The truth will out

It's all coming out now.

TimesOnline is reporting:

Prison guards jailed for abusing inmates at the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq are planning to appeal against their convictions on the ground that recently released CIA torture memos prove that they were scapegoats for the Bush Administration. . . . [T]he previous administration, from President Bush down, blamed the incident on a few low-ranking “bad apples” who were acting on their own.

Mr Gittins [one of the defense lawyers] said the refusal by the Bush Administration to acknowledge that it had authorized such techniques during the trials of the prison guards — and the judges’ refusal to call senior administration officials to testify — undermined their defenses.

And one person commenting on the blog made this astute point:

If waterboarding etc was NOT torture, then why did the administration need to blame 'a few bad apples' for these acts when they could have announced AT THE TIME the acts were not torture? Because they KNEW really that they WERE torture, and that the legal arguments presented was their sham coverup.

That's the trouble with lying. You get so tangled up in your own web of deceit that you inevitably trip yourself up.

We now know that the torture memos were designed to give cover -- but only to the higher ups who authorized it and to the agents who carried out the prescribed interrogations. When it came to providing cover for the lowly guards who were simply given the task of "roughing up" the prisoners to get them ready for the interrogators -- those same higher ups pulled up the drawbridge and used them as scapegoats.

We now know that the bad apples were at the very top of the tree.

Ralph

The problem with a special prosecutor

The pros and cons of having a special prosecutor to investigate the whole torture mess continue to be discussed.

Here's an opinion written by David Corn in Mother Jones:

These liberals all want to see alleged Bush administration wrongdoing exposed. But there's one problem with a special prosecutor: it's not his job to expose wrongdoing. A special prosecutor does dig up facts--but only in order to prosecute a possible crime. His mission is not to shine light on misdeeds, unless it is part of a prosecution. . . .

That's what happened with Patrick Fitzgerald. He could not share with the public all that he had discovered about the involvement of Bush, Cheney, Karl Rove, and other officials in the CIA leak case. Under the rules governing federal criminal investigations, he was permitted to disclose only information and evidence that was directly related and needed for the indictment and prosecution of Libby. Everything else he had unearthed via subpoenas and grand jury interviews had to remain secret. Repeatedly, Fitzgerald said that his hands were tied on this point. A special prosecutor, it turns out, is a rather imperfect vehicle for revealing the full truth.

That's a sobering thought. We could wait years for a special prosecutor to bring charges and then have his judgment be that there was not a winnable criminal case and, therefore, the records are sealed. And the public learns nothing.

So that may not be the best route to go -- especially if it is the only route taken.

Ralph

bin Laden is right about one thing

Osama bin Laden did not need to launch another attack against us.

He won by setting in motion a fear and confusion that the bush administration bought, hook line and sinker. They not only bought it, they revved it up to achieve an agenda that had more to do with executive power and oil markets than it did national safety. Bogus claims of WMD, untrue al Qaeda-Iraqi links, and torture-obtained false intelligence were convenient covers.

No further attacks were necessary, because our fear response led cheney/bush to demolish some of the values we as nation have held most dear. The rule of law, the moral high ground, the protection of privacy. Instead, we tortured, we wiretapped our own citizens, we destroyed legal protection, and we politicized the system of justice.

And bin Laden himself seemed to understand that we would self-destruct in response to his attack, even if our own government didn't.

As Jay Bookman wrote in yesterday's AJC:

Our strength is in our principles and commitment to values. But what did it take to make us throw all that away? Nineteen men armed with a plan and box cutters? That is Obama bin Laden's victory: He scared us into fleeing the high ground.

And then he quotes bin Laden himself from a 2002 released recording:

"All these things vanished when the Mujadiheen hit you, and you then implemented the methods of the same documented governments that you used to curse," bin Laden chortled in 2002. ". . . What happens in Guantanamo is a historical embarrassment to America and its values, and it screams into your faces: 'You hypocrits, what is the value of your signature on any agreement or treaty?'"

Jay continues:

On the eve of our invasion of Iraq, President Bush issued a warning to the Iraqi military: "War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished and it will be no defense to say, 'I was just following orders.'"

And then that's exactly what he had his people do: commit war crimes and claim that they had been told it was not illegal -- first cousin to "just following orders."

I wonder now, in his retirement and apparently no longer speaking with cheney, if bush ever looks in the mirror and thinks about all this . . . ?

Ralph

Send in the students to ask the tough questions

The torture thing just won't go away. More and more is coming out, including this video clip of Condi Rice being questioned by students at Stanford following a speech.

You can view the clip at this link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/condi-rice-pulls-a-nixon_b_193379.html

She was the National Security Adviser, but she portrays her role as simply that of a "conveyor" of information. Unfortunately, that is apparently what she was. Rather than being the one person to help the president keep perspective on national security and without being unduly swayed by competing interests, she seems to have told dubya what he wanted to hear, kept bad news from him, and conveyed his wishes to those charged with carrying them out.

