The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to "any organization" that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.

Before the core CIA team, Jawbreaker, deployed [to Afghanistan] on September 27, 2001, Black gave his men direct and macabre directions. "Gentlemen, I want to give you your marching orders, and I want to make them very clear. I have discussed this with the President, and he is in full agreement," Black told covert CIA operative Gary Schroen. "I don't want bin Laden and his thugs captured, I want them dead. . . . They must be killed. I want to see photos of their heads on pikes. I want bin Laden's head shipped back in a box filled with dry ice. I want to be able to show bin Laden's head to the President. I promised him I would do that." Schroen said it was the first time in his thirty-year career he had been ordered to assassinate an adversary rather than attempting a capture. Black asked if he had made himself clear. "Perfectly clear, Cofer," Schroen told him. "I don't know where we'll find dry ice out there in Afghanistan, but I think we can certainly manufacture pikes in the field." Black later explained why this would be necessary. "You'd need some DNA," Black said. "There's a good way to do it. Take a machete, and whack off his head, and you'll get a bucketful of DNA, so you can see it and test it. It beats lugging the whole body back!"

While we celebrate this day, we express our thanks and gratitude to our friends in the coalition forces who faced risks and responsibilities and sustained casualties and damage while helping Iraq to get rid from the ugliest dictatorship and during the joint effort to impose security and stability.

There was a significant spike in violence before the June 30 withdrawal. More than 250 people were killed in a series of bombings, including one on June 20 that left 81 dead outside a mosque in northern Iraq and another in a Baghdad market on June 24 that killed 78.

Iraq is the world's premier kleptomaniac state. According to Transparency International the only countries deemed more crooked than Iraq are Somalia and Myanmar, while Haiti and Afghanistan rank just behind. In contrast to Iraq, which enjoys significant oil revenues, none of these countries have much money to steal.

In a televised ceremony, international oil companies were invited to submit bids for six oil and two gas fields, a process that marked their return to the country over 30 years after Mr. Hussein nationalized the oil sector and expelled the foreign firms. The fields on offer hold about 43 billion of Iraq's 115 billion barrels of crude reserves -- among the largest in the world.

The military parade in the Green Zone on Tuesday -- at the official monument to the unknown soldier -- was attended primarily by Iraqi reporters and dignitaries. The public could not reach it because of extensive security restricting access to the area.


...Many of the celebrations on Tuesday seemed contrived. Police cars were festooned with plastic flowers, and signs celebrating "independence day"were tied to blast walls and fences around the city. On Monday, night a festive evening celebration in Zahra Park with singers and entertainers drew primarily young men, many of them off-duty police officers.

Anchors on state-run television wore folded Iraqi flags over their shoulders, and the station kept a graphic of a small Iraqi flag waving under the date "6/30" on the top left corner of the screen.

The U.S. hasn't said how many troops will be in the cities in advisory roles, but the vast majority of the more than 130,000 U.S. forces remaining in the country will be in large bases scattered outside cities.

Loosely affiliated with the Republican Party, the International Republican Insitute (IRI) works closely with the the National Endowment for Democracy and United States foreign policy instruments, including the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development, to support economic and political development programs around the world. The organization is almost exclusively funded by the U.S. government and related agencies.

IRI is also closely linked to Sen. John McCain. According to IRI's vice president, "Since the summer of 2003, IRI has conducted a multi-faceted program aimed at promoting democracy in Iraq. Toward this end, IRI works with political parties, civil society groups, and government officials and administrators. In support of these efforts, IRI also conducts numerous public opinion research projects and assists its Iraqi partners in the production of radio and television ads and programs." One IRI grant recipient in Iraq told author Nikolas Kozloff, "Instead of promoting impartial, better understanding of certain ideas and concepts, they [the IRI] are actually trying to further the cause of the Republican administration." Kozloff notes that in 2005-6 Blackwater donated $30,000 to IRI.

These new allegations surfaced today as Burke filed yet another lawsuit against Blackwater-Xe--this one over a 2007 civilian shooting in Iraq. Burke alleges that "Xe-Blackwater 'shooters' operating in Hilla, Iraq unnecessarily fired shots, killing Husain Salih Rabea and traumatizing Ali Kareem Fakhri, a student at the Babylon University College of Biology."

According to the lawsuit, the men were shot at as they drove in separate vehicles on a public roadway on August 13, 2007. Mr. Rabea died from the gunshot wound, leaving behind five sons and three daughters.

The complaint, which was filed today in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, alleges that Blackwater/Xe:

• continues to flout Iraqi law and operate without a license by continuing to provide armed men under contract to protect employees of the International Republican Institute, an American government-funded organization,

• tries to hide its continued illegal operations in Iraq by using the Greystone name rather than the Blackwater or Xe name,

• captured illegal conduct of personnel on videotape and audiotape, but did not report or punish the illegal conduct of "shooters" and instead intentionally destroyed the evidence of illegal conduct, and encouraged the "shooters" to do the same.

As President Barack Obama prepares to send some 21,000 more US troops into Afghanistan, anger is rising in the western province of Farah, the scene of a US bombing massacre that may have killed as many as 130 Afghans, including 13 members of one family. At least six houses were bombed and among the dead and wounded are women and children. As of this writing reports indicate some people remain buried in rubble. The US airstrikes happened on Monday and Tuesday. Just hours after Obama met with US-backed president Hamid Karzai Wednesday, hundreds of Afghans--perhaps as many as 2,000-- poured into the streets of the provincial capital, chanting "Death to America." The protesters demanded a US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

In Washington, Karzai said he and the US occupation forces should operate from a "higher platform of morality," saying, "We must be conducting this war as better human beings," and recognize that "force won't buy you obedience." And yet, his security forces opened fire on the demonstrators, reportedly wounding five people.

According to The New York Times:

In a phone call played on a loudspeaker on Wednesday to outraged members of the Afghan Parliament, the governor of Farah Province, Rohul Amin, said that as many as 130 civilians had been killed, according to a legislator, Mohammad Naim Farahi. Afghan lawmakers immediately called for an agreement regulating foreign military operations in the country.

"The governor said that the villagers have brought two tractor trailers full of pieces of human bodies to his office to prove the casualties that had occurred," Mr. Farahi said. "Everyone at the governor's office was crying, watching that shocking scene."

Mr. Farahi said he had talked to someone he knew personally who had counted 113 bodies being buried, including those of many women and children. Later, more bodies were pulled from the rubble and some victims who had been taken to the hospital died, he said.

