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$4.11 Changed Everything!

Well, it looks like the Republican “Lease Drill Everywhere!” plan is gaining some traction:

Now, polling is beginning to show that a rising share of the public is ready to drill, drill, drill — threatening to destroy precious and unique wildlife areas like the Arctic refuge and create more oil spills along the Gulf coasts. Worse, drilling is a distraction from real changes like massive investments in wind and solar power.

In February, Pew asked the public in a poll whether they favor drilling in the Arctic refuge. At that time 42 percent favored and 50 percent opposed. Now, in July, 50 percent favor drilling and only 43 percent oppose. That’s a 12-point change since the February survey and a 28-point swing since a March 2002 Gallup poll (where 35 percent favored and 56 percent opposed).

The shift is something to be concerned about — progressives are losing ground with the public on drilling. These are alarming gains in sympathy for the plans of Big Oil.

This change isn’t because the idea has gotten better — Arctic drilling might cut gas prices by a mere 4 cents a decade from now. It is because of a sophisticated communications campaign by the oil companies and the Republican Party that is mostly met with silence by the other side — by our side.

I think it’s not just the communications campaign - it’s the fear and desperation of the American public as gas prices cross the $4 threshold and keep climbing with no relief in sight.

This reminds me of nothing so much as the way Republicans have exploited (and fomented) fear and hysteria about terrorism to sell a series of terrible policies (warrantless wiretapping, invasion of Iraq, torture, suspension of habeas corpus, etc.) on the grounds that they would keep us safe from the Scary Terrorists.  Of course, none of these policies did any such thing, and most of them made the underlying problem even worse.  But they sure did make Bush and his cronies a lot more powerful and a lot more rich.

And now, here we are again, with an American people up in arms about gas prices and begging for someone to do something, anything.  And that’s exactly what the Republicans are offering: Bold, decisive action.  So what if it won’t provide any actual relief - it’s better than no action at all, right?  And conservation and alternative energy strategies are sooo boring and lame.  Real red-blooded Americans drill and exploit and take, just like real red-blooded Americans kill and torture and spy and… detain indefinitely without recourse to legal counsel.

I expect the “Drill Everywhere” strategy will work out about as well as the Iraqupation - maybe even worse, since it’s our own country we’ll be destroying.

2 comments July 14th, 2008 at 08:08pm Posted by Eli

The More Things Change…

Over three years ago, I was urging Democrats to lay some groundwork to ensure that Republicans couldn’t turn a terrorist attack or other disaster (this was several months before Katrina) into an undeserved political windfall:

Another thing that the Democrats must keep in mind is the very high probability that Republican policies will lead to a financial or terrorist-inflicted disaster. An electoral scandal and constitutional crisis is also a possibility: I believe there are limits to just how large a margin election “gaming” and fraud can cover up without leaving behind a gun too smoky for the media to ignore. What happens if that threshold is exceeded, at least to the point where the election outcome is severely in doubt? What mechanisms do we have for resolving such a situation?

In theory, Democrats should be able to capitalize on any of these negative outcomes, as they can all be laid clearly at the doorstep of the Republicans. In reality, they would be pilloried by the Republicans and the media for opportunistically “politicizing” a national tragedy.

Therefore, what I’m advocating is that the Democrats get out in front and periodically raise a big stink (and for the love of God, don’t capitulate!) about the various ways that the 100% Republican-controlled government has made us vulnerable…

(…)

[M]y point is that the Democrats need to be vocal about these issues in advance, so that everyone knows where they stand before the unthinkable occurs. It’s very easy to denounce terrorist attacks or stock market crashes after they happen, and both sides of the aisle will be doing exactly that. But the Democrats will be on the record as having warned of disaster, while the Republicans will be on record as steamrolling and shouting them down. This will give the Democrats standing and credibility to point the finger of blame after the fact.

(…)

Am I rooting for catastrophe? Of course not. I think it is highly probable, if not inevitable, but I desperately hope to be proven wrong.

What I am rooting for is that the Democrats will not let the Republicans get away with saying, “Well, these things happen, no-one could have seen it coming, we must all pull together now and do whatever we say,” as they did after 9/11. They must be held accountable for their willful refusal to protect America from harm.

Well, here we are three years later, and (as I predicted in that same post), the Democrats haven’t really gotten that message across, much to RJ Eskow’s dismay (and mine):

I’ve been privately warning Democrats for some time that Obama and the party need emergency preparedness plans. Major events between now and November could change the course of the election - especially a U.S. strike on Iran, or a terror attack against Americans at home or abroad.

We’re not seeing any signs of such plans. Not that we should -except that one outcome would be to explain now why Americans are much less safe as the result of GOP policies.

If it seems crass to weigh political considerations in the face of war or tragedy, remember that the future safety of civilians here and elsewhere will be greatly affected by this election. And they - the Republicans - are certainly thinking politically. When McCain’s chief political advisor, lobbyist Charlie Black, said yesterday that a terror attack “would be a big advantage for him, his biggest mistake was excessive honesty. That’s one of the few imaginable scenarios that could lead to a McCain victory in November.

(…)

So what should Obama and the Democrats be doing about these two possibilities? Some of their planning should be invisible - for the speeches that Obama might gave, the surrogates (military and otherwise) that would appear on Democrats’ behalf. But we should be seeing some groundwork being laid now, and we’re not.  So, what should be happening?

[Main bullet points only - check out Eskow's post for the meat behind them]

Guanatanamo and Abu Ghraib should be described as Bush-created “terrorist factories.”

Democrats should explain that torture is un-American, that it breeds terrorists — and that it doesn’t help catch bad guys.

If we surrender our freedoms, the terrorists win.

…Democrats owe it to themselves - and more importantly, to the nation - to start telling the real story immediately. There should be no equivocation and no calculation.

Their motto should be: Hope for the best, plan for the worst, and do what’s right in the meantime.

I still believe that something terrible is going to happen, that the Republicans’ criminal mismanagement of, well, everything, has made it inevitable.  Indeed, some pretty terrible things have already happened, like Katrina and the subprime meltdown.  But when the next terrible thing happens, if Democrats haven’t already shown (or, better yet, tried to fix) how the Republicans have left us vulnerable, they will be unable to fight off the Republicans’ this-is-why-you-need-a-strong-daddy narrative.

(h/t Elliott)

Add comment June 23rd, 2008 at 09:56pm Posted by Eli

A Whole Bushel Of Bad Apples

This is a lot like that report out of the Senate Intelligence Committee - you know, the one saying that BushCo. knowingly lied about the intelligence they had against Iraq before the invasion:

A Senate investigation has concluded that top Pentagon officials began assembling lists of harsh interrogation techniques in the summer of 2002 for use on detainees at Guantanamo Bay and that those officials later cited memos from field commanders to suggest that the proposals originated far down the chain of command, according to congressional sources briefed on the findings.

