Thursday, October 4th, 2007

Time	Event
5:06a	Home My favorite pornography http://www.salon.com/opinion/keillor/2007/10/03/home/print.html I used to pore over the Sunday real estate ads and imagine how happy I'd be in that beach cottage on Antigua. But they don't call to me anymore. By Garrison Keillor Oct. 03, 2007 | Sitting in Cleveland, waiting for a plane, I reached in my pocket for scrap paper to write a phone number on and found the epistle for last Sunday. St. Paul said, "As for those who in the present day are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment," which makes sense as the dollar falls and the price of oil rises and the auto business heads south and the housing market shudders and suddenly nobody is quite sure how much the house is worth and the slow-motion disaster of Iraq <http://dir.salon.com/topics/iraq/> grinds on and on, the Arctic ice cap has shrunk by a million square miles, so we'd better start learning to enjoy long walks in the woods, apples and flirting, all the God-given pleasures. We face uncertain times. Those of us brought up on the Bible <http://dir.salon.com/topics/the_bible/> remember the parable of the rich man in hell and the beggar Lazarus in paradise, and yet we still do enjoy fine restaurants and four-star hotels -- though we see flames licking at the windows -- because it takes a hardscrabble upbringing to truly appreciate the home beautiful, the exquisite salad, the bison rib-eye in mushroom sauce, the braised tomatoes. As Emily Dickinson said, "To comprehend a nectar requires sorest need." More than hotels and restaurants, I love the Sunday real estate ads, my favorite pornography -- the big frame house overlooking Puget Sound, the penthouse at 72nd and Broadway, the beach cottage on Antigua, the stone house on the Isle of Harris -- I look at them and imagine how happy at last I would be, if I could only take one more leap. I grew up north of Minneapolis, in a white frame house my dad built. 3BR, LR, DR, EIK, with a large picture window that looked south across a cornfield. I looked beyond the corn and imagined my true mother, the Broadway actress Eileen Flambeau, before her unfortunate car crash that resulted in the amnesia that led her to give me up for adoption by Midwestern Protestants, sweeping through the door in a red dress, humming Gershwin, nibbling a shrimp, crying, "Dahling!" She was fabulously rich, of course, and would have packed me off to Exeter and Yale, and I wouldn't have had to ride the yellow bus to Anoka High School and suffer through phys-ed class where Coach stalked the gym, a short bald man with hair on his back, and made me run and dive over the horse and do a forward roll, though I was 6-foot-2 and weighed 138 and was nearsighted and timid, but that's life, it's just one thing after another. We did not lead elegant lives in our 3BR home. You could find orange rinds behind the sofa cushions and socks on the floor. And if company dropped in, unexpected, we raced around, hurling stuff into closets, and opened the door and pretended to be happily surprised. We apologized for the mess and offered them coffee. "Oh, don't go to any trouble," they said. If people knew the truth about us -- if they saw where we live when it's not cleaned up -- would they still like us? I have never resolved this terrible question. It's what makes a man restless, always running away from people who know him too well and looking for friendly strangers. And rich people are freer to travel and they are so much more attractive, are they not? Yes, indeed. They dwell in marble halls and some of that marbliness rubs off on them and lifts them above the tawdry struggle for fame and lucre and free upgrades that occupies us peasants. And they have people to pick up their orange peels and socks. But it dawned on me the other day that I am not reading the real estate ads anymore. The seaside manse in Connecticut with tennis court and separate servants' quarters ($12.4 million) is lovely, dark and deep, but it doesn't call to me. I live in a home where people miss me when I'm gone, even though they know me very well. My cellphone rings and a little girl asks in a plaintive orphan's voice, "What time do you get home?" A God-given pleasure, afforded to rich and poor alike. Without that, there would be no "here" or "there," you wouldn't be gone at all, you'd just be wherever you are, which, in my case, is Cleveland. Heading for Milwaukee in minutes. Home tomorrow, dahling. (Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" can be heard Saturday nights on public radio stations across the country.) © 2007 by Garrison Keillor. All rights reserved. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc. -- By Garrison Keillor (Comment on this)
5:08a	Civil Rights ... "My personal opinion, for what it is worth, is that the African Anglican hierarchy itself has something to repent. It has proceeded as though African gay men and lesbians do not exist, even though some are also members of its flock. It has endorsed the prejudice and stereotypes about African gay men and lesbians - namely that they are both "unAfrican" and "unholy." The outcomes? At the worst end of the scale, consider this. On July 7 this year, two black South African lesbians were executed in Soweto. It is believed that they were followed home after a party. They were removed from their car, taken to a field and gang-raped before being executed. Their deaths were not isolated. Another woman, also known to be a lesbian, was killed in Cape Town around the same time. And, in line with the ignorant idea that lesbians can be "fixed," over 10 women known to be lesbians were raped. An atmosphere of fear has been created." ... Full story: http://allafrica.com/stories/200710021049.html (Comment on this)
5:38a	Book Reviews: Publishers Weekly Lost in Transmission: What We Can and Cannot Know About the Words of Jesus Nicholas Perrin. Thomas Nelson, $21.99 (224p) ISBN 978-0-8499-0367-0 Perrin, a professor of New Testament at conservative Wheaton College in Illinois, addresses his first book as a response to Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus. He hopes evangelical readers will not simply ignore the controversy (or the gnawing doubts it may create) but will understand both Ehrman's critique and the many reasons Perrin argues for surety. Rather than going through questions about New Testament Greek word-by-word, Perrin approaches the topic more philosophically, offering a history of textual criticism and of liberal and conservative views. His main assurance stems from the focus of Jewish culture on preserving text and the motivation of biblical authors and scribes to record everything accurately. He also meets Ehrman's personal story of walking away from faith with his own journey from secularism into Buddhism and eventually Christianity, as a searching, party-loving college student. There are both great strengths and weaknesses here—Perrin's overview is simple to read and quite helpful at placing the debates within context, but skeptics will find him occasionally dodging tough questions with statements like, "being Christian does not also require us to be rationalists." In the end, he concludes that the four gospels contain "equivalents and approximations, but they are indeed the words of Jesus." (Jan. 8) From Stone to Living Word: Letting the Bible Live Again Debbie Blue. Brazos, $16.99 paper (224p) ISBN 978-1-58743-190-6 To many readers, "bibliolatry" is a new and frightening word. It describes a phenomenon where the Bible itself, rather than the God of the Bible, becomes an object of worship. Blue, a pastor, author and teacher who is part of the ministry team at works with the House of Mercy in St. Paul, Minn., believes that such a worshipful attitude toward the Bible is a form of idolatry, and that the sacred volume needs to be freed from the clutches of biblical literalists. In this rich and satisfying study, she draws from both her own life's journey , and from the stories of those to whom she ministers, to explore some of the better-known biblical accounts in a new way, enabling the casual reader to find value in a book that some consider filled with fables and morality tales. Indeed, Blue displays not just knowledge of the book, but an intimacy with its underlying meaning. Her prose is clear and precise, written for the lay reader who is interested in many of the questions raised by the emerging church movement. Faith itself, she insists, becomes "a freaking crazy and beautiful thing" when the Bible can be liberated from the literalists. (Jan.) By Faith Alone: One Family's Epic Journey Through 400 Years of American Protestantism Bill Griffeth. Random House, $24 (288p) ISBN 978-0-307-33728-3 In this blend of genealogical detective story, church history, and travelogue, Griffeth traces a family tree that has, for more than four centuries, intersected many of the great themes of American history. A financial journalist and anchor of CNBC's Power Lunch, Griffeth's journey includes trips to England, the Netherlands, the Eastern Seaboard and the Midwest to set his family narrative in the broader context of European and American religious history. Fleeing England to avoid religious persecution in the early 17th century, the three families Griffeth researched eventually ended up in America, where members settled in American colonies, took part in the Methodist religious revivals of the early 19th century, and joined the great move westward. As Griffeth recounts in one of the book's more moving chapters, several of his ancestors were tried and executed in the infamous 1692 Salem witch trials. Meticulously researched , and written with a great eye for detail, the writing sometimes seems descriptive rather than evocative, as though the author writer was observing someone else's past. The volume may motivate those amateur genealogists who wish to explore how the experiences of their ancestors, too, became a part of the American experience, shaping the narratives , and faith journeys , of future generations. (Dec. 31) (Comment on this)
