Clarke vs Cheney

Richard Clarke was the national coordinator for security and counterterrorism in Bill Clinton's administration and continued in that position during the first part of George W. Bush's term. This included 9/11 and the aftermath.

Clarke is pushing back, like so many other insiders, against Dick Cheney's attempt to falsify history. Clarke specifically is challenging both Cheney and Condi Rice for their recent defense of their actions with what Clarke calls "the White House trauma defense."

"Unless you were there, in a position of responsibility after September 11, you cannot possibly imagine the dilemmas that you faced in trying to protect Americans," Condoleezza Rice said last month as she admonished a Stanford University student who questioned the Bush-era interrogation program. And in his May 21 speech on national security, Dick Cheney called the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, a "defining" experience that "caused everyone to take a serious second look" at the threats to America. Critics of the administration have become more intense as memories of the attacks have faded, he argued. "Part of our responsibility, as we saw it," Cheney said, "was not to forget the terrible harm that had been done to America."

Clarke concludes:

Yes, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice may have been surprised by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- but it was because they had not listened. And their surprise led them to adopt extreme counterterrorism techniques -- but it was because they rejected, without analysis, the tactics the Clinton administration had used. The measures they uncritically adopted, which they simply assumed were the best available, were in fact unnecessary and counterproductive. "I'll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities," Cheney said in his recent speech. But this defense does not stand up. The Bush administration's response actually undermined the principles and values America has always stood for in the world, values that should have survived this traumatic event. The White House thought that 9/11 changed everything. It may have changed many things, but it did not change the Constitution, which the vice president, the national security adviser and all of us who were in the White House that tragic day had pledged to protect and preserve.

So, in the last week alone: (1) Carl Levin has said he read the same secret reports as Cheney and they do not prove that torture worked; (2) General David Petraeus has said he opposes the use of torture and, yes, we did violate the Geneva Conventions; (3) a former FBI interrogator, Ali Soufan, says he got the most useful information using relationship-building techniques and that, when the CIA contract interrogators took over and used torture, detainees stopped talking or else just made up stuff; he even suggests that it may have prevented them from learning the whereabouts of bin Laden; (4) Colin Powell's chief of staff, Lawrence Wilkerson, says that the night Powell made his speech to the UN, justifying invading Iraq, he (Wilkerson) wrote a letter of resignation, and that it was "the lowest point in my professional and my personal life." He says he will forever regret that he did not submit the letter; (5) former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, who formerly ran the unit in charge of capturing Osama bin Laden, said the administration's lawyers (who justified torture) should be disbarred but he does not favor criminal charges against "lonely, paranoid, frightened Dick Cheney." And he added, "I think Mr. Cheney is a despicable, reptilian person."

Well, Scheuer is described as "outspoken," but I also agree with him.

Even if we never get the official investigation, Cheney's attempt to write history his way is not going to work. Every one of these people (Clarke, Levin, Petraeus, Soufan, Wilkerson, and Scheuer) was there when it happened. They are speaking from personal knowledge and, often, out of their frustration in trying to get the neocons to listen to them.

Ralph

Take THAT, Dick Cheney

For the Republicans, General David Petraeus can do no wrong. If anyone is a hero of the Iraq war, it is he. Until now, that is. And it remains to be seen how they will handle this bombshell.

A few days ago, Petraeus came out as opposed to torture and in favor of closing Guantanamo. And now he has unequivocally said the we violated the Geneva Conventions.

And he said it on FOXNews, no less !!!!

Question: So is sending this signal that we're not going to use these kind of techniques anymore, what kind of impact does this have on people who do us harm in the field that you operate in?

Gen. Petraeus: Well, actually what I would ask is, "Does that not take away from our enemies a tool which again have beaten us around the head and shoulders in the court of public opinion?" When we have taken steps that have violated the Geneva Conventions we rightly have been criticized, so as we move forward I think it's important to again live our values, to live the agreements that we have made in the international justice arena and to practice those.

So what do you say to THAT, Mr. XVP?

Ralph

Empathy - letter to AJC

I've just submitted this letter to the Atlanta paper in response to a column by Charles Krauthammer:

“Empathy” is a much misunderstood word. It is not kindness or emotional bias but the capacity to temporarily see the world as another person experiences it -- a way of understanding someone who is not like you.

Empathy is not the opposite of rationality; it is the opposite of self-focus and narrow-mindedness. President Obama simply wants court appointees to have empathy to more fully inform their decisions.