One could argue that she was too close to him personally, was too ga-ga in love with him (cf her Freudian slip when she referred to "my husband, er President Bush") to give him the objective advice he needed.

She was apparently no match for Rumsfeld and Cheney -- perhaps one of the greatest failings of this administration. Here's Condi's defending herself when a student mentions her having "authorized" waterboarding:

"I didn't authorize anything. I conveyed the authorization of the administration to the agency [presumably the CIA], that they had policy authorization, subject to the Justice Department's clearance. That's what I did."

And, like all the rest of that crowd, she hides behind the cover of the Office of Legal Counsel's opinion, the Bybee report:

"The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal obligations under the Convention Against Torture."

I think she means that they were told by bush himself, 'don't worry; we've got it fixed so it's not illegal.' But that really gives him license to do anything and simply declare it's not torture.

And the subject under discussion is specifically waterboarding, for which we tried Japanese as war criminals, which is specifically declared torture in the Geneva Conventions, and which President Obama agreed Wednesday night in his press conference "is torture."

And here's the zinger quote from Condi:

"[B]y definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture."

It doesn't get much closer than that to Richard Nixon's notorious admission to David Frost:

"When the president does it, that means it is not illegal."

Little george w. bush said "we don't torture." Therefore, by definition, nothing we do is torture and nothing we do is illegal.

Appalling.

And we the people re-elected him in 2004.

Ralph

Clownette-in-Chief

Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) -- Congressional "Clownette-in-Chief" -- is at it again. She's on a roll, rarely passing a day without some choice bit of nuttiness.

I know, I know. The best way to counter such ignorant, attention-grabbing silliness is to ignore it. But she's just so jaw-droppingly absurd that it's hard to resist poking fun at her.

Her latest, shared by TPM:

On Monday night, our friends at Dump Bachmann reported, Bachmann took to the House floor and paid tribute to the economic policies of Calvin Coolidge and the "Roaring 20s" (the era that ended with a massive monetary contraction and the Great Depression). One particular line really does stand out, though -- saying Franklin Roosevelt turned a recession into a depression through the "Hoot-Smalley" tariffs.

Here's what really happened: When Franklin Roosevelt took office, unemployment was already about 25%. And the tariff referred to here was actually the Smoot-Hawley bill, co-authored by Republicans Sen. Reed Smoot of Utah and Rep. Willis Hawley of Oregon, and signed into law by President Herbert Hoover.

She intrigues me. Can she really be this stupid and silly? Or is it an anti-intellectualism act that the Republican voters in her district like?

Is this what Minnesota voters really prefer? In a state that once was a progressive leader with its Democratic-Labor-Farm Party and gave us Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale?

She would seem more at home here in Georgia, with our tradition of political clowns such as Lester Maddox, Saxby Chambless, and (bless his heart) good ole' boy Roscoe Dean, who never did anything to distinguish himself but kept getting re-elected because his rural constituents appreciated the birthday card he sent each one every year.

Well, that's not quite true. Roscoe wanted to make his mark, so he got a colleague to write a speech for him to give on the State Senate floor. Roscoe got up and read the speech. When he came to the part where his speech-writer had inserted [now tell a joke], Roscoe just kept on reading, "now tell a joke," and didn't seem to realize what he'd done until the house erupted in laughter. He made his mark as a clown.

Ralph

Hate crime law passes House

Ten years after Matthew Shepard was brutally murdered in Wyoming because he was gay, the House today finally extended the extra protection of hate crimes legislation to include sexual orientation and gender identity. It now goes to the Senate.

This action is long overdue, and even now the ignorant and bigoted are spreading lies to try to prevent it. During the House floor debate, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) repeated the false claim made by right-wing blogs that Matthew Shepard, for whom the bill was named, was murdered in a robbery and not because he was gay. She says those who say he was murdered because he was gay are "perpetrating a hoax on the American people" that "continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills."

My question to her is: Why? Why would people make up something like that? The purpose is simply to place extra penalties on crimes based on who somebody is -- because such crimes are meant to intimidate and demean a whole group of people, in addition to whatever the individual crime is.

What advantage would it possibly be for anyone to invent such a thing?

And why would anyone oppose such measures, except as bigotry and animus toward queer people? I suppose they see it as part of "the homosexual agenda" that scares them so.

Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) was outraged: "That is unreal, unbelievable. The law enforcement people and almost every reasonable person I know believes he was murdered because he was gay."

Foxx's grossness was made even worse by the fact that Matthew's mother, who has become a leading national spokeswoman against homophobia and anti-gay violence, was probably in the audience. Judy Shepard is a mature, balanced woman. I've heard her speak, and she is very impressive and highly effective in moving people. I'm sure she's heard and endured worse.