5:42a	Anglican Authority Question Letter to Bishop John Shelby Spong, I have been reading your books and weekly Internet essays for a long time. I even had the chance to meet you when you lectured in Houston, and I attended other lectures you gave here, all of which have enriched me. Here is what lies heavy on my heart now: It occurs to me that the Episcopal Church has not heretofore established a rule (I do not know if "rule" is the correct term) that gays and lesbians can't marry one another, or a rule that would prevent a gay or lesbian person from becoming a priest or bishop. Otherwise, why are certain bishops trying to get these rules carved in stone in an either/or way? It also occurs to me that those who favor these rules are the ones who are breaking away from those who do not favor them and/or who have blessed the marriages and appointed the bishop. What comes to mind is the cause of the first schism in the Church, between Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. That came about when one side, the Romans, acted without following established practice, which was that all decisions must be made by unanimous consent of the bishops. The debate at that time was about whether the Holy Spirit came from the Father or from the Father and the Son (the filioque clause). Rome, not Constantinople, caused this schism, at least according to what my Orthodox friends told me when my wife and I took the pilgrimage to Russia in 1988 to celebrate the millennium of Christianity in Russia. It's ironic that the ones who do not wish to break away from the others are the ones being blamed (and cursed, I assume) for creating the threat of schism in out time. I guess they are doing this so they can claim the properties owned by the Church and be in the position to force the departure of the "dissenters." In view of this, I urge the ones who do not favor the new rules not to take a defensive attitude in this affair, but, instead, continue to open their doors, minds, and hearts to those who do, with the hope that all will realize that it is Christ's Church. Before I end this m! essage, I want to ask a question about the deadline. Who gave any bishop the authority to set a deadline on another bishop for the settlement of any issue that confronts the Church? To me, this is another example of the anarchy mindset that has befallen our government and now our Church. Thank you for your efforts in support of those who others want to marginalize. Dear Edward, Thank you for your letter. You have analyzed the situation in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion exactly right. The facts are that there has never been a canonical prohibition against gay marriages or gay ordination made by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in its entire history. There is no other authority in this Church that can do so according to our Canons or laws. The idea that an unelected advisory body called "the Primates" who represent no one other than themselves has any authority over any part of this Church borders on absurdity. The Anglican Church is hierarchical, but only up to the national level. It is in fact a communion of national churches. The authority in every national body is the Synod or National gathering of the representatives of that national body. The Archbishop of Canterbury, who is not elected by anyone but is rather an appointee of the British Prime Minister and the Queen, has authority only in the Church of England. He is the symbolic leader of the Anglican Communion, but not a figure within any part of that Communion outside of England, and that includes Wales and Scotland! There is much positioning in the Anglican Church today. I regard it as much ado about nothing. I believe my church will weather this storm by doing nothing other than continuing to bear witness to the fact that God's love is not limited. - John Shelby Spong (Comment on this)
6:11a	The Kite Runner Today ‘The Kite Runner’ Is Delayed to Protect Child Stars By DAVID M. HALBFINGER LOS ANGELES, Oct. 3 — The studio distributing “The Kite Runner,” a tale of childhood betrayal, sexual predation and ethnic tension in Afghanistan, is delaying the film’s release to get its three schoolboy stars out of Kabul — perhaps permanently — in response to fears that they could be attacked for their enactment of a culturally inflammatory rape scene. Executives at the distributor, Paramount Vantage, are contending with issues stemming from the rising lawlessness in Kabul in the year since the boys were cast. The boys and their relatives are now accusing the filmmakers of mistreatment, and warnings have been relayed to the studio from Afghan and American officials and aid workers that the movie could aggravate simmering enmities between the politically dominant Pashtun and the long-oppressed Hazara. In an effort to prevent not only a public-relations disaster but also possible violence, studio lawyers and marketing bosses have employed a stranger-than-fiction team of consultants. In August they sent a retired Central Intelligence Agency counterterrorism operative in the region to Kabul to assess the dangers facing the child actors. And on Sunday a Washington-based political adviser flew to the United Arab Emirates to arrange a safe haven for the boys and their relatives. “If we’re being overly cautious, that’s O.K.,” Karen Magid, a lawyer for Paramount, said. “We’re in uncharted territory.” In interviews, more than a dozen people involved in the studio’s response described grappling with vexing questions: testing the limits of corporate responsibility, wondering who was exploiting whom and pondering the price of on-screen authenticity. “The Kite Runner,” like the best-selling 2003 novel by Khaled Hosseini on which it is based, spans three decades of Afghan strife, from before the Soviet invasion through the rise of the Taliban. At its heart is a friendship between Amir, a wealthy Pashtun boy played by Zekiria Ebrahimi, and Hassan, the Hazara son of Amir’s father’s servant. In a pivotal scene Hassan is raped in an alley by a Pashtun bully. Later, Sohrab, a Hazara boy played by Ali Danish Bakhty Ari, is preyed on by a corrupt Taliban official. Though the book is admired in Afghanistan by many in the elite, its narrative remains unfamiliar to the broader population, for whom oral storytelling and rumor communication carry far greater weight. The Taliban destroyed nearly all movie theaters in Afghanistan, but pirated DVDs often arrive soon after a major film’s release in the West. As a result, Paramount Vantage, the art-house and specialty label of Paramount Pictures, has pushed back the release of the $18 million movie by six weeks, to Dec. 14, when the young stars’ school year will have ended. In January in Afghanistan, DVDs of “Kabul Express” — an Indian film in which a character hurls insults at Hazara — led to protests, government denunciations and calls for the execution of the offending actor, who fled the country. Perhaps not coincidentally, the “Kite Runner” actor who plays Hassan, Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada, 12, told reporters at that time that he feared for his life because his fellow Hazara might feel humiliated by his rape scene. His father said he himself was misled by the film’s producers, insisting that they never told him of the scene until it was about to be shot and that they had promised to cut it. Hangama Anwari, the child-rights commissioner for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said on Monday that she had urged Paramount’s counterterrorism consultant to get Ahmad Khan out of the country, at least until after the movie is released. “They should not play around with the lives and security of people,” she said of the filmmakers. “The Hazara people will take it as an insult.” The film’s director, Marc Forster, whose credits include “Finding Neverland” (2004), another film starring child actors, said he saw “The Kite Runner” as “giving a voice and a face to people who’ve been voiceless and faceless for the last 30 years.” Striving for authenticity, he said, he chose to make the film in Dari, an Afghan language, and his casting agent, Kate Dowd, held open calls in cities with sizable Afghan communities, including Fremont, Calif., Toronto and The Hague. But to no avail: Mr. Forster said he “just wasn’t connecting with anybody.” Finally, when Ms. Dowd went to Kabul in May 2006, she discovered her stars. “There was such innocence to them, despite all they’d lived through,” she said. Mr. Forster emphasized that casting Afghan boys did not seem risky at the time; local filmmakers even encouraged him, he said: “You really felt it was safe there, a democratic process was happening, and stability, and a new beginning.” Ms. Dowd and E. Bennett Walsh, a producer, said they met in Kabul with Ahmad Khan’s father, Ahmad Jaan Mahmoodzada, and told him that his son’s character was the victim of a “vicious sexual assault.” Mr. Mahmoodzada seemed unmoved, they said, remarking that “bad things happen” in movies as in life. The boy, they continued, did not receive a script until a Dari translation was available on the set in western China. The rape scene was rehearsed twice, they said, once with the father present. On Tuesday the elder Mr. Mahmoodzada, reached by cellphone, rejected this account, and said he never learned the rape was a plot point until the scene was about to be shot. He also said his son never received a script. Mr. Forster said that during rehearsals he considered including a shot of Hassan’s pants being pulled down, exposing his backside, and that neither Ahmad Khan nor his father objected. But the morning the scene was to be filmed, Mr. Forster found the boy in tears. Ahmad Khan said he did not want to be shown nude, Mr. Forster agreed to skip that shot, and the boy went ahead with the rape scene. Mr. Mahmoodzada confirmed this. In the final version of the film, the rape is conveyed impressionistically, with the unstrapping of a belt, the victim’s cries and a drop of blood. The filmmakers said they were surprised when Ahmad Khan and his father told The Sunday Times of London in January that they feared for their lives. Mr. Walsh and Rebecca Yeldham, another producer, flew to Kabul to learn more in February. The producers dispelled one fear, that the filmmakers would use computer tricks to depict the boy’s genitals in the rape scene. But Ahmad Khan’s parents also pressed for more cash, the producers said. On the advice of a Kabul television company, the boys had been paid $1,000 to $1,500 a week, far less than the Screen Actors Guild weekly scale of $2,557, but far more than what Afghan actors typically receive. In late July, with violence worsening in Kabul, studio executives looked for experts who could help them chart a safe course. Aided by lobbyists for Viacom, Paramount’s parent company, they found John Kiriakou, the retired C.I.A. operative with experience in the region, and had him conduct interviews in Washington and Kabul. “They wanted to do the right thing, but they wanted to understand what the right thing was,” Mr. Kiriakou said. There was one absolute: “Nothing will be done if it puts any kid at risk,” Megan Colligan, head of marketing at Paramount Vantage, said. Mr. Kiriakou’s briefing, which he reprised in a telephone interview, could make a pretty good movie by itself. A specialist on Islam at the State Department nearly wept envisioning a “Danish-cartoons situation,” Mr. Kiriakou said. An Afghan literature professor, he added, said Paramount was “willing to burn an already scorched nation for a fistful of dollars.” The head of an Afghan political party said the movie would energize the Taliban. Nearly everyone Mr. Kiriakou met said that the boys had to be removed from Afghanistan for their safety. And a Hazara member of Parliament warned that Pashtun and Hazara “would be killing each other every night” in response to the film’s depiction of them. None of the interviewees had seen the movie. Another consultant, whom Paramount did not identify, gave a less bleak assessment, but Ms. Colligan said the studio was taking no chances. “The only thing you get people to agree on is that the place is getting messier every single day,” she said. So on Sunday Rich Klein, a Middle East specialist at the consulting firm Kissinger McLarty Associates, flew to the United Arab Emirates to arrange visas, housing and schooling for the young actors and jobs for their guardians. (The United States is not an option, he said, because Afghans do not qualify for refugee status.) Those involved say that the studio doesn’t want to be taken advantage of, but that it could accept responsibility for the boys’ living expenses until they reach adulthood, a cost some estimated at up to $500,000. The families, of course, must first agree to the plan. “I think there was a moral obligation even before any of these things were an issue,” said Mr. Hosseini, the novel’s author, who got to know the boys on the set. “How long that obligation lasts? I don’t know that anybody has the answer to that.” Kirk Semple contributed reporting from Kabul. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company (Comment on this)
