Bhutto broke her agreement with the CIA, she wanted to talk with the Islamists

According to the manar newspaper the CIA in coordination with Musharraf’s ISI [International Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan] are behind the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

Musharraf briefed the Americans that Bhutto contacted the Islamic movement in Pakistan to reach an agreement for reconciliation leading to future stability of the country and breaking Pakistan link with American war-on -terror.

This explanation seems logical, few days ago two British diplomats were expelled from Afghanistan for conducting talks with the Taliban [check out this link also, very funny and true said about the Americans:

The Americans have a way of painting this black and white,……For them it’s like a cowboy film - you’re either a good guy or a bad guy.]

Remember when Karzai told the CNN that he was being held back from serious peace negotiations by the US?, Bhutto was convinced that Bin Laden is dead , so there is no need for the US fake so called “war-o-terror”.

Maloy Krishna Dhar [author of Fulcrum of Evil ISI - CIA - Al Qaeda Nexus], in his article agrees with this conclusion. Roads to Iraq

UK MSM - Al Qaeda Doesn't Exist

So much for our 'way of life' - you know, the one our leaders told us they went to war to save

The deeply English, deeply Christian city of Oxford, one of the homes of free thought, is now being asked to accept the Islamic call to prayer wafting from mosque loudspeakers over its spires and domes.

If that is not a threat to our "way of life", then I don't know what is. Allowing the regular electronic proclamation of Allah's supremacy in a British city is not tolerance, but a surrender of the sky to a wholly different culture. Just you wait and see what opponents of this scheme are accused of.

What about the nonsensical, illogical frenzy among our rulers to snoop on us, docket us, lock us up without trial and make us undress at airports? That's a pretty major assault on our "way of life", as I recall it being until very recently.

And of course it is accompanied by the laxest border controls you can imagine for those coming in, and the zealous dismantling of what remains of our Christian culture in schools, public ceremonies and everything else.

And now we're talking to the Taliban, one of the twin bogeymen with which the Government has sought to frighten us into acceptance of an entanglement of 'security' measures which have yet to prevent a single outrage.

No doubt we would talk to 'al Qaeda' too, if such an organisation existed, but - as all intelligence men know - it is a vague collection of rival factions, lumped together to scare the ill-informed into surrendering their liberties.

So much for the Great War on Terror, which has neither saved our way of life nor defeated Islamist extremism. What did you expect from the very same people who surrendered to the IRA, a genuine threat that really did exist (and still does) and which we could have beaten? What a lot of hogwash we are fed. The murder of Benazir Bhutto is a disgusting crime, but people really should grow up a bit about Pakistan.

This is a country that still has feudal landlords and slavery, which is utterly ethnically divided, speaking at least nine languages.

It is deeply economically sick, corrupt as a corpse, and haunted by the sinister ISI intelligence agency. Fewer than half its people, and only 36 per cent of its women, can even read.

It has no heroes, or heroines for that matter. Miss Bhutto was a pretty terrible prime minister when in office, and at one time a chum of the Taliban.

If we have learned nothing else from the Iraq adventure, surely it is time we grasped that other countries are the business of the people who live in them. We have quite enough to worry about at home without trying to impose our own wobbly political system on a nation where it couldn't work for five minutes (does it work here, actually?).

Yes, our way of life does need saving, but mainly from our own Government.

THE CLOCK IS TICKING ON AMERICA'S LAST YEAR OF FREEDOM

There is not a single person left above ground in America that has not yet had their obituary published, that can admit to feeling positive about the coming months before our next general elections. Out of 280 million American citizens and 20 million illegals occupying space within our borders, we have 20 auditioning professional liars and pretenders willing to say anything to live in the White House. Only one in my view, Ron Paul, holds the minimum requirements to legitimately seek and honestly campaign for the office. He isn’t my guy 100%, but I can live with most of his platform and his character.

Without running through the abysmal list of candidates from all parties again, I will just say that I am embarrassed to think that this list of loud-mouthed, know nothing about anything group of charlatans, believes that they represent me or my fellow disillusioned citizens concerning the sorry state of our nation. Yet, the all-powerful national elites that ultimately control our destinies, believes that you believe these sorry examples of potential “presidential” choices do, in fact, model your desires for national leadership in 2008. That is why Ron Paul is the ONLY choice that has merit worthy of our support.

If Ron is to win, then he must have the support and active participation of every last one of us who holds out the last shred of hope for the future of a free and prosperous America. If Ron loses, it will be because those same Americans who paid lip service to him and even gave money for his campaign, failed to follow through when it came to the vote. News with Views

Gorbachev - Bush Missiles Target Russia Not Iran

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said Wednesday that he viewed a U.S. plan to deploy a missile defense shield in Central Europe as targeting Russia, not Iran.

"(On Tuesday) Milos Zeman, the former Czech prime minister, said, ‘What kind of Iran threat do you see? This is a system that is being created against Russia,'" Gorbachev said. "I don't think Zeman is alone in seeing this. We see this as well as he sees it."

The United States wants to place a radar station in the Czech Republic and intercepter missiles in Poland, saying the components would defend European allies against a possible Iranian strike.

Gorbachev, 76, whose policies of glasnost and perestroika - openness and restructuring - helped end communism in the Soviet Union and its satellites, criticized the high level of military spending by the United States.

"Does America intend to fight the rest of the world, does America need to build a new empire? They will not succeed," Gorbachev said at the close of a meeting of the World Political Forum, a group he founded in 2003 that includes many former high-ranking politicians.

Gorbachev, who won the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize, said negotiations with Iran needed to continue with the involvement of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, to ensure Iran did not produce nuclear weapons.

Gorbachev said he hoped the United States would not attack Iran during the remainder of the term of U.S. President George W. Bush. Moscow News

Why was Benazir killed?

The Likely motive behind Bhutto's assassination: to move US troops into Pakistan in order to gain control of their nukes and to leave Israeli and the US in control of Central Asia and Mid-East – and as a stage, or step, building up to a War of Aggression Against Iran. It is the old Empire game of "divide and conquer." ...

