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Why Hillary Clinton Has Always Been a Republican In the first of a series of profiles, Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair chart the formative years of Hillary Clinton. Watch her as she zigzags from Nixon campaigner and vote-fraud investigator in 1960 to Goldwater Girl and President of Young Republicans at Wellesley to her internship for Gerald Ford and campaigner for Nelson Rockefeller. Witness her reaction to the student protests at Yale and the demonstrations at Grant Park during the Democratic Convention in 1968. Learn how she and Bill vowed to "remake" the Democratic Party--using the Nixon model HRC learned about as a member of the House impeachment staff. And much more! Plus: David Price on anthropologist Andre Gunder Frank.
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Today's Stories July 2, 2007 Andy
Worthington Paul
Craig Roberts Bill
Williams Louay
Safi June 30 / July 1, 2007 John
Ross Alan
Farago Peter
Quinn Christopher
Brauchli Robert
Fisk Uri
Avnery Judith
Siers-Poisson Saul
Landau Abbas
Zaidi Ron
Jacobs Ralph
Nader Donald
Worster Mike
Whitney Jacob
Hill Kenneth
Couesbouc Missy
Beattie Mohammad
Kamaali Ramzy
Baroud Leonard
Peltier Phyllis
Pollack Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
June 29, 2007 St.
Clair / Frank Brian
Cloughley Patrick
Cockburn Gilad
Atzmon Dave
Lindorff Jennifer
Matsui / Kevin
Zeese Daniel
Klimek David
Michael Green John
Chuckman Website
of the Day
June 28, 2007 Bill
Quigley Vijay
Prashad Margaret
Kimberley Winslow
T. Wheeler Philip
Rizk D.
K. Wilson Bill
Williams Mahmoud
El-Yousseph Richard
Rhames Paul
Krassner Website
of the Day
Marjorie
Cohn Dr.
Susan Rosenthal, MD Alan
Farago Carla
Blank Matthew
Abraham Sunsara
Taylor Russell
D. Hoffman Robert
Weissman Sen.
Russ Feingold Paul
Buchheit Website
of the Day
June 26, 2007 Jonathan
Cook Ralph
Nader Corporate
Crime Reporter Ron
Jacobs Martha
Rosenberg John
Chuckman Denny
Haldeman Anthony
DiMaggio Stephen
Fleischman William
S. Lind Website
of the Day
Paul
Craig Roberts Jennifer
Loewenstein Bob
Anderson Robert
Pollin Patrick
Cockburn Eva
Liddell Dan
Bacher Larry
Atkins Mark
Brenner James
Rothenberg Website
of the Day June 23 / 24, 2007 Alexander
Cockburn Jeff
Taylor Oren
Ben-Dor Gary
Leupp Robert
Fisk David
Rosen Russell
Mokhiber Alison
Weir Robert
Fantina D.
K. Wilson Nicole
Colson Stephen
Soldz, Steven Reisner and Brad Olson Dave
Lindorff Benjamin
Dangl Michael
Dickinson Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
June 22, 2007 Andy
Worthington Sherwood
Ross Eliana
Monteforte Robert
Weissman Richard
Rhames Christopher
Brauchli Ramzy
Baroud Ehud
Krinis, David Shulman and Neve Gordon David
Michael Green Kathryn
Webber Website
of the Day
June 21, 2007 Peter
Linebaugh Natsu
Saito Ron
Jacobs Saree
Makdisi John
Stauber Scott
Liebertz Tom
Clifford Robert
Jensen Michael
J. Smith Jeb
Sprague Website
of the Day
Omar
Barghouti Andy
Worthington Margaret
Kimberley Robert
Weissman Russell
D. Hoffman Rannie
Amiri Stephen
Lendman Dave
Lindorff David
Swanson Anne
Dachel Website
of the Day
June 19, 2007 Ralph
Nader Dr.
Shepherd Bliss Bill
and Kathleen Christison Jeff
Leys Dave
Zirin Chris
Floyd Ben
Terrall Anthony
Papa VIPS Linda Flores Website
of the Day
John
Ross Paul
Craig Roberts Martha
Rosenberg Norman
Solomon Don
Santina Isabella
Kenfield James
Brooks Eva
Liddell Sam
Husseini Akiva
Eldar Website
of the Day
Alexander
Cockburn John
Halle Robert
Fisk Andy
Worthington Uri
Avnery Fred
Gardner Saul
Landau P.
