Washington ‘rejects Iran uranium swap offer’
Press TV – December 13, 2009
Washington has reportedly dismissed a Tehran offer to swap 400 kilograms of its low enriched uranium in the Persian Gulf island of Kish.
“Iran’s proposal today does not appear to be consistent with the fair and balanced draft agreement proposed by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) in consultation with the United States, Russia and France,” AFP quoted an unnamed US official as saying.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Saturday said the country is ready “to take 400 Kg of 3.5 percent enriched uranium to the Island of Kish and exchange it with an amount equivalent to 20 percent of the original batch.”
Mottaki added that the process would begin “right away” if the P5+1, the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany, agree to the offer.
The US official talking on condition of anonymity, however, said the offer was “nothing new.” Iran should take up the existing IAEA proposal, the official added, and send 1,200 kilograms of its low enriched uranium to Russia “in one batch.”
“We remain committed to these terms. Unfortunately, Iran has been unwilling to engage in further talks on its nuclear program,” the official said. “We urge Iran not to squander this opportunity.”
The West has been pressuring Iran to accept a UN-backed draft deal which requires Iran to send most of its domestically produced low enriched uranium (LEU) abroad to be converted into more refined fuel for the Tehran reactor that produces medical isotopes.
Iran has however called for “concrete guarantees” as some Western countries have previously failed to adhere to their nuclear commitments with regards to Tehran.
Iran’s nuclear program was launched in the 1950s with the help of the United States as part of the Atoms for Peace program.
The then US President, Gerald Ford believed that the “introduction of nuclear power will both provide for the growing needs of Iran’s economy and free remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals.”
After the 1979 Revolution which toppled Iran’s US-backed monarch Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Western companies working on Iran’s program refused to fulfill their obligations even though they had been paid in full.
Tehran and Paris had signed a deal, under which France agreed to deliver 50 tons of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) to Iran, a promise which was never fulfilled.
Despite being a 10-percent shareholder and entitled to France’s Eurodif output, Paris has refused to give any enriched uranium to Iran.
In January 1978, Germany’s Kraftwerk Union, which according to a 1975 contract was obliged to complete the Bushehr reactor, stopped working at the nuclear project with one reactor 50 percent complete, and the other reactor 85 percent complete.
Blogger: US air strikes kill ‘exactly 30′ enemies every time
By Daniel Tencer –The Raw Story – December 11th, 2009
When it comes to air strikes against the Taliban, there’s something about the number 30, says the Security Crank blog. The unnamed military affairs blogger has published a list of recent air strikes against militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and an amazing pattern has emerged: It seems that just about every time an air strike is reported in the news, the Taliban casualty figure cited is 30. Citing the Moon of Alabama blog, which made a similar argument this spring, Security Crank linked to 12 news reports of separate air strike incidents since the start of the year in which the number of Taliban or insurgent casualties was reported to be 30, in most cases citing US military officials. Not 29, not 31. Thirty. What does this mean? For the Security Crank, it means we just shouldn’t believe the numbers.
How could we possibly have any idea how the war is going, here or anywhere else, when the bad guys seem only to die in groups of 30? The sheer ubiquity of that number in fatality and casualty counts is astounding, to the point where I don’t even pay attention to a story anymore when they use that magic number 30. It is an indicator either of ignorance or deliberate spin … but no matter the case, whenever you see the number 30 used in reference to the Taliban, you should probably close the tab and move onto something else, because you just won’t get a good sense of what happened there.
Megan Carpentier, writing at Air America, believes there’s more to this than just fudged numbers. Carpentier points to a story in the Los Angeles Times this past summer that reports that the US has, or at least had, during the Bush administration, a policy of requiring the secretary of defense to sign off on any air strike that was likely to kill more than 30 civilians.
The Times reported:
In a grisly calculus known as the “collateral damage estimate,” US military commanders and lawyers often work together in advance of a military strike, using very specific, Pentagon-imposed protocols to determine whether the good that will come of it outweighs the cost.