Ironically, Charles Krauthammer denounces empathy by using empathy in the New Haven firefighters‘ case (“Empathy a virtue, but keep justice blind,” Opinion, May 29).

Frank Ricci, a white man with dyslexia, studied extra hard to overcome his handicap, only to have his promotion-winning score discounted when the exam was thrown out as unfair to minority test-takers. Latina Judge Sotomayor’s decision favored the minority test-takers; Krauthammer, a white man in a wheelchair, favored the handicapped white firefighter.

Yet Krauthammer claims blind justice and denounces Sotomayor as biased.

Ralph

Michele, the comic book

For months, I've been citing Michele Bachmann and her loony toons ideas as one of the Republican clowns in congress.

Now, the DumpBachmann campaign is about to release a comic book to present Michele and her political career.

It should be a hoot. Details at the web site: http://biasedliberalmedia.com/

Ralph

Sen. Levin says Cheney is wrong

Greg Sargent's blog, The Plum Line (http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com) reports on a speech given by Senator Karl Levin, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Levin says that he has seen the classified documents that Dick Cheney keeps demanding be released so that he can prove his assertion that "lives were saved" by the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques."

Levin says the documents do not prove anything of the sort:

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.

And Sargent adds:

Networks such as MSNBC have given literally hours of airtime to Cheney and his daughter Liz to claim endlessly that these docs will prove Cheney’s torture assertions. These claims have gone almost entirely unchallenged, due to the classified nature of the documents. You’d think that a contrary claim from a well-respected Senator who has also seen the docs would merit a few passing mentions, too.

Indeed. Levin gave the speech days ago before the Foreign Policy Administration. Has anyone seen or heard about it from the main stream media?

It's time for a resounding Bronx cheer for Cheney and his daughter Liz: "Just go away, already, and shut up with your lies and your attempts to undermine our president by sowing fear among the people."

Ralph

Sotomayor's hapless critics

I'm not yet ready to say that Sonia Sotomayor is teflon-coated, but her critics from the fringe right are really trying hard and nothing is quite sticking. They leaped on a statement she made in a panel on constitutional law some years ago, when she said that the appeals courts are where policy is made. She immediately clarified that she knew they didn't "make law." And she laughingly said, in what was apparently a friendly setting, that she shouldn't have said that with the tape running.

Of course, critics have leaped all over that, branding her as "an activist judge." Now various legal scholars have commented that, of course, policy is made by appeals courts. By making decisions that clarify laws that aren't clear in their application, they "make policy" that over time becomes accepted as precedent. And the appeals court level is where this mostly happens. Only a very small number of cases ever make it to the Supreme Court.

So many legal scholars are defending her saying that. Now we have a quote from Justice Scalia himself, made in the past:

"This complete separation of the judiciary from the enterprise of "representative government" might have some truth in those countries where judges neither make law themselves nor set aside the laws enacted by the legislature. It is not a true picture of the American system. Not only do state-court judges possess the power to "make" common law, but they have the immense power to shape the States' constitutions as well.":
Justice Antonin Scalia

"In fact, however, the judges of inferior courts often "make law," since the precedent of the highest court does not cover every situation, and not every case is reviewed."
Justice Antonin Scalia

And then there's the big flap about whether her Latina heritage and her "compelling life story" make a difference in how she decides cases, and whether it should. Of course her critics say it shouldn't, that justice is blind. And they're yelling about bias, deciding based on feelings, blah blah blah.

So here's another conservative Supreme Court Justice from his confirmation hearings:

"When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account."
Justice Samuel Alito

And then there's the furor about Obama saying he wanted someone with empathy. The snarky critics from the right have been having a field day, either through ignorance or design, misusing the word to mean sympathy or feelings, rather than a capacity for understanding the other person's point of view. So who has empathy?

"He is a delightful and warm, intelligent person *who has great empathy*"
President George H. W. Bush about nominee Clarence Thomas

OK. Enough said. They've got to come up with better than this, although when it gets amplified by the Rush machine and the clowns, the base gets riled.

But it's looking like the cooler heads are thinking they'd better cool down. They have a real problem in criticizing Sotomayor without good evidence: otherwise they'll be seen as being opposed to women and to Hispanics.

Ralph

Ted Olsen and gay marriage

Interesting irony. Ted Olsen, who was the chief lawyer who argued (for Bush) in Gore v. Bush before the Supreme Court in 2000, will be co-litigator of a suit to take Prop8 to the federal courts, and presumably to the Supreme Court. He sounds quite on board, saying that case was about something else; this is about civil rights, equal protection and due process.

