12.08.2009 Banned by the Catholic Church

If you go to this link and listen to it 3 times in a row…. you tell me why the church banned this ghost band?

http://margaretnoble.net/blog/banned-by-the-catholic-church/

Please leave your comments on the original page… and wait to see what happens….guess what the church was scared off???

lets see who posts the right answer before October 31 2010

USE THE FORCE LUKE

12.08.2009
Banned by the Catholic Church
Categories: Sound Oddities

800px-Shepard_Tones_spectrum_linear_scale

Sound Clip: Shepard Tone by Roger Shepard

This is a classic sound oddity and illusion. Or is it? There are some corrections to this post with much discussion, see below and follow the trail of comments to clarify the inaccuracies.

Originally posted:

“It is rumored to be called the “devil’s tone” by the Catholic church. The Shepard tone is a sound consisting of a superposition of sine waves separated by octaves. When played with the base pitch of the tone moving upwards or downwards, it is referred to as the
Shepard Scale. This creates an auditory illusion that continually ascends or descends in pitch, yet which ultimately seems to get no higher or lower.”

shepard_tone2

Corrections here and below in comments from Brent Williams:

“Hi Margaret.

“Baned by the Catholic Church“, about a Shepard-Risset Glissando. This post contained links to certain webpages, but when the post went up (even before it was moderated) the links were missing. Just in case you want to put them up for your readers, here they are:

The original source page for this sound file is here . It is in French.

You can find the Wiki source page here . This contains a little more info on the sound. This is where I confirmed that the sound is a minor chord of synchronised Shepard-Risset glissandi.

Read about Diana Deutsch here . She is currently a Professor at UCSD.

All the best, and please continue with your excellent website.

Brent Williams”
Categories: Sound Oddities -

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Terror and Tyranny: the TNT Approach for 2010

Pyramids of Control
December 28, 2009

Tyranny 2010 wouldn’t be complete without what Gerald Celente cited as an upcoming trend:  Terror 2010.  T&T — perfect together.

	We can be pretty sure that this new technology will be implemented, pronto, with its full capability, and with no choice to opt-out: mission accomplished.

The holiday season has greeted us with “Terr’ists” who prefer their underwear to their shoes (and they need well-dressed escorts when they forget their passport).  It would all seem ridiculous if it hadn’t already caused a dramatic increase in airport security, as people are now being told to show up 4 hours in advance for international flights.   This is a rather large problem.  For those in the business of creating problems, though, this was a well-chosen stratagem for eliciting the all-important reaction; is there ever a more stressful time or event than Christmas travel?  So, as dot connectors, we need to look at what solutions are being offered for this problem.  Enter stage left (and right): Tyranny.

1.  The new 3D body scanning device that makes us all more naked than naked was met with faux consternation when it was first revealed.  It was, naturally, played down.  But we can be pretty sure that this new technology will be implemented, pronto, with its full capability, and with no choice to opt-out: mission accomplished.

2.  Prisoner training.  After the hassle of actually getting to, and getting on the plane, it will literally be prison-like conditions once aboard.  No electronic devices or hand-held items (books), and no bathroom breaks for the last hour of the flight.  As DHS Secretary Napolitano stated on the TSA website:

Passengers flying from international locations to U.S. destinations may notice additional security measures in place. These measures are designed to be unpredictable, so passengers should not expect to see the same thing everywhere. Due to the busy holiday travel season, both domestic and international travelers should allot extra time for check-in.

3.  The Patriot Act:  As of December 16, the renewal of the Patriot Act in its present form was still being disputed, delayed, and debated.  Pretty sure it will be sailing through, with even more draconian measures attached:  mission accomplished.

4.  Expanding the war (s).  Yemen?  Who knew?  Well now the world knows that it is near Pakistan, Afghanistan . . . heck, it’s in the Middle East — TERRORISTS — BOMBS AWAY!  No Congress, no discussion needed:  mission accomplished.

5.  The African connection.  They have been working on Africom legitimacy for a while. Underwear bombers from Nigeria with connections to Yemen (and born in England?):  mission accomplished.

