Get On The Bus.

Conditions: Relaxedly Warm.


Washing My Hands.

One of the big deals Obama has brought to American foreign policy is the long-awaited closure of the Guantanamo Bay pan-dimensional POW camp and steakhouse. And this is obviously both a good and necessary thing. He's also ordered the closing of the CIA's secret prisons, and the removal of torture from American interrogation tactical handbook. This is a hell of a start. But there's one thing left, one final turd in the punchbowl of American justice: Illegal Rendition, handing suspects over to other countries so they can be tortured for information without getting your hands dirty. That program is not being shut down, in fact it looks to be expanding.

Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it was the main remaining mechanism - aside from Predator missile strikes - for taking suspected terrorists off the street.

The rendition program became a source of embarrassment for the CIA, and a target of international scorn, as details emerged in recent years of botched captures, mistaken identities and allegations that prisoners were turned over to countries where they were tortured.

The European Parliament condemned renditions as "an illegal instrument used by the United States." Prisoners swept up in the program have sued the CIA as well as a Boeing Co. subsidiary accused of working with the agency on dozens of rendition flights.

But the Obama administration appears to have determined that the rendition program was one component of the Bush administration's war on terrorism that it could not afford to discard.

Now, this is disappointing. A tortured man will say or do anything to stop being tortured, regardless if the torturers are American or ...Belgian, or Chinese, or whoever the hell the CIA farms that work out to. It's illegal, it's immoral, it's pointless and it's just plain stupid. It's like taking down the broken roller coaster but leaving the broken bumper cars. Why dismantle everything else and not this?

"Obviously you need to preserve some tools - you still have to go after the bad guys," said an Obama administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity when discussing the legal reasoning. "The legal advisors working on this looked at rendition. It is controversial in some circles and kicked up a big storm in Europe. But if done within certain parameters, it is an acceptable practice."

One provision in one of Obama's orders appears to preserve the CIA's ability to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects as long as they are not held long-term. The little-noticed provision states that the instructions to close the CIA's secret prison sites "do not refer to facilities used only to hold people on a short-term, transitory basis."

Despite concern about rendition, Obama's prohibition of many other counter-terrorism tools could prompt intelligence officers to resort more frequently to the "transitory" technique.

- truthout.org/

Well as the saying goes, if the only tool you have is a hammer, then there's going to be a lot of flattened thumbs in your immediate future. Perhaps this is a result of Obama's audaciousness in shutting everything else down, this sticks up only because everything else has been flattened. And that in time this too will cease, but I don't know. The CIA are not "nice". They are not "respectful". They are cold, hard professionals. And they will take any advantage they possibly can in the execution of their duty. Leaving them this both ensures that they will use it, and that somewhere along the line you feel that they need to have it. Like if the CIA couldn't at least have someone torture a snatched suspect then all the agents would just quit in protest at not being allowed to do their jobs. Go work at KMart, or something. Frankly, given the quality of intelligence the CIA provided during the Bush years, we may be better off. Just don't go shopping at KMart without backup.




Hell of a START.

Next up in the Obama news, the President is to meet with the Russians for the purpose of reducing nuclear arms by 80%. That wasn't a misprint, Eighty percent reduction, cutting stockpiles of Nuclear warheads to a measly 1,000 each.

Key to the initiative is a review of the Bush Administration's plan for a US missile defence shield in Eastern Europe, a project fiercely opposed by Moscow.

Mr Obama is to establish a non-proliferation office at the White House to oversee the talks, expected to be headed by Gary Samore, a non-proliferation negotiator in the Clinton Administration. The talks will be driven by Hillary Clinton's State Department.

No final decision on the defence shield has been taken by Mr Obama. Yet merely delaying the placement of US missiles in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic - which if deployed would cost the US $4 billion annually - removes what has been a major impediment to Russian co-operation on arms reduction.

Any agreement would put pressure on Britain, which has 160 nuclear warheads, and other nuclear powers to reduce their stockpiles.

Mr Obama has pledged to put nuclear weapons reduction at the heart of his presidency and his first move will be to reopen talks with Moscow to replace the 1991 US-Soviet Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start), which expires in December. Under that pact, the two countries have cut their respective stockpiles from roughly 10,000 to 5,000.

- truthout.org/

Of course, we can all happily be annihilated many times over by a couple-thousand nuclear weapons as we could by the tens of thousands of before, so the essential bedrock of Mutually Assured Destruction remains. But still, impressive, no?



Blackmailing The Poodle.

Speaking of Guantanamo detainees being tortured, an interesting wrinkle appeared during a court hearing concerning Ethiopian-Born Brit Binyam Mohamed, seized in 2002, renditioned to Morocco, tortured (allegedly), moved to Afghanistan and then Guantanamo. Looks like the Brits want to know if there is evidence against this man. That's where it gets nasty.

An unprecedented high court ruling yesterday blamed the US, with British connivance, for keeping the "powerful evidence" secret, sparking criticism from lawyers, campaigners and MPs, who claimed the government had capitulated to American bullying.

Two senior judges said they were powerless to reveal the information about the torture of Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian-born British resident, because David Miliband, the foreign secretary, had warned the court the US was threatening to stop sharing intelligence about terrorism with the UK.

In a scathing judgment, the judges said the evidence, and what MI5 knew about it, must remain secret because according to Miliband, the American threats meant "the public of the United Kingdom would be put at risk".

Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones made clear they were unhappy with their decision, but said they had no alternative as a result of Miliband's claim. Their ruling revealed that Miliband stuck to his position about the threat to the UK even after Barack Obama signed orders two weeks ago banning torture and announcing the closure of the Guantánamo Bay prison camp.

- truthout.org/

And I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say: "WHAT?!!" The Americans have threatened to stop sharing intelligence with the Brits if they reveal information concerning the possible torture of a British suspect the Americans are still holding in Guantanamo? Are you kidding me? Did I wake up in Bizzaro-World this morning? Am I still sleeping? Are you even real? I hope not. You'd better all be figments of my pathetic imagination.



Satirical Website O' The Week.



The one thing about the internet is that if something happens, someone will lampoon it in some way. Some might remember the Bus advertising campaign in London recently that questioned the existence of God? Well, now we can go to a website and write our own slogan on the side of the bus. So, have at it.

- The Bus Slogan Generator

- Peace out