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Event

 
 "Scary & Scarier" - RHINO'S BLOG  2/8/05

FEATURED ARTICLES
- CIA Renditions of Terror Suspects Are 'Out of Control', Agence France-Presse
- Paranoia Grips the U.S. Capital, The Toronto Sun

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"There has always been a segment of American life, and a powerful 
segment, too, which equated virtue with mindlessness. In this 
connection, the House Un-American Activities Committee is on of the 
most sinister facts of our national life."
- - James Baldwin,  from "A Quarter-Century of Un-Americana" (Marzani 
& Munsell, 1963)

KNOW YOUR HISTORY - January 8th
1942 -- US Congress Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) 
recommends removing Japanese nationals from the Pacific Coast states 
for the duration of World War II, & interning them at least 500 miles 
inland in the Land of Freedom.

RHINO SEZ:
I don't really want to scare anyone, but I just thought y'all ought 
to know what's going on with our tax dollars & supposedly in our 
name.  The 1st piece is scary. The Bottom Line is Scarier.

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CIA Renditions of Terror Suspects Are 'Out of Control:' Report
Agence France-Presse, 06 February 2005

The Central Intelligence Agency's 'rendition' of suspected terrorists 
has spiralled 'out of control' according to a former FBI agent, cited 
in a report which examined how CIA detainees are spirited to states 
suspected of using torture.Michael Scheuer a former CIA 
counterterrorism agent told The New Yorker magazine "all we've done 
is create a nightmare," with regard to the top secret practice of 
renditions. In an article titled 'Outsourcing Torture' due to hit 
newsstands this week, the magazine claims suspects, sometimes picked 
up by the CIA, are often flown to Egypt , Morocco, Syria and Jordan , 
"each of which is known to use torture in interrogations." The report 
said suspects are given few, if any, legal protections.

Despite US laws that ban America from expelling or extraditing 
individuals to countries where torture occurs, Scott Horton -- an 
expert on international law who has examined CIA renditions -- 
estimates that 150 people have been picked up in the CIA dragnet 
since 2001. The New Yorker report said that suspects in Europe, 
Africa, Asia and the Middle East "have been abducted by hooded or 
masked American agents" and then sometimes forced onto a white 
Gulfstream V jet. The jet -- marked on its tail by the code N379P 
which has recently been changed to N8068V -- "has been registered to 
a series of dummy American corporations ... (and) has clearance to 
land at US military bases," it said...
MORE:  
http://us-politics.news.designerz.com/cia-renditions-of-terror-suspects-are-out-of-control-report.html?d20050206

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RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE
Paranoia Grips the U.S. Capital
By Eric Margolis, The Toronto Sun, 06 February 2005

The film Seven Days In May is one of my all-time favourites. The 
gripping 1964 drama, starring Burt Lancaster, depicts an attempted 
coup by far rightists in Washington using a top-secret Pentagon 
anti-terrorist unit called something like "Contelinpro." Life 
imitates art. This week, former military intelligence analyst William 
Arkin revealed a hitherto unknown directive, with the Orwellian name 
"JCS Conplan 0300-97," authorizing the Pentagon to employ special, 
ultra-secret "anti-terrorist" military units on American soil for 
what the author claims are "extra-legal missions." In other words, 
using U.S. soldiers to kill or arrest Americans, acts that have been 
illegal since the U.S. Civil War.

This frightening news comes as Washington is gripped by reborn, 
Cold-War-style paranoia, ominous threats of war against Iran from the 
real president, Dick Cheney, and a titanic bureaucratic battle just 
won by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Instead of being fired for 
the grotesque military-political fiasco in Iraq and the shameful 
torture scandals, Rumsfeld has just managed to create a new, Pentagon 
spy/special ops organization, blandly named "Strategic Support 
Branch," that will replace or duplicate many of the CIA's tasks. The 
CIA has been sent to the doghouse. Too many CIA veterans criticized 
or contradicted Bush's and Cheney's phony claims over Iraq and 
terrorism. So Bush has imposed a new, yes-man director on the agency, 
slashed its budgets, purged its senior officers, and downgraded CIA 
to third-class status.

Rumsfeld's new, massively funded SSB will become the Pentagon's CIA, 
complete with commando units, spies, mercenary forces, intelligence 
gathering and analysis, and a direct line to the White House. The 
Pentagon has just effectively taken over the spy business...

MORE:  
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Eric_Margolis/2005/02/06/922316.html

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