6.  (More) Military presence on American soil.  Let it not be said that there isn’t freedom somewhere in America — you just have to be part of NORTHCOM or INTERPOL.  Total freedom to investigate, abuse, arrest, and never to be questioned about it: mission accomplished.

7.  Keeping Americans at home, while discouraging inbound tourists.  In a November 14th article titled, “International Tourism Decline on the Upswing, if America Doesn’t Sabotage the Recovery,” we can read a call to action in this interesting choice of words — if you are standing at the top of the pyramid.  The last thing that people who are trying to consolidate power, and siphon as much money from bottom to top, would want is a recovery in the real economy.   Additionally, the fear of travel reinforces U.S. isolationism.   The ultimate effect?  Dependence on the government for both security and financial aid: mission accomplished.

8.  Overall security must be increased.  Although Janet Napolitano almost unforgivably forgot her script, she is back on track the day after and in lockstep with security apparatchiks everywhere — current security measures are never enough, more must be done:  mission accomplished.

So, if all it takes is Terror to create Tyranny, then the words of the Underpants Bomber seem to ring true for 2010:  There is more to come.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Obama channels infamous Bush Speeches to sell WAR: Yes We Can!

If you closed your eyes during much of the President’s speech on Afghanistan Tuesday night and just listened to the words, you easily could have concluded that George W. Bush was still in the Oval Office.

Or, at the very least, that Obama had stolen his speechwriters.

Because, like Bush, Obama had barely cleared his throat when out came the first mention of September 11, along with the Bushian line: “We did not ask for this fight.”

Like Bush, Obama lied about the lead up to the Afghanistan war, saying that the United States invaded “only after the Taliban refused to turn over Osama bin Laden. “

That’s false.

“President George Bush rejected as ‘non-negotiable’ an offer by the Taliban to discuss turning over Osama bin Laden if the United States ended the bombing in Afghanistan,” the Guardian reported on October 14, 2001.

Like Bush, Obama looked straight ahead into the camera to address the people of a country he’s about to inflict more hell upon, and said: “I want the Afghan people to understand—America seeks an end to this war and suffering.” And like Bush, he added: “We have no interest in occupying your country.” He even went further out on a flimsy rhetorical limb by saying the United States wants to “forge a lasting friendship in which America is your partner, and never your patron.”

Well, it’s sure acting like a patron today.

Like Bush, Obama exaggerated the “contributions from our allies” in this war effort, which is overwhelmingly American.

Like Bush, Obama cited Al Qaeda’s “attacks against London and Amman and Bali.”

Like Bush, Obama promised a long war against terrorism. “The struggle against violent extremism will not be finished quickly, and it extends well beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan,” he said. “It will be an enduring test of our free society, and our leadership in the world.”

And like Bush, Obama went to great lengths to distort the record of that “leadership.”

“More than any other nation, the United States of America has underwritten global security for over six decades,” he said.

Well, let’s see: The United States led the world to the cliffs of nuclear annihilation during the Cold War. The United States invaded one Latin American country after another, and subverted other governments there covertly. The United States helped overthrow governments in Ghana and the Congo, and supported racist forces in southern Africa. The United States plunged into the Korean War, and then supported one dictator after another in South Korea. The United States killed between two and three million people in Indochina. And the United States supported Suharto in Indonesia, who killed nearly a million people, some at the behest of the CIA, after taking power in 1965. The U.S. also supported Suharto’s invasion of East Timor ten years later, which took another 200,000 lives.

Obama can call that “global security,” if he wants to, but it’s dripping red.

And here’s another whopper: “Unlike the great powers of old, we have not sought world domination,” he said.

Well, what does having almost 1,000 military bases in more than 100 countries mean, then?

Obama went on: “We do not seek to occupy other nations.”

Well, the United States has invaded or overthrown dozens of countries in the last six decades, and it doesn’t need to occupy them if it can install a puppet regime instead.

And he went further: “We will not claim another nation’s resources or target peoples because their faith or ethnicity is different from ours.”