On the other hand, many voices are saying don't go that route; it can't win in the current court. And others are saying it should shift from the courts to the voters. One argument even says that it's good for the movement that CA Supremes did not overturn Prop8, because then that would have only inflamed the rants against "activist judges" and would postpone true acceptance. Whereas, if the voters overturn it, after a full blown campaign from both sides, then there won't be a whole lot they can say in backlash.

Makes sense to me. On the other hand, if the Supreme Court did overturn it, it would apply nationwide instead of state by state. I can't imagine it happening -- although Kennedy was the one who wrote the strong opinions in overturning both Colorado's Amendment 2 and Texas' sodomy laws, so it could possibly squeek through on a 5/4 vote. But I don't think you can equate a vote against sodomy laws and for gay marriage.

But it's interesting that Ted Olsen is taking it on. Stay tuned.

Ralph

Cookies better than torture

From EandGPub online:

Fascinating piece coming in tomorrow's TIME magazine. Reporter Bobby Ghosh writes, “The most successful interrogation of an al-Qaeda operative by U.S. officials required no sleep deprivation, no slapping or ‘walling’ and no waterboarding. All it took to soften up Abu Jandal, who had been closer to Osama bin Laden than any other terrorist ever captured, was a handful of sugar-free cookies.”

Former interrogator/member of the FBI Ali Soufan, who testified to Congress last month, tells TIME: “He was a diabetic ... We had showed him respect, and we had done this nice thing for him .... So he started talking to us instead of giving us lectures.” Ghosh points out, “Defenders of the Bush program, most notably Cheney, say the use of waterboarding produced actionable intelligence that helped the U.S. disrupt terrorist plots. But the experiences of officials like Soufan suggest that the utility of torture is limited at best and counterproductive at worst.”

I guess Dick Cheney is just not a cookie kind of guy. He prefers blood and drowning.

Ralph

Prop8 upheld

As expected, the California Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Proposition 8, but left intact the 18,000 marriages that were legal during the five months of 2008 prior to the November ballot.

The only surprise was that it was a 6-1 decision, given that the same court in a 4-3 decision last May ruled that same-sex couples enjoyed the same fundamental "right to marry" as opposite-sex couples.

The difference? Prior to May 2008, the CA Constitution did not specifically forbid same-sex marriage. Proposition 8 changed that. So, while in May 2008 the question was one of fundamental rights, the question in May 2009 was the right of the people to change their constitution.

Opponents of Prop8 claimed that a fundamental right cannot be changed by simple ballot initiative but requires a 2/3 vote of the legislature prior to being put on the ballot -- because it is not just an amendment but a revision of the constitution. And thus Prop8 was illegal because it was not properly voted on.

Apparently the justices were not persuaded by that argument. But that quite simply is the explanation of this decision. The opinion, written by the Chief Justice Ronald George, stated that Prop8 did not take away any substantial rights because it left the civil union laws intact; the only thing it did was take away the word "marriage."

Of course, opponents say, quite properly, that this "separate but equal" solution is about as satisfying as the segregation era schools were to African-Americans. Or as someone said, it's like telling blacks they shouldn't mind sitting in the back of the bus because it gets to the destination at the same time as the front of the bus.

Well . . . it will be back on the ballot, and the only question is whether it will be in 2010 or 2012. I'm for going ahead right away for 2010. It will catch the wave of momentum from the three new states that have approved gay marriage -- since the November passage of Prop8.

And some Californians are saying they can't let Iowa and Vermont and Maine get ahead of them -- it's California's place to lead social change.

To me, though, the constitutional question is clear. In California, within just a few years, they have had the state legislature twice approve gay marriage, only to be vetoed by the governor. Then within one year, the Supreme Court struck down the discrimination, it was overturned by ballot initiative, and then upheld by the same Supreme Court. And within 18 months, it could be back on the ballot and go the other way.

That is a chaotic way to play with something that changes people's lives as fundamentally as the ability to marry. How can anyone build a life on such uncertainty? It should not be so easy to make such important changes. So I think this is the best argument against the ballot initiative on this issue. The Court has decided that it was proper to use the easier "amendment" process rather than the "revision" process (which requires 2/3 legislative action), but I say that it SHOULD be harder to make such changes.

If I were a Californian, I would want two things on the ballot in 2010: (1) a reversal of Prop8 and (2) a clarification that mandates a supermajority vote for any change in the constitution that takes away fundamental rights. That's what most states require to change the constitution. That is as it should be in order to protect the rights of minorities from the shifting will of the majority -- one of the hallmarks of a democracy.

