Sunday, August 30, 2009

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McCain Denies Giving OK To CIA Torture Tactic Top
U.S. Senator John McCain, a torture survivor from his days as a captive during the Vietnam War, says his private comments about harsh interrogation methods were misrepresented by the Bush Administration in a recently released legal document intended to justify a six-day-long course of sleep deprivation for one CIA detainee in November of 2007. More on John McCain
 
Tim James: Former NBA Player Now With Army In Iraq Top
MIAMI — Tim James apologized for being late. A rough day at work, said the Miami Heat's 1999 first-round draft pick. Vehicles broke down, problems flared up, and he simply fell behind. "It happens," James said. "Even here." Even on the front line of the Iraq war. A former NBA player who often wondered about his true calling, Tim James is now a U.S. Army soldier, a transformation that even many of the people closest to him never saw coming. "I got my degree, lived the life I was able, have my freedom and became a professional athlete," James said last week from Iraq. "I'm the example of the American dream." James is at Camp Speicher, the massive base near Tikrit, 85 miles north of Baghdad, not far from Saddam Hussein's hometown and where insurgents still are a perpetual threat. For Miami Northwestern High, the Miami Hurricanes, three NBA teams and some foreign clubs, he was forward Tim James. For the Army, he's Spc. Tim James of Task Force ODIN – short for Observe, Detect, Identify, Neutralize. In layman's terms, he's part of the unit tasked with watching and catching the bad guys before they plant bombs. So long, charter jets, enormous paychecks and Ritz-Carlton hotel stays. Hello, 130-degree afternoons, 12-hour work days, $2,600 a month and 50-caliber machine guns. "In life, we all have different desires and needs," said Leonard Hamilton, James' college coach and now the coach at Florida State. "With the passion he has, he had to go fulfill this. I'm in total support of Tim and what he's doing. He's at peace. All we can do is hope he comes back safely." James spent years thinking about the prospects of a military career. Drafted 25th overall by the Heat, James' NBA career barely registered a basketball blip: He appeared in 43 games for Miami, Charlotte and Philadelphia, never starting and never scoring more than seven points in a game. So he went to play overseas, making a fine living in Japan, Turkey and Israel. By 2007, his playing days were done. After months of deliberating, he made the difficult decision that would take him away from his family and 5-year-old son, whom James still tries to talk with by phone every night. Even so, Tim James Jr. doesn't understand where his dad is. "I think of myself as a patriot," James said. "I wanted to give back to a country that gave so much to me." James is believed to be the first former NBA player to enlist and then serve in Iraq. Arizona Cardinals safety Pat Tillman quit football to become an Army Ranger and was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004. James joined the Army on Sept. 12, 2008. The training was brutal, even for a 6-foot-8 basketball player whose athleticism had drawn raves since junior high school. James slept outside in frigid night air, scaled seven-story towers, endured 10-mile marches ("with full battle rattle, as they say," he said), and learned how to take apart and reassemble his weapon. He never questioned if he was making the right decision. "I have no doubts," James said. "I have no regrets. Not one bit." His 12-month deployment to Iraq started in late July. On his second night there, James was awoken from a sound sleep, completely startled. Machine gun fire. The sound of war. Understandably, it took a while for him to fall back asleep. "It's a pretty impressive thing that he's doing, making the transition from where he was then to where he is now," said James' captain, Curtis Byron. "Such a small percentage of U.S. citizens are in the military or are veterans, doing their part to protect the nation's freedom. Putting that life behind you, setting aside any thoughts you had before about the military, that's impressive." Byron said James didn't tell most members of his unit that he used to be an NBA player. James not only didn't want the attention, he didn't want to be treated differently than anyone else. "He's very humble," Byron said. "To him, it's not a big deal at all." Oh, but it's a very big deal to the Heat. They preach family inside the Heat complex, and even though James played only four games, he's forever part of the Heat family. Rob Wilson, the team's director of sports media relations, helped arrange for two boxes of T-shirts and posters to be sent to Iraq as a morale booster. They should get there this week, unless sandstorms delay the arrival of mail – a common occurrence. Included in that package is an 8-minute, 31-second DVD, with greetings to James from several members of the organization. Another DVD from the Heat is already in the works, and the team is already planning to honor James at a home game this season. "I just want to wish you good luck, man," Heat captain Udonis Haslem, who wears No. 40 to honor two of his idols who had that number – his father and James – said on the DVD. "God bless you and keep doing what you're doing." "Stay focused," said Heat center Jamaal Magloire, a former James teammate. "Never let your guard down and get back to us safe." "You're not like any other basketball player out there," Heat assistant coach Keith Askins said. Since 2006, Miami has given a center-court tribute to soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan at every home game, a program Heat president Pat Riley developed and called the HomeStrong initiative. He said he cannot wait for James to get his due. "The work we do, while being important to us, is made possible by the efforts of our soldiers in the Middle East," said Riley, who coached James in his lone season with the team. James can't discuss specifics of his mission, although Byron said the unit should not face "the direct threat" of enemy action. The stakes are higher than any basketball game, for certain, but James says he can still draw the parallel between fighting on the court and fighting for his country. "I've been in the heat of the moment on the court in the fourth quarter, tie game, and yes, you would think that's a battle," James said. "There's nothing I hate more than losing. To be here, risking your life, it's definitely another level. It's like a scouting report for a game. All you can do is try to execute your mission. A loss here, that could be a lost life." More on Iraq
 
Roger I. Abrams: Kill the Wave, Etc. Top
