Sidney Blumenthal (Guardian Utd): Above the rule of law

[Jack Rabbit]

EDITED to fix tag



From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Friday August 5

Above the rule of law
Britain should avoid any compromise with the dirty war that the Bush administration is waging against terrorism
By Sidney Blumenthal

London terrorists to justice is the opposite of Bush's "war on terrorism". From the leading role of Scotland Yard to the close cooperation with police, the British effort is at odds with the US operation directed by the Pentagon.

Just months before the London bombings, upon visiting the Guantánamo prison, British counter-terrorism officials were startled that they did not meet with legal authorities, but only military personnel; they were also disturbed to learn that the information they gathered from the CIA was unknown to the FBI counter-terrorism team and that the British were the only channel between them. The British discovered that the New York City Police Department's counter-terrorism unit was more synchronised with its methods and aims than the US government was.

The Italian counter-terrorism operation that was essential in the capture of one of the alleged terrorists fleeing London is itself in open conflict with Bush's "war". Last month, an Italian prosecutor filed indictments against 13 CIA operatives who allegedly betrayed their Italian intelligence colleagues in surveillance of an Egyptian Muslim cleric, using their information but not telling them about the "rendering" (that is, kidnapping) of the suspect to Egypt rather than permitting his arrest in Italy. Now the CIA agents are fugitives from Italian justice.

International counter-terrorism is running foul of Bush's imperatives for what has become a "dirty war". Though Bush's "war on terrorism" is a phrase his administration declared obsolete last month (only to have Bush reimpose the slogan), the dirty war remains very much in place. Since September 11, Bush proposed a sharp dichotomy between "war" and "law enforcement". In his 2004 State of the Union address, he ridiculed those who view counter-terrorism as other than his conception of war: "I know that some people question if America is really in a war at all. They view terrorism more as a crime, a problem to be solved mainly with law enforcement and indictments ... The terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States, and war is what they got."

Read more.

[enough]

1. Our "dirty war"

Let us remember the what this means, and the company it puts us in.


Thank you for posting this.


snip>

Against the strongest possible internal opposition - from senior US military figures, the military's corps of lawyers, the then secretary of state Colin Powell, and the FBI - Bush disdained the Geneva conventions and avoided legalities, especially trials, to pursue a torture policy.

snip>


A TORTURE POLICY.

[rodeodance]

2. an 'extra legal gulag" --the WH cabal.

[enough]

3. kick