Evergreen Politics

The End of the World

Being the tech-challenged one, I'm just going to have to link to this funny and frightening (mostly funny though)  video that comes by way of Darkblack, over at SteveAudio's place.

Steve's mom wonders aloud, "But can you dance to it?"

Dinsmore Confirms Just How Good it is For Citizens That He's No Longer Port CEO

Mic Dinsmore made a public statement about the auditor's report of his rank corruption as Port CEO, in which he proves once again that Denial Is a River In Egypt and that he is still the same fraud we always knew he was. Yawn.

"I have no doubt that there is nothing of substance in anything that has been alluded to," Dinsmore said in an interview. "Let the process show what I just said to be true."

Dinsmore, who led the port during the period auditors examined, had no comment on the report's finding that he and port Aviation Director Mark Reis broke state law when they negotiated at a steakhouse with a TTI Construction principal a $125 million third-runway embankment contract, instead of putting the matter through the public process, as required.

On Friday, Port Commission President John Creighton seemed to broaden the inquiry Yoshitani described, saying the port had plans to "hire an outside investigator to look at direct cases of fraud and misappropriation."

"Outside investigator"? Oops, not looking too good for Dinsmore. But he's so practiced at avoiding responsibility, he'll probably start blaming Yoshitani and the commisioners (all except commisioner Pat Davis, his BFF) when he gets hauled into court for mismanaging public funds, fraud and other clever crimes.

I'm hoping that P.I. reporter Kristin Millares Young interviews Pat Davis for her opinion, especially since the big (cough) "severance package" he received with her help and then had to return, won't be available for paying his future attorneys' fees.

Update: The Seattle Times has another angle to the audit -- the evasive behavior of Port managers during the audit process.

Auditors said Port staff stonewalled them by delaying or blocking access to information, and in some cases altered records before turning them over. When auditors pointed out poor record-keeping and no-bid contracts that violated Port policies or state law, Port managers continued to defend their actions, Jones said.

"No organization was so purposely blind to their own deficiencies as I found the Port of Seattle to be," said Jones, who founded her consulting company in 2000.

One of the prime examples of the Port's attitude, according to the audit, was the refusal of 13 Port managers to sign statements sought by auditors. The statements were meant to confirm that information provided by the Port was accurate.

"The fact that so many people refused to cooperate is sort of a red flag," said Cotton, chairman of Cotton & Co., a Virginia-based auditing and accounting firm.

Yeah, sort of. The statements -- also referred to as "representations" -- are characterized by audit consultants Jones and Cotton as being commonplace in performance audits. But, instead of cooperating, the Port managers fled to the legal department where general counsel Craig Watson told them to refuse to sign on the basis that the statements were "overly broad and ambiguous." Somehow, I don't think the nasty habit of altering records and then refusing to attest to the veracity of those records presents much ambiguity for either auditors or citizens, but, hey, maybe that's just me.

This funny business with the records reminds me of how, when Dinsmore and Davis came under scrutiny for his "severance package", suddenly... outta the blue ... documents supporting their side of the story showed up in Dinsmore's files... documents no one else ever knew existed... documents I surmised had been written up that same week, not a year earlier as some of the printed dates suggested...

Who says the holidays make for a slow news week?

"Charley Wilson's War"

See this movie!  The book, written by George Crile, has stayed with me since I read it shortly after it came out in 2003.   It is an amazing story of how three individuals working together, under a president whose philosophy supported them, managed to get the U.S. entangled in a covert war.  The trailer for the movie gives me hope that it will do this story proud.  The early reviews are very good - a funny, political movie, directed by Mike Nichols and written by Aaron Sorkin.

One Congressman, one wealthy right-wing socialite, and a grizzled old CIA operative saw a way to help a plucky group of Afghani cowboy-like characters oust the Soviets from Afghanistan and deliberately weaken them.  It worked.  They were able to destabilize the Soviet Union, contributing mightily to its break-up.   

The CIA provided money and weapons that enabled the mujahideen to defeat the Soviet Union and the Communist government it was supporting in a humiliating fashion.  It also strengthened the role of the warlords who have ruled Afghanistan ever since.  The war helped provide a fertile ground that attracted and nurtured radical Islamists and Arabs from all over the Middle East - people like Osama bin Laden of Saudi Arabia and Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri of Eqypt and Abdullah Azzam, born in Palestine.    With the defeat of the puppet Communist government of Babrak Karmal, conditions were set to enable the Taliban and al Queda to sweep across Afghanistan into positions of power and influence in Afghanistan and dismantle centuries of culture (as they are again set to do, BTW). 

We pretty much forgot all about Afghanistan until 9/11.  Those who feel they can interfere with impunity in the affairs of other countries tend to be careless.

But, forget for a moment about the subsequent destabilization of Afghanistan and Pakistan, 9/11, and the travesty of the Iraq War.  We get to see that show in technicolor in the main theatre.  Look for a while at the play going on in the much smaller, less frequented, theatre around the corner.   

