewish State of Israel. The Jewish State of Israel discriminates against its non-Jewish citizens and within its borders Israel officially prohibits the proselytizing of any religion other than Judaism. Many people believe that Israel has a ‘right to exist’ in this manner as a Jewish State.
Many Islamic countries strive to protect the cultural identity of their citizens by enforcing a ban on preaching any religion but Islam. Considering the aggressive, insidious, and highly political nature of Christian missionary programs, the banning of non-Moslem religious preaching by Moslem governments makes sense.
Currently there is no officially Hindu State anywhere in the world, but perhaps India should become a Hindu State in order to protect its indigenous religion and culture from the predatory missionaries and State-sponsored cultural Imperialism that are coming from both Christian and Moslem countries. If the Jews have the right to establish and maintain Israel as a Jewish State, then the Hindus certainly have a right to establish and maintain India as a Hindu State.
When Western leaders talk about a 'Clash of Civilizations', what they really mean is Judeo-Christianity and corporate Capitalism versus all non-Christians and non-Capitalists. Christian missionaries are essentially colonialists working for Christian cultural Imperialism.
When the Hindus of India rise up in riot and drive out the Christian missionaries and the Christian 'cash converts', they are doing what the Iraqi, Afghani, and Palestinian Freedom Fighters are doing. They are protecting themselves and their indigenous culture from wealthy and unscrupulous invaders who have no respect for them or for their culture. I wish the Hindu nationalists well in their efforts to defend and maintain the independence and survival of their indigenous culture and religion against the onslaught of predatory and disrespectful foreigners whose goal is to replace indigenous traditional cultures with a global Christian empire.
If Christian missionaries want to come to India and try to make converts to Christianity, let them come with empty pockets and compete on a level playing field. And if most of the locals don't want the missionaries interfering with their traditional way of life, they have the right to make the missionaries and their converts leave.
23 October 2008Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia on Wednesday approved a former Russian tax official as its prime minister, prompting Georgian charges that Moscow has annexed the region after a war in August.
Aslanbek Bulatsev, a former tax chief in neighboring North Ossetia, was approved by the rebel region's parliament. South Ossetia has a long-term aim of uniting with North Ossetia.
In August, Georgian forces staged a bid to retake control of the pro-Russian enclave, which separatists have run since the early 1990s, but were crushed by Russia's ensuing military response.
Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvil said he was not surprised to hear a Russian official had become South Ossetia's prime minister.
"For the last few years, the [South Ossetian] government has been made up exclusively of Russians. This is a continuation of that trend," he said. "The Russians have been in charge and want to stay in charge. The locals don't have a voice."
Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations has turned down John McCain’s request for the financial support of his pre-election campaign. “Neither Russian officials, nor the Russian Ambassador to the UN, nor the Russian government can fund the political activity in foreign countries,” the note from the office of the Russian Ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin said Tuesday.
Russia laughs at McCain’s request for campaign money
Russia’s Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the UN released a statement Monday, in which it was said that the office had received a letter from McCain with a request to render financial assistance to his campaign.
Ruslan Bakhtin, the press secretary of the mission, said that the letter, signed by McCain was dated from September 29. The letter arrived in the mission on October 16, and was addressed to Russia’s Ambassador to the UN Vitali Churkin. The letter came complete with a motto – “Do not let Democrats rule Washington,” RIA Novosti reports.
There was a questionnaire enclosed in the letter, which was supposed to be filled out by the person, who would decide to provide the requested support to McCain’s campaign. The questionnaire was then supposed to be sent back with a bank check or a permission to debit the funds from a credit card before October 24. McCain expressed his gratitude in advance for the support of the Republican Party and hoped to receive a prompt positive response – a financial contribution that could vary from $5,000 to $35,000.
“It is evident that the letter was a mistake. It happens,” Bakhtin said. “The Russian authorities do not fund political campaigns or political activities outside Russia,” he added.
The press service of McCain’s election headquarters also acknowledged that the letter arrived to Russia’s Permanent Mission to the UN as a result of a computer mistake. “"It sounds like they have had a laugh at our expense. We obviously don't solicit campaign contributions from people who aren't able to contribute," campaign spokesman Brian Rogers said.
John McCain is known for his anti-Russian remarks. He repeatedly criticized the Russian administration for its policies and urged world leaders to exclude Russia from the Group of Eight.
To crown it all, the candidates running for US presidency are not allowed to accept financial help from foreign countries.
