Stand Naked

Will Feith Burn in Pentagon Spy Probe?

The FBI has leaked that Larry Franklin, a fairly low level Pentagon analyst working for Douglas Feith, is suspected of having passed confidential documents regarding Iran policy to the Israeli government, using representatives of the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee as intermediaries.  As noted earlier this morning by kos, Knight-Ridder is reporting that the charges against Franklin grow out of a much wider FBI investigation of Pentagon leaks. A story today by Richard Sale at UPI also reports that the investigation is probably looking at Harold Rhode and William Luti, both of whom are also part of Feith's Office of Special Plans,

From this, a question must emerge - Is it likely that Franklin, Rhode or Luti acted without direction from Feith?

A look back in history shows the strong liklihood that Feith had a major role.

"In 1978, in a Washington, D.C. restaurant, I overheard Stephen D. Bryen, then a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer and now a deputy assistant secretary of Defense, offering "Pentagon documents on the bases" to officials of the Israeli government. After I reported this incident to the Justice Department, FBI and Justice Department investigators gathered sufficient evidence on Dr. Bryen's activities to recommend he be brought before an investigative grand jury for espionage. The case was quietly closed, however, by Philip Heymann, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, a close personal friend and associate of Dr. Bryen's attorney. Bryen was never formally charged or made to account for his actions under oath."

These are the words of Michael Saba, author of the Armageddon Network.  The conversation he described took place between Stephen Bryen and Zvi Rafiah, the Mossad station chief in Washington. Present with him was the executive director of AIPAC. Bryen resigned in 1979, before the investigation into his dealings with the Mossad concluded and went to work as executive director of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), where he provided consulting services to AIPAC.  

This background on Bryen's activities forms part of a lengthy article by Stephen Green, Serving Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Administration, which appeared in Counterpunch in February of this year. Green provides a chilling insight into the history of the hawks behind the invasion of Iraq. It also shows why it's highly unlikely that Larry Franklin acted alone.

In 1981, Stephen Bryen re-entered the spotlight when Richard Perle, Reagan's nominee to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, selected Bryen as his Deputy.  Perle no doubt sympathized with Bryen over the unfortunate circumstances that had led to his dismissal. Seymour Hersh has written about how Perle himself, while serving as an aide to Senator Henry Jackson in 1970, was overheard in an FBI wiretap of the Israeli Embassy discussing classified information that had been supplied to him by someone on the National Security Council staff.  That someone was determined to be Helmut Sonnenfeldt, who in 1967, while he was a staff member of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, once before had been investigated for transmission of a classified document concerning the commencement of the 1967 war in the Middle East to an Israeli Government official.

Perle escaped censure from the incident and by 1973 he had become a senior staff member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.  In that role he exerted his, and Scoop Jackson's, influence to help Paul Wolfowitz obtain a job with the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.  Perle and Wolfowitz had worked together as protégés of Albert Wohlstetter summoned to help him gather the information he needed to wage the Safeguard campaign from the offices of Sen. Jackson.

Wolfowitz must have learned well from Perle and Bryan.  In 1977, Wolfowitz moved from ACDA to become Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Regional Programs.  While there, in 1978, he was investigated for providing a classified document on the proposed sale of U.S. weapons to an Arab government, to an Israel Government official, through an AIPAC intermediary.

During Perle's tenure as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy (ISP), he brought on another staffer with a background similar to Bryen - Douglas Feith.  Feith had been a Middle East analyst in the Near East and South Asian Affairs section of the National Security Council.  In 1982, when William Clark replaced Richard Allen as National Security Advisor, Feith, who had only been with the NSC for a year was fired.  The reason -- he had become the subject of an FBI inquiry into whether he'd provided classified material to an official of the Israeli Embassy in Washington.  With this background, Feith was quickly snatched up by Perle to serve as his Special Counsel, and then his Deputy.

