Slate has a nice piece on how so many missed on predicting the outcome of the Iranian presidential election

Rafsanjani's high-profile campaign failed to connect with the millions in villages and smaller towns across the country who associated his presidency with the maintenance of a status quo that did them few favors. His campaign events, posters, and films—marked by soft-focus docu-dramas, cute girls, fast cars, and English-language slogans—alienated many.

...

Pollsters, analysts, and journalists seem to have done a poor job of speaking to ordinary Iranians. Rather, they tended to turn to the residents of posh northern Tehran, intellectuals educated abroad, and bloggers. Albeit often reluctantly, these voices almost all predicted a second-round Rafsanjani victory.

...

What failed to register for many of the reporters seduced by blog culture was the fact that it remains a privileged enterprise; in a country of 70 million, only about 5 million to 7 million Iranians regularly read newspapers or use the Internet.

Still misleading.

Before our coalition liberated Iraq, Libya was secretly pursuing nuclear weapons. Today the leader of Libya has given up his chemical and nuclear weapons programs.

Before the invasion, the year was 2003. Now it's 2005. So I suppose there is also a correlation between the invasion and the sun continuing to rise.

Some wonder whether Iraq is a central front in the war on terror. Among the terrorists, there is no debate. Hear the words of Osama Bin Laden: "This Third World War is raging" in Iraq. "The whole world is watching this war." He says it will end in "victory and glory or misery and humiliation."

Yeah, duh. You made it the central front in the war on terrorism.

Brookings has released a report written by Bill Clinton's former assistant secretary of state for African affairs Susan Rice. Turns out George W. Bush has been exaggerting the increase in U.S. aid to Africa. The report makes clear that U.S. aid is substantional, but no where near what Bush has been claiming

U.S. aid to Africa has increased 56 percent over the last four years, but has not tripled as President Bush claimed earlier this month, according to a report on Monday by the Washington-based Brookings Institution.

Read the report here.

Dan Froomkin wonders

So the big question about Bush's address on Iraq tomorrow night is whether he will come to the podium equipped with a speech that addresses the mounting concerns of the American people -- or whether he will simply roll out a repackaging of the talking points that contributed to the disconnect in the first place.

Ooh, there's a tough one. I'm all for betting on long shots, but here I put a lot of money on the sure, safe bet. Day is night. Iraq is fine. We will win. Everything is fine. Last throes of course could mean 12 years.

Cynicism aside, when has this president, when faced with a challenge like this, come out and delived an honest, forthright, thoughtful speech that didn't insult the average person's intelligence? I doubt he'll start Tuesday night.

Which is it?

In television interviews on Sunday, Rumsfeld appeared to confirm that talks between Americans and insurgents had taken place. Rumsfeld was asked on NBC's "Meet The Press" about a published report "that there have been two meetings between Iraqi and U.S. officials and some members of the insurgency." Rumsfeld responded, "I think there have probably been many more than that."

That was Sunday. Then there's

U.S. forces have not held talks with insurgent leaders involved in attacks in Iraq but may do so soon, the U.S. commander in Iraq said on Monday in remarks that appeared to differ from those of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Asked by a reporter whether U.S. forces had met with "known leaders of the insurgency who have been involved directly in attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces," Army Gen. George Casey said: "Not yet. Not, to the best of my knowledge, yet."

"We may start moving there, but the first thing we want to do is meet with Sunni leaders. And a lot of these folks claim they have leverage over the insurgents that we've yet to see realized, frankly," Casey said.

That was yesterday. Umm, this was four months ago

U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers are conducting secret talks with Iraq's Sunni insurgents on ways to end fighting there, Time magazine reported yesterday, citing Pentagon and other sources.

The Bush administration has said it would not negotiate with Iraqi fighters and there is no authorized dialogue, but the United States is having "back-channel" communications with certain insurgents, unidentified Washington and Iraqi sources told the magazine.

...

The White House had no immediate comment on the report.

