Alvin Greene: Victorious Mystery Candidate With an Obscene Past

By Suzy Khimm
Mother Jones Online
Posted on June 12, 2010

An unemployed 32-year-old black Army veteran with no campaign funds, no signs, and no website shocked South Carolina on Tuesday night by winning the Democratic Senate primary to oppose Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C.. Alvin Greene, who currently lives in his family's home, defeated Vic Rawl, a former judge and state legislator who had a $186,000 campaign warchest and had already planned his next fundraising event. Despite the odds, Greene, who has been unemployed for the past nine months, said that he wasn't surprised by his victory. "I wasn’t surprised, but not really. I mean, just a little, but not much. I knew I was on top of my campaign, and just stayed on top of everything, I just—I wasn't surprised that much, just a little. I knew that I worked hard and did," Greene said in an interview.

Greene insists that he paid the $10,400 filing fee and all other campaign expenses from his own personal funds. "It was 100 percent out of my pocket. I’m self-managed. It’s hard work, and just getting my message to supporters. I funded my campaign 100 percent out of my pocket and self-managed," said Greene, who sounded anxious and unprepared to speak to the public. But despite his lack of election funds, Greene claims to have criss-crossed the state during his campaign—though he declined to specify any of the towns or places he visited or say how much money he spent while on the road.

"It wasn’t much, I mean, just, it was—it wasn’t much. Not much, I mean, it wasn’t much," he said, when asked how much of his own money he spent in the primary. Greene frequently spoke in rapid-fire, fragmentary sentences, repeating certain phrases or interrupting himself multiple times during the same sentence while he searched for the right words. But he was emphatic about certain aspects of his candidacy, insisting that details about his campaign organization, for instance, weren't relevant. "I'm not concentrating on how I was elected—it's history. I’m the Democratic nominee—we need to get talking about America back to work, what's going on, in America."

The oddity of Greene’s candidacy has already prompted speculation from local media about whether he might be a Republican plant. But Greene denies that Republicans or anyone else had approached him about running. "No, no—no one approached me. This is my decision," he said. A 13-year military veteran, he says he had originally gotten the idea in 2008 when he was serving in Korea. "I just saw the country was in bad shape two years ago…the country was declining," he says. "I wanted to make sure we continue to go up on the right track." But when asked whether there was a specific person or circumstance that precipitated his decision to jump into politics, Greene simply replied: "nothing in particular...it's just, uh, nothing in particular." South Carolina Democratic Party Chairwoman Carol Fowler speculated that Greene won because his name appeared first on the ballot, and voters unfamiliar with both candidates chose alphabetically.

Greene has yet to speak to any Democratic officials, either. After filing to run, his campaign went dark. According to this report, he didn’t show up to the South Carolina Democratic Party convention in April and didn't file any of the required paperwork for candidates with the state or Federal Election Commission. When I spoke to him, the state’s Democrats had yet to contact him after his victory was announced.

Greene insists that he's planning to work with state and national officials to ramp up his campaign and raise money "as soon as I can." And he plans on putting his unemployment at the center of his campaign. "I’m currently one of the many unemployed in the state and this country. South Carolina has more unemployed now than at any other time," Greene says. "My campaign slogan: Let's get South Carolina back to work." He adds that he would like to see "one Korea under a democracy."

Sen. DeMint, a Tea Party darling and leader of the GOP's far-right flank, wasn't expecting a competitive challenge this election cycle. But conservative activists are already thrilled to see the Democrats' hand-picked candidate go down in flames. “Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha,” tweeted Tea Party activist and Redstate blogger Erick Erickson after finding out about Greene’s victory.

Greene offered no volleys against DeMint, and he seemed to have more questions than attack lines when it came to the Tea Party. "What's the Tea Party’s position on wars in the Middle East? …I want to know the Tea Party's position on the wars in the Middle East?" he asked. But Greene says that he's excited about the prospect of taking on DeMint in the public arena: "I'm looking forward to the debate this September." DeMint and his supporters are no doubt looking forward to it too.

