The fire next time

God gave Noah the rainbow sign don’t you see
God gave Noah the rainbow sign,
no more water but fire next time
Hide me, O Rock of Ages, cleft for me
God gave Noah the rainbow sign don’t you see

And this is how New Orleans passes into the cold and restless night. Not by the flood, but self-immolated in the fires of social disorder, poverty, ignorance and the politics of race and resentment.

Now, as the federal government gets ready — amid a housing crisis — to tear down public-housing projects that long have been problematic, all hell is about to break loose. Already, as WDSU television reports, anonymous propagandists are threatening acts of terrorism — an arson spree to begin when the bulldozers roll:

As the demolition of three housing developments looms on the heels of many heated City Hall protests, a new poster promises one condominium will be destroyed for every public housing unit that’s torn down.

The posters are being circulated on the streets of New Orleans. NewsChannel 6 staff members found one of the posters just outside the studio.

The posters depict a flaming condominium and declare “For every public housing unit destroyed, a condo will be destroyed. If there will be no homes for us and relief from high rents, there will be no homes for the rich either.”

It’s signed “Sincerely, the angry and the powerless.”

The FBI is investigating the posters as the special agent in charge calls their distribution “an act of domestic terror.” Meanwhile, U.S. Senator David Vitter is urging the U.S. attorney to get involved.

“We take this very seriously any time we have an issue where individuals allegedly will use force of violence to impact a political or social decision,” FBI Special Agent In Charge James Bernazzani said. “We consider that a terrorist threat and we’ll move very, very aggressively.”

If those involved are caught and convicted, they could face 10 years in prison.

IN A FUNCTIONING civil society, threats of terrorism — which represent terrorism in and of itself — are no way to get your way. Likewise, a functioning civil society would have found a way around the housing crisis — which would include some means of housing the working poor, the elderly and the disabled while allowing for the long-overdue removal of these petri dishes for entrenched poverty and crime.

New Orleans, and Louisiana as a whole, do not exemplify functioning civil societies, alas. So there you go.

Everyday mayhem and dysfunction has degenerated into terrorism — or at least widespread threats thereof. Way down yonder in America’s Chechnya.

Title 18. Part I. Chapter 118. Section 2441.

§ 2441. War crimes

(a) Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.

(b) Circumstances.— The circumstances referred to in subsection (a) are that the person committing such war crime or the victim of such war crime is a member of the Armed Forces of the United States or a national of the United States (as defined in section 101 of the Immigration and Nationality Act).

(c) Definition.— As used in this section the term “war crime” means any conduct—

(1) defined as a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party;

(2) prohibited by Article 23, 25, 27, or 28 of the Annex to the Hague Convention IV, Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, signed 18 October 1907;

(3) which constitutes a violation of common Article 3 of the international conventions signed at Geneva, 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party and which deals with non-international armed conflict; or

(4) of a person who, in relation to an armed conflict and contrary to the provisions of the Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices as amended at Geneva on 3 May 1996 (Protocol II as amended on 3 May 1996), when the United States is a party to such Protocol, willfully kills or causes serious injury to civilians.

From MSNBC:

The CIA failed to fully inform Congress that it was videotaping the harsh interrogations of terrorist suspects and that it destroyed the tapes in 2005, the bipartisan leaders of the House Intelligence Committee said Wednesday.

“Our committee was not informed, has not been kept informed and we are very frustrated about that issue,” said Chairman Sylvestre Reyes, D-Texas, after a three-hour closed-door meeting with CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden. That meeting, he said, “is just the first step in what we feel is going to be a long-term investigation.

That probe will include calling other witnesses, including Hayden predecessors George Tenet and Porter Goss, and John Negroponte, the former Director of National Intelligence, said Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the panel’s senior Republican. Reyes said he would also call on Jose Rodriguez, the former CIA director of operations who actually had the tapes destroyed.

From The Times (London):

The CIA’s use of waterboarding to torture terror suspects was approved by the White House, a former agency official claimed yesterday. The accusation comes amid growing uproar over the destruction of videotapes showing the interrogation of al-Qaeda members.

John Kiriakou, the former agent, said that the waterboarding of Abu Zubaida — the first senior al-Qaeda operative captured after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 — broke him in less than 35 seconds, and “probably saved lives”.

The harsh interrogation technique, which critics — and Mr Kiriakou — say is torture, was approved at the highest levels of the US Government, said Mr Kiriakou, who led the team that captured Zubaida.

Referring to the waterboarding of Zubaida — a technique that simulates drowning — Mr Kiriakou told the NBC TV station: “This isn’t something done willy-nilly. This isn’t something where an agency officer just wakes up in the morning and decides he’s going to carry out an enhanced technique on a prisoner.

“This was a policy made at the White House, with concurrence from the National Security Council and the Justice Department.”

Mr Kiriakou’s comments came as the head of the CIA was questioned yesterday in closed-door hearings on Capitol Hill over the destruction of the tapes, amid allegations that the agency tried to hide evidence of illegal torture.

From The Associated Press:

The Bush administration was under court order not to discard evidence of detainee torture and abuse months before the CIA destroyed videotapes that revealed some of its harshest interrogation tactics.

Normally, that would force the government to defend itself against obstruction allegations. But the CIA may have an out: its clandestine network of overseas prisons.

While judges focused on the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and tried to guarantee that any evidence of detainee abuse would be preserved, the CIA was performing its toughest questioning half a world away. And by the time President Bush publicly acknowledged the secret prison system, interrogation videotapes of two terrorism suspects had been destroyed.