Cheney Throws Down the Gauntlet...again...And a Racist GOP

This last week, Mr. Cheney gave a predictable speech challenging the Obama administration's contention that torture is un-American and doesn't work. Mr. Cheney made all the same bold assertions he's made before: namely, that "enhanced interrogation" works and has provided valuable, life-saving intelligence (Go watch another episode of 24 and make sure to put extra butter on your popcorn, please, Mr. Right Wing Fantasy!).

I've always thought he's calling the Democrats' bluff and setting up a political trap for when America is attacked again. Well, goddamn it! Let's go ahead and open up some investigations and settle this thing once and for all. Those methods are either illegal, or, they're not; they either yield high-value intelligence, or, they don't. Cheney himself called for the CIA declassification of documents that would supposedly prove The Dark Lord's methods worked and yielded valuable intelligence. Of course, Cheney said this because he is certain they will never be made public, and he thinks the Democrats have the balls of a 3rd grader (hard to disagree on this second point) and won't disprove him.

And so now here's the shocker: According to Sen. Carl Levin, who's seen these documents (video here),

Mr. Cheney has also claimed that the release of classified documents would prove his view that the techniques worked. But those classified documents say nothing about numbers of lives saved, nor do the documents connect acquisition of valuable intelligence to the use of the abusive techniques. I hope that the documents are declassified so that people can judge for themselves what is fact and what is fiction.

Matthew Alexander, former interrogator at Gitmo and in Iraq, also responded to the Cheney's speech by noting, among other things like just how much Dark Lordian techniques don't work, that America prosecuted and convicted Japanese waterboarding during WWII. Moreover, General Washington in an existential struggle against The Empire refused to "injure" detainees during a war that was literally fought for our survival as a country-----or rather, any future hope of the sovereign republic it would later become (video of interview).

"Be very afraid" is the message..."The scourge of terrorism is existential"..."Be afraid; be very afraid"..."Be afraid; be very afraid"..."Be tough, and yet be---terrified"...
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On the ridiculous racism exploding out of a GOP that often fancies projecting (like this guy) its racism onto its Democratic opponents: According to the Not So Grand Old Party, these shameful haters of the white, working class, Anglo-Saxon male are using "identity politics" to confirm Sonia Sotomayor, who is essentially the equivalent of a Latina KKK member (See Tom Tancredo). They shouldn't forget that both Alito's and even scummy Gonzales's confirmations were sold on their membership as a minority group. And they both suck; Gonzales most likely even broke the law----on several occasions!

Here's Matt Yglesias' anger and frustration, which really does put a nail into the coffin of this racist, GOP argument about "identity politics":

I am really truly deeply and personally pissed off my the tenor of a lot of the commentary on Sonia Sotomayor. The idea that any time a person with a Spanish last name is tapped for a job, his or her entire lifetime of accomplishments is going to be wiped out in a riptide of bitching and moaning about “identity politics” is not a fun concept for me to contemplated. Qualifications like time at Princeton, Yale Law, and on the Circuit Court that work well for guys with Italian names suddenly don’t work if you have a Spanish name. Heaven forbid someone were to decide that there ought to be at least one Hispanic columnist at a major American newspaper.

Somehow, when George W. Bush affects a Texas accent, that’s not identity politics. When John Edwards gets a VP nomination, that’s not identity politics. But Sonia Sotomayor! Oh my heavens!

And no, Mr. Limbaugh, Sonia Sotomayor is not David Duke, you ignorant asshole!


The This Is TOO Amazing Update
Gingrich on the truly centrist nomination of Sotomayor:

If Civil War, suffrage, and Civil Rights are to mean anything, we cannot accept that conclusion...It is simply un-American. There is no room on the bench of the United States Supreme Court for this worldview.

This really is impressive! Colbert, please get off vacation: The absurdity needs satirical translation. In the meantime, there's this unwittingly satirical, conservative rap song takin' the streets by force.

p.s.---Atlas Shrugged is a hilariously terrible novel.
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Advertising Staff vs Historical Knowledge
Oh damn, this is interesting, maybe even subtly trenchant in its suggestiveness. Not because it is some freak advertising in the newspaper that Obama should be assassinated, but that the "newspaper's advertising staff didn't make the historical connection." I don't know, but "May Obama follow in the steps of Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy!" sounds pretty suspicious if you've passed 8th grade U.S. History. God, it's really fitting that it's advertising staff that wouldn't see this. Absurd, yet real.

Obama's Lack of "republican" Principles

So the latest of controversies: Obama reversing his position, and opposing the release of government photos documenting detainee abuse. The argument: That releasing them would "inflame anti-American opinion." Where have we heard this before? Something hasn't changed...



