Thank God: Obama Orders Secret Prisons Closed

See the NYTimes: "Obama Orders Secret Prisons and Detention Camps Closed."

This really was the most important step of the new administration - more than ending the Iraq War, ending domestic spying, or even the financial meltdown. This action is the crucial step to restoring America.

And it's something that would *not* have happened under Palin-McCain.

Bye bye Bush era; you were truly horrible.

But W Was Not in the Room, so it's OK

ABC News reports, as the headline says: "Top Bush Advisors Approved 'Enhanced Interrogation'":

In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News. The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of "combined" interrogation techniques -- using different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time -- on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said. Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding. The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

The advisers were members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy. At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

OK, for the record, the Vice President, Secretaries of Defense and State, Attorney General, Head of CIA and the NSA are not 'top advisors'... they are the CABINET. That is the freakin' executive branch. Just leaving the president out of the room, but inviting everyone else, doesn't give him deniability.

Second of all, uh, we've just been told that the VP and top secretaries agreed to torture people. Yup. Now what? Isn't that kinda worse than, I dunno, Watergate or Monica-gate?

Now what? Huh? Now what's going to happen. Put smart money on 'nothing.'

h/t TPM.

GOP Advantage

When it comes to the military, the GOP can get away with murder.

What I meant is put better in this letter I sent (February 15, 2008 1:11 PM) to the Reality-Based Community's Mark Kleiman, about how McCain gets a free-ride on his non-opposition to torture:

This issue reminds me of the paradigm-based immunities that separate the supporters of each party.

The Dems and GOP have a set narrative, a paradigm of rectitude, a set of orthodoxies, in the public eye. When a person in the party, or the party leadership, goes against that orthodoxy, the press and by extension the people, give the party the benefit of the doubt. The 'sin' is either ignored or pardoned.

My examples are 'national defense' for GOP and 'civil rights' for Democrats. A Democrat can get away with doing bad things to minorities. The same things, if done by Republican, would be considered abuse, are ignored if done by a Democrat. The examples for this are rife from the Clinton era, but a more recent example is Senator Biden's remarks a few months about Obama (calling him well-spoken, etc) Yeah, it's not 'macaca' but it'd be called racist if coming from Romney. The Clintons were allowed to slash welfare, enact NAFTA, and Don't Ask Don't Tell and are still given credit for being "liberal." While die-hard partisans on those issues will still blame the Clintons for abandoning core principles, that's not the press narrative.

Andrew Sullivan makes a big deal about DODT -- it's the main reason he gives for distrusting the Clintons and attacking the Human Rights Commission -- that the Clintons have a bad civil rights record for gays and yet the HRC supports Hillary.

Note, when the Clintons recently were staked out as being in the opposition to a civil rights icon (Obama - who will be in history books for the next century whether he wins the nomination or not), they lost their paradigm immunity. Minor comments were considered race-bating not only because they were but because it was assumed that they were. I.e. Hillary & Bill were being treated under the Republican 'civil rights' rules.

The Republicans have the same immunity when it comes to national security and the military. Even though any right thinking person recognizes that the GOP (president & congress) has left the country vulnerable to terrorist attack, electively stirred up a massive world-wide terrorist movement, and have nearly crippled the military - they are given a pass for all of that. Surely, if a Democratic congress/president did any of this they would be pilloried. But it's just assumed that the GOP is loyal to the military and will be tough on security. Even when they're not.

A proof for this is John Kerry's 'botched joke' back in '06. He was making a comment about Bush, but through bad delivery, it came out as a swipe against the military. And that's the interpretation the press swallowed (probably til this day). But I thought Kerry was a dedicated war hero who volunteered to go into Vietnam? No dice. He's a Democrat, he's against the military.

This goes with your comments about the public perception of a "liberal." That Obama is not considered a liberal by many Americans because Obama talks about religion (and patriotism) as if they were good things. Same paradigm issues.