Well, maybe not for those reasons, but certainly to make profits for our private corporations and for perceived U.S. security. See Guatemala. See Chile. See the Carter Doctrine.

Obama ended this riff by saying, “We are still heirs to a moral struggle for freedom. And now we must summon all of our might and moral suasion to meet the challenges of a new age.”

Compare Obama’s airbrushed historical account with the following passage from Bush’s 2004 State of the Union Address:

“America is a Nation with a mission, and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs,” he said. “We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace — a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman. America acts in this cause with friends and allies at our side, yet we understand our special calling: This great Republic will lead the cause of freedom.”

Finally, like Bush, Obama ended his speech by alluding to 9/1l again, citing the “memory of a horrific attack.”

The White House speechwriters must have carpal tunnel by now from all their cutting and pasting of Bush’s rhetoric into Obama’s mouth.

And that he didn’t choke on these words tells you all you need to know about Obama.

Clinton Outlines Continuation of Bush Policies Under Obama at CFR

July 17, 2009
by Jeremy R. Hammond

In a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) on Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton outlined the Obama administration’s foreign policy, which has been widely touted as a sharp break from that of his predecessor’s. Judging from commentary in the media, Obama has ushered in a new age of diplomacy and international engagement. Clinton herself suggested as much.

But setting aside the platitudes that comprised most of Clinton’s speech and looking closely at her remarks that actually spoke meaningfully towards U.S. policy under the Obama, a different picture emerges, one not of a change of course from Bush but rather of near perfect continuity between the two administrations.

Obama’s foreign policy parallels Bush’s. The train may have switched tracks, but it’s still headed in the same direction.

Take, for starters, the framework Clinton established early on in her speech. “Liberty, democracy, justice and opportunity underlie our priorities”, she said. “Some accuse us of using these ideals to justify actions that contradict their very meaning. Others say we are too often condescending and imperialistic, seeking only to expand our power at the expense of others. And yes, these perceptions have fed anti-Americanism, but they do not reflect who we are.”

See, U.S. foreign policy doesn’t really contradict enlightened rhetoric and declarations of benevolent intent from policy makers. The U.S. isn’t really condescending or imperialistic. It doesn’t really seek only to expand its power at the expense of others. No, these are merely “perceptions”, and false ones. The obvious corollary is that we musn’t change our policies, only work to correct these warped perceptions that cause people to unjustly oppose U.S. actions.

It hardly needs to be said that there’s nothing new about that formula.

The multilateralism touted by Obama is different from Bush’s unilateralism, but only slightly. The difference is that Bush openly declared that if you aren’t with us, you’re against us. Obama’s team is being more nuanced and diplomatic in talking about building the “architecture of global cooperation”.

But in the end, it’s still about  furthering U.S. interests as perceived by Washington and the corporate oligarchy. Cooperation and multilateralism, as it was under Bush, is fine, so long as it serves our “interests” as defined by that minority segment of the population. Obama’s strategy is quite different in terms of rhetoric about diplomacy, but the actual policy goal goals are indistinguishable from previous administrations.

One means by which policy goals are accomplished is through NATO, a matter that  Clinton addressed. She observed that NATO was designed for the Cold War. But rather than becoming obsolete with the end of the Cold War, even now, two decades later, NATO must instead be restructured “to update its strategic concept so that it is as effective in this century as it was in the last.”

This is precisely the same policy as previous administrations.

Or take Clinton’s remarks about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She says the Obama administration “wasted no time in starting an intensive effort on day one to realize the rights of Palestinians and Israelis to live in peace and security in two states”.

President Bush said exactly the same thing in not dissimilar language, only to implement an actual policy that fully supported Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians, including it’s 23-day full-scale military assault on Gaza beginning December 27.

U.S. policy under Obama hasn’t altered that framework one iota. The House of Representatives, for example, just approved Obama’s foreign aid budget that rewards Israel for it’s massacre of Palestinians in Gaza and other violations of international law with an additional $2.2 billion, on top of $555 million already allocated earlier this year.