...By the way, I heard this from a call-in on C-span, and have not directly checked this out, "that in an interview with David Frost Benazir Bhutto said that Osama Bin Laden was assassinated at the end of 2002" and "claimed she knew who did it, when, and how," and suggested that the subsequent bin Laden videos and audio tapes (reportedly "released by Al Qaeda") are, in fact, "high tech constructs and slick patch jobs produced by a third party."

The Likely motive behind Bhutto's assassination: to move US troops into Pakistan in order to gain control of their nukes and to leave Israeli and the US in control of Central Asia and Mid-East – and as a stage, or step, building up to a War of Aggression Against Iran. It is the old Empire game of "divide and conquer."

According to Wolf Blitzer (a former spokes-person for AIPAC) Bhutto left him a letter that blamed Musharaff in the event she was assassinated. (Right! –with Blitzer, rather than giving this last speculative condemnation "in the event of" to one of her most trusted political allies within her own party, family, or staff).

Now out of military uniform, and perhaps out of luck, Musharaff blames some tribal chief who in turn denies he would "murder a woman." A point also made by Bhutto after the first bombing on her return home. So the question becomes, who gains and who loses? Who wanted chaos? Who will exploit this chaos?

By the way, I heard this from a call-in on C-span, and have not directly checked this out, "that in an interview with David Frost Benazir Bhutto said that Osama Bin Laden was assassinated at the end of 2002" and "claimed she knew who did it, when, and how," and suggested that the subsequent bin Laden videos and audio tapes (reportedly "released by Al Qaeda") are, in fact, "high tech constructs and slick patch jobs produced by a third party."

This information comes from a report from a C-span caller, even if suspect are also questions that are easily addressed to David Frost by the US media, and certainly, at this crisis moment, after her death, after her assassination, important claims worthy of national attention by the American public and media. And I must caution, rather than simple ignoring her account, let me point out that as a two-time Prime Minister that Bhutto had both historic and a political connections to elements within Pakistani intelligence.

As to the other issue, as reported, Negroponte is a US hit-man; he is human scum, and a mass murderer. The Catholic Sisters that protested Negroponte's appointment to US Assistant Secretary of State were protesting "the death squad murders" of Priests, Nuns, women and children in Honduras "under Negroponte's direction." These wanttobe fascist, US based murderers, and warmongers ("Neonazicons"' as I call them) are inside the gates, sitting in the corporate board rooms, occupying office, and in the halls of power.

(Note: The fear of US intervention in Pakistan is widespread in the country. The military is aware of the dangers and is on guard but the political class is still focussed on 'who next'. Usman Khalid - Director London Institute of Saouth Asia)
By Bruce Boyle

Benazir's last address: Pakistan is in danger

ISLAMABAD: Minutes before she was assassinated, former premier Benazir Bhutto had said her Pakistan People's Party would "save the country" from extremists and terrorists if it was voted to power. "The country is in danger-- bomb blasts are taking place everywhere, be it Swat, South Waziristan or the Eid prayers in Charsadda.

We have to save the country with the power of the people," Bhutto told thousands of PPP supporters at Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi on Thursday. "I appeal all of you to vote for us to save the country," she repeatedly said in her address. The 54-year-old PPP chairperson praised her father Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, saying he had made Pakistan's defense impregnable and put the country on the path of prosperity and democracy. "Nobody could dare to think of breaking the country or doing terror and extremist acts when the People's Party was in power.

But the country had to suffer whenever a dictator took over," she said. Bhutto said that PPP would never let its workers down after coming to power and there would be rule of law in the country. She referred to reports that foreign troops would be sent to help fight resurgent Taliban and al Qaida in the area bordering Afghanistan.

"Why should foreign troops come in? We can take care of this, I can take care of this, you can take care of this," she said. "Political orphans tried hard to delay the polls. They planned the proclamation of emergency rule in the country and wanted President (Pervez) Musharraf to stay in uniform for five more years but all such bids failed miserably," she said.

The 54-year-old leader, who died a few minutes later after she was shot by a suicide attacker, regretted that the year 2007 had witnessed the removal of the Chief Justice of Pakistan "twice", detention of judges of the superior judiciary and the military operation on Islamabad's Lal Masjid that resulted in the loss of over 100 lives.

She said that addressing unemployment, rising inflation and lack of healthcare and education facilities would top the PPP's agenda if it was elected to power. India Post

Invading Pakistan: An idea whose time has come

New Strategies for Challenging the Propaganda Machine

Two ideas have surfaced today about how to stand up to the mainstream media companies which censor real news and solely act as cheerleaders for the powers-that-be:

Buy put options or short-sell stock -- that is, bet that the stock will go down -- of the offending companiess (just call a stockbroker and say you want to buy put options)

Put pressure on the FCC to deny license renewal for the offending companies by writing a letter to network affiliates stating that the company is not serving the public interest.

Both of these tactics come from Ron Paul supporters as a way to challenge Fox News' decision to exclude Dr. Paul from its presidential debate. However, these tactics can be used by anyone who is frustrated that the giant news corporations (owned by neocons, defense contractors, and others who do not share the interests of the American people) are censoring the truth and instead acting as the lapdogs and stenographers to the powers-that-be. Don't just target Fox news, but all of the media companies suppressing truth.

Of course, people can also boycott the sponsors of the offending media. For example, here is a list of Fox News' sponsors. And more ideas for boycotts are here.

And for those who already own shares of stock in an MSM company, another option is simply to sell them. If enough people sell, that will drive the price down and hit the MSM in its bottom line. George Washington Blog

BBC Censored Benazir Bhutto's Reports that Bin Laden Had Been Murdered

When a news organization as venerable as the BBC censors the reportage of a story as important as the assassination of Benzir Bhutto --a highly visible critic of Bush/British policy with regard to the "War on Terrorism" et al --it is fair to ask: who is the BBC protecting? Are they covering up the motive for her murder? Are they protecting the regimes that engineered her assassination?

Here is the original, unedited version in which Bhutto states that Bin Laden had been murdered.

Here is the BBC's Censored version.

Britain Drops 'War on Terror' Label

The words "war on terror" will no longer be used by the British government to describe attacks on the public, the country's chief prosecutor said Dec. 27.