This is why McCain gets a pass by the press for betraying the military and the constitution vis-a-vis Iraq and torture. Because McCain *can't* betray about torture. That's his paradigm. And, if Kuhn was right, it will take massive amounts of evidence to argue the contrary.

Backpost started 4/16/07 with just the bolded line and finished 4/11/08.

Torture Update

So the Times reports that the Canadian government officially believes that the United States tortures!:

Late last month, a federal judge in Canada ruled that the United States had violated international conventions on torture and the rights of refugees.

This is a matter of international law! How long will the US Press use the Cheney-Orwellian language to obscure the fact - clearly known by every other country but ours - that we torture! This is despicable.

Pic is the well-known Abu Ghraib torture still. Backpost finished on 2009-11-26.

Torture

There are people who believe that the Bush Administration hasn't consciously created and enforced a policy of torture. These people are either (a) seriously not paying attention (about 80-90% of the US population), (b) are credulous folk who believe the nice George when he says "[Read my lips] We do not torture," (c) the rest are Republican meat-heads who will echo whatever Bush/Rush/Headvoices tell them to believe.

There are people who do believe it's now American policy to torture. These people are either (a) Michael Moore types who believe that Bush regularly rapes kittens and purposely eats chili so he can use the Constitution as a Ty-D-Bowl wipe; (b) hardline Republicans who dearly hope we are torturing people because what's the point of being powerful if you don't boot people in the head? And then there's (c) people who read the papers/internet.

When my children ask in 10-15 years, "Daddy, what did you do when our government turned criminal?" I'll need a good story to tell them. I spoke out about the issue from the pulpit, I've written to my representatives. But, sadly, until it becomes a proven fact, I can't do much more. Before the Press and Congress confirm the facts, anyone who claims we torture has only circumstantial evidence.

However, there's some more recent evidence that not only do we torture, but that it's international knowledge. Other countries' governments know we torture, but Congress is still in the dark. [Barfing sound.]

Scott Horton, from Harpers, on December 1, cites two disturbing examples of how this plays out internationally:

Is America a nation that tortures? The question is being asked all around the world. It’s not a matter of idle speculation. Under international treaties, which many nations, not being liberated by the law-what-law?mantra of the Neocons, treat very seriously, there are specific prohibitions about cooperation with nations which torture. In particular, there is article 3 of the Convention Against Torture, which forbids any state party to return a prisoner to a nation where he is likely to be tortured.

In 2006, I had an off-the-record discussion with the chief law enforcement officer of one of America’s most important allies. Having read the torture memoranda out of the Justice Department, and having seen the reports issued by the Department of the Army dealing with abuses in Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Guantánamo, I asked, is your Government in a position to engage in prisoner exchanges with the Americans or to allow American interrogators unfettered access to persons in your Government’s custody? He responded in a manner that showed the question had been studied carefully. “I can assure you that we take our obligations under article 3 very seriously. We will not speak publicly about this, but of course we have terminated cooperation with the United States in ways that would violate article 3. And of course we have reached the only possible conclusion, which is that the United States has embraced torture as a matter of formal policy.” This is a nation which continues to be one of our dwindling number of allies, but it faces increasingly steep challenges in cooperating while it complies with the requirements of law.

And this judgment is a very broad one—now shared almost universally by America’s allies. We don’t have to consider what the enemies think.

More evidence of this phenomenon in a very important decision handed down on Thursday by Canada’s Federal Court. Professor Jaya Ramji-Nogales, who’s been patiently tracking the matter, furnishes a report:

Yesterday, the Canadian Federal Court issued an opinion in the case Canadian Council for Refugees, Canadian Council of Churches, Amnesty International, and John Doe v. Her Majesty The Queen. This case challenges the “Safe Third Country Agreement” between Canada and the United States that came into force in December 2004. This agreement provides that, with limited exceptions, individuals who first enter either Canada or the United States and then attempt to cross a land border into the other country in order to lodge an asylum claim must be returned to claim asylum in the first country they entered. In assessing the constitutionality of the agreement, the Canadian Court found that the United States does not comply adequately with Article 33 of the UN Refugee Convention, which prohibits return to persecution, or Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture, which prohibits return to torture — specifically naming the Maher Arar case as an example of the United States’ failure to protect.

