By BOB HERBERT, New York Times

For five years now Americans have been chasing ghosts and shadows, and demanding that they confess to terrorizing us. Who's terrorizing whom?

The problem with the way the United States government dealt with Abdallah Higazy had nothing to do with the fact that he was investigated as a possible participant in the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center.

He was caught in a set of circumstances that was highly suspicious, to say the least. It would have been criminal not to have investigated him.

By David S. Cloud, The New York Times

Washington - A high-level military investigation into the killings of 24 Iraqis in Haditha last November has uncovered instances in which American marines involved in the episode appear to have destroyed or withheld evidence, according to two Defense Department officials briefed on the case.

The investigation found that an official company logbook of the unit involved had been tampered with and that an incriminating video taken by an aerial drone the day of the killings was not given to investigators until Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the second-ranking commander in Iraq, intervened, the officials said.

By Larry C Johnson, http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/

As George Bush said, "fool me once, shame on me, fool me--you can't get fooled again". Or, how about the old saying, "if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it's a duck". Why the snark? Just watch the Keith Olbermann's brilliant presentation--which shows conclusive, indisputable evidence that George Bush and his minions have used bogus terrorist threats to distract public attention from embarrassing political news--and you too will become a member of the reality based community (thanks to John Amato at Crooks and Liars for posting this up).

By Associated Press

A federal judge in Detroit has ruled that the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program violates the Constitution.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of journalists, scholars and lawyers who say the program has made it difficult for them to do their jobs. They believe many of their overseas contacts are likely targets of the program, which involves wiretapping conversations between people in the U.S. and people in other countries.

men.style.com

August 2006 Issue

For the first time since exposing the atrocities at Abu Ghraib, Joe Darby speaks out. As told to Wil S. Hylton.

Everybody thinks there was a conspiracy at Abu Ghraib.

Everybody thinks there was an order from high up, or that somebody in command must have known. Everybody is wrong. Nobody in command knew about the abuse, because nobody in command cared enough to find out. That was the real problem. The entire command structure was oblivious, living in their own little worlds. So it wasn't a conspiracy - it was negligence, plain and simple. They were all fucking clueless.

New War Unleashed from Old Plans: The Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism

(See Part One at http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14507.htm)

By Brian Bogart
08/15/06

On ABC’s Nightline, Monday, August 14, former hostage Jill Carroll recounted how the Iraqi insurgency was “like a family affair… what are you gonna do, arrest them all, kill them all?”

At that moment over on C-SPAN, President Bush, in the State Department’s Treaty Room, was giving the answer:

By Andrew Buncombe, Independent / UK

The Bush administration was informed in advance and gave the "green light" to Israel's military strikes against Hizbollah ­ with plans drawn up months before two Israeli soldiers were seized ­it has been claimed.

The US reportedly considered Israel's actions as a necessary prerequisite for a possible strike against Iran. A report by a leading investigative reporter says that earlier this summer Israeli officials visited Washington to brief the government on its plan to respond to any Hizbollah provocation and to "find out how much the US would bear".

By Craig Murray
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/index.html

I have been reading very carefully through all the Sunday newspapers
to try and analyse the truth from all the scores of pages claiming to
detail the so-called bomb plot. Unlike the great herd of so-called
security experts doing the media analysis, I have the advantage of
having had the very highest security clearances myself, having done a

By DEMOCRACY NOW!

* Seymour Hersh: U.S. Helped Plan Israeli War Plans, Cheney "Convinced"
Assault on Lebanon Could Serve as Prelude to Preemptive Attack on Iran *

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reports in this week's issue of the
New Yorker that Israeli officials visited the White House earlier this
summer to get a "green light" for an attack on Lebanon. The Bush
administration approved, Hersh says, in part to remove Hezbollah as a

By Jennifer Van Bergen, http://www.tompaine.com

Jennifer Van Bergen is a journalist with a law degree. Her book, The Twilight of Democracy: The Bush Plan for America has been called a “primer for citizenship.” She can be reached at jvbxyz@earthlink.net.

A few months from now, after midterm elections, if Democrats regain a majority in Congress—or if Democrats regain the Executive office in three years—almost the entire Bush administration could be standing trial.

By Tom Coghlan, Independent UK

Claims that US troops shot dead up to six unarmed Afghan civilians two months ago in Kabul have been given added credibility with a series of photographs offering visual evidence of military misconduct.

