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SATURDAY 05.22.04 / 7:23 AM / LINK

On the right track

Here's an Englishman who's on the right track, unlike his prime minister.

Terry Jones says in today's Guardian, "Tony Blair tells us that we should do everything we can to support America. And I agree. I think we should repudiate those who inflict harm on Americans, we should shun those who bring America itself into disrepute and we should denounce those who threaten the freedom and democracy that are synonymous with being American."

But then Jones wonders aloud why Blair waltzes with Bush. "It's difficult to think of anyone who has inflicted more harm on Americans than their current president," he says, pointing out that since Bush lost the election and became president not much good has happened for Americans making less than enough to maintain a string of homes, boats, cars, excellent health care insurance, designer clothing, home theaters, private schools, and all the accouterments that spell c-o-r-p-o-r-a-t-e .. l-i-f-e-s-t-y-l-e.

His since-George-became-president for-instances:

4 million Americans have lost their health insurance and 2 million jobs have disappeared Mr Bush's latest budget proposes to withdraw support of all kinds for working families earning less than $35,000 a year The national debt has rocketed to more than $26,000 for every family No American president has been so successful in making Americans ashamed of being American (According to a Gallup poll last year, the majority of Americans - 64% - "cite a fear of unfriendliness as the top concern of travelling abroad") The administration actually cut the budget for local law enforcement by 87% while boasting about spending $47m on a local law enforcement programme The $11.7m the secretary of health boasts setting aside to help those without healthcare is for a programme that Bush has tried to shut down every year he's been in office. Having ridden to power in a stolen election George Bush has undermined priciples of American democracy The American Civil Liberties Union tells us that the patriot act alone, which was rushed through Congress in the name of the "war on terror", puts at risk the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth and 14th amendments. Thousands of men, mostly Arabs or south Asians, have now been secretly imprisoned in America without charge, and the government has refused to publish their names or whereabouts. In fact, the more I think about it, America hardly seems like America any more.

On all points, especially your last, Mr. Jones, I couldn't agree with you more.


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05.12.04 / 6:40 AM / LINK

Being Ironic

Nicholas Kristof defends Donald Rumsfeld in his column today. He says he's astonished that he's doing so, but he says fairness must reign.

Kristof's argument is interesting because he launches it with this:

"Donald Rumsfeld has presided over the most foolish conflict since the War of Jenkins' Ear in the 18th century, and he is at the top of a military force that tortured prisoners."

Then moves it along with this:

"It's troubling that there was similar misconduct in Afghanistan, and that some of the techniques reflect expertise in torture."

And this:

"It's true that the torture arose in a climate of administration contempt for the Geneva Conventions."

Mentions this:

"... he (Rumsfeld) led us, poorly prepared and clutching the hands of a charlatan, Ahmad Chalabi, into a quagmire. His doctrine of underwhelming force hobbled our occupation and is partly responsible for the mess. According to a poll cited in The Financial Times, 58 percent of Iraqis now support Moktada al-Sadr, one of our enemies.

Points this out:

"... he has managed it poorly, and there's an argument for firing Mr. Rumsfeld for incompetence..."

The winds down with this:

"What would firing Mr. Rumsfeld achieve? ... it would send a message to the world that we are as appalled by our own war crimes as by Saddam's."

Hmmm, is Kristof being ironic here? Or is he just illustrating what I said in my previous post? Anyway, I'm just as astonished as he is that he's defending Rumsfeld (re: Abu Ghraib). Maybe he should re-read his own commentary, in it he makes some excellent points refuting it.

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05.12.04 / 6:16 AM / LINK

Power is never having to say you're responsible

By that criteria we have the most irresponsible administration ever known to the U.S.A. You might say they've achieved world class irresponsibility.

Although the Iraq war has evolved into the biggest botch job since Vietnam the representatives of George Bush never suffer responsibility for their actions, like true elites they delegate it to lesser entities. In the case of Abu Ghraib lowly privates and sergeants take the hit. In the case of the war in general, it's Ahmad Chalabi's fault. (Note regarding Chalabi's fall from grace: There's no honor among thieves.)

