Coming Soon: Military To Break Silence On Wikileaks Video

By GottaLaff

Greg Sargent is reporting that the military will be commenting as early as today, about the combat video that came out yesterday:

The military will publicly address the veracity of the notorious Wikileaks video, which apparently depicts an American helicopter killing two Reuters journalists during a July 2007 attack in Baghdad, as early as today, a Centcom spokesman confirms to me.

Separately, a military official confirms (as he did to several other news orgs) that they’ve concluded the footage is genuine.

This video makes me wonder what else is out there, and of course, what isn't. Hopefully, once the acknowledgment by the military is announced, there will be a real discussion about the wars in which we're engaged in general, about incidents like this one specifically, and maybe even what's in store for the future.

COMBAT VIDEO: Wikileaks posts video from Iraq showing civilian casualties

By GottaLaff



WARNING: GRAPHIC VIDEO. GRAPHIC VIDEO. GRAPHIC VIDEO.

Via the Rachel Maddow Blog:

Wikileaks has just released what it describes as classified video from U.S. Apache helicopters in a July 12, 2007 attack on the suburb of New Baghdad, Iraq. The U.S. military has said that the dozen or so casualties were "anti-Iraqi forces" or "insurgents."

You can be sure Rachel will be covering this tonight.

Via Wikileaks:

WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff. Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded. For further information please visit the special project website www.collateralmurder.com.

No words.

Sarah Palin quits her own vacation

By GottaLaff

First Barbie McLipSchmutz blacks out her own running mate's name, then mumblejumbles something about it as the reason for her lack of incognito-itude.

And now she quits again... quits her own vacation... blaming ... the blacked out McCain visor. Here's an idea, Barbie. Wear a different visor... or try a hat:

Sarah Palin announced Thursday night that she ended a Hawaii vacation early because of the ruckus raised after she blacked out "McCain" on her sun visor in an effort to elude paparazzi.

Who would ever recognize her after she expertly covered the perimeter of her empty little noggin? Why, she's positively transformed! For a minute there, I thought she was Glenn Beck:

"Todd and I have since cut our vacation short because the incognito attempts didn't work and fellow vacationers were bothered for the two days we spent in the sun. So much for trying to go incognito."

How does she come up with sentences like that?

Let's recap: She and Todd the Husband quit their trip because people saw through that clever disguise and were then upset because she shared the sun with them.

If only she had blocked out McCain's name more effectively, changed her face, and kept Trig, Todd the Spouser et al. under a blanket, they could have hung out in President Obama's home state for days!

Yeah, she's the best presidential material ever.

Sarah Palin "blacks out" McCain

By GottaLaff

There are a whole lot of things Barbie McLipSchmutz refuses to see or tries to cover up, but her own running mate?

On a beach vacation in Hawaii, TMZ notes Sarah Palin sported a visor from the 2008 presidential campaign but apparently tried to cover up its "McCain for President" logo with black marker.

Photo via TMZ

Ex-Veco boss Bill Allen's alleged sex-for-gifts with underage girls

By GottaLaff

Bill Allen

I came across this by accident, just scrolling through sites. Why hasn't this been given more attention?

Anchorage resident Lisa Moore says she traded sex with then-Veco boss Bill Allen in 1996 for an apartment, money and jewelry. He was 59; she was 19.

She also says she introduced him to a 15-year-old girl who became his sex partner.

But the next year, an ex-boyfriend of Moore's got into legal trouble and threatened to blow the whistle on Allen's relationship with Moore and other teens, including the 15-year-old, Moore said, triggering a string of alleged cover-ups that now threaten to undermine the Alaska political corruption investigation.

Excuse me?

But long before the authorities got involved, Allen reportedly went to great lengths to keep his sexual activities secret. When Moore told Allen she expected to be called as a witness at her ex-boyfriend's trial and forced to reveal Allen's seamy and possibly criminal private life, Allen immediately sent her, her brother and her fiance on the lam to California to prevent her from being subpoenaed, Moore told an Anchorage police detective and elaborated in recent interviews with the Daily News.

That trip, characterized as a "potential obstruction of justice" when first made public in a federal court filing last month, are among the issues cited by former state House Speaker Pete Kott in his effort to throw out his conviction on corruption charges [...]

Allen has told FBI agents he never asked anyone to lie under oath or tried to hide witnesses to avoid subpoenas. [...]

Allen, after pleading guilty in 2007 to bribery and other corruption charges, was also the key witness in the trials of former state Rep. Vic Kohring and U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens. [...]

