Because Dick Cheney says so, that's why

For another point of view on whether Dick Cheney should face prosecution, here is Andrew Sullivan, former editor of The New Republic, now writing his own blog on "The Dish."  Here he is responding to Cheney's last tv interview, which came after the release of the Senate Committee report on CIA and torture:

"His interview last night is worth revisiting . . . .   [He is] clearly rattled. He is used to proclaiming categorical truths about things he knows will never be made public. He is used to invoking what he says he knows from secret intelligence without any possibility of being contradicted. This interview is the first time he has made statements about torture that can be fact-checked by the record. And, he is proven to be a liar . . .  .

"He doesn’t address the mountain of evidence. He is simply ruling it out of bounds – after admitting he hasn’t even read it! . . . .  He merely invokes other CIA official denials as an authority – when they too are charged with war crimes. That’s like a gangster claiming he is innocent on the basis of his gang-members’ testimony. He blusters on. In a court of law, his performance would be, quite simply, risible as an act of self-defense. It becomes some primal scream version of “Because I said it worked! . . . "

Citing transcript evidence that, rather than torture being used as a last resort, Sullivan continues:


    "In fact, it is prima facie evidence that torture was used as a first resort, and it was a first resort because Cheney already knew it was the only way to get intelligence. How he knew we don’t know. No one in professional interrogation believed or believes it. So you have clear evidence that the decision to torture was taken early on – and nothing was allowed to stand in its way. This was an ideological decision – not a policy judgment based on evidence. . . .  

   "What we have here is a staggering thing: the second highest official in a democracy, proud and unrepentant of war crimes targeted at hundreds of prisoners, equating every single one of the prisoners – including those who were victims of mistaken identity, including American citizens reading satirical websites, including countless who had nothing to do with any attacks on the US at all – with the nineteen plotters of one terror attack. We have a man who, upon being presented with a meticulous set of documents and facts, brags of not reading them and who continues to say things that are definitively disproved in the report by CIA documents themselves.

   "This is a man who not only broke the law and the basic norms of Western civilization, but who celebrates that. If this man is not brought to justice, the whole idea of justice in this country is a joke."


Part of me feels the same way toward Dick Cheney.   And yet I'm not sure it is the best way to set the record straight -- because any attempt to hold Cheney legally accountable will be fought tooth and top defense lawyer nail, and we would probably never get a clear verdict.  

I'd still settle for a clear, unimpeachable record of what happened (building on this important report that Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) bulldogged into the light of day.   It is based on actual documents (emails, written reports) rather than on personal testimony    Cheney criticizes it for that:    "They didn't even interview a single person that was involved."    No, but they read the email of those people written contemporaneously, which is probably closer to revealing the truth.

Ralph

New York Times Editorial Board calls for special prosecutor on torture

A lead editorial in the New York Times  on Monday, Dec. 21, 2014, called for President Obama to appoint a  special prosecutor to investigate the CIA interrogation and torture situation, in the wake of the revelations that survived the redactions insisted upon by the CIA of the Summary Report of the Senate Select Commmittee on Intelligence.

The editorial reads, in part:

"No amount of legal pretzel logic can justify the behavior detailed in the [Senate Intelligence Committee] report. Indeed, it is impossible to read it and conclude that no one can be held accountable. At the very least, Mr. Obama needs to authorize a full and independent criminal investigation. . . . 

"The question everyone will want answered, of course, is: Who should be held accountable? That will depend on what an investigation finds, . . .  But any credible investigation should include former Vice President Dick Cheney; Mr. Cheney’s chief of staff, David Addington; the former C.I.A. director George Tenet; and John Yoo and Jay Bybee, the Office of Legal Counsel lawyers who drafted what became known as the torture memos. . . .

"Starting a criminal investigation is not about payback; it is about ensuring that this never happens again and regaining the moral credibility to rebuke torture by other governments. Because of the Senate’s report, we now know the distance officials in the executive branch went to rationalize, and conceal, the crimes they wanted to commit. The question is whether the nation will stand by and allow the perpetrators of torture to have perpetual immunity for their actions."

Strong stuff from arguably the most respected newspaper in the country.   But it makes a good argument.