The US airstrikes hit villages in two areas of Farah province on Monday night and Tuesday. The extent of the deaths only came to public light because local people brought 20-30 corpses to the provincial capital. If the estimates of 130 dead are confirmed, it would reportedly be the single largest number of deaths caused by a US bombing since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001. While Secretary of State Hillary Clinton initially "apologized" Wednesday for the civilian deaths and Obama reportedly conveyed similar sentiments to Karzai when they met in person, later in the day Clinton's spokesperson, Robert Wood, framed her apology as being based on preliminary information and, according to AP, said they "were offered as a gesture, before all the facts of the incident are known." By day's end, the Pentagon was seeking to blame the Taliban for "staging" the massacre to blame it on the US. Last night, NBC News's Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski said military sources told him Taliban fighters used grenades to kill three families to "stage" a massacre and then blame it on the US.

The senior US military and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, spoke in general terms: "We have some other information that leads us to distinctly different conclusions about the cause of the civilian casualties," he said. McKiernan left the specific details of the spin to unnamed officials.

According to The Washington Post, "A U.S. defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that 'the Taliban went to a concerted effort to make it look like the U.S. airstrikes caused this. The official did not offer evidence to support the claim, and could not say what had caused the deaths." Meanwhile, according to the Associated Press, a senior Defense official who did not want to be identified "said late Wednesday that Marine special operations forces believe the Afghan civilians were killed by grenades hurled by Taliban militants, who then loaded some of the bodies into a vehicle and drove them around the village, claiming the dead were victims of an American airstrike. A second U.S. official said a senior Taliban commander is believed to have ordered the grenade attack."

As the AP reported, "it would be the first time the Taliban has used grenades in this way."

While the Pentagon spins its story, the International Committee of the Red Cross has stated bluntly that US airstrikes hit civilian houses and revealed that an ICRC counterpart in the Red Crescent was among the dead. "We know that those killed included an Afghan Red Crescent volunteer and 13 members of his family who had been sheltering from fighting in a house that was bombed in an air strike," said the ICRC's head of delegation in Kabul, Reto Stocker. "We are deeply concerned by these events. Tribal elders in the villages called the ICRC during the fighting to report civilian casualties and ask for help. As soon as we heard of the attacks we contacted all sides to warn them that there were civilians and injured people in the area."

Read the entire ICRC statement here.

The Times, meanwhile, interviewed local people who contradict the unnamed US Defense officials' version of events:

Villagers reached by telephone said many were killed by aerial bombing. Muhammad Jan, a farmer, said fighting had broken out in his village, Shiwan, and another, Granai, in the Bala Baluk district. An hour after it stopped, the planes came, he said.

In Granai, he said, women and children had sought shelter in orchards and houses. "Six houses were bombed and destroyed completely, and people in the houses still remain under the rubble," he said, "and now I am working with other villagers trying to excavate the dead bodies."

He said that villagers, crazed with grief, were collecting mangled bodies in blankets and shawls and piling them on three tractors. People were still missing, he said.

Mr. Agha, who lives in Granai, said the bombing started at 5 p.m. on Monday and lasted until late into the night. "People were rushing to go to their relatives' houses, where they believed they would be safe, but they were hit on the way," he said.

In her earlier statement regarding the bombing, Clinton told Hamid Karzai "there will be a joint investigation by your government and ours."

But before that investigation began, the Pentagon was already using its unnamed officials to blame the Taliban. It also bears remembering that the US track record of thoroughly "investigating" US massacres is pathetic. The UN said there was convincing evidence that last year's US attack on the village of Azizabad in western Afghanistan killed 90 civilians, but the military only acknowledged 30 civilian deaths.

Standing between Hamid Karzai and Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday, Obama said the US would "make every effort" to avoid civilian deaths in both countries (which are regularly bombed by the US). But as he was making those remarks, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was arriving in Kabul on Wednesday "to make sure that preparations were moving forward for the troop increase and that soldiers and Marines were getting the equipment they needed."

Jessica Barry, a spokesperson for the ICRC said, "With more troops coming in, there is a risk that civilians will be more and more vulnerable."

(Photo: A child wounded in the US bombing of Farah.)

Now, Al Jazeera and the man who filmed the controversial material are striking back. The network has just released unedited and unaltered footage (see below) of US soldiers in 'bible study' in Afghanistan. Jazeera describes it as "Extended footage shot by Brian Hughes, a US documentary maker and former member of the US military who spent several days in Bagram near Kabul."

In Al Jazeera's original report, Hughes addressed the fact that soldiers had imported bibles translated into Pashto and Dari. "[US soldiers] weren't talking about learning how to speak Dari or Pashto, by reading the Bible and using that as the tool for language lessons," Hughes told Al Jazeera. "The only reason they would have these documents there was to distribute them to the Afghan people. And I knew it was wrong, and I knew that filming it ... documenting it would be important."

Regarding allegations that the sermon of the military's top chaplain in Afghanistan, Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Hensley, where he instructs soldiers to "hunt people for Jesus" was taken out of context, Hughes said in a statment, "Any contention by the military that his words are purposefully taken out of context to alter the tone or meaning of his sermon is absolutely false."

Hughes is completely standing by the accuracy of Al Jazeera's report. Here is Hughes's statement:

On Sunday, May 3, the Al Jazeera English network and I made an agreement to produce a broadcast segment from a rough cut of my documentary film. This opportunity came after a May 2009 Harper's magazine cover story called "Jesus Killed Mohammed." While he researched and prepared that article, I allowed the author Jeff Sharlet to view the work-in-progress documentary. Sharlet's article brought the film to Al Jazeera English's attention.

My documentary, titled The Word and the Warriors, is inspired by a personal experience I had while serving as a combat flight crew member during the first Gulf War. During a very difficult and emotional time at war, an Army chaplain provided me comfort and counsel. I will never forget the important advice or the man who - without questioning my own faith - helped me at a time of need.

For two-and-a-half years, I have been researching and producing this film. I have traveled the world, interviewing both military servicemembers and civilians about the important role of these religious leaders/military officers.

During April/May 2008, I went to Afghanistan. With the assistance and full cooperation of the U.S. Army, I was allowed to film at Bagram Air Field. During that time, I was always wearing press credentials, and I was always accompanied by a media liaison while filming. The media liaison staff knew everything I filmed and - as I was told by them - they filed reports every evening about what I had filmed. It was my primary media liaison, an Army NCO, who - on my first day - invited me to meet LTC Gary Hensley. Hensley, the ranking chaplain in Afghanistan talked to me off camera expressing a concern he had about allowing me to film his chaplains. At the conclusion of the discussion, he agreed that I would be allowed to embed with his chaplains and invited me to film several hours of religious services.