Defense attorneys in the corruption cases weren't allowed to raise the issue of Allen's sexual conduct. [...]

But the new material raises questions about how far Allen would go to protect himself. If Allen schemed to prevent a witness from testifying about his sexual conduct or tried to get two witnesses to lie under oath, that could give defense attorneys new ammunition to attack his credibility.

Allen was sentenced to three years in prison for bribery.

What a catch. Between his nefarious activities and the head shot above, who could resist hooking up with a guy like Bill Allen?

There is a whole lot more here.

The fun never ends.

Seton Hall law school study: Potential cover-up in alleged Gitmo suicides

By GottaLaff

Back in 2006, there were three detainees who died while imprisoned at Gitmo, and their deaths were called "suicides". This, some military officials said, was an effort to "further the jiahdi cause", and more.

But now a new study prepared by Seton Hall law school faculty and students is saying this:

[The report] challenges the Pentagon’s claims. It notes serious and unresolved contradictions within a Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) report — which was publicly released only in fragmentary form, two years after the fact — and declares the military’s internal investigation an obvious cover-up. The only question is: of what? [...]

The study also notes that there has never been any explanation of how the three bodies could have hung in the cells, undiscovered, for at least two hours, when the cells were supposed to be under constant supervision by roving guards and video cameras.

Disturbingly, these facts were collected within the NCIS report — but without discussion or any effort to make conclusions based on them. [... The study] concluded that the three prisoners committed suicide as part of a “conspiracy.” But, according to the study: “The investigations… fail to present any evidence of a conspiracy. In fact, all other evidence is inconsistent with the conclusion that the detainees conspired.”

So what are the possibilities? They seem pretty obvious. Study director and Seton Hall Law Professor Mark Denbeaux:

“Either the investigation is a cover-up of gross dereliction of duty, or it is a cover-up of something far more chilling. More than three years later we do not know what really happened.” Human Rights Watch is calling on the military to release its report unredacted.

That would be transparency we could believe in.

******

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

Lt. Col. Barry Wingard is a military attorney who represents Fayiz Al-Kandari in the Military Commission process and in no way represents the opinions of his home state. When not on active duty, Colonel Wingard is a public defender in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.

The Big Glenn Beck Cover-Up

By GottaLaff

Yesterday, Mr. Laffy went to do a couple of errands and came home laughing. No, he hadn't heard a joke, nor had he seen any photos of Sarah Palin.

He had been to Barnes and Noble where he noticed a woman at a shelf full of Glenn Beck books doing something that caught his attention.

As it turned out, it was the best seller rack, and he saw her placing other (reputable) books (not written in crayon and covered in rat dander) in front of Beck's to block his from view.

At first, she tried turning the books around so the backs of the Beck books would face out. But that view still revealed Beck's name and/or picture. So, exhibiting excellent judgment and problem solving skills, she started covering them up with other books. She was on a mission.

Mr. Laffy started cracking up and offered her a nearby copy of George Carlin's new book (superb choice, IMHO) to put in front of Beck's sour little mug, and wandered off.

About 20 minutes later, Mr. Laffy noticed that one of the books had been removed from the barricade, so he took the opportunity to act as Beck-Blocker Surrogate and shoved another book into the vacant spot.

Nothing says season's greetings like concealing bad tidings and replacing them with messages of good cheer.

Mission accomplished.

The Torture/"Rape" Photos: Crime v. Cover-up

By GottaLaff

I originally posted in detail about this here.

Digby, in part:

So, we don't know if the pictures Taguba refers to are the pictures which were covered under thee ACLU's FOIA request, and whether they still exist. We do know that accusations of rape were investigated under both the Taguba and Fay reports, but can't be sure of the disposition of them. And again, we don't know if these pictures refer to those specific allegations or if they pertain to different incidents. The Pentagon denies that there are any pictures which depict these heinous acts. In other words, confusion still reigns and suspicions run high.

The administration claims that it withheld the FOIA pictures because they were more of the same and would inflame anti-American hatred which, as I said, always seemed contradictory. And now it appears that they may actually show something much worse than we've seen --- and the administration looks as if it's covering that up by saying that there's nothing new. Perhaps they aren't, but their conflicting statements and refusal to release the pictures quite naturally raises these questions.