3:57p	Inflexible Idolatry Inflexible belief in bible's words misplaced faith Special to The Palm Beach Post Thursday, October 04, 2007 Idolatry is the problem. The faithful are the idolaters and, Mirable Dictu, the bible is the idol. That phenomenon triggers much of the chaos in the three great religions of the book. The turmoil often spills over into the world as prejudice, intolerance and violence. Idolatry is worshiping as god something that is not god. It is the worst of sins. The worst of idolatry is worshiping the bible. Countless millions do it. Large numbers of the faithful in each religion want to honor their scriptures as the word of God. Many read the books literally, as if God has spoken the exact words, set the type and bound the spine. They refuse to use any cultural, historical and reasonable factors to discern what the authors actually intend. These biblical purists insist that to question an iota of scripture is to doubt God, blaspheme his holy word and commit the most grievous sin. The words of the bible cannot be changed, modified, interpreted in any way. The result is that the precise details of a book filled with poetry, drama, history, myth and the social, economic and political mores of a very ancient culture written over hundreds of years and translated many times become the inerrant guide to the 21st century. As a result, the Episcopal Church is on the brink of breaking apart over issues of human sexuality condemned in ancient Rome. Climate change divides Evangelical Christians beholden to the Book of Genesis written more than 3,000 years ago. Muslims debate the meaning of Jihad used to define seventh-century spirituality. Jews argue over ancient real estate decisions in the Torah, and Catholics debate the authority of the Pope and the precise words of Jesus." ... (Comment on this)
4:11p	GI Bill Iraq Vets Say Pentagon is Denying Benefits By Scott Goldberg KARE 11 News, Minneapolis/St. Paul Wednesday 03 October 2007 When they came home from Iraq, 2,600 members of the Minnesota National Guard had been deployed longer than any other ground combat unit. The tour lasted 22 months and had been extended as part of President Bush's surge. And 1st Lt. Jon Anderson says never expected to come home to this: A government refusing to pay education benefits he says he should have earned under the GI bill. "It's pretty much a slap in the face," Anderson said. "I think it was a scheme to save money, personally. I think it was a leadership failure by the senior Washington leadership, once again failing the soldiers." Here's what happened: Anderson's orders, and the orders of 1,161 other Minnesota guard members, were written for 729 days. Had they been written for 730 days - one day more - the soldiers would receive those benefits to pay for school. "Which would be allowing the soldiers an extra $500 to $800 a month," Anderson said. That money would help him pay for his master's degree in public administration. It would help Anderson's fellow platoon leader, John Hobot, pay for a degree in law enforcement. "I would assume, and I would hope, that when I get back from a deployment of 22 months, my senior leadership in Washington - (the leadership) that extended us in the first place - would take care of us once we got home," Hobot said. Both Hobot and Anderson believe the Pentagon deliberately wrote orders for 729 days instead of 730. Now six of Minnesota's members of the House of Representatives have asked the Secretary of the Army to look into it. So have Senators Amy Klobuchar (D) and Norm Coleman (R). Klobuchar said the GI money "shouldn't be tied up in red tape," and Coleman said it's "simply irresponsible to deny education benefits to those soldiers who just completed the longest tour of duty of any unit in Iraq." Anderson said the soldiers he oversaw in his platoon expected that money to be here when they come home. "I had 23 guys under my command," Anderson said. "I promised to take care of them. And I'm not going to end taking care of them when this deployment is over, and it's not over until this is solved." The Army did not respond to KARE11's questions Tuesday afternoon. Senators Klobuchar and Coleman released a joint statement saying the Army secretary, Pete Geren, is looking into this personally. And they say Geren asked a review board to expedite its review so the matter could be solved by next semester. Minnesota National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Kevin Olson said the soldiers are "victims of a significant injustice." ------- (Comment on this)
4:19p	Burma: Defending the Powerless Monks Defended by Power of the People By Kenneth Denby The Times UK Thursday 04 October 2007 To the handful of monks still remaining at Ngwe Kya Yan monastery - bruised, scared and in shock - it must have seemed that everything was over. The soldiers and police made their first swoop in the early hours, cracking skulls, firing rubber bullets and dragging away more than 70 monks to secret detention centres. The ones who escaped returned at daybreak to their smashed and looted monastery, the blood of their brothers still glistening on the stone of the courtyard. By late afternoon, the soldiers and police returned to finish the job, but then something remarkable happened: thousands of men, women and children emerged from the surrounding houses of South Okkalopa township, converged on the narrow streets leading up to the monastery and trapped the soldiers and police inside. For more than six hours, the unarmed crowd prevented security forces from taking the monks away - until they were dispersed in a onesided street battle in which police reportedly shot dead at least two people. It was a scene repeated at monasteries and pagodas across Rangoon. At nearby Kyaik Ka San, Moe Kaung and Mahar Bawdi, local people defended the monks with their lives. In the end, their attempts appear to have been unsuccessful, but the remarkable risks they took demonstrate the depth of popular affection for the monks and the continuing loathing for the junta, despite its success in quelling last week's Saffron uprising. Who will win? Can the world help? What can the world do about the situation in Burma? Will it make any difference? Who, if anyone, can really have an influence? "People knew that they had no weapons, no strength at all against the armed military," said a local. "But still they can raise their voices to demand the safety of the monks." Rumours of local people defending monks have been circulating since last week. Yesterday The Times met two men, an engineer and a merchant seaman, both in their 40s, who witnessed the struggle at Ngwe Kya Yan. It took place last Thursday, at the height of the Government's crackdown on the pro-democracy demonstrations. After a week and a half of swelling protests, the junta finally made its move and removed the heart of the protests - the monks. Under cover of the recently announced curfew, security forces raided monasteries and pagodas across the city. At about 2am they descended on Ngwe Kya Yan, smashing windows, decapitating statues of Buddha, stealing gold jewellery and cash, and thrashing the monks with cudgels made from freshly cut bamboo. Early the next morning, the director-general of Burma's Religious Affairs Department visited the monastery to ask its abbot to leave for the Kaba Aya Pagoda in another part of the city. The engineer, who was there, said that the abbot told the official: "I will not abandon this place." He said: "The director-general told the monks to clean up all the blood, but they refused, because they wanted to show what had happened." At 11.30am, after the official delegation left, the soldiers and police returned, accompanied by members of an official militia called Masters of Force, which is frequently used by the Government to terrorise its political opponents. The engineer said: "From every side . . . people came out and surrounded the monastery. The soldiers and police inside began to panic because they cannot leave." Ngwe Kya Yan played a pivotal part in the last mass uprising against the junta, in 1988. The junta killed thousands of people in response while protesters lynched and beheaded several suspected government spies. The merchant seaman said: "The monks at this pagoda were very famous as negotiators between the people and the military in 1988. They saved the lives of some spies." He said that the locals had great affection and respect for their religious neighbours. "They \ give free lessons to the children before their exams, and they are very respected by the people." The stand-offs at Ngwe Kya Yan and nearby Kyaik Ka San took a turn for the worse after military reinforcements arrived. Soldiers surrounded the protesters and at 2pm began firing smoke grenades and rubber pellets at them. Burmese journalists claimed that they also fired live rounds at the crowds, killing two, including an 18-year-old schoolboy. The engineer said: "I didn't see it myself, but people who were in the crowd said that he \ was shot through the forehead. They kneeled down and took up shooting positions and aimed. They were deliberately targeting him." Security forces reportedly shot dead two people at Kyaik Ka San, and fatally wounded another when he accidentally leaned on his car horn after being ordered to turn around. It took the forces until 6pm to disperse the crowds and arrest the monks. Yesterday Reuters reported that 80 monks and 149 women believed to be Buddhist nuns had returned to their monasteries in the first large-scale release of detainees. Five journalists were also released, including Min Zaw, a veteran correspondent for the Japanese newspaper Shimbun. The engineer said: "We have no leaders now, and there is such an imbalance of power between the people and the Army. We have no arms, no equipment, but we cannot let the military Government carry on with this situation." Go to Original Myanmar Junta Tightens Screws By Aung Hla Tun Reuters Thursday 04 October 2007 Yangon - Despite gradually easing its iron grip on Myanmar's main city on Thursday, the junta continued to round up scores of people and grill hundreds more arrested during and after a ruthless