So, Bryen, Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith - all connected, all serving in various DOD positions, all accused of having been involved in the unauthorized transfer of classified documents to Israel.  Quite a ring.  In fact, when Jonathan Pollard was busted as an Israeli spy in 1985, Perle and Wolfowitz are said to have beenon the DOD General Counsel's short list of suspects as Pollard's handlers.

And now we have Larry Franklin - a former colonel in the Air Force Reserve who served two short tours at the United States Embassy in Tel Aviv.

According to the New York Times, Franklin was a Soviet analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency who transferred to the Middle East division in the early 1990's. He learned Farsi and became an Iran analyst, developing extensive contacts among Iranians who opposed the Tehran government.

Three years ago he was transferred from DIA to work under William Lutti in Feith's Office of Special Plans.  Last year it was disclosed that in Starting in December, 2001, Feith dispatched Franklin and Harold Rhode, another anti-Iran hardliner in the OSP and Feith's top specialist on the middle east, to hold secret meetings in Rome and Paris with Iran-Contra arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar. Josh Marshall and Laura Rozen now have the details of those meetings laid out in detail.

And what can we conclude about Franklin's and Rhode's boss, Douglas Feith - Douglas Feith who in 1982 was investigated for passing confidential information to Israel.

At the time of Feith's appointment to DOD in 2001, James Zogby wrote a probing article in which he detailed Feith's long pro-Israeli history.  In a 1992 article, Feith wrote:

It is in the interest of U.S. and Israel to remove needless impediments to technological cooperation between them. Technologies in the hands of responsible, friendly countries facing military threats, countries like Israel, serve to deter aggression, enhance regional stability and promote peace thereby.

In 1996, Feith, along with Richard Perle, wrote "A Clean Break: a New Strategy for Securing the Realm," an advisory paper for the newly elected Likud Prime Minister, in which they advised Netanyahu to:

"make a clean break from the peace process;" reassert Israel's claim to its land by rejecting "land for peace" as the basis of peace; strengthen Israel's defenses to better confront Syria and Iraq; and forge a new and stronger relationship with the United States based on self-reliance and mutual interest.

Is it really conceivable if Franklin, as alleged, was involved in handing over confidential documents to Israel, that he did it without either the direction or knowledge of his boss, Douglas Feith?

Endless Insanity

Meet George II's new Ally:

US President George W. Bush rewarded Pakistan on Wednesday with "major non-NATO ally" status, tightening military cooperation as both countries jointly battle terrorism.

This MNNA status for Pakistan allows for priority delivery of defense material and the purchase of restricted weaponry such as depleted uranium anti-tank rounds. Now they can help in spreading the disease and deformity caused by our dirty DU. Pakistan can now can stockpile US military hardware, participate in defense research and development programs and benefit from a US government loan guarantee program to finance arms exports. Happy news for our weapons' merchants. Much less happy news for India, which despite its long relationship with the US does not enjoy MNNA status.

This boon to Pakistan comes on the same day that the 9/11 Commission issued a report concluding that, while no credible evidence existed of any Iraq support for al Qaeda:

Pakistan did not break with the Taliban until after 9/11, although it was well aware that the Taliban was harboring Bin Ladin. The Taliban’s ability to provide Bin Ladin a haven in the face of international pressure and UN sanctions was significantly facilitated by Pakistani support. Pakistan benefited from the Taliban-al Qaeda relationship, as Bin Ladin’s camps trained and equipped fighters for Pakistan’s ongoing struggle with India over Kashmir.

Another rational step in the Bush war on terrorism - Invade Iraq, give weapons to Pakistan.

They've Got a Lot of Nerve

On February 25, 2004, over a month after the US Army had received the now famous photographic evidence of prisoner abuse at Abu Gharib and initiated an investigation, US Secretary of State Colin Powell held a press briefing to present the annual State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for the year 2003. The Report's introduction describes the purpose of these annual reports compiled by the State Department:

Begun in 1977, the annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices are designed to assess the state of democracy and human rights around the world, call attention to violations, and – where needed – prompt needed changes in our policies toward particular countries. They are an expression of U.S. vigilance in monitoring other countries and holding leaders accountable for their treatment of fellow citizens.