I think the same could be achieved, with less opposition, however, by a Truth and Reconciliation process similar to what Nelson Mandela and Bishop Tutu set up in South Africa.    It was agreed ahead of time that there would be no punishment for anyone in exchange for people giving a full disclosure of what was actually done.   In that way, the truth would be aired and put into the record under cooperation from those who would otherwise hide behind the best legal defense money could buy. 

The important thing, here so many years later, is that the truth be revealed and generally agreed upon, so that it can stand as a deterrent to it ever happening again.    I feel a strong contempt for Dick Cheney but no particular desire to see him go to prison.   What I want is for him to come clean and admit the truth, which should include acknowledging that it was torture, that it was morally and legally wrong, and that it didn't make anything better, only worse.   If we could get that out of him -- or, even if he would never admit it, to have the record so clear that everyone in the future could see the truth -- and that would be enough.

Ralph

Giving

Our American entrepreneurial obsession has turned Christmas into a business of selling and buying, and the idea of giving gets lost.

I stumbled across this quotation yesterday from Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th century American philosopher, poet, and essayist.  And -- it happens -- the man my father and I, through him, were named for.   We are Ralph Emerson Roughton, Sr. and Jr.   So I always pay attention when one of his quotations floats across my screen.

But this one is particularly apt for this season where giving has been swamped and lost underneath the load of the commerce of selling and buying.

“Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. 

The only gift is a portion of thyself." 

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson  

Ralph

A pause for peace

Christmas Day has different meanings for different people.   Whether it's deeply felt hope and joy from a particular religious promise of a savior -- or the hope and joy anticipating spring that arose from the original secular winter solstice festival -- it is a time when we could all pause and contemplate peace and hope for a better tomorrow.

Like the German and British soldiers on the battlefields of World War I, who observed a spontaneous truce on Christmas Day, let's put aside all our differences and declare a day of peace . . .  just for today . . . at least.   

It was exactly 100 years ago today, December 25, 1914, that the fighting stopped at dawn.   Soldiers from both sides cautiously came out of the trenches and crossed the "no man's land" to shake hands,   share cigarettes and coffee, and in some places to play soccer with their enemies.   It was an incredible event that lasted throughout the day.

If mortal enemies bent on killing each other just the day before -- and again in the days after -- can do it, can we not bridge our divisions, American against American, for a day or two . . . or maybe more?  

Ralph

Here is a video put together by students at Brigham Young University to commemorate that Christmas Truce in Flanders Field in 1914.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/24/wwi-christmas-truce-anniversary_n_6356708.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

Racial profiling by police is real

We cannot let the very legitimate protest movement calling for police accountability and reform get lost in the outrage over the slaughter of two New York police officers by a mad man.     That is a horrible end for two good men taking a break from work.   It adds to the real risk that police officers face as part of their work.

But it has happened before, and it will happen again.   And it has nothing to do with the other problem of what appears to be an epidemic of unnecessary killings by police officers of unarmed young black men.

The racial profiling, the biased assumptions about criminal intent and violent potential are real, and this has been confirmed by a survey done by Reuter's News Service, as written byMichelle Conlin:

"Reuters interviewed 25 African American male officers on the NYPD, 15 of whom are retired and 10 of whom are still serving. All but one said that, when off duty and out of uniform, they had been victims of racial profiling, which refers to using race or ethnicity as grounds for suspecting someone of having committed a crime.

"The officers said this included being pulled over for no reason, having their heads slammed against their cars, getting guns brandished in their faces, being thrown into prison vans and experiencing stop and frisks while shopping. The majority of the officers said they had been pulled over multiple times while driving. Five had had guns pulled on them. . . .

"The black officers interviewed said they had been racially profiled by white officers exclusively, and about one third said they made some form of complaint to a supervisor.
All but one said their supervisors either dismissed the complaints or retaliated against them by denying them overtime, choice assignments, or promotions. The remaining officers who made no complaints said they refrained from doing so either because they feared retribution or because they saw racial profiling as part of the system."

 All right, Giuliani and the police union, what about this?   The NYPD and the policeman's union both declined to comment to Reuter's about the article.