Update: Via the AP, Greene is facing a felony charge for allegedly showing obscene photos to a University of South Carolina student. The mother of Greene's accuser has launched a crusade against him, vowing to become the candidate's "worst nightmare."

Update: Greene was also kicked out of the Army and the Air Force. And the increasingly bizarre circumstances surrounding his campaign have prompted some Democrats to accuse him of being a plant—and others to question his mental health.

Suzy Khimm is a reporter in the Washington bureau of Mother Jones. E-mail her with tips and ideas at skhimm(at)motherjones(dot)com.
© 2010 All rights reserved.

Saudi Arabia gives Israel clear skies to attack Iranian nuclear sites

Hugh Tomlinson
The Times
June 12, 2010

Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defences to enable Israeli jets to make a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, The Times can reveal.

In the week that the UN Security Council imposed a new round of sanctions on Tehran, defence sources in the Gulf say that Riyadh has agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance for a bombing run on Iran.

To ensure the Israeli bombers pass unmolested, Riyadh has carried out tests to make certain its own jets are not scrambled and missile defence systems not activated. Once the Israelis are through, the kingdom’s air defences will return to full alert.

“The Saudis have given their permission for the Israelis to pass over and they will look the other way,” said a US defence source in the area. “They have already done tests to make sure their own jets aren’t scrambled and no one gets shot down. This has all been done with the agreement of the [US] State Department.”

Sources in Saudi Arabia say it is common knowledge within defence circles in the kingdom that an arrangement is in place if Israel decides to launch the raid. Despite the tension between the two governments, they share a mutual loathing of the regime in Tehran and a common fear of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “We all know this. We will let them [the Israelis] through and see nothing,” said one.

The four main targets for any raid on Iran would be the uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz and Qom, the gas storage development at Isfahan and the heavy-water reactor at Arak. Secondary targets include the lightwater reactor at Bushehr, which could produce weapons-grade plutonium when complete.

The targets lie as far as 1,400 miles (2,250km) from Israel; the outer limits of their bombers’ range, even with aerial refuelling. An open corridor across northern Saudi Arabia would significantly shorten the distance. An airstrike would involve multiple waves of bombers, possibly crossing Jordan, northern Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Aircraft attacking Bushehr, on the Gulf coast, could swing beneath Kuwait to strike from the southwest.

Passing over Iraq would require at least tacit agreement to the raid from Washington. So far, the Obama Administration has refused to give its approval as it pursues a diplomatic solution to curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Military analysts say Israel has held back only because of this failure to secure consensus from America and Arab states. Military analysts doubt that an airstrike alone would be sufficient to knock out the key nuclear facilities, which are heavily fortified and deep underground or within mountains. However, if the latest sanctions prove ineffective the pressure from the Israelis on Washington to approve military action will intensify. Iran vowed to continue enriching uranium after the UN Security Council imposed its toughest sanctions yet in an effort to halt the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme, which Tehran claims is intended for civil energy purposes only. President Ahmadinejad has described the UN resolution as “a used handkerchief, which should be thrown in the dustbin”.

Israeli officials refused to comment yesterday on details for a raid on Iran, which the Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has refused to rule out. Questioned on the option of a Saudi flight path for Israeli bombers, Aharaon Zeevi Farkash, who headed military intelligence until 2006 and has been involved in war games simulating a strike on Iran, said: “I know that Saudi Arabia is even more afraid than Israel of an Iranian nuclear capacity.”

In 2007 Israel was reported to have used Turkish air space to attack a suspected nuclear reactor being built by Iran’s main regional ally, Syria. Although Turkey publicly protested against the “violation” of its air space, it is thought to have turned a blind eye in what many saw as a dry run for a strike on Iran’s far more substantial — and better-defended — nuclear sites.

