Bush’s Death Squads: “It now seems likely, given the unprecedented ‘license to kill’ President Bush granted to the CIA (after 9-11), there was U.S. complicity in the murders of the following individuals. Human rights commissions and war crime tribunals in Belgium and France should take a close look at these likely criminal misadventures…” Analysis by Wayne Madsen, formerly with the NSA. Cryptome

“President Bush has been keeping a “war on terrorism scorecard” in his desk drawer and using it to cross off photographs of al-Qa’eda and Taliban leaders as they have been killed or captured.

“Early on, I said, ‘I’m a baseball fan. I want a scorecard’,” Mr Bush explained in an interview with Bob Woodward of the Washington Post.’ Telegraph UK

apparently while he was in office, and perhaps planned further attempts on world leaders, United Press International has learned.

Specific references to Clinton were found among handwritten notes and sketches of U.S. Secret Service protective methods recovered from the Shomali compound near Kabul where al Qaida members received specialized training in assassination and hostage taking.” UPI

Peter Spiro, a former State Department lawyer and NSC staff member, now a professor at Hofstra Law School: Deploying A Law Enforcement Model In The Fight Against Terrorism

President Bush claimed in his State of the Union address earlier this week that “our war against terror is only beginning.” In fact, this war is over — except, perhaps, in a metaphorical sense.

Military operations are winding down in Afghanistan, and normalcy is returning on the domestic front. Leaving aside the horrific civilian casualties on September 11 itself, this conflict closely parallels our experience with such other recent deployments abroad as the Kosovo campaign. It was quick and neat, with few American casualties. The conflict demanded no direct sacrifice at home; far from the economic deprivations and military service requirements of real wars, in this one civilians were asked only to deploy their purchasing power.

Now that the engagement in Afghanistan is over, its aftermath is better addressed through a law enforcement model than under the model President Bush has suggested, of a continuing war that operates for an indefinite period of time, and is not ended even by the cessation of hostilities. The events of September 11 have demonstrated the obsolescence of old models of conflict premised on hostilities among states, from both a domestic and international perspective. Under domestic law, that means rejecting extraordinary procedures, such as the proposed military tribunals, and pursuing terrorists as we pursue criminals, within normal constitutional constraints.

FindLaw

I agree entirely; I have been a proponent of a law enforcement model for responding to 9-11 ever since and, like Spiro, I cannot refer to the “war” on terrorism without putting “war” in quotes.

Banished Words List: Lake Superior State University

Every New Year’s Day since 1976 the University has issued an annual “List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-Use, Over-Use or General Uselessness” compiled from nominations sent from all over the world, covering all manner of word or phraseology which some consider to be worthy of exile.

“For more than a quarter-century our list has rooted out grammatical subterfuge at the source,” says a spokesman for the word-sifters. “Doublespeak and sloppy talk continue to flourish. Now is not the time to drop our guard.”

Much Riding on Palm’s New OS. In conjunction with the OS change, Palm is going from a 33 MHz Motorolla Dragonball processor to a Texas Instruments ARM chip that will reportedly clock better than 200 MHz. “While the Palm OS 5 operating system — which analysts and applications developers expect to ship in early 2003 — is faster and can handle more robust multimedia applications than the current OS, it doesn’t take advantage of the multimedia capabilities of the Be operating system that Palm purchased last September.” Wired

Motivational Effects of Cannabinoids Are Mediated by µ-Opioid and [kappa ]-Opioid Receptors. This study by a Spanish-French research team using a ‘knockout’ mouse model (in which mice are genetically engineered to lack a class of neuroreceptors) produced the surprising finding that the modulation of reward pathways produced by THC is mediated by opiate receptors. J. Neurosci. — Abstracts: 22 (3): 1146

Philips Burning on Protection: ‘Electronics manufacturer Philips has been fanning the flames in the fight over copy-protected music CDs, threatening to undermine the record industry’s attempts to tinker with disc formats in order to thwart music pirates.

Could Philips take on the major labels and win? Yes, it could — but the company may only be hastening the death of the 20-year-old compact disc format.’ Wired

Confusing the Facts of the GAO-Cheney Dispute — ‘An analysis of the rhetoric from presidential spokesperson Ari Fleischer and Vice President Cheney reveals a disturbing pattern of dissembling that has caused much of the confusion. The two have consistently exaggerated the GAO’s request to make it appear unreasonable and to paint the administration as a victim.’ Spinsanity

Bob Herbert: Sneak Attack — “Bush administration officials presented a plan as an altruistic attempt to bring more health care benefits to low-income pregnant women. It was actually a guerrilla attack on abortion rights.” NY Times op-ed

GAO to Cheney: ‘You’re Lying”. General Accounting Office chief David Walker is refraining from filing suit yet (to force Cheney to divulge what outsiders he consulted for his energy taks force)

to give the White House time to reconsider some of its statements about the case.

So far, there’s no evidence the White House is interested in doing so. And while Walker says he wants to reach an agreement, he is also ratcheting up the rhetoric in the already-tense case. In an interview with National Review Online, Walker in essence accused Cheney of lying about the GAO’s demands. “There have been material misrepresentations of facts coming out of the White House in recent weeks,” he says. In particular, Walker points to a statement Cheney made in a television interview last Sunday. “They’ve demanded of me that I give Henry Waxman a listing of everybody I meet with,” Cheney told Fox News, “of everything that was discussed, any advice that was received, notes and minutes of those meetings.”

“That was a very critical and highly material misrepresentation,” Walker says. “If we were asking for that, I’d understand where they are coming from. But we are not.” National Review Online

Factional fighting erupts in Afghanistan, 40 killed — “The clashes are seen as a setback for the government of interim leader Hamid Karzai as he attempts to bring peace to the country following more than two decades of war.” Express India [via Red Rock Eaters]