Still, we are supposed to believe that the Obama administration is doing something “to ease the living conditions of Palestinians, and create circumstances that can lead to the establishment of a viable Palestinian state.” Clinton offers no evidence that the U.S. has done anything more than spout rhetoric about this, rendered meaningless by the U.S.’s actual actions.

Bush and Obama alike have paid lip service to the rights and aspirations of the Palestinians, but the actual facts about U.S. foreign policy point to an opposite conclusion from the one Clinton would have the public believe.

Clinton’s remarks on Iran similarly reflect perfect continuity from the Bush administration framework, asserting  “the Iranian march toward a nuclear weapon” as fact, despite the complete lack of evidence to support the claim, and even the conclusion of the U.S.’s own intelligence community to the contrary.

The Obama administration has made it’s position clear. It is willing to engage in “diplomacy” with Iran. The proposed “dialogue” and offer “to engage Iran” would entail “giving its leaders a clear choice: whether to join the international community as a responsible member” by acquiescing to U.S. demands to halt uranium enrichment, “or to continue down a path to further isolation” by refusing to accept the U.S. ultimatum.

This policy doesn’t differ from Bush’s one jot or one tittle, except inasmuch as it is an escalation of the Bush policy. “We remain ready to engage with Iran,” Clinton reminds us, “but the time for action is now. The opportunity will not remain open indefinitely.”

As Clinton has explained earlier, sanctions even more stringent than those imposed under Bush, “crippling sanctions” in her words, will follow. Iran must be punished for refusing to bow to the will of Washington, and if there’s a change, it’s that Obama is even more eager than Bush to inflict it.

The policy formula for Afghanistan and Pakistan is familiar enough: “In Afghanistan and Pakistan, our goal is to disrupt, dismantle, and ultimately defeat al-Qaida and its extremist allies, and to prevent their return to either country.”  This warrants little comment, other than the observation that Obama hasn’t only continued Bush’s policy here, but escalated it by “sending an additional 17,000 troops and 4,000 military trainers to Afghanistan.”

Or take Iraq, where the Obama administration is “developing a long-term economic and political relationship … as outlined by the US-Iraq Strategic Framework Agreement” that was implemented under the Bush administration. No comment is required here.

And what about U.S. policy towards “enemy combatants”? Clinton asserted, “We renewed our own values by prohibiting torture” — but torture has always been prohibited under U.S. law. Obama’s Executive Order didn’t do anything new, it merely reiterated already existing prohibitions.

Clinton said the administration is “beginning to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.” What she meant is that they’ve begun the process of beginning the process to close “Gitmo”. It’s a long ways from actually closing, and there’s plenty of opposition and other obstacles to overcome before this can happen, assuming the administration is sincere in its stated desire to shut Gitmo down.

There’s little reason to doubt their sincerity; shutting down Gitmo would be a useful way to do away with what has become a symbol for the unjustness of U.S. detention policy while doing little or nothing to actually alter that policy.

Obama, for instance, has not challenged, but accepted and reinforced the assumption of Executive power employed under the Bush administration under which detainees were captured and imprisoned in Gitmo in the first place.

On policy issue after policy issue, the continual torrrent of media commentary to the contrary aside, the Obama administration represents a continuation of the existing power establishment and goals and means of furthering U.S. strategic interests as defined by that very narrow and entirely self-interested segment of American society.

The CFR itself is among the prominent means by which these narrow interests perpetuate themselves. Clinton, herself a member, made some telling offhand remarks before beginning her scripted speech. Remarking on the CFR’s new headquarters in Washington, D.C., she said, “I am delighted to be here in these new headquarters.  I have been often to I guess the mother ship in New York City, but it’s good to have an outpost of the Council right here down the street from the State Department.  We get a lot of advice from the Council, so this will mean I won’t have as far to go to be told what we should be doing and how we should think about the future.”