Those hours at the Enduring Faith Chapel included his own sermon at a service called Chapel Next. With the exception of a few minutes I could not film because I was reloading my camera or moving to position for another shot, I videotaped Hensley's entire sermon.

Any contention by the military that his words are purposefully taken out of context to alter the tone or meaning of his sermon is absolutely false...

In recent press statements, the military also contends that - in the footage depicting the Afghan-language (Dari and Pashto) bibles - a cut was made before "it would have shown that the chaplain instructed that the Bibles not be distributed." This is a false statement. The chaplain - as seen in the footage before the cut - instructs the group to be careful and reiterates the definition of General Order #1. After this cut he begins to organize the group for the evening's bible study lessons.

Finally, and in my opinion most important, is the fact that EVERY FRAME of the rough cut from Bagram was provided to the U.S. Army Public Affairs Office in advance of this release. On Thursday, April 30 at approximately 1 pm EST, the Army took possession of a DVD with this footage by accepting a FedEx from me. Since Al Jazeera English first aired the piece Sunday, May 3 at 10pm EST, the Army had every frame of this rough cut for more than 80 hours.

[T]he chaplains appear to have found a way around the regulation known as General Order Number One.

"Do we know what it means to proselytise?" Captain Emmit Furner, a military chaplain, says to the gathering.

"It is General Order Number One," an unidentified soldier replies.

But Watt says "you can't proselytise but you can give gifts."

Trying to convert Muslims to any other faith is a crime in Afghanistan. The fact that the video footage is being broadcast on Al Jazeera guarantees that it will be seen throughout the Muslim world. It is likely to add more credence to the perception that the US is engaging in a war on Islam with neo-crusader forces invading Muslim lands.

Former Afghan prime minister Ahmed Shah Ahmedzai told Al Jazeera there must be a "serious investigation," saying, "This is very damaging for diplomatic relations between the two counties." Sayed Aalam Uddin Asser, of the Islamic Front for Peace and Understanding in Kabul, told the network: "It's a national security issue ... our constitution says nothing can take place in Afghanistan against Islam. If people come and propaganda other religions which have no followers in Afghanistan [then] it creates problems for the people, for peace, for stability."

A US military spokesperson, Major Jennifer Willis, denied that the US military has allowed its soldiers to attempt to convert Afghans and said comments from sermons filmed at Bagram were taken out of context. She said the bibles were never distributed. "That specific case involved a soldier who brought in a donation of translated bibles that were sent to his personal address by his home church. He showed them to the group and the chaplain explained that he cannot distribute them," she said. "The translated bibles were never distributed as far as we know, because the soldier understood that if he distributed them he would be in violation of general order 1, and he would be subject to punishment."

The video footage was shot about a year ago by documentary filmmaker Brian Hughes, who is also a former US soldier. "[US soldiers] weren't talking about learning how to speak Dari or Pashto, by reading the Bible and using that as the tool for language lessons," Hughes told Al Jazeera. "The only reason they would have these documents there was to distribute them to the Afghan people. And I knew it was wrong, and I knew that filming it ... documenting it would be important."

The broadcast of this video comes just days after a new poll of White Americans found that, in the US, church going Christians are more likely to support the use of torture than other segments of the population. The Pew Research Center poll found: "White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified -- more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did."

This is certainly not the first scandal where US military forces or officials have been caught on tape promoting an evangelical Christian agenda. Perhaps the most high-profile case involved Lieut. Gen. William Boykin, who was a Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence under Bush. Boykin was part of Donald Rumsfeld's inner circle at the Pentagon where he was placed in charge of hunting "high-value targets." Boykin was one of the key U.S. officials in establishing what critics alleged was death-squad-type activity in Iraq.

In October 2003, Boykin was revealed to have gone on several anti-Muslim rants, in public speeches, many of which he delivered in military uniform. Since January 2002, Boykin had spoken at twenty-three religious-oriented events, wearing his uniform at all but two. Among Boykin's statements, he said he knew the U.S. would prevail over a Muslim adversary in Somalia because "I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol." Boykin also charged that Islamic radicals want to destroy America "because we're a Christian nation" that "will never abandon Israel." Our "spiritual enemy," Boykin declared, "will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus."

As for President Bush, Boykin said, "Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? And I tell you this morning that he's in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this." In another speech, Boykin said other countries "have lost their morals, lost their values. But America is still a Christian nation." He told a church group in Oregon that special operations forces were victorious in Iraq because of their faith in God. "Ladies and gentlemen, I want to impress upon you that the battle that we're in is a spiritual battle," he said. "Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army."

Watch Al Jazeera's report here.

claims of beatings during interrogation, torture by electric shocks, forced confessions, secret detention facilities, and a lack of medical attention. Abuse is often committed by masked men or while detainees are blindfolded. In general, detainees fear the interrogators and investigative personnel more than prison guards.

As of December 2008, there were 41,271 people being held in prisons throughout Iraq, 15,058 of them in the custody of the US-controlled "Multi-National Forces." The UN found that "many" of the prisoners "have been deprived of their liberty for months or even years in overcrowded cells" and expressed concerns "about violations of the minimum rules of due process as many did not have access to defence counsel, or were not formally charged with a crime or appeared before a judge."

While the report primarily focused on Iraqi run prisons, it notes that in US-run prisons "detainees have remained in custody for prolonged periods without judicial review of their cases." And remember, the US is in the process of turning over more prisoners to Iraqi custody.

It is well known that after Bush launched the so-called "War on Terror," the US torture system was exported from Guantanamo to Afghanistan and Iraq. Apparently the disdain for accountability and international law was as well when the US was setting up the new Iraqi government. Wasn't Saddams torture and disdain for international law one of the justifications for the invasion (after the WMD myth was exposed)? This UN report should serve as a sobering reminder of why it is so important to hold those who created, ordered, justified and implemented the US torture program responsible for their crimes. Sadly, the US at present has zero credibility in confronting these crimes by the Iraqi authorities.

For more information, see: http://uniraq.org/

Representatives John Conyers and Jerrold Nadler are officially asking Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint an independent Special Prosecutor to investigate the Bush-era US torture system. But, as Politico reports, "Holder is likely to reject that request - his boss, the president, has indicated he doesn't see the need for such a prosecutor." The Democratic Leadership, particularly Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Diane Feinstein have pushed for secret, closed-door hearings in the Senate Intelligence Committee. Other Democrats, like Patrick Leahy, advocate establishing a Truth Commission, though that is not gaining any momentum. The fact remains that some powerful Democrats knew that the torture was happening and didn't make a public peep in opposition.

