I know what you mean. I keep thinking that at some point they will realize they have to drop the facade and admit that they’ve been laying the blame in so many wrong places, which is both unjust and making things worse. But how do the same people who’ve said and done so many stupid things (and that’s before we get to the crimes) ever walk those back?

I guess I’m EPUd by now (my fault) but: I think that guy was the agent provocateur, reader, which makes the story even odder. I’m having connectivity problems at the moment and haven’t been able to read the whole cable, but how bizarre is that? They screw their own paid agent?

With guys like Thompson, it really is up to us to keep their names out there and the stories known. It’s so discouraging that we have so little traction after all this time, but … But what? I don’t know how to finish that.

Sorry to be AWOL, also OT so early, but there’s an ISI/Pakistan connection here:

Ontario Court of Appeal has dismissed the US gov’s appeal of a decision by a lower court not to extradite Abdullah Khadr to the US: LINK The appeal was taken forward by Canada’s attorney general (nudged on, no doubt, by Stephen Harper).

Abdullah is the Khadr who the US paid the ISI to kidnap and torture for a year. Under some pressure here, the Cangov brought him back, but there may have been some fishy under-the-table agreement that he would then be handed over to the US. Long story, not to be confused wi Omar nor with Abdurahman, the “Abdul” Khadr of the #gitmofiles whose file contains the wrong pdf.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Harper’s government appeal this to the SCC, but our judges are making it fairly clear that they don’t like torture or violations of people’s human or Charter rights. Haven’t finished, but an interesting read.

Tweeted that link. Candace and her peers are great. I don’t know how they stay so calm through all this.

We don’t need a coalition, although that would be a possibility. But if Harper comes back with a minority and can’t get the confidence of the Commons, then the GG can invite leader of second party to see whether he can get confidence of Commons. It doesn’t take a coalition to do that.

Canadians don’t elect prime ministers or parties. They elect MPs. The PM is the person who has the confidence of most MPs, regardless of party.

In practice, that probably does mean that Layton would need private assurances from Libs and Bloc that they would support him for a certain time, depending on certain deals. But in theory, parties don’t matter.

Re party positions on Khadr: Harper enjoys seeing people rot in jail. Ignatieff is our version of Cass Sunstein, and wouldn’t want to embarrass Obama. If Layton actually does make it to PM, though — and that’s complicated but possible — I will be organizing an all-out campaign re Khadr, and I think that will work. First order: stop the government obstruction in the courts.

What would happen to Remes if he read EW?

JOSHUA CLAUS.

EW, this is a tangent re “proxy detention” and it’s a long and twisty road, and apologies if you’ve already done this (again), but: This article from UK GTMO defence lawyer at HuffPo took me back to <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-cia-interrogation-20110411,0,2236422.story"this odd news, which I had missed, which then got me searching here, where I found espec a January piece from Daphne Eviatar (a MyFDL), which also got me thinking about your earlier post re Obama’s signing statement that wasn’t a signing statement.

My question (and I do have one): Do you think that Obama knew that proxy detention was implicit in the bill he signed and notated, as the congresscritturs appear not to have realized, or even if he didn’t, don’t you think that it is?

(Sorry not to have included FDL/EW links above, but I am working with a terrible slowdown — like typing through molasses in January.)

Seeing the logic, though, I’m not sure which is more appalling and embarrassing: that many people treated this as valid analysis? Or that someone had either such bad logical skills or such a desire to generate propaganda that he’d consider this report a coherent argument?

The policy docs especially but others I’ve read so far read to me like a mix of superstition and propaganda. Isn’t that the political situation we keep finding ourselves in? Some of the people running this show are true believers and some are utter cynics with other goals, but those two logics dovetail at some point. Has the US gov’t become a cult?

I’m still trying to get my head around the sourcing for this doc, and also the question of who (or, at least, what kind of person) wrote it. There are so many flat claims made about how prisoners were trained to develop cover stories but only one vague reference to training manuals found in Afghanistan. Do all those points come from the training manuals? Because a lot of them sound to me like the faith-beliefs/professional ideology of the various psychologists we’ve heard of involved at GTMO and at the black sites.

It’s like reverse-reverse psychology, and it is making my head hurt.

Yes.

The DOJ order is another one of those JOSHUA CLAUS moments, isn’t it? The DOD lost that one eventually. I hope the defence lawyers put up a determined resistance to this nonsense.

Remember the classic definition of chutzpah: Kid kills both his parents and then throws himself on the mercy of the court as an orphan.

Geoff Morrell always makes me think of that.

The actual cables are being released at WikiLeaks — see column to the left, which lists all files to come by country; those released are in bf (or whatever we call that). And now I see I have to go, b/c they’ve just released 1 of 2 Canadian ones, which means 1 of 2 Khadr brothers.

Candace, thank you so much for your work. I don’t know how you stay calm and keep going, but you are one of the heroes, and a lot of us will try to keep the record.

Thanks very much for that. My worry is that the plea deal strangles other things Khadr can do, even when/if he is freed. I believe such conditions can be challenged in the courts in Canada, but we’re a lot of steps away from that right now.

The plea deal also required him to submit to US interrogation during this year and to testify for the US gov against others. I don’t know whether any of that has occurred.

Carol Rosenberg reported on Khadr’s “home-schooling” a couple of months ago: LINK

People asking about Hicks will want to read Jason Leopold’s interview with him if they haven’t already.

The question does remain, I fear, if Harper is re-elected: will a Harper government bring Khadr back as per the plea deal? Don’t have the text in front of me right now, but as I recall, Harper’s response to it was ambiguous.

EW: Shephard sp. Back shortly.

manys and reader, I third the thought.

I don’t find this hard to believe at all. People at Mazar-i-Sharif haven’t the faintest clue who the pastor is or how fringe-ish he is. They just know he’s an American; Americans are in their country, killing Afghans; and now disrespect for the Koran is added to that. It’s called adding insult to injury.