Sir Ken Macdonald said terrorist fanatics were not soldiers fighting a war but simply members of an aimless "death cult."

The Director of Public Prosecutions said: 'We resist the language of warfare, and I think the government has moved on this. It no longer uses this sort of language."

London is not a battlefield, he said.

"The people who were murdered on July 7 were not the victims of war. The men who killed them were not soldiers," Macdonald said. "They were fantasists, narcissists, murderers and criminals and need to be responded to in that way."

His remarks signal a change in emphasis across Whitehall, where the "war on terror" language has officially been ditched.

Officials were concerned it could act as a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda, which is determined to manufacture a battle between Islam and the West.

The term "Islamic terrorist" will also no longer be used. Officials believe it is unhelpful because it appears to directly link the religion to terrorist atrocities.

In an interview with BBC Radio's World at One, Macdonald made a fresh attack on plans to extend beyond 28 days the length of time a terror suspect can be held without trial.

He said that the evidence had shown that the existing limit was working well and he accused ministers of legislating on the basis of 'hypotheticals'. Military.com

“Global Democracy,” Neocon Style

The dictator Musharraf of Pakistan must be a former “Lincoln Fellow” at the Claremont Institute. More likely, the U.S. government probably dispatched a Claremontista to advise him on how to go about destroying constitutional goverment in his country — by quoting precedents set by Abe Lincoln.

When Musharraf announced he was “suspending” his constitution and establishing a dictatorship a few months ago, he did indeed “justify” it by saying that the sainted Lincoln did the same thing, therefore it must be OK. Here’s what he said:

“Lincoln . . . broke laws, he violated the Constitution, he usurped arbitrary power, he trampled individual liberties. His justification was necessity. . .”

He forgot to mention that he also micromanaged a war that murdered some 350,000 fellow citizens, but that’s also supposed to be kosher because, well, he was Abe Lincoln. And even though he was a non-believer, he quoted the Bible to justify it all. So there.

A wise man once said that political pleas of “necessity” are the ways of the tyrant and the credo of the slave. Thomas DiLorenzo

Pakistan Names Suspect in Bhutto Killing

The government released a transcript Friday of a purported conversation between militant leader Baitullah Mehsud and another militant.

(AP) Police officers run next to burning tires set ablaze by protesters during a demonstration in... Full Image

"It was a spectacular job. They were very brave boys who killed her," Mehsud said, according to the transcript. The government did not release an audiotape.

Cheema described Mehsud as an al-Qaida leader who was also behind most other recent terror attacks in Pakistan, including the Karachi bomb blast in October against Bhutto that killed more than 140 people.

Mehsud is thought to be the commander of pro-Taliban forces in the tribal region of South Waziristan, where al-Qaida fighters are also active.

In the transcript, Mehsud gives his location as Makin, a town in South Waziristan.

This fall, he was quoted in a Pakistani newspaper as saying that he would welcome Bhutto's return from exile with suicide bombers. Mehsud later denied that in statements to local television and newspaper reporters. MyWay

Bill Includes US-Israel Missile Integration

NEW YORK -- Congress is set to approve a plan to integrate the U.S. and Israeli missile defense systems.

The proposal, authored by U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), is part of the Defense Authorization Act passed late Wednesday by the U.S. House of Representatives and due to be considered by the Senate before Christmas break. Under the proposal, the secretary of defense must within six months present a plan to Congress a plan "to improve the coordination, interoperability, and integration of the U.S. National Ballistic Missile Defense System with Israel's missile defense architecture," a statement from Kirk's office said.

Such a plan will help defend Israel against reported plans by Iran to build missiles that can reach Israel, Kirk said. "Israel will be the first and only country to fully integrate with the American missile defense architecture," the statement said. "It is a symbol of our shared values and a safer 21st century." Link

China Buys Wall Street

The subprime mortgage problem has now yielded a full-blown credit squeeze on Wall Street with securities firms' stock prices at fire-sale levels. The new fire-sale buyers are the so-called sovereign wealth funds, and China's are the most prominent.

With the world's largest trade surplus, China is accumulating foreign exchange reserves of about $1 billion per day. Rather than holding these reserves in low-paying Treasury securities, China recently created a new sovereign wealth fund--China Investment Company (CIC)--to invest these funds more profitably. Market participants, pay attention.

The West worries about whether these sovereign wealth fund investors will act like conventional rate-of-return focused investors or will have a different agenda in mind. Two points: First, if the sovereign wealth fund investors are rate-of-return motivated, they might have a much longer time horizon than the typical short-term-focused U.S. institutional investor. I am an optimist on this--increasingly disgusted during my many years in the investment world at the ever shorter term focus on stock prices. To me, anything that extends investors' time horizons would be positive, allowing companies to plan and act for the long run. Forbes

Police abandoned security posts before Bhutto assassination

No autopsy performed on body; docs say bullet wounds not found

Police abandoned their security posts shortly before Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto's assassination Thursday, according to a journalist present at the time, and unanswerable questions remain about the cause of her death, because an autopsy was never performed.

Pakistan's Interior Minister on Friday said that Bhutto was not killed by gunshots, as had been widely reported, and doctors at Rawalpindi General Hospital, where she died, say there were no bullet marks on the former prime minister's body, according to India's IBNLive.com. Furthermore, according to the news agency, there was no formal autopsy performed on Bhutto's body before she was buried Friday. Raw Story

CNN is now reporting that it wasn't gunshots or shrapnel that killed Bhutto,

Opposition leader's assassination 'moves us closer' to potential nuclear apocalypse, expert says

The death of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has left the US lacking in options for dealing with the tumultuous, nuclear-armed, militant-rich nation and has raised the possibility that the country's weapons will fall into the wrong hands, leading to a possible apocalypse, a foreign policy expert tells RAW STORY.

"When people aren't looking, you have a question of command and control of their nuclear warheads," Steve Clemons, a senior fellow at The New America Foundation, said in an interview Thursday.

Clemons said Bhutto's assassination could cause the "Doomsday Clock" to tick forward. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists maintains the clock, which depicts how close the world is to midnight, representing a nuclear catastrophe. At the beginning of this year, the clock was set at 11:55 p.m.