Sainath Missy
Comley Beattie Alan
Gregory Walter
Brasch Website
of the Weekend
June 15, 2007 Alan
Farago Andy
Worthington Michael
Simmons Franklin
Lamb Gary
Leupp John
Ross Website
of the Day
June 14, 2007 Michael
Donnelly
Faisal
Kutty Harry
Browne Charles
Jonkel Steven
Higgs Bruce
Dixon Bruce
K. Gagnon
Website
of the Day June 13, 2007 Glen Ford Marjorie Cohn Bill Christison Charles Jonkel Silvia Cattori Richard Gott Firmin DeBrabander William S. Lind Keith Rosenthal Website of the Day June 12, 2007 Jeffrey St.
Clair Paul Craig
Roberts P. Sainath Ralph Nader Omar Waraich Dave Lindorff Harvey Wasserman Malini Johar
Schueller Ramzy Baroud Website of
the Day
June 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Paul Craig
Roberts Uri Avnery Norman Solomon Eva Liddell Rannie Amiri Rachel Voss Christopher
Brauchli D. K. Wilson Website of
the Day
Alexander Cockburn George Ciccariello-Maher Saul Landau Robert Fisk Brian Cloughley Ron Jacobs Ward Boston Conn Hallinan Leonard Peltier Lawrence Davidson John Ross Kate Allan Fred Gardner Stephen Fleischman Monica Benderman Geoff Bailey Missy Beattie Patrick Dyer Tim Lengerich James Irani
Gary Leupp Michael Tillery Michael Simmons Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
June 8, 2007 Serge Halimi Patrick Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair
Paul Craig Roberts William Blum Joshua Frank Lance Selfa Dave Lindorff Lawrence Ferlinghetti Website of the Day
Marjorie Cohn Soldz, Reisner
and Olson: Soldz, Reisner
Paul Craig Roberts Bill Quigley Silvia Cattori Carl G. Estabrook Ellen Taylor Corporate Crime
Reporter Brenda Norrell D. K. Wilson Kevin Zeese Website of
the Day
Alain Gresh Gary Leupp Steven Sherman Bruce Dixon Corporate Crime Reporter Brian M. Downing Ron Jacobs George Bisharat Nicole Colson Bruce K. Gagnon Website of the Day
June 5, 2007 Michael Neumann Jonathan Cook David Vest Robert Fantina Hoffman, Parsneau and Chowdhury John V. Walsh Richard Cretan Adam Engel William S. Lind Myles Hoenig Jim Minick Website of
the Day
Nizar Latif Diana Johnstone Gregory Wilpert Paul Watson Susan Rosenthal,
MD Richard Ward Eva Liddell Zahi Khouri Evelyn Pringle China Hand Karyn Strickler Website of the Day
June 2 / 3, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Marc Levy Martin Smith Diana Johnstone John Ross Uri Avnery Sunsara Taylor Richard Neville P. Sainath Missy Comley
Beattie Nisrine Abiad Rannie Amiri Margot Pepper Eric Stewart Ralph Nader Dan Bacher Shaun Harkin Richard Rhames Frederick Hudson Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
Dave Marsh Saul Landau David Phinney Robert Jensen Stanley Heller Yifat Susskind Robert Weissman Paul Buchheit William S.