The pictures were taken by an Afghan passer-by on 29 May in Khair Kane, a district of north Kabul. The 20 photographs appear to show a group of unarmed Afghan civilians being killed by gunfire from an American Humvee.

By Pratap Chatterjee

You may be interested in the total number of contractor deaths and injuries in Iraq broken down by company to date. The grand total is 608 and another 6,000 plus injured. Quite a few of them are probably Iraqi, especially for Titan corporation Titan/L-3 who supply the translators. Their total number of deaths is at 199. PDF

Soldier at rape-murder hearing describes conditions in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Stressed-out soldiers are drinking whiskey and downing painkillers to try to cope with "mentally draining" duty in Iraq, a private testified Tuesday.

Troops turned to alcohol and drugs as they dealt with fears of being attacked and killed, Pfc Justin Cross said.

"It drives you nuts. You feel like every step you might get blown up. You just hit a point where you 're like, 'If I die today, I die.' You're just walking a death walk."

By Laurence Tribe

1. Preface

My starting point -- and it is one I share with what I take to be the views of the ABA panel on signing statements -- is alarm at the unprecedented frequency with which the incumbent President has signed congressional enactments into law -- including enactments that seem to me entirely constitutional exercises of Congress's power to structure the executive branch; regulate that branch's military and civilian investigations, prosecutions, or detentions; or engage in one of Congress's other undoubted heads of lawmaking authority -- while brazenly signaling his position and that of his administration that giving those enactments their intended effect would cut impermissibly into his breathtakingly inflated conception of illimitable presidential power and prerogative.

By Andrew Tilghman, http://www.washingtonpost.com

" I came over here because I wanted to kill people."

Over a mess-tent dinner of turkey cutlets, the bony-faced 21-year-old private from West Texas looked right at me as he talked about killing Iraqis with casual indifference. It was February, and we were at his small patrol base about 20 miles south of Baghdad. "The truth is, it wasn't all I thought it was cracked up to be. I mean, I thought killing somebody would be this life-changing experience. And then I did it, and I was like, 'All right, whatever.' "

By Sherwood Ross

Doug Thompson, the “Capitol Hill Blue” E-zine founder and a guy who has a knack for reporting events from inside the White House first, says he can’t board an airliner. He’s on a Federal “No Fly” terrorist “watch list.” Thompson recently wrote Bush told staffers the Constitution is “just a goddamned piece of paper” and Bush seems to be out to prove him right.

Grassroots Leadership in Texas has just recently put out a special Report entitled: "Ground Zero: The Laredo Superjail and the No Action Alternative."

The report deals with the proposed Laredo facility, which would be a privately-owned and operated detention center set to hold up to 2,800 detainees, most of whom would be immigrants.

The minority staff of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, under the leadership of Congressman John Conyers (D., Mich.) has produced over the past many months a staggering report, just released, which documents the hard evidence of crimes and abuses committed by President Bush and his administration (breaking 26 specific laws). This report, "The Constitution in Crisis," should provide the raw material for numerous news reports and point reporters toward fertile ground for additional investigations.
Please take a look.

Then, Take Action!

1. Ask the media to cover Conyers' report.

2. Ask your Congress Member to sponsor H. Res. 635 to start an investigation.

3. Buy this report as a book. Pre-order, and ask your friends to do so, and get it on the best-seller lists. The book, which includes an Introduction by Ambassador Joseph Wilson and a Foreword by Congressman Conyers, is entitled "George W. Bush Versus the U.S. Constitution." Buy it here.

The Islamic charity worker from Buena Park thanks his supporters, awaits the outcome of his deportation case.
By David Reyes, http://www.latimes.com

A tired but jubilant Abdel Jabbar Hamdan thanked supporters Tuesday and said that after being jailed for two years on suspicion of having terrorist ties, he just wanted to get his life in order again.

"The first thing I did when I saw my family was to hug them and I said, 'I want to make sure I'm home.' So I told them, 'Let me hug you again,' " said Hamdan, who had his wife, Entesar, at his side at a news conference in front of their Buena Park home.

By Agence France-Presse

US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said the US government could "indefinitely" hold foreign 'enemy combatants' at sites like the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"We can detain any combatants for the duration of the hostilities," said Gonzales, speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"If we choose to try them, that's great. If we don't choose to try them, we can continue to hold them," he said.