DIPLOMATIC ASSURANCES: WORTHLESS

By William Fisher

Countries that rely on ‘diplomatic assurances’ that other countries won’t torture transferred prisoners “are either engaging in wishful thinking or using the assurances as a figleaf to cover their complicity,” a new report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) charges.

HRW said, “There is substantial evidence that in the course of the global “war on terrorism,” an increasing number of governments have transferred, or proposed sending, alleged terrorist suspects to countries where they know the suspects will be at risk of torture or ill-treatment.”

In countries with “a serious and persistent” history of prisoner abuse, “diplomatic assurances do not and cannot prevent torture. The practice should stop,” the report said.

Recipient countries have included Egypt, Syria, Uzbekistan, and Yemen, where torture is a systemic human rights problem. Transfers have also been carried out or proposed to Algeria, Morocco, Russia, Tunisia, and Turkey, “where members of particular groups — Islamists, Chechens, Kurds — are routinely singled out for the worst forms of abuse”.

The HRW report comes on the heels of British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s proposal, following the London underground bombings, to deport people who advocate violence.

HRW said “the use of diplomatic assurances against torture is a global phenomenon, with sending countries in North America and Europe leading the charge”.

It added, “The issue of diplomatic assurances against torture gained notoriety recently when U.S. officials acknowledged a large number of transfers of suspects to countries where torture is a serious human rights problem, claiming that U.S. authorities regularly sought and received diplomatic assurances of humane treatment from receiving governments prior to the transfers. In an increasing number of those cases, the suspects have credibly alleged that they were tortured.”

In a separate statement, HRW criticized the August 10th ‘memorandum of understanding’ reached between the United Kingdom and Jordan.

It said the U.K. “cannot deport security suspects to Jordan without violating the international prohibition against sending persons to countries where they face a serious risk of torture.”
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The agreement, HRW said, “does nothing to reduce that risk or to change the obligation not to expose people to torture”.

“There is still torture in Jordan, especially with regard to security suspects,”
said Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division.
“All the good reasons that prevented the U.K. from deporting people to Jordan
before August 10 remain unchanged by this agreement.”

The U.K. and Jordan are both parties to the Convention against Torture and
Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment. “Under international law, the prohibition against torture is absolute and cannot be waived under any circumstances”, HRW said.

Britain recently detained several foreign residents who may now face deportation. Jordan’s State Security Court, composed of two military and one civilian judge, had sentenced two of the men in absentia to 15-year and life sentences respectively for involvement in terrorist activities in 2000 and 2001.

HRW pointed out that “criminals convicted in absentia have the right to a full retrial once they come into Jordanian custody.”

HRW said that the U.K.-Jordan agreement “represents an effort to get around the Convention against Torture’s strict non-refoulement obligation and
has no mechanism for accountability”.

“Jordan stands to gain custody of criminal suspects while Britain rids itself of unwelcome persons, and neither country has any incentive to monitor treatment or investigate allegations of abuse.”

HRW’s Stork said, “Jordan’s General Intelligence Department, prisons and ordinary police stations all have known records of abuse. By seeking Jordanian promises to treat these returned persons differently, the U.K. is confirming that the risk of torture continues.”

In September 2004, the National Human Rights Center, an official body, announced that Abdullah al-Mushaqaba had died in Juwaida Prison as a result of torture. Detainees of that same prison told the Arab Organization for Human Rights in Jordan, a local non-governmental organization, in August 2005 that that they were severely beaten.

Last year, the Center received 250 allegations of torture or ill-treatment in Jordanian detentions. These numbers do not include the General Intelligence Directorate, which did not allow any visits by non-governmental human rights monitors. The Intelligence Directorate is often the first place of detention for security detainees.

Human Rights Watch said that the U.K. plans to conclude similar agreements with other countries across the region, including Egypt and Algeria.

“Jordan, Egypt and Algeria all have a documented history of torture,” said
Stork. “Neither Britain nor any other country should consider returning people
to such countries where they face the risk of torture.”

The HRW report, “Still At Risk”, says, “The global effort to apprehend, interrogate, and prosecute persons suspected of involvement in terrorist activities is a vital project. It is incumbent on states to work individually and collectively to ensure that such persons, if proven guilty, are brought to justice. It is also incumbent on them, however, to ensure that basic rights are upheld”.