The sources said that memos and other evidence obtained during the inquiry show that officials in the office of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld started to research the use of waterboarding, stress positions, sensory deprivation and other practices in July 2002, months before memos from commanders at the detention facility in Cuba requested permission to use those measures on suspected terrorists.

The reported evidence — some of which is expected to be made public at a Senate hearing today — also shows that military lawyers raised strong concerns about the legality of the practices as early as November 2002, a month before Rumsfeld approved them. The findings contradict previous accounts by top Bush administration appointees, setting the stage for new clashes between the White House and Congress over the origins of interrogation methods that many lawmakers regard as torture and possibly illegal.

“Some have suggested that detainee abuses committed by U.S. personnel at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and at Guantanamo were the result of a ‘few bad apples’ acting on their own. It would be a lot easier to accept if that were true,” Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote in a statement for delivery at a committee hearing this morning. “Senior officials in the United States government sought out information on aggressive techniques, twisted the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees.”

(…)

[M]emos and e-mails obtained by investigators reveal that in July 2002, Haynes and other Pentagon officials were soliciting ideas for harsh interrogations from military experts in survival training, according to two congressional officials familiar with the committee’s investigation. By late July, a list was compiled that included many of the techniques that would later be formally approved for use at Guantanamo Bay, including stress positions, sleep deprivation and the hooding of detainees during questioning. The techniques were later used at the Abu Ghraib detention facility in Iraq.

(…)

The Guantanamo Bay visit and the effort to compile interrogation tactics appear to show that Pentagon officials were moving toward a formal policy on interrogation before military commanders at the detention camp requested special measures, the officials said. However, top military officers objected to the proposals in a series of memos in November 2002, much earlier than previously reported, congressional investigators said. In early 2003, Rumsfeld formally authorized the techniques for use at Guantanamo Bay.

(…)

“It is increasingly clear that the decision to abandon the rule of law and order torture and abuse was made at the very top,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington legislative office. “We look forward to the full investigative report from the Armed Services Committee and call on Congress to hold accountable any and all public officials involved in ordering illegal torture.”

A group of 56 Congressional Democrats last week asked the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to investigate whether any Bush administration officials may have broken laws in approving the use of harsh interrogation techniques for suspected terrorists.

As with the Senate Intelligence report, this pretty much just confirms and documents what we already knew, and what the Bush administration has been consistently lying about.  In this case, it’s the fact that torture is official BushCo. policy, and they’ve been lying about it all along.

Can’t wait to hear John “I Hate Torture But Voted For It Anyway” McCain’s reaction to this.

Add comment June 17th, 2008 at 06:59am Posted by Eli

The Power Of Names

Helen Thomas is the latest to lament America’s loss of moral standing now that our president has admitted to authorizing something that looks an awful lot like torture.  But in BushCo’s mind, as long as they never call their enhanced interrogation techniques “torture”… then they aren’t.

No matter that most Americans, the Army’s code of conduct, and pretty much the entire civilized world, considers waterboarding torture - as long as the administration (not to mention John McCain) says it isn’t, it’s perfectly okay.  It’d be interesting to see how well that defense stood up at The Hague, but I don’t guess we’ll ever get a chance to find out.

3 comments May 2nd, 2008 at 08:00am Posted by Eli

Media And Democrats Sleeping Through Wakeup Call

What BooMan said:

Asked whether he was aware that his National Security Council Principals Committee discussed and approved torturing human beings that we’re being held at the U.S. government’s mercy, our President responded:

“Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people.” Bush told ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz. “And yes, I’m aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved.”

To be more specific about what Bush knew about and approved:

As first reported by ABC News Wednesday, the most senior Bush administration officials repeatedly discussed and approved specific details of exactly how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the CIA. (…)

These 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, sources told ABC news.

No one with any credibility on human rights thinks that waterboarding is legal under U.S. or international law. And waterboarding is not the only violation of law committed by our government and approved by the president. A look at the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention Against Torture clearly demonstrates that our country is guilty of numerous violations.

Unfortunately, those with credibility on human rights are not the ones controlling our national narrative.  Instead it’s the shallow corporate-owned Heathers of the media and the cowardly (if not outright complicit) Democrats in Congress.

As recently as March, the president vetoed a bill banning torture. And the international press is covering the news that torture was authorized at the highest levels, even if our domestic press is more concerned with meaningless back and forth arguments in the Democratic primary.

The reputation of our nation has been seriously damaged, and ignoring the damage will only exacerbate the problem. Unfortunately, neither the media nor the Congress appear capable of coming to terms with what was done in our name and doing anything about it. The ACLU is calling for a Special Prosecutor, but it is very unlikely that the Bush administration will willingly authorize someone to investigate them for serious felonies that they have already confessed. Any talk of impeachment must account for the seriously depressing prospect that the Republican Party will act collectively as official apologists for torture and thereby, by failing to convict, establish the unhealthy precedent that the most serious violations of human rights are not worthy of removal from office. Compounding the problem is that a failure to attempt to impeach will establish the same precedent.

It is hard to believe that just ten years ago this nation impeached a president for lying about his sex life in a civil deposition in a case that was eventually tossed for lack of merit. Ten years ago the media could not grant enough coverage to the crimes of the president, but now even confessed felonies are covered over in favor of silly campaign coverage.

(…) We, as a nation, need to do something about this. It is a most difficult thing to come to terms with. There is a strong impulse to set this aside and write it off as an overreaction to the national trauma of 9/11. We see the same instinct in how so many want to grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications carriers that were ‘only doing their patriotic duty’ when they allowed the government to violate our 4th Amendment rights and spy on us without judicial warrants. In this case, government officials were ‘only trying to keep us safe’. That’s their defense, but it is not an adequate defense. And it does nothing to justify Bush’s recent veto of a bill banning torture.

Bush and Cheney will be leaving office in nine months, and the easiest thing to do is to just run out the clock. But that isn’t the right thing to do. And it will not absolve us of our responsibility to punish injustice and vindicate our nation’s commitment to human rights and the rule of law. Just look at how the world views us. Are we to let this stand?

And, yet, what can we do? With Clinton and Obama distracted by the primaries and the domestic press in the bag and with Republican complicity and administration obstruction, there seems to be no leadership and no path to a solution.

That leaves the responsibility on citizen activists…people like you and me. If the media won’t cover it, we will. And we will hope that shame compels the media to recognize our shame and agony, and our commitment to our country and its reputation in the world.

Even with a closely fought primary going on, this should be the story of the year, if not the story of the century: The President Of The United States has admitted to approving war crimes.  Impeachment is the very least that Congress should do; criminal prosecution seems far more appropriate (although perhaps not legally feasible for Dubya until he leaves office).