Leaving aside the implication that Obama appears more concerned with the fact that the abuse was documented, and not that it occurred at all----because, if it were not the case, he would be advocating investigation and prosecution for those at the top as well as those subservient to the Bush OLC policy (video discussion here): What about all the other myriad abuses of the previous administration that the current one is now complicit in? Do they, and our subsequent cover-up(s), not "inflame anti-American opinion" worldwide? What about the fact that Obama is arguing for suppressing evidence of lawbreaking simply because it is embarrassing to the government---- something he said, albeit while campaigning, that should not be tolerated? Doesn't that suppression and lack of transparency "inflame anti-American opinion"?



Glenn Greenwald is right when he asks those who support Obama's decision if they believe the release of the Abu Ghraib photos, the incessant bombings of Afghan civilians, and the CIA's destruction of interrogation videos should have been suppressed because they also "inflamed anti-American opinion." The notion that cleaning up our mess and enforcing the rule of law "doesn't do us any good," and that hiding the facts somehow makes us at home, and our troops abroad, safer is appalling nonsense. Bush also exploited and hid behind the troops. Congratulations, Mr. President; you're in bad company.



The point that should be stressed is that actual democratic republics don't behave that way, nor do true patriotic citizens in a functioning republic countenance such behavior. It is the (almost sanctimoniously) hypocritical contradictions between the supposed model we claim to uphold for the world ("the city on a hill" brand exceptionalism), and our actions that moves the world against us---or at least "incites" their "opinions" against us. And as our benevolent leader says, the deplorable actions of the state DOES, in deed, "inflame anti-American opinion." But, God forbid these opinions be well-founded and supported by any more observable facts and reliable information. Dare I say---truth? In essence he's saying, "These photos would break the camel's back so to speak. Better to hide the evidence, and make hollow our constitutional responsibilities instead."



Just a couple days ago we had the deadliest air strike in Afghanistan since 2001. One hundred civilians, women and children, were killed. So, a couple points on this "war" and its continuation should be made----since we now find world opinion useful and we'd hate to "inflame anti-American opinions":

• Let's keep in mind that the American government was fine with the Taliban before, and immediately after 911----as long as they gave up bin Laden (He is, of course, the head vampire, and if you kill him, the rest are destroyed and the earth is saved from predation). They chose not to give him up because they said it was he that was their host (Weren't Bush officials negotiating with those harboring terrorists back then? What a big no-no).

• And, despite the renewed sense of purpose projected against the Taliban, they were not then, and are not today an existential threat to America----unless you're a big and tough, Republican-minded buffoon-type of military genius that got five deferments from Vietnam, or a fellow at a blowhard "conservative" think tank. They are not Al Qaida, and even if they were, they certainly are not a significant enough threat to warrant the amount we must sacrifice in blood, treasure, and moral rectitude (if people can even restrain their governments into being "moral agents," which they apparently cannot) in a conventional war. Note: This "War on Terror" is not a conventional war; why then focus conventional means (i.e. large armies) against a tactic---terrorism---and an amorphous foe, Al Qaida?

Really, and some new photos are going to be that single catalyst to "incite" the world against us?



We need to be smarter than that and in order to do so we must acknowledge the facts. Let's start with the meme that we're fighting in Afghanistan to prevent the Taliban from taking over Pakistan and securing nukes for terrorists world-wide. This misinformation doesn't really help the foreign policy realists out there fighting to base policy on facts and evidence---something the new administration promised, but for some reason when discussing this single point of foreign policy, is reluctant to fully recognize.



Take Juan Cole, scholar of the Middle East and President of the Global Americana Institute, who reminds us that the Pakistani Taliban are not going to overthrow "a country of 165 million with a large urban middle class that has a highly organized and professional army." That's not the problem. It's

the increasingly rancorous conflict between the left of center, largely secular Pakistan People's Party and the right of center, big-landlord Muslim League, has the potential to tear the country apart...The danger is not a take-over by the Taliban, but rather a coup (led by whom of what views?) or blood in the streets.

So are all the drone bombings of civilians and the 20,000 troop boost ("Surge," anyone?) going to win the "hearts and minds" of those in Afghanistan and Pakistan? Worse still, doesn't that inflame "anti-American opinion"?



Could not this also inflame "anti-American opinion"?

that military detainees in Afghanistan have no legal right to challenge their imprisonment there, embracing a key argument of former President Bush’s legal team.

What about asserting an executive state secrets privilege in cases of torture and rendition? Says the ACLU,

Candidate Obama ran on a platform that would reform the abuse of state secrets, but President Obama's Justice Department has disappointingly reneged on that important civil liberties issue.