As one of the experts who described the ways in which U.S. asylum law (in particular, the one-year filing deadline) violates international law, I am proud to note that the court found “the Applicant’s experts to be more credible, both in terms of their expertise and the sufficiency, directness and logic of their reports” and “more objective and dispassionate in their analysis and report” than the government’s experts. Of particular note, the Court found that “it would be unreasonable to conclude that the one-year bar, as it is applied in the U.S., is consistent with the Convention Against Torture and the Refugee Convention” and that this bar “has a disproportionate impact on gender and sexual orientation claims” for asylum. The Court also found that women making asylum claims based on domestic violence are not sufficiently protected under U.S. law. The long decision is well worth a read, and while it bodes well for asylum seekers in Canada (assuming that the judge’s final order, after further submissions, follows this opinion, and that the decision survives appeal), it reads as a damning critique of the treatment of those seeking protection in the United States.

That’s the long version. Here’s the short version: “We do not torture?” That claim has been formally reviewed by a court and found to be a lie.

Just to review: according to two close allies, Canada and an as yet unnamed country, have legally considered our country to be one that tortures. Is that proof enough?

The ticking sound you hear is the silence from Congress. Grrr.

{2009 Update: First pic from here, second from here.}

Mukasey

I read all over the news and the liberal blogs that the Democrats surrendered again by allowing Mukasey to be Attorney General. See Sunday's Frank Rich, and the NYTimes editorials. Schumer, especially, is criticized for capitulating and blah blah blah.

Alas, this is another case of poor analysis and poor priorities. Read Schumer's op-ed on why he voted for Mukasey. Everything he says is plausible and reasonable. Here's the summary:

1. Chuck Schumer (CS) sympathizes with those who want to reject Mukasey over his bad answers.

2. But Bush has threatened that if Mukasey is rejected, there won't be another nominee. Rather a low-level staffer, who has not gone though Senate review, would be acting attorney general until Bush leaves office:

Should we reject Judge Mukasey, President Bush has said he would install an acting, caretaker attorney general who could serve for the rest of his term without the advice and consent of the Senate. To accept such an unaccountable attorney general, I believe, would be to surrender the department to the extreme ideology of Vice President Dick Cheney and his chief of staff, David Addington. All the work we did to pressure Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign would be undone in a moment.

3. Mukasey has said that if the Senate passes a law to clarify the waterboarding issue, Makesey will abide by it, even against the Unitary Executive horse-manure shoveled by Bush & Co.:

On Friday, he personally made clear to me that if the law were in place, the president would have no legal authority to ignore it — not even under some theory of inherent authority granted by Article II of the Constitution, as Vice President Cheney might argue. Nor would the president be able to evade a clear pronouncement on the subject from the courts. Judge Mukasey also pledged to enforce such a law.

4. Schumer felt that rebuilding the Justice department was far more of a serious issue than the ambiguity about waterboarding, especially given the Senate's ability to clarify issues with an actual law.

Yes, it's terribly disturbing that Mukasey isn't up-front about waterboarding as torture, but is the Senate's job to (a) prevent an otherwise important cabinet officer over that issue or (b) to actually make a law saying that waterboarding is torture. Just to remind you viewers at home, the Senate is part of Congress which - until the GOP took both houses over - is the body that makes the laws that govern the executive branch.

Schumer's points are correct: while torture needs to be rejected (and it's unbelievable that we're even talking about it as ambiguous - thank you Bush voters!) it's WAAAAAAY more important to actually clean up the Justice Department. Why? Because of (a) warrant-less wiretaps and (b) the vote-suppression tactics perpetrated by Karl Christian Rove and Alberto Gonzales.