Israeli intelligence experts say that Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are at least as worried as themselves and the West about an Iranian nuclear arsenal.Israel has sent missile-class warships and at least one submarine capable of launching a nuclear warhead through the Suez Canal for deployment in the Red Sea within the past year, as both a warning to Iran and in anticipation of a possible strike. Israeli newspapers reported last year that high-ranking officials, including the former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, have met their Saudi Arabian counterparts to discuss the Iranian issue. It was also reported that Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad, met Saudi intelligence officials last year to gain assurances that Riyadh would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets violating Saudi airspace during the bombing run. Both governments have denied the reports.

Rabbi Receives Death Threats Over Helen Thomas Video

- FOXNews.com
- June 09, 2010

The New York rabbi who videotaped veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas telling Jews to "get the hell out of Palestine" says he has received numerous death threats and thousands of pieces of hate mail in the days since Thomas' abrupt retirement.

The New York rabbi who videotaped veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas telling Jews to "get the hell out of Palestine" says he has received numerous death threats and thousands of pieces of hate mail in the days since Thomas' abrupt retirement.

Rabbi David Nesenoff said he is facing an "overload" of threatening e-mails calling for a renewed Holocaust and targeting his family — a barrage of hate he said he planned to report to the police on Wednesday.

"This ticker tape keeps coming in," Nesenoff told FoxNews.com. "We got one specific one saying, 'We're going to kill the Jews; watch your back.'"

Nesenoff said he was shocked not only by Thomas' original remarks — which he called anti-Semitic — but by the wave of insults and threats he has received since his videotape brought about her public shaming and the end of her 50-year career at the White House.

"This is something that I thought was a couple of people here or there, [but] it's mainstream and it's frightening," the Long Island rabbi said. "[Thomas] is just a little cherry on top of this huge, huge sundae of hate in America."

Nesenoff approached Thomas with a camera on May 27 following a celebration of Jewish heritage at the White House. Asked for a comment on Israel, Thomas called Jews occupiers and said they should "go home" to Germany, Poland and the U.S.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called her remarks "offensive and reprehensible" on Monday, and her employer, Hearst Corporation, sent out a notice announcing that the longtime dean of the Washington press corps was retiring "effective immediately."

Thomas apologized for her remarks last week after the video surfaced online and was posted to several prominent blogs.

"I deeply regret my comments," she said in a statement, claiming they "do not reflect my heartfelt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance."

But even as Thomas backed off from her remarks, e-mailers have continued to assail Nesenoff, who has begun posting dozens of malicious letters and YouTube comments on his website, RabbiLive.com.

"We received a lot of positive reaction, beautiful letters … from all over the United States," he said, but they have been outweighed by the attacks that have flooded in.

North Korea denies sinking South ship in letter to U.N.

By Jack Kim Jack Kim
Wed Jun 9, 7:25 am ET

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea has sent a letter to the U.N. Security Council rejecting accusations from South Korea that it was behind the sinking of one of its neighbor's navy ships, saying it was the victim of a U.S.-led conspiracy.

The letter, addressed to the U.N. Security Council president from the North's permanent representative to the body, followed the filing of a complaint by the South last week demanding action by the international community to deter further aggression.

A team of international investigators led by South Korea's military said in May that a North Korean submarine torpedoed the corvette Cheonan on March 26, snapping the vessel in half in a blast and killing 46 sailors.

North Korea, through its official media, has already rejected the charge, saying it was a ploy by the South's President Lee Myung-bak aimed at political gains for his conservative government.

"With time it is becoming clearer through military and scientific analysis that the 'investigation findings' by the U.S. and the South, which had been from their announcement subject to doubts and criticism, is nothing more than a conspiracy aimed at achieving U.S. political and military goals," said the letter, signed by the North's permanent representative to the U.N. Sin Son-ho and carried by the official KCNA news agency.

"If the Security Council goes ahead with discussions on the 'investigation findings' ... no one will be able to guarantee there won't be grave consequences to peace and stability on the Korean peninsula."