And so it goes, business as usual.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Secret Bush-Clinton-Federal Reserve Pakistani Accounts Revealed

By Tom Heneghan

UNITED STATES of America  -  It can now be reported that the recent resignation of former New York Federal Reserve Bank of New York Chairman, Stephen Frieidman, signals an expanding investigation of New York Attorny General Andrew Cuomo, who is not only focused on the massive New York state financial derivative Ponzi Scheme, but is now centered on money laundry, and possible funding of alleged terrorists in Pakistan.

Note: Cuomo was recently in a state of shock when he looked at new evidence linking Citibank, J. P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs and AIG, to not only a terrorist money laundry in Pakistan, but to evidence tying all of these aforementioned brokerage firms and the Federal Reserve itself to PRE 9/11 knowledge, which allowed them to profit with put options and short positions placed before 9/11.

This allowed these criminal brokerage firms to benefit from the death of near 3,000 in New York City.

Reference: Friedman, who still sits on the Board of Goldman Sachs, has been recently cooperating with the New York Attorney General, but as you will find out in the rest of this briefing, Friedman has been playing both sides against the middle and is now involved in espionage double-cross.

Sources close to Defense Intelligence and the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as European INTERPOL, have actually fingered Friedman as the bagman for the Bush-Clinton Crime Family Syndicate involving illegal wire transfers of TRILLIONS of dollars of STOLEN U.S. Treasury funds that were laundred through Goldman Sachs brokerage firm in New York City, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Israel Discount Bank and the Federal Reserve itself to the Israeli Bank Leumi in Tel Aviv onto secret U.S. national security accounts in Pakistan.
Note: Assisting Friedman in looting the U.S. Treasury (the back end of the toxic derivatives) is a Pakistani national who is a joint U.S.-Pakistan CIA Intelligence officer with the initials ” K.H. ”

KH, who was presumed dead by many in the intelligence community, including Stephen Friedman, is now cooperating with European INTERPOL.

Note: Early Saturday morning on May 9, 2009, foreign born alleged President Barack Obama ordered a missile attack near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, which was was an alleged attack against so-called Al Qaeda terrorists.

We can now report that it was daddy Bush and his little bitch, Bill Clinton, that ordered Obama to launch the attack given reports that the whistleblower KH was in the vicinity.

Clearly, folks, this was not an attack on terrorists but an assassination attempt on KH that failed.

KH has fingered Stephen Friedman, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, along with former President George Herbert Walker Bush, former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in setting up these secret CIA proprietary accounts in Pakistan tied to none other than the late alleged 9/11 terrorist aka patsy CIA employee Tim Osman aka Osama bin Laden.

Note: Bin Laden, who died of kidney failure in December of 2001 and was a cosignator on these accounts, is claimed to still be alive based on the U.S. media’s big lie that he is still wandering the hills of Afghanistan.

Believe this, folks, he is dead as a door nail!

Should bin Laden’s death be reported, the IRS would have immediate access to these secret accounts that now have rotating access codes aka electronic serial combinations based on biblical chapters and verses.

The Pakistan money laundry has been a piggy bank for the Bush-Clinton Crime Family Syndicate since the 9/11 attack on America.

These accounts have now been frozen by the World Court and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) given the cooperation of the now whistleblower KH in handing over the account numbers and access codes aka the biblical chapters and verses that have now prevented daddy Bush, Bill and Hillary Clinton, along with former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan from getting into these accounts.

Reference: It has been reported that the Pakistani government refused Barbara Bush, wife of former President George Herbert Walker Bush, and Andrea Mitchell, wife of former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, and Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former President and daddy Bush’s little bitch, Bill Clinton, entry into Pakistan.

Reference: It was Chelsea Clinton that used funds from a Goldman Sachs hedge fund to arrange the BRIBING of New York Governor David Paterson in order to keep Caroline Kennedy from being appointed the next New York Democratic U.S. Senator.

It is clear now that former Federal Reserve Bank of New York Chairman, Stephen Friedman, is caught in a double cross.