In fact, any partisan Democrat should want Mukasey over some DOJ hack because until the DOJ is cleaned up, there's no way we can trust our own US elections to be held safely... yet another think we need to thank Bush voters for.

Oh, and why was the vote done so swiftly (midnight Thursday)? According to the TPM it's because Sen. Reid made a deal with the GOP:

According to sources inside and outside the Democratic leadership, Harry Reid allowed a vote on Mukasey because in exchange the Republican leadership agreed to allow a vote on the big Defense Appropriations Bill, which contains $459 billion in military spending but doesn't fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And because the Times and other mush-heads don't understand what Reid did, I'll explain. Mukasey was supposed to be a cake-walk for the GOP. Because of Democratic opposition - which still wasn't enough to prevent his confirmation - Reid was able to pass a bill that funded the military WITHOUT FUNDING THE CRAZY WAR.

Reid triumphed; Schumer chose the lesser of the two evils that have been forced upon us by the scumbag Bush crew. And, yet, the Democrats are blamed for rolling over and playing dead.

Why doesn't the GOP get such bad press for all the crap they do? To be honest, because of the liberal bias in newspapers: the journalists *expect* the GOP to be scumbags.

Election and Guy Fawkes

Fascinating! Scott Horton, the stunningly erudite blogger for Harper's Magazine, is one of my daily must-reads. In today's entry, he writes about November 5th - Guy Fawkes Day (or, as it may now be known, V-for-Vendetta-Day). This is a big day/night in England what I know of the day from my life, the V movie, and from Horton, it's a day mixed up with English history, torture, terrorism, and freedom.

Horton points out that in 1775 George Washington, while he was the true Commander in Chief, forbade the army from celebrating Guy Fawkes Night with the traditional minhag of burning the Pope in effigy. GW felt it was insulting to our allies, the Canadians, and just an odious practice in general. Horton quotes the "Order in Quarters issued by General George Washington, November 5, 1775":

As the Commander in Chief has been apprized of a design form’d for the observance of that ridiculous and childish custom of burning the Effigy of the pope–He cannot help expressing his surprise that there should be Officers and Soldiers in this army so void of common sense, as not to see the impropriety of such a step at this Juncture; at a Time when we are solliciting, and have really obtain’d, the friendship and alliance of the people of Canada, whom we ought to consider as Brethren embarked in the same Cause. The defence of the general Liberty of America: At such a juncture, and in such Circumstances, to be insulting their Religion, is so monstrous, as not to be suffered or excused; indeed instead of offering the most remote insult, it is our duty to address public thanks to these our Brethren, as to them we are so much indebted for every late happy Success over the common Enemy in Canada.

Gotta love the real George W.

The extra fascinating thing is that Horton suggests that Washington purposefully replaced Guy Fawkes Day with a better, American, custom: Election Day! I will do more research to see if there's proof for this (the Wiki denies it, but if Horton's right, I'll fix the page).

Update: This webpage supports it. It quotes from: Election Day in New York, by Ernest Ingersoll: pp. 3-16, p. 81 in The Century; a popular quarterly. Volume 53, Issue 1 (The Century Company Nov 1896 New York):

The moment the polls close the liquor-sa-loons open,....The streets overflow with boys who hardly wait for the earliest dark-ness to institute their picturesque part of the day’s doings. The New York citizen be-gins to break election-day laws as soon as he can toddle about the block. Bonfires are strictly prohibited, yet thousands of them redden the air and set all the windows aglow before seven o’clock. Antiquarians inform us that this custom is nothing but a survival in America of the old English celebration of burning Guy Fawkes on the 5th of November, in recollec-tion of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, which the children have transferred to the mov-able feast of our election day.

(emphasis mine)

We Need a New Excuse

The Washington Post had a story last week about a bunch of veterans who were tasked with the Top Secret task of interrogating Nazis. And, no, they didn't torture.

