Just Some Folks Torturing Other Folks

Gina Haspel oversaw a secret prison in Thailand where she approved the torture of at least one detainee.  She also signed off on the destruction of evidence of these so-called enhanced interrogations. Although it seems that initial reports of her involvement in the brutal torture of Abu Zubaydah was in error, this does not undermine the view of the New York Times, which editorialized:  "when it comes to torture, no American officials have been more practiced in those heinous dark arts than the agents and employees of the Central Intelligence Agency who applied it to terrorism suspects after 9/11 [and] few American officials were so directly involved in that frenzy of abuse ... as Gina Haspel."  Neither she nor any other government official was prosecuted when President Obama determined to look forward instead of backward, and so instead of spending these last years in prison, she has moved up the ranks of the CIA and is currently the agency's deputy director.  The current president, an unabashed torture supporter, has nominated current CIA director and fellow torture supporter to be Secretary of State, and has announced that he was going to name Haspel to head the CIA.  We thus have to once again debate what should not be debatable, but it is a debate worth having.  Below is a piece I wrote in August 2014 about the need for a true reckoning.

Previewing a declassified report that concludes the prior Administration used techniques on terrorism suspects amounting to torture, President Obama conceded that "we did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks."

Of course, Obama couldn't quite make himself confront Bush, Cheney & Co. with a point blank accusation.  First, he had to couch the statement by using the pronoun "we" as if either he or his political party or the citizens of the United States were responsible for torture.  Then, like a good Dad who praises his child before making a critical remark, he stated that a lot of things were done right, before pointing out that "we tortured some folks."  'That's OK, Junior, try harder next time.'  And, by the way, what were those "right things" to which he was referring?

To further minimize the impact of his statement, Obama relied on the colloquialism -- "folks."  We tortured "some folks."  He sounds like President Gomer Pyle.  'Well, golly.  I guess we tortured some folks.'   Those who were tortured were real flesh and blood people, human beings capable of feeling the extreme pain and humiliation of "enhanced interrogation techniques."  They were entitled to being treated as such.

It gets worse.  The President then rationalized the use of torture in the context of the stressful times we were in.  While it was certainly not cool to torture folks, it was understandable that our government would resort to such techniques because, you know, it was kinda scary back then.

I think it's important when we look back to recall how afraid people were after the twin towers fell and the Pentagon had been hit and the plane in Pennsylvania had fallen and people did not know whether more attacks were imminent and there was enormous pressure on our law enforcement and our national security teams to try to deal with this. And, you know, it's important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had. A lot of those folks were working hard under enormous pressure and are real patriots, but having said all that, we did some things that were wrong.

So, our folks -- meaning, the leaders of our government -- were frightened and working under pressure, but, nevertheless, they were "real patriots" and so we shouldn't hold them accountable just because they tortured other folks.

As if the use of torture was simply an understandable spontaneous reaction to the tragedy of 9/11 and not a well calculated policy decision that those in the Bush Administration and their allies and apologists continue to believe was justified. As Charles Pierce puts it:  "Quite simply, nobody who engaged in torture, nobody who worked to establish a legal rationale for torture, nobody who applauded torture or encouraged it or welcomed its practice, has any right to be referred to by anyone, let alone the president, as a patriot."

I've written before that President Obama's biggest mistake when he first took office was refusing to allow his Justice Department to investigate, much less prosecute, the government officials who authorized torture.  He maintained that since his Administration wouldn't condone torture we can simply move forward.  (See, e.g., Pitfalls of Only Looking Forward, Tortured Logic.)  But we are not moving forward.  If we are to remain a nation of laws, when high government officials break the law or cynically bend the law to justify human rights violations there must be consequences.

Obama's latest comments, as mealy-mouthed as they were, elicited the predictable backlash from the right while the media noted that they "reopened debate."   The upcoming report by the Senate Intelligence Committee is significant, but without a true reckoning that confirms once and for all the immorality, illegality and inefficacy of torture, we remain stuck in a debate that should have been resolved.

American Exceptionalism: Celebrating Our Favorite War Criminal

"Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you."  -- Satchell Paige

Interesting juxtaposition.  President Obama announces plans to become the first sitting president to visit Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima -- the very spot where an American nuclear bomb exploded, killing more than 100,000 people.  Meanwhile the Department of Defense presents Henry Kissinger the Distinguished Public Service Award. 

Needless to say, the United States has a very complicated relationship to war crimes.  We crow about our values, our freedoms and our exceptionalism, and condemn as unpatriotic and treasonous any American who has the temerity to question the darker aspects of our history.

And we celebrate Henry Kissinger, one of the most villainous U.S. political leaders of the 20th Century. 

Kissinger's role in the Viet Nam War, from undermining the Paris peace talks prior to Nixon's election to directing the massive clandestine bombing campaign in Laos and Cambodia, which indiscriminately killed and displaced millions of civilians, is not in dispute.  That should be enough to remove him from polite society much less make him a sought after foreign policy expert and Hillary Clinton's bff.  But, of course, there is plenty more, including his planning of the overthrow of  Chile's democratically elected president, his support for Indonesia's massacre in East Timor, his  encouragement of right wing military leaders in Argentina's Dirty War, and his role in other so-called proxy wars.  As put by Greg Grandin, the author of Kissinger's Shadow, Kissinger is "responsible, directly or indirectly, for the deaths of millions of people in Southeast Asia, East Timor, Bangladesh, and southern Africa, among other places."

And, as Grandin points out, even Kissinger's arguably admirable role in fostering détente with the Soviet Union and an opening to China was undermined by his own actions:

In one region after another, [he] executed policies that helped doom his own grand strategy, undermining détente and canceling out whatever steadying effect it might have provided the planet. In southern Africa, for instance, Kissinger supported civil wars that would last decades and kill millions. In the Middle East, he pointlessly provoked the Soviet Union and laid the foundation for the jihadists. The militarization of the Gulf, including the brokering of ever larger arms sales to Saudi Arabia in exchange for petrodollars, was a Kissinger initiative.

So why is Henry Fucking Kissinger being honored with the Pentagon’s highest award for private citizens?  And what does it say about a country that cannot confront its worst excesses? 

When President Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for "all offenses against the United States," he stated that it was out of concern for the "immediate future of this great country." Next came Iran-Contra. While the Republicans stacked the joint legislative committee undertaking the investigation with the conservative wing of their party (e.g., then-Representative Cheney), the Democrats relied mostly on moderates, and thus the committee members were skewed toward those who were disinclined to probe very vigorously.  By rashly granting immunity to key witnesses such as Ollie North, the committee undermined prosecutions by an independent counsel.  The Iran-Contra Affair culminated in the pardon by first President Bush of several participants who had been implicated.

More recently, President Obama refused to seek any investigation of his predecessor's "War on Terror," despite substantial evidence that wiretapping laws were broken and torture was authorized at the highest levels.  Much like President Ford, Obama claimed that “nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.” 