North Korea has driven tensions to new heights in recent weeks by threatening war if Seoul imposes sanctions. The mounting antagonism between the two Koreas has unnerved investors, worried about armed conflict breaking out in the region.

Many analysts say neither side is ready to go to war, but see the possibility of more skirmishes in a disputed sea border off the west coast or along their heavily armed border.

Despite the tense confrontation, the South said on Wednesday it had approved the shipments of baby formula for North Korean infants as a rare exception to the ban on trade, travel and movement of goods across their border.

The United States, the South's biggest ally, said Seoul may not seek a full Security Council resolution because of rising tensions after the sinking of the Cheonan. Seoul said it would hold discussions with its allies to ensure action was taken.

Western diplomats say China, North Korea only real ally, will not tolerate new sanctions, while Seoul appears determined to have the council at least agree on some form of rebuke.

Helen Thomas never shied from piping up. In the end, that was the problem.

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 8, 2010; C01

Helen Thomas ended a storied career at the White House dating from the Kennedy era on Monday, days after making inflammatory remarks on Israel to a rabbi with a video camera.

"Frankly, I was shocked," said Rabbi David Nesenoff, who was at the White House for a Jewish heritage celebration on May 27 and simply asked the Hearst Newspapers columnist, "Any comments on Israel?" Her response -- that Israeli Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and "go home" to Germany, Poland and America -- triggered a wave of denunciations that a narrowly worded apology did little to quell.

"This was vile, a paradigm of hate talk," said Nesenoff, who was accompanied by his 17-year-old son and a friend. "She felt comfortable saying this in front of two boys with yarmulkes on."

While the 89-year-old Thomas is renowned as a trailblazer who aggressively questioned 10 presidents -- including President Obama, whom she pressed last month on Afghanistan -- her hostility toward Israel has been no secret within the Beltway. Though she gave up her correspondent's job a decade ago, she retained her front-row briefing-room seat, even as colleagues sometimes rolled their eyes at her obvious biases.

"She asked questions no hard-news reporter would ask, that carried an agenda and reflected her point of view, and there were some reporters who felt that was inappropriate," said CBS correspondent Mark Knoller. "As a columnist she felt totally unbound from any of the normal policies of objectivity that every other reporter in the room felt compelled to abide by, and sometimes her questions were embarrassing to other reporters."

But few called her out for such conduct -- until Nesenoff, who heads a Long Island synagogue, posted the video on his site RabbiLIVE.com. Commentators on the right and left quickly eviscerated Thomas.

"She's always said crazy stuff," said National Review Online columnist Jonah Goldberg. "One reason she gets a pass is that there's an entrenched system of deference to seniority in the White House press corps. . . . This newfound horror and dismay that people are expressing about Helen Thomas are beyond a day late and a dollar short."

Jeffrey Goldberg, an Atlantic reporter who specializes in the Middle East, said: "Helen Thomas offered the official Hamas position, as far as I can tell. There's a level of insensitivity that's almost comical in what she said, to tell Jews to go back to Germany, where things worked out so well for them."

Thomas told a Washington Post reporter Friday night that she was "very sorry" and had "made a mistake," but did not address the substance of her comments. By Monday morning -- after her agent had dropped her, Hearst expressed deep regret over her remarks and White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called them "offensive and reprehensible" -- she decided to call it quits. Thomas, the daughter of Lebanese immigrants, said in a statement that her comments "do not reflect my heartfelt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance."

She is the most famous woman ever to cover 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and served as the first female president of the White House Correspondents' Association, which on Monday called her comments "indefensible." Thomas has written several books about the White House and played herself in the movies "Dave" (1993) and "The American President" (1995).

In 2000, when Thomas resigned from United Press International after it was bought by News World Communications, a company controlled by officials of the Unification Church, Dan Rather called her "a hero of journalism."