Didn't torture Nazis? Didn't they realize they were in a war? Against Nazis?? Well, sure, they knew that. But it appears they didn't torture for two important reasons:

1. Torture is morally wrong (and especially when torture is the hallmark of your enemy... how can you use their hated tool?)
   
   
2. Torture DOES NOT WORK.

Here's the facts: the president has authorized torture. And against people who have largely turned out innocent. Congress seems to know that this is happening. Yet, the American people, so far, have not erupted in outrage. It looks like the President will not be impeached.

Here's the problem: HOW??!? I thought the American people have tacitly accepted torture because we were attacked on 9/11, so that allows the president to do whatever he durn well pleases to anyone he wants. Kill, torture, rape innocent people - why not? - because we were attacked. Wah wah, poor us.

Yet we were attacked in WWII, too. Remember Pearl Harbor, day live in infamy, ring a bell? No? It was like 9/11. No? It was a big deal, believe me. Anyway, we didn't turn into rabid, stupid monsters back then... so why now?

We need a new excuse.

P.S. Next time some moron says that great people don't make history, remember the difference between FDR and GWB.

{2009 Update: Great pic of the Torture Statue of Liberty from here.}

Email-Gate Anyone?

Hey, remember Filegate? That was fun. Back in 1996, the rabid Republicans controlled congress and the press was playing along with their every single manufactured scandal against Bill Clinton.

Why? I have my theories. It's likely a mixture of commerce and contempt. Commerce = Bill Clinton was transformed - because of his innate charismatic celebrity, because he was poor white trash and because he was an inveterate horndog - into tabloid fodder. Just as Angelina Jolie can't cross the street without front-page tabloid coverage, so too everything Bill did became celebritous and shocking. He was interesting in all the tabloidy ways and the media stopped caring about journalism and all about selling themselves. Contempt = because Bill was a hillbilly cracker from a broken home and the press corps, even by the 90s, was filled with wannabe cultural elitists. They hated him for the same reason Rush hates blacks.

Anyway, filegate was a hoot. Naturally, there was absolutely no wrongdoing, but that didn't stop the media from flogging this dead horse for a big long while.

My question, though, about that "gate" is: how long did it take for the allegations to surface before the 'gate' was appended it? And, related to that, how many newspapers/cable news shows used the term thereafter?

I ask that especially now because the Bush administration has so many real honest-to-goodness unbelievable-in-this-modern-enlightened-age scandals yet I don't know of a single 'gate.'

True, they tried doing that to the Plame/Libby case (plamegate, libbygate) but not only didn't those names stick, they weren't really widely used. And, if that's all we can dredge up, then that just proves my point. Check out this index page . None of the scandals that should be going on have been bandied about enough to get 'gated.' Torture? WMDs? Katrina? Cheney shooting a guy?!

Well, we have a chance now. If you've been following the news recently, it appears that the White House has misplaced millions of emails that relate to, uh, everything. And it happens to be a big ol' law that the emails be kept. Forever. Not ever to be deleted.

Will this scandal take off? Will the fact that the government has been eliminating evidence of its behavior cause a 'gate' to be appended? Let's see how long it takes, if it even does.

Oh, and just in case you're one of those Rush Limbaugh type listeners who won't believe that Bush would do anything wrong because he's a by-golly tough talkin' Texan born-again Christer, then see this list of all the times Bush's pardners have lost evidence:

Greenwald: The Bush administration's terrible luck with finding documents

Impeachment, Gonzales

As I've said before, I am looking forward to the impeachment of the major up-foulers in the Executive Branch. It should be inevitable, given the levels of malfeasance and criminality. Wireless wiretaps and torture lead the day but the fabricated intelligence that lead to the Iraq War, or the negligence with Katrina could also work.

It's similar to how Saddam will be executed for a teeny-weeny mass murder (hundreds of victims) instead of the full hundreds of thousands. Murder is murder, dead will be dead. I just want Saddam to stay alive until all his misdeeds are put into public record. Killing him too quick may prevent us from finding the full truth (and who else participated).