Readers of this blog know that I am an ardent sports fan. I love the games. Sometimes, however, the people who attend the games just annoy me. Maybe it is because it rained so much this summer or that I am not ready for the academic year to begin once again, but let me catalogue just a few of my pet peeves about baseball fans. (Fans of other sports might also qualify for censure, but let's pick the sports apart one by one.) 1. I really get annoyed by the "wave" at baseball games. Are the spectators so bored that they must entertain themselves with displays of rhythmic undulation? I particularly get annoyed when this happens in a 1-0 game in the eighth inning with runners on base. Just go home if you have had enough of the national pastime. They don't lock the gates. It is unclear who first devised the wave for sporting events. Reports on the web indicate that it might have been started at a hockey game in 1980 or at a University of Washington football game in 1981 or an Oakland A's game the same year. (I figured Charlie Finley had something to do with this travesty; he also concocted the designated hitter rule.) In any case, the wave gained great international exposure as a result of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. (How come we flock to the wave, but not to soccer?) In Fenway Park, the wave always starts out in the deepest reaches of centerfield. Perhaps they are so far from home plate that they think the game is over, the Sox won and it is time to celebrate. Dr. Tamas Vicsek, a physics professor at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary, studied the wave and found that 20 or 30 fans can get the whole stadium moving. The typical wave is 15 seats wide, travels about 40 feet per second, and always moves in a clockwise direction. His article appeared in 2002 in the British journal Nature. Vicsek has studied "collective phenomena in biological systems -- flocking, oscillations, and crowds." I guess we are just like the birds. Now if we can get him to focus on how we stop it! 2. At any time he sees fit, some guy in the stands who sits in front of me arises and announces to his fellow fanatics: "Everyone up!" His exhortation is delivered with mucho decibels. Our self-appointed, natural leader has decided that the home team needs the standing support of the faithful at that moment. For some fans who do not have the dexterity of the spontaneous cheerleader, standing up is not that easy. For others who came to watch the game and not the backsides of the people in the front rows, this obnoxious fellow should sit on it. Of course, any sensible suggestion to that effect is answered simply: "You must be one of those Yankees fans. . . ." 3. Speaking of the Yankees, who are enjoying a spectacular year in the impossible American League East, they are subject to abuse by Boston fans even if they are nowhere near the Fenway. At any given time during a home game against the Rays or the Orioles, a cadre of Boston rooters will announce: "Yankees suck." This, in fact, is not true this year and has not been for a long time. Their epithet, however, is not intended as a commentary on the baseball play of the men who wear the pinstripes. It is hurled at the entire metropolis on the Hudson. There is much to criticize about "the City." It is noisy, friendless, rushed and discourteous. It is dirty, polluted, clogged and obnoxious. The City and its baseball team, however, do not "suck." (The Mets, on the other hand, do "suck.") 4. Beer has long been a major reason why folks attend baseball games. Baseball is the largest outdoor summer beer fest. (Football takes over in the fall.) The National League in the Nineteenth Century banned those clubs that sold beer to patrons, starting with Cincinnati. They thought it would attract the wrong kind of customers. Almost immediately, a rival league - the American Association - was formed with beer brewers at the core of the club owners. Beer and baseball have forever after gone hand in hand (except during Prohibition). I like a beer at the games. My peeve is with those who carry two 16-ounce cups of brew back to their seats. As the game progresses along with their inebriation, those cups tend to spill on their return trips to the seats. If you want to get sloshed, that is fine, but don't slosh it my way. 5. The cell phone has created a major new distraction for baseball fans. Folks talk on those phones as if it is a primitive technology that requires that they shout into the receiver. Once again, boredom must be the cause, because the conversations tend to last for a couple of innings. Parks banned smoking; now if we only get an official study that proves that cell phone use is carcinogenic to those who are seated near the offender. This is an unusual amount of spleen to spill at one sitting. Despite all of this, I still love the games and the fans. Now, if we can just figure out a way to get more tickets! More on Baseball
 
Former Israeli Prime Minister Olmert Indicted Top
JERUSALEM — Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was indicted on corruption charges Sunday, becoming the first Israeli premier to go on trial and highlighting a series of cases that have shaken the public's faith in the political system. The charges likely end the three-decade career of a man who just three years ago seemed poised to lead his nation to a bold withdrawal from the West Bank and an aggressive push for peace with the Palestinians. Olmert, who was forced to step down because of the case, was accused of illegally accepting funds from an American backer, double-billing for official trips abroad and pocketing the difference, concealing funds from a government watchdog and cronyism. All of the alleged crimes took place before Olmert was elected prime minister in 2006. Olmert, 63, issued a statement professing his innocence. "Olmert is convinced that in court he will be able to prove his innocence once and for all," said a spokesman, Amir Dan. The formal charges in the indictment include fraud and breach of trust. The Justice Ministry did not say when the trial would begin or what penalties Olmert could face. But Moshe Negbi, a leading legal commentator, said the fraud charge alone could carry a prison term of up to five years. A rumored political comeback would be highly unlikely unless he is cleared. "In the immediate future it doesn't seem possible, but it all depends on the court," Negbi said. Olmert, a lawyer by training, has repeatedly been linked to corruption scandals throughout a three-decade career that included a lengthy stint as Jerusalem mayor and a series of senior Cabinet posts. But until Sunday, he had never been charged. He is the first prime minister, sitting or retired, to be charged with a crime. The indictment follows a string of high-profile trials that have soured an already cynical public toward the nation's leadership. Olmert's former finance minister was sentenced to five years for embezzlement in June, and another member of his Cabinet was sentenced to four years for taking bribes. Israel's former ceremonial president, Moshe Katsav, is being tried on rape and sexual harassment charges, and a longtime Olmert aide has been charged with illegal wiretapping, fraud and breach of trust. The most damaging allegations against Olmert accused him of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from an American businessman during trips abroad. The businessman, Moshe Talansky, testified last year that he delivered the cash in envelopes and painted Olmert as a greedy politician who enjoyed first-class travel, fancy hotels and expensive cigars. The testimony helped turn public opinion against Olmert and played a large part in forcing him from office. The indictment said Olmert used his connections to help Talansky's business, but did not charge Olmert with accepting bribes. In another case, Olmert was charged with double-billing