So which is it? We don't negotiate with terrorists -- they're insurgents (unless we tell you otherwise). We have negotiated in the past, but hoped you wouldn't remember that. Rumsfeld is crazy.

All of the above?

GITMO RATIONALE BREAKS DOWN IN THE FACE OF TALKS WITH IRAQI INSURGENTS: Rumsfeld confirmed a report from The London Sunday Times that the U.S. has been negotiating with Iraqi insurgents. To explain why the U.S. is now negotiating with the enemy – a stance that President Bush has yet to publicly confirm – Rumsfeld offered the following response: "If you think about it, there aren't the good guys and the bad guys over there. There are people all across the spectrum." This nuanced view of the enemy is one that escaped Rumsfeld when he devised his scheme to detain terrorists at the Guantanamo Bay facility. Rumsfeld sees these detainees in pure black-and-white terms: "They're suicide bombers. They're terrorists. They're murderers and these are bad people. These are not good people." If the U.S. can now negotiate with insurgents in Iraq, why can't we afford basic human rights and due process to detainees in Guantanamo?

It's pretty convenient for the Bush White House that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the Iranian presidency. It allows the Bush people to say things like

With the conclusion of the elections in Iran, we have seen nothing that dissuades us from our view that Iran is out of step with the rest of the region and the currents of freedom and liberty that have been so apparent in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon. These elections were flawed from the inception by the decision of an unelected few to deny the applications of over 1,000 candidates, including all 93 women.

I was ready to write (thinking that former president Hashemi Rafsanjani would win) that the Bush people were going to be in quandry facing a president who wanted better relations with the U.S. Then they'd have to, you know, come up with an actual Iran policy. But now they can just take pot shots and crack wise from the back of the roon and not have to actually do anything. Let's remind again. If the White House is so concerned with Iran, why didn't it accept its "grand bargain" offer two years ago when a true reformist was actually president? The fact that it didn't and the fact that it really didn't even seem to consider it seriously before rejecting it make it laughable for them to send these spokespeople out now wringing their hands and shaking their heads about what is happening over there.

This is also an issue that has been lost in the Downing Street Memo discussions. I find it a little silly also for some media people to say there was nothing new in the memo. But even accepting that, I would argue that something else we should be focusing on more closely is how these memos show how distracted the administration was by Iraq. What we should be also accusing this administration of is taking its eye off of real threats, like al-Qaida and North Korea and Iran's nuclear ambitions, in favor of the weakest link in the Axis of Evil. There is I think the true scandal in the Downing Street Memos.

Two gems from the non-reality based world. First Dick Cheney pulls out the dictionary

Vice President Dick Cheney on Thursday defended saying the Iraqi insurgency was in its ``last throes,'' a comment that sparked criticism the White House was being too optimistic about when the violence will end.

Cheney said he was not backing down from his remark. ``If you look at what the dictionary says about throes, it can still be a violent period, the throes of a revolution,'' Cheney said in an interview with CNN.

Nice try Dick. The problem was with the word "last" not throes. But we live in the reality based world that wakes up to a new bombing in Iraq every day.

Update: Jon Stewart (obviously a fan of the Fields Report) picks up on this point.


Then there's Dr. Rice spouting nonsense that goes beyond spin, hoping no one will notice. Would she put up with this from one of her students?

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice swept through the Middle East this week, leaving behind striking images of a tough-minded diplomat navigating the shoals of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and demanding that close U.S. allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia open up their repressive political systems. But her remarks were tempered by pragmatism and an unwillingness to cross certain lines, possibly limiting the impact of her trip.

...

While Rice spent about an hour meeting with some opposition leaders -- including the once-jailed activist, Ayman Nour -- she drew the line at meeting with representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest opposition party that has been banned from political activity for five decades. The Egyptian government has outlawed Islamic parties, and Rice said she would respect the laws of Egypt.