Lind Sherwood Ross Stephen Lendman Website of the Day
Robert Bryce Patrick Cockburn Gary Leupp Kathy Kelly Marjorie Cohn Chris Kutalik
Corporate Crime Reporter Dave Lindorff Website of the Day
May 30, 2007 James Ridgeway Franklin Lamb Terrence E. Paupp Uri Avnery Alan Maass Rock and Rap
Confidential Ralph Nader Nirmal Ghosh Jean Daniels Tom Barry Website of the Day
Stephen Soldz Eliza Ernshire Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff Evelyn Pringle Mike Whitney David Swanson John Holt Cynthia McKinney Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day
Bill Quigley Col. Dan Smith Cindy Sheehan Dr. Susan Block Jeeni Criscenzo Douglas Valentine Website of the Day 
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July 2, 2007 Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham is not the First Insider to Condemn the Kangaroo TribunalsThe Guantánamo WhistleblowersBy ANDY WORTHINGTON Jostling for media space in the last week--and largely losing out to spurious claims that Guantánamo is about to close--is the story of Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham, an army intelligence officer with 26 years' experience, who has bravely spoken out against the Guantánamo regime. In an affidavit filed with an Appeal Court petition on behalf of Kuwaiti detainee Fawzi al-Odah, Abraham delivered a damning verdict on the legitimacy of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals, which ran from July 2004 to March 2005, and were set up to determine whether the Guantánamo detainees had been correctly designated as "enemy combatants." Currently an army reservist and an attorney in California, Abraham worked at Guantánamo, from 11 September 2004 to 9 March 2005, in the Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants (OARDEC) as "an agency liaison, responsible for coordinating with government agencies, including certain Department of Defense (DoD) and non-DoD organizations, to gather or validate information relating to detainees for use in CSRTs." He also served as a member of a CSRT, and, as he described it, "had the opportunity to observe and participate in the operation of the CSRT process," and he concluded from his experience that the gathering of materials for use in the tribunals was severely flawed, and that the whole system was geared towards rubber-stamping the detainees' prior designation as "enemy combatants." Specifically, Abraham complained that the OARDEC personnel--mostly from the military reserves--who were responsible for compiling the information used in the "Unclassified Summary of Evidence" against each detainee were woefully inexperienced, and that few of whom "had any experience or training in the legal or intelligence fields." He also complained that the tribunals' Recorders were similarly inexperienced, and were "typically relatively junior officers with little training or experience in matters relating to the collection, processing, analyzing, and/or dissemination of intelligence material," and that those who actually aggregated the information--the case writers--"in most instances" had "the same limited degree of knowledge and experience relating to the intelligence community and intelligence products." Given the shortcomings of the majority of the personnel involved, Abraham also noted that, although "large amounts of information" were received, the workers "often had no context for determining whether the information was relevant," and frequently discarded information because it was "considered to be ambiguous, confusing or poorly written," as well as "reject[ing] some information arbitrarily while accepting other information without any articulable rationale." Abraham expressed a similar disdain for the quality of the information produced by the various government agencies, which the largely unqualified workers were required to collate and aggregate. This information, he wrote, frequently consisted of intelligence "of a generalized nature--often outdated, often 'generic,' rarely specifically relating to the individual subjects of the CSRTs or to the circumstances related to those individuals' status," and additional information, contained within the Detainee Information Management System and other databases, was equally "deficient," typically "excluding information that was characterized as highly sensitive law enforcement information, highly classified information, or information not voluntarily released by the originating agency." Neither the case writers nor the Recorders, Abraham asserted, had "access to numerous information sources generally available within the intelligence community." Further proof that the gathering of information for the tribunals was not geared towards justice and transparency came when, as "one of only a few intelligence-trained and suitably cleared officers," Abraham was tasked with investigating aspects of the "evidence," to confirm "in a statement to be relied upon by the CSRT board members that the organizations did not possess 'exculpatory information' relating to the subject of the CSRT." When he approached the various agencies involved, however, he discovered that he was only allowed "limited access to information, typically prescreened and filtered," was not permitted to request additional searches for information, and was rebuffed when he asked for written statements confirming that there was no exculpatory information. His experience confirmed that the agencies were largely providing or withholding information at their own discretion, without any process of outside scrutiny being available. His bitterest experience, however, occurred when he was chosen--along with an Air Force colonel and an Air Force major--to take part in a CSRT. After