NY Sun Shows Padilla's Face, Calls Him Al-Muhajir

In a stunning example of the mainstream media as propaganda tool, Glenn Greenwald correctly observed that the photo of "Al Queda's New Leader in Iraq" as featured in today's New York Sun, is actually a photo of American citizen Jose Padilla. The Sun, either indifferently or mistakenly, assures its "readers" that the photo represents "Al-Muhajir's Evil Presence" when Padilla is safely held in a South Carolina military brig where he's been since 2003, when Ashcroft declared him a "Dirty Bomber."

The photo on top is from today's Sun and below is the obviously darkened mug shot of Jose Padilla. Stunning, but Murdoch owned no doubt.

The German magazine Spiegel features an interview with Ron Suskind and asks the author of "The One Percent Doctrine" and "The Price of Loyalty" to describe what he knows about the CIA's "interrogation" of Al Queda operative Kalid Shiek Mohamed. According to Suskind,

"The thing they did with Mohammed is that we had captured his children, a boy and a girl, age 7 and 9. And at the darkest moment we threatened grievous injury to his children if he did not cooperate. His response was quite clear: "That's fine. You can do what you want to my children, and they will find a better place with Allah."

Later, Suskind describes his opinion of what Bush knew and when he knew it:

"The president understands more about the mistakes than he lets on. He knows what the most-skilled interrogators know too. He gets briefed, and he was deeply involved in this process from the beginning. The president loves to talk to operators."

Read the whole article, as well as Suskind's books. "The One Percent Doctrine" is an amazing description of Bush's War on Terror, as carried out by Cheney. One revealing anecdote: The CIA's nickname for Cheney is "Edgar", as in Edgar Bergan. In other words, they think of Bush as the Dummy and Dick as the ventriloquist.

Finally, here is a quote from the Washington Post's Dan Froomkin with interesting implications:

"What will life be like with oversight? We've just gone through not only six years of congressional obedience, but six years of ignorance. Congressional oversight has historically put enormous amounts of important, otherwise secret information into the public domain -- about the government and the private sector alike. If you think bloggers have been a potent political force thus far -- just wait until oversight gives them better material to work with."

Amen.