Friedman had been cooperating with the New York state investigation while at the same time keeping secret the existence of these secret Bush-Clinton Crime Family Syndicate’s accounts in Pakistan, which now not only have a possibly link to the Bernard Madoff Ponzi Scheme but to the funding of alleged worldwide Al Qaeda terrorists as well as the 9/11 attack itself.

He clearly thought that KH had died – well he is clearly alive and kicking, folks.

P.S. At this hour the Obama Administration is ignoring a French Intelligence warning of a possible FALSE FLAG terrorist attack that would be staged in New York City around the Broad Street area aka the location of the Goldman Sachs brokerage firm.

We can now divulge that there are tape recorded conversations involving current White House Chief of Staff and former head of the North American Israeli Mossad, Rahm Emanuel, and current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, concerning the existence of certain files, documents and computer downloads currently held at Goldman Sachs that involve former Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Chairman Stephen Friedman, the Bernard Madoff Ponzi Scheme and the secret money laundry from the U.S. to Israeli to Pakistan.

French Intelligence sources have, once again, identified certain alleged Al Qaeda types that are linked to the noted 9/11 Israeli Mossad’s Urban Moving Systems espionage group, that is still operating in New Jersey, and have been recently photographed outside the New York financial district.

P.P.S. At this hour there is NO Justice Department as the Obama Administration continues to allow Bush Clinton Crime Family Syndicate rule over the United States.

The bought and paid for U.S. Congress, along with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), continue to run rampant in attempts to attack the American People.

For example, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, who has lunch on occasion with former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, still has a terrorist watch list that includes enemies of Karl Rove aka former Democratic Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.

Napolitano and Chertoff have also put together a list called the “Domestic Extremist Lexicon”, which classifies individuals as terrorists if they do not agree with corporate, fascist media versions of events.

Not to be left out, radical feminista and tribalist Congresswoman Linda Sanchez (D-CA), is sponsoring legislation (H.R. 1966), which would allow the government to censor the internet if it was determined that internet bloggers brought “emotional distress” to alleged individuals that were being criticized.

Ms. Sanchez is also working on legislation, which would allow the 2nd Amendment rights of the American People to be infringed on should a DHS oversight panel decide that an individual American citizen might be a terrorist and therefore be unable to buy a firearm.

Clearly, according to Ms. Sanchez, if you are critical of Ms. Sanchez you are therefore a “terrorist”.

Ms. Sanchez, who favors the illegal invasion of the United States by illegal aliens from Mexico is the REAL terrorist and a THREAT to our U.S. Constitution.

Call the DHS and tell them you have identified a terrorist in our Congress:

Operator Number: 202-282-8000

Comment Line: 202-282-8495

Final note: I want to make it clear to all of our loyal readers that the Bush-Clinton-Federal Reserve Crime Syndicate is desperate.

We, the American People, have uncovered the truth about their TREASONOUS activities.  So, their next step aka the Swine Flu will be to attack us.

Daddy Bush and his little bitch, Bill Clinton, are sociopaths. They are loosing their money and their power and the U.S. Military has told foreign born alleged President Obama that they will not tolerate him enabling any more of this TREASON.

Again, folks, prepare for revolutionary mode.  The best defense is a great offense.

We will do whatever is necessary to save our U.S. Constitution, our beloved Republic, our freedoms and our American way of life and remove these TRAITORS from American soil.

…

We announce to the criminal government and its criminal corporate media enablers:  YOU ARE TOO CORRUPT TO CONTINUE!

We, the American People, who are well armed, will be victorious!

* * *  REMEMBER  * * *

The orders of the day for ALL patriots as we continue to identify the enemies of the American Republic and the American Revolution in the 21st Century and eradicate them:

Oath Keepers: Orders We Will NOT Obey
http://oath-keepers.blogspot.com/2009/03/oath-keepers-declaration-of-orders-we.html

When it comes to the enemies of the American Republic and the American Revolution in the 21st century, we dedicate ourselves to the 2nd American Revolution and making these enemies a memory.

We must remove them from American soil, and DO IT NOW!

Overlord at Yorktown remains relentless and victorious.

