Assume The Moral Position, Mr. Bush!

War Crimes T-Shirt by webcarve

I just found this via Reddit

"War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished and it will be no defense to say, 'I was just following orders'." --GW Bush

It's a CNN transcript of a speech from 2003 - which, oddly enough, is some time after torture - those would be war crimes - had been authorized and butt-coverage issued by Yoo, et al. (TPM)

Nonetheless, it is a statement that is founded solidly in both international and domestic law. Uttered as it was and by whom it was, it may be and should be taken as the official position of the United States. Indeed, it always has been. We were not supposed to learn of the conditional exceptions; the Pentagon and White House went to rather great lengths to keep these things out of the news. No doubt this was in some part motivated by the very clear understanding that these are criminal acts, war crimes, and, in the quaint language used during other such tribunals - "Crimes Against Humanity."

It is no defense to say "I was just following orders" - despite the Obama administration's offering of that precise defense so justly rejected at Nuremberg - and there can be absolutely no defense at all for issuing them in the first place. Nor has there been any reasonable doubt as to the fact that they did issue those orders.

Now many offer many reasons why those guilty should not be held accountable; offered rather conspicuously by those rather closely connected to people not yet solidly demonstrated to have been complicit, but who could hardly have been entirely innocent of any knowledge.

It is the concern of these people that following the breadcrumbs wherever it may lead would "tear the country apart." That it could, or would, lead to civil unrest, or even civil war. That people might seize upon this as an issue and rend the US apart. Well, more to the point of actual concern, it might rend the citizens might rend from themselves the blessings of their current leadership, and the Military Industrial Complex that pays them for their most devoted services.

What would you, dear citizen, do without such leaders? How would you survive without them?

One can only wonder to what backrooms and boardrooms that might be suddenly illuminated by an honest investigation into these matters. What firms provide child-sized testicle electrodes might come to light. And in thinking of the implications of being led by those who would think that a good idea, some might argue that the sort of foreign policy that depends on crushing testicles and stiff diplomatic cruise missiles might not be the best investment in a future you would wish for your progeny.

Frankly, there are worse rocks upon which for a bankrupt nation to founder. And the cause of the Rule of Law - well, there far worse things to fight for. It's so nice when people line up and charge the guns in the name of Torture. It makes shooting them a much less ambiguous act, ethically speaking.

But, fortunately, I think; the entire issue of war crimes may allow most American to quite literally "dodge the bullet." There is a process to be followed, and there are legitimate and deserving scapegoats for the guilt of the people to be released upon, it may be that the quite inevitable and necessary breakup and reformulation of the American Experience.

Frankly, this is symptomatic of the end of empire and nation. Which is not exactly a bad thing; Empires and nations come and go, but civilizations and people remain, their values, if not their innocence intact.

To the extent that civilization existed in the first place, one might say. But such a one might well be French.

Why I click on my own ads.

It's like The Onion, with tea and crumpets.

The Tiffin Times:

"Government wins vote enabling them to “make people scared to commit acts of terror”

Plan to fight terror with horrifyingly repressive legislation meets with mixed reception

By Eleanor Childress

Human rights campaigners have reacted with dismay to the success of the Government bill allowing the police to hold terror suspects for 42 days without charge. The bill, which was passed in a Commons vote thanks to last-minute support from the Democratic Unionist party, doubles the length of time the police are allowed to detain suspected terrorists for. However, a spokesperson for the Home Office insisted that the extra time the bill would allow the police was a crucial factor in the war on terror:

“Yes, we only needed two weeks back when we were dealing with the IRA, but al Qaida is a lot more sophisticated. According to the official Home Office Level of Terror Swatch (pictured), which we are issuing all senior police officers with, they are generally positioned somewhere between ‘pernicious’ and ‘insidious‘. IRA suspects tended to be inherently Catholic and thus prone to confessing anyway after a few drinks”

Believe it or not, Google Adwords has a policy that states that you may not click on ads displayed on your own site. Which would be fine, if you got a say in what appeared. You don't.

Me, I like knowing what is attached to my blog, even temporarily, so I use services that don't do that to me. Project Wonderful gives me a whole list every morning of things people think my readers (and therefore this writer) will be interested in.

I'm lazy. I appreciate things that come to me, especially when they beg prettily and offer to pay me for my time and attention. Nice advertiser. Pat Pat Pat.

And when they are particularly nice, or particularly apt, or if I find myself weeping with laughter - I tend to hang a post on it. It's not pandering, I do that to any link that does that to me. And already, I've found several web-comics and other sites it would never have occurred to me to look for and which I would never have stumbled across in my usual daily patterns.

By the by, I've found I'm not the only one who seems to use Project Wonderful this way. I will often put together a little ad and scattershot it across the membership. Often there are empty slots that will be filled with a bid of zero cents! This way, I find people who would not ordinarily read my blog, and it's a great way to build a readership base.

Me, I'd prefer running a freebie to the default "your ad here" appearing, so it's good for me as an advertiser as well.

In the Valley of Elah

I just sent this off to the publicity people for a new film, opening in theaters now, as they say.

I don't usually do film reviews on graphictruth.com, and I am not wanting to be on your list of "usual suspects," though I'm interested in UNusual films.

The hook for me was that my state senator and majority leader, Harry Reid, handed off a copy to John Kerry - who watched it and sent out a notice to his entire mailing list.

Graphictruth.com is pretty much about what it sounds like, and it sounds like this is a very graphic truth indeed.

For me, the fact that the ball started rolling on this in 2003 is to me the most interesting part of this story. It takes that long for the consequences of some acts to materialize, sometimes even longer.

This seems to be all about unintended, unimagined and unimaginable consequences.

I really, really do not want to see this film. I expect it will give me nightmares.

Can you please send me a review copy?

