January 1, 2004-German citizen Khaled El-Masri is captured in Macedonia. He is flown to Kabul, Afghanistan [through Baghdad] on January 24, 2004, and imprisoned there until May 28, 2004. “During this period the CIA discovered that no charges could be brought against him and that his passport was genuine, but inexplicably kept Mr El-Masri in his squalid, solitary confinement for several weeks thereafter.” For details see [20]

May 28, 2004-Khaled El-Masri is flown on a CIA chartered plane from Afghanistan to Albania, on the first leg of his “extraordinary homeward rendition” […] He is eventually put on a commercial flight from Tirana, Albania’s capital city, and sent home to Germany. He received a boarding card for this final flight and an Albanian exit stamp in his passport for May 29, 2004. [See January 1, 2004 and October 9, 2007][20]

March 2, 2007-US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit rules against Kahlid El-Masri, who had claimed that he was detained and interrogated [See January 1, 2004] in violation of his rights under the Constitution and international law. The Ruling was in agreement with the US Government which argued that El-Masri's case could not proceed because it posed an unreasonable risk that privileged state secrets would be disclosed. On October 9, 2007, The Supreme Court declines to hear the appeal. [21]

October 9, 2007-The Supreme Court declines to hear the appeal of Khalid El-Masri, a German citizen who claims that he was tortured in a prison in Afghanistan after being kidnapped by the CIA in Macedonia. [See January 1, 2004] The Court's decision means that a March 2, 2007 decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit will stand. [21]

[sources at sig.]

I needed that.

"Without another terrorist attack" is definitely not as good as "without a terrorist attack", which is what you MIGHT have been able to say, George, if you had taken your job seriously in the first place.

Ever read John W. Dean?

Understanding the Contemporary Republican Party: Authoritarians Have Taken Control

Part One in a Three-Part Series

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20070905.html

"[..] And it's perfectly natural -- just not for Israel but in general -- for a party to want to maintain dominance over its adversaries and to want to prevent its enemies from obtaining weapons that can be used against it.

Should those two words be reversed?

I couldn't give a crap what you say, because it's just a bunch of twisted lies...ALL of it.

Here is some information on that from 2007: http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/ssi/full_report_marty_060807.pdf?hpid=topnews

And that, of course, explains why the US invaded Iraq: there was something to be gained. Oh, maybe not.

- Mike Sulzer

At least according to Rumsfeld, there was more to be gained from bombing Iraq than from bombing Afghanistan...and of course, those were the only two options.

According to Richard Clarke:

“That night, on 9/11, Rumsfeld came over and the others, and the president finally got back, and we had a meeting. And Rumsfeld said, You know, we’ve got to do Iraq, and everyone looked at him—at least I looked at him and Powell looked at him—like, What the hell are you talking about? And he said—I’ll never forget this—There just aren’t enough targets in Afghanistan. We need to bomb something else to prove that we’re, you know, big and strong and not going to be pushed around by these kind of attacks.”

Those assholes put so many in the military and other branches of government into difficult moral dilemmas. As professionals, military members have the full responsibility to handle those dilemmas for the good of the greater community.--RMP

That's exactly what Capt. Ian Fishback was talking about when he wrote to John McCain. McCain heard him, and The Detainee Treatment Act was signed on December 30, 2005. Unfortunately, there were other Amendments to that Bill which diluted the message.

September 16, 2005-West Point graduate and Army infantry Capt. Ian Fishback writes to Sen. John McCain, ending by saying: “[…] Once again, I strongly urge you to do justice to your men and women in uniform. Give them clear standards of conduct that reflect the ideals they risk their lives for. […]” [See Detainee Treatment Act, October 5, 2005 and December 30, 2005] Captain Fishback’s letter was published in the Washington Post on September 27, 2005. See [24]

References here [and at sig]:

http://www.webdsi.com/jebbie/tline.html

That's what Marine Brigadier General Michael Lehnert tried to do:

January 6, 2002 [approx] - Joint Task Force 160, led by Marine Brigadier General Michael Lehnert, is tasked with building detention facilities in 96 hours at Guantanamo for prisoners taken in Afghanistan. Lehnert had been told by the Joint Chiefs of Staff “that the Geneva Conventions would not technically apply to his mission: He was to act in a manner "consistent with" the conventions (as the mantra went) but not to feel bound by them.” Without new policy guidance, he determined to follow the Uniform Code of Military Justice. His requests for ICRC representatives to be brought to Guantanamo were not answered by his chain of command. [See January 17, 2002][31]

The Judge Advocate Generals tried to do the right thing:

February 5 - March 13, 2003-Top Judge Advocates General (JAGs) file memos condemning the use of extreme interrogation techniques. [16]

April 2003-“JAGs made a final effort [to fight the change in DOD policy]. They went to see Scott Horton, a specialist in international human-rights law […] The JAGs told Horton they could only talk obliquely about practices that were classified. But they said the U.S. military's 50-year history of observing the demands of the Geneva Conventions was now being overturned. "There is a calculated effort to create an atmosphere of legal ambiguity" about how the conventions should be interpreted and applied” […] the prime movers in this effort […] were DOD Under Secretary for Policy Douglas Feith and DOD general counsel William Haynes. There was, they warned, "a real risk of a disaster" for U.S. interests. […] Ultimately what was developed at Gitmo was a "72-point matrix for stress and duress" (RR)

http://www.webdsi.com/jebbie/tline.html