"I think we've moved closer to midnight ... to a potential apocalyptic situation," Clemons said. "It doesn't mean we're going to get there, but we have moved closer."

Based on conversations he's had with associates of Bhutto, Clemons predicted the country "would not disintegrate." However, he told RAW STORY that Bhutto's death likely would prevent next month's scheduled election and could lead to more security crackdowns against Pakistani citizens.

As for the US approach toward Pakistan, options are now "very, very narrow," he said.

"It blows up America's effort to manage the Pakistan mess. ... Now we don't have an alternative to Musharraf," Clemons noted. "The timing of this is amazingly bad; she probably would've been elected Prime Minister next week."

Other observers were more pessimistic about Pakistan's future now that Bhutto is dead.

"The impact will be that Pakistan is in more turmoil -- it will be the start of civil war in Pakistan," said Riaz Malik of the opposition party Pakistan Movement for Justice, according to The Guardian. "There is a very real danger of civil war in Pakistan." Raw Story

Iran, US engaged in a lethal Chess game

One of the hottest 2008 imponderables is whether or not the tension between Washington and Tehran will erupt into conflict. It’s an open secret that the Bush administration has long had a plan to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, and there was a time not so long ago when it appeared that plan was close to implementation.

However, the recent publication of a US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) strongly suggesting Iran abandoned any thoughts of developing nuclear weapons in 2003 put a temporary lid on the rumor mill.

Then Russian President Vladimir Putin, who, by the way, is also Time magazine’s “Person of the Year,” came along and spoiled it all.

When the NIE was published those of us who consider another war in this region to be anathema were celebratory. The US has shot itself in its own foot, we thought. Its own intelligence agencies have jointly decided that Iran’s nuclear activities constitute no immediate threat. So without a smoking gun and sans international approval that war plan will surely be destined for the shredder, we deduced.

Now Putin has come out with a message that says, “not so fast, Dr. Watson." Asked about the impact of the NIE, he had this to say: “If this CIA report has been published simply to divert the Iranians' attention from the real preparations for military action, something that is theoretically possible, then I believe that this would be very dangerous because any military action against Iran would represent yet another very big mistake . . ."

In other words, Putin believes the intelligence assessment could potentially be nothing more than a red herring designed to keep Tehran off guard in the event of a surprise attack. Online Journal

Ron Paul on Bhutto and Pakistan

Russia denies talks with Iran on S-300 deliveries

Russia is not negotiating deliveries of S-300 air defense systems to Iran despite certain media rumors, the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation said Friday.

Media reports earlier cited Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar as saying that Iran and Russia had agreed to deliver an unspecified number of advanced S-300 air defense complexes to the Islamic Republic under a previously signed contract.

"The issue of the delivery of S-300 air defense missile systems to Iran, raised by the media, is not a subject of current negotiations and has not been discussed with the Iranians," the agency said in a statement on its website.

"Russia and Iran are continuing to develop cooperation in the military-technical sphere in full accordance with international arms export regulations and obligations," the statement said.

The advanced version of the S-300 missile system, called S-300PMU1 (SA-20 Gargoyle), has a range of over 150 kilometers (about 100 miles) and can intercept ballistic missiles and aircraft at low and high altitudes, making this system an effective tool for warding off possible air strikes on Iran.

U.S. authorities have repeatedly called on Russia to stop arms deliveries to countries whose political regimes Washington disapproves of, including Iran.

However, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in October that Russia would not take into consideration attempts to impose arms deal restrictions "based on unilateral and politicized assessments". He said deliveries of Russian weapons were aimed exclusively at increasing the defense capability of the countries receiving them, and at maintaining their stability.

Moscow supplied Iran with 29 Tor-M1 air defense missile systems in late January under a $700-million contra ct signed in late 2005. Russia has also trained Iranian Tor-M1 specialists, including radar operators and crew commanders.RIA Novosti

World media says Pakistan now in 'nightmare scenario'

Fears of major unrest and civil war in nuclear-armed Pakistan were widely expressed by international media Friday after the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

"Bhutto's killing threatens Pakistan with political chaos," said the front-page headline in the International Herald Tribune.

The killing of the former premier, who had staged a political comeback after returning from exile to fight in elections next month "is a disaster for a country that is already flirting with state failure," said the Financial Times, the British business daily.

The "violent death leaves a hole in national politics and adds a vicious extra dimension of disintegration to a country that is already falling apart after decades of civilian and military misrule," it said in an editorial.

Italy's Corriere della Sera said "Pakistan is becoming an ever bigger atomic time bomb" and highlighted fears that the military could take back power after the death of Bhutto, who was killed by a suicide bomber on Thursday.

Jordanian newspaper Al Dustour said "Bhutto's assassination is a terrible act that paves the way for a civil war in Pakistan, the country was already facing a difficult time because of religious, ethnic and political reasons."

"All indications show that Pakistan will go into a dark and a difficult stage." AFP

Did Pakistan’s ISI Kill Benazir Bhutto?

The main suspects in Benazir Bhutto’s assassination are the Pakistani and foreign Islamist militants who regarded her as a heretic and an American stooge and had repeatedly threatened to kill her.

But fingers will also be pointed at Inter-Services Intelligence, the agency that has had close ties to the Islamists since the 1970s and has been used by successive Pakistani leaders to suppress political opposition.

Ms Bhutto narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in October, when a suicide bomber killed about 140 people at a rally in the port city of Karachi to welcome her back from eight years in exile.

That month, two militant warlords based in the lawless northwestern areas of Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan, had threatened to kill her on her return.

One was Baitullah Mehsud, a top commander fighting the Pakistani army in the tribal region of South Waziristan. He has close ties to al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taleban.

The other was Haji Omar, the “amir” or leader of the Pakistani Taleban, who is also from South Waziristan and fought against the Soviets with the Mujahidin in Afghanistan.

After that attack Ms Bhutto revealed that she had received a letter signed by a person who claimed to be a friend of al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden threatening to slaughter her like a goat. Jeremy Page Times Online

'Surge' Of US Special Forces Expected In Pakistan In Early 2008

In the wake of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, a 'surge' of US Special Forces for Pakistan's remote tribal lands is unlikely to face heavy opposition from President Musharraf, who will be busy trying to stop his own name, and that of his political party, from being linked with Bhutto's assassins.

