Now there is growing evidence that the United States has sent terror suspects to Uzbekistan for detention and interrogation, even as Uzbekistan's treatment of its own prisoners continues to earn it admonishments from around the world, including from the State Department.
The so-called rendition program, under which the Central Intelligence Agency transfers terrorism suspects to foreign countries to be held and interrogated, has linked the United States to other countries with poor human rights records. But the turnabout in relations with Uzbekistan is particularly sharp. Before Sept. 11, 2001, there was little high-level contact between Washington and Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, beyond the United States' criticism.
Uzbekistan's role as a surrogate jailer for the United States was confirmed by a half-dozen current and former intelligence officials working in Europe, the Middle East and the United States. The C.I.A. declined to comment on the prisoner transfer program, but an intelligence official estimated that the number of terrorism suspects sent by the United States to Tashkent was in the dozens.
A pre-9-11 report by the State Departmen on Uzbekistan said:
The police repeatedly tortured prisoners, State Department officials wrote, noting that the most common techniques were "beating, often with blunt weapons, and asphyxiation with a gas mask." Separately, international human rights groups had reported that torture in Uzbek jails included boiling of body parts, using electroshock on genitals and plucking off fingernails and toenails with pliers. Two prisoners were boiled to death, the groups reported. The February 2001 State Department report stated bluntly, "Uzbekistan is an authoritarian state with limited civil rights."How can anyone take the US seriously when it claims its fighting for freedom and democracy? Bush supports a military coup in Venezuela because he finds the democratically elected leader annoying? Our allies in the Middle East are Saudia Arabia (the number one financial backer of terrorism around the world) and Pakistan (the number one spreader of nuclear weapon material and know-how)? And now UZBEKISTAN?
It's hard to stay angry. But Bush and a complacent American people are making it easy for me.
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The soap opera hearings over the president's nomination of John Bolton as U.N. ambassador have had an unintended effect, bolstering what half a dozen investigations of pre-9/11 intelligence failures couldn't prove: an atmosphere in the White House that pushed spies to bend their conclusions to political ends....Read More......
Bolton, an assistant secretary of State, was subject to the caution and apparent personal dislike of then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Had he been speaking for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, or on behalf of Vice President Dick Cheney, the pressure would probably have been more successful.
The most important piece of the puzzle, though, is the White House's strong defense of Bolton. "[H]e is someone who has a long record of results in getting things done," said a presidential spokesman last week. "And sometimes you get people mad at you when you get things done. But we believe he's a very capable individual and will do an outstanding job at the United Nations."
All three sentences praise Bolton's style and record. That means behavior like Bolton's must be regarded as not just normal but desirable by the White House. Cheney made a similar defense earlier this week.
Behaving like a boor and a bully is not so rare in government. Using threats to twist the conclusions of career intelligence analysts ought to be. But if Bolton is so admired in the house where the buck stops, it is impossible to believe that he's the only practitioner.
Four months of jeers, denunciations and defenses of Dr. Nanos's management recently culminated in dozens of signed and anonymous messages concluding that his days were numbered. The postings to a public Web log conveyed a mood of self-congratulation tempered with sober discussions of what comes next....
Dr. Nanos would not comment. A spokesman for Los Alamos, Kevin Roark, said false rumors of the director's resignation had circulated for months....Several outside experts said that the director's quick departure was inevitable and that the blog's attacks were playing a significant role.
"Nanos is leaving," said Greg Mello, director of the Los Alamos Study Group, a private organization in Albuquerque that monitors weapons laboratories. "The blog changed the climate, giving people an outlet they didn't have before."
Blogs seem to be everywhere. But this one is unusual, in that the Los Alamos National Laboratory, isolated in the mountains of New Mexico, has a long history of maintaining the highest level of federal secrecy. The lab's very existence was once classified. Today, barbed wire rings many of its buildings, federal agents monitor its communications, and its employees are constantly reminded that loose lips sink ships.
The blog (lanl-the-real-story.blogspot.com) went public in January and since then has registered more than 100,000 visits, with more than half a million pages viewed and more than 5,000 comments, some extensive. Discussions run on a variety of topics, from the sanctity of retirement benefits to the likely identity of the next contractor who will run Los Alamos.
One more reason for business and government to take blogs very seriously indeed -- and for people who contribute to blogs with postings and comments to be cognizant of the impact we can have. With great power comes great responsibility, as Peter Parker was once told.
Many of the parade floats were sponsored by American companies including VISA and American Express. One float featured women pushing shopping carts loaded with supermarket goods.Read More......
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