Ralph

"Killer cops" and "Kill a cop" are VERY different. Don't conflate them.

Let's get one thing very clear:   The brutal, assassination of two New York City police officers last weekend by a mentally disturbed man with a long record of arrests, who first killed his ex-girlfriend before turning on the cops, is a completely separate issue from the non-violent protests against excessive use of police force against unarmed, young black men.

Unfortunately, both sane elected officials and rabble-rouser nuts are mixing up the two.   Those who want to call off the protest rallies mean well and want to show respect for the officers' families.   But they need to use the teaching moment to clarify that the issues are quite different and may co-exist -- even while asking for a moratorium to show respect.

Once again, we need to turn to the comedians for the truth.   Here's Jon Stewart:


So much wiser than loud-mouth ex-mayor Rudy Giuliani, who blabbed on Fox News that “We’ve had four months of propaganda, starting with the president, that everybody should hate the police.”   Which is totally false, of course.   Obama said exactly the opposite.

Other conservative politicians have made similar -- or worse -- comments, such as former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) saying that de Blasio, Eric Holder, and President Obama “have the blood of those two NYPD cops . . . on their hands.”

A spokesman for one of the police unions also spoke of "blood on the hands" starting at the steps to City Hall.    Others blamed the demonstrators protesting police killings of unarmed young black men.

Not content to just talk about it, a Fox affiliate in Baltimore, WBFF, Fox 45, wanted to run a story portraying these protests as "kill a cop" rallies.    The problem was that they couldn't find any videos or anyone to back that up.    So they manufactured one -- starting with footage from a CSPAN video of the Washington D.C. rally -- which they edited to make it sound like the people are chanting "kill a cop."

This was quickly exposed as a fake, but not until WBFF-Fox had shown the tape several times, with one of their reporters solemnly referring to the protest march as referring to "cop killing."   Then they play the video of people chanting:

"We won't stop.

"We can't stop.

"So kill a cop."

Here is what the unedited CSPAN video shows people actually chanting:  

"We won’t stop.

"We can’t stop. 

"Until the killer cops

"Are in cell blocks.”

 
The further irony is that the woman leading the chant in the real video is Tawanda Jones, the sister of a Baltimore man who was killed by police while in their custody last year.

Once the false account had been exposed, WBFF pretended that it was just an honest misunderstanding of what people were chanting and apologized to Ms. Jones for the "mistake."    I have not seen what WBFF aired, but from the description on several sites, there is no way this is simply a mistake.   The tape shown on air has definitely been edited, compared to the full tape from CSPAN.

Contrary to the way WBFF portrayed Tawanda Jones as the "kill a cop" chant-leader, ever since her brother's death in 2013, she has been holding weekly nonviolent days of action to call for justice and accountability in the Baltimore Police Department.    Far from wanting to kill cops, she feels the urgent need for accountable cops.  Here is what she said:   "You'd have to be an idiot -- someone that hates -- to say 'kill somebody,' especially some cops that I need to protect my family.""We need the cops. My community needs the cops." 

Maybe we should stick with the comedians.   Fox News and its affiliate stations can't be trusted to tell us the truth.

Ralph

Truth-telling through comedy

Our best truth-tellers are our comedians:   Mark Twain, Jon Stewart, Steve Colbert.

And this, from "The Vent," an Atlanta Journal-Constitution feature that allows readers to send in very short, pithy bits of wisdom, outrage, silliness -- and truth. 

"When I bring my gun to the library 

do I need to bring my silencer?"

Think about it.

Ralph

Another Bah, Humbug moment

My inner curmudgeon was aroused recently by the latest iteration of the annoying question from a restaurant host, as I waited to be seated:   "Just one?"
 
Yes, I live alone;  and, not liking the bother of cooking for one person, I wind up eating many evening meals in neighborhood restaurants -- alone.   Not fancy dining;  just a quick dinner in a neighborhood cafe or fast food restaurant.

Almost invariably I get some version of the question:  "Just one?"  Often it's indirect:   "Would you like to sit at the bar?," meaning obviously you'd like to watch the game on television since you're alone -- even when I'm obviously carrying a book or newspaper.