DUBAI (Reuters) - Pan-Arab television station Al Arabiya said Friday that hackers who identified themselves as shi'ites had attacked its Internet website, forcing it to change its domain.
The hacked website www.alarabiya.net showed an Israeli flag set on fire and a statement that read: "Serious warning: If attacks on Shia websites continue, none of your websites will be safe."
Al Arabiya is based in Dubai, the financial and commercial hub of the Gulf Arab region. Shi'ism is one of the two main sects of Islam.
"Hackers have seized Al Arabiya's domain shortly after midnight yesterday through a security loophole in the domain," Anas Fouda, editorial manager of the website, told Reuters.
"They claim to be shi'ites but there is no proof of that."
The content of the website has not been affected and investigation into the identity of the hackers was underway, Fouda said.
No shi'ite group had immediately claimed responsibility for the hacking.
With the exception of Iraq, the majority of Muslims in Arab countries are Sunnis. Shi'ite communities exist in Lebanon, Yemen and Gulf Arab countries, while non-Arab Iran has a majority shi'ite population.
The Sunni-Shi'ite schism appeared soon after Prophet Mohammad's death in 632 AD, due to a dispute over the succession to the leadership of the Muslism community.
WASHINGTON, Oct 15: Mystery surrounding the detention of a US citizen from a remote tribal area thickens as Pakistani authorities say they have released him while the US State Department says he is still in custody.
“I can confirm news reports that … an American citizen (is) detained by Pakistani officials in the tribal areas,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told a briefing on Wednesday.
“(US) Consular officers from Islamabad have travelled to the place where he is being held. They have spoken with him. And we’re doing everything that we can do and normally do for American citizens who are being held by foreign governments,” he added.
“Beyond that, I can’t offer a lot of details just because we don’t have a Privacy Act waiver.”
In Peshawar, police officials told an American news agency and television channel — AP and CBS News — that they had freed a 20-year-old American man who was arrested in a militant-infested area close to the Afghan border earlier this week. Pakistani police identified the detainee as Juddi Kennan, who holds a US passport but his father is Pakistani, and he currently lives in Peshawar. His identity has not been confirmed yet.
Mr Kennan did not have permission to visit Fata and was arrested while trying to cross a checkpost at the entrance of the Mohmand area.
But at the State Department, spokesman McCormack said that the report of his release was not accurate. He also rejected the suggestion that Mr Kennan might have been freed and picked up again. “I don’t believe that’s an accurate report. I believe that he has been in detention the entire time,” he said.
The detainee told police that he was in Peshawar to seek authorisation foreigners needed to enter tribal areas. But Mr McCormack, when asked where was the suspect being held, said: “The last information that I had is that he was being held in Waziristan.”
Asked if the US was trying to determine if this man was involved in terrorist activities, Mr McCormack said: “What we can try to do in these circumstances is … we can provide a list of lawyers that, if an individual chooses to engage a lawyer, they can choose from that list.”
The list, he said, would include lawyers the US embassy has had experience with and trusts.
Asked if US officials had spoken to the suspect’s family, Mr McCormack said: “I’m not at liberty to talk about that.”
Asked if the US administration had discussed the issue with Pakistani authorities, the State Department spokesman said: “Let me check to see what we can say about our interactions and what we may have learned or not learned from Pakistani officials.”
Esquire magazine has lately given some ink to San Bernardino-area politics, taking positions against both San Bernardino area members of the House of Representatives.
The magazine endorsed San Bernardino-area Democrat Tim Prince against Jerry Lewis, the Redlands Republican who has represented the 41st Congressional District since 1978.
Here's the mag's take:
"Lewis, the former chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee, is under investigation for steering federal contracts to cronies in exchange for campaign cash, which renders his actorly speechifying on the issue of spending restraint particularly meaningless. But, hey, he's big in France."
The magazine also endorsed Fontana Republican John Roberts in his bid to unseat Rialto Democrat Joe Baca in the race for the 43rd Congressional District seat. Here's a hat tip to the folks at Red County, who clued this reporter into the fact that Esquire has also derided Baca as one of the United States' 10-worst members of Congress. The list ranks Baca among such well known names as Alaska Sen. Ten Stevens, (a jury has begun deliberations in his corruption trial) and Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson, who gained notoriety after news stories on the (literally) cold, hard cash that was found in his freezer.
President Eisenhower warns Americans against the military-industrial complex in his exit speech on January 17, 1961. We should have listened to him. He was a Republican.
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