Regards;

Bob King
Graphictruth.com

I can count the number of times I've done something like this on my thumbs. And I'm doing it knowing that it is going to have a certain message, it is going to portray a certain reality that will be unpalatable to those who think that the War in Iraq and the War on Terror are inseparable.But in fact, when you go to war - every time, and for whatever reason, you must pay the Butcher's Bill - and the horrifying truth is that each and every soldier who faces combat is affected forever. This paragraph comes from John Kerry's letter.

The former top operating officer at the Pentagon, a Marine Lieutenant General, once said of Iraq that "the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions --or bury the results."

I've never seriously considered myself to be anti-war. It strikes me rather like being anti-hurricane.

It really doesn't matter to the hurricane whether you are philosophically opposed to it's existence or not. One can prepare for it, one can avoid being in it or choose to endure it, one must respond to it intelligently and clean up the mess so that life can return to normal. These are common sense observations, and wars come upon us for many reasons, many of which are no more under our control than the weather.

I am pro-peace - and to me, the best way to ensure peace and the best way to return to a state of peace subsequent to war is to have a very efficient and powerful response to aggression, and as realistic an appreciation as possible as to the costs of war upon the people asked to fight it and those who must stay at home. Above all, don't stupidly create conditions that may provoke a war.

There is a huge, indefinable, but real price that must be paid over the generations for every act of war, for ever war that starts due to foolishness, misadventure, miscalculation, aggression, need, greed, the hunger for power or the desire for "living room."

Thousands of years ago, Sun Tsu considered all these things in his "Art of War," a book George W. Bush has clearly never read, or at least comprehended. Source: Shonshi.com; Links indicated with question marks lead to related discussion threads:

If one gains victory in battle and is successful in attacks, but does not exploit those achievements, it is disastrous.

This is called waste and delay. ?

Therefore, I say the wise general thinks about it, and the good general executes it. ?

If it is not advantageous, do not move;

if there is no gain, do not use troops;

if there is no danger, do not do battle. ?

The ruler may not move his army out of anger; the general may not do battle out of wrath. ?
If it is advantageous, move;

if it is not advantageous, stop. ?

Those angry will be happy again, and those wrathful will be cheerful again, but a destroyed nation cannot exist again, the dead cannot be brought back to life. ?

Therefore, the enlightened ruler is prudent, the good general is cautious.

This is the Way of securing the nation, and preserving the army. ?

And I could not resist adding this further citation from the very first page:

Before doing battle, in the temple one calculates and will win, because many calculations were made;

before doing battle, in the temple one calculates and will not win, because few calculations were made; ?

Many calculations, victory, few calculations, no victory, then how much less so when no calculations?

By means of these, I can observe them, beholding victory or defeat! ?

It seems that in this case, foresight was 20/20.

Technorati : 2003, 2008, George W. Bush, Harry Reid, In the Valley of Elah, Iran, Iraq War, John Kerry, Sun Tsu, The Art of War, anti-war, peace, strategy

If the US is a battlefield in the War on Terror, Who are "The Terrorists?" You, that's who.

First, a little history lesson on the justification for the Iraq war by means of deceit, deception and demagoguery.



As a result, even deeply conservative Republicans are troubled; Bruce Fein, for example, is speaking out against Bush and his badly-hidden agendas. What agendas? Well, with all the utter bullshit flying about, it's difficult to say for sure, but a few truths are emerging. Alternet is bold enough to baldly come to this conclusion about the Administration's domestic spying agenda.

The extraordinary secrecy surrounding the spying operations revealed in Alberto Gonzales' Senate testimony is not aimed at al-Qaeda, but at the American people.

They proceed to back it up with both reason and evidence, evidence based primarily on Gonzalez's awkward and obvious perjuries.

Sorry, Perjury is a legal term. Let me restate it; his lies.

Anyway, here's some reason to seriously doubt assertions that a total cloak of secrecy on the matter of the extent of domestic surveillance is vital to national security.

[T]here's no reason to think terrorists would change their behavior significantly if they knew that the U.S. government was engaged in massive data-mining operations, poring through electronic records of citizens and non-citizens alike.

The 9/11 attackers mostly stayed off the grid and many of their transactions, such as renting housing, would not alone have raised suspicions. Indeed, the patterns that deserved more attention, such as enrollment in flight-training classes and the arrival of known al-Qaeda operatives, were detected by alert FBI agents in the field but ignored by FBI officials in Washington -- and by Bush while on a month-long vacation in Texas.

Bruce Fein is far more troubled by the threat the President poses to the future of this nation than any number of Al-Queda attacks.

Via Raw story, a dry, but thorough excerpt from his statement before Congress regarding legal and constitutional issues surrounding the President's willful misinterpretation of the AUMF as justification for domestic surveillance in violation of FISA.

President Bush’s intent was to keep the program secret from Congress and to avoid political or legal accountability indefinitely. Secrecy of that sort makes checks and balances a farce. Sunshine is the best disinfectant. Popular government without popular information is impossible. Neither Congress nor the American people can question or evaluate a program that is entirely unknown. Mr. Bush could have informed Congress that he was acting outside FISA without disclosing intelligence sources or methods or otherwise alerting terrorists to the need for evasive action.

Since 1978, FISA has informed the world that the United States spies on its enemies, and disclosing the fact of the NSA’s warrantless surveillance program would not have added to the enemy’s knowledge on that score. That explains why the Bush administration continued the program after The New York Times’ publication. Second, President Bush’s refusal to disclose the number of Americans that have been targeted under the surveillance program and the success rate in gathering intelligence useful in thwarting terrorism from Americans targeted makes a congressional assessment of its constitutionality or wisdom impossible. Fourth Amendment reasonableness pivots in part on whether the government is on a fishing expedition hoping that something will turn up based on statistical probabilities, like breaking and entering every home in the United States because a handful of emails might be discovered showing a communication with an Al Qaeda member. Without knowing the general nature and success of the surveillance program, Congress is handicapped in fashioning new legislation or undertaking other appropriate responses.