Last night was particularly grating:   The Applebee host, who might be described as "having a bit of attitude," greeted my entrance with a studied nonchalance: "Just you?"

My annoyed reply, I'm afraid, sailed completely past this person's limited awareness:   "Yep, ju-u-u-st me."

I grumped silently through my dinner, debating whether and with what tone to say something on the way out.   But in the end, I didn't address the problem, because I was pretty sure this slender, young African-American of rather ambiguous gender presentation is a person in male to female transition.    She's probably had way too many disapproving looks and snide comments -- and probably had sized me up as another disapproving old, white Republican guy, a good bet in my neighborhood.

(Anyone observing me drive up, however, and seeing both the 2008 and 2012 Obama bumper stickers, would know better) 

So I said nothing, except to respond blandly to her "goodbye" on my way out.    That incident was complicated, but I wish whoever trains these staff would tell them that people dining alone don't like to have it announced to everyone in hearing distance.  I don't mind dining alone;  in fact I often prefer it, and I never lack for something interesting to read.   What I do mind is the implication that being alone means I must be lonely.

No, what I really am most annoyed by is the assumption, because I am a guy, that I would rather watch professional football.   If Applebee's can hire a trans person, why can't they get over the stereotype that any man alone must prefer the bar and football to a quiet booth and the book he brought to read?

Bah humbug. . . . .   Or, am I over-reacting?

Ralph

Elian Gonzalez at 21. Recalling the 1999 dramatic, Cuban-American showdown over one small boy

Relations between the United States and Cuba have had several dramatic highs since the revolution of 1959:  the missile crisis, the Bay of Pigs -- and the saga of six year old Elian Gonzalez, who became a political pawn between the Cuban-American community in Florida and the U. S. government, as well as between factions of Elian's divided family.

The fight over Elian's custody became emblematic of the fight between Cuban-American exiles in Miami and what they regarded as repressive governments, both in Cuba and now in the United States.   There was even a movement from right-wing U.S. politicians to try to have congress pass a law bestowing U. S. citizenship on Elian so he could stay here.

Here's a summary of the situation:    In November 1999, Elian's mother brought him along as she and 12 other Cubans tried to flee for asylum in the U.S. in a small aluminum boat with a faulty engine, unsuited for the journey.   Her estranged husband, Elian's father, stayed in Cuba.   The engine failed, the boat sank, and only Elian and two others survived.  They were rescued and brought to the U.S.    Elian's mother drowned.

The U.S. Immigration Service released Elian to his paternal great-uncle who lived in Miami.   And thus began a seven month-long legal battle, front page news stories, political posturing, a dramatic middle of the night raid by armed agents personally ordered by Attorney General Janet Reno, and an ultimate decision by the U. S. Court of Appeals that the Miami relatives did not have standing to apply for asylum for Elian and that he must be returned to the custody of his Cuban father.

Elian's father was flown to the U.S. for a reunion with his son at Andrews Air Force Base;  but the Miami relatives still tried to block his leaving the country by insisting that he could not leave until he had had an asylum hearing.   After appeals and a refusal of the Supreme Court to intervene, the U. S. Circuit Court decision prevailed:    Elian's father was his rightful  custodian and thus only he could apply for asylum for his son.   Thus in May 2000, it was finally resolved and Elian and his father returned to Cuba to a hero's welcome.

It was even regarded by many as a triumph of the Communist country over the United States, and a picture was released showing young Elian in the Youth Pioneer uniform of Cuba's communist youth league.   In addition to the family loss, the anti-Castro, anti-Communist relatives in Miami, remained convinced that wrong had been done, that Castro took their property and their freedom in Cuba;  and now he had taken their child.  The volatile issue still reverberates politically as a rallying cry among the older Cuban-American community in Florida.

On the other hand, one could say that this was a good example of democracy and respect for human rights prevailing and that it was the values of the U. S. democracy that returned Elian to his rightful guardian, his own father.    If the situation were reversed, would the Castro regime have returned Elian to an American father in the U.S.?  And wouldn't we have thought they should, even if he had relatives in Cuba that wanted to keep him there?

That is a point that is rarely mentioned in the debate about what happened in 1999, although our Department of Justice did stick to the principles of our constitution and bill of rights, even as it applied to a foreign national -- and a minor at that.