crackdown on pro-democracy marches. In the first official remarks since a visit by U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari this week, junta chief Than Shwe said he would talk to detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi if she abandoned her "obstructive measures" and support for sanctions. Than Shwe told Gambari that Suu Kyi, who has been in detention for 12 of the last 18 years, was "confrontational" and for "utter devastation," state television said without explaining what the last accusation meant. He told Gambari that if Suu Kyi "announces publicly she has given up these four things, he would hold direct talks" with her, it said. Gambari was dispatched to Myanmar to persuade the generals to end their ruthless crackdown on protests and talk to Suu Kyi, but reports of verbal and physical abuse suggest Than Shwe is paying scant regard to his calls for restraint. "That is one of the top concerns of the international community," said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, due to attend a meeting of the 15-member Security Council on Friday to discuss the crackdown in a country now under military rule for an unbroken 45 years. Jailed for Clapping A relative of three women released said detainees were being divided into four categories: passers-by, those who watched, those who clapped and those who joined in. "They're looking for the people who led the demonstrations. The people clapping will only get a minimal punishment - maybe two to five years," said Win Min, who fled to Thailand during a crackdown on a student-led uprising in 1988. Leaders could be looking at up to 20 years behind bars, he said. People in central Yangon's Kamayut district said soldiers had arrested scores of people on Wednesday night for trying to impede a raid on the Aung Nyay Tharzi monastery a few days earlier and giving protection to fleeing Buddhist monks. Another 70 young monks rounded up in other swoops across the city a week ago were freed overnight from a government technical institute, complementing 80 monks and 149 women believed to be nuns released on Wednesday. One freed monk, who did not want his name revealed, said some had been beaten when they refused to answer questions about their identity, birthplace, parents and involvement in the protests, the biggest challenge to the junta in nearly 20 years. "The food and living conditions were horrible," the monk, from Yangon's Pyinya Yamika Maha (A) monastery told Reuters. Among those detained in the middle of the night on Wednesday was a Myanmar U.N. staff member and her two relatives. They were released, along with her driver, on Thursday, a U.N. source said. The evening state news broadcast said that since the crackdown on peaceful protests led by monks began last week, 2,093 people had been arrested and 692 released after interrogators deemed them innocent. India Protest The junta's crackdown has provoked scores of protests around the world and on Thursday hundreds of Buddhist monks in yellow robes marched in India chanting hymns, and waving placards that read "Stop Killing" and "No violence against democracy." Gambari was to brief Ban after arriving in New York on Thursday in the midst of international outrage at the use of soldiers against peaceful columns of Buddhist monks and civilians demanding an end to military rule. Official media say 10 people were killed, including a Japanese video journalist, although Western governments say the final toll is likely to be far higher. The body of 50-year-old Kenji Nagai, shot dead near Yangon's Sule Pagoda, returned home on Thursday for an autopsy whose results could lead to Tokyo making good on a threat to scale back economic assistance to Myanmar, one of Asia's poorest countries. Fears of a repeat of 1988, when the army killed an estimated 3,000 people in a crackdown lasting several months, were not realized, but even China, the junta's closest ally, made a rare public call for restraint. China praised Gambari's mission - which Western diplomats said Beijing helped facilitate - saying it gave his efforts a "positive appraisal." ------- (Comment on this)
4:27p	Public School, Church School The Religious Right's New Tactics for Invading Public Schools By Rob Boston Church and State Magazine Thursday 04 October 2007 In mid-August, Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed something called the "Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act" into law. Although the new law has an innocuous-sounding title, it's really a ticking time-bomb, opponents say. The law requires every public school in the state to adopt a policy guaranteeing students' right to religious expression. It mandates that schools create "limited public forums" for religious and other types of speech. A student could, for example, read the morning announcements over a loudspeaker and then lapse into a prayer or mini-sermon. Many people think the law is yet another effort to get around the Supreme Court's rulings on separation of church and state in public schools - and they're expecting a torrent of litigation to result. "This law is fundamentally at odds with the principle of religious freedom," said Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, an Austin-based group that opposes the machinations of the Religious Right. "It will force public school students to participate in public events that promote religious views - through prayer or even proselytizing - that they and their families may not share or may even find deeply offensive. So rather than protecting religious freedom, this law represents a grave threat to it. "Rather than providing schools with training and appropriate guidelines for protecting First Amendment freedoms," Miller said, "legislators decided to play politics with our children's faith. So now they have recklessly put local schools and their taxpayers at risk of expensive lawsuits." The law is of dubious constitutionality, and some school officials in the state are exasperated. Charles Perkins, Abilene Independent School District's assistant superintendent, told the Abilene Reporter-News, "I really do feel like the state law has been very confusing. It's opened some doors that no one thought to go through." Perkins added, "Really and truly, we're just trying to have school, and I think this is a complicating factor." The Texas law, which was drafted and promoted by a Religious Right group called the Liberty Legal Institute, is yet another salvo in a long-running battle in America over the proper place of religion in public schools. The Supreme Court ruled 45 years ago that public schools may not sponsor prayer, Bible reading and other forms of religious worship. Rulings since then have generally extended that principle, while protecting truly voluntary religious activity in the schools. But some people have never made their peace with the school prayer rulings. After the decisions were handed down in 1962 and '63, numerous constitutional amendments were introduced in Congress to "restore" prayer to schools. They have been a permanent fixture on the political scene since then, although none has passed. Frustrated, Religious Right advocates are adopting new strategies to bring state-sanctioned fundamentalist outreach into the schools. The Texas law, critics say, is merely a new twist on an old fight. It's not the only one. As another school year got under way last month, public schools around the nation found themselves under siege by groups obsessed with using the schools as instruments of evangelism. The Texas law reflects the Religious Right's latest ploy: drafting students as evangelists to preach to a captive audience of their peers. The groups hope that the courts will consider the prayers and sermons offered during the "limited public forum" as a form of free speech that is, technically, not sponsored by the school. One of the drafters of the law, a Houston attorney named Kelly J. Coghlan, urges students to lead their peers in prayer before the beginning of the school day as well as before football games, graduation ceremonies and other school events. "For many years, students have been reluctant to stand up and express their faith in public schools for fear of being disciplined," Coghlan writes on his Web site. "Students should no longer have such fear. Schools are not religion-free zones; school officials are not prayer police; and students of faith are not enemies of the state. The new law makes this clear." Coghlan fails to point out that his gambit is legally suspect. After the high court's school prayer rulings were handed down, some school districts tried to save school prayer by shifting the practice from school officials to student volunteers. One New Jersey school district even convened a daily five-minute assembly during which a student read the daily chaplain's prayer from the Congressional Record. Courts saw through these ruses and struck them down. Nevertheless, some students seem eager to take matters into their own hands. Graduation ceremonies are sometimes marked by speakers who veer off into fundamentalist tangents. ABC News reported that in Duval County, Fla., earlier this year, valedictorian Shannon Spaulding of Wolfson High School "quoted the Bible and spoke about Jesus Christ, suggesting that those who didn't believe would go to hell." Spaulding told the crowd, "I want to tell you that Jesus Christ can give you eternal life in heaven. If we die with that sin on our souls, we will immediately be pulled down to hell to pay the eternal price for our sins ourselves." Some attendees were predictably displeased with the sermon, and school officials apologized. In Monument, Colo., a disgruntled valedictorian who misled school officials about the content of her speech is going to court. Erica Corder was one of several speakers during graduation ceremonies at Lewis-Palmer High School in May 2006. Students were required to clear their speeches with the principal first. Corder did so, but then added sermonizing later. "We are all capable of standing firm and expressing our own beliefs, which is why I need to tell you about someone who loves you more than you could ever imagine," Corder said. "He died for you on a cross over 2,000 years ago, yet was resurrected and is living today in heaven. His name is Jesus Christ. If you don't already know him personally, I encourage you to find out more about the sacrifice he made for you so that you now have the opportunity to live in eternity with him." School officials threatened to withhold Corder's diploma until she apologized. She is now in court, arguing that school officials violated her rights. Other issues public schools face include: Creationism/Intelligent Design The courtroom defeat of "intelligent design" (ID) in Dover, Pa., two years ago left creationists reeling - but not for long. To no one's surprise, groups that promote elevating theology over science have re-tooled for the umpteenth time and are again shopping their wares to the public schools. The Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based organization that promotes ID, has just published Explore Evolution, a textbook it