nonprofit organizations and the government for trips he took abroad and then using the extra money to pay for private trips for his family. Olmert became prime minister in January 2006 after then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a debilitating stroke. He subsequently led their newly formed Kadima Party to victory in a parliamentary election. On the campaign trail, Olmert promised an aggressive push for peace with the Palestinians, and said in the absence of a deal, he would unilaterally withdraw from large parts of the occupied West Bank. A gifted orator, Olmert crossed a series of taboos while in office – warning that Israel could become like apartheid South Africa if it continued its occupation of the Palestinians and expressing readiness to relinquish control of parts of the holy city of Jerusalem as part of a peace deal. Olmert led his government to the Annapolis peace conference in November 2007 – launching more than a year of ambitious, but unsuccessful peace talks with the Palestinians. Despite his ambitious agenda, Olmert's term was clouded by an inconclusive war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon that took place just over a month after he took office. A series of corruption investigations – most of which were dismissed – also followed him. The politically weakened Olmert announced his resignation last fall and stepped down in March after Benjamin Netanyahu won a parliamentary election. Olmert is currently out of politics and battling prostate cancer, but is widely rumored to be plotting a comeback. Resounding elections setbacks have not kept Israeli politicians down for long. Both Netanyahu Defense Minister Ehud Barak both rebounded quickly from landslide losses at the polls. Olmert's spokesman said his priority is to focus on his legal battle. "Once this is over and he has proved he is innocent, then he will consider what to do next. All options are open," he said. More on Israel
 
Nick Turse: My Lai and Lockerbie Reconsidered Top
Originally posted at Tomdispatch.com A week ago, two convicted mass murderers leaped back into public consciousness as news coverage of their stories briefly intersected. One was freed from prison, continuing to proclaim his innocence, and his release was vehemently denounced in the United States as were the well-wishers who welcomed him home. The other expressed his contrition, after almost 35 years living in his country in a state of freedom, and few commented. When Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the Libyan sentenced in 2001 to 27 years in prison for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, was released from incarceration by the Scottish government on "compassionate grounds," a furor erupted. On August 22nd, ABC World News with Charles Gibson featured a segment on outrage over the Libyan's release. It was aired shortly before a report on an apology offered by William Calley, who, in 1971 as a young lieutenant, was sentenced to life in prison for the massacre of civilians in the Vietnamese village of My Lai. After al-Megrahi, who served eight years in prison, arrived home to a hero's welcome in Libya, officials in Washington expressed their dismay. To White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs , it was "outrageous and disgusting;" to President Barrack Obama, "highly objectionable." Calley, who admitted at trial to killing Vietnamese civilians personally, but served only three years of house arrest following an intervention by President Richard Nixon, received a standing ovation from the Kiwanis Club of Greater Columbus, Georgia, the city where he lived for years following the war. (He now resides in Atlanta.) For him, there was no such uproar, and no one, apparently, thought to ask either Gibbs or the president for comment, despite the eerie confluence of the two men and their fates. Part of the difference in treatment was certainly the passage of time and Calley's contrition, however many decades delayed, regarding the infamous massacre of more than 500 civilians . "There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai," the Vietnam veteran told his audience. "I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry." For his part, al-Megrahi, now dying of cancer, accepted that relatives of the 270 victims of the Lockerbie bombing "have hatred for me. It's natural to behave like this... They believe I'm guilty, which in reality I'm not. One day the truth won't be hiding as it is now. We have an Arab saying: 'The truth never dies.'" American Exceptionalism Calley was charged in the deaths of more than 100 civilians and convicted in the murder of 22 in one village, while al-Megrahi was convicted of the murder of 270 civilians aboard one airplane. Almost everyone , it seems, found it perverse, outrageous, or "gross and callous" that the Scottish government allowed a convicted mass murderer to return to a homeland where he was greeted with open arms. No one seemingly thought it odd that another mass murderer had lived freely in his home country for so long. The families of the Lockerbie victims were widely interviewed. As the Calley story broke, no American reporter apparently thought it worth the bother to look for the families of the My Lai victims, let alone ask them what they thought of the apology of the long-free officer who had presided over, and personally taken part in the killing of, their loved ones. Whatever the official response to al-Megrahi, the lack of comment on Calley underscores a longstanding American aversion to facing what the U.S. did to Vietnam and its people during a war that ended more than 30 years ago. Since then, one cover-up of mass murder after another has unraveled and bubbled into view. These have included the mass killing of civilians in the Mekong Delta village of Thanh Phong by future senator Bob Kerrey and the SEAL team he led (exposed by the New York Times Magazine and CBS News in 2001); a long series of atrocities (including murders, torture, and mutilations) involving the deaths of hundreds of noncombatants largely committed in Quang Ngai Province (where My Lai is also located) by an elite U.S. unit, the Tiger Force (exposed by the Toledo Blade in 2003); seven massacres, 78 other attacks on noncombatants, and 141 instances of torture, among other atrocities (exposed by the Los Angeles Times in 2006); a massacre of civilians by U.S. Marines in Quang Nam Province's Le Bac hamlet (exposed in In These Times magazine in 2008); and the slaughter of thousands of Vietnamese in the Mekong Delta during Operation Speedy Express (exposed in The Nation magazine, also in 2008). Over the last decade, long suppressed horrors from Vietnam have been piling up, indicating not only that My Lai, horrific and iconic as it may have been, was no isolated incident, but that many American veterans have long lived with memories not unlike those of William Calley. If you recall what actually happened at My Lai, Calley's more-than-40-years-late apology cannot help but ring hollow. Not only were more than 500 defenseless civilians slaughtered by Calley and some of the 100 troops who stormed the village on March 16, 1968, but women and girls were brutally raped, bodies were horrifically mutilated, homes set aflame, animals tortured and killed, the local water supply fouled, and