torture works

a short quiz on big brother

1. if there were a clickbox labled "allow gov't surveillance", would you click "yes"?

2. do you believe anyone else would click "yes"?

3. if not, then why is there unlimited gov't surveillance?

"better guilty than impotent"

sometimes there is no third option to use, you can't get out of a situation without making yourself look bad. so your best option is basically to take the lesser of two evils.

the catch is that the options that gives you the least problems is also the ones that makes you look like you had no idea what you are doing. so instead you make yourself look guilty in an effort to keep up your reputation.

named from the film version of the sum of all fears, where the russian president takes responsibility for a military strike done by a general acting without orders so it doesn't seem like he was incompetent.

"better guilty than impotent", tvtropes.org

this trope's been rattling around in my head since obama's chosen to vigorously defend the wholesale rifling of all domestic messages by the nsa. in "the sum of all fears" (2002), newly minted and wholly innocent russian president nemerov, after ordering the rogue generals responsible "disappeared", defiantly defends the atrocity as a legitimate response to "a nation of criminals" attacking innocent russians, in order to not appear not in control of his own military. the hero, cia analyst jack ryan, to the derision of washington's defense and intelligence chairs, correctly surmises that nemerov isn't the hardliner he pretends to be and didn't order the attack — ultimately helping both countries avoid being manipulated into global thermonuclear war.

it's difficult to reconcile a constitutional scholar and government transparency proponent defending, much less overseeing, a massive ongoing violation of the fourth amendment. but it's not hard to imagine the nsa (with profiteer booz allen) doing what they're paid to do, in secret, and in the name of the war on terror, simply deciding they could and would eavesdrop on everyone. these are not revelations of new ambitions. so we're left to scratch our heads and wonder if obama chose the lesser of two evils rather than plead ignorance and admit that our intelligence agencies are out of control. or maybe a movie is just a movie. perhaps we'll find out in fifty years or so after the papers are finally declassified (or even sooner if wikileaks or anonymous ever gets hold of them).

orange alert

with election day 2012 just around the corner, america's enemies just seem to grow bolder:

'credible threats' made to US government
homeland security studying two-hour video from wednesday night

WASHINGTON (the borowitz report) — the department of homeland security said today that it was studying several "credible threats" made to the united states government in a two-hour broadcast wednesday night from a location believed to be the reagan library in simi valley, california.

homeland security spokesman harland dorinson said that the department did not want to alarm the american people, "but whenever you have a group of individuals threatening to dismantle the US government piece by piece, it has to be taken seriously."

in reviewing the two-hour tape, homeland security officials said they found threats to some of the most essential functions of the US government, from social security to the federal reserve.

while stopping short of saying that the speakers were engaged in some sort of jihad, mr. dorinson did note that a tone of religious extremism dominated the video.

"one speaker in particular, seemed bent on rolling back the advances of science and plunging america back into the dark ages," he said.

but the most terrifying moment in the tape came when that same speaker received thunderous applause from the audience after threatening to execute people.

"we're posting pictures of this individual on our website," mr. dorinson said. "hopefully he will be captured before he can carry out any of his plans."

and a meme is born

for the record

via steve benen @ the washington monthly:

IF CANTOR REALLY WANTS TO GO THERE.... house majority leader eric cantor (r-va.), shortly after president obama's remarks on [the death of] osama bin laden, issued a related statement. it included this gem:

"i commend president obama who has followed the vigilance of president bush in bringing bin laden to justice."

there's a fair amount of this rhetoric bouncing around this morning, and it's not especially surprising — republicans aren't going to credit president obama, regardless of merit, so it stands to reason they'll try to bring george w. bush into the picture.

if this is going to be a new gop talking point, we might as well set the record straight.

in march 2002, just six months after 9/11, bush said of bin laden, "i truly am not that concerned about him.... you know, i just don't spend that much time on him, to be honest with you."

in july 2006, we learned that the bush administration closed its unit that had been hunting bin laden.

in september 2006, bush told fred barnes, one of his most sycophantic media allies, that an "emphasis on bin laden doesn't fit with the administration's strategy for combating terrorism."

and don't even get me started on bush's failed strategy that allowed bin laden to escape from tora bora.

i'm happy to extend plenty of credit to all kinds of officials throughout the government, but crediting bush's "vigilance" on bin laden is deeply silly.