When a reporter pointed out that she had met with outlawed dissidents from Belarus and that President Bush had recently invited a defector from North Korea into the Oval Office, Rice replied, "I hardly think the Egyptian government is either the North Korean government or the Belarusan government."

The reality, however, is that Egypt and Saudi Arabia are equally or even more repressive than governments that Rice has previously denounced as "outposts of tyranny." Freedom House, a U.S.-based human rights group, annually ranks countries by the political rights and civil liberties given to their citizens. Egypt gets one of the worst combined ratings -- equal to Belarus, Iran and Zimbabwe, three countries on the Bush administration's tyranny list. Saudi Arabia is ranked even lower, as one of the world's most repressive governments -- the same rating as Burma, North Korea and Cuba, the other three "outposts of tyranny."

The United States has virtually no relations with the countries on the tyranny list, making it easier for U.S. officials such as Rice to condemn their human rights records. Saudi Arabia generally is at the bottom of the list of a slew of State Department rankings on human rights, religious freedom and human trafficking, but U.S. officials have shied from dwelling on those shortcomings. In her speech, Rice called attention to three people who were jailed in Saudi Arabia for presenting to the kingdom a petition calling for a constitutional system, but she did not raise Saudi religious repression and discrimination against women.

In all fairness, Freedom House is part of the reality-based community.

There's pragmatism; there's realipolitik; then there's just insulting our intelligence. Day is night. Up is down.

Here's a story that's indicative of what has gone under-reported and underestimate after September 11. The story is about libraries that have been the subject of government inquiries into patron reading habits despite the DOJ denying that it has done so. That's one angle, but what caught my attention was this

One such expedition occurred at a library in Whatcom County in Washington state, Sheketoff said, when a library patron noticed a handwritten notation in the margin of a biography of Osama bin Laden and reported it to the FBI.

The note, dealing with hostility toward Americans, was found to be an often-cited quotation from bin Laden that was included in the report of the Sept. 11 commission investigating U.S. response to the attacks.

The FBI reacted by seeking the names and information on all those who had checked out the book since 2001, but the library's board challenged the request and it was later withdrawn, Sheketoff said.

There's so much in those three short paragraphs. This is what our tax dollars go toward? Scribbled notes in a book on Osama Bin Laden? And the FBI actually thinks this is an avenue worth pursuing?

That runaway bride down in Georgia has to pay a bunch of money because she didn't want to get married and the law went looking for her. Is this overreactive library patron going to do the same?

The mind reels. A notation in the margin! And the FBI goes on high alert. That is until someone say "no way" and then it really isn't threat after all. If it was worthy of all that attention in the first place, why were the Feds so easily deterred? This is the discussion we haven't had. Just what is the logic behind some of these post-9/11 security measures we're forced to endure? This story seems to indicate that there's not much logic at all; we're still operating on hyperactive emotions at the expense of sound judgment. If you disagree, the argument does not become one over policy and effective security measures, it becomes political -- you're not patriotic; you're going to let the terrorists win; you're French.

Well the security at Charles de Gualle airport was a hell of lot tighter last time I flew through there before September 11 than it is at any U.S. airport today. Which brings me to the latest installment of nonsensical TSA airport policies and behavior.

You may recall that in the last episode footwear posed a significant threat to U.S. security in northern California, but very little in sunny SoCal. That is to say, for whatever reason, you have to remove your shoes going through airport security in San Jose but not LAX. So there are three possibilities

1. There are specific shoe-related threats on the San Jose airport (which begs the question why haven't we heard about this?)

2. San Jose has magic X-ray machines that can detect explosives in shoes that LAX -- the larger busier airport -- doesn't have (begging the question "why not?"). Or perhaps it's the other way around. LAX has supersecret technology that detects the potential shoe threat without travelers even having to remove them (which begs the questions, why doesn't the San Jose airport have the futuristic terrorist-stopping secret stealth technology?)