The past two years have seen widespread exposure of the once-secret practice of “rendition’ – sending or taking prisoners to third countries.

The December 2001 expulsions of two Egyptian asylum seekers from Sweden based on assurances against torture caused a national scandal after the men alleged that they had been tortured and ill-treated in Egyptian custody. It has been reliably reported that the men were kidnapped from Sweden by the CIA and flown to Egypt n the agency’s leased Gulfstream jet.

The U.S. is also faulted for its pervasive use of diplomatic assurances in rendition and immigration cases, and to effect returns of detainees from Guantánamo Bay.

HRW also says that in Europe there is “an alarming and growing trend toward securing diplomatic assurances against torture and ill-treatment to effect extraditions, deportations, and expulsions, despite Europe’s claim to having the most advanced human rights protection system in the world”.

AIR FORCE ACADEMY (AGAIN)

By William Fisher

A retired Army major general is throwing fuel on the hot issue of religious discrimination at the U.S. Air Force Academy by writing to commanders there to urge their backing a Christian evangelical rally for military personnel sponsored by Rev. Billy Graham's ministry – and signing his letters “Your Partner in the Gospel”.

The academy, which has been dogged by allegations of harassment against non-Christian cadets, charged that Bob Dees has sent promotional literature to commanders at the Academy, saying the event “will spiritually refresh you and equip you to share your faith in Jesus Christ with your brothers and sisters in arms.”

In his letter, Dees, wrote, “We wholeheartedly recommend that you give (the event) the widest possible distribution within your command…This seminar is designed to provide assistance to chaplains and other military personnel who are followers of Jesus Christ to enable them more effectively serve their religious faith groups while serving their country…Your support in making this known to your chaplains for dissemination.”

Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU), an advocacy group that has played a leading role in exposing religious bias at the Academy, warned military officials not to promote a Christian evangelistic rally for military personnel sponsored by Billy Graham's ministry, now run by Rev. Graham’s son, Franklin Graham.

AU said it took action after learning that Dees, who is now executive director
of the Military Ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ International, had sent
e-mails to installation commanders nationwide, not only at the Air Force Academy, informing them of a Sept. 9-11 “Serving God and Country” seminar in Asheville, N.C.

Promotional material for the event says other speakers will include U.S. Army
General Robert Van Antwerp, who will speak about how “to lead and influence others with the character and life of Jesus Christ.”

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, AU’s executive director, said, “The military must never favor one faith over others. The Graham Ministries' event is intended to teach Christian evangelism, and that's not something the military should be involved in.”

In a letter sent to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and base
commanders nationwide today, AU's Lynn pointed out that the Constitution forbids government to promote religion.

Lynn’s letter said that promoting this Christian event to members of the military “could convey an unconstitutional message of governmental endorsement
of religion, and to therefore urge you to ensure that military leaders do not encourage members of the military or their spouses to attend the event or
otherwise promote it in any way.”

Lynn’s letter says it would be “highly inappropriate for the military to
endorse a rally sponsored by Franklin Graham, a harsh and controversial
critic of Islam, at a time when the nation is fighting a war in a Muslim region
of the world.”

The 4000-cadet Air Force Academy, which trains future officers, is located in Colorado Springs, Colorado, a town that is also home to a number of the nation’s
most high-profile Christian evangelical organizations.

In response to recent accusation of religious discrimination at the Academy, a military task force led by Lt. Gen. Roger Brady reported that the Academy
failed to accommodate the diverse religious needs of cadets and staff.

“Religious slurs and disparaging remarks have no place at the Air Force Academy”, Gen. Brady said.

Retired Chaplain Jack C. Williamson told legislators that the current problems
at the academy were result of “years of practice that have gone unchallenged”,
adding that the problem “goes far beyond tolerance”.

Dr. Christian Leslie, an ordained minister who is a professor at the Yale University Divinity School, said she was concerned about the power relationship between teachers and students.

“There is a problem when a chaplain defends saying ‘Jesus will be with you, Jesus will save you’ with the response ‘That’s the way we do it here – we promote Jesus’.”
Patrick Mrotek, founder of the new Christian Alliance for Progress, told IPS in an email, “Separation of church and state has been a fundamental American value that both protects us from the government imposing a particular religion while also guaranteeing our freedom from that government in our place of worship. The Christian Right seeks to institutionalize and impose their beliefs on all Americans when our country’s political and religious traditions honor precisely the opposite values.”