reviewing the evidence, all three men "found the information presented to lack substance," noting that supposedly specific factual statements "lacked even the most fundamental earmarks of objectively credible evidence," that statements made by alleged witnesses "lacked detail," and that generalized statements were presented "in indirect and passive forms without stating the source of the information or providing a basis for establishing the reliability or the credibility of the source." In addition, Abraham wrote that statements by the interrogators, which were presented to the panel, "offered inferences" from which they were "expected to draw conclusions" that the detainee was an "enemy combatant," but that when they subjected these statements to even the most cursory of questions, the Recorder's only response was, "We'll have to get back to you." Based on the "paucity and weakness of the information provided both during and after the CSRT hearing," Abraham and his colleagues duly determined that there was "no factual basis" for concluding that the detainee was an "enemy combatant," but that was not the end of the story. The director and deputy director of OARDEC "immediately questioned the validity" of the decision, ordering the tribunal members to prepare statements containing the specific questions they had raised to enable the Recorder to provide "further responses," and reopening the hearing to allow the Recorder to "present further argument." Refusing to bow to the pressure, Abraham and his colleagues failed to change their determination, and as a result, as he declared in a pithy conclusion to the affidavit, "I was not assigned to another CSRT panel." He pointed out, however, that OARDEC's response to the decision was "consistent with the few other instances" when the rigged system had been bucked. In meetings attended by Abraham that followed the sporadic decisions that detainees were not "enemy combatants"--there were only 38 in total, out of 558 CSRTs--he wrote that the focus of inquiry was always "what went wrong." Speaking after the affidavit was first publicized, Abraham said that he had first raised his concerns about the tribunals during his time at Guantánamo, but had decided to submit the affidavit because "the issues were not adequately addressed." He told the Associated Press, "I pointed out nothing less than facts, facts that can and should be fixed," adding that he had a responsibility to point out that officers "did not have the proper tools" to determine whether a detainee was in fact an "enemy combatant," and explaining, "I take very seriously my responsibility, my duties as a citizen." David Cynamon, one of al-Odah's lawyers--who was put in contact with Abraham by his sister, after she attended a public lecture on Guantánamo given by Cynamon and his colleagues--described Abraham's affidavit as "prov[ing] what we all suspected, which is that the CSRTs were a complete sham," while adding that he feared that his courage was "probably an assurance of career suicide." Cynamon's colleague, Matthew J. MacLean, who pointed out that Abraham was the first CSRT member who has been identified, let alone been willing to criticize the tribunals in the public record, declared, "It wouldn't be quite right to say this is the most important piece of evidence that has come out of the CSRT process, because this is the only piece of evidence ever to come out of the CSRT process. It's our only view into the CSRT." In fact, MacLean's comments were not entirely accurate. Whilst it's certainly true that Abraham was the first ex-tribunal member to criticize the CSRT process in public, his is not the first reported example of dissent amongst tribunal members. In September 2006, in a Boston Globe article, Detentions over charity ties questioned , Farah Stockman reported on the case of Adel Hassan Hamad, a Sudanese hospital administrator, who was captured in May 2002 in Pakistan--where he had been working for 17 years--and sold to the American forces. In his CSRT, Hamad was judged to be an "enemy combatant" because of exactly the kind of "generic" allegations described by Lt. Col. Abraham. The Saudi charity he worked for, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, was described as an organization that "supports terrorist ideals and causes," even though it has never appeared on a terrorism watchlist (despite being investigated by the US Senate), and was one of the favored projects of the late Saudi King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz, and another organization that he had worked for previously, the Kuwait-based Lajanat Dawa Islamiya (which also does not feature on any US terrorism watchlist), was described as "one of the most active" Islamic NGOs "providing logistical and financial support" to mujahideen operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which "may be" associated with Osama bin Laden. An exasperated Hamad refuted all the allegations, at one point telling his tribunal, "arresting employees like myself [who] is not capable of supporting terrorists financially, is this justice? I am an employee who works for a living and I have no connection to the [organization's] political views or its financial resources, so why do you punish me for a crime I did not commit. Why don't you arrest the charities' presidents or the people who support [them] financially instead of arresting a simple employee with no informational value?" Predictably, his tribunal judged that he had been correctly designated an "enemy combatant," but although his pleas appeared to have been ignored, Stockman, who was allowed to examine the CSRT documentation, noted that one of the tribunal members--an unidentified army major, whose