3. There's no rhyme nor reason and San Jose is just trying to cosmetically make us feel safe.

The answer of course is #3 and here are the details of my latest exploration into this matter.

I mentioned before that after checking the TSA website, I found it explicitly stated that removing your shoes going through security was not required at all. So I waited patiently in line at SJC prepared to throw this in the face of the TSA person, and stood confidently while everyone else was removing their shoes. Finally it was my turn to go through the metal detector

TSA: You need to remove your shoes.

Me: Why? Do I have to?

TSA: Yes.

Me: According to your website, I don't.

TSA: We'll just have to wand you if you don't.

[The TSA website says you may be subject to further screening if your shoes look like they're concealing explosives]

Me: I don't want to take my shoes off.

TSA: [looking peturbed] We'll have to wand you. [then gets distracted by something else and doesn't tell me how to proceed]

At this point I just walked through the metal detector (without removing my belt or wallet or shoes; take that)

TSA: Do you have your boarding pass?

Me: [giving incredulous look] How the hell can anyone get in here without a boarding pass.

TSA #2: Where's your boarding pass? [at this point I have apparently become the problem of someone else. But TSA #1 hasn't told me what to do. I've just taken the initiative to go through on my own.]

Me: In my bag. [at SJC this is for unexplained reasons sometimes a no-no as well. This day however it is not. I retrieve the boarding pass. TSA dude #2 half looks at it -- it's one I printed myself so it could potentially be fake. He never asks for ID to match to it, although I don't know why he wants to see my boarding pass in the first place since the issue is my refusal to remove my shoes.]

TSA #2: [unintelligible grunt]

Me: [insert sound of me retrieving my bag, shoes firmly attached to feet having never been removed]

I moved on to my flight. There you have it. Remove your shoes if you want. If you don't want to, show the same boarding pass you did 30 seconds earlier and your shoes magically become non-threatening.

I feel so safe. Renew the Patriot Act!

Now that Crossfire has been axed Bob Novak has been sounding a lot more reasonable. He sits in from time to time on Inside Politics' (Judy Woodruff is now gone and good riddance) new segment "Strategy Session." Wednesday he was sounding uncharacteristically sensible

MALVEAUX: So Bob, what's wrong with the Democrats simply saying no we don't buy this, we don't accept the president's plan, we're not signing up for it?

NOVAK: Nothing wrong with it a bit. Of course, they're obstructionists. There's nothing new in politics. It was a long time ago we had the Democratic president Harry Truman who was screaming about the Republican congress led by Senator Robert Taft -- we have a Taft Memorial out here. He was a great Republican, opposing everything he wanted, obstructing everything.

And you know what Taft said? Taft said the business of the opposition is to oppose. And all the liberal columnists just said that was so small-minded and nasty. But it is. That's what the opposition party does, it opposes.

It is the duty of the party in power to get the things through. And that's what the president has not done a very good job at. You hear that from the Republicans. There's a lot of complaints about not being very effective on Social Security. They botched up the nomination of John Bolton. And so they have permitted these obstructionists to do it.

So, I don't think the president should whine about obstructionists. I think they will have to devise a more clever strategy.

MALVEAUX: So, what is the alternative strategy? I mean, how does he change course here? .

NOVAK: Well, I'm not a strategist. I told you that. I'm an analyst.

I love this last line. Pathetic hosts always want to ask guests to comment on things they have no idea about. Unfortunately most of the time the guest comments anyway.

Two good responses to the "Downing Street memos tell us nothing new" chorus (sigh, even Michael Kinsley is in this camp). One by Fred Kaplan and one by Joe Conason.

I write here from time to time about the window dressing of so much of airport/airline security. Here's an update. This week, at LAX: shoes -- no threat to national security. San Jose: shoes -- major threat.


Update: From the TSA website

TSA Shoe Screening Policy

You are not required to remove your shoes before you enter the walk-through metal detector. [emphasis in the original]

I'll let you know how my refusal to take off my New Balance goes over on the return trip.