The shock of Bhutto's death, so close to the January 8 elections which were tipped to see her elected prime minister, is also likely to lessen public opposition to the increase of US troops inside Pakistan.

This report, published today in The Australian newspaper, appeared on the Murdoch media portal news.com.au within half an hour of the confirmation of the announcement of Bhutto's death (excerpts) :

US Special Forces are to increase their presence in Pakistan amid assessments that the country is to become the central battlefield for al-Qaida as it is driven from Iraq.

"Pakistan should be carefully watched because it could prove to be a significant flashpoint in the coming year," US think tank Strategic Forecasting said in an evaluation of al-Qaida's tactics as the Islamist group comes under mounting pressure in Iraq.

With the "rapid spread of Talibanisation" in Pakistan's insurgent northwest, the country would become "especially important if the trend in Iraq continues to go against the jihadis and they are driven from Iraq", the assessment said.

"As the global headquarters for the al-Qaida leadership, Pakistan has long been a significant stronghold on the ideological battlefield."

The Stratfor assessment coincided with reports from Washington suggesting US Special Forces would expand their presence in Pakistan in the new year.

The boost in US forces was part of an effort to train and support Pakistan's army in its fight to stem the al-Qaida and Taliban-linked insurgency.

The Washington reports reflected Pentagon frustration with the Pakistani counter-insurgency effort, and said the head of the US Special Operations Command, Admiral Eric T. Olson, had made a series of visits to the country for discussions with senior military leaders.

"The first US (Special Forces) personnel could be on the ground in Pakistan early in the new year", the report said.

US Central Command chief Admiral William Fallon said the US forces would provide training and mentoring based on the US experience with the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

...the US reports coincided with the disclosure of an ambitious 15-year "anti-terror investment plan" for Pakistan that has been high on the agenda of US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte in recent visits to Islamabad.

Bhutto's murder is set to lead to the opening of a new front in the 'War on Terror' inside Pakistan, which has the potential to be as deadly, and terror-ridden, as the current wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. Your New Reality

In October e-mail, Bhutto said she would hold Musharraf 'responsible' for her death

In an e-mail sent to a confidant in the US two months ago, assassinated Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto said she would hold the country's current leader Pervez Musharraf "responsible" because his government did not do enough to provide for her security.

"I wld [sic] hold Musharaf [sic] responsible," Bhutto wrote to her US spokesman, Mark Siegel, in the October e-mail, which was reported Thursday afternoon by CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "I have been made to feel insecure by his minions, and there is no way what is happening in terms of stopping me from taking private cars or using tinted windows or giving jammers or four police mobiles to cover all sides cld [sic] happen without him."

Blitzer told viewers he received the e-mail soon after it was sent two months ago, but he agreed not to report on it unless Bhutto was assassinated. "It's a story I was asked to report to the world in -- if Bhutto were killed," he said. Raw Story

Barack Obama backs Israel remaining a Jewish state

Until Vice President Dick Cheney's famous accident last year when he mistakenly shot his partner during a quail hunt, it was Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president of the United States (1889-1893), who provided the previously most amusing presidential hunting-related incident. While in Maine, he aimed at what he believed to be a raccoon, only later to discover that he had shot dead a pig belonging to a local farmer.

The anecdote was brought up by an analyst scrutinizing with amazement the numbers coming out of Iowa voter surveys one week before the primary for their party's presidential candidate. The three-way Democratic race is very close. Hillary Clinton has managed to garner between 24 to 30 percent of the vote, John Edwards, 18 percent to 26 percent, and Barack Obama - 25 to 33 percent of the vote according to the opinion polls.

Some will say the numbers show Obama is in the lead; others will assume that such a split can only show one thing: any raccoon can turn out to be a pig.

Like all election campaigns - and this one even more so - the main question is who will turn out at the polls. In the case of Iowa, going to the polls means leaving home on a very cold evening for a few hours, because they don't actually vote, they caucus. Since every pollster choses the formula by which likely voters are defined, the question of who will win depends on that precise formula more than the answers given by those polled. Out of the many pollsters covering Iowa, only one managed to predict the outcome in the correct order of the 2004 elections. The last poll of Selzer & Co. puts Obama at the top, Clinton second and Edwards third. More...

U.S. Troops to Head to Pakistan

Beginning early next year, U.S. Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units, according to defense officials involved with the planning.

These Pakistan-centric operations will mark a shift for the U.S. military and for U.S. Pakistan relations. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, the U.S. used Pakistani bases to stage movements into Afghanistan. Yet once the U.S. deposed the Taliban government and established its main operating base at Bagram, north of Kabul, U.S. forces left Pakistan almost entirely. Since then, Pakistan has restricted U.S. involvement in cross-border military operations as well as paramilitary operations on its soil.

But the Pentagon has been frustrated by the inability of Pakistani national forces to control the borders or the frontier area. And Pakistan's political instability has heightened U.S. concern about Islamic extremists there.

According to Pentagon sources, reaching a different agreement with Pakistan became a priority for the new head of the U.S. Special Operations Command, Adm. Eric T. Olson. Olson visited Pakistan in August, November and again this month, meeting with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, Pakistani Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Chairman Gen. Tariq Majid and Lt. Gen. Muhammad Masood Aslam, commander of the military and paramilitary troops in northwest Pakistan. Olson also visited the headquarters of the Frontier Corps, a separate paramilitary force recruited from Pakistan's border tribes.

Now, a new agreement, reported when it was still being negotiated last month, has been finalized. And the first U.S. personnel could be on the ground in Pakistan by early in the new year, according to Pentagon sources.

Russia, Iran tighten the energy noose

Foreign ministers are busy people - especially energetic, creative diplomats like Russia's Sergei Lavrov and Iran's Manouchehr Mottaki, representing capitals that by tradition place great store on international diplomacy.

Therefore, the very fact that Lavrov and Mottaki have met no less than four times in as many months suggests a great deal about the high importance attached by the two capitals to their mutual understanding at the bilateral and regional level.