The Alliance is a religious organization advocating moderation and the separation of church and state.

The furor exploded this summer when a chaplain at the academy, Capt. Melinda Morton, charged that the religious problem at the academy was "pervasive."

Captain Morton was given an unwanted transfer, but resigned from the Air Force saying she did not believe her superiors genuinely wanted her to stay on to help resolve the problem. Before she resigned, she lodged a formal complaint, which is currently being investigated by the Air Force Inspector General.

Among the incidents highlighted in the task force report were fliers that advertised a screening of "The Passion of the Christ" at every seat in the dining hall, more than 250 people at the academy signing an annual Christmas message in the base newspaper that said, "Jesus Christ is the only real hope for the world" and an atheist student who was forbidden to organize a club for "Freethinkers."

The commandant of cadets, Brig. Gen. Johnny A. Weida, came in for particular
scrutiny by the Air Force panel. He sent an academy wide e-mail message to announce the National Day of Prayer, instructed cadets that they were "accountable to their God" and invented a call-and-response chant with the cadets that went, "Jesus ... Rocks."

Brian J. Foley, a professor at Florida Coastal School of Law in Jacksonville, told IPS, “We are often told that the reason we spend more than any other country on our armed forces is because our military exists to 'protect our freedoms.' If the allegations about the Air Force Academy are true, then the Air Force must immediately move to protect its own future officers' constitutional right to freedom of religion. These brave and talented young men and women, who have committed to risk their lives to defend their country, deserve the ability to practice their religion, or no religion at all, free from government pressure and coercion, and free from the government's supporting one religion over other religions.”

MORE ABU GHRAIB

By William Fisher

Civil libertarians and the Pentagon appear headed for yet another trainwreck in the ongoing dispute over the so-called ‘second batch’ of photos from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

In response to a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and a number of medical and veterans groups demanding release of 87 new videos and photographs depicting detainee abuse at the now infamous prison, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, said the release would result in "riots, violence and attacks by insurgents.”

In court papers filed to contest the lawsuit, Gen. Myers said he consulted with Gen. John P. Abizaid, head of the United States Central Command, and Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the commander of the American forces in Iraq. Both officers also opposed the release, General Myers said.

Gen. Myers said he believes “release of the photos would “incite public opinion in the Muslim world and put the lives of American soldiers and officials at risk”, according to documents unsealed in federal court in New York.

"The situation on the ground in Iraq is dynamic and dangerous," Myers added,
with 70 insurgent attacks daily. He also said there was evidence that the
Taliban was gaining ground because of popular discontent in Afghanistan.

General Myers cited the violence that erupted in some Muslim countries in May
after Newsweek published an item, which it later retracted, saying that a Koran had been thrown in a toilet in the United States detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. He also said the images could fuel terrorist disinformation campaigns.

"It is probable that Al Qaeda and other groups will seize upon these images and
videos as grist for their propaganda mill, which will result in, besides violent
attacks, increased terrorist recruitment, continued financial support and
exacerbation of tensions between Iraqi and Afghani populaces and U.S. and
coalition forces," he said.

The 87 “new” photos and four videotapes taken at Abu Ghraib were among those turned over to Army investigators last year by Specialist Joseph M. Darby, a reservist who was posted at the prison.

In legal papers unsealed last week, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and its allied groups urged the court to order the release of photographs and videos, and also asked the court to reject the government's attempt to file some of its legal arguments in secret.

It said that until the first photos of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib were made public in April 2004, the government had consistently denied that any wrongdoing had taken place despite news reports to the contrary. Since then, the ACLU has obtained, through a court order, more than 60,000 pages of government documents regarding torture and abuse of detainees.

At a court hearing on Monday, the judge said he generally ruled in favor of public disclosure and ordered the government to reveal some redacted parts of its argument for blocking the release of pictures and videotapes.

U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said his rulings pertained to arguments by Gen. Myers. "By and large, I ruled in favor of public disclosure," he said.

The judge said he believes photographs "are the best evidence the public can have of what occurred" at the prison.

He scheduled arguments on the question of whether the photographs and videos should be released for Aug. 30, saying a speedy decision is important so the public's right to know isn't compromised.