the village razed to the ground. Some of the civilians were killed in their bomb shelters, others when they tried to leave them. Women holding infants were gunned down. Others, gathered together, threw themselves on top of their children as they were sprayed with automatic rifle fire. Children , even babies, were executed at close range. Many were slaughtered in an irrigation ditch. For his part in the bloodbath, Calley was convicted and sentenced to life in prison at hard labor. As it happened, he spent only three days in a military stockade before President Richard Nixon intervened and had him returned to his "bachelor apartment," where he enjoyed regular visits from a girlfriend, built gas-powered model airplanes, and kept a small menagerie of pets. By late 1974, Calley was a free man. He subsequently went on the college lecture circuit (making $2,000 an appearance), married the daughter of a jeweler in Columbus, Georgia, and worked at the jewelry store for many years without hue or cry from fellow Americans among whom he lived. All that time he stayed silent and, despite ample opportunity, offered no apologies. Still, Calley's belated remorse evidences a sense of responsibility that his superiors -- from his company commander Capt. Ernest Medina to his commander-in-chief President Lyndon Johnson -- never had the moral fiber to shoulder. Recently, in considering the life and death of Johnson's Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara , who repudiated his wartime justifications for the conflict decades later ("We were wrong, terribly wrong."), Jonathan Schell asked : "[H]ow many public figures of his importance have ever expressed any regret at all for their mistakes and follies and crimes? As the decades of the twentieth century rolled by, the heaps of corpses towered, ever higher, up to the skies, and now they pile up again in the new century, but how many of those in high office who have made these things happen have ever said, 'I made a mistake,' or 'I was terribly wrong,' or shed a tear over their actions? I come up with: one, Robert McNamara." Because the United States failed to take responsibility for the massive scale of civilian slaughter and suffering inflicted in Southeast Asia in the war years, and because McNamara's contrition arrived decades late, he never became the public face of slaughter in Vietnam, even though he, like other top U.S. civilian officials and military commanders of that time, bore an exponentially greater responsibility for the bloodshed in that country than the low-ranking Calley. Butchery in the Mekong Delta A few weeks after McNamara's death, Julian Ewell , a top Army general who served in two important command roles in Vietnam, also passed away. For years, the specter of atrocity had swirled around him, but only among a select community of veterans and Vietnam War historians. In 1971, Newsweek magazine's Kevin Buckley and Alex Shimkin conducted a wide-ranging investigation of Ewell's crowning achievement, a six-month operation in the Mekong Delta code-named Speedy Express, and found evidence of the widespread slaughter of civilians. "The horror was worse than My Lai," one American official told Buckley. "But... the civilian casualties came in dribbles and were pieced out over a long time. And most of them were inflicted from the air and at night. Also, they were sanctioned by the command's insistence on high body counts." As word of the impending Newsweek article spread, John Paul Vann, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who was by then the third-most-powerful American serving in Vietnam, and his deputy, Colonel David Farnham, met in Washington with Army Chief of Staff General William Westmoreland. At that meeting, Vann told Westmoreland that Ewell's troops had wantonly killed civilians in order to boost the body count -- the number of enemy dead that served as the primary indicator of success in the field -- and so further the general's reputation and career. According to Farnham, Vann said Speedy Express was, in effect, "many My Lais." A Pentagon-level cover-up and Newsweek's desire not to upset the Nixon administration in the wake of the My Lai revelations kept the full results of the meticulous investigation by Buckley and Shimkin bottled up. The publication of a severely truncated version of their article allowed the Pentagon to ride out the coverage without being forced to convene a large-scale official inquiry of the sort which followed public disclosure of the My Lai massacre. Only last year did some of the reporting that Newsweek suppressed, as well as new evidence of the slaughter and the cover-up, appear in a piece of mine in The Nation and only in the wake of Ewell's death was it mentioned in the Washington Post that a long-secret official Army report, commissioned in response to Buckley and Shimkin's investigation, concluded: "[W]hile there appears to be no means of determining the precise number of civilian casualties incurred by US forces during Operation Speedy Express, it would appear that the extent of these casualties was in fact substantial, and that a fairly solid case can be constructed to show that civilian casualties may have amounted to several thousand (between 5,000 and 7,000)." A year after the eviscerated Buckley-Shimkin piece was published, Ewell retired from the Army. Colonel Farnham believed that the general was prematurely pushed out due to continuing Army fears of a scandal. If true, it was the only act approaching official censure that he apparently ever experienced, far less punishment than that meted out to al-Megrahi, or even Calley. Yet Ewell was responsible for the deaths of markedly more civilians. Needless to say, Ewell's civilian slaughter never garnered significant TV coverage, nor did any U.S. president ever express outrage over it, or begrudge the general his military benefits, let alone the ability to spend time with his family. In fact, in October, following a memorial service, Julian Ewell will be buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. Chain of Command In his recent remarks, William Calley emphasized that he was following orders at My Lai, a point on which he has never wavered. The Army's investigation into My Lai involved 45 members of Medina's company, including Calley, suspected of atrocities. In a second investigation, 30 individuals were looked into for covering up what happened in the village by "omissions or commissions." Twenty-eight of them were officers, two of them generals, and as a group they stood accused of a total of 224 offenses. Calley, however, was the sole person convicted of an offense in connection with My Lai. Even he ultimately evaded any substantive punishment for his crimes. While an opportunity was squandered during the Vietnam era, Calley's apology and the response to al-Megrahi's release offer another chance for some essential soul-searching in the United States. In considering Calley's decades-late contrition, Americans might ask why a double-standard exists when it comes to official outrage over mass murder. It might also be worth asking why some individuals, like a former Libyan intelligence officer or, in rare instances, a low-ranking U.S. infantry officer, are made to bear so much blame for major crimes whose responsibility obviously reached far above them; and why officers up the chain of command, and war managers -- in Washington or Tripoli -- escape punishment for the civilian blood on their hands. Unfortunately, this opportunity will almost certainly be squandered as well. Similarly, it's unlikely that Americans will seriously contemplate just how so many lived beside Calley for so long, without seeking justice -- as would be second nature in the case of a similarly horrific crime committed by an officer serving a hostile power elsewhere. Yet he and fellow American officers from Donald Reh (implicated in the deaths of 19 civilians -- mostly women and children -- during a February 1968 massacre) to Bob Kerrey have gone about their lives without so much as being tried by court martial, let alone serving prison time as did al-Megrahi. In the immediate wake of Calley's contrition, it
 