We don’t know much about how it works, but in 2007, Marc Garlasco, the Pentagon’s former chief of high-value targeting, offered a glimpse when he told Salon magazine that in 2003, “the magic number was 30.” That meant that if an attack was anticipated to kill more than 30 civilians, it needed the explicit approval of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld or President George W. Bush. If the expected civilian death toll was less than 30, the strike could be OKd by the legal and military commanders on the ground.
Carpentier posits that 30 remains the magic casualty number for the Pentagon to this day, and implies that the casualty numbers are being fudged so that they are “acceptable” to the public.
“That PR calculus of how many deaths matter to the average American has apparently carried over from the Bush Administration to the Obama Adminstration, at least insofar as ground commanders are concerned,” she writes.
But Carpentier’s argument raises as many questions as it answers. For one, the Rumsfeld-era casualty policy applied to civilian casualties, not insurgent casualties. Yet the series of news reports this year cite the 30 number for Taliban casualties, and cite varying figures for civilian casualties, if any are cited at all. It would be hard to argue that the Pentagon believes the American public can only stomach 30 Taliban casualties at a time.
So the likelier explanation is that the Pentagon doesn’t know how many insurgents were killed — perhaps because distinguishing insurgents from civilians is no easy task. And the 30 number seems like a safe bet: High enough to justify the air strike, but not so high as to seem suspicious or overblown.
Of course, that’s all just speculation. So long as military officials continue to insist that it’s destroying the Taliban exactly 30 insurgents at a time, there won’t be much the public will be able to glean from the gory reports of death and destruction in Central Asia.
Pakistan arrests 3 US embassy employees
Pakistani security forces have arrested another three US citizens working at the American Consulate for filming sensitive installations in the eastern city of Lahore.
Police arrested three American nationals including a woman in the Sherpao bridge area of Lahore as they were filming sensitive government buildings, a Press TV correspondent reported.
According to Pakistani police all three were employees of the US embassy.
The US citizens were taken to a police station and later released after a three-hour inquiry.
Police have impounded their vehicle for legal action as it was bearing false license plates.
The woman, identified as Morgan, works for the press department at the American Consulate in Lahore. She was arrested while actually taking pictures of a check-post near the Sherpao Bridge.
The Pakistani daily The Nation reported that after a thorough search of the woman, the security personnel recovered 11 pictures in her possession, which included photos of different police check-posts in the area.
The Pakistani foreign affairs ministry was not available for comment when contacted by Press TV.
The move came just days after authorities arrested five US nationals from the eastern city of Sargodha, believed to have gone missing in Washington D.C. last month.
The US nationals, with alleged links to al-Qaeda, were arrested on suspicion of plotting a terror attack.
CIA admits Blackwater presence in Pakistan
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US Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta
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Despite repeated denials, the CIA has now confirmed that US security contractor Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater, has been operating in Pakistan.
CIA spokesman George Little said that agency Director Leon Panetta has terminated a contract with Xe services that allowed the company’s employees to load bombs on CIA drones at secret airfields in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Although the spokesman denied that Blackwater was currently involved in CIA operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan, his comments, contradicted past US assertions that the company does not operate in Pakistan.
Other than the US administration, the Pakistani government and Xe itself had denied that the company was operating in Pakistan.
Little did say, however, that the contractor still provides so-called security or support assistance to the US intelligence agency in the two countries. He did not elaborate further on exactly what that role involves.
While the New York Times published CIA’s claim that Blackwater employees no longer have an operational role in the agency’s covert programs in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Guardian posted a quite different article.
Citing comments from an unnamed former US official, the British daily reported that Blackwater was still operating in Pakistan at a secret CIA airfield used for launching drone attacks.
According to the official, who has direct knowledge of the operation, Xe employees patrol areas surrounding the Shamsi airbase in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province.
Blackwater gained its notoriety mainly from its activities in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Iraqis have launched several cases against the company in US courts over violent attacks carried out by the company against unarmed people, including an unprovoked 2007 shooting spree in Baghdad that killed 17 civilians.
After the Baghdad incident Blackwater changed its name to Xe Services.
The company CEO Erik Prince also is facing allegations by a former US marine and a past employee that he organized the murder of witnesses that could have testified against his company during the hearings.
He has also been accused by the two witnesses, whose identities have not been disclosed by the courts for safety purposes, of having anti-Muslim sentiments, “encouraging and rewarding the destruction of Iraqi life”, and arms smuggling.