is promoting to biology teachers nationwide. Despite its title, the book does not so much explore evolution as try to debunk it, relying, critics say, on the same old pseudo-scientific arguments that are stock in trade among the creationists. Opponents of evolution have tried these tactics before. After the Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law mandating "balanced treatment" between evolution and creationism, creationists began advocating the instruction of "evidence against evolution." This was simply young-Earth creationism with a new name. The Discovery Institute's tactics are more sophisticated. The group does not endorse young-Earth creationism, for example. But critics say the organization's new book is yet another attempt to slip ID, a religiously grounded concept, into the schools. "Explore Evolution is a real piece of work," Joshua Rosenau, public information project director for the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), said. "Everything from the author list to the content reveals the book's deep links with earlier generations of creationism, however hard they try to obscure that heritage." The NCSE, based in Oakland, Calif., defends the teaching of evolution in public schools, and Rosenau recently reviewed for the group. He added, "Like previous creationist works, it attacks evolution with misrepresentations and misunderstandings, but where previous generations of textbooks claimed this as evidence of divine intervention, Explore Evolution leaves that leap to students and teachers. Needless to say, we have yet to identify any criticisms of evolution in the book which do not have a long history in the creationist literature." Advocates of sound science education are also watching Texas warily. Gov. Perry has appointed Don McLeroy, a dentist from Bryan, as head of the State Board of Education. McLeroy, who was first elected to the board in 1998, has regularly voted to water down instruction about evolution. The Texas Freedom Network noted that McLeroy promoted ID during a 2005 speech delivered to his fundamentalist church. According to a report on the blog of The Texas Observer, McLeroy told the congregation that intelligent design is a "big tent" that represents religious conservatives' best shot at undermining evolution. "Why is Intelligent Design the big tent?" asked McLeroy. "Because we're all lined up against the fact that naturalism, that nature is all there is. Whether you're a progressive creationist, recent creationist, young Earth, old Earth, it's all in the tent of Intelligent Design." Pointing out that as chairman, McLeroy will oversee the first overhaul of Texas' science curriculum standards since 2003, the Observer remarked, "Get ready to redo the Scopes Trial, folks." Teaching "About" The Bible Across the country, public schools are being pressured to adopt classes that teach "about" the Bible. Three states - Texas, Georgia and South Carolina - have adopted legislation authorizing such classes. Other states are considering similar laws. The concept sounds non-controversial on its face. The Supreme Court, in fact, has stated that objective classes about religion do not violate the First Amendment. The problem comes with implementation. There is a dearth of material available, and what is out there tends to skew toward conservative, evangelical interpretations of the Bible. A curriculum created by the Bible Literacy Project (BLP), for example, is being heavily promoted as a middle-of-the-road approach that is appropriate for use in public schools. But Americans United has pointed out that the BLP's textbook, The Bible and Its Influence, hews to a generally evangelical interpretation, contains errors and has recently undergone several changes at the behest of fundamentalist critics. Other analysts have scored the book for failing to include serious biblical scholarship. The BLP is run by a wealthy Religious Right activist named Charles Stetson, a graduate of Charles W. Colson's Wilberforce Centurion training program. Colson, who embraced evangelical Christianity while serving time in prison for Watergate-era offenses, has become increasingly strident and theocratic in his outlook. Unfortunately, the main alternative to the BLP's curriculum is even worse. Curriculum materials produced by the North Carolina-based National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (NCBCPS) overtly reflect fundamentalist views. Portions of the group's curriculum have already been declared unconstitutional. Nevertheless, education officials nationwide are being pressured to introduce Bible classes. Earlier this year, Americans United wrote to officials with the South Carolina Department of Education, which, under a new state law, has been charged with adopting academic standards and appropriate instructional materials for two optional courses on the Bible: History and Literature of the Old Testament and History and Literature of the New Testament. In a letter to State Superintendent of Education Jim Rex and other officials, Americans United advised South Carolina educators to follow specific steps to assure that the classes remain focused on objective education, not religious indoctrination. To survive a legal challenge, the courses must present the Bible in a secular, objective and academic manner, AU asserted. AU also said the classes must expose students to critical perspectives on the Bible and a diversity of biblical interpretations; refrain from portraying the Bible as literal, religious truth; and not present a particular sectarian point of view. Several court cases are cited to back up these assertions. A district in Dorchester County is apparently the first to approve a Bible class under the new law. The instructor, Laura Knotts, has promised to focus on the Bible's influence on culture, art and literature, but some parents in the community charge that Knotts lacks the academic qualifications to teach the class. Knotts has said she will use the BLP's textbook but add in material from the National Council. Some members of the community are concerned. On an Internet bulletin board that is used by some church-state activists in the area, one woman charged that at a candidates' forum earlier this year, some candidates who now sit on the board advocated teaching creationism alongside of or in place of evolution. "The rush, the secrecy, and the prior comments give me the feeling an agenda is being pushed instead of real interest in our children's education," she wrote. "Is that what we should expect for the future?" On Sept. 7, AU attorneys wrote to officials at the Dorchester schools, urging them to drop the class as it is currently constituted. The lawyers pointed out that use of the NCBCPS's materials is especially problematic, as the group's mission is clearly evangelistic. Based on what has happened elsewhere, critics of these classes have good cause to be concerned. In Texas, for example, courses that purport to teach "about" the Bible have been popular in several districts. But a study last year by the Texas Freedom Network found that most of the courses came up short. Mark Chancey, a biblical scholar at Southern Methodist University who authored the study, found that many "teach about the Bible" courses fail to meet minimal academic standards and that many teachers are not qualified. Chancey found that many districts present the Protestant version of the Bible as true and make other sectarian assumptions. The Bible, he said, is often presented as literal truth and the stories in it as factual. Judaism is portrayed with a Christian bias, sometimes as a faith that was "completed" by Christianity. Other courses have been used to prop up creationism and bogus "Christian nation" historical views. Many districts in Texas rely on the NCBCPS's flawed curriculum. That may soon change. In May, eight parents challenged the use of the National Council's material in Odessa. The Moreno v. Ector County Independent School District lawsuit alleges that the National Council's curriculum is designed to promote fundamentalist Christianity, not objective instruction about religion. Religion-Themed Charter/Public Schools Recently, disputes erupted in New York and Florida over publicly funded schools that have been accused of having a religious focus. In Florida, controversy erupted over a decision to open Ben Gamla Charter School in Hollywood. Charter schools are publicly funded but are free of some of the regulations imposed on other public schools. They are often run by community groups, non-profits or business leaders. Despite the looser regulations, charters must still abide by constitutional requirements. The spat in New York centers on the Khalil Gibran International Academy in Brooklyn, part of a group of small public schools in the city that focuses on foreign languages. Critics allege the school, which offers an Arabic language course, will promote fundamentalist Islam, but they have provided no evidence to back up the claim. Neither the New York nor the Florida cases involved a school with a fundamentalist Christian approach, but Religious Right groups are certain to adopt the tactic if it survives constitutional scrutiny. Americans United is monitoring both situations. On Aug. 7, AU lawyers sent a letter to officials with the Broward County Public Schools, expressing concern about Ben Gamla's curriculum. The school's backers have proposed using a Hebrew-language textbook that contains religious content. AU urged officials to withdraw the book. "Federal courts across the country have also made clear that the prohibition against public-school religious instruction extends to the use of teaching materials that present the Bible or religious doctrine as truth, or that otherwise endorse religious views," AU's letter asserted. The Associated Press reported last month that officials in Broward County will "create training programs for teachers and board members to ensure the separation of church and state" and that "lesson plans will be submitted monthly for district review." The situation in New York is murkier, as no proof has been offered that the Khalil Gibran International Academy is teaching religion. It is run in conjunction with the Arab American Family Support Center, an organization the New York City Department of Education refers to as a "secular social service agency." Its backers insist the school will focus on the Arab language, but not Islam. The school's Muslim principal was recently replaced with a Jewish principal. "Religion plays absolutely no part in the school," an education official in New York City vowed. "This is a public school; it wouldn't play a part in any of our schools." In Washington, D.C., Americans United has also been responding to complaints of inappropriate religious activity at a public charter school. Parents have complained that the headmaster of Washington Latin School, T. Robinson Ahlstrom, leads students in prayer during daily assemblies. The school is currently housed at Christ Church, and the meetings are held in the sanctuary, which is festooned with religious iconography. Americans United attorneys have written to Ahlstrom and charter school officials in Washington, telling them to immediately cease the school-sponsored religious activities. Right on the heels of that controversy, the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., announced it would seek to convert eight inner-city parochial schools into public charters. Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl said the church can no longer afford to keep the schools open and insisted that as charters, the institutions will be secular. The Washington Post reported that "the schools would still have strong values, but the schools' names would change and specific religious references would be stripped from the curriculum." Arne Duncan, head of the Chicago public school system, told The Post such conversions are possible. That city, he said, has two charters that spun off from a Catholic school. "There are some church-state issues," Duncan said. "But if you're really trying to innovate and think outside the box, they are absolutely surmountable." ----------- Rob Boston is the associate editor for Church and State magazine. ------- (Comment on this)