update: donald rumsfeld added this morning that obama "wisely" followed bush's lead. he either has a very short memory, or he's lying and hopes you have a very short memory.

meanwhile, from every birther's favorite faux-wingnut talking hairpiece:

i want to personally congratulate president obama and the men and women of the armed forces for a job well done. ... i am so proud to see americans standing shoulder to shoulder, waving the american flag in celebration of this great victory.

we should spend the next several days not debating party politics, but in remembrance of those who lost their lives on 9/11 and those currently fighting for our freedom.

god bless america!

after months of flinging racist birther-poop at obama, the donald once again demonstrates, through well-timed magnanimity, that he knows how to separate himself from the crowd.

the soon-to-be-senator from minnesota

disclaimer: those who've known me for a long time would never accuse me of developing a mancrush on anybody (not that there's anything wrong with it ...), and really, it's not, but ... there's something about the way al carries his oddball pretend-irascibility (or is it an irascible pretend-oddballity?), even while working the audience to convince us he's no carpet-bagger, a performance that somehow cleverly morphs itself into something bordering on a kind of — dare i say it — adorability?

(of course, smacking bush around does kinda help seal the deal and reminiscing about all the decider's unappreciated genius has become somewhat fashionable at the moment ...)

letterman:	ladies and gentlemen ... al franken!
	[franken walks onstage, bows, sits] always a pleasure, al.
franken:	always a pleasure for me.
letterman:	so where do they tape your microphone?
franken:	[bends to look at his crotch] well, dave ...
letterman:	heh, heh, heh ... well now, i don't wanna ... i don't wanna bore you, but you might find some of this tedious ...
franken:	yeah ...
letterman:	... but i find it fascinating, ah, a while ago, six months ago? three months ago? a year ago ... you and your wife moved ...
together:	to minneapolis ...
franken:	... that's right.
letterman:	you're originally from minnesota. how's that goin'?
franken:	... great. great! great, i do my show from there. y'know, i'm the hardest working man in show biz politics, and uh ...
schaefer:	[laughing] ... it's a new category to me! hahaha!
franken:	yeah, yeah, and, in fact this thing i'm doing tomorrow night, the reason i brought it up, is it's a big fund-raiser for my group "midwest values PAC" ...
letterman:	at the state theater ...
franken:	yeah, and we're raising money for democrats, y'know, it's called "midwest values" because i feel, i, y'know, i lived here for a long time ...
letterman:	thirty years or so in new york.
franken:	yeah, and uh, but i always felt like a midwesterner, always felt like a minnesotan. you must feel like —
letterman:	y'know, i do, and i feel like i'm at home. i love indiana and i feel that that's a great part of me.
franken:	yeah, and that's ... your values are rooted there, and uh, that's what our PAC is about, and uh, that's because i think democrats win ... on values. we stand for things, for example: ah, accountability. like, uh, bush finally, like a couple weeks ago, uh, was with tony blair, admitted that he made some mistakes ... in iraq. right. [applause] and all he said, he said "i said some things wrong. like, i shouldn't have said 'bring it on.'"
letterman:	right.
franken:	which is kinda common sense, another midwest value: don't goad the enemy to attack you. [laughter]
letterman:	right.
franken:	y'know, and it's all that swagger thing, like, at the ... remember at the republican convention he said: "some people see me, and, uh, [adopts bush drawl] they see a swagger, certain swagger. well, in texas we call that walkin'." in minnesota we call that "being a jerk." [applause] y'know. walk with, with uh ...
letterman:	... dignity ...
franken:	... some humility ...
letterman:	yes, humility, right.
franken:	... humility. ah, bush, y'know, says like he's a big jesus guy. well, jesus didn't walk with a swagger. he didn't go like, [adopts bush drawl] "see that water i turned into wine?" [points to self] "me. that was me."
letterman:	heh — not a show-off ...
franken:	[still in character] "see that blind guy over there? that uh, he's not bumpin' into things any more? [points to self] jesus." [laughter]
letterman:	wasn't a blowhard ...