So too with Bush. He should be impeached for every single sickbag thing he's done. And his dog Cheney too. How the information is revealed will determine whether he'll go out like Nixon or stay in office like Reagan/Bush 41. My feeling tends to Nixon because the horrors were domestic. All Reagan/Bush did in Iran-Contra was dupe congress and fund atrocities abroad. Yawn. Nixon, however, helped cover up for a freakin' burglary. It was pathetic.

However, it's not just that the American people don't particularly mind if a president declares a stupid war but they do care about criminal negligence on these shores. Nixon was impeached because the FBI hated him and kept the heat on, leaking information from the Grand Jury to Woodward and Bernstein, etc. The FBI killed Nixon, the FBI/CIA didn't care about Iran-Contra.

That's why Bush is likely to go down like Nixon - because Bush has tried to destroy the CIA and Bush/Rumsfeld has been abusing the military. Two big institutions with a lot of domestic support (military) and/or access to skeletons (CIA). If the Democrats play this right, they'll get all the info they need from the Army/CIA and Bush will be toast. The Republicans will dump him so they can save 2008.

My prediction of impeachment, now that the Democrats won, is that as soon as the water starts to boil, Cheney will bail. Health reasons, ya know. If we're lucky, he'll go out like Casey. But his early departure can come with a promise of leniency if he names names. He would, too. It's just that he's the top prize, but like Kaiser Sose he'll leave the Meathead In Chief to take the fall.

Anyway, when Cheney leaves, Kaiser Rove will find someone to replace him. At this point, were the GOP to have decency and sanity, they would find a lone Republican with a brain and a heart. Someone untainted by this administration who can plausibly run in 2008 from a position of experience and strength. Any of the putative, moderate, front-runners like McCain or Giuliani. Or someone completely free and clean, like John Danforth. That won't happen. My prediction is that they'll choose Alberto Gonzales.

Yup, Torturin' Al. He'll be chosen because (as seen below) the GOP believes they can purchase respectability by trotting out their token minorities. Who cares if Alberto is a horrible, talentless lackey? What matters is that he is loyal to the Bush Family and can use his skin-color as a get-out-jail-free card.

Once the VP is in place, Bush's impeachment will follow. He may resign before it gets too far. I hope he won't and he actually might not.

Bush's defining characteristic, even more than his staggering stupidity or his lack of any positive moral quality (compassion? no; respect for human dignity? no; generosity? no), is his need to appear strong despite crushing internal weakness. He's a bully; a dumb, rich bully.

Being a dumb rich bully leads to his well documented inability to distinguish between success and failure. Exhibit A: Iraq; B: Katrina; etc. So in the disused piece of meat that is his brain, he may think that sticking through an impeachment hearing will be the strong, manly thing. He'll repeatedly ask "What Would Jesus Do [Were Jesus mean stupid and corrupt]?" and come up with the answer that he wants.

It would be nice to have a successful impeachment after 217 years; to finally set the bar for malfeasance to come.

All this means that we may be looking at a President Gonzales or Rice in a year.

Silver Lining for November Loss (Updated)

The TPM bring up a silver lining if the GOP keeps the Senate: McCain is in line to be the head of Armed Services, which means that we may get a serious investigation into the conduct of the war.

2008 Postscript: Well wasn't that quaint. We learn a few lessons from this:

1. A steady refrain of my backposts has been and will continue to be how much despair I was in back in 2006 based on the previous 6 years of totalistic thuggery from Bush & Co.
   
2. The knowledge that were it not for the slim victories we Democrats had against the Rove-engineered elections of '06 (cf. the Attorney Scandal to understand that there's more than one way to rig an election), the Senate would still be in the GOP's hands. True, because of the current deadlock, it's not as useful as it could be, nonetheless, we need to thank God for the fact that the GOP is not in control.
   