name was redacted--had issued a dissenting opinion. Taking into account the fact that neither WAMY nor LDI appears on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations, he argued that, "even assuming all the allegations... are accurate, the detainee does not meet the definition of enemy combatant." He added, "These NGOs presumably have numerous employees and volunteer workers who have been working in legitimate humanitarian roles. The mere fact that some elements of these NGOs provide support to "terrorist ideals and causes" is insufficient to declare one of the employees an enemy combatant." Stockman noted, however, that the major was overruled by his colleagues, one of whom--in a single line that discredits the whole tribunal process as effectively as Lt. Col. Abraham's affidavit--wrote that the case "passed the 'low evidentiary hurdle' set up by the rules of the hearings." In two other cases, the dissenting officer was not a tribunal member, but the detainees' Personal Representative. In a majority of the CSRTs, the Personal Representative fulfilled his intended function as a pale shadow of a legitimate defense counsel, failing to "participate in any meaningful way," as Lt. Col. Abraham noted of the Personal Representative in his tribunal. In February 2006, however, in two articles for the National Journal, Guantánamo's Grip and Empty Evidence , Corine Hegland reported the story of an unidentified lieutenant colonel in the army (whose name was also redacted), who fought a brave, if unsuccessful battle for two of his detainees. Along the way, however, he demolished the tribunals' legitimacy even more comprehensively than either Lt. Col. Abraham or Adel Hamad's dissenting major. The first case--that of Farouq Saif, a young Yemeni who went to Afghanistan to teach the Koran--is particularly noteworthy because Saif was judged as an "enemy combatant" because of two false allegations. The first--that he was a bodyguard of Osama bin Laden--was directed at 30 detainees in total, and was made under duress, and later retracted, by Mohammed al-Qahtani. One of several purported "20th hijackers" for the 9/11 attacks, al-Qahtani made the allegations during a seven-week period, from November 2002 to January 2003, when he was subjected to Pentagon-approved "extreme interrogation techniques" (otherwise known as torture). The second allegation--that Saif had been seen at Osama bin Laden's private airport in Kandahar, where he was "wearing camouflage and carrying an AK-47"--proved so intolerable to his Personal Representative that he submitted a written protest, in which he stated that the government's sole evidence that Saif had been at bin Laden's airport was the statement of another prisoner, who, according to an FBI memo that he presented to the tribunal, was a notorious liar. According to the FBI, he "had lied, not only about Farouq, but about other Yemeni detainees as well. The other detainee claimed he had seen the Yemenis at times and in places where they simply could not have been." The Personal Representative wrote, "I do feel with some certainty that [the accuser] has lied about other detainees to receive preferable treatment and to cause them problems while in custody. Had the tribunal taken this evidence out as unreliable, then the position we have taken is that a teacher of the Koran (to the Taliban's children) is an enemy combatant (partially because he slept under a Taliban roof)." The "notorious liar" actually made false allegations against 60 prisoners in total, as was revealed after the tribunal of Mohammed al-Tumani. A young Syrian economic migrant, who had traveled to Afghanistan with other family members to join his father in Kabul, where he was working as a cook, al-Tumani and his father were captured in Pakistan after fleeing the chaos of post-invasion Afghanistan. In his tribunal, he denied an allegation that he had attended the al-Farouq training camp with such vigor that his Personal Representative decided to investigate the matter further. When he looked at the classified evidence, however, he found that only one man--the same detainee mentioned above--claimed to have seen him at al-Farouq, and had identified him as being there three months before he arrived in Afghanistan. As Corine Hegland described it, "The curious US officer pulled the classified file of the accuser, saw that he had accused 60 men, and, suddenly skeptical, pulled the files of every detainee the accuser had placed at the one training camp. None of the men had been in Afghanistan at the time the accuser said he saw them at the camp." The identity of the other 58 detainees falsely accused by the "notorious liar" are unknown, as the dissenting officer involved in unveiling this monstrous injustice--perhaps unwilling to risk "career suicide"--has not come forward to elaborate, but in my forthcoming book, The Guantánamo Files , I report on numerous other examples of patently false allegations masquerading as "evidence," which were ignored by compliant tribunal members accepting the "low evidentiary hurdle" of the process. While I wait to see if Lt. Col. Abraham's principled stand will encourage other insiders to speak out, it's worth pointing out that Adel Hamad, Farouq Saif and Mohammed al-Tumani remain in Guantánamo. Hamad has finally been judged to be "No Longer an Enemy Combatant" and is awaiting release, but Saif and al-Tumani are still damned by the false confessions of a "notorious liar." Andy Worthington (www.andyworthington.co.uk)
is a British historian, and the author of 'The Guantánamo
Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal
Prison' (to be published by Pluto Press in October 2007).
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