An interesting development in the extremely contentious Valerie Plame affair: Deputy Attorney General James Comey, the only Justice Department official overseeing special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leak scandal, is leaving to take a job in the private sector. And his likely successor, Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum, is—like the incumbent president whose administration may be responsible for the leak—a Yale Skull & Bonesman! Via TruthOut:

Amnesty International has released testimony from two Yemeni men now detained in their own country, who were recently transfered there from Guantanamo Bay but also told of being held at a secret US detention facility at an unknown location where they were tortured. The men say they were held in solitary confinement at an underground facility and interrogated by masked men for more than 18 months without being charged or allowed any contact with the outside world. Amnesty argued that the reports add to long-standing claims that the US has held "secret detainees" at an international network of clandestine prisons. "We fear that what we have heard from these two men is just one small part of the much broader picture of US secret detentions around the world," said Sharon Critoph, an Amnesty researcher who interviewed the men in Yemen.

A coalition of 14 media organizations and public interest groups organized by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press have filed an amicus brief in federal court in New York urging the release of Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse photos. The coalition, which includes CBS, NBC and the New York Times, supports a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union against the Pentagon, which has been pending since October 2003.

John McCain—who knows a thing or two about what it is like to be a prisoner of war—steps up to the plate. And it is revealed that even Pentagon legal staff had warned that the current policy would invite abuse and violate law. But Bush insists on complete unaccountability and impunity, and no fixed definition for the continuing legal fiction of "enemy combatant" designation. Marjorie Cohn writes for TruthOut, Aug. 1:

Is there a draft in your future? That is the obvious implication of this July 23 story from Economic & Political Weekly, tho the author does not mention it.

Unravelling of the US Military
Newspapers describe the US army as facing one of the greatest recruiting challenges in its history, despite the enormous incentives now being offered to join the military. A study commissioned by the army found that resistance to recruitment was due to popular objection to the war in Iraq, the casualties and media coverage of the torture at Abu Ghraib. Solutions include a bill that was introduced in the Senate but that has not yet been voted on: offering legal status and eligibility for citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants residing in the US. The nightmare of war is offered as the prelude to the 'American dream'.

In another charming nugget for Jewish World Review July 26, official Islamophobe Daniel Pipes writes "The attempt to establish a world dominated by Muslims, Islam, and the Shari'a has begun — but the world is in denial":

What do Islamist terrorists want? The answer should be obvious, but it is not.

A generation ago, terrorists did make their wishes very clear. On hijacking three airliners in September 1970, for example, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine demanded, with success, the release of Arab terrorists imprisoned in Great Britain, Switzerland, and West Germany. On attacking the B'nai B'rith headquarters and two other Washington, D.C. buildings in 1977, a Hanafi Muslim group demanded the canceling of a feature movie, Mohammad, Messenger of G-d, US$750 (as reimbursement for a fine), the turning over of the five men who had massacred the Hanafi leader's family, plus the killer of Malcolm X.

This is pretty Orwellian. The government says it has the right to hold accused "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla without charge as an "enemy combatant" for the "duration of the conflict." The "conflict" in question is a completely open-ended undeclared war which the administration says could last generations. And the "battlefield" in question is defined as the entire United States. Padilla's lawyer is actually in the ironic position of demanding that his client be indicted! Now, nobody is supposed to care about this because Padilla is just a jihad freak. But your habeas corpus rights are evidently not worth the paper they're written on anymore. From Bloomberg, July 19:

The general who "Gitmoized" Abu Ghraib briefed Rumsefled's top aides, it is now revealed—contradicting his own earlier testimony. From the Chicago Tribune July 15 via TruthOut:

General Contradicted Abu Ghraib Testimony
Transcripts reveal he briefed top officials.
Washington - An Army general who has been criticized for his role in the treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has contradicted his sworn congressional testimony about contacts with senior Pentagon officials.