3. Especially in light of yesterday's testimony of Petraeus and Crocker in front of the self-same Armed Services committee and the slavish toadying of McCain to the delusions that the war in Iraq is going swell, we can see that the 'silver lining' of '06 would have been just another disappointment.
   
4. Then again, McCain's toadying is a world better than the Bush Crew's thuggery, so it would have been even more refreshing had we lost the midterms. Eh.

Backpost finished 4/10/08. Had the title, the link, and the basic sentence.

Don't Forget the Torture

Just in case a new reader wanders onto the blog and wonders why I think George W. Bush is ripe to be impeached, check out this story about the hitherto under-reported story of how Bush & Co. made it American policy to regularly torture prisoners of war.

The article, by Lawrence Wilkerson, is a set of questions reporters should be asking the administration about the routine practice of torture.

Lawrence Wilkerson "was Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of Staff from 2002 to 2005, and served for 31 years in the U.S. Army.... including as Deputy Executive Officer to General Colin L. Powell when he was Commander, U.S. Army Forces Command (1989), Special Assistant to General Powell when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989-93), and as Director and Deputy Director of the U.S. Marine Corps War College at Quantico, Virginia (1993-97)."

What do we learn from this article?

1. That the Executive branch is horribly evil and needs to be kicked out of power

2. There were some men of integrity in the Exec Branch, but they were silenced (emphasizing point 1)

3. That the current press corps have ignored their responsibilities

4. Because the press corps is populated by no-nothing hacks (like this guy) who dare not upset the government

5. Since the press won't take on the government we need to have Congress do it, and they can't do that unless the Democrats win it in 2006, which won't happen as long as the Hard-Left Wing of the Democratic party (a.k.a. the Terminal Loser Wing, the Walter Mondale-Michael Dukakis-John Kerry Wing) keeps dominating the platform.

Why is the Press so Craven?

The answer is complicated. It's as complicated as the reasons behind the US Civil War and World War II; i.e. a lot of little causes surrounding one big one. But I will get to that anon.

Backpost finished 4/9/08. This is the first 'draft' item I've found in the blog. Boy that's a long time ago... computer years are like double-dog, so 2=28! Note, I don't see why I didn't post this at the time, since it seems fully formed. But I searched my archives, and it seems not to have been blogged.

Anyway, it's cute to see what I was thinking back before the '06 midterms. Those were wretched times. And considering the post I just wrote, this is old news to those who've been following the news with any diligence.

The Perfect Candidate

Michael Chertoff was the perfect choice for Homeland Security - I have no idea why Kerik came before him. Chertoff was confirmed as DHS Secretary last Tuesday (Feb 15) which makes him the Bush's first Jewish cabinet secretary. Bush is such a friend of the Jews that it took him 5 years to find someone qualified enough to be in his cabinet, but he chose well.

Ya see, while Kerik was merely a rapacious crook, Chertoff is a moral midget. I mean, who else should be head of Homeland Security than the man who wrote the execrable Patriot Act?

It's ironic - our current Attorney General (Hispanic) allowed torture and the DHS (Jewish) allowed our civil liberties stripped. At least they should switch jobs!

{2009 Update: pic from here.}

Israeli Flag for War Crimes

In the description of American "war crimes" (that's what the story, War Crimes [washingtonpost.com], calls 'em), which includes our friendly torture of the random prisoners in Guantanamo, the interrogators would torment their victims with

"humiliations such as being wrapped in an Israeli flag."

That's a direct quote.

I love this. I love the fact that our government is torturing people. I love the fact that the people in Guantanamo are denied civil and human rights. I love that the legal genius who allowed this to happen is our new Attorney General. I love that Bush is such a friend of Israel that he uses their flag as a tool of torture and humiliation.

Can one of you GOP supporters explain this to us?