Vicki Kennedy Through The Years (PHOTOS) Top
Two of Ted Kennedy's best friends from the Senate, Chris Dodd and Orrin Hatch, said Sunday that Victoria Kennedy, the late senator's wife, would make a great replacement for him in the Senate. While it's still too early to say whether this will come to be, it's never too early to take a look back at photos of Ted and Vicki through the years. And you can read more about Vicki Kennedy and whether and the possibility of her stepping into her husband's seat here . More on Photo Galleries
 
Vicky Ward: The Truth About Lockerbie May Now Never Come Out Thanks to Gordon Brown's Thirst for Libyan Oil Top
A few weeks ago, in July, US families of the Lockerbie victims gathered in front of a TV screen in both the British embassy in Washington, DC and in the consulate in New York. They were connected via video conference with Scottish justice minister Kenny MacAskill, who discussed with them both the options of prisoner transfer for Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the convicted Lockerbie bomber, and a compassionate release, since the 57-year-old was suffering from prostate cancer. According to Frank Duggan, a former Chairman of the National Mediation Board who serves as president of the group of American victims of flight Pan Am 103, the conference was civilized and the Americans were direct with MacAskill. "We told him in no uncertain terms we did not want Megrahi transferred back to Libya. MacAskill did mention compassionate release as another option for him, but never in such a way as to make us believe it would actually happen. We view what subsequently happened as nothing short of betrayal," Duggan tells me. The shock in the wake of Megrahi's release, his hero's welcome in Libya -- and now the leak of two letters from Jack Straw, Britain's foreign minister, insinuating that the British told the Scottish that it was OK to transfer the convicted terrorist, since to keep him blocked a $30 billion oil exploration deal between BP and Libya -- have led to proposals to boycott Scotland, a rally in New Jersey protesting Muammar Qaddafi's plans to camp there (now canceled) during the upcoming UN General Assembly -- and now calls in both Britain and the US for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to stop evading the issue and tell the truth about his government's involvement. I have communicated with Duggan repeatedly over the weekend. "In our view the British have behaved worse than the Scots," was his view on receiving the news about Straw's leaked correspondence. We also discussed the op-ed that appeared in the New York Times under the byline of the Libyan dictator's son, Saif Al-Islam El-Qaddafi; Qaddafi fils insists there was no "hero's welcome" for Megrahi on his return to Tripoli, explaining away the hundreds of cheering, flag-waving supporters as members of Megrahi's "extended family," and makes the O.J. Simpson-like assertion that the "truth about Lockerbie will come out one day." Call me skeptical, but when it comes to credible track records, even the British government, who wrote to their buddy Qaddafi asking that Megrahi enter the country quietly, by now must doubt the veracity of what comes out of the mouths and word processors of Libya's leaders. Many of those who have protested Megrahi's innocence have ties to Libya, including having been paid or promised payments by the Libyan government -- something that may come as news to all those busy protesting Megrahi's innocence. In some cases the Megrahi apologists have some hidden reason to blame others -- ranging from the Iranians or Americans, who some claim tampered with evidence or bribed witnesses to suit their own purposes. First among the Megrahi defenders is Dr. Jim Swire, an English doctor who lost his daughter, Flora, in the bombing. Apparently Swire is a plausible, decent man -- but according to people who have known him a long time, he was never pro-America; in fact, quite the reverse. He was livid that Flora was planning to marry an American just before she died, according to sources. This fact, obviously, is not mentioned when he is quoted by the media. Duggan is reluctant to criticize another victim's family member, but says that Dr. Swire's mind was made up before Megrahi's trial. Then there is Edwin Bollier, the Swiss businessman who worked for Mebo, the company that manufactured the bomb-timer and whose office was next door to Megrahi. He has said repeatedly that Megrahi is innocent and that evidence was suppressed at the trial. He has good reason to say all this. Last year it emerged that Libya offered him $200 million if he could help set Megrahi free. Bollier contributes almost daily to the blog maintained by Professor Robert Black, a Scottish law expert, calling for a new trial. Then there is Dr. Hans Koechler, one of six UN observers -- and the only one to believe that the trial in front of judges, rather than a jury because of all the publicity -- was a travesty. Hans Koechler is a teacher at Innsbruck University; he heads something called "the International Progress Movement." He holds himself out as having some official position with the UN, which appears to give him credibility. His view of the trial, in which Megrahi was found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by eight Scottish judges -- three trial judges and five appellate judges who came to a unanimous verdict -- does not appear to be shared by the other five UN observers. Finally we come to Professor Robert Black, the Scottish lawyer whose opinion perhaps carries the most weight because he was one of the architects who devised the judge trial instead of a jury trial. He has since said he regrets this because he believes that the verdict was based on weak circumstantial evidence that he believes would not have persuaded a jury. He is frustrated that other judges and lawyers -- including those who denied the first appeal -- just do not agree with him. He is like a dog with a bone and he will not give it up. Why has the West been so slow to refute these conspiracy theorists? Duggan reminds me that other than a now-retired FBI agent, Richard Maquise (who is firmly of the opinion that though Megrahi did not act alone, he is guilty) all the other government officials involved in the case are unable to talk about it because they are still working and cannot comment. The strongly-worded letter from FBI Director Robert Mueller to MacAskill, calling MacAskill's decision a miscarriage of justice, was unprecedented -- a fact that seems to have been overlooked. Ultimately however it is not the job of journalists to prove or disprove Megrahi's innocence. That is for the courts. An appeal didn't work once. It's easy for protesters to say it would work a second time, but Megrahi is running out of time. By releasing him, the Scots have ensured we will never know the truth. Kenny MacAskill has indeed betrayed the American families. And as for the British government, when are they going to tell the truth? If Gordon Brown continues to hide and to lie, then he is just the same as Muammar Qaddafi, whose oil he covets, apparently at any price. New Jersey should ban him too. More on United Nations
 