Third, President Bush’s interpretation of the AUMF is preposterous, not simply wrong. FISA is clearly a constitutional exercise of congressional power both to protect the Bill of Rights and to regulate the power of the President to gather foreign intelligence through either electronic surveillance or physical searches during both war and peace. The necessary and proper clause in Article I authorizes Congress to legislate with regard to all powers of the United States, not simply those of the legislative branch. Congress was emphatic that FISA was intended as the exclusive method of gathering foreign intelligence through electronic surveillance or physical searches. And FISA was enacted when the United States confronted a greater danger to its existence from Soviet nuclear-tipped missiles than it does today from Al Qaeda. The argument that the AUMF was intended an exception to FISA is discredited by the following. Neither any Member of Congress not President Bush even hinted at such an interpretation in the course of its enactment, including a presidential signing statement. The interpretation would inescapably mean that the AUMF also was intended to authorize President Bush to break and enter homes, open mail, torture detainees, or even open internment camps for American citizens in violation of federal statutes in order to gather foreign intelligence. To think Congress would have intended to inflict such a gaping wound on the Bill of Rights by silence is thoroughly implausible. The AUMF argument was concocted years after its enactment. It does not represent a contemporaneous interpretation entitled to deference. Further, numerous provisions of THE PATRIOT ACT would have been superfluous if the AUMF means what President Bush now says it means. Finally, FISA is a specific statute prohibiting the gathering of foreign intelligence in both war and peace except within its terms, whereas the AUMF is silent on the issue of foreign intelligence. The specific customarily trumps the general as a matter of statutory interpretation. FISA is more definitive against the President than the failure of Congress to enact legislation in Youngstown because the former tells the Commander-in-Chief “you cannot act” whereas the latter simply said “we are not conferring this power to seize private businesses.” Fourth, President Bush has evaded judicial review of the legality of the NSA’s warrantless surveillance program by refusing to use its fruits in seeking FISA warrants or in criminal prosecutions. Pending private suits are problematic because of difficult standing questions. The President’s evasion of the courts makes it proper for Congress to step into the breach to express its on view on the legality of the spying program. Fifth, President Bush’s theory of inherent prerogatives under Article II to justify warping a natural interpretation of the AUMF would reduce Congress to an ink blot in the permanent conflict with international terrorism. The President could pick and choose which statutes to obey in gathering foreign intelligence and employing battlefield tactics on the sidewalks of the United States, akin to exercising a line-item veto over FISA and its amendments.

Of course, the question to all of the above is why. What possible motive would the President have for taking these and many other steps that have alarmed a growing proportion of the informed public? Dave Lindorff, writing at Counterpunch.org, suggests that a declaration of martial law is the next step in the evolution of the President's ambitions and notes that everything is in place save an appropriate pretext.

From the looks of things, the Bush/Cheney regime has been working assiduously to pave the way for a declaration of military rule, such that at this point it really lacks only the pretext to trigger a suspension of Constitutional government. They have done this with the active support of Democrats in Congress, though most of the heavy lifting was done by the last, Republican-led Congress. [Emphasis Mine]

The first step, or course, was the first Authorization for Use of Military Force, passed in September 2001, which the president has subsequently used to claim-improperly, but so what? -that the whole world, including the US, is a battlefield in a so-called "War" on Terror, and that he has extra-Constitutional unitary executive powers to ignore laws passed by Congress. As constitutional scholar and former Reagan-era associate deputy attorney general Bruce Fein observes, that one claim, that the US is itself a battlefield, is enough to allow this or some future president to declare martial law, "since you can always declare martial law on a battlefield. All he'd need would be a pretext, like another terrorist attack inside the U.S."

The 2001 AUMF was followed by the PATRIOT Act, passed in October 2001, which undermined much of the Bill of Rights. Around the same time, the president began a campaign of massive spying on Americans by the National Security Agency, conducted without any warrants or other judicial review. It was and remains a program that is clearly aimed at American dissidents and at the administration's political opponents, since the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court would never have raised no objections to spying on potential terrorists. (And it, and other government spying programs, have resulted in the government's having a list now of some 325,000 "suspected terrorists"!)

The other thing we saw early on was the establishment of an underground government-within-a-government, though the activation, following 9-11, of the so-called "Continuity of Government" protocol, which saw heads of federal agencies moved secretly to an underground bunker where, working under the direction of Vice President Dick Cheney, the "government" functioned out of sight of Congress and the public for critical months.

It was also during the first year following 9-11 that the Bush/Cheney regime began its programs of arrest and detention without charge-mostly of resident aliens, but also of American citizens-and of kidnapping and torture in a chain of gulag prisons overseas and at the Navy base at Guantanamo Bay.

The following year, Attorney General John Ashcroft began his program to develop a mass network of tens of millions of citizen spies-Operation TIPS. That program, which had considerable support from key Democrats (notably Sen. Joe Lieberman), was curtailed by Congress when key conservatives got wind of the scale of the thing, but the concept survives without a name, and is reportedly being expanded today.

The only problem with the declaration of martial law, aside from the fairly straightforward matter of generating a suitable pretext, is the question of "you and what army." Lindorff continues:

Bruce Fein isn't an alarmist. He says he doesn't see martial law coming tomorrow. But he is also realistic. "Really, by declaring the US to be a battlefield, Bush already made it possible for himself to declare martial law, because you can always declare martial law on a battlefield," he says. "All he would need would be a pretext, like another terrorist attack on the U.S."

Indeed, the revised Insurrection Act (10. USC 331-335) approved by Congress and signed into law by Bush last October, specifically says that the president can federalize the National Guard to "suppress public disorder" in the event of "national disorder, epidemic, other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident." That determination, the act states, is solely the president's to make. Congress is not involved.