Moscow and Tehran have worked hard in recent months to successfully put behind them their squabble over the construction.

schedule of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran. The first consignment of nuclear fuel for Bushehr from Russia under the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards finally arrived in Tehran on Monday. "We have agreed with our Iranian colleagues a timeframe for completing the plant and we will make an announcement at the end of December," said Sergei Shmatko, president of Atomstroiexport, which is building Bushehr.

At a minimum, the gateway opens for Russia's deeper involvement in Iran's ambitious program for civil nuclear energy. But nuclear energy is not the be-all and end-all of Russo-Iranian cooperation. Iran is a crucially important interlocutor for Russia in the field of energy. The Bushehr settlement is a necessary prerequisite if the trust and mutual confidence essential for fuller Russo-Iranian cooperation is to become reality. Evidently, Moscow is hastily positioning itself for the big event on the energy scene in 2008 - Iran's entry as a gas-exporting country.

Russia consolidates in 2007

Behind the Assassination of Benazir Bhutto

The Musharraf propaganda machine called it a suicide attack by Islamic extremists. Bhutto herself believed it was the dirty work of Musharraf’s political allies. The ISI, Pakistan’s infamous security service, is infiltrated by ideologically jihadist elements that support al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists in Pakistan's border provinces. Bhutto had tried as prime minister to eject the ISI from politics, but that “country within a country” managed to overthrow her instead. She was well aware the security services were less than enthusiastic about Benazir Bhutto becoming prime minister a third time.

After the Oct. 18 carnage, Bhutto's People's Party asked the Musharraf government for the kind of security arrangements owed to a former prime minister. "We got no cooperation," says Bhutto's American spokesman, Mark Siegel. "She just kept on without security, she didn't care about the personal danger. She was the bravest person I ever knew." Bhutto also believed in predestination.

The Musharraf government is again dismissive of the lapse in security by the Army and security services. They allowed a sophisticated assassin to kill her at close range while the crowd was distracted by a suicide bombing -- the same scenario attempted in the November attack.

The government holds Bhutto to blame for taking the risk of public campaigning. Musharraf previously had confined her under house arrest. When that produced an international outcry, he warned her to stay out of sight. "We don't want a dead Benazir on our hands," Humayun Gauhar, Musharraf's confidant, argued in an interview with me. "She'd be just another unlikely martyr that we don't need." More

Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been killed in a presumed suicide attack, a military spokesman has announced on TV.

Earlier reports said Ms Bhutto had only been injured and taken to hospital.

Hillary Clinton Voted to Continue Cluster Bombing Civilians

I wasn't sure if I was going to write this diary, but after a combination of this comment by Senator Clinton on foreign policy experience:

It is tempting any time things seem quieter for a minute on the international front to think that we don't need a president who is up to speed on foreign affairs and military matters. Well, that's the kind of logic that got us George Bush in the first place.

and this piece of utter trash by Taylor Marsh about his vote on "prohibiting sex-related shops from opening near schools or places of worship," I've decided to write it.

The main point: Hillary Clinton voted to let our military continue to use cluster bombs in areas with concentrated civilian populations, despite the thousands of innocent children who have died or been handicapped due to picking up unexploded cluster bomblets.

• DemocraticLuntz's diary :: ::
• 
  

This vote was cast in September 6, 2006 on an amendment to the Defense Appropriations act by Senator Dianne Feinstein.

Before I get into why this was such an important amendment and why a no vote was so terrible, I just want to post the vote totals with presidential candidates in bold.

30 Democrats voted YEA: Akaka (D-HI), Baucus (D-MT), Bingaman (D-NM), Boxer (D-CA), Byrd (D-WV), Cantwell (D-WA), Carper (D-DE), Conrad (D-ND)
Dayton (D-MN), Dorgan (D-ND), Durbin (D-IL), Feingold (D-WI), Feinstein (D-CA), Harkin (D-IA), Jeffords (I-VT), Johnson (D-SD), Kennedy (D-MA), Kerry (D-MA), Kohl (D-WI), Leahy (D-VT), Levin (D-MI), Menendez (D-NJ), Mikulski (D-MD), Murray (D-WA), Obama (D-IL), Reed (D-RI), Reid (D-NV), Sarbanes (D-MD), Stabenow (D-MI), Wyden (D-OR)

15 Democrats and every Republican voted NAY (R's not listed):
Bayh (D-IN), Biden (D-DE), Clinton (D-NY), Dodd (D-CT), Inouye (D-HI), Landrieu (D-LA), Lautenberg (D-NJ), Lieberman (D-CT), Lincoln (D-AR), Nelson (D-FL), Nelson (D-NE), Pryor (D-AR), Rockefeller (D-WV), Salazar (D-CO), Schumer (D-NY) More...

Congress's Bullying Pulpit

As a child, I went to a small school in rural Alabama near an Army post where my father was stationed. It was a very Christian town, and our teacher was "born again."

This was decades ago, but I remember clearly how she used to tell us that we must accept Jesus Christ as our personal savior. Then she would ask for hands to see who had. By age 11 I had become a nonbeliever. My father was in the Army and had fought in World War II and Korea; I concluded quickly that no loving God could have allowed those atrocities to be committed.

But we had all seen our teacher, when crossed, call an unlucky member of our class up to the front of the room, make the student lie down on her desk and be paddled. The humiliation was worse than the pain. So, when she called on us to admit that we had accepted Jesus as our savior, I dutifully raised my hand.

Thank goodness, those days are over, you might be thinking. Nothing like that could happen in this country today.

But we had all seen our teacher, when crossed, call an unlucky member of our class up to the front of the room, make the student lie down on her desk and be paddled. The humiliation was worse than the pain. So, when she called on us to admit that we had accepted Jesus as our savior, I dutifully raised my hand.

Thank goodness, those days are over, you might be thinking. Nothing like that could happen in this country today.Washingtton Post

Panel would target homegrown terror

A commission proposed by key senators would study the emergence of homegrown terrorists and how U.S. citizens become radicalized through ideologies to commit acts of violence.

The National Commission on the Prevention of Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism is the brainchild of Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent and chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the ranking Republican member.