The ACLU has also called for an independent counsel with subpoena power to investigate the torture scandal, including the role of senior policymakers, and has filed a separate lawsuit to hold Secretary Rumsfeld and high-ranking military officers accountable.

Reed Brody, head of international programs for Human Rights Watch (HRW), told IPS, "The problem is not the photos but the policy of abuse. The release of the first photos last year led us to the revelations that senior U.S. officials had secretly sidelined the Geneva Conventions, re-defined ‘torture’, and approved illegal coercive interrogation methods. The release of new photos showing crimes perpetrated on detainees could create new impetus to expose and prosecute those ultimately responsible and hopefully prevent these practices
from being repeated."

Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, told IPS,
“The administration's response to the release of the photos is to kill the messenger, rather then to investigate and prosecute the real culprits: Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Generals Miller and Sanchez, and others.”

He agreed that “the photos will be upsetting to anyone who cares about humane treatment and particularly to those in the Muslim world, but the photos reflect the reality of the type of treatment detainees were subjected to. Rather than suppress the best evidence of widespread torture of Muslim detainees, the Administration ought to launch a fully independent investigation and ought to see that an independent prosecutor is appointed.”

He added, “Ensuring accountability for the torture conspiracy is the best way of demonstrating to the Muslim world that this outrage has come to an end and will not be repeated”.

The government initially objected to the release of the images on the grounds that it would violate the Geneva Conventions rights of the detainees depicted in the images. That concern was addressed by court order on June 1 directing the government to redact any personally identifying characteristics from the images. The ACLU did not object to those redactions.

The ACLU said the government has repeatedly taken the position that the detainees themselves cannot rely on the Geneva Conventions in legal proceedings to challenge their mistreatment by American personnel.

In a court declaration, former U.S. Army Colonel Michael E. Pheneger, a retired military intelligence expert, responded to the government's "cause-and-effect" argument that release of the images would spark violence abroad.

“Our enemies seek to prevent the United States from achieving its objectives in the Middle East," he said. "They do not need specific provocations to justify their actions."

Attacks by insurgents “will continue regardless of whether the photos and tapes are released, " he added.

The case arose from a lawsuit filed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans for Peace.

Let's Not Spite Our Face With Profiling

By Hussein Ibish

Hussein Ibish is the vice chair of the Progressive Muslim Union of North America. This commentary appeared in The Daily Star newspaper in Beirut.

If anyone ever wondered what demons lurking in American culture might have possessed the singer Michael Jackson to bleach his skin and destroy his once-noble African features through a series of bizarre plastic surgeries - to literally cut off his nose to spite his face - all they need to do is cast their attention on the debate that has ensued in recent weeks in the United States about "racial profiling."

Racial profiling is a long-discredited American law-enforcement technique whereby police identify individuals as suspects based on their apparent race, ethnicity, age, and other simple identity criteria. This was a central feature of abuse against African-American and Latino populations throughout the country, but is now illegal and has few defenders. Except where Arabs and Muslims are concerned.

Following the attacks on the London mass transport system, the New York City subway instituted random searches of passengers, as a reassurance to the public and a deterrent to terrorists. Many American commentators have condemned this policy, as well as the U.S. government's entire counterterrorism strategy, for not engaging in racial profiling against Arab and Muslim Americans.

Many Americans are used to thinking in simplistic terms about race and ethnicity, of living in a world divided between black and white in which identity is obvious from pigmentation and can be discerned at a glance. Proponents of profiling have proven amazingly resistant to understanding that identifying Arab and Muslim Americans based on appearance is simply impossible.

Leaving aside the fact that over half of the Arabs in the United States are Christians, Arabs can resemble almost any group of southern Europeans, Latin Americans, Central and South Asians, or Africans.

Even more preposterous would be any attempt to identify Muslims by appearance, since Muslims come from almost every part of the world, and constitute a fifth of humanity. And, since about a third of American Muslims are African-Americans, any futile attempt at profiling of Muslims, especially in urban areas such as New York City, would immediately degenerate into yet another way of profiling black people.

Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer wants racial profiling but would "immediately exempt Hispanics, Scandinavians and East Asians," as if Hispanics were readily distinguishable from Arabs and South Asians. And, as his Washington Post colleague Colby King pointed out, "by eliminating Scandinavians from his list of obvious terror suspects, Krauthammer would have authorities give a pass to all white people."