franken:	[still in character] "yeah. that big boulder i rolled, y'know, in front of, i rolled that outta the entrance to that cave where i was dead and now i'm alive? eh?" [puffs out chest] "bring it on!" [applause] y'know, it's easy — that wasn't jesus. that was ... walk with some, some ... humility.
letterman:	that's right.
franken:	you can be strong, you can be courageous —
letterman:	exactly.
franken:	— it's not, that kind of bluster isn't strong. that's not strength.
letterman:	now, uh, from where you sit, what are your other observations regarding, now we're nearly halfway through the second term of the bush administration. what are your observations generally of, about things now?
franken:	he's ... he's in the toilet. actually, lorne michaels said something very funny to me. he said that jee— uh, ah, that bush ... [laughter, applause] ... i had jesus on the brain!
letterman:	we all do.
franken:	great, great prophet, jesus.
letterman:	yeah.
franken:	as my rabbi told me, he had a lot of great ideas. none of them knew. s'what my rabbi used to tell me. anyway, ah, bush. lorne michaels said to me, "looks like a, a guy whose show's just been cancelled, but he has nine more to do." [applause]
letterman:	heh, i know that feeling.
franken:	you know that feeling?
letterman:	yeah, absolutely.
franken:	like, i mean, obviously the war's just going terribly. uh, if he's going to admit those mistakes, he should have admitted a couple other things. for example, ah, when he said, y'know, that the war on terror is a crusade. that was stupid.
letterman:	poor choice of words.
franken:	it sent the wrong message to a lot of people. muslims, mainly. and, uh, y'know the only defense i can thing of for him is that, um, y'know he didn't know there had been a "crusades". [laughter]
letterman:	[unintelligible]
franken:	y'know, he wasn't a great student. he's admitted he doesn't do a lot of reading. so i think that the thing he needs to do is hold himself accountable. i think he needs to go on TV and admit the mistakes he made. that he kind of ... misled us ... into the war, didn't send enough troops, uh, disbanded the iraqi army by telling them, y'know, by telling 300,000 guys: "you're fired! we're not gonna pay you, get the hell outta here! and take your weapons with you!" [laughter] and say: "i'm sorry i tortured — we tortured people." that turned out to be a mistake, because, y'know, their families don't like it. they get angry. basically, this would be, this is the short version. it'd have to be a six-hour speech he'd have to tell, s'what i'm saying.
letterman:	[laughing] ... six hours ... now, i want to talk to you about your experience with the american military. and recently you gave the commencement at west point.
franken:	it wasn't the commencement. it was just a ...
letterman:	just a "how'ya doin'?" you just dropped in ... ?
franken:	it was, it was sort of in-between.
letterman:	OK. we'll be right back here with al franken, everybody.
	[commercial break]
letterman:	... and i said, mistakenly, you'd given the commencement at west point, and i think, uh, president bush actually gave the commencement.
franken:	yeah, they just ask him to do the commencement, i just ...
letterman:	you were not there for the commencement.
franken:	... gave the sol feinstone lecture on the meaning of freedom. this is last — i had my book out at the time, "the truth, with jokes", this was, i was at west point. it was an audience not so different than this one. [laughter] uh, except, it was all cadets.
letterman:	that's right. that would be the one small difference.
franken:	yeah and i was supposed to talk about the meaning of freedom, and my book "the truth, with jokes" was out at the time and basically, after jollying them up with some jokes, um, i got them on my side, and i told them that the president had lied us into the war, and uh, i said you can't have freedom without the truth. you can have freedom without jokes, as the dutch and the swiss have proven. [laughter] but, they um, gave me a standing ovation, and they —
letterman:	really?
franken:	yeah. i think that, i really admire them, as you said, i've gone over a number of times on USO trips and — a lotta people think that it's dangerous. it's not. i remember that — you're surrounded by the USO, by ...
letterman:	the army.
franken:	by the, yeah, by the ... you're embedded and they don't want anyone in the USO to get ... a coupla years ago i'd done my first one in iraq. i was at a party in hollywood and there was all these celebrities there and i got a little bit overwhelmed and i went to sit in the library and i was — i thought i was alone and i hear this voice: [in deep low voice] "hey, al ..." yeah, i looked around and it was sylvester stallone.