As we look ever forward, never backward, the presumptive nominee for president of one of this country's two major parties unequivocally calls for combatting terrorism with torture and other violations of human rights.  The other considers Kissinger a dear friend and trusted adviser.

What's next?  Given our penchant for whitewashing the past and honoring our war criminals, someone should tell Dick Cheney to get ready for his close-up. 

Jerks and Knee-Jerks: Profiles In Cowardice, Bigotry and Ignorance

Earlier this week, in a piece, Shame the Bigots But Address the Fear, I emphasized the importance of taking seriously the American public's genuine fear about safety and security, and not treating everyone who expresses concerns about the influx of refugees as a cold-hearted bigot.  But that doesn't mean we shouldn't also be calling out and shaming the cold-hearted bigots -- including, but not limited to, the entire field of Republican presidential candidates. 

There's Donald Trump, who proposes closing mosques in the United States, requiring all Muslims to register in a data base, and is not opposed to forcing them to wear special identification badges (yellow crescents?), drawing a disturbing parallel to Nazi Germany. 

Marco Rubio, given the opportunity to disavow Trump, attempted to trump him.  He would not only shut down mosques, but would close "whatever facility is being used — it’s not just a mosque — any facility that’s being used to radicalize and inspire attacks against the United States."

Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz believe we should only allow Christian refugees to settle here, drawing a disturbing parallel to the Spanish Inquisition.

Ben Carson, not to be outdone, compares Syrian refugees to rabid dogs ("If there is a rabid dog running around your neighborhood, you're probably not going to assume something good about that dog"), drawing a disturbing parallel to an ignorant nut case.

(For those keeping track, those five miserable human beings are supported by about 80% of Republican voters)

And then there are the panic-stricken House Republicans, who have voted for a "pause" in the process to allow refugees from Iraq and Syria, ignoring the fact that none of the Paris attackers were refugees -- from Syria or anywhere else --  and that we already have a painstakingly arduous process in place.  This paragraph from a New York Times article says it all: 

When pressed, most Republicans could not specify which aspects of the rigorous refugee vetting program that they found inadequate. [House Speaker Paul Ryan’s] staff members cited a Bloomberg poll of 1,002 adults released on Wednesday, conducted by Selzer & Company, that found that 53 percent of those surveyed said the resettlement program should be halted.

Pathetically, 47 craven Democrats voted with Republicans in a final tally of 289-137.

And then there are the majority of governors, including presidential candidate John Kasich, who would refuse to allow Syrians to resettle in their states.  One of the more egregious is purported Christian, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, who denied admittance to two Syrian refugee families the day before they were scheduled to arrive in Indianapolis.  (Connecticut's governor graciously accepted the two families)

Democratic Roanoke Mayor David Bowers said his city would not be spending any resources on resettling Syrian refugees, suggesting the U.S. consider a plan similar to the internment of Japanese nationals during WWII.

And let's not forget our elected state officials.  There's Republican Rhode Island state Sen. Elaine Morgan, who opposes resettling Syrian refugees because "[t]he Muslim religion and philosophy is to murder, rape, and decapitate anyone who is a non Muslim" and suggests that "we should set up refugee camp to keep them segregated from our populous [sic]."  And then there's Republican Missouri state Rep. Mike Moon who is calling for a special legislative session to stop “the potential Islamization of Missouri.”

The terrorist attacks in Paris have brought out the worst kind of fear-mongering and demagoguery from (mostly) Republican politicians.  These bigoted, inhumane and ignorant responses stem from the desire to pander to the least exceptional aspects of the American psyche for political gain as well as from what Paul Krugman describes as the right wing's propensity for panic.  Andy Borowitz, the great satirist, wrote a piece in the New Yorker this past summer, joking that "a group of scholars who have been monitoring the descent of the bar over the past few decades have concluded that the bar can no longer be lowered."  That proved to be far too optimistic.

Shame The Bigots But Address The Fear

Republicans have long proven their genius for exploiting fear for political gain, using bigotry and cheap slogans to project an aura of toughness.  Aided by a feckless media, they have long been perceived as better able to protect Americans from harm than Democrats, who are thought to be more concerned with political correctness than national security.  And so, we have GOP leaders, like Jeb!, using alarmist rhetoric about an existential threat to western civilization and agitating for all out war.  In response to the terrorist attacks in Paris, Republicans are calling for the shutting down of mosques in the U.S., permitting only refugees who can establish their Christian bona fides, and closing our borders to Syrian toddlers trying to escape the ravages of civil war and terrorism. (Mostly) Republican Governors seek to deny resettlement of refugees in their states.  Even the purportedly moderate (by comparison) presidential candidate John Kasich has proposed the creation of a new federal agency that would promote Judeo-Christian beliefs.

It is critical to call out these bigots and moral cowards, to shame them for their xenophobia and ignorance.  President Obama was right in mocking them when he said: “At first they were too scared of the press being too tough on them in the debates. Now they are scared of three year old orphans. That doesn’t seem so tough to me.”

But Democrats also have to acknowledge that Republicans are tapping into a real fear, that they understand it, and -- in contrast to the hateful rhetoric and simplistic clichés used by Republicans -- that they have the far better approach for keeping Americans safe.

And so, it is important to repeatedly emphasize the fallacy of condemning Islam and all Muslims based on the violence and repression committed by individuals and states in the name of Islam.  As Reza Aslan put it, in a remarkable exchange on CNN in which he repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempted to move the talking heads off their narrative that Islam is a repressive, violent religion:  "The problem is that you’re talking about a religion of one and a half billion people, and certainly it becomes very easy to just simply paint them all with a single brush."

It is important to explain that the screening process for accepting refugees is an arduous one that can take 18 to 24 months before a refugee is approved for admission to the U.S.  Refugees are vetted by several different agencies, including the National Counterterrorism Center, the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center, and the Departments of State, Defense and Homeland Security.

Fingerprints are taken, biographical information is collected. They are then each individually interviewed by U.S. officials trained to verify that they're bona fide refugees.  Refugees from Syria are then subject to additional screening that looks at where they came from and what caused them to flee their home, stories that are checked out. All of this occurs before a refugee is allowed to set foot in the country.

It is also important to stress that condemning Islam and refusing to accept refugees who aren't Christian will actually make us less safe.  As President Obama explained:  “I cannot think of a more potent recruitment tool for ISIL than some of the (Republican) rhetoric that’s been coming out here during the course of this debate. ISIL seeks to exploit the idea that there's a war between Islam and the west. When you start seeing individuals in positions of responsibility suggesting that Christians are more worthy of protection than Muslims in a wartorn land, that feeds the ISIL narrative.”

Democrats will play right into the old GOP playbook that portrays them as arrogant elitists detached from real world concerns unless they are able to assure Americans that they get it -- that they take the fear of ordinary Americans about safety and security seriously and don't consider everyone who expresses concerns about the influx of refugees to be cold-hearted bigots. 