Fein says, "This is all sitting around like a loaded gun waiting to go off. I think the risk of martial law is trivial right now, but the minute there is a terrorist attack, then it is real. And it stays with us after Bush and Cheney are gone, because terrorism stays with us forever." (It may be significant that Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic candidate for president, has called for the revocation of the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq, but not of the earlier 2001 AUMF which Bush claims makes him commander in chief of a borderless, endless war on terror.

I've devoted extensive thought to the imposition of Martial Law and the resulting Civil War that I strongly believe it would provoke. The key to my understanding has always been the lack of available boots on the ground and the very important question as to the percentage of US forces who are willing to fire upon fellow citizens. I've mentioned this as an imponderable, simply because there is no real way to know until it happens, but I'm quite certain that obedience to presidential orders cannot be taken for granted. Lindorff concludes with the observation that, due to overuse of the existing military and an increasing resistance to continued service on the part of vital mid-level officers who would be vital to such an enterprise, it's increasingly unlikely that the president could impose martial law - at least, not upon the United States as a whole. I and many others publicy doubt the ability of the current available forces to pacify California, or even Greater Los Angeles.

But then, the Administration must be aware of that. So expect a continuation and escalation of covert actions against the American People, particularly those that present either symbolic or direct threats to the President, or to his network of backers and advocates. I particularly expect the administration to use "The Financial Death Penalty" against a number of carefully selected targets, along with an effort to keep those actions secret for as long as possible, while the Pentagon - through it's contractors, such as Blackwater - attempts to develop an "off the books" force of mercenaries that could be relied on.

I must rely on others better positioned than I am to discern how well-advanced such efforts are, if they exist, and to what degree they are feasible. But there are hints and rumors out there that covert activity is not the sole province of the President's Men. There are a lot of former military people with quite current skills who are disaffected and determined to do something.

My conclusion is that the Administration wold be well advised to put off it's apparent plans for world domination at least another generation.

But then again, when has the Administration ever profited from being well-advised?

Update: CRIMES AND CORRUPTION OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS: This Can't Be Happening!

Dave Lindorff wrote:

To readers of the This Can't Be Happening! website:

In a curious coincidence, the day that this site published an article on the string of steps that this government has taken to put in place the legal niceties to Prepare for a Potential Declaration of Martial Law, including a sidebar on the possibility of an assassination of Pat Tillman,
my site suddenly ceased allowing me to access it for any further editorial changes.

I have been in repeated contact with the help desk (sic) at Earthlink, and have been informed that the site's pages have been "Fatally Corrupted."They advised me that I might have to rebuild the site and start over.

When I pointed out that the site itself is still up and available to readers, and so should be recoverable on the server, they said that they would attempt to fix it, making it a "priority" item.

That was yesterday.

It has now been locked down for a total of 4 days.

Not sure what to make of the whole thing at this point, though it could all just be coincidence
and innocent ineptness at Earthlink.

Dave Lindorff
dlindorff@mindspring.com

Interesting, don't you think?

tag: War on Terror, Civil War, Domestic Unrest, pretext, pretexts, Martial Law, Financial Death Penalty, domestic spying, secrecy, Bush Administration, lies, Iraq War, Military readiness, Bruce Fein,

Ron Paul Wins S. Carolina Debate, Pat Buchannan tells us why.

I doubt there's anyone who'd seriously question Pat's Conservative credentials. Indeed, he's a proud paleoconservative - and he's pointing out that he's right more often than neocons based on his version of "Right."

But what's interesting is that fox vewiers got there first, giving Sen. Ron Paul (Libertarian-republican and anti-war from the beginning) a clear win. Granted, this was probably not Fox's usual demographic, but still...

PJB: But Who Was Right – Rudy or Ron? ::: Patrick J. Buchanan - Official Website: "Ron Paul says Osama bin Laden is delighted we invaded Iraq.

Does the man not have a point? The United States is now tied down in a bloody guerrilla war in the Middle East and increasingly hated in Arab and Islamic countries where we were once hugely admired as the first and greatest of the anti-colonial nations. Does anyone think that Osama is unhappy with what is happening to us in Iraq?

Of the 10 candidates on stage in South Carolina, Dr. Paul alone opposed the war. He alone voted against the war. Have not the last five years vindicated him, when two-thirds of the nation now agrees with him that the war was a mistake, and journalists and politicians left and right are babbling in confession, “If I had only known then what I know now …”

Rudy implied that Ron Paul was unpatriotic to suggest the violence against us out of the Middle East may be in reaction to U.S. policy in the Middle East. Was President Hoover unpatriotic when, the day after Pearl Harbor, he wrote to friends, “You and I know that this continuous putting pins in rattlesnakes finally got this country bitten.”

Pearl Harbor came out of the blue, but it also came out of the troubled history of U.S.-Japanese relations going back 40 years. Hitler’s attack on Poland was naked aggression. But to understand it, we must understand what was done at Versailles – after the Germans laid down their arms based on Wilson’s 14 Points. We do not excuse – but we must understand."

I don't have a great deal in common with Ron Paul OR Pat Buchanan, other than this - the common-sense observation that foreign policy is no different than any other sort of human interaction; if it is inequitable, if bad faith is involved, you create legitimate enemies, and if that sort of behavior is a consistent part of your foreign policy, sooner or later you will have to pay the piper.

This is about ethics, in other words. They apply just as strongly to our government's behavior toward "ferreners" as they do to it's behavior toward us - and my observation is that people and governments are just as willing to play fast and loose with people they know as those they don't - though the chances of being made to pay personally for their errors tends to keep them under control.