The juxtaposition of this movie coming out with Putin's being named "Man of the Year", both this week, tickles my political funny-bone.  In a black kind of way.  From the moment I read the book, I was struck with how the Soviet leaders must be waiting patiently to strike back at the U. S. in retaliation for that humiliation.  At first, all looked great.  President Reagan was able to take credit for taking down the "evil empire".   But other nations have a greater sense of history. 

I have to think that former KGB agent and current President of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Putin is one of those.  Why should Russia help us in Iran, with the price of oil, or in any other way, when we played such a part in the humiliation of the loss in Afghanistan and the subsequent break-up of a superpower?  I don't think that we've seen the end of our karma for what Charley Wilson and his little gang of war promoters were able to accomplish in the 80's in Afghanistan.

I suspect that historians will look back and make this connection even if we don't now. 

State Auditor Finds Malfeasance and Financial Waste at the Port of Seattle

Brian Sonntag's blistering report on the Port of Seattle is out and the results... well, let's just say, they're not pretty. From the P.I.:

The report describes a Port staff that constantly left money on the table to be taken by its contractors, whose original contracts often ballooned without a public bidding process. Whether by failing to recoup $80,000 when the work it was to pay for was cancelled, or giving over $106,000 because of a clogged system for processing change orders, the Port allowed the companies it was contracting with to take charge -- or take advantage of the Port's inability to do so.

The Port doctored contractor invoices to pay a contractor for work that exceeded the commission's authorization, breaking the law in the process. Even when the contract was initially awarded in accordance with the law, the Port would sometimes then pile on more work without bidding: One contract grew from $950,000 in 1993 to more than $30 million without competition.

Port management hid much of this from commissioners, who Sonntag said gave away the farm when they passed a resolution in 1994 that delegated contract oversight to management, which proceeded to abuse that power by concealing how procurement for a $32.7 million third runway contract violated applicable laws. The commission was also left out of the loop on the information that resolution did require they be given, such as contract administration and bid irregularities.

(emphasis mine)

I suspect more than a few citizens are going to wonder about those laws that were broken and the people breaking them. Paging "Accountability"... please pick up any white telephone in the lobby...

The audit mostly covers the Port's years under the stewardship of the infamous Mic Dinsmore. At 334 pages long, it's chock full of damning evidence that Dinsmore's tenure had a long-lasting effect on the credibility of the Port. The third runway at Sea-Tac is the most glaring example of out-of-control spending; the estimated cost of $405 million has swelled to $1.1 billion. And there's been a cumulatitive breakdown in communication between the executive management and the commission. Sometimes managers misinformed, sometimes they purposely hid information, which is not hard to understand, since the managers and the contractors were so busy getting warm and fuzzy with each other. Ethics? Not much. Current CEO Tay Yoshitani says he takes the audit seriously, even though he doesn't agree with all of its conclusions (frustratingly, he doesn't mention any particulars) and that he is instituting a *37-Point Plan* to remedy the situation.

I have a *2-Point Plan*:

1) let's indentify everyone who broke the law and,

2) throw their butts in jail.

It all boils down to a waste of $97.2 million in taxpayer money. Whither that noxious $67 million tax levy? And now Alec Fisken, the only port commissioner committed to doing away with the levy, is gone. Bitter realities abound.

A Rendition and Torture Victim Tells His Story

Democracy Now host Amy Goodman got an interview with Yemeni citizen Mohamed Bashmilah, one of the rendition and torture victims whose fate was sealed at the hands of Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc., the Boeing subsidiary which gladly transported innocent men to torture chambers around the world for the thrill of their newly bursting wallets. Crooks and Liars also has the podcast.

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] It was approximately six days, but what I endured there is worth years. They took me there, and in the evening they started their interrogations process. They started putting some psychological pressure on me. They wanted me to confess to having some connections to some individuals of al-Qaeda. They tried several times to get me to confess, and every time I said no, I would get either a kick, a slap or a curse. Then they said that if I did not confess, they will bring my wife and rape her in front of me. And out of fear for what would happen to my family, I screamed and I fainted. After I came to, I told them that, “Please, don’t do anything to my family. I would cooperate with you in any way you want.”

Please listen to it. His story is -- in a word -- devastating.

There are many other stories we haven't heard yet and none of this is going away any time soon, especially since we now know that White House lawyers were intimately involved in the CIA's decision to destroy videotaped evidence of two torture episodes. Boeing and Jeppesen are going to have to make a statement.

Curiously, the article on the lawyers, which appeared in this morning's edition, has now disappeared from the NYT webpage. The White House complained about "inaccuracies" in the article, demanded the paper change the subheading (which it did) and suddenly... poof!... the article disappears into the ether, aka the world of google. Who's more scared? The White House or the NYT?

As David Strathairn, playing Ed Murrow, said in Good Night and Good Luck: "The terror is right here in this room." Just imagine what's going on in the Oval office... fear, loathing, lots of document shredding...and what was that fire that broke out this morning in Cheney's office all about anyway...

Using the rendition article as a jumping off point, Goodman, as she has so many times before, gets to the heart and soul of an important story that hardly anyone else in the media has the courage to touch.

Boeing Subsidiary Admits Role in Torture. Bush Administration? Not So Much.