4:42p	Darkness at (the American) Noon Secret US Endorsement of Severe Interrogations By Scott Shane, David Johnston and James Risen The New York Times Thursday 04 October 2007 Washington - When the Justice Department publicly declared torture "abhorrent" in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations. But soon after Alberto Gonzales's arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency. The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on "combined effects" over the objections of James Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion's overreaching legal reasoning, Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be "ashamed" when the world eventually learned of it. Later that year, as Congress moved toward outlawing "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment, the Justice Department issued another secret opinion, one most lawmakers did not know existed, current and former officials said. The Justice Department document declared that none of the CIA interrogation methods violated that standard. The classified opinions, never previously disclosed, are a hidden legacy of President George W. Bush's second term and Gonzales's tenure at the Justice Department, where he moved quickly to align it with the White House after a 2004 rebellion by staff lawyers that had thrown policies on surveillance and detention into turmoil. Congress and the Supreme Court have intervened repeatedly in the last two years to impose limits on interrogations, and the administration has responded as a policy matter by dropping the most extreme techniques. But the 2005 Justice Department opinions remain in effect, and their legal conclusions have been confirmed by several more recent memorandums, officials said. They show how the White House has succeeded in preserving the broadest possible legal latitude for harsh tactics. A White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, said Wednesday that he would not comment on any legal opinion related to interrogations. Fratto added, "We have gone to great lengths, including statutory efforts and the recent executive order, to make it clear that the intelligence community and our practices fall within U.S. law" and international agreements. More than two dozen current and former officials involved in counterterrorism were interviewed over the past three months about the opinions and the deliberations on interrogation policy. Most officials would speak only on the condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the documents and the CIA detention operations they govern. When he stepped down as attorney general in September after widespread criticism of the firing of federal prosecutors and withering attacks on his credibility, Gonzales talked proudly in a farewell speech of how his department was "a place of inspiration" that had balanced the necessary flexibility to conduct the war on terrorism with the need to uphold the law. Associates at the Justice Department said Gonzales seldom resisted pressure from Vice President Dick Cheney and David Addington, Cheney's counsel, to endorse policies that they saw as effective in safeguarding Americans, even though the practices brought the condemnation of other governments, human rights groups and Democrats in Congress. Critics say Gonzales turned his agency into an arm of the Bush White House, undermining the department's independence. The interrogation opinions were signed by Steven G. Bradbury, who since 2005 has headed the elite Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department. He has become a frequent public defender of the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program and detention policies at congressional hearings and press briefings, a role that some legal scholars say is at odds with the office's tradition of avoiding political advocacy. Bradbury defended the work of his office as the government's most authoritative interpreter of the law. "In my experience, the White House has not told me how an opinion should come out," he said in an interview. "The White House has accepted and respected our opinions, even when they didn't like the advice being given." The debate over how terrorism suspects should be held and questioned began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the Bush administration adopted secret detention and coercive interrogation, both practices the United States had previously denounced when used by other countries. It adopted the new measures without public debate or congressional vote, choosing to rely instead on the confidential legal advice of a handful of appointees. The policies set off bruising internal battles, pitting administration moderates against hard-liners, military lawyers against Pentagon chiefs and, most surprising, a handful of conservative lawyers at the Justice Department against the White House in the stunning mutiny of 2004. But under Gonzales and Bradbury, the Justice Department was wrenched back into line with the White House. After the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the Geneva Conventions applied to prisoners who belonged to Al Qaeda, Bush for the first time acknowledged the CIA's secret jails and ordered their inmates moved to Guant‡namo Bay, Cuba. The CIA halted its use of waterboarding, or pouring water over a bound prisoner's cloth-covered face to induce fear of suffocation. But in July, after a monthlong debate inside the administration, Bush signed a new executive order authorizing the use of what the administration calls "enhanced" interrogation techniques - the details remain secret - and officials say the CIA again is holding prisoners in "black sites" overseas. The executive order was reviewed and approved by Bradbury and the Office of Legal Counsel. Douglas Kmiec, who headed that office under President Ronald Reagan and the first President George Bush and wrote a book about it, said he believed the intense pressures of the campaign against terrorism have warped the office's proper role. "The office was designed to insulate against any need to be an advocate," said Kmiec, now a conservative scholar at Pepperdine University law school. But at times in recent years, Kmiec said, the office, headed by William H. Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia before they served on the Supreme Court, "lost its ability to say no." "The approach changed dramatically with opinions on the war on terror," Kmiec said. "The office became an advocate for the president's policies." From the secret sites in Afghanistan, Thailand and Eastern Europe where CIA teams held Qaeda terrorists, questions for the lawyers at CIA headquarters arrived daily. Nervous interrogators wanted to know: Are we breaking the laws against torture? The Bush administration had entered uncharted legal territory beginning in 2002, holding prisoners outside the scrutiny of the International Red Cross and subjecting them to harrowing pressure tactics. They included slaps to the head; hours held naked in a frigid cell; days and nights without sleep while battered by thundering rock music; long periods manacled in stress positions; or the ultimate, waterboarding. Never in history had the United States authorized such tactics. While Bush and CIA officials would later insist that the harsh measures produced crucial intelligence, many veteran interrogators, psychologists and other experts say that less coercive methods are equally or more effective. With virtually no experience in interrogations, the CIA had constructed its program in a few harried months by consulting Egyptian and Saudi intelligence officials and copying Soviet interrogation methods long used in training American servicemen to withstand capture. The agency officers questioning prisoners constantly sought advice from lawyers thousands of miles away. "We were getting asked about combinations - 'Can we do this and this at the same time?'" recalled Paul Kelbaugh, a veteran intelligence lawyer who was deputy legal counsel at the CIA's Counterterrorist Center from 2001 to 2003. Interrogators were worried that even approved techniques had such a painful, multiplying effect when combined that they might cross the legal line, Kelbaugh said. He recalled agency officers asking: "These approved techniques, say, withholding food, and 50-degree temperature - can they be combined?" Or "Do I have to do the less extreme before the more extreme?" The questions came more frequently, Kelbaugh said, as word spread about a CIA inspector general inquiry unrelated to the war on terrorism. Some veteran CIA officers came under scrutiny because they were advisers to Peruvian officers who in early 2001 shot down a missionary flight they had mistaken for a drug-running aircraft. The Americans were not charged with crimes, but they endured three years of investigation, saw their careers derailed and ran up big legal bills. That experience shook the Qaeda interrogation team, Kelbaugh said. "You think you're making a difference and maybe saving 3,000 American lives from the next attack. And someone tells you, 'Well, that guidance was a little vague, and the inspector general wants to talk to you,'" he recalled. "We couldn't tell them, 'Do the best you can,' because the people who did the best they could in Peru were looking at a grand jury." Kelbaugh said the questions were sometimes close calls that required consultation with the Justice Department. But in August 2002, the department provided a sweeping legal justification for even the harshest tactics. That opinion, which would become infamous as "the torture memo" after it was leaked, was written largely by John Yoo, a young Berkeley law professor serving in the Office of Legal Counsel. His broad views of presidential power were shared by Addington, the vice president's adviser. Their close alliance provoked John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, to refer privately to Yoo as Yes for his seeming eagerness to give the White House whatever legal justifications it desired, a Justice