This week, Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell came out in favor of prosecutions of "the decision-makers and their closest advisors (particularly the ones among the latter who may, on their own, have twisted the dagger a little deeper in Caesar's prostrate body -- Rumsfeld and Feith for instance). Appoint a special prosecutor such as Fitzgerald, armed to the teeth, and give him or her carte blanche. Play the treatment of any intermediaries -- that is, between the grunts on the ground and the Oval -- as the law allows and the results demand."

Wilkerson, though, understands Washington. "Is there the political will to carry either of these recommendations to meaningful consequences?" he wrote to the Huffington Post. "No, and there won't be."

As of now, Conyers and Nadler aren't exactly looking for over-flow space for their meetings on how to get criminal prosecutions going.

Officially joining the anti-accountability camp this week was The Washington Post's David Broder who wrote this gem in defense of the Bush administration: "The memos on torture represented a deliberate, and internally well-debated, policy decision, made in the proper places -- the White House, the intelligence agencies and the Justice Department -- by the proper officials." (For a great response to this, check out Scott Horton). Broder is urging Obama to "stick to his guns" in standing up to pressure "to change his mind about closing the books on the 'torture' policies of the past." Don't you love how Broder puts torture in quotes? I really wonder how Broder would describe it if he was waterboarded (and survived). Can't you just imagine him making the little quote motion with his hands? Broder's Washington Post column was titled "Stop Scapegoating: Obama Should Stand Against Prosecutions:"

[Obama was] right to declare that there should be no prosecution of those who carried out what had been the policy of the United States government. And he was right when he sent out his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, to declare that the same amnesty should apply to the lawyers and bureaucrats who devised and justified the Bush administration practices.

But now Obama is being lobbied by politicians and voters who want something more -- the humiliation and/or punishment of those responsible for the policies of the past. They are looking for individual scalps -- or, at least, careers and reputations.

Their argument is that without identifying and punishing the perpetrators, there can be no accountability -- and therefore no deterrent lesson for future administrations. It is a plausible-sounding rationale, but it cloaks an unworthy desire for vengeance.

Obama has opposed even the blandest form of investigation, a so-called truth commission, and has shown himself willing to confront this kind of populist anger.

Thank goodness we have a president who opposes "even the blandest form of investigation"--how uncouth such savagery would prove to be. While the elite Washington press corp works hard to make sure things don't get too uncomfortable at the wine and cheese cocktail parties, some liberal journalists are also making the case against a special prosecutor (or at least the immediate appointment of one). Last week it was Elizabeth de la Vega, who made an interesting case for waiting to prosecute while evidence is gathered:

We must have a prosecution eventually, but we are not legally required to publicly initiate it now and we should not, as justifiable as it is. I'm not concerned about political fallout. What's good or bad for either party has no legitimate place in this calculus. My sole consideration is litigation strategy: I want us to succeed.

This week it is Mother Jones Washington editor David Corn, who comes out in favor of a congressional investigation "that placed a premium on public disclosure" or "an independent commission." Corn describes how he recently warned a Congressmember who supports the appointment of a Special Prosecutor, "That's not necessarily a good idea." Corn talks about how a coalition of groups from the Center for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU to Democrats.com and MoveOn.org have all petitioned for a prosecutor:

These liberals all want to see alleged Bush administration wrongdoing exposed. But there's one problem with a special prosecutor: it's not his job to expose wrongdoing. A special prosecutor does dig up facts--but only in order to prosecute a possible crime. His mission is not to shine light on misdeeds, unless it is part of a prosecution. In many cases, a prosecutor's investigation does not produce any prosecutions. Sometimes, it leads only to a limited prosecution.

That's what happened with Patrick Fitzgerald. He could not share with the public all that he had discovered about the involvement of Bush, Cheney, Karl Rove, and other officials in the CIA leak case... A special prosecutor, it turns out, is a rather imperfect vehicle for revealing the full truth.

[...]

Prosecuting government officials for providing legal opinions that greenlighted waterboarding and the like would pose its own legal challenges. Could a government prosecutor indict the government lawyers who composed and signed the torture memos for aiding and abetting torture without indicting the government employees who actually committed the torture? (President Barack Obama has pledged that the interrogators will not be pursued.) And could a prosecutor win cases in which his targets would obviously argue that they were providing what they believed was good-faith legal advice, even if it turned out that their advice was wrong?... Several lawyers I've consulted have said that a criminal case against the authors of these memos would be no slam dunk. One possible scenario is that a special prosecutor would investigate, find out that sordid maneuvering occurred at the highest levels of the Bush-Cheney administration, and then conclude that he or she did not have a strong enough legal case to warrant criminal indictments and trials.

The bottom line: Anyone who wants the full truth to come out about the Bush-Cheney administration's use of these interrogation practices cannot count on a special prosecutor.

Corn's advice to that unnamed Democratic Congressmember wasn't exactly well received by lawyers who have been pushing for prosecutions. Perhaps the most passionate advocate for the appointment of an independent Special Prosecutor right now is Michael Ratner, the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

"To argue that we should not have prosecutions because it won't bring out all the facts when taken to its logical conclusion would mean never prosecuting any official no matter the seriousness of the crimes," Ratner told me. "Right now is not the time to be backing off on prosecutions. Why are prosecutions of torturers ok for other non-western countries but not for the US? Prosecution is necessary to deter torture in the future and send a message to ourselves and the rest of the world that the seven or eight year torture program was unlawful and must not happen again. The purpose of prosecutions is to investigate and get convictions so that officials in the future will not again dispense with the prohibition on torture."

Constitutional Law expert Scott Horton says that the problems with a Special Prosecutor Corn lays out are "correct, but he makes the latent assumption that it's either/or. That's absurd. Obviously it should be both a commission and one or more prosecutors as crimes are identified."

Jameel Jaffer, one of the leading ACLU attorneys responsible for getting the torture memos released by the Obama administration agrees with Horton. "I don't think we should have to choose between a criminal investigation and a congressional inquiry," Jaffer told me. "A congressional committee could examine the roots of the torture program and recommend legislative reform to prevent gross human rights abuses by future administrations. At the same time, a Justice Department investigation could investigate issues of criminal responsibility. One shouldn't foreclose the other."

Jaffer adds, "It might be a different story if we thought that Congress would need to offer immunity in exchange for testimony. But many of the key players - including John Yoo, George Tenet, and Dick Cheney - have made clear that they have no qualms about talking publicly about their actions (Yoo and Tenet have both written books, and Cheney is writing one now)."