Supporters of racial profiling cling to the idea that you can tell who is an Arab, and even a Muslim, just by looking at them. I was on a CNN debate recently with a profiling supporter who, when confronted with the facts, resorted to holding up the photos of the 19 hijackers of September 11, 2001, and insisting: "They all look alike."

The tragic shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in the London subway could have been based in part on his dress and behavior, as British authorities maintain. But almost certainly Menezes would not been shot eight times in the head had he not been a young, brown-skinned man. British police looked at a Brazilian electrician and saw a Pakistani suicide-bomber.

Not that all the London bombers were of Pakistani origin - a fourth man was Jamaican. The failed bombers in the second group were all East Africans. And then you have Richard Reid, John Walker Lindh and Jose Padilla, to mention but a few. But it's okay, "they all look alike."

Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind has also demanded that New York police use ethnic profiling in the subway searches, maintaining that "the London suicide bombers on July 7 and July 21 fit a very precise intelligence profile." He also found that "[T]hey all look a certain way." The police replied "racial profiling is illegal, of doubtful effectiveness, and against department policy."

Demagogues who call for profiling against American Muslims need to drop the pretence that this could be based on appearances or names. It would require Americans to carry identity documents confirming their official religious designation. And even if it were possible to profile Arabs or Muslims by sight, or Muslims were forced to carry religious identification to be produced on demand, the effect would still be to cast an impossibly wide pool of suspects and distract attention from behavioral and other contingent factors that may actually point to a potential threat.

Race, ethnicity and religious affiliation, even when accurately identified, are widely recognized by law enforcement and counter-terrorism officials as false leads, which in themselves say nothing relevant about whether or not an individual may be about to commit a crime.

Only two approaches in dealing with mass groups of people make sense: comprehensiveness, as at airports; or randomness, as in subways - anything in between serves less as a deterrent to terrorists and more as a tipping of the authorities' hand and a helpful hint for how not to get caught.

When U.S. airport security was based on a supposedly neutral, secret computer profiling system, dating from 1996 and leading up to September 11, 2001, the evidence strongly suggested that it resulted in widespread discrimination against Arab and Muslim travelers. However, it did not prevent the September 11 attacks.

The intensified post-September 11 airport security regime has been both more thorough and more equitable, despite the ongoing bureaucratic nightmare of "no-fly" lists. There was more evidence of intentional discrimination against Arabs and Muslims in domestic air travel before September 11 than after, precisely because the U.S. government has had to accept that serious security threats require policies that do not boil down to crude stereotypes or rely on subjective judgments about ethnicity.

Toward the end of his tenure as the first secretary of homeland security, Tom Ridge, explained to Americans: "There was a legitimate concern right after 9/11 that the face of international terrorism was basically from the Middle East. We know differently. We don't have the luxury of kidding ourselves that there is an ethnic or racial or country profile."

Most Americans understand that fighting terrorism with racism is repugnant to their values and won't work. And most people have enough sense not to cut off their nose to spite their face. But not everyone.

STATE SECRETS?

By William Fisher

As whistleblower Sibel Edmonds asked the Supreme Court to review her dismissed case against the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), mainstream media continues to refer to the government’s defense – the so-called State Secrets Privilege – as “rarely used”. In fact it has been used over sixty times since its creation in the 1950s.

The State Secrets Privilege is a series of American legal precedents allowing
the federal government the ability to dismiss legal cases that it claims would
threaten foreign policy, military intelligence or national security.

A relic of the Cold War, it has been invoked several times since the Sept 11th 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Judges have denied the privilege on only five occasions.

It was used against Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator, who was fired in retaliation for reporting security breaches and possible espionage within the Bureau. Lower courts dismissed the case when former Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the state secrets privilege.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Edmonds case, says there is an “acute” need for clarification of the state secrets doctrine “because the government is increasingly using the privilege to cover up its own wrongdoing and to keep legitimate cases out of court.”

The first case in which the state secrets privilege was invoked came in 1953. Widows of airmen killed in the crash of a military aircraft sued the government for details. The government claimed that disclosing a military flight accident report would jeopardize secret military equipment and harm national security.