Washington Governor Jay Inslee has provided a primer on how to do just that:

“We’ve got to beat these guys in hearts, as well as U.S. Air Force,” he said. “We also have to win the moral battle. And that’s a battle of hope, and a vision for the future where we can live together, and I think this is part of that.”  Inslee said he was sensitive to “very legitimate and real” fears that ISIS militants could pose as refugees in order to sneak into America and commit more crimes. But, he said, “Leadership calls for people to recognize it’s real [and] act responsibly — in this case that means insisting on a robust, multi-layered screening process before they’re allowed in this country.” “I think that our nation is tested from time to time, and I think this is one of those times to really dig deep and see what kind of character our nation and my state has,” he added. “I’ve always believed my state and the country has always been a place of refuge from those who are persecuted. Right on the Statue of Liberty, they talk about the wretched refuge of your teeming shore, and I don’t know where we’ve had more people who fit this classification of victim.”

A large swath of the American public clings to false narratives about the nature of Islam and the steadfastness of Republicans when it comes to national security.  It won't be easy, but to change that narrative we need to not only shame GOP leaders for their ignorance and bigotry, but must also assure the American public that Democrats understand and can address their fear. 

Intelligence Failure, Memory Loss And The Truth About Bush's War

"Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?"  -- Groucho Marx

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." -- Karl Rove

We aren't talking ancient history.  We aren't debating the origins of the Peloponnesian War or the War of 1812 or even the Vietnam War.  We are talking about the Iraq War.  We were all there.  Well, we weren't all over there -- we were here, where we experienced first hand the shameful manipulation of our post-9/11 trauma by the Bush Administration, the craven capitulation of the loyal opposition and mainstream media, and the disastrous consequences.

The latest focus on the question to, and remarkably inept responses by, yet another Bush running for president as to whether, knowing what we know now -- presumably, invading a country that was not a threat to us after lying about its head of state's complicity in 9/11 and the possession of weapons of mass destruction; destroying that country infrastructure, destabilizing the region and increasing the influence of that country's neighbors; using torture and committing other human rights abuses; and causing the deaths of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis -- he would have invaded Iraq as his brother did, ignores what was known then.  This conveniently lets those complicit in the debacle off the hook, and does little to inform us about the qualifications for presidency of Jeb Bush or his cohorts.

It is rapidly becoming conventional wisdom, thanks to the same vapid punditry that was so acquiescent back then, that the Bush Administration was the victim of poor intelligence -- that they were misled into war, not that they misled us into a war they wanted to launch all along.  But we know this is not true.  We can recall how they seized on whatever tiny shred of evidence no matter how unreliable to bolster the answers they wanted about WMDs and a Iraq-9/11 connection and ignored the vast majority of credible evidence that pointed to contrary conclusion?  Remember yellow cake, aluminum tubes, mushroom clouds?  Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice manipulated the intelligence to sell a war to the public.

Another revisionist trope is that everyone believed the intelligence about WMD.  First, not everyone had the access to all of the intelligence that the Administration used and twisted for its purposes.  Further, most members of Congress who voted to authorize the war (including Hillary Clinton) failed, as Peter Beinart points out, to read the full classified National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction -- a report that convinced, for example, Senators Leahy and Graham to vote against the Iraq War resolution.  21 other Senators and 133 Representatives also just said "no."   And while some who voted "aye" may have done so because they believed the intelligence, most likely succumbed to coercive political pressure skillfully intensified by rhetoric out of the White House (e.g., you are "either with us or against us in the fight against terror.")

There was also some real journalism going on at the time -- from the reporters at Knight Ridder, for example -- who examined with skepticism the Bush Administrations' claims linking Saddam to 9/11 and WMDs.

As Matt Taibbi reminds us:  "It was obvious even back then, to anyone who made the faintest effort to look at the situation honestly, that the invasion was doomed, wrong, and a joke."

First you had to accept a fictional implied connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. Then you had to buy that this heavily-sanctioned secular dictator (and confirmed enemy of Islamic radicals) would be a likely sponsor of radical Islamic terror. Then after that you had to accept that Saddam even had the capability of supplying terrorists with weapons that could hurt us (the Bush administration's analysts famously squinted so hard their faces turned inside out trying to see that one).  And then, after all that, you still had to buy that all of these factors together added up to a threat so imminent that it justified the immediate mass sacrifice of American and Iraqi lives.

But now we are having to witness a parade of the same hapless politicians, pundits and experts who told us they were certain that Saddam Hussein was hiding nuclear weapons and was involved with 9/11, that taking him out with shock and awe would be quick and painless -- for us --  that we would be greeted as liberators, and that the consequent reordering of the Middle East would bring peace and freedom.  They were completely wrong about everything but are nevertheless unapologetically back on the airwaves and they are back advising Jeb Bush and the other Republican candidates.  And if any of these candidates actually ascends to the White House, they would be back making and selling policy. 

Instead of being asked about what they would have done in Iraq given what we know now, perhaps candidates could be asked under what circumstances they would use military force to overthrow a sovereign nation or whether they would manipulate intelligence if they believed it would convince the public to support their policy goals or under what conditions they would authorize torture.

What we knew then and what we surely know now is that the Iraq fiasco did not stem from intelligence failures but was a direct result of the reckless pursuit of a discredited neoconservative political theory.  Unfortunately, none of the Republican candidates seems to have learned this or anything else that would allow them to avoid another unmitigated disaster when confronted with a national crisis.

Homeland Security Blanket

It is amusing to watch the Republicans' inability to govern their own lunatic ward d/b/a the House of Representatives.  House Speaker John Boehner's orange hue is starting to pale as he attempts to navigate between the nihilists in his party who welcome shutting down the government in order to make a symbolic point about Obama's immigration policies and those who have at least a tenuous grasp on reality that allow them to understand that the failure to fund the Department of Homeland Security has political perils if not national security ones.

California Senator Barbara Boxer's recent rant against Senate Republicans received a lot of attention.  She trashed them as a "national disgrace" for threatening a shutdown "of the very agency that protects the health, the safety, the lives, of the American people – the Department of Homeland Security."  She noted GOP hypocrisy in arguing for the need to go to war against terrorists while "willing to shut down the department that protects Americans here in the homeland, from a terrorist attack."  Ultimately, she blasted Republicans for pursing an agenda based on their animus towards President Obama and urged them to "grow up" and govern:  "So get over the fact that you don’t like the president. We get it. You couldn’t beat him. Too bad for you. But you’re in charge here, in the Senate. Do your job! Bring an immigration bill to the floor. Let’s let this Homeland Security Bill go. It’s a bipartisan bill. It’s funding for the most important thing we’re doing today. Let it go. Don’t hold it hostage to your hatred of this president, and I use that word because that’s what I think. That’s what I think…. Grow up. Do your job, you know? Do your job! Have respect for the office of the presidency."