The first of a two-part series in the WaPo tell us this about the Bush administration who wanted to bring honesty and decency to the White House

On Thursday, President Bush stepped to a lectern at the Ohio State Highway Patrol Academy in Columbus to urge renewal of the USA Patriot Act and to boast of the government's success in prosecuting terrorists.

Flanked by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Bush said that "federal terrorism investigations have resulted in charges against more than 400 suspects, and more than half of those charged have been convicted."

Those statistics have been used repeatedly by Bush and other administration officials, including Gonzales and his predecessor, John D. Ashcroft, to characterize the government's efforts against terrorism.

But the numbers are misleading at best.

An analysis of the Justice Department's list of terrorism prosecutions by The Washington Post shows that 39 people -- not 200 -- have been convicted of crimes related to terrorism or national security.

Most of the others were convicted of relatively minor crimes such as making false statements and violating immigration law -- and had nothing to do with terrorism, the analysis shows. Overall, the median sentence was just 11 months.

Read the rest. It's a great story. And read these side pieces here and here. It never ceases to amaze me how day in and day out this White House simply lies to the American public and gets away with it. Michael Kinsley was so spot on when he wrote about the Bush White House's nonchalance toward the truth" "If telling the truth was less bother, they'd try that too."

From Salon:

John Kerry's report card

Why do we have the feeling that Bill O'Reilly's viewers and Rush Limbaugh's listeners are going to be hearing more about the following story than they will about, say, the 18 people killed in Iraq today or the lies that got the United States into the war in the first place?

From the Boston Globe: Newly released records show that George W. Bush and John Kerry had "virtually identical grade averages" when they were students at Yale. In 1999, the New Yorker revealed that Bush had received a cumulative score of 77 in his first three years at Yale and a similar average in his senior year. Kerry's Yale grades, which were released this week with his Navy records, show a similarly middling level of academic accomplishment: a four-year average of 76, which Yale at the time would have placed in the "C" range.

In a statement yesterday, Kerry said he spent much of his time at Yale preparing to fly rather than engaging in his studies. The right will likely pick up on another aspect of the story: One of Kerry's best grades was in French.

You don't have to tune into O'Reilly or Limbaugh. CNN's moronic Jeff Greenfield took a swipe

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: So, it turns out that John Kerry, derided as a French-speaking aristocratic elitist, was in fact no better a student than his fellow Yalie George W. Bush. In fact, he was a shade worse. Kerry managed to collect four Ds his freshman year alone; Bush got just a single D in four full years at Yale.

...

GREENFIELD: Now, there is a more or less serious question lurking behind this shocking revelation: just how much do book smarts matter to a president? The answer, history suggests, is maybe not all that much.

I'm sure Greenfield would never see any irony in his idiotic reporting that followed

Woodrow Wilson was an academic's dream, college professor and college president, author, but his book learning didn't keep him from political stumbles when he tried to bring the U.S. into the League of Nations.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was so indifferent to serious matters -- he got into Harvard because his family always got into Harvard -- that relatives called him the "feather duster." It took his battle for polio and the frequent push from wife Eleanor to turn him into a champion of the Depression Era America and a leader in World War II.

And Harry Truman, a failed retailer, never went to college at all, the last president not to do so. He was self-educated.

HARRY TRUMAN, FMR. U.S. PRESIDENT: ...that I will support and defend...

GREENFIELD: And in large measure followed his own instincts.

According to his critics, Ronald Reagan was good at reciting the words at others, although we learned later that as a columnist and lecturer, he was far more engaged with ideas than his reputation suggested. But Reagan was also a president who focused on a few big ideas like confronting the Soviet Union on moral and strategic grounds.

RONALD REAGAN, FMR. U.S. PRESIDENT: Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ...a responsible strip mining legislation.

GREENFIELD: In this sense, Reagan was a sharp contrast to predecessor Jimmy Carter who engaged in the details of budgets and legislation, too much so, according to his critics.