Almost by definition, wars occur because of some injustice or blunder, real, perceived or more usually, some mixture of the two. So the first step in ending such wars and foreign adventures is to admit that we are neither smart enough, wise enough or well-informed enough to impose solutions on other people - especially when those other people have every reason to question the purity of our motives.

tag: anti-bush, anti-neocon, anti-war, Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan, ethics, politics, South Carolina debates

Know Something About Kieth Olbermann?

This Right-Wing tabloid site wants to know.

And, well, obviously they are having a lot - repeat, A LOT of trouble finding any real ammo to use against Olbermann, since the worst thing they can say about him is that his ratings are low (on MSNBC? Imagine that!) and this:

Keith Olbermann's career schizophrenia continues. He's a Sports Guy. He's a News Guy. He's a Sports Guy (again). Oops, back to News. And guess what? Now he's back to Sports, according to Keith's personal PR flack aka TVNewser:

More! "Olbermann Schizophrenia: Is he a Sports Guy or a "News" Anchor?"

Yep, being able to do more than one thing well is a clear sign of inherent, invidious, elitist Liberalism. Judging by the journalistic standards of this blog, so is walking and chewing gum at the same time.

This link was advertised to me via google promising to "Expose Olbermann's lies." As I expected, this was a usage of the term, "lie," that I was previously unfamiliar with. A "lie" in this usage seems to be a truth that makes you want to stick your fingers in your ears and chant "la la la la I can't HEAR you!"

I see this as symptomatic of the sad, impotent and pathetic devolution of the right-wing blogosphere, that this blog gets enough eyeballs to justify a google Adwords account. They don't take just ANYONE, you know.

So, the dead-enders are still out there - but clearly, they are being driven to a subsistence diet of undiluted stupidity as the former stars of the Right are, one by one, falling away toward the center, leaving the core ideologues exposed in their dogged determination to win their Culture War against everyone and every institution that is smart enough to know better.

Hell, if you are smart enough to put three thoughts in a row, you are savvy enough to realize that the Administration can't. And a lot of former Republicans have come to the conclusion that what they stood for, indeed, what they still stand for, was seen as simply a set of talking points by the Administration; a means to get to an end that was nothing good, Republican, conservative or apparently achievable.

There is only so far wanting to believe can take you in the face of an overwhelming flood of fact. Bloggers, to be relevant at all, have to swim in facts and even (gasp) differing perspectives on them. After a while, it's hard to ignore that of the facts that are in, the facts speak against the President, that:

• He has indeed lied in order to wage war against Iraq.
• entered office with the intention of waging war against Iraq.
• used (or even contrived) 9/11 as a pretext for that war (and in that, did nothing to actually find, prosecute and execute those who were actually responsible).
• Illegally wiretapped citizens.
• Suspended Habius Corpus.
• Kidnapped and tortured people without even the pretense of due process.
• Tried to establish a legal basis for torture - despite it being explicitly illegal and ineffective.
  
• Is in Contempt of Congress on multiple counts (signing statements)

And yet, given nearly totalitarian powers even FDR did not wish to have, has managed to completely fail to win a war our armed forces were equipped and trained to win - a war of maneuver in the deserts of the middle east - by putting them into urban combat zones, the sort of warfare that eats armies for lunch.

Understand this very clearly; there was absolutely no reason for anyone to expect that our military forces would be unsuccessful in securing Iraq with good intelligence, solid planning, competent leadership and enough boots on the ground. Even those of us who doubted that it would be as easy as described would not have gone so far as to use the word "difficult."

We asked "why Iraq, and why now." I cannot recall many asking "what if we can't win?"

So, not only did he lie us into war, he fucked up that war. Why? Well, never presume malice when stupidity is a sufficient explanation. But if George Bush's intent were to destroy this nation, cripple our vital alliances, isolate us in terms of world opinion and still lead us open to a far more probable threat of terrorism, in that light, he's been consistently correct in his choices of policy and personnel.

What we are seeing here is the result of a total failure of leadership, even by the standards of a corrupt, corporatist, kleptocratic, nepotist and increasingly fascist-lite ruling elite.

It would be wise to recall that, first, the French Revolution occurred because of and in response to leadership of such quality. And second - the outcome, driven as it was by a situation driven beyond extremes, resulted in some extremely Bad Things.

Now, I don't know about you, but I think that the existence of social stresses that could lead to civil war to be a very significant National Security Issue. So, I think it's time we all took a deep breath, got over ourselves, and made a choice to stop making war on other people. Especially when those people are fellow Americans.

Update: this post was linked on Olbermann Watch and this was the only comment there:

You know what I see as symptomatic of the sad, impotent, and pathetic devolution of the LEFT-wing blogosphere? They can't even spell Olbermann's first name correctly while trying to defend him. Kieth? How hard is it to spell K-E-I-T-H?

If that's the only criticism, I believe we can take every actual point as being unaddressable by those who I am addressing.

Sad, ain't it? That, and the fact that once again I'm accused of being "a liberal."

tag: Miserable failure, Impeach, George W. Bush, 2008, Civil War, Revolution, Global Terrorism, Kieth Olbermann, Keith Olbermann, Spelling Flames

Suddenly Seymour Hersh

In reference to Seymour M. Hersh's New Yorker article, "The Redirection." Tom Engelhardt wonders where the media reaction is to something that looks like Iran-Contra, seems as naive and inept as Iran-Contra and likely to create far more problems than Iran-Contra ever did.

TomDispatch: The Seymour Hersh Mystery


"Iran-Contra alumni in the Bush administration at one time or another included former Reagan National Security Advisor John Poindexter, Otto Reich, John Negroponte (who, Hersh claims, recently left his post as Director of National Intelligence in order to avoid the twenty-first century version of Iran-Contra -- "No way. I'm not going down that road again, with the N.S.C. [National Security Council] running operations off the books, with no [presidential] finding."),"

Negroponte - that old cold warrier and worse - scared of blowback from a repeat of his "glory days?" What the hell does he know that Hersh has NOT found out? And dare we wait to know?