This was a powerful speech and no doubt Republicans need to be scolded for their hypocrisy and their pettiness.  But what Sen. Boxer does not seem to question and what is lost in virtually all the discussions about Republican intransigence and irresponsibility is whether we really need to fund DHS in the first place.

The Department of Homeland Security is an incredibly expensive and unwieldy security blanket created by the Bush Administration in the aftermath of 9/11.  Its stated purpose is "to develop and coordinate the implementation of a comprehensive national strategy to secure the United States from terrorist threats or attacks."  Having incorporated 22 agencies under its control, DHS has an annual budget of $60 billion, and has been repeatedly criticized for excessive waste and inefficiency.  In 2008, for example, a congressional subcommittee estimated DHS had wasted roughly $15 billion in failed contracts.  It also came under fire for $2 billion of waste and fraud after GAO audits uncovered misuse of government credit cards by DHS employees.

As Trevor Timm writes in the Guardian, DHS is a "behemoth and a bureaucratic nightmare" operating "under one umbrella of dysfunction and secrecy."  Timm points out a few of the myriad of concerns:

•  DHS “fusion centers" are supposed to be terrorism prevention and response centers but are "little more than spying hubs that vacuum up information from federal and local authorities and store it for indefinite amounts of time. A scathing Senate report on the centers, which have cost the DHS at least $1.4 billion dollars, concluded that they produce 'predominantly useless information'" and "also '[run] afoul of departmental guidelines meant to guard against civil liberties' and are 'possibly in violation of the Privacy Act.'”
• DHS dispenses millions of dollars in military gear to local police "that they can barely account for, along with high-tech spying equipment used for mass surveillance of innocent citizens."
• DHS has its own Predator drones program "that they fly along the US border" and according to a government report it has been derided as "almost entirely ineffective and a giant waste of money" not to mention "the alarming privacy concerns of having sophisticated spying machines constantly flying over large parts of the country."

It may be beneficial politically in the short term for Democrats to gloat over Republicans apparently putting the nation at risk while they have their temper tantrum over immigration, but it might be more productive to take this as an opportunity to consider whether defunding the agency is really such a bad idea.

The Shame of U.S. Journalism Is The Destruction of Iraq, Not Fake Helicopter Stories

By Christian Christensen

The news that NBC’s Brian Williams was not, in fact, on a helicopter in 2003 that came under fire from an Iraqi Rocket-Propelled Grenade (RPG) should come as a surprise to noone. Williams had repeated the lie on several occasions over the course of a decade until a veteran, who was on the actual helicopter that was attacked, had enough of Williams’ war porn and called the TV host out on Facebook. In a quite pathetic effort to cover his tracks, the anchor—who makes in excess of $10 million per year— claimed that his fairy tale was, in fact, "a bungled attempt by me to thank one special veteran and by extension our brave military men and women" who had served in Iraq. Twelve years, it seems, is enough time for Williams to confuse being on a helicopter that came under fire from an RPG with being on a helicopter that did not.

 

Given that Williams works for NBC, his participation in the construction of a piece of fiction during the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq is apt. US network news, together with outlets such as CNN, aggressively cheer-led an invasion predicated on a massive falsehood: the Iraqi possession of WMD. What is jarring, however, is the fact that Williams’ sad attempt to inject himself into the fabric of the violence is getting more ink and airplay than the non-existence of WMD did back in the early-to-mid 2000s: a lie that provided the justification for a military action that has taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.

 

From embedded journalists to ultra-militaristic news logos and music, U.S. television news media were more than willing to throw gas on the invasion fire. "Experts" in the studio were invariably ex-generals looking to pad their pensions, while anti-war activists (who spoke for sizable portions of the US and UK populations back in 2003) were avoided like the plague. After all, what news organization wants to be tarred with the “peace” brush when flag-waiving jingoism sells so incredibly well? The one-sidedness of coverage, particularly in the US, bordered on the morally criminal.

 

Despite some limited soul-searching by journalists a decade after 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq about the abject failure of the U.S. news to engage, in a truly critical fashion, with the falsehoods peddled by the Bush administration, the current focus on an inane untruth told by one celebrity news anchor has overshadowed the bigger picture about the US media and Iraq. And I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

 

In the post-9/11, pre-invasion period, U.S. citizens proved to be spectacularly misinformed about the 9/11 attacks, Iraq, Al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein and WMD. When the invasion began, many in the U.S. simply had no clue about what was going on. Was that all the fault of the US media? No, but it’s fair to say a pretty large chunk of the responsibility lay at their feet. Then, once the bombing and street fighting became banal and lost its attractiveness to audiences and advertisers, most U.S. media outlets simply abandoned an Iraq left to fend for itself in a vortex of violence, political instability and corruption. And, who wants to talk about that when you can write about Williams upping his War Zone Reporter street cred? But, if you do want to hear about violence in Iraq, you can rely on Fox News to suggest that this particular hell might also be a liberal conspiracy…

 

The number of Iraqi citizens who have died as a direct and indirect by-product of the U.S. invasion is enough to populate a mid-sized U.S. city, and thousands continue to die on a monthly basis in non-imaginary attacks.

 

Yet, here we are, over a decade later, still discussing celebrity fantasies. That isn’t just bad journalism, it’s an affront to all who lost their lives in a brutal and bloody deception. Williams is just sorry about the wrong thing.

 

Originally posted at Common Dreams.  Christian Christensen, American in Sweden, is Professor of Journalism at Stockholm University. Follow him on Twitter: @ChrChristensen

Looking Forward To Torture

When President Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for "all offenses against the United States," he stated that it was out of concern for the "immediate future of this great country."  He should have considered the longer term.

Inevitably, next came Iran-Contra. While the Republicans stacked the joint legislative committee undertaking the investigation with the conservative wing of their party (e.g., then-Representative Cheney), the Democrats relied mostly on moderates, and thus the committee members were skewed toward those who were disinclined to probe vigorously.  By rashly granting immunity to key witnesses such as Ollie North, the committee undermined prosecutions by an independent counsel.  The Iran-Contra Affair culminated in the pardon by first President Bush of several participants who had been implicated.  The lesson was that the president and his circle had nothing to fear from abuse of power. 

With the next Bush came more abuses, including the use of torture (and, by the way, illegal wiretapping).  But President Obama refused to seek any meaningful investigation, much less prosecution, of those who authorized or committed torture.   Much like President Ford, Obama claimed that “nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.”  And more recently, he appeared to rationalize away the use of torture against "some folks" given the stress our "folks" were under in the wake of 9/11. 

The Senate Intelligence Committee's report, which has just laid out in gory detail the CIA's many shades of torture as well as making the case that these techniques were ineffective and counterproductive in obtaining useful intelligence, is perceived as a partisan attack on patriotic Americans who were trying to keep us safe.

