I have not read through all of the comments here but I was just reading the press briefing transcript from the White House Briefing this morning I was struck by the answer given as to why these tapes where destroyed.

, that "the tapes posed a serious security risk and were they ever to leak, they would permit identification of your CIA colleagues who had served in the program, exposing them and their families to retaliation from al Qaeda and its sympathizers."

,

So is the policy that all tapes of all interrogations involving Al Qaeda detainees are destroyed or only those tapes where ehanced techniques are used? If all tapes are not destroyed then that puts a lie to the idea that CIA indentifications need to be protected.

Apropos of alpha males, and base jumping, check this!

-- bamage

That's a Rocket J. Squirrel Flying Squirrel suit.

WT,

I have yet to see a police dept. that is racked by corruption shut down and razed to the ground. They fire some bad officers, make some institutional and systemic adjustments and get a new police chief. Works most of the time first time out.

L.W.M. had talked me down, but now I’m voting for Giuliani just to spite you.

-- talesofunrest

Let me talk you down again. We'll get a net.

Your problems with the table legs (symptoms) are not the real problem. The job would be easy if you had an even, level floor. That's what I keep harping on, work on the real problem, not the symptoms.

Whether its, legs, grains, pebbles, GG's making clear progress and so are we.

You did make the legs image more credible for me.

There are countless mechanisms available to a U.S. Senator or Representative to do something about illegal behavior they discover. Anyone -- not just someone in such a position -- has mechanisms available to them under whistleblower laws to intiate proceedings to investigate illegal government conduct.

I hope they aren't literally countless! I would love to see "Unclaimed Territory" cover a more thorough examination of what these mechanisms are. What power does Congress possess in these sorts of situations — to compel, to investigate, to file suit, to do things in Latin that I've never even heard of? And practically speaking what are the ramifications of such actions from a tactical perspective — that is, if a case against the Bush administration appeared before a Bush-friendly Supreme Court, how would things play out, what opportunities would there be and what ones would be lost, and so on?

And are there really powers that anyone can invoke? Could a grassroots organization introduce Congressional motions to investigate? How would that work?

I ask because I have a sense that there's much more that Congress could do but don't know exactly what, and that makes it hard to evaluate the various claims of the form "all Senate Democrats need to do is X" or "if they did Y it would never get anywhere."

from A Tiny Revolution:

DAVIS: Is there anything you could do in your position as Chairman of the Intelligence Committee to find answers about this, if it is in fact going on?

ROCKEFELLER: Don't you understand the way Intelligence works? Do you think that because I'm Chairman of the Intelligence Committee that I just say I want it, and they give it to me? They control it. All of it. All of it. All the time. I only get, and my committee only gets, what they want to give me.

DAVIS: Is there any way someone, maybe not you, they can somehow press the administration to find something—if they're doing something that may be illegal—

ROCKEFELLER: I don't know that. I don't know that. I deal with Intelligence. That's it. They tend to avoid us.

DAVIS: Well, what do you think about these allegations?

ROCKEFELLER: I'm not—I don't comment on allegations. I can't. I can't afford to.

DAVIS: Okay. Thank you.

You don't say?

I was actually just joking about the table and legs. Except for the getting shorter and shorter and remains wobbly part. That's true. I wasn't really trying to relate it to the conversation. I was just goofing around.

On a really, really, really unrelated note:

This is a link to a youtube I've watched a few times today that has just been cracking me up, and making me wanna dance.

http://tinyurl.com/39mzyx

Yes, of course, but yours is an apples and oranges example, which you -- clever agent provocateur that you are -- know very well.

But just for the sake of playing along, did you ever hear of the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit?

This is the one I meant to post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCFJ3LURCtc

I've just read a post about the Pakistani involvement on Huffpo on how a guy confessed to Saudi and Pakistani involvement then POOF-gone--(he apparently confessed to the wrong people.)Then Glenns' update3 here on Rockefeller and knowledge of the US funding a Pakistani group called Jundallah to antagonize (murder) inside Iranian borders covertly.

More to add of Pakistani collaboration on 9/11 that I'd read about last week:

10-9-2001 Times of India

Top sources confirmed here on Thurs. that IS Chief Mahmud Ahmad lost his job becasue of the "evidence" India produced to show his links to one of the suicide bombers of the WTC. US authorities sought his removal after confirming $100,000 was wired to WTC hijacker Mohammad Atta from Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sheikh at the instance of Gen. Mahmud.

This also:

2 Days before 9/11 Karachi News

Pakistani Chief Mahmuds' week-long presence in Washington began speculation about meetings he had at the Pentagon and NSC.

LOL Thanks. I needed that. I found it on both links. Three diverse groups, dance together and walk off together. Wished it was that easy in real life.

Apples and oranges?

It's an institution or bureacracy, and a government one at that. An arm of the state, in fact, with the monoploy on domestic coercive force, no less. NYPD has a police force (Just under 40K) larger than the standing armies of most of the countries in the world. (Oh no! Here come the Pauliacs. It's a police state!).

My point is that it has been gripped by corruption and scandal yet we do not abolish it, and for good reason. Even under Rudy, it wasn't the Stasi.