It was not until nearly 50 years later, in 2004, that it was revealed that the accident report contained no state secrets, but instead confirmed that the cause of the crash was faulty maintenance of the B-29 fleet.

The state secrets privilege was used again in 2002 in the case of Notra Trulock, who launched a defamation suit against Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwanese American computer scientist who had been charged with stealing nuclear secrets for China from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

President George W. Bush said national security would be compromised if Trulock were allowed to seek damages from Lee. Though it resulted in the case being dismissed, another suit was launched directly attacking then-FBI Director Louis Freeh for interfering and falsely invoking the State Secrets Privilege.

Reluctant to go to trial, the government worked out a plea bargain with Lee, who had been imprisoned for 278 days in solitary confinement. Lee pled guilty to improper handling of classified data and cleared of all charges relating to espionage. Lee was arrested in December 1999 and freed in August 2000.

Judge James A. Parker offered an apology to Lee for what he called "abuse of power" by the federal government.

The government invoked the privilege again in the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who sought to sue then Attorney General John Ashcroft for his role in rendering Arar to Syria to face torture and extract false confessions.

Former Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey said in legal papers filed at the time that “Litigating [the] plaintiff's complaint would necessitate disclosure of classified information."

Arar, who was born in Syria, was detained at New York John F. Kennedy Airport in 2002, on his way back to Canada from North Africa. He was held incommunicado by U.S. immigration authorities, and eventually “rendered” to Syria, where he was imprisoned for close to a year and claims he was tortured. He was released without charges.

The Arar case is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and is also being investigated by an independent Canadian commission, with which the U.S. has refused to cooperate.

Barbara Olshansky, the assistant legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is representing Arar, said that government lawyers “are saying this case can’t be tried, and the classified information on which they’re basing this argument can’t even be shared with the opposing lawyers. It’s the height of arrogance—they think they can do anything they want in the name of the global war on terrorism.”

Again, in August 2005, a Federal Appeals Court affirmed the dismissal of a racial discrimination lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) based on the Government’s invocation of the state secrets privilege.

Jeffrey Sterling, an Operations Officer with the CIA in its Near East and South Asia Division from 1993-2001, claimed he was told he was “too big and black” to receive certain CIA assignments, and that CIA management placed expectations on him “far above those required of non-African-American Operations Officers.” He also contended he was retaliated against for using the CIA’s internal equal employment opportunity process.

However, the court noted, “There is no way for Sterling to prove employment discrimination without exposing at least some classified details of the covert employment that gives context to his claim.”

The privilege was first invoked against Sibel Edmonds to prevent her from testifying that the Federal Government knew that Al-Qaeda intended to use airliners to attack the United States in 2001. The case was a $100 trillion action filed in 2002 by six hundred victim's families against officials of the Saudi government and prominent Saudi citizens.

Edmonds, a former Middle Eastern language specialist hired by the FBI shortly after 9/11, was fired in 2002 and filed a lawsuit later that year challenging the retaliatory dismissal. An unclassified public report by the Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General contains much of the information the DOJ now seeks to block. The report concluded that Edmonds' whistleblower allegations were "the most significant factor" in the FBI's decision to terminate her.

Steven Aftergood, who heads the Project on Government Secrecy for the American Federation of Scientists, says, “Once rarely invoked, the state secrets privilege is now increasingly used by the government as a "get out of jail free" card to block unwanted litigation. The idea that courts cannot handle national security cases involving classified information is simply false. Classified information often figures in criminal espionage cases, and even occasionally in Freedom of Information Act cases. There are procedures for in camera review, protective orders, non-disclosure agreements, and so on.”

He adds, “In the same way, sensitive classified information could be protected in the current cases where the state secrets privilege has been invoked -- without shutting down the entire proceeding. As a society we should be seeking to expand the rule of law, not to carve out more areas where the government is immune to judicial review.”

LBJ’S DIVIDEND

By William Fisher

If you spend your life as a writer, you’re always concerned about who’s reading and whether they’re hearing what you thought you were saying.

I wrote a piece last week about Lyndon Johnson and the magisterial speech he made to Congress 40 years ago urging quick passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. I used the speech to illustrate the ‘good’ LBJ. I used his disastrous Vietnam misadventure to show the flipside of his nature. And I drew a parallel between LBJ’s complexity and the position in which George W. Bush finds himself as he considers his legacy.