In response, former Vice President Dick Cheney and his co-conspirators in the Bush Administration were permitted to flood the airwaves, where they were able to lie, literally with impunity.  They applauded torture's efficacy and provide the most offensive and amoral justifications for it without the kind of meaningful rebuttal that is anathema to network television.  Cheney was not merely unrepentant; he was positively boastful, gleefully acknowledging that despite 1/4 of tortured detainees being innocent of wrongdoing, no "seed of doubt" was planted in his soulless mind.  Indeed, he said, “I’d do it again in a minute.”

And as vile and odious as Cheney is, the Republican leadership (John McCain being the notable exception that proves the rule) has essentially endorsed his repugnant world view -- that anything to keep Americans out of danger as long as it isn't worse than what the terrorists did to us on 9/11 is morally acceptable, and that despite all evidence to the contrary, torture worked.  In essence, they would all "do it again in a minute."  (Significantly, Obama's CIA Director, John Brennan, isn't far from this position.  While he acknowledged the "shortcomings" of the torture program, he insisted that it resulted in obtaining intelligence that "saved lives.")

Thanks to the torture-enablers media blitz and Obama's acquiescence, a recent Washington Post poll showed that "by a margin of almost 2 to 1 . . . those interviewed said that they support the CIA’s brutal methods, with the vast majority of supporters saying that they produced valuable intelligence." 

President Obama came into office and, giving in to his bipartisan fetish, insisted on looking forward, not backward.  But, of course, we are not moving forward.  Without a true reckoning that confirms once and for all the immorality and illegality of torture, a reckoning that holds those responsible accountable, we remain stuck in a debate framed by self-serving Bush officials and their fellow travelers in the Republican Party about its efficacy.  And the winners of the debate will be whoever happens to inhabit the White House next.

America's Soundtrack of Hysteria

Guest Post by Tom Engelhardt

It happened so fast that, at first, I didn’t even take it in.
Two Saturdays ago, a friend and I were heading into the Phillips Museum in Washington, D.C., to catch a show of neo-Impressionist art when we ran into someone he knew, heading out.  I was introduced and the usual chitchat ensued.  At some point, she asked me, “Do you live here?”
“No,” I replied, “I’m from New York.”

She smiled, responded that it, too, was a fine place to live, then hesitated just a beat before adding in a quiet, friendly voice: “Given ISIS, maybe neither city is such a great place to be right now.”  Goodbyes were promptly said and we entered the museum.
All of this passed so quickly that I didn’t begin rolling her comment around in my head until we were looking at the sublime pointillist paintings of Georges Seurat and his associates. Only then did I think: ISIS, a danger in New York?  ISIS, a danger in Washington?  And I had the urge to bolt down the stairs, catch up to her, and say: whatever you do, don’t step off the curb.  That’s where danger lies in American life.  ISIS, not so much.

 

The Terrorists Have Our Number

I have no idea what provoked her comment. Maybe she was thinking about a story that had broken just two days earlier, topping the primetime TV news and hitting the front pages of newspapers.  On a visit to the Big Apple, the new Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, claimed that his intelligence services had uncovered a plot by militants of the Islamic State (IS, aka ISIS or ISIL), the extremists of the new caliphate that had gobbled up part of his country, against the subway systems of Paris, New York, and possibly other U.S. cities.

I had watched Brian Williams report that story on NBC in the usual breathless fashion, along with denials from American intelligence that there was any evidence of such a plot.  I had noted as well that police patrols on my hometown’s subways were nonetheless quickly reinforced, with extra contingents of bomb-sniffing dogs and surveillance teams.  Within a day, the leading officials of my state, Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, were denying that they had any information on such a plot, but also taking very public rides on the city’s subways to “reassure” us all.  The threat didn’t exist, but was also well in hand!  I have to admit that, to me, it all seemed almost comic.

In the meantime, the background noise of the last 13 years played on.  Inside the American Terrordome, the chorus of hysteria-purveyors, Republican and Democrat alike, nattered on, as had been true for weeks, about the "direct," not to say apocalyptic, threat the Islamic State and its caliph posed to the American way of life.  These included Senator Lindsey Graham (“This president needs to rise to the occasion before we all get killed here at home"); Majority Leader John Boehner, who insisted that we should consider putting American boots on Iraqi and perhaps even Syrian ground soon, since “they intend to kill us”; Senator Dianne Feinstein, who swore that “the threat ISIS poses cannot be overstated”; Senator Bill Nelson, who commented that “it ought to be pretty clear when they... say they’re going to fly the black flag of ISIS over the White House that ISIS is a clear and present danger.” And a chorus of officials, named and anonymous, warning that the terror danger to the country was “imminent,” while the usual set of pundits chirped away about the potential destruction of our way of life.

The media, of course, continued to report it all with a kind of eyeball-gluing glee.  The result by the time I met that woman: 71% of Americans believed ISIS had nothing short of sleeper cells in the U.S. (shades of “Homeland”!) and at least the same percentage, if not more (depending on which poll you read), were ready to back a full-scale bombing campaign, promptly launched by the Obama administration, against the group.

If, however, you took a step out of the overwrought American universe of terror threats for 30 seconds, it couldn’t have been clearer that everyone in the grim netherworld of the Middle East now seemed to have our number.  The beheading videos of the Islamic State had clearly been meant to cause hysteria on the cheap in this country -- and they worked.  Those first two videos somehow committed us to a war now predicted to last for years, and a never-ending bombing campaign that we know perfectly well will establish the global credentials of the Islamic State and its mad caliph in jihadist circles.  (In fact, the evidence is already in.  From North Africa to Afghanistan to Pakistan, the group is suddenly a brand name, its black flag something to hoist, and its style of beheading something to be imitated.)

Barbara Lee Continues To Speak For Me

That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons -- Authorization for the Use of Military Force ("AUMF")

After the attacks of 9/11, Congress gave President Bush carte blanche to use military force.  Only one member of Congress -- one -- had the integrity, the courage and the wisdom to just say "no."  Congresswoman Barbara Lee -- my Congressperson I'm proud to say --warned her colleagues to be "careful not to embark on an open-ended war with neither an exit strategy nor a focused target" and explained that the AUMF "was a blank check to the president to attack anyone involved in the September 11 events—anywhere, in any country, without regard to our nation's long-term foreign policy, economic and national security interests, and without time limit."

Congresswoman Lee, as we now know, was prescient.  Neither President Bush nor his successor, I'm afraid, could be trusted with such authorization, which has been used to justify warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention at  Guantanamo, various and sundry military actions, armed drones and, most recently, airstrikes against our newest terrorist enemy.

Congresswoman Lee has issued a statement expressing grave concern "about the expansion of U.S. airstrikes into Syria and continuation of airstrikes in Iraq." 

It is clear we are rapidly becoming more involved in another war in the Middle East.

