Authorities allege he was a bomb-maker, document forger and aide to Osama bin Laden. The attacks at embassies in Tanzania and Kenya killed 124 people, including 12 Americans…

Document forger…hmm…

Question: What does the paragraph below mean? There were dates in the previous paragraph that said that pictures from 9/11/01 to 1/22/09 were covered. Does this paragraph change the previous one?

(6) EFFECTIVE DATE- This subsection shall take effect on the date of enactment of this Act and apply to any photograph created before, on, or after that date that is a covered record.

My God, what is this doing in a Homeland Security budget bill?

And if the detainee pictures created from ‘07 forward are covered and only requires a certification from the Sec. of Defense, that means that Gates can cover pictures of incidents that happened while he was Sec. of Defense. He would be able to legally cover for himself.

This makes me sick. It really does. I can hardly remember how it felt to be excited that we would have Democrats in control of the WH, Senate and House and the anticipation of some justice.

Did Susan Crawford admit the government had tortured al-Qahtani because she knew these videotapes might come out?

When the term ‘videotapes’ is used, do we mean VHS tape? Or do we mean digital video?

Assuming that someone(s) in the military, FBI, or Blackwater (for use as leverage-extortion) have tapes, it’s impossible not to assume that they’ll come out. Surprise, surprise.

It’s amazing that we are only hearing of these tapes now. Let’s recall what the torturers were saying about videotaping at Guantanamo in October 2002, in the minutes of one major meeting:

– At this point a discussion about whether or not to video tape the aggressive sessions, or interrogations at all ensued.

Becker: Videotapes are subject to too much scrutiny in court. We don’t want the LEA people in aggressive sessions anyway.

LTC Beaver: LEA choice not to participate in these types of interrogations is more ethical and moral as opposed to legal.

Fredman: The videotaping of even totally legal techniques will look “ugly”.

Becker: (Agreed)

Al-Qahtani was also discussed:

LTC Phifer: Harsh techniques used on our service members have worked and will work on some, what about those?

MAJ Leso: Force is risky, and may be ineffective due to the detainees’ frame of reference. They are used to seeing much more barbaric treatment.

Becker: Agreed.

– At this point a discussion about ISN 63 [Mohammed al-Qahtani] ensued, recalling how he has responded to certain types of deprivation and psychological stressors. After short discussion the BSCT continued to address the overall manipulation of the detainees’ environment.

BSCT continued:

* Psychological stressors are extremely effective (ie, sleep deprivation, withholding food, isolation, loss of time)

COL Cummings: We can’t do sleep deprivation

LTC Beaver: Yes, we can — with approval.

Bravo to CCR for all their work on this. Together with ACLU and PHR, the torturers’ crimes and schemes will ultimately be revealed, and I have hope again that accountability will indeed be realized.

Time again to send a donation to CCR, I’d say.

That’s just one more irritant by the TradMed. They all squirrel away their source information as if it were the Holy Grail. Yes, I’m sure they’re concerned about competitors using their ill-gotten material for their competitors’ benefit, but nothing stays secret once the tales begin to be told.

So, NYT, WaPo and CBS News, how about making that “report” publicly available and let us ignorant serfs do our own analysis?

WWII Germany? I dunno.

OT, but from the Sunday WaPo, a story that digs back to the battle at Wanat in July of 2008

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..9100401053

It uses the approach of taking the platoon leader who was killed, a young man named Jonathan Bostrum, and setting the story around him.

Shortly after he became platoon leader, his unit was sent to recover the bodies of six U.S. soldiers and a Marine who were gunned down while returning on foot to Bella.

When Bostrum went home, to visit with his parents (father retired from the Army) he showed some videos

In one video, Brostrom’s battalion fired artillery and white phosphorus, an incendiary weapon, at a distant campfire in the mountains where it had killed insurgents earlier that day. Someone had come to collect the bodies. The soldiers were determined to kill them.

“Here comes a mighty big explosion on this little candlelight ceremony that the Taliban is having for their buddies that died there earlier,” one of the soldiers says on the video. “This is going to be glorious. It is going to be a bloodbath.”

A few seconds later, the mountainside exploded with fire, and the soldiers let up a raucous cheer.

Human rights groups have criticized the United States for employing white phosphorus to kill enemy fighters, but this type of use is permitted under military rules. The elder Brostrom weighed his words carefully before he spoke. “How do you know those people dragging the bodies away weren’t villagers coming to get their relatives?” he asked.

“They are all [expletive] Taliban up there,” the son replied.

The father continued to press his doubts. The son maintained that the hard-nosed approach was the only thing keeping him alive in a hopeless corner of Afghanistan. Finally, the young lieutenant snapped. “You don’t understand,” he said.

“You’re right, son. I don’t,” the father replied. “I don’t understand it. But I am worried. I am really worried.”

emph added

Um, I’d like to know how WaPo came up with the statement that using white phosphorus to kill enemy fighters is a “permitted” use under “military rules” In any event, after this trip home, Bostrum and his platoon move from Bella to Wanat, per the orders of Bostrum’s battalion commander, Lt. Col. William Ostlund. Wanat’s population was one that Ostland didn’t understand and didn’t respect, per his own words, but he thought that the American troops could set up in the vicinity and make the residents “better people.”

Once Bostrum got onsite and while he was encountering disasters in getting equipment and water to establish his base, the “not good people” showed up with “a list of Afghans who had been killed in a helicopter attack the previous week. The dead included insurgents but also several local medical personnel who had worked closely with U.S. soldiers. The incident had infuriated people throughout the valley.”

Yeah – isolated area, some of the only medical people around, and they get taken out. And the military in the area led by a guy who avowedly doesn’t respect the local people. Still, it’s all going to turn out ok, isn’t it, bc Ostland “believes” that, even with his lack of respect for the locals and even with killing off their medical support,

…that U.S. troops could win the allegiance of the people there. “Americans are hard to dislike for an extended period of time,” he said. “I really believe that.”

And in the end, there is a horrible Taliban attack (no doubt tolerated if not supported by the furious locals – who are maybe having trouble respecting the killing of medical personnel and burial crews) and Bostrum and 8 other members of his platoon are killed and others are injured and in the end, what was it for? Maybe Ostlund, who has been a teacher at West Point (maybe the “winning hearts and minds by doing nothing but jus cuz it’s hard to dislike us over the long haul” class?) has that answer. Maybe Obama has it. Maybe Jones, or Mullen, or DiFi, or Biden or some frickin person has it.

I’m fairly certain McChrystal and Petraeus don’t.