I doubt that Congress will do anything more than hold ineffectual hearings that get stonewalled, so does anyone (i.e., torture victims or their families) have standing to prosecute the evildoers, including Dubya in 2009? That will probably be the only possible way to obtain justice, and for this country to finally begin redeeming itself.

Add comment April 14th, 2008 at 07:20am Posted by Eli

Principals Without Principles

Does this really surprise anyone?

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.

As the national security adviser, Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by most of the principals or their deputies.

Contacted by ABC News today, spokesmen for Tenet, Rumsfeld and Powell declined to comment about the interrogation program or their private discussions in Principals Meetings. Powell said through an assistant there were “hundreds of [Principals] meetings” on a wide variety of topics and that he was “not at liberty to discuss private meetings.”

Hey, you hear that flushing sound, Colin?  That’s the last remaining scraps of your reputation.  Remember when everyone thought you were a statesmanlike man of integrity?  Pretty awesome, wasn’t it?  And now you’re just another of Dubya’s war criminals.

According to a former CIA official involved in the process, CIA headquarters would receive cables from operatives in the field asking for authorization for specific techniques. Agents, worried about overstepping their boundaries, would await guidance in particularly complicated cases dealing with high-value detainees, two CIA sources said.

Highly placed sources said CIA directors Tenet and later Porter Goss along with agency lawyers briefed senior advisers, including Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and Powell, about detainees in CIA custody overseas.

“It kept coming up. CIA wanted us to sign off on each one every time,” said one high-ranking official who asked not to be identified. “They’d say, ‘We’ve got so and so. This is the plan.’”

Sources said that at each discussion, all the Principals present approved.

Then-Attorney General Ashcroft was troubled by the discussions. He agreed with the general policy decision to allow aggressive tactics and had repeatedly advised that they were legal. But he argued that senior White House advisers should not be involved in the grim details of interrogations, sources said.

According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: “Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly.”

Ashcroft sounds a lot more concerned with optics than ethics.  Powell had a little more of a big-picture concern, but didn’t do squat about it:

Then-National Security Advisor Rice, sources said, was decisive. Despite growing policy concerns — shared by Powell — that the program was harming the image of the United States abroad, sources say she did not back down, telling the CIA: “This is your baby. Go do it.”

So Condi is incompetent and evil!  Maybe she would make a perfect running mate for McTrainwreck.  And did Colin Powell always completely lack balls, or did he hand them over to Dubya when he assumed the Secretary Of State position?  Wasn’t this the point (or one of the points) where a Principled Man Of Conscience  says, “I cannot be party to this,” and resigns?  As opposed to, “Gee, I sure wish you guys wouldn’t do that, but okay.”  Heroic.

3 comments April 10th, 2008 at 07:08am Posted by Eli

Question Of The Week

John Yoo, 3/14/03 torture memo:

“…The Eighth Amendment… applies solely to those persons upon whom criminal sanctions have been imposed. As the Supreme Court has explained, the “‘Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause’ was designed to protect those convicted of crimes… The Eight Amendment thus has no application to those individuals who have not been punished as part of a criminal proceeding, irrespective of the fact that they have been detained by the government… The Eighth Amendment therefore cannot extend to the detention of wartime detainees, who have been captured pursuant to the President’s power as Commander in Chief…”

“The detention of enemy combatants can in no sense be deemed ‘punishment’ for purposes of the Eight Amendment… Indeed, it has long been established that captivity in wartime is neither a punishment nor an act of vengeance, but merely a temporary detention which is devoid of all penal character…”

Tony Scalia, 2/12/08 BBC interview:

To begin with, the constitution refers to cruel and unusual punishment, it is referring to… cruel and unusual punishment for a crime. But a court can do that when a witness refuses to answer or commit them to jail until you will answer the question — without any time limit on it, as a means of coercing the witness to answer, as the witness should. And I suppose it’s the same thing about “so-called” torture.

Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to find out where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited under the Constitution? Because smacking someone in the face would violate the 8th amendment in a prison context. You can’t go around smacking people about. Is it obvious that what can’t be done for punishment can’t be done to exact information that is crucial to this society? It’s not at all an easy question, to tell you the truth.

Did Yoo and Scalia come up with this torture-is-okay-as-long-as-they-haven’t-been-convicted-of-anything angle independently, or did someone pass the idea to or between them?

Makes one wonder just what Dick and Tony might have talked about on those hunting trips, eh?

Add comment April 4th, 2008 at 09:55pm Posted by Eli

The Magic Is Over

No kidding:

Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister of France and a longtime humanitarian, diplomatic and political activist, said this week that whoever succeeds President Bush might restore something of the United States’ battered image and standing overseas but that “the magic is over.”

(…)

Asked whether the United States could repair the damage it had suffered to its reputation during the Bush presidency and especially since the 2003 American-led invasion of Iraq, Mr. Kouchner replied, “It will never be as it was before.”

I believe that the 2004 election was the turning point. In 2000, most Americans had no idea what kind of malignant, dangerous psychopaths Bush and Cheney were (are), but by 2004 they had revealed their true colors for all to see… and we still re-elected them. I think that was the moment in which we became willing accessories to all of their crimes, and there’s really no way to take that back.

(h/t All-Seeing Eye Of Froomkin)

Add comment March 17th, 2008 at 10:31pm Posted by Eli

Bush Calls Torture “One Of The Most Valuable Tools In The War On Terror”

As Machiavelli said, it is better to be feared than loved…

President George W. Bush said Saturday he vetoed legislation that would ban the CIA from using harsh interrogation methods such as waterboarding to break suspected terrorists because it would end practices that have prevented attacks.

“The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror,” Mr. Bush said in his weekly radio address taped for broadcast Saturday. “So today I vetoed it.”

The bill he rejected provides guidelines for intelligence activities for the year and has the interrogation requirement as one provision. It cleared the House of Representatives in December and the Senate last month.

“This is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe,” the president said.

(…)

The bill would have limited CIA interrogators to the 19 techniques allowed for use by military questioners. The Army field manual in 2006 banned using methods such as waterboarding or sensory deprivation on uncooperative prisoners.

Mr. Bush said the CIA must retain use of “specialized interrogation procedures” that the military doesn’t need. The military methods are designed for questioning “lawful combatants captured on the battlefield,” while intelligence professionals are dealing with “hardened terrorists” who have been trained to resist the techniques in the Army manual, the president said.

“We created alternative procedures to question the most dangerous al Qaeda operatives, particularly those who might have knowledge of attacks planned on our homeland,” Mr. Bush said. “If we were to shut down this program and restrict the CIA to methods in the field manual, we could lose vital information from senior al Qaeda terrorists, and that could cost American lives.”