Abuse of the state secrets privilege: It is not just particular pieces of evidence the new administration is claiming the right to deny in court, but the very ability to go to court at all. All they have to trump out is the fail-safe assertion of "national security" that the Bushies were so keen on (like they were when it came to FOIA requests for innocuous information that previously had been declassified, but then deemed inappropriate by Mr. Unitary Executive himself).

What was abusive and dangerous about the Bush administration's version of the States Secret privilege -- just as the Obama/Biden campaign pointed out ---was that it was used not (as originally intended) to argue that specific pieces of evidence or documents were secret and therefore shouldn't be allowed in a court case, but instead, to compel dismissal of entire lawsuits in advance based on the claim that any judicial adjudication of even the most illegal secret government programs would harm national security

The states secret privilege is 50 years old and was used when a plane on a secret mission crashed, and the family of the pilot wanted the accident report admitted into evidence. It, rightfully, wasn't admitted into evidence because the plane itself, and the instruments on board, were state secrets----but the case nonetheless still proceeded. The government today instead uses this "privilege" to shield itself from prosecution entirely, like in the case of Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen picked up by the U.S. while vacationing in Macedonia, and then allegedly tortured by CIA officials in Afghanistan. Hardly a case of capturing someone on "the battlefield." This evidence won't see the light of day because Bagram is the new legal black hole, and Obama appears intent on keeping it that way.



Hard to give sanction to a government that is ostensibly run in our name, when evidence of illegality can be self-servingly and arbitrarily denied scrutiny. The issue isn't a group of photos Obama changed his mind about: The issue is the lawful self-governance that our constitution attempted to enshrine.



In addition, the administration has also threatened Britain by saying that it would not share intelligence in the future with them if their high-court admitted credible evidence of torture and abuse in the case of Binyam Mohamed. That is categorically illegal both in Britain and the U.S.; Bush is no longer making these arguments: Our guy is.



Again, it's not just the release of a few photos that Obama is reneging on. It's much larger than that.



I voted for Obama, and I support him. I guess, it's just that I support him as rhetorically as he has supported his own campaign promises. And let's not get started on the economy and healthcare because if we think those issues are separate from our military budget, foreign policy pretenses, and agenda---the re-dubbed "War on Terror"----then we're as tragically mistaken as President Johnson was vis-a-vis the completion of The Great Society and the escalation of Vietnam: I'd hate to see Obama ignominiously deciding to bow out of a second term as Johnson did for similar reasons, and see his great society crumble.



Anyways, here's Dan Froomkin of the Washinton Post's "Deconstructing Obama's Excuses," and The New York Times on the effects of the bombings in Afghanistan. Also, check out Juan Cole on Bill Moyers here.



Next time, I'd like to take a closer look at the reports of people who were essentially murdered while in U.S. custody. Here's the scoop from Democracy Now and Human Rights Investigator, Attorney John Sifton: Torture Investigation Should Focus on Estimated 100 Prisoner Deaths. That is, of course, if I can table my "seriousness" and "patriotism" long enough for allowing myself to investigate such "anti-American opinions."

Pentagon Exculpatory Report Printed on Paper!

Happy 100th Birthday to The Progressive, a truly progressive magazine. Where's the founder, the great Robert LaFollette, when you need him?

Following up on the deafening silence of the networks in response to David Barstow's story, which rightfully earned a Pulitzer, we now see the Inspector General pulling its report that tried to exonerate the Pentagon's propaganda program. Issued a few days before Bush left office in response to Barstow's warning about DoD-led "message force multipliers" with military-industrial conflicts of interest directing the network's "educated opinion" on Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon's report "found that the DOD didn't violate prohibitions on using public funds for propaganda." Well, as no surprise to those who've read Barstow's meticulously documented work, the Pentagon's report was "flawed" and had to be pulled: Just how "flawed"?

the report's authors -- who don't have subpoena power -- were prevented from reaching solid conclusions about the program because former top Pentagon officials who engineered the program wouldn't talk.

Also from the memo stating that the report has been withdrawn:

former senior DoD officials who devised and managed the outreach program refused our requests for an interview. Our judgmental sample of RMAs interviewed was too small (7 out of 70 RMAs) to allow that testimonial evidence to be used to support conclusions.

No subpoena power, can't talk to the program's engineers and managers, ridiculously small sample size: To right wingers who attacked Barstow, that was and still is exculpatory enough; it was written on paper, you know. (Incidentally, any college sophomore might start to feel that the intellectual standards, methodology, and integrity of "journalism" and government bureaucracy wouldn't even be sound enough to pass an introductory undergraduate course in creative writing).

Here's David Barstow, who's still being effectively blackballed from the ethically-challenged networks, on Democracy Now.
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And in the music world...Here's a poor musician who was enslaved by his own robot band members after quitting his human rock band.