Saturday, March 29, 2008

SPB News for Saturday.


Transcript: Mark McKinnon On Why He'll Leave The McCain Campaign If Obama Is The Democratic Nominee — National Journal's Linda Douglass sat down with Mark McKinnon for the March 28 edition of “National Journal On Air.” This is a transcript of their conversation. — Q: I want to introduce Mark McKinnon.


Lawyer: Pentagon using Guantanamo trials to influence '08 election The Navy lawyer for Osama bin Laden's driver argues in a Guantánamo military commissions motion that senior Pentagon officials are orchestrating war crimes prosecutions for the 2008 campaign. The brief filed Thursday by Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer directly challenged the integrity of President [sic] Bush's war court. Notably, it describes a Sept. 29, 2006, meeting at the Pentagon in which Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, a veteran White House appointee, asked lawyers to consider Sept. 11, 2001, prosecutions in light of the campaign. "We need to think about charging some of the high-value detainees because there could be strategic political value to charging some of these detainees before the election," England is quoted as saying.


Former Terror Detainee Says U.S. Tortured Him --Tells CBS He Was Held Underwater, Shocked, And Suspended From the Ceiling A German resident held by the U.S. for almost five years tells '60 Minutes' that Americans tortured him in many ways - including hanging him from the ceiling for five days early in his captivity when he was in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Even after determining he was not a terrorist, Murat Kurnaz says the torture continued.

Treasury’s Plan Would Give Fed Wide New Power --The plan carefully avoids a call for tighter regulation. The Treasury Department will propose on Monday that Congress give the Federal Reserve broad new authority to oversee financial market stability, in effect allowing it to send SWAT teams into any corner of the industry or any institution that might pose a risk to the overall system. Many of the proposals have nothing to do with the turmoil in financial markets. And some of the proposals could actually reduce regulation.

US gave $300m arms contract to 22-year-old with criminal record --Old stock sent to Afghan forces battling Taliban --40-year-old ammunition had to be destroyed The Pentagon entrusted a 22-year-old previously arrested for domestic violence and having a forged driving licence to be the main supplier of ammunition to Afghan forces at the height of the battle against the Taliban, it was reported yesterday. AEY, essentially a one-man operation based in an unmarked office in Miami Beach, Florida, was awarded a contract worth $300m (£150m) to supply the Afghan army and police in January last year. The report on AEY was the latest instance of private firms securing lucrative defence contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan under the Bush regime's policy of privatising growing aspects of the military. "Operations like this pop up like mushrooms after the rain," said Milton Bearden, a former CIA official who in the 1980s was in charge of arming Afghan rebel groups fighting the former Soviet Union.

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