President Obama has put together a strong international and regional coalition to address the ISIS threat. We must now leverage this regional coalition to achieve the political solution that will end this crisis. Only a political solution that respects the rights of all Iraqis and Syrians will ultimately dismantle ISIS

I have called and will continue to call for a full congressional debate and vote on any military action, as required by the Constitution. The American people deserve a public debate on all the options to dismantle ISIS, including their costs and consequences to our national security and domestic priorities.

he rapid escalation of another war in the Middle East underscores the danger of the blank check for endless war passed by Congress in 2001. I could not support this blank check for endless war or the 2002 blank check for war in Iraq. I have introduced legislation to repeal the 2001 and 2002 authorizations for the use of military force and continue to build bipartisan support for their repeal.

There is no military solution to the crisis in Iraq and Syria. In fact, continued U.S. military action will result in unintended consequences. We must remember the roots of ISIS - President Bush’s ill-begotten war.Congress needs to debate the political, economic, diplomatic and regionally-led solutions that will ultimately be the tools for U.S. and regional security.

Barbara Lee was right in 2001.  She is right in 2014.

Reverse Barometers and Perpetual War

General Custer to officer:  Anything that man tells me will be a lie.  Therefore, he will be perfect reverse barometer. . . .

Custer to Jack Crabb:  What should I do, mule skinner? . . . . Should I go down there, or withdraw? . . .  What's your answer, mule skinner?
Crabb:  General, you go down there.
Custer: You're saying, go into the coulee?
Crabb:  Yes, sir. 
Custer:  There are no Indians there, I suppose?
Crabb:  I didn't say that. There are thousands of Indians down there, and when they get done with you, there won't be nothing left but a greasy spot. . . . You go down there if you got the nerve.
Custer:  Still trying to outsmart me, aren't you, mule skinner? You want me to think that you don't want me to go down there, but the subtle truth is you really don't want me to go down there. . . Men of the Seventh! The hour of victory is at hand!  Onward to Little Bighorn and glory!

* * *
Near the close of the movie Little Big Man, General Custer (played by Richard Mulligan) realizes that Jack Crabb aka Little Big Man (Dustin Hoffman) who he hired as a scout, hates him so much that he will purposely give Custer the wrong advice.  Custer therefore treats Crabb as a "reverse barometer," doing the opposite of whatever Crabb tells him.  As the passage above shows, Crabb gets Custer completely flustered to the point where he is able to trick him into making the disastrous decision to attack at Little Bighorn. 

Dick Cheney, John McCain and their fellow War Mongers have much in common with Custer, as he was portrayed in this movie -- arrogant, unfettered by facts, unshakably stubborn and unable or unwilling to reverse a decision or admit a mistake.  They have been wrong about everything, particularly when it comes to terrorism and the Middle East.  But rather than being shamed into silence and appropriately shunned, they continue to seize center stage.  They plague us with their latest ideas for the latest crisis which, invariably, is the same wrong advice that got us into these messes in the first place: perpetual war.

In this way they should provide a useful service as reverse barometers.  Whatever they say, President Obama should enact the reverse.  When they insist that we stay in Iraq, rely less on diplomacy, employ troops on the ground and more bombs from the air in more places, we should do the opposite.  But it seems that, as in the movie, the reverse barometer can sow confusion.  And so after being relentlessly bombarded with the need to act quickly, decisively and, above all, militarily, the President, as William Greider puts it, "is embarking on another Long War in the Middle East."

The fact that we are only committed (for the time being) to air strikes with a limited amount of advisers on the ground is far from comforting.  Greider explains:  "President Obama’s vague assurances are doubtless sincere, but he has left a lot of open space to revise and reinterpret his intentions. If everything does not go well in Iraq, Obama will be pressured to escalate. War enthusiasts in the reserve army of pundits are already clamoring for him to do so. White House sources are already assuring reporters that Islamic State targets in Syria will be bombed. What happens if they don’t fold? The president will be pressed to send more troops—if not in regular uniforms, then as Special Forces, who will use clandestine methods."

Similarly, David Corn notes why it is difficult to "put the case for war back in the box" after commiting us to renewed military action even with a more nuanced approach than his predecessors:  "If US air strikes can make a difference, if other nations join in, if the Iraqi government gets it acts together, if the Iraqi military can do its job, then the United States will use its military might in a limited way to vanquish ISIS. A conditional case for war does not easily sync up with the stark nature of such an enterprise. If any of these ifs don't come to be, will Obama be cornered and forced by his rhetoric to do something? After depicting ISIS as a peril warranting a US military response—and with much of the American public convinced of that—can he then shrug his shoulders and say, "Never mind"? Will he provide the hawks an opening for political attacks and demands for greater military intervention? In his speech, the man who ran for president with the pledge to end the Iraq War declared, "We will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq." But what if all else fails?"

Onward to Little Bighorn and glory!

I'm Just A Kill List . . .

Tom Tomorrow's latest: Schoolhouse Rock, the sequel:

Click here for the link to the full comic.

Poor, Poor, Pitiful Colin Powell And The "Blot" That Will -- And Should -- Always Be Attached To Him

By Meteor Blades, cross-posted from Daily Kos

Former Bush era Secretary of State Colin Powell has a new book out May 22. As with so many political celebs, it's a book written "with" a professional person who does the actual writing. But it includes quotations from the guy who was once seen as potential presidential or vice presidential material. Based on uncorrected proofs released in advance, what we get once again is Powell lamenting the stain he can't get rid of because of the dead-wrong 85-minute speech he gave to the United Nations Feb. 5, 2003. There he declared convincingly that the United States had irrefutable evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

Within five months, that claim had been convincingly refuted.

“Yes, a blot, a failure will always be attached to me and my UN presentation,” the former U.S. secretary of state writes in a new book of leadership parables that draws frequently on his Iraq war experience. “I am mad mostly at myself for not having smelled the problem. My instincts failed me.” Powell, 75, laments that no intelligence officials had the “courage” to warn that he was given false information that Iraq had such weapons during preparations for his February 2003 speech before the U.S. invasion the following month.

We've been hearing this crap from the guy for seven years now. It's tedious. It's sickening. It's self-serving. It's bullshit. It's the same old, same old.

Except, not quite. Because Powell keeps changing his story about his interactions in the White House. In 2005, he told Barbara Walters that he was "right there with" the president on the use of force in Iraq. In 2007, he told a group of heavyweights at a conference in Aspen, Colo., that he had spent two-and-a-half hours trying to talk Bush out of using force.

This latest iteration isn't the first time Powell has tried to lay the blame for his bogus U.N. speech on intelligence failures well down the chain of command. Not only has he never held his bosses to account for intentionally distorting what they knew to be untrue, he hasn't owned up to his own distortions.

For instance, he knew full well from his own intelligence source that the aluminum tubes Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice were claiming as proof of Saddam Hussein's intent to make a nuclear weapon couldn't be used for that purpose. But he didn't pass that information along in his U.N. speech. Or anywhere else.

Most of all, for somebody so concerned about his reputation now, he didn't resign in protest when he learned that what he had said at the U.N. was false. In fact he said in the Walters' interview:

"I'm not a quitter. And it wasn't a moral issue, or an act of a failure of an active leadership. It was knowing what we were heading into, and when the going got rough, you don't walk out."