And Bill Clinton? He was the rare example of a president who could deal with the most intricate details of public policy and connect emotionally with the public.

When Franklin Roosevelt was inaugurated, just as Oliver Wendell Holmes said of him, a second class intellect, but a first class temperament. This point may be missed by academics and by journalists who tend to value skill with words a great deal. In fact, recent history suggests that they, all right, we may value it a little too much.

Jeff Greenfield, CNN, New York.

So there you have it. Greenfield mentions 4 presidents -- less than ten percent, and even less excluding Clinton, about whom Greenfield can't seem to decide what he thinks. Yes, the evidence is overwhelming "history suggests" that's idiots like George W. Bush really aren't so bad. And morons like John Kerry, well, really would be worse for the country. Yes, "history suggests" presidents who embark on wars in Middle East yet have no ideas there are different sects of Islam are the embodiment of competent leadership.

"Reagan was also a president who focused on a few big ideas like confronting the Soviet Union on moral and strategic grounds." Yes. The president who didn't think apartheid was so bad and sold missiles to Iran yet seemed puzzled why others didn't see Libya in exactly the same light he did. There's a guy you're glad didn't really spend much more time in the books.

Straw men. Greenfield wants to equate book smarts with uncanny political savvy. The latter is surely important if one wants to stay in office and get elected. But it has little to do with making good public policy. Greenfield, who Aaron Brown introduces as possessing multiple degrees, is unfortunately also exemplary of how book smarts can go awry. Strange that he didn't mention Jack Kennedy isn't it? "History suggests" unfortunately that idiots like Greenfield will go far in the news business.

"At a time when the United States is tightening its borders, how could a man toting what appeared to be a bloody chain saw be allowed into the country?" Good question. Here's the answer

Bill Anthony, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said the Canada-born [chainsaw carrier] could not be detained because he is a naturalized U.S. citizen and was not wanted on any criminal charges on the day in question.

Anthony said [the chainsaw carrier]was questioned for two hours before he was released. During that time, he said, customs agents employed "every conceivable method" to check for warrants or see if Despres had broken any laws in trying to re-enter the country.

"Nobody asked us to detain him," Anthony said. "Being bizarre is not a reason to keep somebody out of this country or lock them up. ... We are governed by laws and regulations, and he did not violate any regulations."

Oh by the way

The following day, a gruesome scene was discovered in [the chainsaw carrier's]hometown of Minto, New Brunswick: The decapitated body of a 74-year-old country musician named Frederick Fulton was found on Fulton's kitchen floor. His head was in a pillowcase under a kitchen table. His common-law wife was discovered stabbed to death in a bedroom.

Gee, I wonder what would have happened if he were a darker-skinned Syrian-Canadian minding his own business.

Here's an interesting story in the LA Times about the Army's program to put in the field linguists who speak Arabic, Persian, Pashto, Kurdish and other highly desireable languages. The recruits referred to as 09 Limas are generally native speakers of the language though not all U.S. citizens. At first the story seems like it's going to be one of how native born "red blooded" American soldiers don't seem to like them. "In Iraq, some interpreters said, soldiers mocked their Arabic surnames and accused them of being 'on the wrong side' of the conflict. Suspicious of his accent and dark features, some soldiers disdainfully labeled [one of the 09 Limas] a hajji, a term of respect among Muslims that many American soldiers use with scorn." But within the story are some details that seem to suggest that a lot of these recruits sign up with no idea that they are likely going to Iraq even though that seems to be the primary purpose of the program. "Many 09 Limas say they weren't told they were going to Iraq. Tarik says his recruiter promised him a cushy desk job translating news from Al Jazeera, an Arabic channel: 'No way would I have joined to go to Iraq'." Misleading prospective recruits. Where have we heard that one before?