"The homeland security committee's extensive and ongoing investigation into homegrown terrorism has confirmed to our committee that this is a real and growing threat to our nation's security," Miss Collins said.

"The attacks in London and Madrid, as well as the recent thwarted attacks in the U.S., were the work of homegrown terrorists inspired by, but not directly linked, to al Qaeda," Miss Collins said. "But we do not yet fully understand what inspires someone to become a violent terrorist.

"If we have a better understanding of the origins of violent extremist behavior, we can disrupt terrorist plans." Washington Times

Former CIA Analyst Says Evidence Abounds for Impeachment

The evidence for impeachment of the president and vice president is overwhelming, former CIA analyst and daily presidential briefer Ray McGovern told a room full of people at the Portsmouth Public Library Monday night.

McGovern, who provided daily briefings for former presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush as well as other high ranking officials during his 27 year CIA career, said he has witnessed a “prostitution of his profession” as the Bush administration lied to the American people about the evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

“Don’t let anyone tell you the President was deceived by false intelligence … they knew,” McGovern said.

For the next 40 minutes, he relayed a series of events leading up to 9/11 which illustrate the President’s desire to go to war with Iraq well before 9-11, that reliable CIA evidence showed that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction and was presented to the administration and the “facts were fixed” in order to legitimize the invasion.

“The estimate which said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was prepared to the terms of reference laid down by Dick Cheney in a speech on Aug. 26, 2002. It was the worst estimate of intelligence and came to the wrong conclusions, but it was designed to do that,” McGovern said.

McGovern has been an outspoken commentator on intelligence-related issues since the late 1990s and since 2002 has been publicly critical of Bush’s use of government intelligence in the lead-up to the war.

The recent report detailing Iran’s stopping its nuclear weapons program four years ago, is an example of how the administration knows it can no longer hide such “incontrovertible evidence” from the American people in the fallout from the misinformation they received on the Iraq War, McGovern said. He added that he had almost given up on believing their were people still working at the top with a conscious and enough people at the top willing to let analysts do their job and accept independent analysis.More...

ARE THE GLOBALISTS OUT TO GET RON PAUL?

Warning! As you know, I always give you my best jokes in these pieces. This one will contain no humor. Will the conspiracy for world government assassinate Dr. Paul? That is the stark question now before us. Since the Paul campaign started to take off, I have been hearing agonized comments to that effect from his supporters. So far, I have said nothing, hoping they would subside, but now comes an authentic reporter citing “reliable sources” from inside.

He is Daniel Estulin, an author who lives in Spain, and whose welcome, new exposé is The True Story of the Bilderberg Group (Walterville, OR, Trine Day, 2007). The Bilderbergers meet at least once a year. Somewhere in the world, they take over a five-star establishment, kick all the other guests out, surround the place with guards armed with machine guns and meet in secret, where they decide what will happen to you and your property, which you have not elected them to do.

Estulin apparently has a good record for accuracy. He says that sources in a think tank in U.S. intelligence tell him that people at the top of the U.S. government are considering the execution of Dr. Ron Paul, whose exploding popularity is causing them to fear they could lose control. Recently, he became the 18 Million Dollar Man, after people around the country raised more than $6 million for his campaign in one day, a gargantuan record. More

Russia Successfully Tests New ICBM

Russia's military on Tuesday successfully test-fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads - a weapon intended to replace aging Soviet-era missiles.

The RS-24 missile was launched from the Plesetsk launch facility in northern Russia and its test warheads successfully hit designated targets on the Kura testing range on the Kamchatka Peninsula some 4,340 miles east, Strategic Missile Forces spokesman Alexander Vovk told The Associated Press.

Vovk said that the missile carried multiple test warheads, but refused to say how many. The Interfax news agency said the RS-24 is capable of carrying at least three warheads.

The Strategic Missile Forces said in a statement that the missile was launched from a mobile launcher.

It said the new missile was based on the Topol-M and built by the same design team - Moscow's Heat Technology Institute led by Yuri Solomonov. The RS-24 was first test-fired successfully in May.

"This missile is being created using scientific and technological solutions from the Topol-M missile which allows to significantly reduce time and cost of its development," the statement said.

Existing Topol-M missiles carry a single nuclear warhead and are capable of hitting targets more than 6,000 miles away.

The Strategic Missile Forces said the RS-24 missile is designed to replace Soviet-built missiles with multiple nuclear warheads, such as RS-18 and RS-20. Those missiles are known in the West as the SS-19 Stiletto and the SS-18 Satan.

George Washington: No Torture on My Watch

“Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause… for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country.” - George Washington, charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force, Sept. 14, 1775

In my most recent interview of The Other Scott Horton (no relation), the heroic anti-torture human rights attorney, Columbia lecturer and author of the indispensable blog “No Comment” at Harper’s magazine, we discussed the prisoner of war policies of General George Washington, Commander of the Continental Army, and an incident after the Battle of Trenton, New Jersey on December 26, 1776.

“‘Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British Army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren who have fallen into their hands,’ he wrote. In all respects the prisoners were to be treated no worse than American soldiers; and in some respects, better. Through this approach, Washington sought to shame his British adversaries, and to demonstrate the moral superiority of the American cause.” More...

G.W. Bush Happy Xmas (War is Over)

CIA chief to drag White House into torture cover-up storm

THE CIA chief who ordered the destruction of secret videotapes recording the harsh interrogation of two top Al-Qaeda suspects has indicated he may seek immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying before the House intelligence committee.

Jose Rodriguez, former head of the CIA’s clandestine service, is determined not to become the fall guy in the controversy over the CIA’s use of torture, according to intelligence sources.

It has emerged that at least four White House staff were approached for advice about the tapes, including David Addington, a senior aide to Dick Cheney, the vice-president, but none has admitted to recommending their destruction.

Vincent Cannistraro, former head of counterterrorism at the CIA, said it was impossible for Rodriguez to have acted on his own: “If everybody was against the decision, why in the world would Jose Rodriguez – one of the most cautious men I have ever met – have gone ahead and destroyed them?”