Department official recalled. Yoo's memorandum said no interrogation practices were illegal unless they produced pain equivalent to organ failure or "even death." A second memo produced at the same time spelled out the approved practices and how often or how long they could be used. Despite that guidance, in March 2003, when the CIA caught Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, interrogators were again haunted by uncertainty. Former intelligence officials, for the first time, disclosed that a variety of tough interrogation tactics were used about 100 times over two weeks on Mohammed. Agency officials then ordered a halt, fearing the combined assault might have amounted to illegal torture. A CIA spokesman, George Little, declined to discuss the handling of Mohammed. Little said the program "has been conducted lawfully, with great care and close review" and "has helped our country disrupt terrorist plots and save innocent lives." "The agency has always sought a clear legal framework, conducting the program in strict accord with U.S. law, and protecting the officers who go face-to-face with ruthless terrorists," Little added. Some intelligence officers say that many of Mohammed's statements proved exaggerated or false. One problem, a former senior agency official said, was that the CIA's initial interrogators were not experts on Mohammed's background or Al Qaeda, and it took about a month to get such an expert to the secret prison. The former official said many CIA professionals now believe patient, repeated questioning by well-informed experts is more effective than harsh physical pressure. Other intelligence officers, including Kelbaugh, insist that the harsh treatment produced invaluable insights into Al Qaeda's structure and plans. "We leaned in pretty hard on K.S.M.," Kelbaugh said, referring to Mohammed. "We were getting good information, and then they were told: 'Slow it down. It may not be correct. Wait for some legal clarification.'" The doubts at the CIA proved prophetic. In late 2003, after Yoo left the Justice Department, the new head of the Office of Legal Counsel, Jack Goldsmith, began reviewing his work, which he found deeply flawed. Goldsmith infuriated White House officials, first by rejecting part of the National Security Agency's surveillance program, prompting the threat of mass resignations by top Justice Department officials, including Ashcroft and Comey, and a showdown at the attorney general's hospital bedside. Then, in June 2004, Goldsmith formally withdrew the August 2002 Yoo memorandum on interrogation, which he found overreaching and poorly reasoned. Goldsmith left the Justice Department soon afterward. He first spoke at length about his dissenting views to The New York Times last month, and testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. Six months later, the Justice Department quietly posted on its Web site a new legal opinion that appeared to end any flirtation with torture, starting with its clarionlike opening: "Torture is abhorrent both to American law and values and to international norms." A single footnote - added to reassure the CIA - suggested that the Justice Department was not declaring the agency's previous actions illegal. But the opinion was unmistakably a retreat. Some White House officials had opposed publicizing the document, but acquiesced to Justice Department officials who argued that doing so would help clear the way for Gonzales's confirmation as attorney general. If Bush wanted to make sure the Justice Department did not rebel again, Gonzales was the ideal choice. As White House counsel, he had been a fierce protector of the president's prerogatives. Deeply loyal to Bush for championing his career from their days in Texas, Gonzales would sometimes tell colleagues that he had just one regret about becoming attorney general: He did not see nearly as much of the president as he had in his previous post. Among his first tasks at the Justice Department was to find a trusted chief for the Office of Legal Counsel. First he informed Daniel Levin, the acting head who had backed Goldsmith's dissents and signed the new opinion renouncing torture, that he would not get the job. He encouraged Levin to take a position at the National Security Council, in effect sidelining him. Bradbury soon emerged as the presumed favorite. But White House officials, still smarting from Goldsmith's rebuffs, chose to delay his nomination. Harriet Miers, the new White House counsel, "decided to watch Bradbury for a month or two. He was sort of on trial," one Justice Department official recalled. Bradbury's biography had a Horatio Alger element that appealed to a succession of bosses, including Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court and Gonzales, the son of poor immigrants. Bradbury's father had died when he was an infant, and his mother took in laundry to support her children. The first in his family to go to college, he attended Stanford and the University of Michigan Law School. He joined the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, where he came under the tutelage of Kenneth Starr, the Whitewater independent prosecutor. Bradbury belonged to the same circle as his predecessors: young, conservative lawyers with sterling credentials, often with clerkships for prominent conservative judges and ties to the Federalist Society, a powerhouse of the legal right. Yoo, in fact, had proposed his old friend Goldsmith for the Office of Legal Counsel job; Goldsmith had hired Bradbury as his top deputy. "We all grew up together," said Viet Dinh, an assistant attorney general from 2001 to 2003 and very much a member of the club. "You start with a small universe of Supreme Court clerks, and you narrow it down from there." But what might have been subtle differences in quieter times now cleaved them into warring camps. Justice Department colleagues say Gonzales was soon meeting frequently with Bradbury on national security issues, a White House priority. Admirers describe Bradbury as low-key but highly skilled, a conciliator who brought from 10 years of corporate practice a more pragmatic approach to the job than Yoo and Goldsmith, both from the academic world. "As a practicing lawyer, you know how to address real problems," said Noel Francisco, who worked at the Justice Department from 2003 to 2005. "At OLC, you're not writing law review articles and you're not theorizing. You're giving a client practical advice on a real problem." As he had at the White House, Gonzales usually said little in meetings with other officials, often deferring to the hard-driving Addington. Bradbury also often appeared in accord with the vice president's lawyer. Bradbury appeared to be "fundamentally sympathetic to what the White House and the CIA wanted to do," recalled Philip Zelikow, a former top State Department official. At interagency meetings on detention and interrogation, Addington was at times "vituperative," said Zelikow, but Bradbury, while taking similar positions, was "professional and collegial." While waiting to learn whether he would be nominated to head the Office of Legal Counsel, Bradbury was in an awkward position, knowing that a decision contrary to White House wishes could kill his chances. Charles Cooper, who headed the Office of Legal Counsel under Reagan, said he was "very troubled" at the notion of a probationary period. "If the purpose of the delay was a tryout, I think they should have avoided it," Cooper said. "You're implying that the acting official is molding his or her legal analysis to win the job." Bradbury said he made no such concessions. "No one ever suggested to me that my nomination depended on how I ruled on any opinion," he said. "Every opinion I've signed at the Office of Legal Counsel represents my best judgment of what the law requires." Scott Horton, an attorney affiliated with Human Rights First who has closely followed the interrogation debate, said any official offering legal advice on the campaign against terror was on treacherous ground. "For government lawyers, the national security issues they were deciding were like working with nuclear waste - extremely hazardous to their health," Horton said. "If you give the administration what it wants, you'll lose credibility in the academic community," he said. "But if you hold back, you'll be vilified by conservatives and the administration." In any case, the White House grew comfortable with Bradbury's approach. He helped block the appointment of a liberal Ivy League law professor to a career post in the Office of Legal Counsel. And he signed the opinion approving combined interrogation techniques. Comey strongly objected and told associates that he advised Gonzales not to endorse the opinion. But the attorney general made clear that the White House was adamant about it, and that he would do nothing to resist. Under Ashcroft, Comey's opposition might have killed the opinion. An imposing former prosecutor and self-described conservative who stands 6-foot-8, he was the rare administration official who was willing to confront Addington. At one testy 2004 White House meeting, when Comey stated that "no lawyer" would endorse Yoo's justification for the NSA program, Addington demurred, saying he was a lawyer and found it convincing. Comey shot back: "No good lawyer," according to someone present. But under Gonzales, and after the departure of Goldsmith and other allies, the deputy attorney general found himself isolated. His troublemaking on NSA and on interrogation, and in appointing his friend Patrick Fitzgerald as special prosecutor in the CIA leak case, which would lead to the perjury conviction of I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, had irreparably offended the White House. "On national security matters generally, there was a sense that Comey was a wimp and that Comey was disloyal," said one Justice Department official who heard the White House talk, expressed with particular force by Addington. Comey provided some hints of his thinking about interrogation and related issues in a speech that spring. Speaking at the NSA's Fort Meade campus on Law Day - a noteworthy setting for the man who had helped lead the dissent a year earlier that forced some changes in the NSA program - Comey spoke of the "agonizing collisions" of the law and the desire to protect Americans. "We are likely to hear the words: 'If we don't do this, people will die,'" Comey said. But he argued that government lawyers must uphold the principles of their great institutions. "It takes far more than a sharp legal mind to say 'no' when it matters most," he said. "It takes moral character. It takes an understanding that in the long run, intelligence under law is the only sustainable intelligence in this country." Gonzales's aides were happy to see Comey depart in the summer of 2005. That June, Bush nominated Bradbury to head the Office of Legal Counsel, which some colleagues viewed as a sign that he had passed a loyalty test. Soon Bradbury applied his practical approach to a new challenge to the CIA's methods. The administration had always asserted that the CIA's pressure tactics