Backpost finished 2/15/05

Oh Great, More Ghraib

According to the newest reports, Guantanamo operated under similar torture rules as did Abu Ghraib: Washpost: "At Guantanamo, a Prison Within a Prison"

Maybe I'd feel better about the torture and rape if we actually were (a) not in a fictional conflict in Iraq, (b) the prisoners were dangerous people, (c) the prisoners knew something about the people who truly are trying to hurt us. Yet there have been no convictions from the torture; no proof that what we're doing is right. We fought a war - back in 1776 - to stop this kind of stuff, no?

As it is, we are just destroying people for fun. This is shameful. Again, I implore the GOPers out there, you have a voice, talk to your commandants about stopping these un-American activities before they actually become considered American activities.

Backpost finished 2/17/05, there was just a title and a link

The ICRC Report

Good ol' Smoking Gun. They got the goods on the torture in Iraq: Red Cross: Iraqi Treatment "Tantamount To Torture" - May 10, 2004

P.S. one of my favorite Smoking Gun archives is the conversion of Marilyn Monroe.

Get it Yet?

I've been saying for a few days, more emphatically, about the evil of this administration. In today's Times, see this wonderful sound-bite from Herr Rumsfeld:

On his flight to Iraq on Thursday, Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters traveling with him that the Geneva Conventions were open to interpretation.

"There are always going to be differences of views as to whether something does or doesn't" adhere to the conventions, he said. "The test is what is decided and what is issued, and then is it adhered to."

Who'da Thunk It?

Andrew Sullivan actually agrees with me... whoa:

"JONAH TAKES THE BAIT: I can see where he's coming from, but Jonah Goldberg is surely wrong when he writes: 'Well, CBS' scoop has gotten someone killed and there will be more deaths, on both sides, as a result of this story before it becomes history.' The photographs emphatically did not get Berg killed, no more than they got Daniel Pearl killed. Al Qaeda may have exploited the photographs as a propaganda tool, but we know they need no 'reason' to behead or massacre Americans. The only reason they need is that the person is an infidel and in their captivity. Believing that this is an actual response by Zarqawi to Abu Ghraib is to accept Zarqawi's own spin. "

New Worst Man in America

Replacing previous title-holder Don "Uckfup" Rumsfeld, who himself replaced George "Father Art in Hell" Bush who replaced John "How Could I Ever Have Been Replaced?" Ashcroft, is Senator James "Unmarked Bills" Inhofe. A senator from Oklahoma; needless to say he is a Republican.

As you can see from the news reports (e.g. WashPost: Senator Critical of Focus on Prisoner Abuse ) Senator Inhofe takes spin #2 - attack the media for being so durn Constitutiony.

To quote the Tyrant du-Jour: "I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment,"

Yes! Outraged by the outrage!

Not to feed into the outrage over his outrage by the outrage, I have to wonder just what is Inhofe receive for his act of ethics prostitution? A speaking spot at the Republican convention? New Defense Secretary?

And just so you know who we're dealing with, Inhofe happens to be a major supporter of Israel, probably the strongest in the Republican party!

See this:

• The seven reasons for supporting Israel (from a floor speech of Senator Inhofe on March 4, 2002).
• Also see this story
• And this

And, guess what, I didn't know he was a big Israel supporter when I read his remarks in the Senate... I JUST GUESSED! Seriously!! I wrote the first part of this post and on a hunch I googled "Inhofe" and "Israel" and voila, all this stuff comes up.

Why is it that the biggest scumbags in the government also Israel supporters? I don't want these people as my friends!

More of Abu Ghraib

Herr Rumsfeld warned us on Friday that worse is to come. According to the new New Yorker piece by Seymour Hersh:

NBC News later quoted U.S. military officials as saying that the unreleased photographs showed American soldiers “severely beating an Iraqi prisoner nearly to death, having sex with a female Iraqi prisoner, and ‘acting inappropriately with a dead body.’ The officials said there also was a videotape, apparently shot by U.S. personnel, showing Iraqi guards raping young boys."

Any of you out there deny the need for resignation and/or impeachment?