At this hour, we live free or die as Lafayette remains at Brandywine and Albert Gore Jr. remains the year 2000 duly eletected, non-inaugurated,  REAL natural born  President of the United States.

Holder says he approved Clinton-era renditions

Published: May 7, 2009
Updated 16 hours ago

Under fire from Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder revealed that he had approved of rendition — essentially, legalized kidnapping — apparently more than once during his tenure as President Bill Clinton’s deputy attorney general.

Cautioning Holder that any potential investigation into the Bush administration’s torture program could result in Democrats being roped in, “Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Richard Shelby of Alabama pressed Holder on the CIA’s ‘rendition’ program that moved terrorism suspects from one country to another,” reported Domenico Montanaro with MSNBC.

“Didn’t that happen during the Clinton administration?

“Yes, Holder said.

“‘How many did you approve?’ they asked.

“Holder said he’d check the record.”

Despite frequent condemnation of the practice around the world, rendition — the secret capture, transportation and detention of suspected terrorists to foreign prisons in countries that cooperate with the U.S. — remains in the CIA’s playbook, thanks to a Jan. 22 executive order issued by President Obama.

Under President George W. Bush, renditions became “extraordinary renditions,” in which suspects were handed over to nations where torture was not illegal. Rendition under Presidents Clinton and Obama has not been linked to torture.

Holder has been, at least in public, an opponent of the torture program.

“Waterboarding is torture. My justice department will not justify it, will not rationalize it and will not condone it,” Holder said in a speech to the Jewish Council of Public Affairs in March.

“The use and sanction of torture is at odds with the history of American jurisprudence and American values. It undermines our ability to pursue justice fairly, and it puts our own brave soldiers in peril should they ever be captured on a foreign battlefield.”

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was briefed in 2002 on the torture tactics the Bush administration wanted to use against terror war prisoners. At the time, she did not object. In April of 2009, she denied knowing the techniques would ever be applied to prisoners.

“[They] did not tell us they were using that,” she said. “Flat out. And any — any contention to the contrary is simply not true.”

RAW STORY was the first news outlet to identify the exact location of one of the sites in the CIA’s secret prison network, used in conjunction with Bush-era extraordinary renditions. RAW STORY identified a prison in northeastern Poland, Stare Kiejkuty, that was used as a transit point for terror suspects.

According to filings, the CIA has over 7,000 documents related to Bush-era renditions.

Attorney General Eric Holder has said that “no one is above the law” and that his office would “follow the evidence.” He has not appointed a special prosecutor.

President Obama said Holder will be the person who ultimately decides whether to prosecute Bush administration lawyers who wrote opinions providing a legal basis for interrogation techniques widely denounced as torture.

President Obama also said CIA agents who tortured prisoners will not be prosecuted.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Clinton, Bush booked for joint Toronto appearance

JOHN IBBITSON

From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail

* E-mail John Ibbitson
* | Read Bio
* | Latest Columns

April 20, 2009 at 5:15 PM EDT

WASHINGTON — Former U.S. presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush will appear together in Toronto next month on a public stage for the first time since Mr. Bush ended his presidency, in a remarkable twist on the cultural cold war that Barack Obama and others are trying to lay to rest.

The two will be appearing at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on May 29 for a moderated “conversation” that is expected to last about two hours.

It is odd to think of the two presidents seated side by side, chatting amicably about the events of the past 16 years, as they are expected to do, and about the global and domestic challenges facing the United States and Canada.

After all, Mr. Bush set out to dismantle much of what Mr. Clinton accomplished, from balancing the budget to fighting global warming, even as President Barack Obama has set out to erase the Bush legacy by reversing his tax cuts, prohibiting the torture of terrorism suspects, withdrawing from Iraq and rejoining the campaign against greenhouse gases.
Former U.S. presidents Bill Clinton, right, and George W. Bush pass on the stage during dedication ceremonies for the William J. Clinton Presidential Center in November 2004, in Little Rock, Ark.
Enlarge Image

Former U.S. presidents Bill Clinton, right, and George W. Bush pass on the stage during dedication ceremonies for the William J. Clinton Presidential Center in November 2004, in Little Rock, Ark. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/The Associated Press)
Related Articles

From the archives

* Clinton charities take hit from mining bust
* Has Bush been judged too soon?