The administration needs to realize that it can't avoid this issue even if it wants to and it's not useful to try to finesse it or kick the issue down the road. There are simply too many lies under the bridge --- it's impossible to take the government at its word. If sexual assaults beyond those which we already know about and saw evidence of (and which were prosecuted) happened, then it will come out. The only question is whether it will be a drip, drip, drip of toxic revelations and speculations that will continue to poison this country and its relationship to the world or whether it will be an official, transparent accounting of what happened. Either way, there's no running away from it.

Please go read the whole thing. Digby addresses my own struggles with this, and my tendency toward getting this out in the open (not literally, there are ways to tell the story without blasting photos all over the airwaves).

I've maintained that the ObamAdministration needs to take control of the message, and not give the appearance of hiding anything. The skill and wisdom with which they do that will determine the way the world reacts, especially considering the horrific revelations have already leaked out, and inevitably, the photos themselves will, too.

An Alaskan blogger's-eye-view of Palin's GobbleGate fiasco

By GottaLaff

Kris Perry on far left NOT nudging Scott Jensen while he's filming Sarah Palin. Considering how he's holding the camera, wouldn't nudging him have made the camera jerk rather violently and/or hit the interviewer in the head?

Celtic Diva has a whole lot of information for us about GobbleGate because, well, she was there. Please go read her first-hand accounts.

Here's an update on how Pallin'-Around-With-Slaughtered-Turkeys is trying to weasel her way out of yet another p.r. disaster:

Here's the latest BS from the Governor's office:

[Communications Director, Bill McAllister] said that, while the cameras were rolling and a worker at the farm began placing turkeys head-down in a big metal cone to cut their necks and drain blood, Kris Perry, the governor's friend and director of her Anchorage office, "was actually physically nudging (the KTUU videographer), saying 'look at this,' and encouraging him not to frame the shot to include that, or to do something about it later, where he wouldn't use it," McAllister said.

- I believe award-winning photo-journalist Scott Jenson when he told CC on KUDO 1080 yesterday that Sarah Palin, along with assistant Kris Perry, chose the spot where the interview took place. Whether the "slaughter" was going on or not, THE TUB AND THE FUNNELS WERE FULL OF BLOOD AND GUTS!!!! What idiots (whether the Governor or her staff) would choose to film there?

Scott's story and the crew's version has been consistent from the beginning, it's been the Governor's office whose story has been rather...ahhh..."fluid." [...]

- Kris Perry WAS NOT "nudging Jensen" during the whole interview because she was walking all around while it was going on!!! Perry WALKED RIGHT PAST ME AND STARED (I was trying figure out who she was) during the interview while I was waiting for the cameras to move so I could get a shot of the pardoned turkey. She walked back to the spot where you see her in the picture above, NOT NUDGING Scott Jensen. She's even smiling in the picture at the top taken later...while she was NOT NUDGING Scott Jensen nor at an angle to do so.

To clarify, I can't say whether or not she EVER "nudged" him. However, I don't know too many people that would nudge a camera man while he was trying to hold a camera steady shooting interview footage of their boss.

- Suppposed friend of the Governor, Corrections Department Commissioner Joe Schmidt, was there yakking it up with the folks around him. He didn't do anything either!

- Finally, Bill McAllister, WHERE WERE YOU???? WHY WEREN'T YOU THERE WITH YOUR BOSS MAKING SURE SOMETHING LIKE THIS DIDN'T HAPPEN? [...]

I also understand there are some folks who are upset with me for writing the following:

I think KTUU angled it a bit that way on purpose. (Note to Governor Palin's staff: Did you not think that...just maybe...the camera crews would be salivating to get a shot to the network that so perfectly fit the lower-48 "Palin stereotype?")

- If you look at the video, it is clear that Gov. Palin is not centered, but is being filmed slightly on the left side of the screen, while the turkey funnels are on the right. [...]

That being said:

HE HAD EVERY RIGHT TO SHOOT IT THAT WAY! Again, it was the responsibility of Governor Palin and her people to make sure the setting was appropriate for the message they were trying to convey.

THIS BOTCHED EVENT WAS THE FAULT OF THE GOVERNOR AND HER STAFF...PERIOD.

I wonder how many Thanksgivings have been ruined by that nauseating little photo op. Oh, and the graphic images of the turkeys were sickening, too. Snerk.

Go here for lots more of Celtic's turkey's-eye-view of the event. She posted more photos, and has plenty of interesting observations about that day, having been there to witness everything personally.

VIDEO: Army shreds documents on friendly fire deaths

By GottaLaff


The helmet cam video capturing the scene. It contains coarse language and graphic violence.

