Ashcroft is setting more precedents with the Patriot Act by prosecuting the CIA agent who beat an Afghani who surrendered to police and subsequently died in prison. (Defense claims it was a heart attack, but the man shows clear sign of abuse at the hands of CIA agent David Passaro.) The legal wrangling around this is going to get pretty convoluted and I applaud Johnny Ashcroft taking some initiative to bring justice that would otherwise be lost, but I wonder if he’s really considered the implications of a U.S. citizen being tried for abuses outside of the country. If those abuses can be tied to Tenet or Rummy…or even Ashcroft himself, we could see the headline “Tenet Prosecuted Under Patriot Act”.

That’s what Krugman says about Ashcroft, anyway. Why isn’t a big deal to find “fully automatic machine guns, remote-controlled explosive devices disguised as briefcases, 60 pipe bombs and a chemical weapon — a cyanide bomb — big enough to kill everyone in a 30,000-square-foot building“ you ask?

Because they belonged to a white supremacist. In Noonday, Texas. I found this to be of interest because I have relatives that live in Noonday – it’s outside of Palestine, but apparently it’s outside of the wrong Palestine to warrant much attention by the Justice department.

Today’s reason: the Moonies even think Rummy authorized torture.

Ok, not the Moonies exactly, but an editorial at the Washington Post lays into Rumsfeld after he specifically picked out the Post for identifying the authorization for toture came from the highest levels of the U.S. government.

Donald H. Rumsfeld expressed dismay on Thursday about editorials in which “the implication is that the United States government has, in one way or another, ordered, authorized, permitted, tolerated torture.” Such reports, he said, raised questions among U.S. troops in Iraq, reduced the willingness of people in Iraq and Afghanistan to cooperate with the United States, and could be used by others as an excuse to torture U.S. soldiers or civilians. This was wrong, he said, because “I have not seen anything that suggests that a senior civilian or military official of the United States of America … could be characterized as ordering or authorizing or permitting torture or acts that are inconsistent with our international treaty obligations or our laws or our values as a country.” …

Since Mr. Rumsfeld referred directly to The Post, we believe we owe him a response. … What might lead us to describe Mr. Rumsfeld or some other “senior civilian or military official” as “ordering or authorizing or permitting” torture or violation of international treaties and U.S. law? We could start with Mr. Rumsfeld’s own admission during the same news conference that he had personally approved the detention of several prisoners in Iraq without registering them with the International Committee of the Red Cross. This creation of “ghost prisoners” was described by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, who investigated abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, as “deceptive, contrary to Army doctrine and in violation of international law.” Failure to promptly register detainees with the Red Cross is an unambiguous breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention; Mr. Rumsfeld said that he approved such action on several occasions, at the request of another senior official, CIA Director George J. Tenet.

Did senior officials order torture? We know of two relevant cases so far. One was Mr. Rumsfeld’s December 2002 authorization of the use of techniques including hooding, nudity, stress positions, “fear of dogs” and physical contact with prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay base. A second was the distribution in September 2003 by the office of the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, of an interrogation policy that included these techniques as well as others, among them sleep and dietary manipulation. In both cases lawyers inside the military objected that the policies would lead to violations of international law, including the convention banning torture. Both were eventually modified, but not before they were used for the handling of prisoners. In the case of the Abu Ghraib prison, the policy apparently remained in effect for months. …

Grab Summer By the Balls – aka summer.smicollum.net – has been updated.

I no longer blame Brian for going so long between updates – it’s easy to get behind!

p.s. My apologies to Mr. Battjer for totally ripping off his photo-blog style. Pale imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Also, I hear the guy has a thing the size of a Pringles can!