The Globe and Mail

Audiences hoping to witness the two men tearing at each other verbally will be disappointed. Presidents do not attack presidents, at least not directly, if only because only presidents know what other presidents go through. Nonetheless, the event is a reminder of the generational and ideological conflicts that some hope are finally diminishing, as combatants age and issues recede in importance.

In that sense, their joint appearance is that of two veterans in a war that some hope may be drawing to an end.

Mr. Clinton and Mr. Bush, both 63, are the only two presidents from the Baby Boom generation. (While Mr. Obama, at 47, technically qualifies, he identifies much more with the Internet-savvy, social-networking Gen-Xers and even the millennials who came along after.) It now appears the two presidents may be the last of their kind.

As such, they embody the ideological struggles over Vietnam, the Generation Gap and other cultural values that ignited in the 1960s and that bedevil America still, in fights over gay rights, gun rights, God in the classroom, pot on the street, protecting the Earth or projecting American power.

Although both presidents demonstrated an ability to compromise in the interests of bipartisan consensus — Mr. Clinton toughened welfare rules while Mr. Bush expanded public health care and funding for education — their opponents saw them only as the personifications of the evil of the other side.

So Mr. Clinton was impeached for abasing his office after lying about an affair with an intern.

And the wild-eyed are still trying to get Mr. Bush and his vice-president, Dick Cheney, tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity for their handling of the war on terror.

The meter doesn’t exist to measure the time and energy that has been wasted on all of this.

That Canada snagged the first joint appearance of 42 and 43 can be credited to event planners Andy McCreath and Christian Darbyshire, who landed Mr. Bush for his first post-presidential appearance in Calgary this past March and who have also previously booked numerous events for Mr. Clinton.

Mr. McCreath and Mr. Darbyshire, both in their mid-30s, are presidents of McCreath Communications and tinePublic Inc., respectively. Their other big-name bookings include Tony Blair, Lance Armstrong, Alan Greenspan and Rudy Giuliani.

It is not known whether this occasion will be closed to the press, as was the first Bush event. Ticket prices were also not available. Although speakers’ fees are not divulged, there were reports Mr. Bush received as much as $200,000 for his March appearance in Calgary.

The event will consist of the two men seated in chairs between a moderator, who has not yet been chosen.

No matter how civil the discourse, the thought of Mr. Bush and Mr. Clinton on stage together is bemusing, given the animosity of the past 16 years, and the efforts under way to overcome it.

Moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans are struggling in the House and Senate — albeit with indifferent success — to forge an agreement on reforms to health care, education, energy and the environment that both sides can accept and that Mr. Obama can sign.

And the President has taken repeated steps — in his overtures to Cuba, in efforts to create a bipartisan health-care consultation, in releasing the documents confirming that the CIA conducted what amounts to torture, while shielding those who acted in what they believed to be legal good faith — to bury the us-versus-them stridency of the past decades.

He might not succeed. The core of the left and the right stoke each others’ antagonism, increasing the difficulty of those seeking consensus.

The media, who feed on conflict, and those who feed off the media also encourage ideological cleavage. So Fox News hosts anti-government tea parties, while MSNBC is mostly pro-Obama. On the Web, the Drudge Report can find nothing good to say about this administration, while Huffington Post huffs that it isn’t activist enough.

But there are polls and pundits who suggest that, as the boomers age and socially liberal Gen-Xers and millennials shrug off the old animosities as not worth a tweet, the two former presidents and their most fervent supporters and antagonists might all be receding into historical anachronisms.

It would be interesting to hear what these two old warriors make of all this, even if they are simply shilling for their suppers and their charities.

But then, Mr. Clinton and Mr. Bush would be the very first to tell you that the times have passed them by.

For ticket inquiries, please call 1-866-994-2555.