(…)

Among the techniques the field manual prohibits are hooding prisoners or putting duct tape across their eyes, stripping them naked, forcing them to perform or mimic sexual acts, or beating, electrocuting, burning or otherwise physically hurting them. They may not be subjected to hypothermia or mock executions. It does not allow food, water and medical treatment to be withheld. Dogs may not be used in any aspect of interrogation.

But waterboarding is the most high-profile and controversial of the interrogation methods in question.

(…)

“President Bush’s veto will be one of the most shameful acts of his presidency,” Senator Edward Kennedy said in a statement Friday. “Unless Congress overrides the veto, it will go down in history as a flagrant insult to the rule of law and a serious stain on the good name of America in the eyes of the world.”

He noted that the Army field manual contends that harsh interrogation is a “poor technique that yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts and can induce the source to say what he thinks the (interrogator) wants to hear.”

The U.S. military specifically prohibited waterboarding in 2006. The CIA also prohibited the practice in 2006, and says it has not been used since three prisoners encountered it in 2003.

Dubya looooves him some torture.

Add comment March 8th, 2008 at 11:45am Posted by Eli

Quote Of The Day

From Dubya’s press conference reacting to Fidel Castro’s retirement:

There will be an interesting debate that will arise eventually. There will be some who say, let’s promote stability. Of course, in the meantime, political prisoners will rot in prison, and the human condition will remain pathetic in many cases….

Yes, because Dubya cares soooo much about people who are unjustly imprisoned on the island of Cuba with no recourse for release.

Is he completely devoid of self-awareness, or is he just deliberately winding us up? Hell, for all I know he could actually be blaming Fidel for Gitmo - I mean, if he can blame Saddam for al Qaeda in Iraq…

(h/t to The All-Seeing Eye Of Froomkin)

Add comment February 19th, 2008 at 06:34pm Posted by Eli

John McCain: Still Teh Awesome

Arianna has a great post on how John McCain still can do no wrong:

Despite an avalanche of evidence showing that McCain the Maverick has long ago been replaced by McCain the Pandering Pawn of the Party’s Right Wing, the press refuses to believe its own eyes.

The latest demonstration of the enormous lag time between the presentation of a new reality and the media’s willingness to update the conventional wisdom comes via those bastions of the traditional media, The New Yorker and the New York Times.

The latest New Yorker features a loving 7,000+ word profile of McCain by Ryan Lizza that portrays him as a moderate who has “the rare opportunity to reinvent what it means to be a Republican.”

Let’s see, McCain has bowed to the party’s lunatic fringe on tax cuts, immigration, the intolerance of religious bigots, and torture… so exactly how is he reinventing what it means to be a Republican? By shortening the amount of time it takes before a candidate is hijacked by the Right, perhaps?

(…)

But Lizza doesn’t want to buy it. Even as he lists all the examples of McCain’s “brazen pandering,” he insists that McCain is “principled” and “has a record of sticking to a position even when it puts his political future at risk.” Other than all the times he’s shifted his position in order to advance his political future, I suppose.

The media are so reluctant to give up their entrenched view of McCain that “principled” and “pandering” are no longer seen as mutually exclusive terms. Indeed, that was the animating premise of Nicholas Kristof’s head-scratching column in Sunday’s New York Times: that McCain has become the world’s most principled panderer.

“Mr. McCain truly has principles that he bends or breaks out of desperation and with distaste,” writes Kristof. In Kristof’s through-the-looking-glass world, it’s apparently a higher order of pandering if you start with deeply held core convictions that you trash in the name of political expediency while feeling really bad about it.

(…)

In the New Yorker piece, Newt Gingrich, in full stand up comedy mode, claims that McCain’s looming nomination “is the victory of the moderate wing” of the GOP — of which he now counts himself a member! — and that with McCain, “for the first time since Eisenhower, you have someone who has clearly not accommodated the conservative wing winning the nomination. That is a remarkable achievement.”

It says everything you need to know about how strong the Right’s stranglehold on the Republican Party has become that Newt Gingrich, the original barbarian at the GOP gate leading the 1994 right wing revolution, is now considered a voice of moderation. And that capitulating on torture and tax cuts and immigration and intolerance and out-Bushing Bush on Iraq can be seen as “not accommodating” the right….

See, this is why McCain scares me so much as a candidate. No other candidate has more unearned adoration from the media. No matter how blatantly dishonest and pandering he gets, the media will twist themselves into knots to either ignore it or to spin it as further proof of his straight-talking maverick integrity. They have fallen in love with that myth and will not give it up. Even the right-wing pundits who purport to hate him claim that it’s because he’s too independent from the crazy wing of the party.

Add comment February 19th, 2008 at 07:14am Posted by Eli

It All Depends On What The Meaning Of “Straight” Is…

Behold, The Straight Talk Express in action:

Today, the Senate brought the Intelligence Authorization Bill to the floor, containing a provision from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) that establishes one interrogation standard, requiring the intelligence community to abide by the same standards as articulated in the Army Field Manual and banning waterboarding.

Just hours ago, the Senate voted in favor of the bill, 51-45.

Earlier today, ThinkProgress noted that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), a former prisoner of war, has spoken strongly in favor of implementing the Army Field Manual standard. When confronted today with the decision of whether to stick with his conscience or cave to the right wing, McCain chose to ditch his principles and instead vote to preserve waterboarding:

Mr. McCain, a former prisoner of war, has consistently voiced opposition to waterboarding and other methods that critics say is a form torture. But the Republicans, confident of a White House veto, did not mount the challenge. Mr. McCain voted “no” on Wednesday afternoon.

The New York Times Times notes that “the White House has long said Mr. Bush will veto the bill, saying it ‘would prevent the president from taking the lawful actions necessary to protect Americans from attack in wartime.’”

After Bush vetoes the bill, McCain will again be confronted with a vote to either stand with President Bush or stand against torture. He indicated with his vote today where he will come down on that issue.

John McCain: He was against waterboarding before he was for it.

If it weren’t for the media’s slobbering Saint-McCain-can-do-no-wrong hero worship, he would have absolutely no credibility at all. Who else could get away with speaking out against waterboarding and torture (having personally been tortured themselves) and then voting for it?

Hopefully it will occur to the Democratic presidential nominee to mention this little flip-flop a time or two. It’s a double-whammy, after all: It shows McCain to be a double-talking liar and the second coming of Gee Dubya, which is absolutely the last thing America wants. Really, anything that makes McCain look like Dubya is going to be a winner for the Democrats.

Add comment February 13th, 2008 at 09:59pm Posted by Eli

The Trouble With Tasers

Thank God, someone has finally recognized and corrected the taser’s fatal flaw:

A handy new holster from Taser International Inc. holds not only your stun gun but a music player too.