It was one of the top media stories -- front page and lead-off story on nightly TV from November 1999 to May of 2000.    Most dramatic of all was the pre-dawn, Easter Eve raid on the Miami relatives' home to forcibly extract Elian from their claim on him and return him to his father.

President Obama's new opening to Cuba made me think about Elian's story and wonder what has happened to him.   He is now 21 years old.    He has kept a low profile, mostly staying out of the news.   CNN did a story on him one year ago, when he traveled abroad with a delegation to a meeting in Ecuador of the World Festival of Youth and Students.   He was described as a military cadet studying industrial engineering.   He is quoted as saying he is happy to be in Cuba and expressed his admiration for Fidel Castro who took a personal interest in him and visited him every year on his birthday.


Ralph

Clearing up the thing about Ferguson witness #40

On 12/17/14, I entered a correction to my post "More doubt cast on Ferguson grand jury decision."   I had confused the two witnesses #10 and #40 as the one that DA McCulloch cited in his press conference summary of the case.  It was #10 he highlighted.

Nevertheless, witness #40 has been the witness most often cited on conservative media, because her testimony is the one most consistent with Officer Wilson's own account.   Now we know the reason for the congruence.   Witness #40, now identified as Sandy McElroy, seems to have made up her story after Wilson's account was leaked to the media, in order to bolster his defense.

Here's how Daily Kos writer Shaun King describes it:

" . . .  Not only did Sandy McElroy testify before the grand jury twice, she was allowed to show what she claimed was her journal from the day Mike Brown was killed. . . .  In the transcript . . . .  members [of the grand jury] are recorded as actually stating that they believe she's telling the truth.

"What's clear now, and what was actually clear to the FBI and the prosecutors before she ever testified, is that Sandy McElroy wasn't anywhere near Canfield Drive the day Mike Brown was killed and made her entire story up. Not only that, but Sandy McElroy was on record with the St. Louis police as having lied and concocted fanciful stories in other murder cases in which she falsely claimed to be a witness.

"Her inclusion in the grand jury pool of witnesses poisoned the well . . . .  

". . . .  in the aftermath of Mike Brown's death, she regularly posted comments on various social networks showing her affection for Darren Wilson weeks and weeks before she ever claimed to be a witness.

"The FBI, in their interrogation of Sandy McElroy, completely tore apart her story and proved that she never drove onto Canfield Drive . . . .  couldn't find one person or photo or message before or after the event to confirm that she was ever there. . . . 

"Here's the thing, though. When Sandy McElroy was called before the grand jury, she had already been thoroughly discredited by the FBI . . . .  That she was allowed to testify before the grand jury on two different dates and produce fake evidence on her second trip is a scandal of epic proportions. That her testimony has become so popular among conservatives says as much about them as it does about Sandy McElroy."

What possible motive could DA McCulloch have had to produce such a travesty of the grand jury process -- except to make it so confusing to the grand jury that they couldn't possibly put together a coherent enough explanation to indict Darren Wilson?

McCulloch told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch yesterday that:  "Clearly some [witnesses] were not telling the truth."   But, he said, he wanted "anyone who claimed to have witnessed anything. . . presented to the grand jury," and that he didn't have regrets about calling non-credible witnesses.

Why bother to investigate a murder?    Why pay prosecutors?   Why not just hold an open town hall meeting and let anyone who wants to come and testify, lie, whatever . . . ?    Isn't our criminal justice system supposed to include some expertise from the prosecutors?  Isn't the process supposed to benefit from that?

This is beyond strange . . .  and it is completely indefensible for a public prosecutor.    One legal expert said on MSNBC Friday night that it goes beyond questionable strategy and, depending on what McCulloch knew about witness #40 and when he knew it, could actually constitute ethical or even criminal charges against McCulloch.   Well, obviously he knew she was lying before he allowed her to testify, and then called her back a second time.

There are remedies.   The governor could step in and appoint a special prosecutor.   The Department of Justice could bring a federal case.    It cannot be allowed to just rest on the colossal poor judgment of Bob McCulloch.

Ralph