Dan Dorfman: SEC Investigating Apple Trading Top
Hey, have some investors been screwing around illegally with the shares of high-flying Apple, Inc., a superstar of the investment scene? Apparently, the Securities & Exchange Commission is suspicious this may be the case and has kicked an investigation into the trading in Apple's securities both here and abroad. This is revealed in a series of documents it recently fired off to the brokerage community. I have obtained copies of those internal SEC documents from a regulatory contact. Interestingly, the nature of its interest shows that the commission is not investigating, as is usually the case, the trading that occurred in a specific time period, but rather, in this instance, in four specific time periods. This suggests the SEC could be looking into more than one potential violation in the trading in Apple shares. What the agency is seeking in its queries to the brokerage community are the names of its clients who specifically bought and sold Apple's securities in those four time periods and whether anyone did so with a knowledge of non-public, inside information. What's it all about? The SEC, as usual, declined comment, and Apple refused to respond to calls seeking comment. Wall Street sources, however, speculated that the agency's investigation likely centered on possible trading that may have been based on the illegal use of inside information involving three particular Apple-related developments. In effect, they raise specific questions: --Whether anyone got an illegal lead on precisely how sales were faring on key items in Apple's highly successful Ipod product line. --Whether anyone was given a precise insight into the health of the company's co-founder and CEO, Steve Jobs, a cancer survivor who took a six-month leave of absence last January and then received a liver transplant. Subsequent questions about the viability of his health then led to a great deal of volatility in Apple's shares. --Whether anyone had exact knowledge of when specific releases would be made by the company with regard to Jobs' health or Ipod sales and pretty much of an awareness, as well, as to what those announcements would say. Judging from "some uncanny trading" that he saw taking place in Apple, one hedge fund trader told me "it almost looked at times like the buyers and sellers were working at the company." In any event, if you're an Apple shareholder, you are one of those lucky investors since 2009 has been a big winner for you. The stock closed last year at 85.35 and is presently trading at $170.05, meaning it has almost doubled in 8 months in a difficult and erratic market environment. Moreover, the shares are trading just a shade below their 52-week high of $176.25. A number of Apple trackers are convinced it's still gung-ho ahead for the stock. For example, several see substantially greater capital appreciation, with a number, such as Deutsche Bank and Canaccord Adams, projecting gains that could push up Apple's shares to the $200 to $2.50 level. The stock's all-time high, $202.96, was recorded in 2007. A word of caution, however, before you dash out and buy some Apple shares. There are also a number of disbelievers out there, as evidenced by a sizable short interest (a bet the stock price will go lower) of 16.3 million shares. This skeptical view is largely based on the belief that the huge rise in the company's shares more than adequately discounts Apple's positive fundamentals. Meanwhile, speaking of SEC stock trading investigations, the agency, based on additional copies I've obtained of documents it recently sent to brokerage firms, is also looking into the buying and selling action in Biogen Idec, Human Genome Sciences, BioMS Medical Corp., Blackout Media, Location Based Technologies, Advanced Medical Optics and Hansen Medical. Write Dan Dorfman at Dandordan@aol.com More on Apple
 
Geoffrey R. Stone: Kennedy/Obama: Does the Dream Live On? Top
In his dramatic "The Dream Lives On" speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Senator Edward Kennedy promised his party and his nation that "Barack Obama will close the book on race, gender, group against group, and straight against gay," a line that brought forth both cheers and tears of hope from the delegates. It was no surprise that Senator Kennedy highlighted the issue of "straight against gay," because he was, in the words of Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay rights group, the "strongest voice in the United States Senate for the LGBT community." In celebrating the "transformative impact" of Ted Kennedy's commitment to guaranteeing equality without regard to an individual's sexual orientation, Jarrett Barrios, the incoming president of GLAAD, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, observed that Kennedy's unflagging support over the years had "helped change hearts and minds about LGBT equality," both in the Senate and throughout the nation. Kennedy was an early advocate for AIDS research and treatment, securing federal funding so patients could have easier access to experimental drugs and both in-home and outpatient medical care. In 1996, he was one of only 14 senators who voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, which bars the federal government from recognizing same-sex unions that have been authorized by the states. Kennedy condemned the legislation as a "mean-spirited" effort "to divide Americans." It "deserves to be rejected," he declared, "by all those who deplore . . . intolerance." Ted Kennedy was also a leading supporter of same-sex marriage in his home state of Massachusetts, which was the first state in the nation to legalize same-sex marriage in 2004. In recognition of the Massachusetts Supreme Court's decision holding the denial of same-sex marriage unconstitutional, Senator Kennedy proudly proclaimed that "the nation's eyes were on Massachusetts today, and they saw a triumph for civil rights and fundamental fairness." Senator Kennedy also championed the effort in Congress to add sexual orientation and gender identity to federal hate crimes and employment discrimination laws. In 2002, he was one of the leading sponsors of the Matthew Shepard Act on hate crimes, and in 1996 he authored the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would have barred discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sexual orientation. In co-sponsoring ENDA again this year, Kennedy said: "Ensuring equality for all Americans is the least we can do in living up to the standards of inclusion that this nation is built upon. There is no place