Taser’s latest foray into consumer products was introduced Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The holster costs $72.99 on the company’s Web site and includes a 1-gigabyte MP3 player.

The company, which also sells its electronic weapons to law enforcement agencies and the military, has been stepping up its consumer product offerings with Tasers in new colors like ”red-hot” and ”fashion pink.”

The latest Taser — in a leopard print and costing $379.99 — ”provides a personal protection option for women who want fashion with a bite,” said Chief Executive Rick Smith.

Yes, that’s right: The taser needed to be more stylish and fun. Just think of the compliments and admiring looks your sexy new leopard print taser will garner in between agonized screams! And if you get tired of the screams, well you can just tune them right out with that nifty MP3-playing holster! Awesome!

I predict that next year they will partner up with a cellphone company to develop the Motorola TAZR - zap ‘em and then call the cops with the same convenient device!

3 comments January 7th, 2008 at 06:59pm Posted by Eli

And This Is The Liberal State…

Un-frickin-believable.

State authorities have given a controversial special education school in Canton a one-year extension of its authority to use electric shock treatments on students, provided the center makes a series of significant changes.

Among them, the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center must prove that it uses shock treatments only for the most dangerous and self-destructive behaviors and that the aversive therapy actually led to a reduction of those harmful actions.

The center must also stop electric shocks for “seemingly minor infractions,” such as getting out of a seat without approval or swearing. And it must show greater commitment to phasing out shock treatments, especially for those about to leave the school to enter mainstream society.

(…)

Jean McGuire, assistant secretary of the state’s Office of Health and Human Services, said the state has issued this conditional reauthorization well aware of the events last August in which two teenagers wrongfully received dozens of electrical shocks at the direction of a caller posing as a supervisor. The caller told staff to wake up the teenagers and give them dozens of shocks each based on alleged behavior that had occurred at least five hours earlier.

McGuire said the center has promised to eliminate delayed punishments and end the delivery of shocks to students who are sleeping. While the school’s critics want the state to ban any form of shock treatment, McGuire said the state also had to consider the many parents who defend the school as the only effective place for their hard-to-teach youngsters.

(…)

Critics of the Rotenberg Center expressed disappointment that state officials, especially in light of the August episode, did not order the school to end the shock treatment program, which critics consider ineffective and inhumane.

(…)

The provisional reauthorization was given by the Department of Mental Retardation, which is responsible for overseeing the shock therapy program. The Rotenberg Center is the only school in the nation that depends so heavily on shock treatments for its students, most of whom are autistic, mentally retarded, or have serious emotional problems.

According to the report, the school has about 250 students, nearly all of whom attend the center’s Canton school and live in one of its 38 group homes in nearby communities. Two-thirds are minors; the rest are adults. Roughly one-third are from Massachusetts. About 60 percent of all students have court-approved plans that allow for shock treatment.

In the reauthorization, state officials criticized the center for producing generic-looking treatment and assessment plans for the students, seemingly using a common template for many of them.

(…)

McGuire said the state plans to inspect the school next month, as well as repeatedly throughout the year to make sure the required changes are being addressed.

“We’re being as aggressive as we can,” McGuire said.

This is just nuts. How is anything but “We are shutting you sadistic bastards down RIGHT NOW” not the only possible response to this? These people are completely out of control, they’re torturing these kids instead of helping them, and the government response is to give them a year to cut back on electroshock treatment??? As the shadowy and mysterious Codename V. said: 1840 called - they want their treatment back.

I think “Don’t tase me, bro” is going to become our new national motto.

(h/t dakine)

4 comments December 22nd, 2007 at 10:50pm Posted by Eli

Helpful Reminder To The Preznit

If you claim you didn’t know about it, then you can’t claim executive privilege when they investigate it.

Just keep that in mind if you don’t want to be on the receiving end of any Strongly Worded Letters, or worse. (I can’t imagine what could possibly be worse than a SWL, but I’m sure someone can.)

Add comment December 11th, 2007 at 10:11pm Posted by Eli

Torture For EVERYONE!!!

I mean, why should foreigners get to have all the fun?

The U.K’s Guardian held a debate between Condi Rice’s top lawyer John Bellinger at the State Department and Phillipe Sands a law professor from University College London recently.

Mr Bellinger made his remarks during a Guardian debate with Philippe Sands QC, professor of international law at University College London. Mr Sands asked whether he could imagine any circumstances in which waterboarding could be justified on an American national by a foreign intelligence service. “One would have to apply the facts to the law to determine whether any technique, whatever happened, would cause severe physical pain or suffering,” Mr Bellinger said. — via harpers.org/NoComment

In other words, sure why not. If its legal for us to do it then as long as it wasn’t too severe, no problem!

Here is a link to a podcast of the debate guardian.co.uk

The senior legal adviser to the Secretary of State of the United States is declaring that provided there are limits, its OK to torture U.S. troops. I wonder how the Pentagon feels about this? I am pretty sure I know how the troops would feel about it.

Hey, I’m sure our boys wouldn’t mind a little bit of torture - they understand that it’s for a good cause. Besides, I bet a lot of them were in fraternities themselves, so it would be just like old times. Dubya probably even waterboarded a few pledges himself back in the day.

Add comment November 6th, 2007 at 08:08pm Posted by Eli

Lifelong Torturer

From blowing up frogs with firecrackers, to establishing himself as the Torturer-In-Chief, our Fearless Leader has always enjoyed inflicting pain:

New York Times, “Branding Rite Laid to Yale University,” Nov. 8, 1967

NEW HAVEN, Nov. 7–A Yale fraternity accused by the student newspaper of burning its initiates with a brand will have its fate decided Friday by student fraternity leaders.

The fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon, could face the temporary closure of its house and a $1,000 fine resulting from alleged violations of rules previously passed by the Inter-Fraternity Council, which consists of Yale’s five fraternity presidents.

The charges against Delta Kappa Epsilon were made last Friday in a Yale Daily News article that accused campus fraternities of carrying on “sadistic and obscene” initiation procedures.

The charge that has caused the most controversy on the Yale campus is that Delta Kappa Epsilon applied a “hot branding iron” to the small of the back of its 40 new members in ceremonies two weeks ago. A photograph showing a scab in the shape of the Greek letter Delta, approximately a half inch wide, appeared with the article.

A former president of Delta said that the branding is done with a hot coathanger. But the former president, George Bush, a Yale senior, said that the resulting wound is “only a cigarette burn.”

On the plus side, some of the pledges had very valuable intelligence about, um, prime locations for panty raids and stuff.

2 comments November 5th, 2007 at 09:49pm Posted by Eli

…And My Head’s Exploded Again.

Seriously, I have no idea how they manage this level of cognitive dissonance:

Q: Is it ever reasonable to restrict constitutional freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism?

