NEWSBYJIM CAVALLARO

Breaking news today in the Times Square car bomb incident; authorities have made an arrest. New York police and federal authorities were able to identify a suspect, locate him and arrest him before he could leave the country on an international flight, all in just 48 hours.

Here’s the real story, though: apparently, authorities were able to do this without waterboarding, walling, sleep deprivation, or shackling. Remarkable! How could investigators achieve this sort of result in a terrorism case without employing Dick Cheney’s preferred methods? How can they keep Americans safe without subjecting someone to intense suffering?

Unfortunately, we can’t totally discount the slim possibility that in the course of this investigation, authorities may have engaged in abusive behavior. Abner Louima is not such a distant memory. How the police likely reached the suspect, though, involves a relatively straightforward, two-part answer. The first part concerns what they apparently did right: old school investigation, aided by modern forensic techniques. The second part concerns what they apparently did not do — torture — because it does not work.

Media sources are reporting that Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, is alive and well. He appears in a video posted on the Internet, according to the New York Times.

The problem here is that in January, U.S. officials reported that a CIA drone killed Mehsud, as one of between twelve and eighteen victims of a drone strike. According to the Times of London’s January 14 issue, "A CIA drone strike on a suspected militant hideout today killed 12 people in an attack aimed at killing the top Taliban commander in Pakistan. A local tribal leader said Hakimullah Mehsud was killed in the early-morning raid, but the Taliban insisted he was still alive. … In the strike a pair of missiles hit a mud-walled compound … where Mehsud, the chief of the Pakistani Taliban movement, was believed to be staying.” Later, the Washington Post reported that Pakistan officials were 100 percent certain that the Taliban's Mehsud was dead.

By the way, it’s worth noting that this was the second round of stories reporting Mehsud death. Senior Pakistani officials reported that Mehsud been killed last September in a succession fight with another potential Taliban leader.

Time, perhaps, for a bit more investigative reporting and a bit less transcribing of official CIA and Pakistani governmental releases and statements? Time, perhaps, for more investigation by our Congress?

What’s worse than a documented instance of a massacre committed by U.S. forces, followed by official cover-up? Two instances, you say, breaking on the same day? Well, been there, done that (April 5).

What’s really worse is 1) our media’s utter failure to pursue this issue, and 2) equally shameful, deafening silence from Congress.

Let’s look at the incidents briefly. The first incident is the WikiLeaks video of a trigger-happy helicopter machine gun crew shooting on civilians in Iraq and congratulating themselves as though killing were a video game. The second is the killing of five Afghans, including three women (two of whom were pregnant), initially pinned by the military on “terrorists”; U.S. forces dug bullets out of the victims to cover-up their liability in that massacre. Both stories hit mainstream news sources on the same day. Media firestorm to follow! Right? No such luck.

Earlier this week, a court in Buenos Aires convicted Reynaldo Bignone, the last dictator of the Argentine dirty war (1976-1983) for crimes against humanity. The court sentenced Bignone, who served as ‘President’ from 1982-1983, to a term of 25 years in prison.

The Argentine dirty war has become a tragic reference in human rights. The military rulers — in large part concerned about the negative press and international outcry over the public brutality in neighboring Chile after the 1973 Pinochet-led coup — forcibly "disappeared" thousands of opponents, dissidents and bystanders. Disappearance — that is, forcibly seizing and secretly detaining, torturing and killing — became synonymous with the Argentine state. An even more sinister crime became the signature offense of the Argentine junta: baby snatching. Over the seven years of military rule, security forces seized scores of pregnant women, imprisoned and tortured them, kept them alive until giving birth and then turned their children over to "suitable" pro-military families. They murdered the mothers after birth, often by tossing them from airplanes over the sea.

Fittingly, Bignone was convicted, in good measure, for his role in the Campo de Mayo concentration camp, which he created, in which detainees were tortured and murdered, and from which the children of pregnant women were stolen.

Heavily armed militia supporters will amass across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., today.

Last week, tax day rallies were staged across the country by the Tea Party movement. At these rallies, tea-partiers carried a wide range of signs, including some (like the one in the photo to the left) equating Obama with Hitler.

What do these two events have in common, other than their anti-government, right-wing message?

Both are manifestations of our broad First Amendment regime, which protects a very wide range of speech. Compared to other liberal democracies, the level of protection given to what is known as “hate speech” is very high in the United States. The Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, mandates that free speech and freedom of the press must be protected except when advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action. In effect, this permits manifestations of hatred directed at particular groups or individuals, but draws the line (barely) on this side of explicit directions to attack.

Sounds reasonable enough. But a strong case can be made in support of efforts to criminalize hate speech. There is good reason to believe, for instance, that certain forms of advocacy, even if they do not directly call for imminent violence, may foster extremist thought and action. Former President Bill Clinton, for instance, draws a connection in today’s New York Times between particular extreme viewpoints and the terrorist Oklahoma City bombings.

"It is beginning to become evident that for decades, if not centuries, church leadership covered up the abuse of children and minors to protect its institutional image and the image of priesthood ... We must personally and collectively declare that we very much doubt the veracity of the pope and those of church authority who are defending him or even falling on the sword on his behalf."

Wow. Harsh words. Must be from some radical anti-Church group, you know, one of those that has been persecuting the pope because of their differences with Church doctrine on contraception, celibacy, women priests or something. Right?

Wrong. It’s from the Rev. James J. Scahill of St. Michael’s Parish in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, during his sermon yesterday! And wait, he goes further:

"And if by any slimmest of chance the pope and all his bishops didn’t know — they all should resign on the basis of sheer and complete ignorance, incompetence and irresponsibility."