As NY Times contributor Asla Aydintasbas observes, "The Americans are claiming that Mr. Chalabi passed secret intelligence to Iran. This may or may not be true — he has long had ties to the Tehran government — but in any case it provides a convenient excuse to pin all the occupation's failings on him. No weapons found? It must be because of bad intelligence fed to the Pentagon by Mr. Chalabi's political group, the Iraqi National Congress. Terrorism on the rise? Must be because the Baath Party and the military were disbanded after the war at Mr. Chalabi's insistence. The growing insurgency? It would not have happened had Mr. Chalabi not told us that American troops would be welcomed with flowers."

Yes Chalabi was the con guy, but who were the brilliant ideologists who based a thing as momentous as war upon a con?

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TUESDAY 05.18.04 / 9:31 PM / LINK

The boss told me to do it

Here are some excepts from Seymour Hersh's New Yorker article suggesting that Don Rumsfeld is at least as "fundamentally un-American" as his underlings at Abu Ghraib.

“Some people think you can bullshit anyone.” --Senior C.I.A. official commenting on the Rumsfeld & Cambone testimony before the 9/11 Commission A special-access program, or sap—subject to the Defense Department’s most stringent level of security—was set up... the so-called “black” programs (that) had one element in common: the Secretary of Defense, or his deputy, had to conclude that the normal military classification restraints did not provide enough security. The operation had across-the-board approval from Rumsfeld and from Condoleezza Rice, the national-security adviser. President Bush was informed of the existence of the program ... No traceability and no budget. And ... never fully briefed to Congress. They carried out instant interrogations—using force if necessary—at secret C.I.A. detention centers scattered around the world. “The rules are ‘Grab whom you must. Do what you want.’” One Pentagon official who was deeply involved in the program was Stephen Cambone ... He was known ... for his closeness to Rumsfeld. “Whatever Rumsfeld whimsically says, Cambone will do ten times that much.” Some of its (SAP) methods were troubling and could not bear close scrutiny, however. The solution, endorsed by Rumsfeld and carried out by Stephen Cambone, was to get tough with those Iraqis in the Army prison system who were suspected of being insurgents. ...methods ... could, with special approval, include sleep deprivation, exposure to extremes of cold and heat, and placing prisoners in “stress positions” for agonizing lengths of time. The Bush Administration ... unilaterally declared Al Qaeda and other captured members of international terrorist networks to be illegal combatants, and not eligible for the protection of the Geneva Conventions. The male prisoners could be treated roughly, and exposed to sexual humiliation. Cambone says, I’ve got to crack this thing and I’m tired of working through the normal chain of command. "So here are fundamentally good soldiers --military-intelligence guys-- being told that no rules apply,” the former official added. “And, as far as they’re concerned, this is a covert operation, and it’s to be kept within Defense Department channels.” The military-police prison guards ... included “recycled hillbillies from Cumberland, Maryland.” ... members of the 372nd Military Police Company ... “How are these guys from Cumberland going to know anything? The Army Reserve doesn’t know what it’s doing.” By fall ... the senior leadership of the C.I.A. had had enough. “They said, ‘No way. We signed up for the core program in Afghanistan—pre-approved for operations against high-value terrorist targets—and now you want to use it for cabdrivers, brothers-in-law, and people pulled off the streets’”—the sort of prisoners who populate the Iraqi jails. “This was stupidity.” “The White House subcontracted this to the Pentagon, and the Pentagon subcontracted it to Cambone,” he said. “This is Cambone’s deal, but Rumsfeld and Myers approved the program.” Rumsfeld may not be personally culpable, the consultant added, “but he’s responsible for the checks and balances ... we’ve changed the rules on how we deal with terrorism, and created conditions where the ends justify the means.” —“one, that Arabs only understand force and, two, that the biggest weakness of Arabs is shame and humiliation.” “... the purpose of the photographs was to create an army of informants, people you could insert back in the population.” The idea was that they would be motivated by fear of exposure, and gather information about pending insurgency action ... “This shit has been brewing for months.” “You don’t keep prisoners naked in their cell and then let them get bitten by dogs. This is sick.” “We don’t raise kids to do things like that. When you go after Mullah Omar, that’s one thing. But when you give the authority to kids who don’t know the rules, that’s another.” ... Rumsfeld’s apparent disregard for the requirements of the Geneva ... led a group of senior military legal officers from the Judge Advocate General’s (jag) Corps to pay two surprise visits ... to Scott Horton ... chairman of the New York City Bar Association’s Committee on International Human Rights. “They said there was an atmosphere of legal ambiguity being created as a result of a policy decision at the highest levels in the Pentagon." ... with the war on terror, a fifty-year history of exemplary application of the Geneva Conventions had come to an end. The Pentagon’s attitude last January, he said, was “Somebody got caught with some photos. What’s the big deal? Take care of it.” "The cover story was that some kids got out of control.” “The photos turned out to be the result of the program run amok.” “Nobody will talk. So the only people left to prosecute are those who are undefended—the poor kids at the end of the food chain.” Remember, we went to Iraq to democratize the Middle East. The last thing you want to do is let the Arab world know how you treat Arab males in prison. “We’re giving the world a ready-made excuse to ignore the Geneva Conventions. Rumsfeld has lowered the bar.” Go to the article.