The bottom line, Ratner argues, is that "prosecutions will bring out facts." He cites the example of the Nuremberg Tribunals:

What if we had had a truth commission and no prosecutions? Right now we have many means of getting the facts: FOIA, congressional investigations such as the Senate Armed Services Report, former interrogators, document releases by the Executive. There are plenty of ways to get information even if it does not all come out in prosecutions. Many of the calls to not prosecute are by those, particularly inside the beltway, who cannot imagine Bush, Cheney et al. in the dock or by those who accept the argument that the torture conspirators were trying their best. This is not a time to hold back on the demand that is required by law and fact: appoint a special prosecutor.

David Swanson, who for years has pushed for prosecutions of Bush administration officials, was one of the organizers of the petitions calling for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor. "My top priority is not 'truth,'" he said. "My top priority is changing the current truth, which is that we don't have the nerve and decency to enforce our laws against powerful people."

Jay Bybee authored one of the most chilling of the four Bush-era torture memos declassified last week by the Obama administration. Bybee signed the August 2002 memo in his capacity as a Deputy Attorney General working in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department. Now he is a federal judge sitting on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the largest appellate court in the US (Remember, Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid helped him get there).

Following the disclosure of the memos and Bybee's role in developing legal strategies for justifying the torture of prisoners, activists launched a campaign to demand that Rep. John Conyers, chair of the Judiciary Committee, hold a hearing to determine whether grounds exist for Bybee's impeachment. As the Center for Constitutional Rights points out:

His flagrant contempt for the rule of law is utterly inconsistent with his judicial position and speaks directly to his competency to function in that office. It is unacceptable for an individual who abused his status as a government lawyer and violated the law in conspiring with other members of the Bush Torture Team to sit as a federal judge, someone who hears and decides issues of constitutional import. At the time of his confirmation hearing, his role in the Torture Program was secret, as was the program itself. Jay Bybee's actions constitute High Crimes and Misdemeanors by any standard.

This morning, an anonymous email I received directed me to a Mormon publication, Meridian Magazine, that profiled Bybee (who is a Mormon) when he was first appointed to the bench. While reading this, keep in mind that Bybee was the author of a memo that gave the legal green light to heinous acts of torture. The Meridian Magazine article is a sappy, fawning profile of Bybee, but there are some gems in the context of the current situation:

Regarding the law itself, Bybee said he appreciates the role of law in a society which must ask the fundamental question, "How are we going to conduct ourselves?" He explained that there is a system of rules and standards in the law as well as in our personal lives. In his own home, for example, a standard is, "Be nice," and a rule to encourage that is, "Don't hit." He also pointed out that standards are always harder to enforce because it is difficult to define exactly what the standard is. "How do you define honesty," he asked, "and who is applying the definition?"

[...]

Regardless of his opinions about a specific law, Bybee said, "I will enforce a law even if I wouldn't have voted for the law itself had I been a legislator, and I will apply the law unless it crosses the contours of the Constitution."

[...]

It's no surprise that Bybees interest in the rule of law extends to a study of ancient law, notably in Old Testament times. As the Gospel Doctrine teacher in his ward, he saw parallels in the way people interpreted and applied ancient law to the way many individuals do so today.

"People in the Old Testament were absolutely devoted to the law of Moses and required exact obedience to it," he explained. "Their main concern was that they not find themselves on the wrong side of the law, and they spent their lives trying to bring themselves and each other into conformity with it. While we should admire their zeal to follow the rule of law, we nevertheless have to recognize that without understanding the spirit or purpose of the law, there arent enough rules in the world to make a person be good."

[...]

Bybee believes that society would function better if people demonstrated an attitude of reconciliation rather than revenge. He said some lawyers become entrenched, and instead of finding common ground and shared values between contending parties, such lawyers tend to "litigate to the death."

Wow. "Litigate to the death." That is almost the perfect concept for Bybee's role in the US torture apparatus.

In the Sunday New York Times, the paper's editors call for the impeachment of Judge Jay Bybee, author of one of the now infamous torture memos released last week. Bybee is now a federal judge. In its editorial, "The Torturers' Manifesto," the Times argued:

[The] investigation should start with the lawyers who wrote these sickening memos, including John Yoo, who now teaches law in California; Steven Bradbury, who was job-hunting when we last heard; and Mr. Bybee, who holds the lifetime seat on the federal appeals court that Mr. Bush rewarded him with.

These memos make it clear that Mr. Bybee is unfit for a job that requires legal judgment and a respect for the Constitution. Congress should impeach him. And if the administration will not conduct a thorough investigation of these issues, then Congress has a constitutional duty to hold the executive branch accountable. If that means putting Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales on the stand, even Dick Cheney, we are sure Americans can handle it.

Of course, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Cheney, Bush and a slew of others belong on trial with Bybee, not just as witnesses in his case and the Times should be calling for that as well. But let's remember, this is the paper that the Bush administration used as a conveyor belt for its deadly lies so expectations of it should be low.

In a recent piece for Slate, "Impeach Jay Bybee: Why should a suspected war criminal serve as a federal judge?," Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman lays out some of Bybee's history:

"Jay Bybee is currently sitting on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. As assistant attorney general in President George W. Bush's Justice Department, he was responsible for the notorious torture memos that enabled the excesses at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and other places. While John Yoo did most of the staff work for Bybee, Yoo was barely 35 years old -- and his memos showed it. They not only took extreme positions; they were legally incompetent, failing to consider many of the most obvious counterarguments. Bybee was 49. He was the grown-up, the seasoned jurist. He had been a law professor and had served as associate counsel to President Bush. When he was promoted to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, he became the final judge of legal matters within the executive branch. Yet his opinion on torture was so poorly reasoned that it was repudiated by his very conservative successor, Jack Goldsmith."

David Swanson, the ever vigilant crusader for holding Bush era criminals accountable for their crimes, has started a website ImpeachBybee.org which contains resources on Bybee and how people can sign a petition calling for his impeachment.

While Obama has made clear that he does not intend to prosecute CIA torturers and their bosses and lawyers, saying it is "time for reflection, not retribution," not everyone in his party is in agreement. As previously reported, Representative Jan Schakowsky, has been outspoken on this issue, as have Senator Russ Feingold and Representative Jerrold Nadler. But the leadership of the Democratic Party has, predictably, been silent. Indeed, Nadler was the first Democrat to call for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor. On Friday, Nadler released a statement, saying:

"These memos make it abundantly clear that the Bush administration engaged in torture. Because torture is illegal under American law - as the U.S. is a signatory to the Convention Against Torture - we are legally required to investigate and, when appropriate, to prosecute those responsible for these crimes.

