OOPS! Again.

…allegedly "hacked" software, in the case of the CIA, is now being used to guide killer drones to their targets, according to IISI’s legal pleadings, despite the fact that the modified software doesn’t function properly… –CIA Drone-Code Scandal Now Has A Big Blue Hue

Antiwar Radio on Pacifica

Antiwar Radio’s Scott Horton will be interviewing investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill. Mr. Scahill, the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Army, will take a critical look at the Washington Post’s Top Secret America. KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles/98.7 Santa Barbara, Friday, July 16 at 5:00 PM Pacific. Listen live here.

Last week, Mr. Horton interviewed Gareth Porter and Michael Hastings for KPFK. The archive can be heard here.

Do you know Binyam Mohamed?

Two senior British judges accused the U.S. of threatening to stop sharing intelligence with Britain if the British Government released details of the extraordinary rendition of British citizen, Binyam Mohamed.

Why?

Perhaps this explains it:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqBFY0xxAIQ&feature=channel_page[/youtube]

So, while a few die hard “24” fans — and Alberto Gonzales, and Michael Mukasey — might still claim confusion about waterboarding being torture, nearly everyone else would agree that having your penis sliced with razors once a month IS torture.

According to the close-the-barn-door-late theory, should official confirmation of this behavior escape the U.S. establishment cone of silence, it would be a PR disaster. That, not the perennial whine of “National Security,” is the source of the pressure the British Judges felt.

There is a lot of smoke around the L.A. Times article suggesting Barak Obama’s Executive Order ending extraordinary renditions was bogus.

But even if Mr. Obama did end the extraordinary brand of renditions, according to a Democracy Now! interview with Michael Rattner of The Center for Constitutional Rights, there is still a hole big enough to drive tour busses full of victims into the Gulag.

Will this be another big disappointment like Mr. Obama’s plans to double the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan — and his authorization of Predator drone strikes on the tribal people of Pakistan? And will we meet other Binyam Mohameds in the future, this time created by the Obama Administration?

Gary Webb Was A Great Reporter

For those interested in the tragic story of Gary Webb, the reporter who covered the Dark Alliance between the CIA and crack epidemic-supplying Contra gangsters, as told in this weekend’s viewpoint by Robert Parry, you can listen to my January 31, 2004 interview of Webb here.

You can read the entire Dark Alliance series for the San Jose Mercury News here.

And get the book here.