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05.18.04 / 4:41 AM / LINK

Doing jigs through the halls of the Whited Sepulcher

You know what pisses me off about all of this? It was so well predicted! Even Colin Powell is said to have warned, "You break it, you own it."

It was predicted ( and here, and here, and, of course, religious predictions) by everyone except the Conquest Faction --which rules now because of a Supreme Court-aided Florida coup followed by what turned out to be a golden opportunity sent by (some think) GOD, to finally set the Project for a New American Century wheels in motion. When those suicide warriors of Islam set their convictions loose in lower Manhattan, Perle and Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Cheney must have been doing jigs and goose-steps through the halls of the Whited Sepulcher, for God's sake.

"Let's invade Iraq" was decided at a White House board room meeting almost instantaneously according to Paul O'Neill.

It must have sounded something like this:

"Hey, this is the perfect time to invade Iraq." "You think we can pull it off?" "Well, hell, we do have a red, white, and blue corporate press, you know ... does the expression "in the bag" mean anything to you?" "So we just press the patriot button on Fox?" "Uh, huh." "Point taken."

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SATURDAY 5.15.04 / 9:25 AM / LINK

If a fish rots from the head down, how does an administration rot?

Kevin Drum (Washington Monthly) has something interesting to say here regarding Gitmo-izing Iraq. It's related to that other old Republican idea of "trickle-down". He's illustrating what's been said before. You know that old saying "A fish rots from the head down?"

Drum cites today's New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh about Abu Ghraib:

....“They weren’t getting anything substantive from the detainees in Iraq,” the former intelligence official told me. “No names. Nothing that they could hang their hat on. [Stephen] Cambone says, I’ve got to crack this thing and I’m tired of working through the normal chain of command. I’ve got this apparatus set up—the black special-access program—and I’m going in hot. So he pulls the switch, and the electricity begins flowing last summer. And it’s working. We’re getting a picture of the insurgency in Iraq and the intelligence is flowing into the white world. We’re getting good stuff. But we’ve got more targets”—prisoners in Iraqi jails—“than people who can handle them.” And Hersh goes on: The Pentagon’s attitude last January ... was “Somebody got caught with some photos. What’s the big deal? Take care of it.” Rumsfeld’s explanation to the White House, the official added, was reassuring: “‘We’ve got a glitch in the program. We’ll prosecute it.’ The cover story was that some kids got out of control.”

Hmmm, if I hold my hand up just right nobody can accuse me of knowing what's going on over there.

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5.15.04 / 9:25 AM / LINK

The Law and personal philosophy

The Supreme Court has rejected a last minute attempt by opponents of same-sex marriage to stop Massachusetts from issuing marriage licenses to gay couples. As a result many Justices of the Peace are resigning rather than be forced to officiate at same-sex marriages.