"I commend President Obama for his unequivocal rejection of torture and for his resolve to move forward. The President's intentions are honorable, but don't go far enough. All history teaches us that simply shining a light on criminal acts without holding the responsible people accountable will not prevent repetition of those acts.

"I have previously urged Attorneys General Gonzalez and Mukasey to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the torture abuses of the Bush administration, and now I will convey that same necessity to President Obama and Attorney General Holder. We sorely need an independent investigation that will provide accountability for these terrible crimes.

Meanwhile, Bob Fertik at Democrats.com is circulating a petition to Congress with five primary demands:

1. Demand the appointment of a Special Prosecutor by Attorney General Eric Holder for torture, warrantless wiretapping, and other heinous crimes of the Bush Administration.

2. Prohibit the use of any taxpayer dollars to defend government officials who committed such crimes against lawsuits, or to pay for judgments against them.

3. Impeach Judge Jay Bybee, the torture memo author who serves on the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in California.

4. Protect human rights by restoring Habeas Corpus and the Fourth Amendment (search and seizure), including repeal of the Orwellian-named Protect America Act, U.S.A. Patriot Act, the FISA Amendments, and Military Commissions Act.

5. End secret government by prohibiting use of "State Secrets," "Sovereign Immunity" and "Signing Statements."

The Obama administration has a moral and legal responsibility to prosecute Bush era criminals. The UN has indicated that Obama's refusal to prosecute torturers may be a violation of International law. As for US law, Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights said, "Whether or not to prosecute law breakers is not a political decision. Laws were broken and crimes were committed. If we are truly a nation of laws ... a prosecutor needs to be appointed and the decisions regarding the guilt of those involved in the torture program should be decided in a court of law."

Comments like "reflection not retribution" and "look forward, not backwards," are insulting to the rule of law and the cause of justice.

As has been pointed out by several diligent journalists, human rights lawyers and critics, President Obama has continued--and continues to defend--some of the Bush administration's most repressive "War on Terror" policies, although Obama prefers to not use that term anymore. On several occasions, Obama has invoked the "state secrets" doctrine, including to argue that a lawsuit filed against the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping should be thrown out. As former constitutional lawyer turned Salon.com columnist Glenn Greenwald wrote, the move "demonstrates that the Obama DOJ plans to invoke the exact radical doctrines of executive secrecy which Bush used."

Meanwhile, the White House is continuing to defend its use of the US prison at Bagram in Afghanistan. On Tuesday, White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs was confronted about this by the great Helen Thomas:

Q Why is the President blocking habeas corpus from prisoners at Bagram? I thought he taught constitutional law. And these prisoners have been there --

MR. GIBBS: You're incorrect that he taught on constitutional law.

Q -- for many years with no due process.

MR. GIBBS: Well, there are several issues relating to that that have to do differently than in some places than others, particularly because you have detainees in an active theater of war. There's a review that's pending of court cases and decisions, and we want to ensure -- we want to ensure protection and security of the American people as well as rights that might be afforded.

Q Are you saying these people in prison are a threat to us?

MR. GIBBS: Well, I think that part of that is the determination based on our detainee policy that the President announced on the 21st of January, that that's part of that review, yes.

Chuck.

Chuck then changed the subject. (David Swanson has a humorous take on this back and forth at AfterDowningStreet, while Liliana Segura takes it on at AlterNet.)

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal is reporting today that "The Obama administration is leaning toward keeping secret some graphic details of tactics allowed in Central Intelligence Agency interrogations, despite a push by some top officials to make the information public." The 2005 "Bradbury memos represent an effort by the Bush administration to keep the CIA program of 'enhanced' interrogations of certain detainees on a legal footing after the Bush administration in late 2004 withdrew earlier Justice Department memos on interrogation."

The ACLU, which is suing the Justice Department for the release of the three memos, which were authored by Steven Bradbury, acting head of the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) from 2005 to 2009, as such:

The memos reportedly provided legal justification for the CIA's use of enhanced interrogation methods that amounted to torture. And they also reportedly provided legal cover for the CIA's interrogation methods in anticipation of Congress's expected effort to outlaw "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment," which it did in the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, passed several months after Bradbury issued the memos.

According to the WSJ:

Among the details in the still-classified memos is approval for a technique in which a prisoner's head could be struck against a wall as long as the head was being held and the force of the blow was controlled by the interrogator, according to people familiar with the memos. Another approved tactic was waterboarding, or simulated drowning.

A decision to keep secret key parts of the three 2005 memos outlining legal guidance on CIA interrogations would anger some Obama supporters who have pushed him to unveil now-abandoned Bush-era tactics. It would also go against the views of Attorney General Eric Holder and White House Counsel Greg Craig, people familiar with the matter said.

Top CIA officials have spoken out strongly against a full release, saying it would undermine the agency's credibility with foreign intelligence services and hurt the agency's work force, people involved in the discussions said. However, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair favors releasing the information, current and former senior administration officials said.

Human-rights groups and many in the administration have called the techniques torture.

On Thursday, the Obama administration faces a deadline in the suit brought by the ACLU, which originally asked for the public release of the 2005 Bradbury memos. The WSJ paints a picture of the Justice Department on one side, arguing for greater disclosure and the CIA on the other, arguing against release of the documents. "In the middle," the paper says, "is deputy national-security adviser John Brennan, a former CIA official, who has generally sided with the CIA."

Remember, this is the John Brennan who was described by Greenwald as as "an ardent supporter of torture and one of the most emphatic advocates of FISA expansions and telecom immunity." It is also the Brennan who described the CIA's extraordinary rendition program as an absolutely vital tool. Here is the CIA's case to Obama in a nutshell:

"Intelligence officials also believe that making the techniques [described in the Bradbury memos] public would give al Qaeda a propaganda tool just as the administration is stepping up its fight against the terrorist group in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some former administration officials have also argued that releasing all the memos could help terrorists train to endure the most extreme interrogation techniques."

On the other side is the Justice Department, which has been at the frontline in Obama's use of state secrets. But, according to the WSJ, in this case it has "argued aggressively for releasing operational details. Justice Department lawyers argue that the agency shouldn't be in a position of defending practices the new administration has disavowed. They say releasing the documents would help fulfill the president's promise of greater transparency." The paper indicates that it is possible the Obama administration will release some skeletal details of the memos without fully disclosing the contents, which seems to be the position of CIA director Leon Panetta.