for discrimination against any of our citizens for whatever reason." It is our duty, he declared, "to champion equal rights for every American." David Wilson, a gay African-American who was one of the plaintiffs in the Massachusetts same-sex marriage litigation, described Kennedy as a "beacon of hope" in his unswerving support of gay rights and as the "bridge from the civil rights movement of the 1960s" to the gay rights movement" of today. Kennedy saw clearly the moral, social, legal and historical connections between the struggles to accord "equal protection of the laws" to African-Americans, women and gays. In his view, these struggles are all part of a single whole, arising out of the fundamental responsibility of Americans to put aside prejudice and ignorance and to act upon what Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature." In his lyrical eulogy to Senator Kennedy, President Obama celebrated Kennedy's "life's work" - "to give a voice to those who were not heard; to add a rung to the ladder of opportunity; to make real the dream of our founding." In passing, the President made reference to Kennedy's strong commitment to the cause of gay rights, noting that Kennedy was "alive to the plight and suffering of others - the sick child who could not see a doctor; the young soldier sent to battle without armor; the citizen denied her rights because of what she looks like or who she loves." There is much talk now about carrying out the legacy of Ted Kennedy. President Obama is well positioned to fulfill Kennedy's dream of equal rights regardless of sexual orientation. Certainly, the President shares Kennedy's vision. Only a few years ago, as a candidate for United States senator from Illinois, Mr. Obama announced that, as "an African-American man" and "a child of an interracial marriage," I have "taken on the issue of civil rights for the LGBT community as if they were my own struggle because I believe strongly that the infringement of rights for any one group eventually endangers the rights enjoyed under law by the entire population." Mr. Obama proclaimed that he had worked for more than a decade "to expand civil liberties for the LGBT community including hate-crimes legislation, adoption rights and the extension of basic civil rights to protect LGBT persons from discrimination in housing, public accommodations, employment and credit," and promised that he would continue to "be an unapologetic voice for civil rights." Now is the time for President Obama to fulfill that promise. In memory of Senator Kennedy, and in the name of simple justice, he should call upon Congress to enact the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the Matthew Shepard National Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, and to repeal the military's discriminatory "don't ask, don't tell" policy (under which gay members of the military continue to be discharged) and the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which he himself once rightly described as "abhorrent." Mr. Obama has many reasons not to take this on. He is trying to right the economy, to enact health care reform, to keep the nation safe against terrorists, and to strengthen our position internationally. But when profound moral issues are at stake, our greatest presidents do not waver. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in the midst of our nation's bloodiest conflict and despite widespread and often bitter opposition. In 1948, Harry Truman ordered the desegregation of the military only three months before a hotly-contested presidential election that was then too close to call. Sometimes "change we can believe in" requires the courage to take risks. A passage in the President's eulogy for Senator Kennedy seems especially poignant in this regard: "We cannot know for certain how long we have here. We cannot foresee the trials or misfortunes that will test us along the way. . . We can use each day to . . . treat others with the kindness and respect that we wish for ourselves. . . . And we can strive at all costs to make a better world, so that someday, if we are blessed with the chance to look back on our time here, we can know that we spent it well; that we made a difference; that our fleeting presence had a lasting impact on the lives of other human beings." Ted Kennedy could not have said it better.
 
Bella DePaulo: Pursuit of Vicki or Justice for All? Media Says Marriage was Ted Kennedy's 'Best Decision' Top
Time magazine called Vicki " The Woman Who Saved Ted ." Reporter Karen Tumulty said that "Ted Kennedy was redeemed in his third act, and that redemption couldn't have happened without Vicki...Giving his heart one more chance was probably the best decision Ted Kennedy ever made." A story in the New York Times was much the same. Here's that account of what happened soon after Ted met Vicki: "The next day Mr. Kennedy made what he -- and everyone who knew him -- would later view as the smartest move of his life . He called to ask Vicki out to dinner." Remember, as if you didn't already know, or hadn't already heard it over and over again since the day Ted Kennedy died, that he was one of the most accomplished Senators in American history: " Kennedy left his mark on almost every major piece of social legislation in his 47 years in the Senate, from a 1965 immigration bill that opened U.S. borders to Asians and Latin Americans to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act this year that makes it easier for women and others to sue for wage discrimination. Schoolteachers, gay-rights groups, unions, advocates for people with disabilities and others claimed him as the unrivaled champion of their causes. 'Ted Kennedy was not just a senator for Massachusetts,' AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said. 'He was our senator -- a senator for working people, for poor people, for the old and the vulnerable.' Yet, not one of these pieces of legislation - which would make a difference in the lives of millions of Americans during Ted Kennedy's lifetime, and will continue to do so for decades to come - would be described as "the best decision" or "the smartest move" Kennedy ever made. No, in the reigning matrimaniacal accounts, the best and the brightest actions are not those that bend the arc toward justice for generations of Americans. Those encomiums are reserved for the decision of one (previously married) man to marry one (previously married) woman. [Continue reading here for more on why Ted Kennedy's marriage to Vicki may have been great, but the coverage was matrimaniacal.] [My collection of essays, Single with Attitude , includes sections on other media misrepresentations, such as "Media Splashes - Don't Get Soaked." The paperback is available here or from Amazon ; there is a Kindle version , too.] [To read other Living Single posts, click here .] More on Marriage
 
Esther Dyson: What Should Yahoo! Do? Top