MS. PERINO: In our opinion, no.

They’re talking about Pakistan, of course. Their fiercely pro-Democracy stance only applies to other countries. Well, okay, when they talk about “Democracy” in other countries, they really mean, “not embarrassing Dubya too badly,” not that other thing about giving the people a voice in their government - that stuff’s strictly for hippies. But right now Pakistan is failing miserably by both definitions. Heckuva job, Mushie!

Add comment November 5th, 2007 at 07:01pm Posted by Eli

Principles

The WaPo continues its descent into evil and insanity with this charming editorial:

THE HALLS of Congress are too often filled with cowardice and groupthink. So it is reassuring when not one but two lawmakers show the moral fortitude to defy party politics to take a stand on principle.

Democratic Sens. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) and Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) showed such courage Friday when they announced their support for attorney-general nominee Michael B. Mukasey. Both are members of the Judiciary Committee, which is scheduled to vote Tuesday on Mr. Mukasey’s nomination. It is likely that their support salvaged Mr. Mukasey’s nomination, imperiled because he would not state outright that the interrogation method known as waterboarding, or simulated drowning, is illegal. While we, like Mr. Schumer, Ms. Feinstein and others, would have wished for such an answer, supplying it would have put Mr. Mukasey in conflict with Justice Department memos that likely allow the technique — memos that those who may have carried out or authorized waterboarding relied on for legal protection.

Yes, you heard that right: Caving yet again to the Bush administration and approving an AG nominee who thinks waterboarding is a-ok is a courageous, principled moral stand. Hooray for Charles & Di! They’re not craven, go-along-to-get-along wankers like that Russ Feingold character:

I will vote against the nomination of Judge Mukasey to be the next Attorney General. This was a difficult decision, as Judge Mukasey has many impressive qualities. He is intelligent and experienced and appears to understand the need to depoliticize the Department of Justice and restore its credibility and reputation.

At this point in our history, however, the country also needs an Attorney General who will tell the President that he cannot ignore the laws passed by Congress. Unfortunately, Judge Mukasey was unwilling to reject the extreme and dangerous theories of executive power that this administration has put forward.

The nation’s top law enforcement officer must be able to stand up to a chief executive who thinks he is above the law. The rule of law is too important to our country’s history and to its future to compromise on that bedrock principle.

What a wuss! See how he allows himself to get stampeded by something as trivial as the rule of law! He’s trapped in the same groupthink as the other 15-20 senators who will end up voting against Mukasey.

(h/t whig for the Feingold statement)

1 comment November 5th, 2007 at 06:58am Posted by Eli

How To Tell When Your Country Has Gone Insane

When the media feel obliged to provide a pro-torture viewpoint for “balance,” your country has gone insane.

Looking forward to some lively debates on the pros & cons of rape and murder. Should be any day now.

2 comments November 1st, 2007 at 10:45pm Posted by Eli

Too Big A Loophole

Today’s NYT lead editorial on torture equivocator Mukasey’s AG nomination:

…[S]enators with a conscience that can be shocked should insist that Mr. Bush meet a higher standard than this nomination.

Come on, guys. We need a majority.

2 comments November 1st, 2007 at 11:39am Posted by Eli

What Stoller And Sun Tzu Said

Okay, so Frank Rich does a good job of itemizing all of Dubya’s evil with respect to war and torture, and to a certain extent he is correct that Americans in general are culpable for “allowing” him to get away with it. But as Sun Tzu points out, the biggest reason that most Americans have passively allowed it to continue, the biggest reason that Dubya was re-elected to continue his rampage, was because the media relentlessly sold them on it.

Worse yet, as Stoller points out, it was only one month ago that Rich slammed MoveOn for doing exactly what Rich laments that no-one is doing.

Rich sounds like a progressive most of the time, but he’s awfully protective of the media and political establishment’s turf. He laments that Americans aren’t fighting against BushCo, yet he resents those who are. Maybe he’s waiting for a centrist establishment uprising.

1 comment October 14th, 2007 at 09:51pm Posted by Eli

Taser Tag

Betcha can’t zap just one…

A Clay County woman’s family said it’s seeking justice after their loved one died shortly after being shocked 10 times with Taser guns during a confrontation with police.

The family of 56-year-old Emily Delafield said it would take the Green Cove Springs Police Department to court, according to a WJXT-TV report.

(…)

Officers said they arrived to find Delafield in a wheelchair, armed with two knives and a hammer. Police said the woman was swinging the weapons at family members and police.

Within an hour of her call to 911, Delafield, a wheelchair-bound woman documented to have mental illness, was dead.

Family attorney Rick Alexander said Delafield’s death could have been prevented and that there are four things that jump out at him about the case.

“One, she’s in a wheelchair. Two, she’s schizophrenic. Three, they’re using a Taser on a person that’s in a wheelchair, and then four is that they tasered her 10 times for a period of like two minutes,” Alexander said.

According to a police report, one of the officers used her Taser gun nine times for a total of 160 seconds and the other officer discharged his Taser gun once for a total of no more than five seconds.

A medical examiner found Delafield died from hypertensive heart disease and cited the Taser gun shock as a contributing factor, the report said. On her death certificate, the medical examiner ruled Delafield’s death a homicide.

Look, just because tasers aren’t handguns doesn’t mean you can just zap people with them as many times as you feel like when they’re not cooperating to your satisfaction. I would also note that zapping someone with a whole bunch of electricity does not actually make them docile. It makes them scream and try to get away, and possibly convulse. I would guess that 99% of the time, a single taser zap is sufficient (and probably not necessary) to get one’s point across, and I would further venture to say that percentage is even higher when the taseree is a middle-aged woman in a wheelchair.

But hey, I guess everyone’s taser-happy these days. Even the Forest Service wants to get into the act.

(h/t Mike Stark)

Add comment September 19th, 2007 at 10:22pm Posted by Eli

Welfare Cheats

For all the Republican outrage about welfare cheats, they never seem to mind when corporations rip the government off…

One after another, the men and women who have stepped forward to report corruption in the massive effort to rebuild Iraq have been vilified, fired and demoted.

Or worse.

For daring to report illegal arms sales, Navy veteran Donald Vance says he was imprisoned by the American military in a security compound outside Baghdad and subjected to harsh interrogation methods.

There were times, huddled on the floor in solitary confinement with that head-banging music blaring dawn to dusk and interrogators yelling the same questions over and over, that Vance began to wish he had just kept his mouth shut.

He had thought he was doing a good and noble thing when he started telling the FBI about the guns and the land mines and the rocket-launchers - all of them being sold for cash, no receipts necessary, he said. He told a federal agent the buyers were Iraqi insurgents, American soldiers, State Department workers, and Iraqi embassy and ministry employees.