Here's what Powell had to say about US Human Rights Policy:

President Bush regards the defense and advancement of human rights as America's special calling, and he has made the promotion of human rights an integral and active part of his foreign policy agenda. That is why the annual Country Reports are more than a valuable informational tool, they are a vital policy instrument.

The Country Reports help us to identify and close gaps between principles and practices, between internationally agreed human rights standards and the actual enjoyment of such rights by a country's citizens.

The United States is strongly committed to working with other governments and civil society around the world to expose and end existing human rights violations, and to foster the legal and democratic reforms that can prevent further violations from occurring.

We have done our utmost to ensure that these Country Reports are accurate and objective. We trust that they will provide as useful set of a information to other governments as they do for our own government.

Secretary Powell made particular note that the United States' continuing commitment to human rights had not been diminished by the events of September 11, 2001:

For the last two and a half years, we have taken those lessons and applied them to a new world. After September 11, 2001, some observers questioned whether the United States could afford the “luxury” of concern about human rights and democracy abroad, and whether we might sacrifice our principles for expediency in the global war on terrorism. Within days, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice provided a clear answer: “We are not going to stop talking about the things that matter to us – human rights and religious freedom and so forth. We’re going to continue to press those issues. We would not be America if we did not.”

Consistent with this ongoing commitment not "to stop talking about the things that matter to us" the report criticizes, on a country-by-country basis, violations of

internationally recognized individual, civil, political and worker rights, as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These rights include freedom from torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, from prolonged detention without charges, from disappearance or clandestine detention, and from other flagrant violations of the right to life, liberty and the security of the person.

Here are some of the findings in the Report:

Burma - "[M]embers of the security forces reportedly tortured, beat, and otherwise abused prisoners, detainees, and other citizens. They routinely subjected detainees to harsh interrogation techniques designed to intimidate and disorient. There were reports in past years that prisoners were forced to squat or assume stressful, uncomfortable, or painful positions for lengthy periods. There continued to be many credible reports that security forces subjected citizens to harassment and physical abuse." In addition, "The Government detained many [dissidents] in secret locations without notifying their family or providing access to due legal process or counsel.

Colombia - "[T]he U.N. Committee against Torture expressed "concern over the large number of cases of torture and mistreatment allegedly committed in a generalized and habitual manner by state security forces and bodies...both in and out of armed operations."

Egypt - "Security forces continued to arrest and detain suspected members of terrorist groups." "The security forces continued to mistreat and torture prisoners, arbitrarily arrest and detain persons, hold detainees in prolonged pretrial detention, and occasionally engaged in mass arrests." "Torture was used to extract information, coerce the victims to end their oppositionist activities, and to deter others from similar activities." "Principal methods of torture reportedly employed by the police and the SSIS included victims being: stripped and blindfolded; suspended from a ceiling or doorframe with feet just touching the floor; beaten with fists, whips, metal rods, or other objects; subjected to electrical shocks; and doused with cold water. Victims frequently reported being subjected to threats and forced to sign blank papers for use against the victim or the victim's family in the future should the victim complain of abuse. Some victims, including male and female detainees and children reported that they were sexually assaulted or threatened with rape themselves or family members."

Eritrea - "There were some reports that police resorted to torture and physical beatings of prisoners, particularly during interrogations, and police severely mistreated army deserters and draft evaders." "Police detained deserters and draft evaders and subjected them to various disciplinary actions that included prolonged sun exposure in temperatures of up to 113 degrees Fahrenheit or the binding of the hands, elbows and feet for extended periods."