"In this country, it's a no-brainer that the Iranians have no right whatsoever to put their people, overtly or covertly, into neighboring Iraq, a country which, back in the 1980s, invaded Iran and fought a bitter eight-year war with it, resulting in perhaps a million casualties; but it's just normal behavior for the Pentagon to have traveled halfway across the planet to dominate the Iraqi military, garrison Iraq with a string of vast permanent bases, build the largest embassy on the planet in Baghdad's Green Zone, and send special-operations teams (and undoubtedly CIA teams as well) across the Iranian border, or to insert them in Iran to do 'reconnaissance' or even to foment unrest among its minorities. This is the definition of an imperial worldview."

Hersh's story amounts to this - there is a huge, complicated and frankly idiotic "black" operation run out of the Vice President's office with "black" funds (possibly stolen Iraqi oil dollars) to engineer a Sunni-Shia rift, civil war within Iran and God only knows what else. And they apparently think they can ride this whirlwind!

It seems like we here in the US are living on the wrong side of Mordor's gate.

tag: Seymour Hersh, Sunni, Shia, Iran, Iraq, Negroponte, Iran-Contra, National Security Council. Dick Cheney,

Oh, please Jesus, SOMEONE take them!

From the "and you thought Islamist Fanatics were scary stupid department."

LiberalsMustDie.com - Reports Coming In That Iran War Beginning!!! YES!!!

This could be the beginning of the End Days!!

"We are beginning to move aggressively to try and identify and root out the networks that are involved in helping to bring Iranian-supplied [bombs] into Iraq," Gates said. If you can't solve Iraq, enlarge it. While you were sleeping, the war with Iran might have begun.

I am so excited!

Take me Jesus, I am ready for you to come back to Earth!!

A Soldier's Duty: Lt. Watada

UPDATE: Mistrial:

The court-martial of Lt. Ehren Watada has been ruled a mistrial because of a dispute over a pretrial agreement. Watada’s attorney, Eric Seitz, called the ruling a “significantly positive event,” and said he hoped it would put an end to the case.

First Lieutenant Ehren Watada still refuses Iraq deployment orders, calling the war illegal. A six-year prison term could result. His preliminary hearing was yesterday; trial commences Febuary 5th.

"WATADA: Certainly. I think that when we take an oath we, as soldiers and officers, swear to protect the constitution — with our lives as necessary — and those constitutional values and laws that make us free and make us a democracy. And when we have one branch of government that intentionally deceives another branch of government in order to authorize war, and intentionally deceives the people in order to gain that public support, that is a grave breach of our constitutional values, our laws, our checks and balances, and separation of power."

A lot of people think of this young man as a "coward" for refusing to "do his duty." It's true that in nearly every other military, there would be absolutely no room to argue that he is refusing to do his duty. But the United States is an exception; unlike every other military power I'm aware of, the oath is to the Constitution, not to the Crown or to Civil Authority, and that makes a huge and sometimes awkward difference.

It is ordinarily assumed that superior officers ARE obeying their oaths and issuing legitimate orders. When circumstances arise that make that assumption unreasonable or impossible, an officer has a higher loyalty - to their oath. And there is a procedure to test and resolve such questions, because the alternative is to give orders he's reasonably certain to be illegal.

Therefore, when a commissioned officer says to a superior, "I request and require written orders to that effect, Sir." the challenged officer knows that is a means of perpetuating evidence for the eventual court-martial. Since the orders in question have to do with the legitimacy of the war itself, he's got both the duty and the right to refuse unfounded orders until the matter is resolved in just such a court-martial.

Watada has questioned the validity of an order under the terms of the Constitution. The conditionality and legality of the order now becomes a matter of fact to be determined. The shock and awe comes in when we realize the scope; he is questioning the validity and legality of the President's orders in his military capacity as Commander in Chief.

Watada must be well aware that this is career suicide and likely to dog him throughout civilian life. Indeed, he may well have to leave the country after facing whatever legal consequences may ensue. So the consequences he faces are as grave as those any other officer of his rank in combat. Different, but no less severe.

He is not facing a mere slap on the wrist and a dishonorable discharge. The stated charges carry a maximum of six years hard time and a dishonorable discharge. However, military courts have wide latitude and the charges he's facing are in all likelihood "placeholders" while the prosecution attempts to build a strong case on unassailable grounds that will see him in Leavenworth for the greater part of his life. Indeed, it would be no less than the proper duty of the prosecution to make every effort to see him dance at the end of a rope.

This is a legal No-Man's land and there's not a single person involved who will have a single clue about the outcome, except that it's some variety of "bad for Lt. Watata." He is staking "His life, his fortune and his sacred honor" on this matter.

The path of cowardice would be to serve as ordered, despite his qualms, knowing that to do so would be to betray his conscience and (in his view,) his oath. Many officers have taken a quieter path of protest, simply resigning their commissions, or leaving active duty service.

I'm certain Judge Advocate Generals office has offered him some sort of plea, probably a rather attractive plea, that anyone looking for a "way out" due to cowardice would have jumped at. I can't imagine any sane reaction from SecDef other than "make this go away!"

Instead, he is choosing to face the full might of an angry Defense Department and Administration, who accurately see him as personally challenging their basis of legitimate authority.

But those questions have been politely asked and brusquely dismissed. We have been lied to, we have seen organized campains to discredit civilians who ask, we have found out that our government wants the ability to simply disappear people without question, and we cannot help but wonder if "asking questions" will be considered a good reason for indefinite detention without trial.

WATADA: The constitution was established, and our laws are established, to protect human rights, to protect equal rights and constitutional civil liberties. And I think we have people in power who say that those laws, or those principles, do not apply to them — that they are above the law and can do whatever it takes to manipulate or create laws that enable them to do whatever they please. And that is a danger in our country, and I think the war in Iraq is just one symptom of this agenda. And I think as soldiers, as American people, we need to recognize this, and we need to put a stop to it before it's too late.