One such case is reported in the Boston Globe, "Kathleen Harvey, a justice of the peace from Bellingham, mailed her resignation letter yesterday morning on her way to work. Harvey, a Catholic who has been a justice of the peace since 1987, waited until the final days before same-sex marriage becomes legal, hoping that a last-minute change might give her a reprieve.

" 'I just felt uncomfortable doing those sorts of ceremonies,' she said. 'It was just a personal thing.' "

Harvey did the right thing. A fundamental idea of the rule of law is that personal views do not supercede the law.

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5.15.04 / 8:08 AM / LINK

The biggest bad apples

Universal Press Syndicate Columnist Georgie Anne Geyer says that Rumsfeld and crew are responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Of course they don't think so because they're not responsible for anything. In fact they're irresponsible.

Geyer points out that the Pentagon chief would rather blame his soldiers than blame himself, but this is just a reflection of the character with the whole administration. As Geyer says, "From Donald Rumsfeld to Richard Myers to Republican apologists on the Hill, the declarations were similar: The torture was the work of a "bad seed," of a 'few bad apples', of a 'handful of people', of 'six to eight miscreants', and of a 'small number of soldiers'. But the truth is that the handful of "bad apples" causing most harm to the country are not found in the lower echelons abusing prisoners, but higher up abusing national morality.

Putting it baldly, commentator Geyer asks, "Who is most guilty of these heinous crimes that will give history a perspective of a recklessly cruel America? It is only one man, along with his fanatical courtiers: Donald Rumsfeld and his secretive, Machiavellian civilian administration."

She ends with a warning I've been issuing for some time to anyone who'll listen. "What Americans must realize is that, if this team stays in power in Washington, we will only get deeper into this chasm. They will not change because they cannot, because they are too deeply invested in their delusions."



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5.15.04 / 7:23M / LINK

Some people will say anything for money

You'll never find a better example of schtick trumping understanding than the statements of Rush Limbaugh following the Abu Ghraib revelations. Some people will say anything for money.

What Limbaugh spewed in a broadcast:

"I'm talking about people having a good time, these people [CIA agents and MPs at Abu Ghraib], you ever heard of emotional release? You heard of need to blow some steam off?" Limbaugh asked a caller. "This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time."

This highly paid conservative imbecile lacks a basic awareness of what the rules of the Geneva Convention regarding prisoner treatment are about. They're about the treatment of American soldiers when they're captured. The attitude of this self-styled patriot is a direct threat to the well-being of every American in Iraq, or any other theater of war.

While Scott McClellan, the president's press mouthpiece, refused to directly repudiate Limbaugh's statements at a press briefing (one wonders why), this is what the president's counsel says about the Geneva Convention in a NY Times column today.

If only we could believe anything George Bush's representatives have to say.


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THURSDAY 5.13.04 / 9:03 PM / LINK

Thomas Friedman has an epiphany

I guess his threshold of disgust is just higher than mine; but Tom Friedman seems to have finally climbed over it. In his column today he spells out very clearly something that's been obvious to many before and since the 2000 election, namely that self interest and self preservation are George Bush's prime imperative. Forget all the administration' BS about patriotism. Using some well selected words Friedman intimates they have none. The conservative, war supporting columnist basically comes right out and says this. But give him credit, he does admit to tardiness.

"I admit, I'm a little slow," Mr. Friedman says, "Because I tried to think about something as deadly serious as Iraq, and the post- 9/11 world, in a nonpartisan fashion — as Joe Biden, John McCain and Dick Lugar did — I assumed the Bush officials were doing the same. I was wrong. They were always so slow to change course because confronting their mistakes didn't just involve confronting reality, but their own politics."

Mounting the Everest of cynicism, the most shallow and radically politicized administration since the collapse of the Soviet Union blasts John Kerry's patriotism. Those who refused to serve in Vietnam because they had "other priorities", or served a pittance because their name was "Bush", or found other privileged loopholes, stoop to impugning the love of country that motivated another to volunteer to, very possibly, be killed.

As someone once said to Senator Joseph McCarthy, "Have they no sense of decency? At long last, have they no sense decency?