did not amount to torture, which is banned by U.S. law and international treaty. But officials had privately decided the agency did not have to comply with another provision in the Convention Against Torture - the prohibition on "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" treatment. Now that loophole was about to be closed. First Senator Richard Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, and then Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who had been tortured as a prisoner in North Vietnam, proposed legislation to ban such treatment. At the administration's request, Bradbury assessed whether the proposed legislation would outlaw any CIA methods, a legal question that had never before been answered by the Justice Department. At least a few administration officials argued that no reasonable interpretation of "cruel, inhuman or degrading" would permit the most extreme CIA methods, like waterboarding. Bradbury was placed in a tough spot, said Zelikow, the State Department counselor, who was working at the time to rein in interrogation policy. "If Justice says some practices are in violation of the CID standard," Zelikow said, referring to cruel, inhuman or degrading, "then they are now saying that officials broke current law." In the end, Bradbury's opinion delivered what the White House wanted: a statement that the standard imposed by McCain's Detainee Treatment Act would not force any change in the CIA's practices, according to officials familiar with the memo. Relying on a Supreme Court finding that only conduct that "shocks the conscience" was unconstitutional, the opinion found that in some circumstances not even waterboarding was necessarily cruel, inhuman or degrading, if, for example, a suspect was believed to possess crucial intelligence about a planned terrorist attack, the officials familiar with the legal finding said. In a frequent practice, Bush attached a statement to the new law when he signed it, declaring his authority to set aside the restrictions if they interfered with his constitutional powers. At the same time, though, the administration responded to pressure from McCain and other lawmakers by reviewing interrogation policy and giving up several CIA techniques. Since late 2005, Bradbury has become a linchpin of the administration's defense of counterterrorism programs, helping to negotiate the Military Commissions Act last year and frequently testifying about the NSA surveillance program. Once he answered questions about administration detention policies for an "Ask the White House" feature on a Web site. Kmiec, the former Office of Legal Counsel head now at Pepperdine, called Bradbury's public activities a departure for an office that traditionally has shunned any advocacy role. A senior administration official called Bradbury's active role in shaping legislation and speaking to Congress and the press "entirely appropriate" and consistent with past practice. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Bradbury "has played a critical role in achieving greater transparency" on the legal basis for detention and surveillance programs. Though Bush repeatedly nominated Bradbury as the Office of Legal Counsel's assistant attorney general, Democratic senators have blocked the nomination. Senator Durbin said the Justice Department would not turn over copies of his opinions or other evidence of Bradbury's role in interrogation policy. "There are fundamental questions about whether Mr. Bradbury approved interrogation methods that are clearly unacceptable," Durbin said. John Hutson, who served as the navy's top lawyer from 1997 to 2000, said he believed that the existence of legal opinions justifying abusive treatment is pernicious, potentially blurring the rules for Americans handling prisoners. "I know from the military that if you tell someone they can do a little of this for the country's good, some people will do a lot of it for the country's better," Hutson said. Like other military lawyers, he also fears that official American acceptance of such treatment could endanger Americans in the future. "The problem is, once you've got a legal opinion that says such a technique is O.K., what happens when one of our people is captured and they do it to him? How do we protest then?" he asked. ------- (Comment on this)
9:12p	Secret Torture Memos Democrats Want to See Interrogation Memo By LARA JAKES JORDAN (Associated Press Writer) From Associated Press October 04, 2007 10:02 PM EDT WASHINGTON - Senate and House Democrats demanded Thursday to see two secret memos that reportedly authorize painful interrogation tactics against terror suspects - despite the Bush administration's insistence that it has not violated U.S. anti-torture laws. White House and Justice Department press officers said legal opinions written in 2005 did not reverse an administration policy issued in 2004 that publicly renounced torture as "abhorrent." Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller sent a letter to the acting attorney general saying the administration's credibility is at risk if the documents are not turned over to Congress. The memos are "critical to an appropriate assessment" of interrogation tactics approved by the White House and the Justice Department, Rockefeller wrote to Acting Attorney General Peter D. Keisler. "Why should the public have confidence that the program is either legal or in the best interests of the United States?" the West Virginia Democrat asked. House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., promised a congressional inquiry into the two Justice Department legal opinions that reportedly explicitly authorized the use of painful and psychological tactics on terrorism suspects. "Both the alleged content of these opinions and the fact that they have been kept secret from Congress are extremely troubling, especially in light of the department's 2004 withdrawal of an earlier opinion similarly approving such methods," Conyers, D-Mich., and fellow House Judiciary member Nadler wrote in a letter Thursday. Their letter to Keisler requested copies of the memos. The two Democrats also asked that Steven Bradbury, the Justice Department's acting chief of legal counsel, "be made available for prompt committee hearings." The memos were disclosed in Thursday's editions of The New York Times, which reported that the first 2005 legal opinion authorized the use of head slaps, freezing temperatures and simulated drownings, known as waterboarding, while interrogating terror suspects, and was issued shortly after then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales took over the Justice Department. That secret opinion, which explicitly allowed using the painful methods in combination, came months after a December 2004 opinion in which the Justice Department publicly declared torture "abhorrent" and the administration seemed to back away from claiming authority for such practices. A second Justice opinion was issued later in 2005, just as Congress was working on an anti-torture bill. That opinion declared that none of the CIA's interrogation practices would violate the rules in the legislation banning "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of detainees, The Times said, citing interviews with unnamed current and former officials. Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said neither of those memos overruled the December 2004 legal opinion that he said remains in effect. "Neither Attorney General Gonzales nor anyone else within the department modified or withdrew that opinion," Roehrkasse said in a statement. "Accordingly, any advice that the department would have provided in this area would rely upon, and be fully consistent with, the legal standards articulated in the December 2004 memorandum." "This country does not torture," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters. "It is a policy of the United States that we do not torture, and we do not." Perino would not comment on whether the 2005 opinions authorized specific interrogation practices, such as head-slapping and simulated drowning. She initially said the first classified opinion was dated Feb. 5, 2005, but White House spokesman Tony Fratto corrected Perino's statement later Thursday to say the memo was dated months after February 2005. Another administration official later said it was dated May 2005. The dispute may come down to how the Bush administration defines torture, or whether it allowed U.S. interrogators to interpret anti-torture laws beyond legal limits. CIA spokesman George Little said the agency sought guidance from the Bush administration and Congress to make sure its program to detain and interrogate terror suspects followed U.S. law. "The program, which has taken account of changes in U.S. law and policy, has produced vital information that has helped our country disrupt terrorist plots and save innocent lives," Little said in a statement. "The agency has always sought a clear legal framework, conducting the program in strict accord with U.S. law, and protecting the officers who go face-to-face with ruthless terrorists." Congress has prohibited cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of terror suspects. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said several extreme interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, are specifically outlawed. "As some may recall, there was at the time a debate over the way in which the administration was likely to interpret these prohibitions," McCain said in a statement. McCain added that he was "personally assured by administration officials that at least one of the techniques allegedly used in the past, waterboarding, was prohibited under the new law." The American Civil Liberties Union called for an independent counsel to investigate the Justice Department's torture opinions, calling the memos "a cynical attempt to shield interrogators from criminal liability and to perpetuate the administration's unlawful interrogation practices." The issue quickly hit the presidential campaign trail. "The secret authorization of brutal interrogations is an outrageous betrayal of our core values, and a grave danger to our security," Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said in a statement. The 2005 opinions approved by Gonzales remain in effect despite efforts by Congress and the courts to limit interrogation practices used by the government in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Gonzales resigned last month under withering criticism from congressional Democrats and a loss of support among members of his own party. The authorizations came after the withdrawal of an earlier classified Justice opinion, issued in 2002, that had allowed certain aggressive interrogation practices so long as they stopped short of producing pain equivalent to experiencing organ failure or death. That controversial memo was withdrawn in June 2004. --- Associated Press reporters Deb Riechmann and Pamela Hess contributed to this report. Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. (Comment on this)

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