On April 2, the original deadline to release the memos, the Justice Department asked for a two week delay to decide whether to release the memos. The ACLU "reluctantly consented" in return for the administration agreeing to review releasing "another key memo, authored by Jay Bybee, Assistant Attorney General for the OLC from November 2001 to March 2003. (Bybee is now a federal appeals court judge for the 9th Circuit, and the subject of an ethics probe by the DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility.) The Bybee memo, like the Bradbury memos, is critical to understanding the foundations of President Bush's torture program."

The ACLU notes:

As important as these memos are, they will likely not tell the full story of the treatment of detainees in secret CIA prisons and elsewhere. That is why it's crucial that Congress appoint a select committee with subpoena power and the necessary resources to fully investigate Bush administration abuses. And that is why the Justice Department should appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate the abuses and, if the facts warrant, initiate prosecutions. In order for us to begin fixing the damage done to this country by the last administration, Congress must fully investigate what took place and show the American public that nobody is above the law by holding those responsible accountable for their actions.

The airwaves, newspapers and websites have been saturated with coverage of the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips, the US citizen who was being held by four Somali "pirates" on a small lifeboat in the Indian Ocean, following the unsuccessful attempt by the Somalis to take control of the US-flagged vessel, the Maersk Alabama, a ship owned by a Pentagon contractor.

While details are still emerging, there are definitely some serious questions looming about how the decision to use lethal military force was put into play--in particular three key questions: 1. The legality of the killing of the three Somali men; 2. The political decision to kill them in light of long term potential consequences; and, 3: The legal status of the fourth Somali "pirate" allegedly in US custody.

First the background: We are told that on Friday, President Obama gave the military the green light to use lethal force to rescue Phillips. We also know that a group of "Somali elders" believed they were negotiating with the US to try to bring about a peaceful resolution to the crisis. Reports indicate that the Somali elders asked that the four Somalis be allowed to return freely to Somalia without being prosecuted in exchange for releasing Phillips. That was reportedly rejected by the US. On Sunday, the Somalis were told the negotiations were over and that the Americans "had another action." Shortly after that, lethal force was used--with Navy SEAL snipers on board the USS Bainbridge shooting dead three of the Somali men. The Navy says the snipers took the action because they believed Phillips's life was in "imminent danger"--this allegedly came when a Somali was pointing an AK-47 at Phillips's back. A fourth Somali citizen is in custody, though it is unclear when exactly he was taken by the US. Reports indicate that he had been stabbed in the hand in the initial "pirate" raid on the Maersk Alabama and, before the Sunday raid, had voluntarily left the lifeboat holding Phillips to seek medical attention from the US warships and/or to negotiate with the US side.

I have been in touch with two well-respected legal scholars, Francis Boyle from the University of Illinois College of Law and Scott Horton, a military and constitutional law expert. Both agree that the US had legal justification to use lethal force against the "pirates." Boyle said, "Technically, piracy is a felony under US law. And deadly force can be used against someone involved in the commission of an ongoing felony."

For his part, Horton said: "The legal rule historically is that pirates on the high seas are fair game for any country's military. In this case they kidnapped a captain and threatened to kill him, so the use of lethal force against them was fine from a legal perspective. (The bigger question was whether it was a wise thing to do, of course, but that requires an assessment of the entire tactical situation, about which I don't know enough)."

On that question, Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, head of the U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet, seemed to realize that there may be significant consequences for the decision to kill the Somali men. "This could escalate violence in this part of the world, no question about it," Gortney said. As Reuters reported, "Somali pirates have generally not harmed their hostages and officials fear they could now act more violently."

As one "pirate" said, "The French and the Americans will regret starting this killing. We do not kill, but take only ransom. We shall do something to anyone we see as French or American from now." Another added, "As long as there is no just government in Somalia, we will still be the coast guard... If we get an American, we will take revenge."

On the issue of jurisdiction to prosecute the fourth Somali "pirate," Horton said, "Pirates can be tried anywhere that exercises jurisdiction. Here they attacked a US-flag vessel, which means that the United States would have criminal law jurisdiction if it chose to exercise it."

There are certain to be calls from blood-thirsty lunatics to send this Somali man to Guantanamo or Bagram with right-wingers like Newt Gingrich and Cal Thomas wrapping this into their tired "Obama is weak on terror" narrative. As Thomas wrote last week on the Fox News website:

What will the Obama administration do if the pirates are captured alive? He won't sent them to Gitmo, which he is closing down. Will they get ACLU lawyers? Will there be testimony from a "pirates rights" group? Will they be released on a technicality after a trial in U.S. courts? If there is not as forceful a response as there was during the Jefferson administration, it will invite more of these incidents. The world's tyrants are watching to see how President Obama reacts. The message they get will determine how they respond to America and whether we will be in greater peril.

Indeed, The Wall Street Journal on Sunday called for the Somali man in custody to be "transferred to Guantanamo and held as an 'enemy combatant,' or whatever the Obama Administration prefers to call terrorists." On this point, Horton points out an interesting distinction between the Obama and Bush administration positions on "pirates," particularly as it relates to the "terrorist" label.

The big legal issue is surrounding calling them "terrorists," which the Bushies did with regularity and Obama resisted. I think that Obama and his people are correct. These people were motivated by the desire to make money, pure and simple, which makes them conventional pirates. If they were labeled "terrorists," the insurance company and the ship charter company wouldn't be able to negotiate with them or make a payment. Pirates they can still pay off, which will often be the most sensible and least costly solution.

If the US decides to pursue prosecution of the Somali "pirate" in custody in a US court, he would obviously hopefully have a right to a defense (which would clearly enrage the crazies) and the nature of that defense could well depend on what type of legal counsel he ends up with and how his lawyers present the motives of his actions, as described to them, in attempting to seize the Maersk Alabama. This could be a major test of Obama's legal interpretation of the rights of prisoners taken by the US in unusual circumstances (to put it mildly). In an era when due process has been trashed in the US and prisoners have been tortured at CIA "black sites" and held without trial for years at Guantanamo and elsewhere, Obama should allow exactly what Thomas and his ilk fear so much--respect for the legal rights of prisoners held by the US.

So what would a "pirate" defense actually look like? Remember, some Somalis--and other international observers-- do not exactly see the "pirates" as being 100% unjustified in their actions. This form of "piracy" really escalated after the 1991 collapse of the Somali government and Western ships allegedly dumping waste off the Somali coast and devastating the Somali fishing industry, a primary source of income in the Somali coastal areas where many of the "pirates" are based.

If Obama elects not to take the terrible option of sending the man to Guantanamo, it will be interesting to see if Obama elects to bring him to the US or, as has been suggested by some, prosecute him in Kenya.