During George W. Bush's administration, Thomas became an icon for some liberals who applauded her outspoken opposition to the Iraq invasion and cast her as tougher than the reporters who failed to skeptically question the march to war. Ari Fleischer, who was Bush's first press secretary, led the campaign for her ouster over the weekend, e-mailing journalists who might have missed her remarks.

"It's a tragic ending, but she did the right thing by announcing her resignation," Fleischer said Monday. He was joined in the effort by former Clinton White House aide Lanny Davis.

In 2002, Thomas asked Fleischer: "Does the president think that the Palestinians have a right to resist 35 years of brutal military occupation and suppression?"

Four years later, Thomas told Fleischer's successor, Tony Snow, that the United States "could have stopped the bombardment of Lebanon" by Israel, but instead had "gone for collective punishment against all of Lebanon and Palestine." Snow tartly thanked her for "the Hezbollah view."

Mark Rabin, a former freelance cameraman for CNN, said that in a 2002 conversation at the White House, Thomas said "thank God for Hezbollah" for driving Israel out of Lebanon, adding that "Israel is the cause for 99 percent of all this terrorism."

The Daily Caller Web site noted that during a 2004 speech to the Al-Hewar Center, a Washington-based Arab organization, Thomas likened Palestinian protesters resisting the "tyrannical occupation" by Israel to "those who resisted the Nazi occupation."

A handful of journalists questioned her role over the years. In a 2006 New Republic piece, Jonathan Chait accused Thomas of "unhinged rants," noting that she had asked such questions as: "Why are we killing people in Iraq? Men, women, and children are being killed there. . . . It's outrageous."

At Bethesda's Walt Whitman High School, where Thomas agreed to withdraw Sunday as a speaker at graduation, one student had created a Facebook page objecting to the choice. After the cancellation, other students started a group, which drew nearly 100 fans, titled "Helen Thomas should have been our graduation speaker." One of the creators of that group, Andrew Beehler, said that "the vast majority of the school" was in favor of the Thomas appearance, but that school leaders sided with a small group of vocal parents and students who threatened to protest at graduation.

The rabbi who triggered the controversy was deluged with e-mail and interview requests. After being told Monday that Thomas had retired, Nesenoff urged her to engage in a broader discussion about the Middle East. "She can't retire from the human race," he said. "May she live for many years, and use that time to make this moment an important moment." (The rabbi explained the delay in posting the May 27 video this way: "My son had finals, and he is my Webmaster.")

Sam Donaldson, a former White House correspondent for ABC, said Thomas was a "pioneer" for women, "and no one can take that away from Helen." While not defending her comments on Israel, he said they likely reflect the view of many people of Arab descent.

Donaldson, 76, who retired last year, was asked whether his friend, who started on the beat in 1960, had stayed too long.

"Her life was her work," Donaldson said. "She didn't have other interests. The thought that she'd give it up never entered her mind."

NY Anti-Mosque Protesters Harass Egyptian Christians

theSOP.org
Published:June 7th, 2010 16:53 EST

..."We must take a stand and we must say no," shouted rally organizer Pamela Geller as the crowd roared approval. Moments later, another keynote speaker, Robert Spencer, sparked more cheers when he asked, "Are you tired of being lied to?"

Spencer, however, did not explain precisely what lies he was referring to...

At one point, a portion of the crowd menacingly surrounded two Egyptian men who were speaking Arabic and were thought to be Muslims.

"Go home," several shouted from the crowd.

"Get out," others shouted.

In fact, the two men " Joseph Nassralla and Karam El Masry -- were not Muslims at all. They turned out to be Egyptian Coptic Christians who work for a California-based Christian satellite TV station called "The Way." Both said they had come to protest the mosque.

"I`m a Christian," Nassralla shouted to the crowd, his eyes bulging and beads of sweat rolling down his face.

But it was no use. The protesters had become so angry at what they thought were Muslims that New York City police officers had to rush in and pull Nassralla and El Masry to safety.