The War on Terra took another hit this week when a former employee of Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc., a Boeing subsidiary, admitted in court papers that the company played a central role in the "extraordinary rendition" of terror suspects. Basically, what this means is that they are acknowledging they were part and parcel of the program to torture people, something the ACLU already suspected when it filed a lawsuit against Jeppesen last May.

According to the declaration of Sean Belcher, who worked briefly for Jeppesen as a technical writer in San Jose, Calif. in 2006, the director of Jeppesen's International Trip Planning Service, Bob Overby, told new employees during an introductory breakfast that "we do all the extraordinary rendition flights".

When some employees looked puzzled at the statement, Overby added that he was referring to "torture flights", according to Belcher's declaration.

According to Belcher, Overby then said he understood some employees were not comfortable with that aspect of Jeppesen's business but added, "that's just the way it is, we're doing them," and that the rendition flights paid very well.

Oh well, as long as it's good for the bottom line I gue$$ no one i$ $uppo$ed to have any moral i$$ue$ with the torture. Good thing we got that straight.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government is deploying its usual tactic of asking the judge to throw the lawsuit out on the worn-out premise that too many "sensitive state secrets" would be revealed in a public court case. It's the old Cover Bush's Butt with the National Security Excuse Trick. The ACLU is pushing forward with the suit, stating that none of this is as secret as the Bush Administration would have us believe, since the rendition flights have already been confirmed by Federal Aviation records. Plus, Jane Mayer reported about those Overby statements in the New Yorker more than a year ago. Her piece is a must-read as it elaborates on Overby's satisfaction at how well compensated employees are for those rendition flights.

“It certainly pays well. They”—the C.I.A.—“spare no expense. They have absolutely no worry about costs. What they have to get done, they get done.”

She also covers the thoroughly bungled el-Masri rendition, whereby a completely innocent man was kidnapped by the CIA, drugged and flown to Kabul to be tortured.

These are the damning allegations in the ACLU suit:

• In July 2002, Ethiopian citizen Binyam Mohamed, while in CIA custody, was stripped, blindfolded, shackled, dressed in a tracksuit, strapped to the seat of a plan and flown to Morocco where he was secretly detained for 18 months and interrogated and tortured by Moroccan intelligence sevices.
• In January 2004, Mohamed was once again blindfolded, stripped, and shackled by CIA agents and flown to the secret U.S. detention facility known as the "Dark Prison" in Kabul, Afghanistan where he was again tortured and eventutally transferred to another facility and then to the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he still remains.
• In May 2002, Italian citizen Abou Elkassim Britel was handcuffed, blindfolded, stripped, dressed in a diaper, chained, and flown by the CIA from Pakistan to Morocco where he was tortured by Moroccan intelligence agents and where he is now incarcerated.
• In December 2001, Egyptian citizen Ahmed Agiza was chained, shackled, and drugged by the CIA and flown from Sweden to Egypt where he was severely abused and tortured and where he still remains imprisoned.

Torturing them over there so we don't have to torture them here. It appears Morocco is often the black site destination of choice, though it does peak my interest to discover that Sweden was involved in Agiza's Egyptian torture.

The Bush Administration will pull out all the stops trying to prevent this lawsuit. After all, it succeeded in thwarting Maher Arar's lawsuit for the role our government played in his rendition to Syria, where he was tortured for almost a year -- and then let go when it finally dawned on them he was innocent. And the same excuse was used: We can't reveal all those national security secrets. But Arar, who received a mulitmillion dollar judgment from his Canadian government and little more than a half-hearted apology from the U.S., has gone back to court in an effort to get the ruling barring him from suing the Bushies overturned. It's not about money and it's not about a so-called "apology". It's a matter of holding this renegade government accountable for its crimes.

Arar's lawyer, David Cole of the Georgetown University Law Center, appearing on behalf of The Center for Constitutional Rights, underlined the importance of the current appeal. He told IPS, "The Canadians, who provided misinformation about Arar but did not acquiesce in sending him to Syria, have conducted a full investigation, written an 1100 page report, formally apologized, and awarded Mr. Arar $10 million in damages and legal fees. Meanwhile the United States, the far more culpable actor, maintains that it violated no rights, and that Mr. Arar has no remedy."

He added, "In this case, federal officials conspired to send an innocent man to Syria to be tortured and arbitrarily detained, and then did everything within their power to ensure that he could not get to a court to stop them from effectuating their conspiracy. They lied to him about his lawyer, and lied to his lawyer about him, while spiriting him off to Syria in a chartered jet. Now the government maintains that he has no remedy whatsoever in a court of law, and has the temerity to contend that his only avenue for judicial review was the very one they blocked him from pursuing while he was in their custody."

At least Arar has already proven he was abused. Hell, U.S. citizens can't even get the Senate to fulfill its oversight obligation of holding the telecoms accountable for illegally spying on us. A friend of mine pondered over coffee the other day, "What's the use in having a constitution if all our government ever does is violate it?"

400 days, 7 hours until the petulant little king in the White House abdicates his throne. I often find myself marveling at how the years race by as I grow older. 2008 is one year I won't mind seeing zip past at lightning speed.