After Pat Tillman, I don't have a lot of faith in the accuracy and/or honesty of military investigations of deaths by friendly fire:

In late 2006, two American soldiers from Fort Carson died in Iraq. The army said the privates were killed by enemy action. But in October of this year, Salon revealed that the two men had in fact been killed by friendly tank fire.

Now, Salon has found that the documents related to the men's deaths were shredded just hours after the story was published.

This isn't helping me with that credibility issue. Reporter Mark Benjamin:

"One of the soldiers preserved some of the documents as proof that the shredding occurred and provided them to Salon. All three soldiers, with the assistance of a U.S. senator's office, have since been relocated for their safety."

The night the Salon story ran, Oct. 14, 2008, a staff sergeant told three soldiers to shred two boxes of documents relating to the privates' deaths.

"Staff Sgt. Swinton was in charge that night," Benjamin adds. [...] "He says, 'I need that paper shredded. That has to be done tonight,' remembered Kremling, who volunteered to get started on the job."

Privates Nelson and Suarez appear to have been killed by an American tank shell -- not in fact by enemy action as the military claimed.

"Based on the testimony of eyewitnesses, and on video and audio recorded by a helmet-mounted camera that captured much of the action that day, my report stated that Nelson and Suarez seemed to have been killed by an American tank shell," Benjamin said. "The shell apparently struck their position on the roof of a two-story ferro-concrete building in Ramadi, Anbar province, Iraq, killing Suarez instantly, mortally wounding Nelson, and injuring several other soldiers. I included both an edited and a full-length version of the video in the article. The video shows soldiers just after the blast claiming to have watched the tank fire on them. Then a sergeant attempts to report over a radio that a U.S. tank killed his men. He seems to be promptly overruled by a superior officer who is not at the scene. An official Army investigation then found that the simultaneous impact of two enemy mortars killed the men."

I can't begin to imagine how their families have had to cope with this information, since I can barely do that myself.

CIA Misled Congress, Justice Dept. Over 2001 Peruvian Plane Incident

By GottaLaff

Where there's a probe, there's a revelation. Surprise:

The CIA repeatedly misled Congress and the Justice Department in their investigations of the 2001 shoot-down of a Peruvian plane carrying U.S. missionaries, according to findings of an internal CIA probe released today by congressional officials.

The agency's inspector general concluded that CIA officers in Peru consistently ignored rules of engagement in connection with the downing of at least 10 aircraft suspected of carrying narcotics over the South American country. Yet, CIA managers covered up the problems and knowingly gave false accounts to government officials investigating whether agency employees committed crimes.

[...] As part of a joint U.S.-Peruvian anti-drug program that began in the mid-1990s, CIA officers helped Peruvian air force pilots identify aircraft suspected of carrying illegal drugs through the country's airspace. The program had succeeded in bringing down numerous suspected planes when, in April 2001, a Peruvian pilot mistakenly shot into a small plane carrying U.S. missionaries. Two of the Americans on board, Veronica "Roni" Bowers and her infant daughter, Charity, were struck by bullets and killed. [...]

[A]gency officials had repeatedly described the 2001 incident as an aberration, insisting that CIA officers had closely followed the rules in other cases. In 2005, the Justice Department concluded its probe after deciding against filing criminal charges against any of the U.S. officials involved. [...]

The investigators found that CIA managers "knew of, and condoned" the violations and failed to properly oversee the program. Later, when asked about the problems by Justice officials and congressional overseers, CIA officials gave misleading accounts, knowingly distorting the facts, [Rep. Peter] Hoekstra said.

One: Whenever horrific things have occurred over the past 8 years, they're always "aberrations".

Two: Bush's Department of Justice does it again.

Three: January 20, 2009.

Truthiness Stages a Comeback, Gramm-pa McCain style

By GottaLaff

Frank Rich once again dares to go where others will not:

For better or worse, the candidacy of Barack Obama, a senator-come-lately, must be evaluated on his judgment, ideas and potential to lead. McCain, by contrast, has been chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, where he claims to have overseen “every part of our economy.” He didn’t, thank heavens, but he does have a long and relevant economic record that begins with the Keating Five scandal of 1989 and extends to this campaign, where his fiscal policies bear the fingerprints of Phil Gramm and Carly Fiorina. It’s not the résumé that a presidential candidate wants to advertise as America faces its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. That’s why the main thrust of the McCain campaign has been to cover up his history of economic malpractice. [...]