The seller, he claimed, was the Iraqi-owned company he worked for, Shield Group Security Co.

(Which begs the question, just how Iraqi-owned was it?)

…Vance says he blew the whistle, supplying photos and documents and other intelligence to an FBI agent in his hometown of Chicago because he didn’t know whom to trust in Iraq.

For his trouble, he says, he got 97 days in Camp Cropper, an American military prison outside Baghdad that once held Saddam Hussein, and he was classified a security detainee.

Also held was colleague Nathan Ertel, who helped Vance gather evidence documenting the sales, according to a federal lawsuit both have filed in Chicago, alleging they were illegally imprisoned and subjected to physical and mental interrogation tactics “reserved for terrorists and so-called enemy combatants.”

(…)

“If you [blow the whistle], you will be destroyed,” said William Weaver, professor of political science at the University of Texas-El Paso and senior advisor to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.

“Reconstruction is so rife with corruption. Sometimes people ask me, `Should I do this?’ And my answer is no. If they’re married, they’ll lose their family. They will lose their jobs. They will lose everything,” Weaver said.

They have been fired or demoted, shunned by colleagues, and denied government support in whistleblower lawsuits filed against contracting firms.

“The only way we can find out what is going on is for someone to come forward and let us know,” said Beth Daley of the Project on Government Oversight, an independent, nonprofit group that investigates corruption. “But when they do, the weight of the government comes down on them. The message is, ‘Don’t blow the whistle or we’ll make your life hell.’

“It’s heartbreaking,” Daley said. “There is an even greater need for whistleblowers now. But they are made into public martyrs. It’s a disgrace. Their lives get ruined.”

Bunnatine “Bunny” Greenhouse knows this only too well. As the highest-ranking civilian contracting officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, she testified before a congressional committee in 2005 that she found widespread fraud in multibillion-dollar rebuilding contracts awarded to former Halliburton subsidiary KBR.

Soon after, Greenhouse was demoted. She now sits in a tiny cubicle in a different department with very little to do and no decision-making authority, at the end of an otherwise exemplary 20-year career.

People she has known for years no longer speak to her.

(…)

Then there is Robert Isakson, who filed a whistleblower suit against contractor Custer Battles in 2004, alleging the company - with which he was briefly associated - bilked the U.S. government out of tens of millions of dollars by filing fake invoices and padding other bills for reconstruction work.

He and his co-plaintiff, William Baldwin, a former employee fired by the firm, doggedly pursued the suit for two years, gathering evidence on their own and flying overseas to obtain more information from witnesses. Eventually, a federal jury agreed with them and awarded a $10 million judgment against the now-defunct firm, which had denied all wrongdoing.

It was the first civil verdict for Iraq reconstruction fraud.

But in 2006, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III overturned the jury award. He said Isakson and Baldwin failed to prove that the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-backed occupier of Iraq for 14 months, was part of the U.S. government.

Um, WTF. The judge is a Reagan appointee, in case you were wondering.

“It’s a sad, heartbreaking comment on the system,” said Isakson, a former FBI agent who owns an international contracting company based in Alabama. “I tried to help the government, and the government didn’t seem to care.”

One way to blow the whistle is to file a “qui tam” lawsuit (taken from the Latin phrase “he who sues for the king, as well as for himself”) under the federal False Claims Act.

Signed by Abraham Lincoln in response to military contractors selling defective products to the Union Army, the act allows private citizens to sue on the government’s behalf.

The government has the option to sign on, with all plaintiffs receiving a percentage of monetary damages, which are tripled in these suits.

It can be a straightforward and effective way to recoup federal funds lost to fraud. In the past, the Justice Department has joined several such cases and won. They included instances of Medicare and Medicaid overbilling, and padded invoices from domestic contractors.

But the government has not joined a single quit tam suit alleging Iraq reconstruction abuse, estimated in the tens of millions. At least a dozen have been filed since 2004.

They. Don’t. Care. BushCo. doesn’t mind that these companies are ripping them off, because these companies are BushCo’s friends and allies. I’m pretty sure that the ripoffs are an unwritten appendix to the contracts, an understanding that the contractors can take whatever they want, and the government will cover for them.

Do read the whole thing - there’s some especially scary stuff about how the American embassy set Vance and Ertel up.

Mike Stark also points out via e-mail that the War Profiteering Prevention Act has been stuck in committee since January, even though “[t]he two bills are similar and the cost estimates are identical.” I guess no-one cares.

(h/t Jane)

3 comments August 25th, 2007 at 04:10pm Posted by Eli

This, I Can Believe

I typically assume that every word coming out of the Bush White House is a lie, and I have been right more often than not. But I think I have to make an exception this time:

The White House yesterday denied a report that President Bush will imminently move to close the Guantanamo Bay terror prison in Cuba.

The Associated Press reported that the White House had summoned security chiefs to a meeting today to make a plan, but officials involved in Gitmo matters told the Daily News they were unaware of the gathering.

A National Security Council spokesman said Bush wants to close Camp Delta, but not before military tribunals convene and most detainees are repatriated to their home countries.

“No decisions on the future of Guantanamo Bay are imminent and there will not be a White House meeting [today],” NSC spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

It’s like a little kid saying he’ll give up candy when the world runs out of chocolate…

1 comment June 22nd, 2007 at 11:15am Posted by Eli

Lawlessness

Sidney Blumenthal has a great Salon piece about the complete collapse of the Bush Administration’s constitutional legitimacy.

But the sad fact is, it doesn’t seem to faze anyone. It’s certainly not slowing Dubya down, and I sure haven’t seen it as a narrative in the media, or even very much from the Democratic establishment. Disappointing, but not surprising.

Add comment June 21st, 2007 at 11:21am Posted by Eli

What Have We Become?

Perhaps the most telling line from WaPo’s chilling story about torturers interrogators:

Then a soldier’s aunt sent over several copies of Viktor E. Frankel’s Holocaust memoir, “Man’s Search for Meaning.” Lagouranis found himself trying to pick up tips from the Nazis. He realized he had gone too far.

Umm… yeah. When you’re trying to use the Nazis as role models, you have lost your way.

Read the whole thing. I can’t really feel sorry for him, but the American interrogator really is a complete mess. The story also profiles former British and Israeli interrogators, and they’re not exactly normal. Unless you’re a total xenophobe or sociopath, it’s hard to imagine that not having an extreme effect on your psyche.

Good thing the military is loosening its standards to let in more sociopaths, eh?

7 comments June 4th, 2007 at 06:02pm Posted by Eli

Bastard Of The Day

I’m beginning to realize that “Wanker” is just not strong enough…

Last week, a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee held a hearing on the Bush administration’s practice of extraordinary rendition, whereby hundreds of “terror suspects who had never been indicted for any crimes” have been abducted and flown to either secret agency prisons or to foreign countries such as Egypt or Syria where they are tortured.

