Cartoons
Comment Of The Day
Comes from ‘Someone’ in comments to my post on Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson and ‘domestic extremism’.
Heh. Indeed.
Home. Chickens. Roost.
Nemesis, nemesis, everywhere you look.
I made a flippant comment a while back that doesn’t seem quite so snarky now; I said that the administration should’ve issued its torturers and kidnappers with cyanide capsules in case of apprehension, so they couldn’t be made to spill on their bosses in the White House.
Germany issues CIA arrest orders
Germany has issued arrest warrants for 13 people over the alleged CIA-backed kidnapping of one of its citizens.
Munich prosecutors said the arrest warrants were linked to the case of Khaled al-Masri, a German national of Lebanese descent.
Mr Masri says he was seized in 2003 in Macedonia, flown to a secret prison in Afghanistan and mistreated there.
Click for map of European rendition flights
No wonder the minor functionaries of the CIA have been so anxious about their liability insurance. Remember this?
Worried CIA Officers Buy Legal Insurance
Plans Fund Defense In Anti-Terror CasesBy R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 11, 2006; Page A01CIA counterterrorism officers have signed up in growing numbers for a government-reimbursed, private insurance plan that would pay their civil judgments and legal expenses if they are sued or charged with criminal wrongdoing, according to current and former intelligence officials and others with knowledge of the program.
The new enrollments reflect heightened anxiety at the CIA that officers may be vulnerable to accusations they were involved in abuse, torture, human rights violations and other misconduct, including wrongdoing related to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. They worry that they will not have Justice Department representation in court or congressional inquiries, the officials said.
The anxieties stem partly from public controversy about a system of secret CIA prisons in which detainees were subjected to harsh interrogation methods, including temperature extremes and simulated drowning. The White House contends the methods were legal, but some CIA officers have worried privately that they may have violated international law or domestic criminal statutes..
May have violated the law? Did violate the law and did so knowingly. Don’t tell me those goons thought kidnap and torture was lawful, they knew damned well it was not. Why else be so worried about their insurance cover? That alone presupposes knowledge of iilegality.
Names and nationalities are to follow later this afternoon, but we can’t expect arrests of any Americans accused:
German arrest warrants are not valid in the US but if the suspects were to travel to the European Union they could be arrested.
It would be karmically pleasing though if, instead of applying for extradition, the Germans were to just round the accused up off the streets and fly them back to Germany in goggles, chains and nappies, never to be seen again. But civilised societies don’t do things like that, do they?
But with warrants being issued all over those agents must realise that although they may never be arrested or charged in the US, nevertheless they’re going to be named. This means that they’lll have to take the entire fall for Bush, Cheney and Gonzalez’ torture policy publicly, without even the benefit of a trial (unlike those Europeans who may be accused of colluding) and not one of their bosses will lift a finger to help. Deniability, see. The loyalty only ever went one way.
We’ll see if these ‘few bad apple’ agents will choose to tell all rather than be exposed to the fuill blast of public notoriety.
If they do the White House, if they didn’t issue the poison pills along with the Halliburton Secret Agent kits, may be rather wishing they had.
Scooter Libby’s Defence: “Evil Dick Made Me Do It, Waaah!”
We’ve had our differences in the past, but that doesn’t detract from my appreciation of Firedoglake’s superb coverage of former Cheney assistant Scooter Libby’s trial for perjury over the outing of CIA undecover agent Valerie Plame during the Niger Uranium scandal..
Here’s a sample:
The first opening statement was given today by the prosecution, with Patrick Fitzgerald leading off for the government. His opening was concise, very tightly constructed, and left no doubt that he was very clear about the reasons for which he sought an indictment for I. Lewis Libby from the federal grand jury for the five count indictment returned last October. Fitzgerald’s style presents as someone who puts together the pieces of the puzzle until they fit together as a tight whole — and he certainly tried to do that with his opening this morning.
The stage was set from the start of the opening with regard to pushback against Amb. Joseph Wilson, whose op-ed in the New York Times (and his earlier unattributed quotes to other journalists) went to the heart of the credibility of the Bush Administration’s foundation — or lack thereof — for starting the war in Iraq. Fitzgerald walked the jury back to the “sixteen words” in the President’s State of the Union address on January 28, 2003 — and the fact that Amb. Joseph Wilson’s allegations brought the possiblity that the President lied to the American public in that speech right into the living rooms of average Americans.
Because that credibility was being challenged so close to the 2004 election cycle, because the credibility the Dick Cheney in particulr was being directly questioned, there was substantial pushback from the White House, and especially from the office of the Vice President, and Scooter Libby was tasked with getting that message out to the media.
Fitzgerald walked the jurors through the five felony charges — obstruction of justice, two counts of false statements, and two counts of perjury — and the elements of each of these charges that the government is required to prove. Fitzgerald then went through the expected evidence and testimony from various government witnesses by placing each into context on a timeline that very methodically, and effectively, laid out the government case against Libby.
More…
Libby’s defence counsel came up with something unexpected: rather than just using the ‘I’m an Important Politician, I can’t be expected to remember everything’ defence to the charge of perjury, he’s going for the ‘It wasn’t me and anyway I was only following orders’ argument as the WaPo reports:
The mission of Mr. Wells, in contrast, was to present the case as hopelessly complicated, thus leaving the jurors in doubt about the validity of the charges. Mr. Wells spoke for nearly two and a half hours, ranging over issues of the reliability of memory; Mr. Libby’s duties, which during the relevant period included crises in Liberia and Turkey; and threats from Al Qaeda on the days that Mr. Libby spoke to reporters.
But his most startling comment was his assertion that Mr. Libby had become enmeshed in legal difficulty because of White House efforts to protect Mr. Rove.
If Mr. Libby and his lawyers press their strategy of blaming the White House, it could prove risky, possibly even jeopardizing chances of a presidential pardon for Mr. Libby if he is convicted.
Mr. Libby, Mr. Wells said, complained to Vice President Dick Cheney that he was being set up as a fall guy. Mr. Cheney supported that view, Mr. Wells said, and handwrote a note saying, “Not going to protect one staffer + sacrifice the guy who was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others.”
Oooh, the White House isn’t going to like that….
[Rubs hands together in glee]
Looks like the slime are turning on each other on both sides of the Atlantic.
[cartoon from the Illustrated Daily Scribble]