"I flew nine hours in an airplane to come here," a frustrated Nassralla said afterward.

The incident underscores how contentious -- and, perhaps, how irrational -- the debate over the mosque has become.

A mosque, for instance, has been located since 1983 on West Broadway, about 12 blocks from Ground Zero. After the 9/11 attacks, the mosque`s imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, began shaping plans to build an Islamic cultural center closer to Ground Zero as part of an attempt to build cultural ties between Islam and America.

Called Cordoba House, the center would rise 13 stories and would include a 500-seat auditorium, a swimming pool and a mosque.

Late last month, after New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and a variety of political leaders announced their support for the project, the lower Manhattan community board voted 29-1, with 10 abstentions, to approve Cordoba House.

Physicians group accuses CIA of testing torture techniques on detainees

A report says agency doctors helped refine the use of waterboarding, sleep deprivation and severe pain under the guise of medical research. The CIA says the report is 'wrong.'

By Bob Drogin,
Los Angeles Times
June 8, 2010

Reporting from Washington —
A prominent human rights group accused the CIA of conducting illegal human experiments and unethical medical research during interrogations of high-profile terrorism suspects under the George W. Bush administration.

Physicians for Human Rights charged Monday that CIA doctors and other medical personnel collected data to study and calibrate the use of waterboarding, sleep deprivation, severe pain and other "enhanced" interrogation techniques, but did so under the guise of trying to protect the detainees' health.

CIA officials rejected the conclusions of the 30-page report, saying the government did not conduct human experiments on prisoners, which would have violated U.S. and international law.

"The report's just wrong," said CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano. "The CIA did not, as part of its past detention program, conduct human subject research on any detainee or group of detainees. The entire detention effort has been the subject of multiple, comprehensive reviews within our government, including by the Department of Justice."

The physicians group spent two years evaluating declassified but redacted records about harsh treatment of detainees after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and did not obtain additional material. It called for a White House and congressional investigation of its charges.

"The crime of illegal experimentation is equal to the crime of torture," Nathaniel Raymond, lead author of the report, said in a conference call with reporters.

The CIA confirmed in February 2008 that interrogators had used waterboarding — in which water is poured on a prisoner's face to simulate drowning — on three suspects in 2002 and 2003. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, was waterboarded 183 times.

After taking office last year, President Obama banned the practice, which his administration called torture, but he declined calls for a criminal investigation of CIA officers and others who had used the technique.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush administration lawyers approved CIA use of waterboarding, forced nudity, stress positions, extreme temperatures and other so-called enhanced techniques as long as doctors ensured the interrogators did not inflict "severe physical and mental pain."

The group, based in Cambridge, Mass., said the complicity of doctors, psychologists and other health professionals at those sessions enabled "the routine practice of torture" and helped provide protection against potential criminal liability.

Medical personnel were "required to monitor all waterboarding practices and collect detailed medical information that was used to design, develop and deploy subsequent waterboarding procedures," the report said.

At one point, the report said, doctors recommended adding salt to the water used in waterboarding. Records show they hoped a saline solution would reduce the risk of pneumonia or hyponatremia, a condition where excessive ingestion of water lowers blood sodium levels. Hyponatremia can lead to coma and death.

Dr. Alan Keller, director of the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture in New York, said the study of waterboarding data "certainly should be considered" unethical medical research on prisoners without their consent. "But it's also junk science, the notion that it's safer to drown in the ocean than in the pool."

CIA doctors analyzed data from 25 detainees who had undergone various enhanced interrogations to determine which technique was most likely to increase the subject's "susceptibility to severe pain," the report said.

Health professionals also monitored sleep deprivation of more than a dozen detainees, and then made recommendations on the effect of keeping a prisoner awake for 48 hours to 180 hours.

Dr. Scott Allen, co-director of the Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights at Brown University, said doctors should have refused to participate in the interrogations for ethical and legal reasons.