Throughout the hearing, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) aggressively defended the U.S. rendition program and attacked the witnesses, three members of the European parliament, who testified that rendition actually hinders prosecutions of terrorists.

Rohrabacher told the witnesses that Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann would still be alive if they were in charge. He said the witnesses were free to doubt the motives of U.S. rendition since “I know there’s a lot of people who hate America.”

At one point, Rohrabacher argued that imprisoning and torturing one innocent person was a fair price to pay for locking up 50 terrorists who would “go out and plant a bomb…and kill 20,000 people.” When members of the audience groaned, Rohrabacher said, “Well, I hope it’s your families, I hope it’s your families that suffer the consequences.”

Of course, if they’re Christians, they won’t mind…

5 comments April 25th, 2007 at 06:55am Posted by Eli

But Who Will Be Watching?

It’s a shame this is only being shown on a premium cable channel:

“Ghosts of Abu Ghraib,” a new HBO documentary produced and directed by Rory Kennedy, daringly approaches a scandal that hardly anyone wants to see reexamined — least of all, one can safely assume, the Bush administration and the Pentagon.

The reason is not just that what happened at Abu Ghraib is, to understate in the extreme, unpleasant. The documentary says it’s also because this breakdown was not so much nervous as inevitable — and not so spontaneous, having been sanctioned by the top brass, including former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

(…)

The photos [Kennedy] shows from Abu Ghraib are very explicit and, unlike the versions shown in newspapers and on television in 2004 when the story broke, uncensored.

We see naked prisoners in humiliating situations — a man tied at the end of a leash, like a dog; a group of naked prisoners arranged in a lopsided human pyramid; men positioned in ways to suggest homosexual acts. Kennedy was right to show these pictures, but she should have been less genteel in what she showed of the 9/11 attacks. America violated the rules on interrogation of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and for that, there is no excuse. But one must take into account the fury felt in the aftermath of 9/11 over monstrosities that also violated every covenant of “civilized” warfare.

This is irrelevant bollocks, and it would have created a false equivalence between genuine terrorists and largely innocent victims who had nothing to do with 9/11. It would reinforce one of the unspoken reasons for the torture; namely collective punishment against the Arab/Muslim world for being home to the terrorists.

This discrepancy doesn’t really lessen the film’s power. And in interviews with some of the men and women who perpetrated the torture, or who posed cheerfully (almost like tourists at Niagara Falls) with the victims, we see them looking anything but furious or consumed with wrath. Instead, they smile in the photos and, in the interview segments, they speak with a kind of numb, casual regret — but nothing like wrenching shame or sorrow.

Like I said, the 9/11 argument is bollocks. The torturers weren’t blinded with rage, they just got off on inflicting pain and humiliation; on having absolute power over their victims.

Kennedy suggests the torture was not an outbreak of lunacy but the direct result of policies handed down by Rumsfeld that were designed to circumvent the Geneva Conventions (which specify that prisoners of war be “treated humanely”) and U.N. conventions against torture, to which the United States is, at least technically, a signatory. That was done by, among other things, refusing to classify the up to 6,000 inmates of Abu Ghraib as prisoners of war; Rumsfeld instead calls them “unlawful combatants” at a news conference. Then the term “torture” was redefined so narrowly in government memos that it would be almost impossible to commit it.

When the scandal broke, the administration sent out “conscious disinformation,” one former official recalls, including the trivializing assertion that what happened at Abu Ghraib was just ” ‘Animal House’ on the night shift.”…

It could easily be argued that it was the torturers and not the tortured who suffered the most as a result of what happened at Abu Ghraib….

Umm… NO.

The wider moral of the film is simpler and nonpolitical and painfully, poignantly evident: When you treat people as less than human, you become less than human yourself.

Okay, I can buy that. Just don’t try to tell me that the torturers suffered more than their victims.

I’m glad this is getting more attention, and that Kennedy is making the case that Abu Ghraib was the result of deliberate high-level decisions rather than a few “bad apples.” Unfortunately, it’s about two and a half years too late.

4 comments February 22nd, 2007 at 12:39pm Posted by Eli

24! Huh! What Is It Good For?

Carlson’s snarky “Oh, grow up, people!” tone makes me want to smack him, but his “Magazine Reader” column today has some interesting and horrifying follow-ups on the real-interrogators-ask-24-to-lay-off-the-torture story:

When the general arrives at the studio, wearing a uniform decorated with countless ribbons, people figure he’s an actor playing a general and they ask when his scene will be shot. Then, at the meeting, one of Finnegan’s experts suggests some non-abusive interrogation techniques including — get this! — “giving suspects a postcard to send home, thereby learning the name and address of their next of kin.”

And when the show’s lead writer, Howard Gordon, hears that, he slams his fist on the table and says, “You’re hired!”

(…)

For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of watching “24,” and it is a pleasure if you have a strong stomach, here’s a bit of background: The Emmy-winning show depicts the amazing adventures of agent Jack Bauer, who specializes in stopping terrorists from blowing up America. Nearly every week, terrorists torture Jack, or Jack tortures terrorists, or both. In one episode, the president orders a Secret Service agent to torture his national security adviser, whom he suspects of treason.

The show, as Gordon tells Mayer, consists largely of “improvisations in sadism.” Not surprisingly, “24″ is very popular in the Bush administration.

Last March, Rush Limbaugh hosted a dinner for “24’s” executive producer, Joel Surnow, and invited Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Virginia, who works at the conservative Heritage Foundation…. Inspired by the dinner, Virginia Thomas organized a full-blown Heritage symposium with the wonderful title ” ‘24′ and America’s Image in Fighting Terrorism: Fact, Fiction, or Does It Matter?” Michael Chertoff, the real-life homeland security secretary, showed up to praise the show, saying, “Frankly, it reflects real life.”

After the symposium, Surnow and other “24″ honchos went to the White House to dine with Karl Rove, Tony Snow, Lynne Cheney and Mary Cheney.

“People in the administration love the series,” says Surnow, who described himself to Mayer as a “right-wing nut job.”

He was joking, sort of, but he does hang out in what might be called the “right-wing nut job community.” He’s pals with the twin blond bomb throwers of the right — Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham. Coulter and Surnow have discussed collaborating on what Surnow describes as “a movie that depicted Joe McCarthy as an American hero.” And Ingraham invited Surnow on her radio show and then informed the world that while she was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer, “it was soothing to see Jack Bauer torture these terrorists, and I felt better.”

Given my own tastes, I can’t really begrudge someone enjoying violent entertainment, but that’s… a bit creepy.

Add comment February 20th, 2007 at 07:11pm Posted by Eli