MC CAIN THINKS INVESTIGATION OF TORTURERS "WILL AID TERRORISTS"

John McCain opposes an investigation (and prosecution) of the torturers. He claims revealing all the dirty little secrets "will aid the terrorists." Oh, yeah! They will all go and be waterboarded 83 times and try to extend their endurance beyond 10 seconds. Here's the link to the AP story.

And to think that this guy McCain could have been elected president.

STOCK MARKET FALLS AFTER THREATS BY ISRAEL AGAINST IRAN

Any guess on why the stock market suffered a broad decline today? There was a report early on this morning that Israel said that Iran was making great progress in developing a nuclear weapon and that would be "unacceptable." Hearing that the stock market tanked.

Here's the story as reported by Mark Drajem and Janine Zacharia for Bloomberg:

"Iran is driving toward a ``major breakthrough'' in its nuclear development effort that poses an ``unacceptable'' danger, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz told a Washington audience today.

"Iran with a nuclear weapon is ``an existential threat,'' Mofaz said at a forum on Iran at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. ``We have to make sure we are prepared for every option. All the options are on the table.'' "

First of all, there is no credible evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons or wants to develop them. To the contrary, Iran's supreme ayatollah has denied more than once that Iran wants nuclear weapons. And why would it want to have them? Lobbing a nuclear bomb at Israel would cause a catastrophic world war and Iran would be devastated. Remember what Hillary Clinton said about her reaction to such an event. It was obscene, that Iran would be annihilated.

Second. Iran has the right, as does every other signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes. India, not a signatory, is being pressed by Bush and the United States, to accept highly sophisticated nuclear technology. But the Bush people are castigating Iran for doing what it is permitted under the NPT.

According to Faiz Shakir of Thinkprogress.org, Seymour Hersh recently described a meeting in Dick Cheney's office not long ago where participants discussed drawing Iran into a fight, by dressing Navy Seals as if Iranian sailors and have them stage a mock attack on a U.S. warship.

Writes Shakir:

"During the journalism conference event, I asked Hersh specifically about this meeting and if he could elaborate on what occurred. Hersh explained that, during the meeting in Cheney’s office, an idea was considered to dress up Navy Seals as Iranians, put them on fake Iranian speedboats, and shoot at them. This idea, intended to provoke an Iran war, was ultimately rejected . . ."

The whole idea of luring Iran into a fight shows the desperation of the Bush people as well as the anti-Iranian war mongers in the Israeli government led by Ehud Olmert.

If the stock market fell today on mere reports of Israeli threats, what would it do if there were an actual attack either by the U.S. or Israel?

But the stock market is the least consequential of all possible effects. There would be enmity between Islam and the West for the next 500 years. The whole Middle East would remain in turmoil and conflagration. If you think that the level of "terrorism" is excessive today, it would be raised to the tenth power, maybe even to the hundredth. Bush's predilection for "endless war" would certainly become reality. And the whole world would suffer the consequences because of the war mongering of Cheney, Bush and Olmert.

BUSH THINKS HE IS MORALLY RIGHTEOUS EVEN AFTER APPROVING UNJUST INVASION, GUANTANAMO AND EVEN TORTURE

Dan Froomkin today has a good post about Bush's attempt to position himself as one taking the high road on ethics and morality during his formal greeting of Pope Benedict XVI in Washington yesterday.

Bush claims that his fight is against terrorists who invoke God's name in order to kill innocent people and deprive them of their God-given rights. Yet this definition of a "terrorist" applies to Bush himself. He is the one who started the unjust and immoral invasion of Iraq that probably has killed over 600,000 Iraqis not to mention the U.S. soldiers killed or maimed for life. Bush is the one who deprives suspects of their liberty and freedom by locking them up without recourse in Guantanamo. Bush is the one who approved the extraordinary harsh interrogation methods that are torture by any other name.

Bush tries to position himself as God-fearing and ethical, yet he is the one, as Froomkin points out, who constantly says that 9/11 changed everything, and his main job is to protect the American people, as if the horrible event of September 11th or his mandate to thwart any more attacks could justify the most evil of methods and procedures.

WITNESS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE OF PADILLA TESTIFIES IN CASE

Abby Goodnough writes in today's The New York Times that the government's star prosecution witness, Yahya Goba, was one of the Lackawanna Six to plead guilty to attending a "terrorist training camp."

What this has to do with Jose Padilla is another matter. Mr. Goba did not know Mr. Padilla, was not at the camp with Mr. Padilla, and has no first-hand knowledge idea what happened to Mr. Padilla or what Mr. Padilla did when Padilla was in Pakistan.

“If we are not allowed to put this evidence in,” a government prosecutor, Brian Frazier, told Judge Cooke on Friday before the jury was brought in, “our knees are cut out from under us.”

"As the defense forcefully pointed out and as Judge Cooke agreed, Mr. Goba has no material connection to Mr. Padilla or his co-defendants, Adham Hassoun and Kifah Jayyousi, who are charged with recruiting Mr. Padilla for terrorist training.


“What Goba did is not relevant to anything in this case, period,” William Swor, a lawyer for Mr. Jayyousi, argued before the jury came in.

"Judge Cooke allowed Mr. Goba to describe just his experience at the camp and the form he filled out. To the government’s frustration, she instructed the jury not to draw any inference from Mr. Goba’s testimony that Mr. Padilla attended the camp."

So Mr. Goba is not testifying that he saw Jose Padilla at the camp. Goba has no first-hand knowledge that Padilla was, before or after his time, at the same camp. Goba does not know if or why Padilla travelled to Pakistan.

So where is the evidence of the prosecution that Mr. Padilla did anything wrong? Or that he did anything against the law of the United States or that attended a "terrorist training camp?"

The reporter in The New York Times adds:

"Mr. Goba has also testified for the government at trials of terrorism suspects in Australia, Idaho and New York.

"Under cross-examination, he testified that he expected to enter the witness protection program after his 10-year prison term. He conceded that “muhajid” means “brother who fights for Islam,” and does not necessarily connote physical fighting.

"He also said his training at the camp was not “terrorist training,” but, as Michael Caruso, a lawyer for Mr. Padilla, said, “strictly military training, similar to a boot camp.”"