CIA confirmation of Xe involvement in Pakistan comes a day after the New York Times reported that links between Blackwater and the CIA in Iraq and Afghanistan have been closer than has yet been disclosed.
A US Congressional committee is apparently investigating links between Blackwater and American intelligence services.
The paper said that Blackwater staff had participated in clandestine CIA raids.
Blackwater is a sensitive subject in Pakistan where its name is associated with drone strikes, bombings and violent activities that have left hundreds of civilians dead.
Before the US avowal, some Pakistani TV stations had already aired images of what seemed to be “Blackwater houses” in Islamabad. Several papers had also published reports accusing certain US officials and journalists of being Xe operatives.
Pakistan’s interior minister, Rehman Malik, has even offered to resign if it is proven that Blackwater is present in Pakistan.
However, it remains to be seen whether he will keep that promise now that the CIA has confirmed that Blackwater is and was working in Pakistan.
President Obama ‘creating torture impunity’
Press TV– December 11, 2009 06:20:21 GMT
A US civil rights group says that President Barack Obama by creating impunity is following his predecessor into allowing torture policies to continue in the country.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said on Thursday that the US president has failed to provide accountability on torture.
Director of ACLU’s National Security Project Jameel Jaffer said “the Bush administration constructed a legal framework for torture and now the Obama administration is constructing a legal framework for impunity.”
“We’re frustrated by the growing gap between (the) Obama administration’s rhetoric on accountability and the reality,” Jaffer added.
In April, Obama said that CIA interrogators who had used waterboarding on suspected militants would not face prosecution. He also released Bush-era memos specifying that the practice did not constitute torture.
Republicans, however, criticized Obama for leaving the door open for the prosecution of former Bush officials who authorized harsh CIA interrogations due to releasing the memos.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were among those accused of masterminding the Bush-era torture policy.
Jaffer noted that “on every front, the administration is actively obstructing accountability by shielding Bush officials from civil liability, criminal investigation and even public scrutiny for their role in authorizing torture.”
“It’s the last month of 2009, and not a single torture victim has had his day in court,” ACLU Attorney Ben Wizner said. “Not a single court in a torture case has ruled on the legality of the Bush administration’s torture policies.”
Peace Doesn’t Work, Obama Informs Nobel Committee
By Jason Ditz, December 10, 2009
President Barack Obama accepted his Nobel Peace Prize today, and as expected he acknowledged that even he isn’t clear why he got the prize, noting that there were millions of people more deserving.
But President Obama’s “acceptance speech” was far from an expression of contrition, spending most of the speech defending his War in Afghanistan as an inherently just war, and rambling on about all the other recent American wars and his ostensible justifications of them.
Then, in what must’ve been one of the least humble and least appropriate speeches ever given before the Nobel Committee, Obama declared non-violence to be impractical and insisted that the “limits of reason” meant that the American military would continue to have to be used for “moral” reasons.
In extolling the virtues of war while accepting what was supposed to be a prize for radical advocates of peace, President Obama had what could only be called one of the quintessential jerkass moments of American history, an embarrassing exhortation to the advocates of peace to accept violence as the one true way of solving the world’s problems.
Outdoing the Kafkaesque: Egypt’s new US designed underground Gaza wall
December 11, 2009 — People’s Geography
Just when you thought things could not become more Kafkaesque comes apparent confirmation that the US-backed Egyptian government is building an underground steel barrier designed to cut off one of the few lifelines sustaining the Gaza Ghetto, the tunnel economy. The BBC reports that the huge underground wall will be 10-11km (6-7 miles) long, will extend 18 metres below the surface and will take 18 months to complete. The project has been shrouded in secrecy with no official confirmation from the Egyptian government, but it is understood that the design is commissioned by US army engineers, at the behest of Israel, Ann Wright surmises.
The ‘impenetrable’ barrier is made of super-strength steel manufactured in the US, according to the BBC. It will likely not succeed in halting all smuggling but will force Palestinians to dig deeper.