The tapes recorded the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, two suspected Al-Qaeda leaders, over hundreds of hours while they were held in secret “ghost” prisons. According to testimony from a former CIA officer, Zubaydah was subjected to waterboarding, a form of torture that simulates drowning, and “broke” after 35 seconds. He is believed to have been interrogated in Thailand. The tapes were destroyed in 2005. Both men are now held in Guantanamo Bay.

The House intelligence committee has subpoenaed Rodriguez to appear for a hearing on January 16. Last week the CIA began opening its files to congressional investigators. Silvestre Reyes, a Democrat who is chairing the committee, has said he was “not looking for scapegoats” – a hint to Rodriguez that he would like him to talk. TimesOnline

Question:

Is the CIA’s Jose Rodriguez the Real-Life Jack Bauer?

Answer:

Jose Rodriguez is Jack Bauer

Conservative mag depicts Rudy in fascist garb

The latest cover of the American Conservative depicts Rudy Giuliani in a fascist uniform. Ali Eteraz notes “it’s interesting that paleoconservatives feel this strongly against Rudy.”

Glenn Greenwald has a piece in the magazine arguing that, as NYC mayor, Giuliani “developed a reputation as a power-hungry, dissent-intolerant authoritarian, obsessed with secrecy and expanding his own power.” Think Progress

Right-Wing Pundit: Give The CIA Official Who Destroyed The Torture Tapes ‘A Medal’

Prominent conservative commentator Linda Chavez writes that Jose Rodriguez, the CIA official who reportedly undertook the destruction of the torture tapes, “deserves a medal.” Chavez — President Bush’s once-failed Secretary of Labor candidate — writes:

In the next few months, [Rodriguez’s] name will likely be dragged through the mud, and he will be vilified as a rogue official engaged in a massive cover-up. I think he deserves a medal. […]

Rodriguez’s lawyer says that his client sought and received legal clearance to destroy the tapes. Even though he is likely to become a scapegoat, what he did was right. He protected not just his men but all of us. I, for one, thank him.

Given Bush’s past record of distributing medals to individuals who carried out the White House’s disastrous policies (see George Tenet and Paul Bremer), Rodriguez would indeed qualify. The New York Times reported recently that there was “vigorous sentiment” among some top White House officials to destroy the tapes.

In November, Fox pundit John Gibson said the White House deserved a medal for outing Valerie Plame. Conservatives have made a mockery of the “presidential medal of freedom,” turning it into a symbol for absolving the Bush administration’s illegal behavior. Think Progress

U.S. Soldiers Stage Mutiny

We speak with a reporter from the Army Times who gives an inside account of how an army unit committed mutiny and refused to carry out orders in Iraq. After an IED attack killed five more members of Charlie 1-26, members of 2nd Platoon gathered for a meeting and determined they could no longer function professionally. Several platoon members were afraid their anger could set loose a massacre.

JUAN GONZALEZ: In what has been described as one of the most remarkable stories of the entire Iraq war, a reporter from the Army Times has given perhaps the first inside account of how an Army unit committed mutiny and refused to carry out orders in Iraq.

The incident occurred in Adhamiya, a district in northeastern Baghdad, where soldiers in the 2nd Platoon, Charlie Company, were stationed. The 2nd Platoon had lost many men since deploying to Iraq eleven months before. After an IED attack killed five more members of Charlie 1-26, members of 2nd Platoon gathered for a meeting and determined they could no longer function professionally. Several platoon members were afraid their anger could set loose a massacre. They decided to stage a revolt against their commanders that they viewed as a life-or-death act of defiance.

AMY GOODMAN: The story appears in a major four-part series called “Blood Brothers,” published in the Army Times by the paper’s medical reporter, Kelly Kennedy. She was embedded with Charlie Company in Iraq in the spring and summer of this year. Kelly Kennedy joins us now from Washington, D.C.

Welcome, Kelly, to Democracy Now! Just lay out the story for us. How did it begin?

Democracy Now

NORTHCOM: Constitution Not Important

The United States government is now actively directing the attention of the U.S. military towards the American people. Using the phony war on terror, the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) are creating a militarized control grid specifically to enslave the American people. One thing is clear, neither of these agencies abide by the Constitution. In fact, both agencies by themselves are unconstitutional and should be abolished. Despite this, it is expected that they would at least try to follow the supreme law of the land which is the Constitution regardless of the unconstitutionality of the institutions themselves. Amazingly, NORTHCOM is now openly admitting that they do not follow the Constitution. NORTHCOM recently issued a press release talking about how they handle intelligence oversight and they stated that their goal in conducting intelligence oversight includes ensuring that presidential directives and executive orders are abided by during intelligence gathering operations. Of course, they don’t specifically mention anything about abiding by the Constitution. This is disturbing considering the hundreds of unconstitutional executive orders issued by George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and others. In fact some even argue that executive orders by themselves aren’t constitutional. If NORTHCOM is saying that the oversight of their intelligence gathering operations consist of ensuring these executive orders and directives are followed, than they are not concerned with following the Constitution. The following is taken from NORTHCOM’s press release on a recent intelligence oversight conference.

Safeguarding the privacy rights of U.S. persons is critical to the Department of Defense agencies that conduct intelligence activities in support of the nation’s homeland defense and homeland security. Rogue Government

Hoover Planned Mass Jailing in 1950

A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty.

Hoover sent his plan to the White House on July 7, 1950, 12 days after the Korean War began. It envisioned putting suspect Americans in military prisons.

Hoover wanted President Harry S. Truman to proclaim the mass arrests necessary to “protect the country against treason, espionage and sabotage.” The F.B.I would “apprehend all individuals potentially dangerous” to national security, Hoover’s proposal said. The arrests would be carried out under “a master warrant attached to a list of names” provided by the bureau.

The names were part of an index that Hoover had been compiling for years. “The index now contains approximately twelve thousand individuals, of which approximately ninety-seven per cent are citizens of the United States,” he wrote.

“In order to make effective these apprehensions, the proclamation suspends the Writ of Habeas Corpus,” it said.

Habeas corpus, the right to seek relief from illegal detention, has been a fundamental principle of law for seven centuries. The Bush administration’s decision to hold suspects for years at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has made habeas corpus a contentious issue for Congress and the Supreme Court today. New York Times