The pope, resign? Hold on, let’s take a step back and think this over. The defense of the pope has focused primarily on the broader context, one in which his supporters argue, Cardinal Ratzinger (now the pope) played an important role in fostering church accountability on sex abuse. In light of this context, they argue, the pope ought not to be judged based on the few, out-of-context incidents that have come to light.

This past week, an apparent clash of messages concerning U.S. engagement with terrorism and the Muslim world surfaced. The Associated Press reported last Wednesday that the Obama administration has been taking pains to underscore its efforts to move away from the use of discourse that emphasizes any ‘Islamic’ element in terrorist actions.

At about the same time, WikiLeaks released video images of U.S. forces in Iraq sniping, killing and wounding mostly unarmed civilians, including two journalists and a family of good Samaritans. On another occasion, the Pentagon was forced to admit that its initial characterization of an incident in which U.S. forces killed five civilians including pregnant women (“honor killings”) in Afghanistan was false (and that troops had committed atrocities).

Is the United States becoming a more culturally sensitive global player? Is Obama offering an olive branch to the Muslim world? Or is his administration committing wholesale abuses against civilians in Muslim nations while ensuring impunity for those who have and continue to commit war crimes? Hmm ... which to believe?

Forget 'Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.' For authentic, remote-controlled war, it's not Xbox or Playstation 3; it's wikileaks.com. The 'game' involves sniping civilians from above, followed by cover-up, facilitated by our uncritical media. The 'game?' U.S. military operations in Iraq.

Take a look at this video, please. My apologies in advance. This video will cause you unease, at a minimum.

After I saw the video, I scanned some of the mainstream media coverage of the incident. Reading and watching the reporting of what I had just seen left me with the feeling that I had entered a parallel universe in which what you think you saw is some sort of illusion.

My first take on seeing the video was that it captured a horrific example of contempt for life; that it demonstrated the deeply disturbing and abusive approach of U.S. forces in the war in Iraq. What it shows — or so I thought — is a helicopter firing on unarmed civilians, because a few of them are carrying things (camera equipment) that might be weapons. Worse, it shows the helicopter firing on a van that tries to rescue the wounded, even though (it turns out) there are children in the van.

Throughout, the video is peppered with the warped, hateful, fratboy dialogue of self-congratulations for hitting targets, Xbox style. Forget that these are people whose bodies are being torn apart by high-powered weapons. In many ways, the feel is of a sick game with fatal consequences, an analogy for the entire Iraq war effort, sold from the beginning with catch phrases like “shock and awe.”

The nine members of the Hutaree militia arrested recently had allegedly stockpiled 46 guns and 13,000 rounds of ammunition in preparation for a "war" against the United States. These activities amount to domestic terrorism, but you wouldn't know that from reading the mainstream media.

First, a disclaimer: I am generally not the type to cite the Patriot Act favorably. But I’ll do it here to make a point. It turns out that the definition of terrorism as modified by that legislation, while overly broad, is substantially similar, regardless of whether the acts involved are done domestically or internationally. Both involve violent, criminal acts that appear intended to intimidate civilians or influence government policy or conduct. But don’t take my word for it; take a look at the text here.

If there are any mainstream journalists reading this post, I particularly encourage them to check that link. Here’s why. If you’ve been reading the mainstream media lately, you might think that only Islamic fundamentalist terrorists (or terrorist suspects) are, in fact terrorists (or terrorist suspects). Homegrown terrorists (or terrorist suspects), by contrast, would be mere wayward Christian extremists or radicals. Sorry to be so wordy with the bit about suspects in parentheses, but I am old school on the whole try-and-convict-before-establishing-guilt thing. I know, very September 10.

The most recent example of this double-standard has been the reporting on the arrest of the Hutaree militiamen now facing long prison terms for alleged plots to murder police officers.

Yesterday, a hearing at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington focused on horrendous rights abuses facing thousands of foreign nationals in Mexico. No, it was not the plight of Americans or Europeans caught in ruthless battles over control of the drug trade. (I’ll address that later). Instead, this horror involves systematic kidnapping of migrants, mostly from Central America, making their way through Mexico.

According to a dozen human rights centers in Mexico, organized criminal organizations, with the complicity and sometimes participation of state agents, have been seizing, torturing, extorting and sometimes tens of thousands of migrants. Over a period of six months, nearly 10,000 migrants (9,758 to be exact) were kidnapped in Mexico. Here’s a link to a video of the hearing in Spanish. To give you a sense of the scale, that rate of kidnapping eclipses the rate of forced disappearance in Argentina during the Dirty War (1976-1983). And almost no one has been paying attention.

The media have focused instead on violence in the course of the Mexican state’s declared war on drug traffickers. The attention has intensified on this side of the border since last week’s incident in which three people with links to the U.S. Consulate were murdered in the border city of Ciudad Juarez. Let’s be clear, the drug traffickers are a brutal lot. But it turns out that so, too, are the military authorities purportedly defending law and order. These authorities have committed wholesale abuses, including rape and murder of civilians in areas in which anti-crime operations have been occurring. The involvement of these and other authorities in the cash proceeds of drug trafficking is, unfortunately, notorious.

In other words, drug violence in Mexico — like the violence that targets immigrants — cannot and must not be understood as a battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil. It is a complex web of money and influence in which the level of corruption and entrenched abuses by authorities often make it difficult to know who is killing whom and why. It matters a great deal that the 'drug war' is not a clear battle between two forces and instead a mass of corruption and violence. It matters because if there is no good team and bad team, then attempting to fund or arm ‘the good team’ will not move anyone closer to victory. Instead, it will add fuel to the fire, ensuring that violence continues or, worse, intensifies. Unfortunately, Mexican (and U.S.) official discourse continues to promote the inaccurate 'war' frame.