I concluded that “Quagmire, not Selma, is the word that has come to be associated with LBJ’s presidency”, and suggested that, if President Bush wants to leave us a history we can all be proud of, he needs to learn the lesson LBJ learned at such great cost to himself.

This little essay drew a ton of email. A few of the more temperate comments are below. You can decide if the readers were hearing what I thought I was saying.

Kevin H. wrote: “At first, when I read your article at Common Screams, uh, I mean, Common Dreams, I thought it was a great recounting of one of LBJ's best speeches. But at the end, I realized the first 90% was just a setup to use the last 10% to take a jab at George Bush. Actually, it was a horrible, or perhaps I should say, non-existent, segue. But, hey! who cares?, what can one expect from the usual crowd of sad-sack lefties that infest so much of the Web?”

Tim Anderson wrote, “LBJ's civil rights legislation is significant. However, that contribution to our society is no reason to soften a critique of his role in the destruction of Vietnam. To describe his participation in that atrocity as one of 'hubris', or of receiving 'bad advice' covers up his deliberate destruction of the people and environment of that country, and the lies he knowingly and repeatedly told the American public to continue his murderous policy. There is a notable continuity in US foreign policy over the last 50 years (Guatemala, Vietnam, Chile, Indonesia, Iran, Nicaragua, Iraq, etc) regardless of particular individuals or parties in power.”

Some responses were short and to the point. One said, “Johnson rode Kennedy's coat-tails and took the credit for the work he implemented.”

Another said, “LBJ had two sides. Good and evil. You need to learn more about the latter side. Research some of the JFK assassination books.”

And yet another. “When was the only time we were attacked as a nation that resulted in no congressional hearings? Try the USS Liberty. Check out who covered it up. LBJ was a politician with agendas. He's as worthy as our current president. I'm sure you're quite versed in US history but you dropped the ball on this article. Come-on man...”

I found all these missives instructive and compelling. But the one that really moved me came from a reader identifying himself as the “Grandson of Jesus Inclan of Cotulla, Texas” (where LBJ taught school in 1928). It's a long message, but worth contemplating.

“Congratulations on well written article”, he began. “As a descendent and relative of the students LBJ taught in Cotulla, many things have changed and many still have not. LBJ would have been a fool not to have seen the great injustice done to Mexicanos in South Texas. Growing up there, segregation still exists and you find this region of the country still one of the poorest.

“What has happened is that through the injustice lived and (was) witnessed by countless veterans of many wars and the history of hatred and violent suppression in this part of the country, people have mobilized to be destroyed by projects such at COINTELPRO that suppressed with the support of the U.S. Govt. the promotion of true democracy.

“Many liberal and conservatives destroyed the Civil Rights and subsequent Chicano and Black movements with the support of LBJ. That is part of LBJ's legacy and why he is rightly labeled for his Vietnam folly.

“It is foolish to think that our current so-called head of state will listen or even cares. The change you wish for will not come from our society at large. The change if it is not crushed as it was in the past will come from the working poor and immigrants. Especially Mexicano immigrants who come to this country with a history of strife and revolution.

“If you follow Social Movements in Latin America this will soon follow in the next 50 years here in the U.S. A wealthy man like LBJ had the privilege and opportunity to be given what was basically dropped into his lap at the cost of thousands of lynchings and murders.

“True change will only come from those who understand what challenge is and not from the privilege class who wait for such opportunities to land on them. Sacrifice by people of color in war, in daily life, is what makes this possible. The privileged of this country only wait to learn different ways of taking advantage of the sacrifice of others. I view most in this country in power, privilege, with opportunity as such opportunists. Never really able or willing to make the kind of sacrifice and commitment necessary to truly follow through and the rhetoric.

“I challenge you as I challenge others to make the kind of sacrifice necessary for this as my family has for the past 200 years in South Texas.”

That email made writing the LBJ piece well worth all the effort to get every word just right. Here was an experience and a point of view I couldn’t possibly know about or appreciate from where I’m sitting.

As a consequence, I have begun to exchange emails with this Grandson of Jesus Inclan of Cotulla, Texas, for whom I have many questions and from whom I will doubtless learn much.

For a writer, being challenged is a huge dividend.