Conditions are worsening in this nightmare siege. The Israeli regime has prevented EU officials from entering the besieged strip, Gaza’s water is contaminated and creating a public health disaster and the israeli blockade that prevents vital reconstruction continues unabated.
This is a new low in the levels of inhumanity, absurdity and wretchedness to which the Israeli regime, with active Egyptian and US ZOG complicity, are subjecting the beleaguered Palestinians of Gaza. Only a just political resolution will put an end to the tunnels.
On a note of black humour, Gilad Atzmon wrote a great satirical piece a few years ago, Operation Security Roof which is relevant here.
Retired US Army Reserve Colonel and former diplomat Ann Wright rightly castigates this development and calls it a laughing stock:
Just as the steel walls of the US Army Corps of Engineers at the base of the levees of New Orleans were unable to contain Hurricane Katrina, the US Army Corps of Engineers’ underground steel walls that will attempt to build an underground cage of Gaza will not be able to contain the survival spirit of the people of Gaza.
America’s super technology will again be laughed at by the world, as young men dedicated to the survival of their people, will again outwit technology by digging deeper, and most likely penetrating the “impenetrable” in some novel, simple, low-tech way.
See also:
Sound familiar? US refuses to allow UN inspectors to investigate its WMDs
By Agence France-Presse
December 9th, 2009
The United States said Wednesday that it remained opposed to international inspections of biological weapon sites, even though it stressed its commitment to a UN treaty covering such arms and invaded Iraq in part over its alleged stalling of — UN weapons inspectors.
“When it comes to the proliferation of bio weapons and the risk of an attack, the world community faces a greater threat,” Ellen Tauscher, US Under Secretary of State on arms control and international security told state members of the Biological Weapons Convention.
“While the United States remains concerned about state-sponsored biological warfare and proliferation, we are equally, if not more concerned, about an act of bioterrorism, due to the increased access to advances in the life sciences,” she added, stressing the importance of bolstering the treaty.
However, the new US administration is still against an additional protocol that would authorize international inspections of biological weapons sites.
“The Obama Administration will not seek to revive negotiations on a verification protocol to the Convention,” said Tauscher.
“We have carefully reviewed previous efforts to develop a verification protocol and have determined that a legally binding protocol would not achieve meaningful verification or greater security,” she added.
At BWC talks in 2001, the Bush administration scuttled negotiations for such a protocol, saying that intrusive checks could compromise US security and trade secrets.
Outlining the new US administration’s strategy on the issue, Tauscher said Washington believed that compliance to the treaty could be encouraged through “enhanced transparency… and pursuing compliance diplomacy to address concerns.”
The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, signed by 163 countries, bans the development, production and reserves of biological weapons.
Progressives Still Love Obama
By Margaret Kimberley
December 9, 2009
Most Americans, regardless of political party affiliation, believe in the right of the state to control their lives and those of people around the globe. It is a sad commentary that such retrograde ways of thinking persist in the 21st century and it is especially sad when so-called progressives care as little about the rights of their fellow human beings as do conservatives. Those beliefs have been on truly terrifying display ever since President Barack Obama announced his plan to escalate war against the people of Afghanistan.
President Barack Obama appeared on national television a la George W. Bush, and mouthed Bushisms almost word for word. He claimed that America doesn’t want an empire when it keeps expanding the one it already has. He claimed that it is in the “vital interests” of the entire country to maintain the cycle of endless warfare. Before an audience of West Point cadets, a Bushesque backdrop par excellence, he told the world he planned to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan and accelerate the killing.
Liberals and progressives responded to the president’s speech the same way they respond to every other Obama policy decision. Most went along or made excuses for him. They made no attempt to analyze in any serious way or to question the premises upon which American foreign policy decisions are made. They may have expressed some small misgiving about the number of troops or the timetable for the killing to last, but very few have said that this escalation is wrong or that Obama should be opposed.
Like their countrymen, liberals believe in the inherent goodness and superiority of their nation and its government, a belief with absolutely no basis in historical or current reality. No people on earth have ever benefited from American interventions and Afghans are no exception. They have been killed in drone attacks and by bombings. The heroin trade flourishes far more than it ever did before the American occupation. Just as with the equally unlucky Iraqis, Afghans would send the United States packing if they could.