As Professor Boyle pointed out, "certainly if he were tried in a United States federal district court, he could try to make the points [about dumping, etc], which is why they might send him to Kenya to avoid all of that... If i remember correctly, under the Geneva Convention definition of piracy (which is not precisely the same thing as the federal statute), the crime of piracy must be for a private purpose, not a public purpose. So he might be able to raise these issues on the question of intent--that he acted for a public purpose, not a private purpose."

Boyle later emailed me the following quote from St. Augustine:

Kingdoms without justice are similar to robber barons. And so if justice is left out, what are kingdoms except great robber bands? For what are robber bands except little kingdoms? The band also is a group of men governed by the orders of a leader, bound by a social compact, and its booty is divided according to a law agreed upon. If by repeatedly adding desperate men this plague grows to the point where it holds territory and establishes a fixed seat, seizes cities and subdues peoples, then it more conspicuously assumes the name of kingdom, and this name is now openly granted to it, not for any subtraction of cupidity, but by addition of impunity. For it was an elegant and true reply that was made to Alexander the Great by a certain pirate whom he had captured. When the king asked him what he was thinking of, that he should molest the sea, he said with defiant independence: "The same as you when you molest the world! Since I do this with a little ship I am called a pirate. You do it with a great fleet and are called an emperor."

A Somali resident of the pirate stronghold Eyl in Somalia's Northern Puntland region was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that two pirate ships had left Eyl on Wednesday afternoon. He said a third -- the German cargo ship Hansa Stavanger -- had sailed from Xarardheere, some 230 miles south along the Somali coastline, and a fourth -- a Taiwanese fishing vessel seized Monday that was only 30 miles from the lifeboat -- was also on its way. The man said there were a total of 52 hostages aboard the ships floating toward the scene.

One Somali pirate interviewed by the AP described why they are sending in reinforcements to help the four pirates holding Phillips:

"They had asked us for reinforcement, and we have already sent a good number of well-equipped colleagues, who were holding a German cargo ship," said the pirate who asked that only his first name, Badow, be used to protect him from reprisals.

"We are not intending to harm the captain, so that we hope our colleagues would not be harmed as long as they hold him," Badow said.

"All we need, first, is a safe route to escape with the captain, and then (negotiate) ransom later," he added.

There are also reports that the hostage, Richard Phillips, the captain of the Maersk Alabama, a US-flagged ship belonging to a Pentagon contractor, had tried to escape but was quickly recaptured. "The Alabama sailed away from the lifeboat Thursday, Maersk shipping line said, and a teams of armed Navy SEALs is on board, according to a U.S. official who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation," according to the AP.

While Petraeus implements his surge against the pirates, some may wonder how much time will go by before he suggests the creation of a Somali Pirate Awakening Council, where the US could pay pirates not to attack US vessels. That worked for about 20 minutes in Iraq.

Meanwhile, The New York Times ran a piece, the title of which is perhaps the understatement of this drama: "Standoff with Somali pirates shows limits to U.S. power." The opening graph sums this whole thing up pretty well: "The Indian Ocean standoff between an $800 million U.S. Navy destroyer and four pirates bobbing in a lifeboat low on fuel showed the limits facing the world's most powerful military."

Stay tuned...

Over the past several weeks, independent journalists and anti-war activists have tried to shine a spotlight on how groups like the Center for American Progress and MoveOn, which portrayed themselves as anti-war during the Bush-era, are now supporting the escalation and continuation of wars because their guy is now commander-in-chief. CAP has been actively pounding the pavement in support of the escalation in Afghanistan, the rebranding of the Iraq occupation and, more recently, Obama's bloated military budget, which the group said was "on target." MoveOn has been silent on the escalation in Afghanistan and has devoted substantial resources to promoting a federal budget that includes a $21 billion increase in military spending from the Bush-era.

What is clear here is that CAP and MoveOn are now basically psuedo-official PR flaks targeting "liberals" to support the White House agenda. This, though, should not come as a shock to those who have closely monitored these groups. They were the primary force behind Americans Against Escalation in Iraq (AAEI), "a coalition that spent tens of millions of dollars using Iraq as a political bludgeon against Republican politicians, while refusing to pressure the Democratic Congress to actually cut off funding for the war." Now, according to John Stauber, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy, the Center for American Progress is now running "Progressive Media which was begun by Tom Matzzie and David Brock in 2008 and now 'represents a serious ratcheting up of efforts to present a united liberal front in the coming policy wars....' [These groups] are working hard to push Obama's policies, including rationalizlng or defending his escalation of the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan as "sustainable security."

On Wednesday, Ben Smith at Politico reported on the latest development in this White House-coordinated campaign to use these think-tankers to whip up support for its agenda. It is a newly formed coalition, the Common Purpose Project, which blogger Jane Hamsher describes as "one of the many groups Rahm Emanuel has set up to coordinate messaging among liberal interest groups." This one includes the direct participation of White House officials, according to Smith:

The Common Purpose meeting every Tuesday afternoon at the Capitol Hilton brings together the top officials from a range of left-leaning organizations, from labor groups like Change to Win to activists like MoveOn.org, all in support of the White House's agenda. The group has an overlapping membership with a daily 8:45 a.m. call run by the Center for American Progress' and Media Matters' political arms; with the new field-oriented coalition Unity '09; and with the groups that allied to back the budget as the Campaign to Rebuild and Renew America Now.

Unlike those other groups, however, the Common Purpose meeting has involved a White House official, communications director Ellen Moran, two sources familiar with the meeting said. It's aimed, said one, at "providing a way for the White House to manage its relationships with some of these independent groups."

Common Purpose was founded by Erik Smith, a former aide to Dick Gephardt. The group's political director is former Obama aide, Miti Sathe. "Common Purpose is formed as a 501(c)(4), which leaves it focused on policy, rather than electoral, work," notes Smith. "Part of the group's role is to enforce a kind of message discipline." He tells the story of how last month "some of the more liberal members of the coalition" were launching a campaign against conservative Democrats under the banner "Dog the Blue Dogs." The White House, Smith alleged, "was in the midst of discussions with members of the congressional Blue Dog caucus, and objected to the slogan, which was promptly changed, and the page describing the drive is gone from CAF [Campaign for America's Future, a participant in the Common Purposes calls]'s website."

Hamsher, who wrote an interesting response to the Politico report with a different spin on the above story, concluded:

There's a big problem right now with the traditional liberal interest groups sitting on the sidelines around major issues because they don't want to buck the White House for fear of getting cut out of the dialogue, or having their funding slashed. Someone picks up a phone, calls a big donor, and the next thing you know...the money is gone. It's already happened. Because that's the way Rahm plays.