Friedman seems to be answering that question in his commentary.

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TUESDAY 5.11.04 / 10:05 PM / LINK

Denying God's Mirror

When someone too close for comfort does something grotesque the distancing reflex kicks in. This is a natural human response. We have terms for people who embarrass us: black sheep, for instance; or, bad apple. They have nothing to do with me, we insist. They're aberrations. This is our way of denying God's mirror.

For example Abu Musab Zarqawi, the man who slaughtered Nicholas Berg on videotape, is not a true Muslim said numerous Muslims in interviews today. He ain't one of us they protest.

And those U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib; "...what they did was certainly fundamentally un-American," says Rumsfeld.

"Their (the prisoner's) treatment does not reflect the nature of the American people,” says the president.

"Loathsome. Revolting. Against the patriot's grain," say all the blathering talking heads like Hannity. Or this from that foul-mouthed idiot Limbaugh: those antics were just innocent pranks, he says.

But consider a simple fact: those soldiers are Americans, each and every one, born and bred.


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5.11.04 / 7:08 AM / LINK

A war of moralities

And again we have opposing moralities to consider. There's the blatant ruthlessness of Muslim god-mongers who gruesomely execute a hapless American in order to up-ante the U.S. military, against the hubris of a government which evokes God's name while lying it's way into war and the brutality war necessarily produces. It's Northern Ireland and Israel-Palestine writ large and getting larger. And there's more mayhem to come we can be sure.

Electoral question #1: Shall we stay with this Ahab and ride his white elephant to the bottom?


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5.10.04 / 10:53 PM / LINK

Is Limbaugh loathsome, laughable, or just plain pathetic?

Rush Limbaugh on yesterday's broadcast discussed the Abu Ghraib photos: "Exactly. Exactly my point! This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You of heard of need to blow some steam off?"

Now imagine that's Rush there on the rough end of the leash, while on the tough end is an Abu Musab Zarqawi wannabe.

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5.10.04 / 8:32 PM / LINK

If we don't evolve, we're dead

There are bad people in the world, yes. And how best to protect ourselves from them, is the question. Do we employ the old method -- lethal power? Or do we evolve?

If we don't evolve, we're dead.

Being the most powerful nation on the globe we had a opportunity. For an historical moment (ground zero 2001), we had the unique possibility of exerting great influence as to where this planet might be led, but in crisis and having no vision we chose to resort to the past. This is what George Bush is all about: rebounding out of a crisis into the past. Considering the possibilities, Bush went for the Roman Model.

George Bush (the concept) is really not much more than a large helping of neanderthalism mixed with the glory that was Rome and garnished with Biblical citations sprinkled with holy water. Even before Bush came to shove, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and crew (all integral cogs in Concept Bush), opted for muscle and virtually complete alienation from globemates. In this they arrayed themselves against the god of peace espoused in the new testament (a book often quoted by the president), and went instead for hegemony and those thirty pieces of silver.

Remember this one: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called son's of God? But Rumsfeld and Cheney don't buy that middle class naivete. And neither does George Bush. That isn't the kind of Christian they are. Instead (by all evidence) they're apparently devout unilateral power thrusters. To them, to unify is anathema. Simply put, a final division of providence is their motive. In short, they're most concerned with who finally winds up what part of the booty.

Figure it out. There's one globe (getting smaller by the nanosecond) so how shall it be divvied up? That's what's going on. These are the questions bouncing around the political landscape. This move on Iraq was to have been Step 1 in staking out turf; though now some might call it "Misstep 1", or "Overstep 1." Whatever.

In any case, at this moment, the outcome is inconclusive. Screw-ups and scandals rage on. And, domestically, the court is presently out as to what power the chief executive may wield and whether it transcends the famous separation of powers we find in the constitution. The question is, will George Bush be allowed to subvert the consitutional ideal and lead us into even more unfathomable doubletalk and war?

Stay tuned citizens, your fate is --at this historical split second-- in the hands of the Supreme Court. Will it move to kill the constitution, or will it apply some much needed judicial CPR?

...oh, no! Not the 2000 election all over again!


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