Former Obama supporters such as Tom Hayden and Michael Moore have rightly condemned the president’s plan and been met with scorn and ridicule. Both men are in a peculiar situation. They should be commended for their opposition to occupation, but their specious reasoning for supporting Obama in the first place should not be forgotten, and their still strong support for a corrupted Democratic Party should not be ignored. Moore’s exhortation to Obama doesn’t deserve the withering criticism it has received because it was frankly rather sad. “When we elected you we didn’t expect miracles. We didn’t even expect much change. But we expected some.” Moore lowered his expectations and Obama met them.
While Black Agenda Report and others engaged in critical analysis of the Obama campaign and made the case for true movement politics, Moore and Hayden assisted Barack Obama in lying about his intentions and motives. They were not merely naïve, they chose to spread the noxious doctrines of empire and occupation openly espoused by Obama and became willing partners to the policies they now oppose.
Black Agenda Report explained it all while Obama was still a candidate:
“Is Obama a liar? Of course he is. As a gifted orator, a superb word-smith, Obama’s slickness is purposeful – he means to fool people! However, so did many of the progressives that supported Obama, knowing perfectly well that his carefully chosen words were designed to hide more than they revealed. Such progressives lent their reputations to discourage criticism of Obama from other Leftists, or from the ‘expectant’ rank and file. Therefore, they are guilty of offenses against truth.” – BAR, July 8, 2008.
Tom Hayden remains irrelevant even as he attempts to throw off some of his shackles. Hayden still maintains a belief in the inherent goodness of Barack Obama and his intentions despite the lack of any justification for such loyalty. “This is not like the previous conflict with Bush and Cheney, who were easy to ridicule. Now this orphan of a war has a persuasive advocate, a formidable debater who will be arguing for support from the liberal center–one who wants to win back his Democratic base.”
If an abhorrent policy is well articulated by Hayden’s standards then apparently it is not so abhorrent after all. Why does Hayden ridicule Bush and Cheney but not the man who continues their policies? Where on earth does he get the idea that Obama is in any way interested in the Democratic Party’s base of supporters? Hayden and his ilk are far too easily impressed and even in opposition mode prove themselves to be utterly useless. “To be clear: I’ll support Obama down the road against Sarah Palin, Lou Dobbs or any of the pitchfork carriers for the pre-Obama era.” After giving sound reasons for opposing the Afghanistan policy, Hayden then proceeds to say that he will support Obama if Republicans keep saying mean things about him. He would be a lot happier now if he had supported a true peace candidate like Cynthia McKinney in the 2008 election.
While some liberals managed faint praise because the president promised the war would not be open ended, his cabinet and the military have been contradicting what the Obamaites claim to have heard their dear leader say.
Gen. David Petraeus: “There’s no timeline, no ramp, nothing like that.”
National Security Adviser James Jones: “It is not a cliff. It is a glide slope. And so certainly, the president has also said we are not leaving Afghanistan.”
Defense Secretary Robert Gates: “Well, first of all, I don’t consider this an exit strategy. And I try to avoid using that term. I think this is a transition.”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “We’re not talking about an exit strategy or a drop dead deadline.”
Not that the words from the horses’ mouths will matter very much. Moore and Hayden will still sing the president’s praises and Afghans and Americans will keep dying. There are still Progressives for Obama, and the world is much worse off as a result.
Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.com.
Pakistan: ‘Blackwater’ men nabbed, released
By Ashraf Javed | December 09, 2009 | The Nation
LAHORE – Security agencies arrested four suspected members of notorious Blackwater agency while they were trying to force their entry into the Cantonment Area here on Tuesday evening, sources informed. However, they were released two hours later on the intervention of the US Consulate.
According to well-placed sources, the officials of security agencies intercepted three vehicles with tinted glasses near Sherpao Bridge, as security was on high alert, a day after twin bomb blasts hit Moon Market, Lahore’s leading shopping mall, leaving more than 54 people dead and 150 others wounded.
The arrested suspects, believed to be Cobra operatives, failed to produce authentic identification or their purpose for entering into the most sensitive area during cross-questioning with the security agency officials. The sources revealed that the suspects were apparently foreigners and they had no proper travel documents. However, the suspects refused to go with the security agencies for further interrogation and started arguing with security agency personnel, creating a terrible traffic mess at the leading artery of the City. Hundreds of motorists remained trapped in the traffic mess for about two hours.