letterman:	oh ...
franken:	and i said, uh "hey ... uh ... sylvester." 'cause i didn't know ... [laughter]
letterman:	riiight ...
franken:	and he said, [in deep low voice] "i understand you went on one of them USO tours." i said "yeah it was great." he said [deep] "yah, well, i was supposed to go, but i didn't." and i said "well, why didn't you go?" he said [deep] "well, i thought it might be too dangerous." i said "well, it's not really that dangerous ..." i said exactly just what i said to you and he said [deep]"yah well lemmee ask ya this: was there ever any moment when you felt in danger for your life?" [laughter] and i said well, OK we did have one point where we took helicopters from baghdad to tikrit and then back again, and some ... had been shot down, so i thought maybe one-in-ten-thousand chance that — [deep] "yah well, that's why i didn't go." [laughter] i said to him "weren't you, weren't you friggin' rambo?" [laughter, applause]
letterman:	friggin' ... friggin' rambo ...
franken:	i didn't say "friggin'", but ...
letterman:	[unintelligible] rambo ...
franken:	he was actually very honest and said [deep] "yah, but i like my life. i got a good life." that's how i got the west point guys on my side. i told them that story.
letterman:	yeah, that's a pretty good story ...
franken:	true story.
letterman:	what's he doin' in the library, fer god sakes ... ? [laughter]
franken:	uh, i, ah ...
letterman:	honestly, that's bizarre.
franken:	he might've followed me in.
letterman:	uh, just wanna quickly, ah, because we're all interested in your political future, if you have one, perhaps running for office, and i think the interesting thing, and important to point out, is you've been married for quite a few years and that's very important. you should use that in your campaign. people like, uh, marriage solidarity. and you certainly represent that, you and your wife have been married how, how long?
franken:	um, thirty years, many of them happy. [laughter, applause]
letterman:	that's good.
franken:	thank you. thank you.
letterman:	don't be afraid to use this, for your campaign.
franken:	um, i credit fear.
letterman:	hm.
franken:	yes, i just, ah, am afraid of being alone. and uh, we have kids. that's —
letterman:	that's good, sure.
franken:	really ... i, uh, i find her incredibly annoying in a lotta ways. [laughter]
letterman:	talkin' about your wife now?
franken:	yah, um ...
letterman:	you might wanna soft-pedal this out on the campaign trail ...
franken:	yeah ... well, it's little things! it's just always little things. she does a lot of like ... she decides to say stuff to me as soon as i've walked out of the room. so i spend a lot of time saying: "i can't, i can't hear you!" [laughter] but we ... "i'm in another room!" and um ... y'know, but we, we met, uh, freshman — can i tell you the story of my, uh ... when my daughter was six years old — 'cause kira's segment was so lovely — i was at my daughter's teacher, when my daughter was six years old, asked her to write a story, asked every kid to write a story how their parents met. and, so, um, we told her: we met freshman year in college at a mixer, i said i saw your mom across the room gathering these, uh, other girls to leave. she was trying to get 'em to leave and i loved the way she like, was taking charge. in retrospect ... [waves hands dismissively] ... and anyway, um, i said — and she was beautiful! she was beautiful! y'know, beautiful, so i asked her to dance, then i, uh, bought her a, got her a ginger ale, and then i escorted her to her dorm and asked her for a date. so my daughter wrote: "my dad asked my mom to dance, bought her a drink and took her home." [applause] and ...
letterman:	hehhehheh, well ... nothin' wrong with that either! tomorrow night at the state theater in minneapolis. i'm sure it'll be an enjoyable evening.
franken:	it, um ... the website, just in case you wanted to get tickets in minneapolis, midwestvaluespac.org, and that, that is not to be confused with liveorg.org, which is where you get live organs ...
letterman:	heh heh heh. alright ...
franken:	... live human organs, which is another one of my ...
letterman:	no, you wouldn't wanna get those —
franken:	our organs are human.
letterman:	yeah, that's right. good.
franken:	midwestvaluespac.org.
letterman:	thank you very much, al. always a pleasure. nice to see you.
franken:	thanks.