Iran - "[T]here were numerous credible reports that security forces and prison personnel continued to torture detainees and prisoners. Some prison facilities, including Tehran's Evin prison, were notorious for the cruel and prolonged acts of torture inflicted upon political opponents of the Government. Common methods included suspension for long periods in contorted positions, burning with cigarettes, sleep deprivation, and most frequently, severe and repeated beatings with cables or other instruments on the back and on the soles of the feet. Prisoners also reported beatings about the ears, inducing partial or complete deafness, and punching in the eyes, leading to partial or complete blindness."

Jordan - "[T]he police and security forces sometimes abused detainees during detention and interrogation, and allegedly also used torture. Allegations of torture were difficult to verify because the police and security officials frequently denied detainees timely access to lawyers. The most frequently reported methods of torture included beatings; sleep deprivation, extended solitary confinement, and physical suspension. Defendants in high-profile cases before the State Security Court claimed to have been subjected to physical and psychological abuse while in detention."

Israel - "Members of the security forces committed serious human rights abuses in the occupied territories and against Palestinian detainees." "During the year, there continued to be allegations that security forces tortured Palestinian detainees from the occupied territories during interrogation." "NGOs and international organizations reported government use of sleep deprivation, prolonged shackling and tightening of shackles, enforced positioning, forcing the detainee to run blindfolded and then tripping him, threats of violence, humiliation, threats against detainees' family members, and threats of house demolition against detainees held for interrogation."

Nicaragua - "There were numerous credible reports that police beat or physically mistreated detainees, often to obtain confessions."

Pakistan - "Security force personnel continued to torture persons in custody throughout the country." "common torture methods included: Beating; burning with cigarettes; whipping the soles of the feet; sexual assault; prolonged isolation; electric shock; denial of food or sleep; hanging upside down; forced spreading of the legs with bar fetters; and public humiliation."

Philippines - "[M]embers of the security forces and police continued to use torture and to abuse suspects and detainees. " "torture remained an ingrained part of the arrest and detention process. Common forms of abuse during arrest and interrogation reportedly included striking detainees and threatening them with guns. Less common forms included the placing of plastic bags over heads to deprive the detainee of air. "

Saudi Arabia - "There were credible reports that security forces continued to torture and abuse detainees and prisoners, arbitrarily arrest and detain persons, and hold them in incommunicado detention. There were cases in which Mutawwa'in continued to intimidate, abuse, and detain citizens and foreigners. There was no evidence that violators were held accountable for abuses." "[T]here were credible reports that the authorities abused detainees, both citizens and foreigners. Ministry of Interior officials were responsible for most incidents of abuse of prisoners, including beatings, whippings, and sleep deprivation. In addition, there were allegations of torture, including allegations of beatings with sticks and suspension from bars by handcuffs. There were reports that torture and abuse were used to obtain confessions from prisoners (see Section 1.e.). Canadian and British prisoners that were released during the year reported that they had been tortured during their detention."

Spain - "There were allegations that a few members of the security forces abused detainees and mistreated foreigners and illegal immigrants. According to Amnesty International (AI), government investigations of such alleged abuses often were lengthy and punishments were light. Lengthy pretrial detention and delays in trials were sometimes problems

Tunisia - "Members of the security forces tortured and physically abused prisoners and detainees. Security forces arbitrarily arrested and detained individuals. International observers were not allowed to inspect prisons, and lengthy pretrial, and sometimes incommunicado, detention remained a problem." "[S]ecurity forces tortured detainees to elicit confessions and political prisoners to discourage resistance. The forms of torture included: electric shock; confinement to tiny, unlit cells; submersion of the head in water; beatings with hands, sticks, and police batons; suspension from cell doors resulting in lost consciousness; cigarette burns; and food and sleep deprivation. Police allegedly beat naked, manacled prisoners while they were suspended from a rod. According to other credible reports, police and prison officials used sexual assault and threats of sexual assault against the wives of Islamist prisoners to extract information, to intimidate, and to punish."