The news of arrest of members of notorious and private spy agency, Blackwater, spread in the City like fire as people stared calling one another to share the development.
Meanwhile, on the intervention of the US Consulate, law enforcement agencies released the vehicles after Consulate personnel arrived and produced documents.
It is important to mention here that whenever the security agencies nab such private spies, they are released on the intervention of the US Embassy or Consulate.
When contacted, a spokesperson for US Consulate, Jami Dragon, admitted that the vehicles were
impounded for some hours belonged to the US Consulate Lahore.
He said that three diplomatic vehicles of the Consulate were stopped at a check-post for routine checks in Cantonment area, which later were released when the some US Consulate staff members reached the spot and produced documents and identification.
Ironically, Jami Dragon very naively said that he did not know about the law and regulations regarding prohibition on the use of tinted glass in Pakistan.
The spokesman did not know whether the vehicles were taken to any other place. However he said, the check took a couple of hours, for which he said, he did not know the reason.
Obama wants suit against Yoo dismissed
By Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle
December 8, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO — The Obama administration has asked an appeals court to dismiss a lawsuit accusing former Bush administration attorney John Yoo of authorizing the torture of a terrorism suspect, saying federal law does not allow damage claims against lawyers who advise the president on national security issues.
Such lawsuits ask courts to second-guess presidential decisions and pose “the risk of deterring full and frank advice regarding the military’s detention and treatment of those determined to be enemies during an armed conflict,” Justice Department lawyers said Thursday in arguments to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
Other sanctions are available for government lawyers who commit misconduct, the department said. It noted that its Office of Professional Responsibility has been investigating Yoo’s advice to former President George W. Bush since 2004 and has the power to recommend professional discipline or even criminal prosecution.
The office has not made its conclusions public. However, The Chronicle and other media reported in May that the office will recommend that Yoo be referred to the bar association for possible discipline, but that he not be prosecuted.
Yoo, a UC Berkeley law professor, worked for the Justice Department from 2001 to 2003. He was the author of a 2002 memo that said rough treatment of captives amounts to torture only if it causes the same level of pain as “organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death.” The memo also said the president may have the power to authorize torture of enemy combatants.
In the current lawsuit, Jose Padilla, now serving a 17-year sentence for conspiring to aid Islamic extremist groups, accuses Yoo of devising legal theories that justified what he claims was his illegal detention and abusive interrogation.
The Justice Department represented Yoo until June, when a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that the suit could proceed. The department then bowed out, citing unspecified conflicts, and was replaced by a government-paid private lawyer.
Yoo’s new attorney, Miguel Estrada, argued for dismissal in a filing last month, saying the case interfered with presidential war-making authority and threatened to “open the floodgates to politically motivated lawsuits” against government officials. The Justice Department’s filing Thursday endorsed the request for dismissal but offered narrower arguments, noting its continuing investigation of Yoo.
Padilla, a U.S. citizen, was arrested in Chicago in 2002 and accused of plotting with al Qaeda to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb.” He was held for three years and eight months in a Navy brig, where, according to his suit, he was subjected to sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation and stress positions, kept for lengthy periods in darkness and blinding light, and threatened with death to himself and his family.
He was then removed from the brig, charged with and convicted of taking part in an unrelated conspiracy to provide money and supplies to extremist groups.
Padilla’s suit says Yoo approved his detention in the brig and provided the legal cover for his allegedly abusive treatment. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White refused to dismiss the case in June.
The Justice Department’s filing Thursday said Padilla is asking the courts to determine the legality of Yoo’s advice, Bush’s decision to detain Padilla, the conditions of his confinement and the methods of his interrogation – all “matters of war and national security” that are beyond judicial authority.
E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.
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The Naked Emperor’s Newsletter | October 12, 2022
Almost three years ago science entered a new dark age.
Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, seems to agree. He has been compiling a list of the examples of anti-science we have unfortunately become used to.
I have listed his thoughts so far but the list is continually expanding... continue
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