CIA in the news....

• CIA rejects secret jails report
• CIA jails in Europe 'confirmed'
• UK apology over rendition flights
• US judge blocks CIA flight case - "The very subject matter of this case is a state secret," Judge James Ware wrote in a ruling.
• Inquiry into destroyed CIA tapes
• US 'may' use waterboarding again
• Doctors' Group Says It Has Evidence US Military Tortured Detainees

Thumbs Down

The end of the Bush Administration can hardly come fast enough. Even as it seem there is a light visible through this dark 8 year long tunnel, this one man continues to trash the reputation of this nation as a moral example to the rest of the world. His veto this weekend of the Congressional bill banning waterboarding as an interrogation method only continues erosion of U.S. credibility on human rights.

John McCain Panders on His Own Principals

When presented with an opportunity to a choose between voting to extend the Army field manual's prohibition on torture to the CIA and pandering to the right wing of his party, John McCain chose pandering over his principles.

[Note McCain in a Republican presidential debate on Nov. 28, 1007]

McCain said that the Army Field Manual should be the gold standard for interrogations: I would hope that we would understand, my friends, that life is not 24 and Jack Bauer. Life is interrogation techniques which are humane and yet effective. And I just came back from visiting a prison in Iraq. The army general there said that techniques under the Army Field Manual are working and working effectively, and he didn’t think they need to do anything else. My friends, this is what America is all about.

[Now comes the defining vote]- "I made it very clear that I think that water-boarding is torture and illegal, but I will not restrict the CIA to only the Army field manual," and with that McCain votes against torture restrictions and flips on the issue.

Now just as a side note. I've had a great deal of respect with John McCain in the past. Not saying I agree with him on many issues, but I have generally believed him to be an individual of high integrity. That said I find this issue, which he has for so long professed to be a high principal of his, to have vanished so quickly. Perhaps this is just the first of many flip-flops.

Tuesday Flashes~

• Cheney was central voice in torture debate -He helped lay path for Gitmo interrogations / The Washington Post
• Editorial -Soft on Crime - New York Times or, it all depends on who the criminal is. Guess what Paris Hilton and Scooter Libby don't have in common.
• I see Paul Wolfowitz has a new job. Hey maybe he can get his girlfriend yet another plum job....
• Mary Ellen Solt, Poet of Words and Shapes, Dead at 86 /New York Times
• World-wide reading against the regime of Robert Mugabe
• "War and Peace Art Exhibit" - More than 100 artists and writers have contributed their work toward a "War and Peace Art Exhibit" this month at a gallery in Makawao, Hawaii. The exhibit includes a signed poem titled "Ogres" by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet W.S. Merwin and several prints about the war in Iraq by nationally known artist Sandow Birk. The exhibit attracted more than 500 people on opening night and has had crowds in excess of 150 people on several other nights. / Star Bulletin