There are a lot of things you could call him, but I think that "Coward" ain't one of 'em. Please take a moment and consider why some folks might want you to think he is a coward and trying to escape his duty, rather than an officer who is trying to fulfil it. And then ask yourself, if there is the slightest question as to whether or not he's right, don't you want to see that sorted out?

Whether or not you agree or disagree with the Lieutenant's stand, it's impossible to understate the potential social and legal consequences here. The Army, the Defense Department, the President, and indeed Congress and the entire government are as much on trial here as one young first Lieutenant.

And if he prevails in either a legal or moral sense - this war, and all the further conflicts and military involvements the "global war on terror" surely implies will face increasing skeptical review. Given the stakes, it's a review that EVERY American needs to make, if only because every NON-American has been keeping their reviews current since at least '03.

It will surely bring increased Congressional oversight and it certainly will add fuel to those questing for grounds to impeach the President. Indeed, if the Lieutenant is permitted to call in his defense witnesses he should obviously call, it will in fact be preliminary hearings to that effect.

If Lt. Wataba is willing to stake his future and reputation upon the legality of orders he might find himself giving - is it not reasonable to ask George Bush, Commander in Chief of all American Forces to stake his future and reputation upon them as well?

As a matter of record I will state this; any trial that is legimately attempting to establish the facts of this case and which does not have George Bush on the stand under oath is not to be taken seriously and no verdict should be considered less than a badge of honor.

tag: Leutenant Watada, , george w. bush, constitutional, commander in chief, unitary executive, George Bush, impeach bush, national security

Praised with Faint Damns

Is CBS considering revisiting to legitimate TV News? It certainly seems to be engaging in "self criticism" sessions; this is from "Outside Voices." The blurb reads:

Each week we invite someone from outside PE to weigh in with their thoughts about CBS News and the media at large. This week, we turned to Bob Giles, veteran journalist and curator of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University. Here, Giles discusses the harm in U.S. news outlets' lack of tough questions. As always, the opinions expressed and factual assertions made in “Outside Voices” are those of the author, not ours, and we seek a wide variety of voices.


Outside Voices: Bob Giles Has A Tough Question For The U.S. Press - Public Eye

Television’s great advantage is that it can take the viewer along for the interview. The audience can look into the eyes of the news source as he or she responds to the reporter’s queries. It is what sets TV news apart from print and radio news reporting. In an era when elected officials try to manipulate the news and spin it to their advantage, when they are able to speak anonymously or have hired spokespersons speak for them, this special role of television reporting as visual surrogate for the public is critical. The public knows that reporters who can be seen asking strong questions is one antidote to misinformation.

My, wasn't that trenchant? Move over, Bob and let Bob have a swing.

I've become less and less impressed with US media as I've had more exposure to international media, something that's probably true of most other bloggers.

It's not simply the unwillingness to ask "awkward questions" - it's the apparent unwillingness to deal with complicated issues. Very likely this is due to the effect actual news has on ratings; reality is complicated and often requires graphs and numbers to explain. It can be hard to compete with a car chase over on Faux.

But I learned a hard lesson on the web long ago; raw numbers of eyeballs are meaningless. You need the right eyeballs. You need those eyeballs to think of you first, and regularly. Profit comes from the right eyeballs relying upon you and your credibility. That credibility rubs off on the advertisers, it does, and vice versa.

"Crap traffic" degrades the brand. Listen to Limbaugh's sponsors sometime. Viagra alternatives, weight-loss nostrums and get rich quick schemes.

This tells you a lot about Rush's respect for his demographic. It tells you a lot about the advertiser's dependence on the outright gullibility of his audience. One of my key evaluation critera for ANY form of media is to look at who the advertisers are, and what sort of readership sales of their product will depend on.

And there are other factors here. "News as Entertainment" isn't all that entertaining because all that pretending to be news that's worthy of my time gets in the way of being fun.

The Daily Show and the Colbert Report have demonstrated that it's possible to do accurate news analysis and do it with wicked and pointed humor. By contrast, the Big Three seem to have abandoned analysis entirely, along with any detectable sense of humor or irony, leading otherwise respectable journalists to refer to the Daily Show as "Fake News."

My sons and daughters, if it was actually fake, it wouldn't be funny. CBS and the rest of the MSM have been relegated to being the straight man for the Comedy Channel.

CBS needs to hark back to the good old days, voluntarily reclaim the old "fairness doctrine" for itself and by doing that, announce it has grown a pair.

Journos seem terrified that they will be denied access to the President's incoherent ramblings and Tony Snow's nonsense. I figured out years ago that all I need to know about either is that their lips are moving. Why in heavens name would you waste a perfectly good reporter on such a meaningless job?

An intern could do it. Monica Lewinsky could do it. She's pretty good at fluffing Presidents, from what I've been told by the media. Ad Nausium.

Take the pool feed, pick any non answer or prevarication at random and show them to be the fools and liars they are with it. A couple news cycles like that, and the phone will start ringing.

How do you think John Stewart gets some of HIS improbable guests? He's had Dick Cheney. Note to Dick - that didn't go so well.

This administration needs to be reminded that the sword has two edges. They need you to get their story out. So make it clear that it has to be a factual, verifiable story before you put the Tiffany stamp upon it.

It used to be that miscreants feared "Hello, We're from 60 Minutes" nearly as much as a justice department raid or an IRS audit. Let's take CBS back to that happy place, where reporters were named by Nixon on tape with many unprintable adjectives wishing improbable conjunctions upon them.