Fabricating evidence to start a war is not a moral issue? Better to be the good soldier than to be good, eh? Hundreds of thousands dead or maimed, millions exiled, trillions of dollars spent. For lies. How about a lament for that from the secretary?

All we get from Powell is a rancid woe-is-me sidestep from responsibility. As he enters his dotage, he claims it was all due to the lack of courage on the part of lower-downs and the failure of his normally good instincts that caused him to make an uncharacteristically bad judgment call.

Stunningly laughable for a guy whose "instincts" led to this remarkable fantasy recounted in the new book:

Powell, who served as national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan, recalls a morning in 1988 when he went to see Reagan and described a problem that needed to be solved that day. Reagan gazed past him at squirrels picking up nuts he had put out for them in the morning by the Rose Garden. It was a lesson in delegating authority and trusting his team to make the right decision, Powell says. “The president was teaching me: ‘Colin, I love you and I will sit here as long as you want me to, listening to your problem. Let me know when you have a problem that I have to solve,’” Powell writes.

He can perhaps be excused for believing that a quarter-century ago. But knowing what we know now about the health of Reagan's brain, Powell's continuing view that he was being mentored by a squirrel-gazing president is as ludicrous as the rest of his tales about what put that unerasable blot on his reputation.

Getting Away With Torture

DonkeyHotey

Jose Padilla, an American citizen, was arrested in 2002, at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on suspicion of plotting to detonate a dirty bomb.  He was designated by President Bush as an "enemy combatant," denied a civilian trial, and held in a military prison for three-and-a-half years where he was tortured.  As an editorial in the New York Times states:

[He] was denied contact with his lawyer, his family or anyone else outside the military brig for almost two years and kept in detention for almost four. His jailers made death threats, shackled him for hours, forced him into painful stress positions, subjected him to noxious fumes that hurt his eyes and nose and deafening noises at all hours, denied him care for serious illness and more.

Padilla was eventually tried in federal court on criminal conspiracy charges and found guilty in 2007 for conspiring to kill people in an overseas jihad and to fund and support overseas terrorism. He was neither charged or convicted of planning to detonate a dirty bomb. He was sentenced to 17 years and four months in prison.

Padilla sued John Yoo, the former Bush Administration official who authored the infamous torture memos. (Padilla sought damages of $1.)   In case you've forgotten:

A Yoo memo from 2001 advised that the military could use “any means necessary” to hold terror suspects.

A 2002 memo to then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales advised that treatment of suspected terrorists was torture only if it caused pain levels equivalent to “organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death.”

Yoo also advised that the president might have the constitutional power to allow torturing enemy combatants.

Most famously, Yoo was the principal author of a memo sent to the CIA in August 2002 authorizing “waterboarding,” in which water is poured over the face of a bound detainee and simulates drowning.

The Ninth Circuit reversed a 2009 ruling by federal district court judge who had held that the lawsuit could go forward.  According to the Ninth Circuit, Yoo was not personally liable because "regardless of the legality of Padilla's detention and the wisdom of Yoo's judgments, at the time he acted the law was 'not sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have understood that what he was doing violated' [Padilla's] rights."

The Court assumed that Padilla was tortured but found that Yoo had qualified immunity for two reasons:

First, . . . it was not “beyond debate” at that time that Padilla .   — who was not a convicted prisoner or criminal defendant, but a suspected terrorist designated an enemy combatant and confined to military detention by order of the President — was entitled to the same constitutional protections as an ordinary convicted prisoner or accused criminal.

Second, although it has been clearly established for decades that torture of an American citizen violates the Constitution, and we assume without deciding that Padilla’s alleged treatment rose to the level of torture, that such treatment was torture was not clearly established in 2001-03.

This nearly insurmountable burden, of having to establish that a government official's violation of a citizens rights was "beyond debate" stems from the U.S. Supreme Court's decision last year, in Ashcroft v. Al-Kidd.  The Times explains why this standard is unworkable:

The Bush administration manufactured both “debates” — about torture and enemy combatants. Any future government can rely on this precedent to pull the same stunt as cover for some other outrage.

By using the “enemy combatant” category, the Bush administration stirred debate that had not existed about whether rights of an American citizen in custody depend on how he is classified. By coming up with offensive rationalizations for torturing detainees, it dishonestly stirred debate about torture’s definition when what it engaged in plainly included torture.

Yoo, minimizing his role as limited to providing "legal advice that the Constitution allows the military detention of Americans who join al Qaeda," complains in the Wall Street Journal that the Obama Administration failed to defend him in the lawsuit.  He is concerned that "worrying about future lawsuits will distort official decision-making, which should balance the costs and benefits to the national interest and not worry about personal liability."

As an amicus brief filed by law professors explained, “Yoo did not merely give ‘wrong’ advice in performing customary legal duties," rather "he acted outside of his legal role altogether by participating directly in the formulation of policy that gave rise to the deprivation of [Padilla’s] constitutional rights and by creating legal cover for unlawful detention and interrogation policies.”

As the Times concludes, the Ninth Circuit was wrong to "dwell on whether Mr. Padilla’s mistreatment was torture. Even if somehow it did not qualify, its cruel, inhumane and shocking nature badly violated his rights as a citizen — and international law on the treatment of detainees. Even at the time, the issue was beyond debate, and Mr. Yoo should have known that."

Quagmire Accomplished

 One Year After Bin Laden's Death, Bring The Troops Home Now

By Kevin Martin and Michael Eisenscher, cross-posted from Common Dreams

Today marks one year since the death of Osama bin Laden. The CIA estimates there are fewer than 100 al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan. Since ‘getting Bin Laden’ and defeating al Qaeda were the stated reasons the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001, President Barack Obama should use the anniversary to announce the end of the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

Instead, his administration has negotiated an agreement with President Hamid Karzai’s government for a U.S. presence in that country until at least 2024, ten years past the supposed date for withdrawal of U.S. combat troops. The U.S. and its NATO allies are supposed to commit to ongoing training of the Afghan military, as well as development aid. Obama swept into Afghanistan in the middle of the night to sign the agreement, but full details of the agreement remain secret.

U.S. troops would also still have a limited combat role, namely Special Forces counter-insurgency operations, according to a draft proposal described by Admiral Bill McRaven, the head of U.S. special operations. A more detailed security plan will surely be discussed at the upcoming NATO Summit in Chicago.

If the agreement covers a ten year period, commits U.S. military forces for training and counter-insurgency (which means inevitable combat), obligates the U.S. to continue providing billions of taxpayer dollars annually in aid (essentially bankrolling the entire Afghan government and military), and posits support for any number of "nation-building" measures, isn't this in fact a treaty, subject to U.S. Senate ratification, rather than an intergovernmental memorandum of agreement?

Karzai apparently feels obligated to take the agreement to his parliament for approval.  Doesn’t Obama have a similar obligation - one imposed by the U.S. Constitution?It’s not clear what the year since the killing of Bin Laden has done to improve U.S. or Afghan security. It’s even less clear what staying for another dozen years will do for either country.