So put the narrow-minded Foxx-lady in the pathetic category. The bill passed, and that's what counts.

It helps a bit, too, that on the same day, the New Hampshire Senate voted to legalize same-sex marriage. The House had already passed it. The governor had previously stated his opposition to gay marriage, but he has also said he has an open mind about the legislation.

A friend suggested that we may be seeing a domino effect: Iowa, Vermont, and New Hampshire all within a month. In addition, the D.C. council voted to recognize marriages performed in other states, and Gov. Paterson introduced a bill in NY. I'm guessing this momentum might even sway the NH guv a bit toward signing the bill.

Ralph

Good news !! 2 + 2 = 5

NeoCon columnist Bill Kristol has notoriously been wrong on just about everything -- from championing WMD as a reason to invade Iraq to cheerleading for McCain to choose Sarah Palin.

Now we have his take on Sen. Specter's going over to the Democrats: He says it may be good news for the GOP.

Kristol's thinking goes like this (in the WashingtonPost):

With the likely seating of Al Franken from Minnesota, Democrats will have 60 seats in the Senate, giving Obama unambiguous governing majorities in both bodies. He’ll be responsible for everything. GOP obstructionism will go away as an issue, and Democratic defections will become the constant worry and story line. This will make it easier for GOP candidates in 2010 to ask to be elected to help restore some checks and balance in Washington -- and, meanwhile, Specter’s party change won’t likely have made much difference in getting key legislation passed or not. So, losing Specter may help produce greater GOP gains in November 2010, and a brighter Republican future.

Well, that's assuming that the voters won't like the results of the key legislation that gets passed. If they do -- and so far they seem to like what Obama is trying to do, despite Republican obstructionism -- then why would they want to give Republicans more power to obstruct it?

Kristol's saying it's good news for Republicans = it must really be good news for Democrats.

Or:

You can put lipstick on a pig, but . . . . it's still bad news for the GOP.

Ralph

Send in the clowns . . . again

Whenever the Republicans need to distract the public from something they'd rather hide from, they send in the clowns.

So Arlen Specter defected, and McConnell says it endangers the country.

That was clownish enough, but then the chief clownette had to weigh in with her special brand of nutty distraction.

Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann, following Rush Limbaugh's cue, suggested on Tuesday that President Obama was to blame for the swine flu crisis. She went even further than the talk show host, implying that swine flu epidemics are a Democratic phenomenon that dates back to President Carter.

"I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter. And I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence."

Unfortunately, Bachmann's facts are a little off. As Glenn Thrush notes, Republican President Gerald Ford, not Carter, led the country during the last outbreak of the virus.

And wasn't it a Republican senator who insisted on removing funds from Obama's stimulus bill that would have prepared us to fight a pandemic, like the swine flu that is coming?

Michelle, Michelle . . . . you're a living, breathing SNL skit, and you don't even know it.

Ralph

News flash !!! Specter's endangering the country

From the Huffington Post:

Mitch McConnell, leader of a Republican minority that is now even smaller, suggested Tuesday that Sen. Arlen Specter's defection endangered not just the party, but the entire country.

"I think the threat to the country presented by this defection really relates to the issue of whether or not in the United States of America our people want the majority to have whatever it wants without restraint, without a check or a balance," McConnell said Tuesday.

"Obviously, we are not happy that Senator Specter has decided to become a Democrat," McConnell said. "If we are not successful in Minnesota ... Democrats, at least on paper, will have 60 votes. I think the danger of that for the country is that there won't automatically be an ability to restrain the excess that is typically associated with big majorities and single-party rule."

News for you Senator McConnell. The American people DO want the majority to be able to pass effective legislation without the obstructionism that's all the power your little party has left. That is why they elected Obama president and gave the Dems the majority in both houses.

Don't you get it?

Now quit stalling and allow Al Franken to take his rightful seat, and let us get on with solving the problems of this country.

Ralph

Specter's switch

Pennsylvania's Senator Arlen Specter is switching parties to run in 2010 as a Democrat. Facing strong opposition from a conservative in the Republican primary, he obviously thinks he will do better running as a Democrat -- and he's probably right.

Long one of the more moderate Republicans in the Senate, Specter was one of three who voted for the stimulus bill. He's also more moderate on stem cell research and a number of other issues.

Although he cautions not to assume he's an automatic vote with the Democrats on every issue, the fact is that it does add one caucus vote, and once Al Franken is finally seated that makes the magic number of 60.

And, although I'm sure Specter will continue to vote his own principles and that he will differ with the Democratic position on some things, there will likely be others where his being a member of the Democratic caucus, instead of the Republican caucus, may sway him a bit.

And most important of all, cloture votes -- which are mostly political because they come up when someone is trying to delay a bill they probably can't win otherwise -- have just moved one vote closer to becoming irrelevance.