But the more crucial Rove game plan is to envelop the entire presidential race in a thick fog of truthiness. [...] Their larger aim is to construct a bogus alternative reality so relentless it can overwhelm any haphazard journalistic stabs at puncturing it. [...]

Just as the Bushies once flogged uranium from Africa, so Palin ceaselessly repeats her discredited claim that she said “no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. Nothing is too small or sacred for the McCain campaign to lie about. [...]

If you doubt that the big lies are sticking, look at the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll. Half of voters now believe in the daily McCain refrain that Obama will raise their taxes. [...]

Network news, with its dwindling handful of investigative reporters, has barely mentioned, let alone advanced, major new print revelations about Cindy McCain’s drug-addiction history (in The Washington Post) and the rampant cronyism and secrecy in Palin’s governance of Alaska (in last Sunday’s New York Times). At least the networks repeatedly fact-check the low-hanging fruit among the countless Palin lies, but John McCain’s past usually remains off limits. [...]

[The Keating Five scandal] was ugly for the McCains. He had received more than $100,000 in Keating campaign contributions, and both McCains had repeatedly hopped on Keating’s corporate jet. Cindy McCain and her beer-magnate father had invested nearly $360,000 in a Keating shopping center a year before her husband joined four senators in inappropriate meetings with regulators charged with S.&L. oversight. [...]

The corporate jets, lobbyists and sleazes that gravitated around McCain in the Keating era have also reappeared in new incarnations. [...]

Even now his campaign has kept the “filter” from learning the very basics about his fitness to serve as president — his finances and his health. The McCain multihousehold’s multimillion-dollar mother lode is buried in Cindy McCain’s still-unreleased complete tax returns. John McCain’s full medical records, our sole index to the odds of an imminent Palin presidency, also remain locked away.

This is the same tactic of selective document release that the Bush White House used to bamboozle Congress and the press about Saddam’s nonexistent W.M.D. As truthiness repeats itself, so may history, and not as farce.

He employs many of BushCo's tactics. As many of us have said in Comments, the parallels need to be exposed and repeated over and over and over.

Investigator: Palin probe to end before election

By GottaLaff

Bush III, Cheney II. The secrecy, cover-ups, and lame excuses continue at the voters' expense, and the expense of our legal system:

The Alaska lawmaker directing an abuse-of-power investigation of Gov. Sarah Palin promised Friday the probe will be finished before the election, despite refusals by key witnesses to testify, including the governor's husband.

After waiting 35 minutes for Todd Palin and two state administrative employees to appear under subpoena before the state Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Hollis French condemned their refusal to testify and the attorney general's broken promise that seven other witnesses would testify who were not subpoenaed.

French said the retired prosecutor hired by the Alaska Legislature to investigate Palin, Stephen Branchflower, will conclude his investigation by Oct. 10. Still, that report will not include testimony from the Republican vice presidential nominee, her husband or most of the top aides Branchflower hoped to interview.

Despite the stonewalling, Palin/McCain's attempts to skirt the law only serves to magnify the fact that they're hiding something, as well as their obvious lack of ethics.

Sarah Palin's allies hoped the investigation would be delayed past the election to spare her any troublesome revelations - or at least the distraction - before voters have made their choice. Palin's reputation as clean-government advocate who takes on entrenched interests is central to her appeal as Republican John McCain's running mate, and possibly at risk in the probe.

Palin initially promised to cooperate in the investigation, telling the Legislature to "hold me accountable."[...] She now opposes the investigation. [...]

The committee subpoenaed six people to appear Friday to testify or meet for private interviews with Branchflower. French said three of those six had complied. Todd Palin, special assistant Ivy Frye and Randy Ruaro, who is the governor's deputy chief of staff, did not.

Todd Palin's attorney sent French a letter Thursday listing Palin's objections to the Legislature's investigation of his wife. Among them, the attorney said, were jurisdiction questions, separation of power issues and an inconvenient travel schedule. [...]

Attorney General Talis Colberg earlier this week reversed himself, saying the governor declined to participate and that Palin administration employees would not appear.

French said subpoenas will be issued for those seven people, ordering them to testify on Sept. 26.

Witnesses who refuse to testify can be found in contempt under Alaska law. But the full Legislature must be in session, which won't happen until January. That means witnesses can stonewall without penalty beyond the Nov. 4 election, lawmakers said.

If this is what Republicans want, if this is what they think will restore honor to the White House, they're fooling themselves, but they are no longer fooling the rest of us.