Quite apart from these legal, “process” questions, does anyone think our staying until 2024 is going to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan? We’ve already been there for eleven years – the longest war in our country’s history.  What do we really have to show for it?  We’ve spent almost $523 billion.  Almost 2000 Americans have been killed and another 15,300 wounded.  1000 NATO troops have lost their lives.

Obama Plays The Republican "Macho" Game

As Peter Bergen reported in the Sunday Times, President Obama is "one of the most militarily aggressive American leaders in decades."

Mr. Obama decimated Al Qaeda’s leadership. He overthrew the Libyan dictator. He ramped up drone attacks in Pakistan, waged effective covert wars in Yemen and Somalia and authorized a threefold increase in the number of American troops in Afghanistan. He became the first president to authorize the assassination of a United States citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico and played an operational role in Al Qaeda, and was killed in an American drone strike in Yemen. And, of course, Mr. Obama ordered and oversaw the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Nevertheless, the "American public and chattering classes continue to regard the president as a thinker, not an actor; a negotiator, not a fighter."  So, I understand why Obama believes that he needs to tout his national security chops.  And the one-year anniversary of bin Laden's death provides the perfect opportunity to do so.  This may be good politics, but it is nonetheless distasteful.

As Digby puts it:

I get why the Democrats are doing it. I'm sure it's extremely satisfying to land those punches on the right wing blowhards after all the years of taunting and jeering about liberal cowardice. To be able to say they killed the evil mastermind where the swaggering codpiece failed is probably too much of a temptation for them to pass up. I get it.

But I hate it. I hated it when the Republicans did it and I hate it now. I don't believe the most powerful nation on earth should be running its democracy via schoolyard power plays. This is how we ended up stuck in Vietnam and how we have found ourselves floundering about in Afghanistan and elsewhere. It's why we can't stop spending trillions on useless weapons systems, why we "have" to continue to fund ridiculous programs like Star Wars and why everyone in the political establishment assumes that the only answer to budget problems is to cut the so-called "entitlements."

I know we live in a dangerous world. But this nation is extremely rich and extremely powerful and its most important assets are morality and mystique. I'm not going to argue about the morality of killing Osama bin laden, but it should be remembered that our unilateral wars,torture regimes and insistence on imperial prerogatives have already taken a toll on America's reputation for moral behavior.

As for mystique, well let's just say that schoolyard taunts and manly chest beating doesn't leave much to the imagination. I don't expect the macho worshiping conservatives to ever change this. It's fundamental to their very identity. I was hoping for something a little bit more sophisticated and a little bit more mature from the so-called "reality-based community."

That said, Romney's response -- that he or any other President, even Jimmy Carter for Gawd's sake, would have done the same thing with regard to bin Laden -- was not only asinine but contravenes earlier remarks that he wouldn't focus on hunting down bin Laden and that candidate Obama was misguided in asserting that he would unilaterally go into Pakistan to get bin Laden.

And hey, shouldn't the media be all over Romney for criticizing our foreign policy successes?  Shouldn't they be asking why he hates America? 

As Greg Sargent points out:

Back in 2004 and 2006, when Republicans were showcasing George W. Bush’s war-on-terror routine as central to their case for reelection, and Dems were responding by attacking Republicans for politicizing national security and pointing to Bush’s failures, Dems were widely described as the ones taking the big political risk then, too.

We were told again and again during the 2004 and 2006 campaigns that Dems risked coming across as not rooting for American military success; there was little discussion of any danger for Republicans in playing up Bush’s “war president” routine. Now the situation, roughly, is reversed — and this time we’re talking about the Obama administration’s successful targeting of America’s number one global arch-enemy — yet again it’s Dems who are seen to be playing with political fire here.

This remains the Republican's game.  As Sargent concludes, "there’s still a strong built-in presumption of political dominance for Republicans on national security, and [] any gains Dems have made on the issue are not deeply felt by Beltway establishment types."

For better or worse, that's not going to prevent Obama from trying.

Quote Of The Day

"Why is it that when an American soldier slaughters people, he’s considered possibly mentally ill and suffering from PTSD, but when an Afghan villager who suffered through three decades of unimaginable violence, perhaps losing family members and friends, commits an act of horrific violence he’s considered a terrorist?"

Robert Dreyfuss, Sergeant Massacre, The Nation

White House Court

By DonkeyHotey

[Related post: Targeted Killings and the Death of Due Process]

Un-Cheating Justice: Two Years Left To Prosecute Bush

By David Swanson, cross-posted from War Is A Crime.org

Elizabeth Holtzman knows something about struggles for justice in the U.S. government.  She was a member of Congress and of the House Judiciary Committee that voted for articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon in 1973. She proposed the bill that in 1973 required that "state secrets" claims be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. She co-authored the special prosecutor law that was allowed to lapse, just in time for the George W. Bush crime wave, after Kenneth Starr made such a mockery of it during the Whitewater-cum-Lewinsky scandals.  She was there for the creation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in 1978. She has served on the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group, bringing long-escaped war criminals to justice.  And she was an outspoken advocate for impeaching George W. Bush.

Holtzman's new book, coauthored with Cynthia Cooper, is called "Cheating Justice: How Bush and Cheney Attacked the Rule of Law and Plotted to Avoid Prosecution -- and What We Can Do About It."  Holtzman begins by recalling how widespread and mainstream was the speculation at the end of the Bush nightmare that Bush would pardon himself and his underlings.  The debate was over exactly how he would do it.  And then he didn't do it at all.

Holtzman ends her book by pointing out that legal accountability can come after many years, as in the case of various Nazis, or of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, or of the murderers of civil rights activists including Medgar Evers.

In between, for the bulk of the book, Holtzman, a former district attorney, lays out the prospects for a prosecution of Bush and others on charges of lying to Congress about the grounds for war, wiretapping Americans, and conspiring to torture.  This is an excellent sampling of the many horrors on the list of Bush's abuses, and clearly the three areas in which Holtzman believes a prosecution would stand the best chance of success.  Her analysis of the war lies parallels and builds on that of Elizabeth de la Vega, another former prosecutor who has written on the topic.  Holtzman adds an analysis of the steps Bush took to protect himself from prosecution in this and each other area.  She also examines his possible legal defenses, finding some of them strong and others easily overcome.

In each area Holtzman finds charges that would stick, if our laws were enforced.  She also finds charges that would have stuck, had the statute of limitations not elapsed, and others for which a couple of years yet remain.  Holtzman believes charges for conspiring to defraud the government with war lies could be brought until January 20, 2014.  She also believes that charges for violation of FISA could be brought until that same date, pointing out that changes made to the law have not provided immunity for prior violations of what the law used to be, and that immunity has been granted from civil suits but not from criminal prosecution.  Charges of torture, Holtzman concludes, could be brought at any time in the future.