Of course I have to return to this issue again. Other than dishonesty about what this program means for the potential recruit, this seems like a good idea. It is however immensely disgraceful that the Army not only has to resort dishonesty in recruiting practices for these native speakers, but at the same time also would rather not retain American born linguists because...gasp, they're gay.

From the WaPo

President Bush's portrayal of a wilting insurgency in Iraq at a time of escalating violence and insecurity throughout the country is reviving the debate over the administration's Iraq strategy and the accuracy of its upbeat claims.

While Bush and Vice President Cheney offer optimistic assessments of the situation, a fresh wave of car bombings and other attacks killed 80 U.S. soldiers and more than 700 Iraqis last month alone and prompted Iraqi leaders to appeal to the administration for greater help. Privately, some administration officials have concluded the violence will not subside through 2005.

...

Military commanders in Iraq privately told a visiting congressional delegation last week that the United States is at least two years away from adequately training a viable Iraqi military but that it is no longer reasonable to consider boosting U.S. troops already strained by the two-year operation, said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.).

"The idea that the insurgents are on the run and we are about to turn the corner, I did not hear that from anybody," Biden said in an interview.

...

"It's dangerous when U.S. officials start to believe their own propaganda," said David L. Phillips, a former State Department consultant who worked on Iraq planning but quit in frustration in 2003 and has written a book called "Losing Iraq: Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco." "I have no doubt that they genuinely think that Iraq is a smashing success and a milestone in their forward freedom strategy. But if you ask Iraqis, they have a different opinion."

Phillips added that U.S. officials keep pointing to landmarks such as the January elections as turning points but "at no point have any of these milestones proven to be breakthroughs."

Up is down. Day is night. 2 + 2 = 5.

Oh, that Koran desecration.

Sidney Blumenthal echoes much of what I've been saying about White House faux outrage over the Amnesty International gulag comment. Read it here

It may be of minor ironic interest that before the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration cited Amnesty International's reports on Saddam Hussein's violations of human rights as unimpeachable texts. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld often claimed Amnesty as his ultimate authority. Now, inexplicably, Amnesty has gone over to the side of the devil. (On Wednesday, Rumsfeld assailed Amnesty as "reprehensible" and losing "any claim to objectivity or seriousness." But he admitted that some detainees have been mistreated, "sometimes grievously." Thus, according to the secretary of defense, they were not all "disassembling.")

Black is white. Night is day. "Cheney said detainees at Guantanamo 'have been well treated, treated humanely and decently'." How soon they forget.

Female interrogators repeatedly used sexually suggestive tactics to try to humiliate and pry information from devout Muslim men held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to a military investigation not yet public and newly declassified accounts from detainees.

The prisoners have told their attorneys, who compiled the accounts, that female interrogators regularly violated Muslim taboos about sex and contact with women. The women rubbed their bodies against the men, wore skimpy clothes in front of them, made sexually explicit remarks and touched them provocatively, at least eight detainees said in documents or through their attorneys.

The unreleased Pentagon investigation generally confirms the detainees' allegations, a senior Defense Department official familiar with the report said. While isolated accounts of such tactics have emerged in recent weeks, the new allegations and the findings of the Pentagon investigation indicate that sexually oriented tactics might have been part of the fabric of Guantanamo interrogations, especially in 2003.

The inquiry uncovered numerous instances in which female interrogators, using dye, pretended to spread menstrual blood on Muslim men, the official said. Separately, in court papers and public statements, three detainees say that women smeared them with blood.

The military investigation of U.S. detention and interrogation practices worldwide, led by Vice Adm. Albert Church III, confirmed one case in which an Army interrogator took off her uniform top and paraded around in a tight T- shirt to make a Guantanamo detainee uncomfortable, and other cases in which interrogators touched the detainees suggestively, the senior Pentagon official said.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the report has not yet been made public, said the fake blood was used on Muslim men before they intended to pray, because some Muslims believe that "if a woman touches him prior to prayer, then he's dirty and can't pray."

Defense Department officials said they had reprimanded two female interrogators for such tactics.