Ralph

Cheney vs an actual interrogator

Matthew Alexander was a senior U.S. interrogator in Iraq who led the interrogation team that obtained information leading to the capture of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the former leader of Al Qaida in Iraq. He says they did this "using relationship-building approaches and non-coercive law enforcement techniques," and he dissects Dick Cheney's recent arguments for "harsh interrogation techniques." (Huffington Post, 5/24/09).

Not only does he say that torture doesn't give useful information, he says that turning to torture ruined the chances of getting it.

Cheney does not mention the fact that FBI interrogator Ali Soufan, in his testimony to the Senate, was able to learn the identity of Jose Padilla and the fact that Khalid Sheikh Mohammad was the mastermind behind 9/11, and that he obtained this through relationship-building techniques.

Alexander points out:

We'll never know what more we could have discovered from Abu Zubaydah had not CIA contractors taken over the interrogations and used waterboarding and other harsh techniques. Also, glaringly absent from the former vice president's speech was any mention of the fact that the former administration never brought Osama bin Laden to justice and that our best chance to locate him would have been through KSM or Abu Zubaydah had they not been waterboarded.

In addition, in his continued defense of harsh interrogation techniques (aka torture and abuse), VP Cheney forgets that harsh techniques have ensured that future detainees will be less likely to cooperate because they see us as hypocrites. They are less willing to trust us when we fail to live up to our principles. I experienced this firsthand in Iraq when interrogating high-ranking members of Al Qaida, some of whom decided to cooperate simply because I treated them with respect and civility.

The former vice president is confusing harshness with effectiveness. An effective interrogation is one that yields useful, accurate intelligence, not one that is harsh. It speaks to a fundamental misunderstanding of interrogations, the goal of which is not to coerce information from a prisoner, but to convince a prisoner to cooperate.

This should be in headlines on the front pages of the major newpapers. Instead, we get Cheney and more Cheney -- both Dick and now daughter Liz.

Ralph

Democrats Banned

During the various Congressional hearings about politicization of the Gonzales Justice Department, we often heard about Liberty University, which was founded by the late Jerry Falwell. It was Liberty Law School graduates who had a paved pathway to jobs in the DoJ that Harvard and Yale Law grads couldn't even get interviews for.

Now Liberty is in the news again. A group of students tried to form a College Democrats Club, but university officials have banned any such club. The official explanation from the Vice President for Student Affairs: The Democratic Party violates the university's principles because it supports abortion, socialism and the agenda of gay, bisexual and transgender people.

At least they are upfront and candid.

But does wanting such a club suggest what we're seeing elsewhere? That young people are increasingly turned off by the Republicans' narrow stance on social issues. It will be interesting to follow the enrollment figures for Liberty in the coming years.

Ralph

Memorial Day

For those of us who have opposed the GeorgeBush/DickCheney war in Iraq, Memorial Day carries bittersweet ambivalences: full support and profound appreciation for the sacrifices made by our young men and women; and profound anger and, yes, outright hatred for those who sent them to war needlessly.

The best I can come up to express my feelings about war is the World War I British poet, Wilfred Owen, who was killed in battle in France at age 25, one week prior to the Armistice. Unlike many of his contemporaries who extolled the glory of England and its war heroes, Owen wrote of the "pity of war," His poetry was mordantly anti-war, yet it glows with a poignant and loving concern for those who would lose their youth, if not in fact their lives.

As a preface to the single volume of his poems, published after his death, his editor has included these words from Owen's writing:

“This book is not about heroes. . . . Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War.

"My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.

"Yet these elegies are to this generation in no sense consolatory. They may be to the next. All a poet can do today is warn."

Benjamin Britten used Owen's poetry, interspersed with Latin texts from the requiem mass, in his monumental "War Requiem." Two passages that move me most are these:

The Parable of the Old Man and the Young

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where is the lamb for this burnt-offering?

Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not they hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Futility

Move him into the sun --
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds, --
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,
Full-nerved -- still warm -- too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
--O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?

What a powerful, penultimate line: "Was it for this the clay grew tall?" Is this senseless slaughter what we have come to as the crowning achievement of eons of evolution that produced Shakespeare, and Einstein and Picasso, and Beethoven and Faulkner? And Jesus and Ghandi, and Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr.?

Can we not do better than send our sons and daughters off to slaughter and be slaughtered?

Ralph