LOOKING BACK AT LBJ

By William Fisher

In our country, we seem to revere only a few presidential speeches – Washington’s Farewell Address, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s First Inaugural, John F. Kennedy’s “Ask Not”, and a few others.

But I have to confess that, while I have written thousands of words about the Voting Rights Act of 1965, it has been many years since I actually listened to the words President Lyndon B. Johnson used to introduce this legislation.

I did that yesterday. Thanks to television’s last outpost of civility, C-SPAN, I watched transfixed as LBJ addressed a joint session of Congress.

Behind him was Vice President Hubert Humphrey seated next to House Speaker John McCormack. Before him were all the members of the Congress he loved so much, all the members of the Diplomatic Corps and the Supreme Court, and the whole Cabinet, including Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, the man who would ultimately share with the president the ignominious legacy of Vietnam.

“I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy,” he began.

He went on: “I urge every member of both parties, Americans of all religions and of all colors, from every section of this country, to join me in that cause.

“At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.

“There, long-suffering men and women peacefully protested the denial of their rights as Americans. Many were brutally assaulted. One good man, a man of God, was killed.

“There is no cause for pride in what has happened in Selma. There is no cause for self-satisfaction in the long denial of equal rights of millions of Americans. But there is cause for hope and for faith in our democracy in what is happening here tonight, ” he said, bringing most of the audience, Republicans and Democrats, to their feet – with the exception of Southern Democrats, who sat on their hands.

LBJ, more than almost anyone alive on that day, knew the political price he might have to pay. Because he knew the Congress better than anyone else.

Perhaps in purely rhetorical terms, LBJ’s speech wasn’t up to Lincoln, FDR or JFK. But in so many ways it was at least as consequential as any words ever uttered by an American president.

With the confidence of one speaking to friends, LBJ intoned:

“This bill will strike down restrictions to voting in all elections -- Federal, State, and local -- which have been used to deny Negroes the right to vote.

“This bill will establish a simple, uniform standard which cannot be used, however ingenious the effort, to flout our Constitution.

“It will provide for citizens to be registered by officials of the United States Government if the State officials refuse to register them.

“It will eliminate tedious, unnecessary lawsuits which delay the right to vote. Finally, this legislation will ensure that properly registered individuals are not prohibited from voting.”

Later, aware of the power he held, he said: “All Americans must have the privileges of citizenship regardless of race. And they are going to have those privileges of citizenship regardless of race.

“But I would like to caution you and remind you,” he went on, “that to exercise these privileges takes much more than just legal right. It requires a trained mind and a healthy body. It requires a decent home, and the chance to find a job, and the opportunity to escape from the clutches of poverty.

“Of course, people cannot contribute to the nation if they are never taught to read or write, if their bodies are stunted from hunger, if their sickness goes untended, if their life is spent in hopeless poverty just drawing a welfare check.

“So we want to open the gates to opportunity. But we are also going to give all our people, black and white, the help that they need to walk through those gates.

Looking back on his early days as a teacher in a Texas schoolroom full of Mexican-Americans who could not understand why people didn’t like them, LBJ said, “I never thought then, in 1928, that I would be standing here in 1965. It never even occurred to me in my fondest dreams that I might have the chance to help the sons and daughters of those students and to help people like them all over this country”.

Then he threw down the gauntlet: “But now I do have that chance -- and I'll let you in on a secret -- I mean to use it.”

In my personal pantheon of Presidential achievements, LBJ’s words on that day rank among the most portentous ever spoken.

Just think of what was accomplished in the days and weeks immediately following passage of this historic legislation forty years ago. And how it changed our country forever – for the better.

All of which only magnifies the excruciating sadness of LBJ’s downfall – and, for most Americans, his legacy. Quagmire, not Selma, is the word that has come to be associated with LBJ’s presidency.

I can think of no starker example of the price we mortals pay for hubris, for taking bad advice, for listening to people who peddle misinformation, for insisting on “staying the course” undeterred by inconvenient facts.

That’s a lesson our current President has yet to learn.

Like all second-term presidents, George W. Bush would like to leave a legacy that makes Americans proud. But what will it be based on? Iraq? The “war on terror”? Social Security? The “spread freedom” rhetoric of his second inaugural?

I hardly think so.

Our president needs to take an hour out of his vacation and listen to Lyndon Johnson.