WAR CRIME: U.S. DRONES KILL 40+ PAKISTANIS IN WAZIRISTAN

To think that Democratic liberal former congressman Leon Panetta as CIA head is in charge of these strikes against "terrorists" in Waziristan is sickening and revolting. Stop US drone attacks against Pakistani villagers.

Of the 40 people killed, how many were ordinary Pakistani villagers? Hows many were farmers, wives, children?

Sending unmanned American drones to shoot missiles at men, women and children is unjustified and illegal. Furthermore, it is a war crime that should not go unpunished.

See this article from BBC World News.

BRITISH GOVERNMENT WARNS AGAINST INVESTIGATION INTO TORTURE

Yet another government is claiming that its security position could be harmed if there is an investigation into claims of torture of suspected terrorists. Haven't we heard this all before from Dick Cheney, Michael Chertoff, Michael Mukasey et al.? What they mean is that investigations into government-sanctioned torture will embarrass the higher-ups of government.

Jenny Percival reports in The Guardian on the use of this tired argument, this time put forth by the Home Secretary of the British government.

"Scotland Yard said last week it was launching an investigation, at the request of Lady Scotland, the attorney general, into claims of torture made by former Guantánamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed."

But Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary (equivalent to Homeland Security), claimed that such an investigation would harm Britain's security services.

Writes Percival:

""Alan Johnson, the home secretary, has said Britain's security could be put at risk by a police investigation into allegations that MI5 agents colluded in torture.

"Johnson said he had "nothing but admiration" for the work of the security service and believed it operated "to the highest ethical and professional standards". He suggested that Britain's interests would be at risk if the service's counter-terrorism capabilities were "diminished and diluted"."

This is just as much rubbish and bull as was the American argument. In fact, worse damage will be done if the events and practices charged are covered up and not shown the light of day. For then the security services will have gotten away with horrendous crimes committed against individuals without any need to explain or justify their crimes. And surely they will think that they can operate with impunity, no matter what the criminal law says or prohibits.

Johnson sounds like Leon Panetta who has counselled Obama not to release photos or conduct an investigation into American waterboarding. Praise the culprits and perpetrators as being British (or American) patriots, say that you have great admiration for their work, add that whatever they did was in the service of the country.

Here's Johnson's version, as reported by Percival:

"Johnson, who took on responsibility for MI5 when he became home secretary last month, told the Daily Telegraph: "I haven't sat around the last six weeks not looking into these things. I have looked very closely at them and I just say this: we have one of the best counter-terrorism capabilities in the world and we diminish and dilute it at our peril."

"He added: "In my six weeks in this job I am so reassured and so amazed at the work that is going on, on our behalf, by people who do not have a voice, who are not able to express their views, who work in the most difficult and dangerous circumstances.

""I have nothing but admiration for them. As I am in effect their voice I will defend them and defend what they do, and it does worry me.""

PANETTA WANTS CIA INTERROGATIONS TO REMAIN SECRET

Leon Panetta, former Democratic congressman from California, and now Barack Obama's CIA chief, is more and more a disappointment. Today, R. Jeffrey Smith reports in The Washington Post that Panetta has asked a federal court not to release details of interrogations of prisoners at Guantanamo and elsewhere. Panetta claims (without any evidence) that the release would aid Al Qaeda.

This is a bunch of bull and utter nonsense! Al Qaeda and the rest of the world already know that the CIA engages in torture, whether psychological or physical. Nothing that could be released is going to "aid" Al Qaeda any more beyond the actual despicable interrogation techniques ordered by Bush, Cheney, Rice, Addington, Gonzalez et al.

Writes Smith:

"The "disclosure of explicit details of specific interrogations" would provide al-Qaeda "with propaganda it could use to recruit and raise funds," Panetta said, describing the information at issue as "ready-made ammunition." He also submitted a classified statement to the court that he said explains why detainees could use the contents to evade questions in the future, even though Obama has promised that the United States will not use the harsh interrogation techniques again.

"Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's national security program, said yesterday evening that it is "grim" and "troubling" for the Obama administration to say that information about purported abuses should be withheld because it might fuel anti-American propaganda. He said that amounts to an assertion that "the greater the abuse, the more important it is that it should remain secret." Jaffer said the ACLU is convinced that the public should have "access to the complete record of what took place in the CIA's prisons and on whose authority.""

Panetta has turned into another Cheney. Hide the truth because it will embarrass the CIA or those who actually ordered or performed the hideous techniques.

Today even Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham tried to add a provision to the spending bill to prohibit the release of photographs or other information. Ryan Powers reports for Think Progress on the Lieberman/Graham statement.

Shame on Panetta, Lieberman, Graham and all the others who want to conceal criminal actions on the part of the U.S. government and the CIA.

STOP CIA'S PRACTICE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TORTURE

Tom Dispatch prints an analysis written by Alfred McCoy of torture techniques long used over the years by the CIA, centering on psychological methods. Why doesn't Obama repudiate these methods and initiate an investigation of these CIA policies? And why did Obama appoint Leon Panetta as head of the agency when he must have known that Panetta would try to quash any hearing or investigation of CIA dark practices?

OBAMA SHOULD ORDER COMPLETE INVESTIGATION OF TORTURE, SECRET PRISONS, STATE SECRETS

Eugene Robinson writes in The Washington Post about the crimes that deserve punishment.

Robinson writes:

"Who are the "health personnel" who monitored the suffocation sessions and the "stress position" tortures, at times suggesting a pause or a resumption of the agony? Who are the CIA torturers? Who are the Air Force officers at Bagram who might have disapproved of what the CIA was doing but took no steps to stop it?

"I have believed all along that we urgently need to conduct a thorough investigation into the Bush administration's moral and legal transgressions. Now I am convinced that some kind of "truth commission" process isn't enough. Torture -- even the torture of evil men -- is a crime. It deserves not just to be known, but to be punished.

"From George W. Bush on down, individuals decided to sanction, commit and tolerate the practice of torture. They took pains to paper this vile enterprise with rationalizations and justifications, but they knew it was wrong. So do we."

I second Mr. Robinson's call for an complete investigation. We need an investigation of the Bush policies on secret prisons, "harsh interrogation techniques" (aka "torture") and the origins of the War in Iraq.

For some reason unknown, Leon Panetta, now head of the CIA, says there will be no investigation or punishment for those in the CIA who engaged in torture or who set up the dark prisons. This is unacceptable.

Those who followed Bush's unconstitutional policies and directives should be held to account just as the Germans who were put on trial at Nuremberg. Obama should reject Panetta's whitewash and order full public investigations. And he should do it right away. We have all waited much too long for the truth to emerge.

OBAMA: END BUSH POLICIES OF RENDITION AND KILLING PAKISTANI VILLAGERS

I commend Barack Obama for coming out with a budget that does not try to hide the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But I cannot understand why Obama allows CIA Chief Leon Panetta to claim that firing missiles into small villages in western Pakistan has been "successful." All the rockets do is build up animosity and hatred in the minds of ordinary Pakistanis for Americans and America. If the U.S. and Panetta think it is ethical and otherwise legal to kill 20 women and children if they aim at the one Taliban leader, they are morally blind and guilty of war crimes.

I also want Obama and Panetta to forcefully condemn rendition or extraordinary rendition. This is where the U.S. military or CIA captures a suspected terrorist in some foreign country and delivers him or her to a third country for purposes of harsh interrogation, otherwise known as "torture." So far Panetta and Obama seem to be signaling that the U.S. will continue this illegal and cruel practice.