Many people think Yahoo! is as good as dead: The stock is off around 15 percent since its recent deal with Microsoft, and by more than half from when the Microsoft talks started. But in reality the company is now in a better position to stake out new ground, rather than fight with Google over stale turf. Now that Yahoo! has freed itself from its fight with Google, it can return to its roots as a directory company that helped users make sense of the world around them. Indeed, back in 1994, Yahoo! started with a team of editors who combed through the small amount of information that was then online and generated lists of only the best content, complete with links. Google showed up with an automated tool to search for content -- any content -- and Yahoo! used Google's service before developing its own search capability. But the world has changed. The problem now is not finding information; it's filtering it and structuring it. TMI -- too much information -- has become a recognized acronym. You can't rely on human editors to structure information anymore; you need automated tools, augmented by human expertise and specific domain knowledge. But search alone doesn't work, either: Search is like a flashlight in a dark room; it pinpoints one or two things but leaves the surrounding space murky. What people really want is a lighted room, with things organized and displayed neatly on labeled shelves. That's what Microsoft has done with Bing, in a few commercially oriented domains. But the opportunity goes beyond the world of shopping, to all the stuff out there that Google helps you find. But more important, Yahoo!'s biggest opportunity is all the stuff inside -- inside its half-billion registered users' own possessions and habits, their photos and friendships and all their electronic data that has now become sufficiently extensive and complex to need management. Yahoo! is well-positioned to make sense of their own lives to individuals. Several interesting start-ups are leading the way , but they are not as trusted as Yahoo!; nor do they have the large user base or social graph of e-mail that will enable Yahoo! to extend saving and managing to sharing, so that users can see their own data in the context of their friends' data. (Yes, Facebook is in there too, but it's busy right now ... Yahoo! could lose its edge if it tarries.) People spend a fair amount of time searching for new stuff, but in many cases they would like to relate it to old stuff -- specifically, to their own information. There's a diffuse but gradually sharpening trend for people to manage their own information online -- not just their finances at Mint or Wesabe, but also their book preferences at Amazon, cellphone records (Skydeck), physical activities (Nike, Garmin, and the like), friendships and friends' activities (Facebook/Friendfeed and others), travel (Dopplr and TripIt), health (Polka.com, Microsoft Health Vault), music (iTunes and all the wannabes) and so forth. iLike was another such company, but it's no longer available (good move, MySpace!). Searching the Internet gets you to places where you can book travel, buy music, find walking paths and trade stocks, but these sites, generally, do not yet let users aggregate, manage and analyze all their own content and data -- especially about the things or data they got from competing vendors. Yahoo! can offer that service. What does this mean from a business point of view? Freed from the distraction of chasing Google, the company can focus on making the entire Yahoo! experience more consistent and integrated. Internally, it needs to combine its services more closely. It has already provided a single log-on for (almost?) all its services, including Yahoo! Mail and acquisitions such as Upcoming (events) and Flickr (photos and video). Its new home page makes it easy for a user to assemble a variety of services in one place. Yahoo! is open enough to feature such third-party sources as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal , but currently even its own offerings typically comprise generic content about, say, health care or stocks, rather than the ability to manage one's own health data or stock portfolio. Imagine what it could do with the users' own data. Of course, that raises another issue: Call it transparency or call it privacy. Yahoo! and a number of other companies -- including Google -- are already working on a standard for displaying information about the advertisements a user sees and the data advertisers collect: Yahoo!'s edge is that it can show this information without embarrassment. It shows ads from third parties to its users, but it does not sell user data to outsiders. In a world where users worry about -- and regulators legislate against -- the tracking of users, Yahoo! doesn't have to follow its users across the Web; it knows enough about them, openly, from what they do on Yahoo! So, if Yahoo! followed the strategy I have outlined, users could specify how much of their travel plans, for example, they want to share -- all the details with family and colleagues, or all the places they've been to with everyone -- after the fact. I'd be happy to share my travel plans with, say, British Airways if I thought they would give me a good deal. Its users know what Yahoo! knows about them: not a record of all the sites they visited, but their behavior on Yahoo! and, potentially, their data. But it's the user, not Yahoo!, who can make the decision about what to share with British Airways. For those who care, this is a big deal; for those who don't, they will know only that Yahoo! has a good record for two-way disclosure. To fulfill this broad promise, Yahoo! could now either buy or build a variety of services that help users manage their own data. The services described above would be a good start, but there are many more, and Yahoo! has the tools and the audience to build some of its own. None of this will be easy. It could almost be as complex as designing a search engine...but Yahoo! could be a leader rather than a follower in this endeavor. But it would be worth it. After all, for many people, the most fascinating thing in the world is a mirror. Disclosure: Of the specific companies mentioned above, Esther Dyson is an investor in Wesabe (indirectly), Dopplr, TripIt (indirectly) and Flickr (formerly) -- as well as a variety of user-generated health data companies not specifically mentioned. An earlier version of this essay appeared in a variety of newspapers outside the US through Project Syndicate. More on Facebook
 
Mark Sanford Video Parody: "500 Days Of Sanford" (VIDEO) Top
While the calls for Mark Sanford to resign as governor of South Carolina continue to be issued by such people as the state's Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer, the state's citizens may have to still deal with 500 more days of Sanford. Given this reality, some people have put together a video parody about Sanford, based on the movie "500 Days of Summer." Check it out below. More on Mark Sanford
 
Sam Donaldson Spars With Liz Cheney Over CIA Torture Investigation (VIDEO) Top
Sam Donaldson and Liz Cheney spiritedly debated the decision by Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate whether or not torture occurred during CIA interrogations of terrorist suspects. Cheney took the position that this matter had already been investigated, with the conclusion being no illegal activity had taken place. Donaldson countered that the investigations had been undertaken by the Bush Justice Department, an agency that became notoriously political during Bush's administration, and that a fresh investigation is needed. WATCH: More on Video
 

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