"Whether they considered it research or not is irrelevant," he said.

"All the data points to the fact that these techniques were designed to cause harm, cause pain and cause suffering, so it's ridiculous to claim you can make them safe," he added.

bob.drogin@latimes.com

That was no experiment; it was torture

Michael McGough
Opinion L.A.
June 8, 2010 | 1:01 pm

It's a startling and stomach-turning allegation: that CIA doctors subjected suspected terrorists to "Human Subject Research and Experimentation." But a new report from Physicians for Human Rights doesn't deliver on that assertion, which conjures up images of Nazi concentration-camp laboratories.

The "white paper" does, however, document the role medical professionals played in enabling waterboarding and other acts of what any reasonable person would call torture. Their role is shocking even if one accepts the explanation that the CIA's Office of Medical Services collected data on these "enhanced interrogation techniques" in order to ensure that interrogators didn't go too far.

Consider these findings by Physicians for Human Rights:

"1. Medical personnel were required to monitor all waterboarding practices and collect detailed medical information that was used to design, develop and deploy subsequent waterboarding procedures.

"2. Information on the effects of simultaneous versus sequential application of the interrogation techniques on detainees was collected and used to establish the policy for using tactics in combination. These data were gathered through an assessment of the presumed "susceptibility" of the subjects to severe pain.

"3. Information collected by health professionals on the effects of sleep deprivation was used to establish the 'enhanced' interrogation program's (EIP's) sleep deprivation policy."

What shocks the conscience about these techniques, and the role of health professionals in enabling them, is not Nazi-like "medical experimentation" designed to amass academic information, but the acts themselves. By overreaching and alleging "human experimentation," the report distracts attention from its really damning findings.

Right-wing D.C. think tank spawns Israeli PR blunder

washingtonpost.com/spy-talk
By Jeff Stein
June 6, 2010; 6:15 PM ET

“We think this is an important Israeli contribution to the discussion of recent events,” the Center for Security Policy's Caroline Glick wrote on her Web site Friday, touting a video mocking Monday night's deadly flotilla incident, “and we hope you distribute it far and wide.”

Evidently Israeli media-relations officials took Glick's advice -- and set off a public relations backlash.

“We Con the World,” a parody of the 1985 Michael Jackson-Lionel Ritchie video, “We Are the World,” was produced by Latma TV, an Israel-based “project” of the Center for Security Policy, a conservative think tank with close ties to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, managed by Glick.

It opens with a man dressed as a ship captain singing, with mock earnestness, "There comes a time, when we need to make a show, for the world, the Web and CNN."

"There's no people dying, so the best that we can do is create the greatest bluff of all," another sings, apparently referring to the people on board the lead ship in the flotilla.

Sings another, “We must go on pretending day by day, that in Gaza, there's crisis, hunger and plague, ‘coz the billion bucks in aid won't buy their basic needs.”

Three hours after distributing the video link, and after several conservative Web sites had likewise touted it, Israeli media-relations officials apologized, saying it had been distributed “inadvertently.”

"We would like to recall the message, ‘Caroline Glick and the Flotilla Band,’” it said.

"Earlier today, we inadvertently released a video link that we had received, which was intended for our perusal, not for general release," a follow-up statement said. "The contents of the video in no way reflect the official policy of the State of Israel, the Government Press Office or any other government body."

A veteran CIA operations officer called the video “pretty clever agitprop,” a term for psychological warfare, implying it was done by, or on behalf of, the Netanyahu administration, which has been widely condemned for its attack on the Turkey-backed aid flottilla to Gaza.

Glick, who lives in Jerusalem, was a captain in the Israel Defense Forces in the mid-1990s and later served as assistant foreign policy advisor to Netanyahu during his 1997-1998 administration.

The Center for Security Policy was founded in 1988 by Frank Gaffney, Jr., a Reagan-administration Defense Department official, who has close ties to prominent pro-Israel activists.