Turkey - "[S]ome members of the security forces continued to torture, beat, and otherwise abuse persons regularly. Leftists and Kurdish rights activists were more likely than others to suffer torture." " [S]ecurity officials mostly used torture methods that did not leave physical traces, including repeated slapping; exposure to cold; stripping and blindfolding; food and sleep deprivation; threats to detainees or family members; dripping water on the head; squeezing of the testicles; and mock executions." "[W]omen detainees were sometimes subject to rape, including vaginal and anal rape with truncheons, and sexual harassment. Female detainees sometimes faced sexual humiliation and, less frequently, more severe forms of sexual torture. After being forced to strip in front of male officers, female detainees were sometimes touched, insulted, and threatened with rape."

Two themes evident in these findings illuminate the shocking duplicity of the Bush administration with respect to its own "detainee" and interrogation policies in Iraq, Afghanistan, and G'itmo. First, is the wide array of practices that the February, 2004 Report names as instances of "torture" within the meaning of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These go far beyond the narrow, self-serving interpretations of the word concocted by Administration legal hacks in memos prepared in 2002 and 2003.

The second glaring fact is the number of instances in which practices are identified as human rights abuses despite their being carried out against alleged "terrorists" who would be classified as "unlawful combatants" by the Administration. Many of the prisoners subjected to "torture" in Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Spain were in custody because of alleged connections with or participation in terrorist activity.

The disparities between the standards applied in the Report to the rest of the world and the standards employed by the Administration to its own conduct confirm that, not surprisingly, abuse that constitutes torture when carried out by other countries, even as past of recognized anti-terrorist activities, would be legal when carried out by the US military, CIA, or private contractors operating under the enormous umbrella of the President's "inherent power" to ignore international treaties, federal statutes, and the US Constitution whenever he, in his infinite wisdom decides that God has told him it is necessary.

Obviously, Bush and his henchmen have abandoned both the rule of law and the constraints of basic human decency. Under their leadership, the United States has become the biggest and baddest Rogue Nation on earth.

How can we abide this tyrant?

The Crisis

During the years of the American Revolution, Thomas Paine wrote a series of pamphlets entitled The Crisis suppoting the fight for independence and condemning English tyranny and aggression. Today America faces a crisis as critical to its future as that original fight for independence. Just as that first war was brought on by the greed and imperial designs of a delusional monarch, coincidentally named George, our own King George has launched the war we find ouselves embroiled in now. Thomas Paine's words from 1778 describe it well:

If there is a sin superior to every other, it is that of wilful and offensive war. Most other sins are circumscribed within narrow limits, that is, the power of one man cannot give them a very general extension, and many kinds of sins have only a mental existence from which no infection arises; but he who is the author of a war, lets loose the whole contagion of hell, and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.

George Bush has let lose a war against mankind. The time has come for the people to wake up and realize that it is not just a war against Iraq, or against "terroism," but that all of us are its victims. It will bleed our young men and women, bleed our resources, bleed our honor, and bleed away whatever good will we have in the community of nations. The time has come for our fawning media and apathetic populace to wake up. The pictures we have now seen of the naked victims of our leaders' institutionalized disregard for human rights must jar us into awareness that the President has defrauded us. In truth, just like the delusional Emperor, he has no clothes and this time he must have to stand naked. It is time for him to be revealed as a petty tyrant, of a sort that Thomas Paine described:

Mankind are not universally agreed in their determination of right and wrong; but there are certain actions which the consent of all nations and individuals has branded with the unchangeable name of meanness. In the list of human vices we find some of such a refined constitution, they cannot be carried into practice without seducing some virtue to their assistance; but meanness has neither alliance nor apology. It is generated in the dust and sweepings of other vices, and is of such a hateful figure that all the rest conspire to disown it. ... George ... has at last vouchsafed to give it rank and pedigree. He has placed the fugitive at the council board, and dubbed it companion of the order of knighthood.