It's good news.

Ralph

Oh, great . . . just what we needed

When Obama gave his speech on the economy to Congress in February, Bobby Jindal was the chosen Republican respondent. He made something of a laughing stock of himself at the time; and a few weeks later, when a volcano erupted in Alaska, his having ridiculed the inclusion of volcano monitoring in the stimulus plan came back to haunt him. Ridicule got bounced back to ridicule him.

Well, now there's another one. It turns out that one of the demands that Sen. Susan Collins required for her support was eliminating the funding for planning and fighting a pandemic.

Now we are facing the real possibility of a swine flu pandemic.

Republican short-sightedness knows no bounds.

Ralph

Tell me lies . . . please !!

I thought I was through with the torture debates, but here's a new twist that may be important, especially as reason to prosecute higher ups.

Here's the new twist. Many who challenge the use of torture say that what it does produce is FALSE information. The torturee will say anything you want to hear to get you to stop. That's what everyone was telling Cheney, et al in 2002, but they kept demanding more. So, maybe that's what they wanted -- false information.

Remember the Downing Street memo from the head of British intelligence to Tony Blair, saying that the Bush administration was determined to go to war in Iraq and that "the intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy." A week later Bybee produced the torture guidelines.

As soon as the Bybee memo "legalized" torture, Abu Zabaydah was waterboarded at least 83 times in August 2002. As reported in the just released Senate Armed Services Report, an Army psychiatrist involved in the interrogation, Maj. Paul Burney, said that much of it was focused on trying to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq and that they were under increasing pressure to produce that intelligence.

In Sunday's New York Times, Frank Rick points out that there was a ticking bomb, but it was the Bush administration's determination to get Congress to pass a war resolution before the mid-term elections in November.

Instead of saving us from "another 9/11," torture was a tool in the campaign to falsify and exploit 9/11 so that fearful Americans would be bamboozled into a mission that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda. The lying about Iraq remains the original sin from which flows much of the Bush White House's illegality.

It turns out that Zabaydah had nothing to tell them about links with Al Qaeda because they didn't exist. But Cheney had been told by his psychopathic buddy Chalabi that they did, so he was determined to get "proof" of it from this detainee. So did they finally break Zabaydah with waterboarding and get what they wanted to hear?

On September 8, 2002 Cheney told Meet the Press that there were "numerous contacts" between Al Qaeda and Iraq. And polls around that time showed a majority of American people believed that there was a connection between Iraq and 9/11. We now know there was none. It was all lies.

I think that by then Cheney didn't care whether the links were true or not. The WMB justification wasn't working out; he had to have something to use as the "smoking gun" to sell the war.

In fact, what he really wanted by then was false information. And torture is very good at getting false information, exactly what you want to hear, because that's what they will tell you to get the torture to stop.

I doubt that can be proved; but if it could, that seems to me to be grounds for criminal prosecution -- torturing prisoners to get false information for political purposes and for selling an unnecessary war to a frightened and gullible American public.

Ralph

Lighter fare for a spring morning

Rudy Giuliani is reportedly gearing up to run for governor of New York.

He must have taken a page from Newt Gingrich's guide book, the one where Newt got religion and had himself blessed by Pat Robertson so he could go after the family values crowd -- just in case he hears the call to run for president.

So what course is thrice married Rudy taking? He's crowing about the blunder he believes current governor David Paterson has made in introducing a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in New York. Rudy claims it will be the downfall of the Democratic Party in New York, because it will spark a grassroots movement.

In New York??? Come on, Iowa has same-sex marriage. Does he really think New Yorkers will let a corn belt state out-liberal them?

Now here's the jokey part of this. When Rudy's second wife kicked him out of the governor's mansion -- or rather when he moved out after she refused to allow him to bring his mistress to formal affairs in the mansion, the mistress who is now Mrs. Giuliani and would be the First Lady -- he moved in, and lived for some weeks, with a committed gay male couple that were his long time friends.

And -- get this -- it was widely reported in the press that Rudy had told them that if it ever became legal for them to marry, he would perform the ceremony. As mayor he could have done that. Now Rudy is being quoted as saying:

"Marriage, both traditionally and legally, has always been between a man and a woman and should remain between a man and woman."

Ah, politics and hypocrisy !! Especially Republican politics and hypocrisy !!!

Here's a suggestion, Rudy. Why don't you dress up in your drag outfit, the one you wore in the video clip of you and Donald Trump smooching for charity -- well, actually The Donald kissed you on the neck and you hit him with your handbag, while teetering in your high heels and your very lady-like dress. Yes, that outfit. It did wonders for you, especially the blond wig. Wear that, and go out on the campaign trail and preach about the "gathering storm" of gay marriage that is making everyone afraid, very afraid.

It should be a hoot. But I doubt you'll get elected.

Ralph