People like me can do opinion - it takes little more than hubris and good typing skills. Some of us can come up with some pretty good analysis of what the facts mean to our particular readerships. What we cannot do is compete on a fact for fact basis with a professional news organization. We therefore seek out stories, stake out our take on them, and refer our readers to the sources. When I seek out intelligence, my first criteria is that my sources of intelligence do not insult my intelligence.

CBS has not been a source of mine for... well, years now. Why you, when there's Greg Palast? Why you, when there's the BBC? Why you, when there's CNN? Hell, the Daily Show is a better quote.

It would behoove you to pay close attention to your website referrer logs to see how often you are cited, and by whom. (I got to this story via fark.com. But it wasn't a complementary reference.)

When the Right Wing pays pundits under the table while trying to muzzle PBS news, that should tell you something about how much they fear the shock and awe of fact-based inititatives.

And yes, I know, the Owners Object to many factual stories and will kill them given half a chance, along with Dan the Messenger Man. But, well, it seems to me that enough of you journalistic glory-boys and girls have enough loose change rattling around to buy some corporate influence yourselves. Ain't capitalism wonderful? CBS is trading at around $30 a share right now. It' s looking like a not bad investment. Consider how rewarding polishing that tiara could be.

The alternative is stark; I already outsource my news, relying for the most part on CTV news and BBC news for television coverage and The Guardian and the Globe and Mail for print. All of these organizations routinely report domestic news that never appears in US media, and generally in greater depth.

Meanwhile, as all the networks try to integrate their news slants into their shows, I become less and less inclined to watch TV at all. Last night, your hit show "Numb3rs" revolved around a plot twist so very improbable that the lead characters should have refused to show up; it involved smuggled guidance systems for "Katusha style" rockets, which were also being smuggled in via Singapore.

Dear Lord in heaven. I do hope all terrorist plots are that amazingly silly and overcomplicated. Mythbusters made a quite functional rocket using commercial pipe, a chunk of graphite, a tank of nitrous oxide and a large salami. College students routinely build far more sophisticated science projects than a short-range missile guidance system. A really sophisticated one - using, say, GPS navigation or a laser designation system shouldn't cost more than a couple-hundred bucks in parts. Rocket Science just ain't rocket science anymore.

If all I wanted to do was create widespread terror, well, a couple pounds of talc would do as well as anything. But it's not that difficult to come up with a somewhat impressive Fuel-air explosive warhead, either.

According to one Russian military scientist writing for the Russian military magazine Voyennyye Znaniya (Military Knowledge), FAE weapons are effective against exposed personnel, combat equipment, fortified areas and individual defensive fortifications, clearing passages in minefields, clearing landing sites for helicopters, destroying communication centers, and neutralizing strongholds in house-to-house fighting in a city.⁽²⁾ In addition, he stated that "fuel-air explosives are capable…of completely destroying in a given area vegetation and agricultural crops that have been planted." "In its destructive capability, it is comparable to low-yield nuclear munitions."⁽³⁾

(gif animation)

The best thing about a crude FAE is that it doesn't even have to work properly to work pretty well.

The [blast] kill mechanism against living targets is unique--and unpleasant.... What kills is the pressure wave, and more importantly, the subsequent rarefaction [vacuum], which ruptures the lungs.… If the fuel deflagrates but does not detonate, victims will be severely burned and will probably also inhale the burning fuel. Since the most common FAE fuels, ethylene oxide and propylene oxide, are highly toxic, undetonated FAE should prove as lethal to personnel caught within the cloud as most chemical agents.⁽⁸⁾

Gee, I wonder where I could find someone with enough chemical know-how to put one of these together....

How about any junior college chemistry teacher?

Perpetuating absurdities upon the American people in the name of entertainment in either the news or entertainment divisions is no way to impress folks like me; people with actual three digit IQ's. You know, the demographic you used to have.

Unless you and the rest of the domestic MSM does something to repair it's credibility soon, it will find itself limited to that market segment that relies on rabbit ears from Radio Shack.

And tell me, do, what will THAT do to your stock options?

tag: MSM, CBS News, intelligence gathering, news reporting, 5th Estate, fark, the Internet, foreign press, The Daily Show, Steven Colbert

Now we know who the terrorists are.

The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) (S.3880) defines as "terrorism" causing any business classified as an "animal enterprise" (e.g., factory farms, fur farms, vivisection labs, rodeos, zoos and circuses) to suffer a profit loss and is punishable by a long prison sentence -- even if the company's financial decline is caused by peaceful protests, boycotts, media campaigns or leafleting. Defining non-viol ent activist tactics that cause exploitive corporations to lose profit but don't physically hurt anyone as "terrorism" is both a deceptive misapplication of a serious termand a completely unacceptable violation of our Constitutionally-granted First Amendment rights to freedom of speech. Industry groups pushed the AETA through Congress quickly and with little public scrutiny. The AETA was unanimously passed in the Senate on September 29th and on November 13th it was passed in the House with only 5 Representatives voting. President Bush signed the AETA into law on November 27th. Read the full text of the bill here.

Clearly, the lame duck congress is trying to cause as much mischief and pay off debts to various industry supporters as possible before being turfed.

It also clearly illustrates who is really running this country and what sorts of people terrify them. Al-Queda it ain't. It's you, it's me, it's anyone who might be concerned about our food supply, the labor practices within the food chain, the standards and practices of the busnesses running that food chain, the ethics involved, related to people, animals and consumers...

In other words, you are the terrorist. As am I. Osama Bin Ladin - not so much.

This bill does nothing whatsoever to combat terrorism; instead it sweepingly defines any number of actions that are commonly considered to be first-amendment protected speech as terrorist acts. Expect it to be enforced selectively and convenienently.

If you were wondering if the "war on terror" might just be a cynical contrivance to get you to surrender your rights without protest, you need wonder a lot less. At the very least, this bill is a cynical attempt to use the war on terror to suppress your rights for the benefit of corporate agrabiz giants.