(hat tip to one good move)

shoulda, woulda, coulda

s'funny how what sounded impossible a coupl'a years ago sounds like a slam-dunk today ...

nader:	what about the more serious violations of habeas corpus. you know after 9-11 bush rounded up thousands of them, americans, many of them muslim americans or arabic americans and they were thrown in jail without charges, they didn't have lawyers, some of them were pretty mistreated in new york city. you know they were all released eventually.
napolitano:	correct.
nader:	is that what you mean also about throwing people in jail without charges violating habeas corpus?
napolitano:	well that is so obviously a violation of the natural law, the natural right to be brought before a neutral arbiter within moments of the government taking your freedom away from you. and the constitution itself, as the supreme court in the boumediene case pretty much said, wherever the government goes, the constitution goes with it and wherever the constitution goes are the rights of the constitution as a guarantee and habeas corpus cannot be suspended by the president ever. it can only be suspended by the congress in times of rebellion which in read milligan says meaning rebellion of such magnitude that judges can't get into their court houses. that has not happened in american history. so what president bush did with the suspension of habeas corpus, with the whole concept of guantanamo bay, with the whole idea that he could avoid and evade federal laws, treaties, federal judges and the constitution was blatantly unconstitutional and is some cases criminal.
nader:	what's the sanction for president bush and vice president cheney?
napolitano:	there's been no sanction except what history will say about them.
nader:	what should be the sanctions?
napolitano:	they should have been indicted. they absolutely should have been indicted for torturing, for spying, for arresting without warrants. i'd like to say they should be indicted for lying but believe it or not, unless you're under oath, lying is not a crime. at least not an indictable crime. it's a moral crime.
nader:	so you think george w. bush and dick cheney should even though they've left office, they haven't escaped the criminal laws, they should be indicted and prosecuted?
napolitano:	the evidence in this book and in others, our colleague the great vincent bugliosi has amassed an incredible amount of evidence. the purpose of this book was not to amass that evidence but i do discuss it, is overwhelming when you compare it to the level of evidence required for a normal indictment that george w. bush as president and dick cheney as vice president participated in criminal conspiracies to violate the federal law and the guaranteed civil liberties of hundreds, maybe thousands of human beings.

(hat tip to crooks and liars)

barbed wire and plywood

what john said:

cnn just had james inhofe on talking about how we could not bring the gitmo folks to the states because they are too dangerous, and it reminded me of something that has been bothering me the last few days. there seems to be an effort to pretend that we chose to put these people in gitmo for security reasons. that is simply nonsense on stilts. it was little more than barbed-wire and plywood when we started detaining them there, and we had to build the damned place. we didn’t put the detainees there because it was super secure. we put them there so there would be no controlling legal authority and we could do whatever the hell we wanted with them. i’m really tired of people making things up.

deep thought

we have to keep them in guantanamo 'cause we can't hold them legally.

deep question

so when did "suspected terrorists" become the brotherhood of evil mutants?

how to talk about torture

and no, it has nothing to do with nancy pelosi or hillary clinton ...

hasselback:	what is your mind — i know your mind is, ah, pretty made up about waterboarding, correct? you were waterboarded part of, part of your navy seal training, correct?
ventura:	no, it wasn't part of navy seal training; it was part of what they call SERE school: survival, escape, resistance, evasion. it's, it's a school that they required you to go to prior to the combat zone in vietnam. and yes, we were all waterboarded there, and yes, it is torture.
hasselback:	what do you think about nancy pelosi in terms of what she has been claiming with the cia lying to and misleading congress ... ?
ventura:	i, i, what's worse is this: the fact that it happened. if, if we hadn't waterboarded to begin with, none of this would be a controversy, would it?
hasselback:	if we hadn't waterboarded ...
ventura:	and torture, wait — torture is torture. if you're going to be a country that follows the rule of law, which we are, torture is illegal.
hasselback:	but these were specifically approved techniques with ksm, okay ... ?
ventura:	approved by who ... ?
hasselback:	khalid sheik mohammed, the information we extracted from him before waterboarding was zip. afterward, he released the information ...
unidentifed:	no ...
ventura:	no, we got all of that before waterboarding.
unidentifed:	yes.
hasselback:	this was the case that was used three times ...
ventura:	the question is this: alright, wait a minute — if waterboarding is okay, then —
hasselback:	[to unidentified] do you want me to put you in a triple nelson?
ventura:	wait, wait, if waterboarding's okay, then why don't we let our police do it to suspects so that they can learn what they know?
	[applause]
hasselback:	i understand that question, i understand that question ...
ventura:	if waterboarding's okay, why didn't we waterboard mcveigh and nichols, the oklahoma city bombers, to find out if there were more people involved?
behar:	well, what's your answer to that? why didn't we? why didn't we?
ventura:	well, i don't know, but we only seem to waterboard muslims.
goldberg:	hmm ...
audience:	oohh ...
	[crosstalk]
ventura:	haa-ha, ha-ha! have we waterboarded anyone else? name me someone else we've waterboarded!
behar:	well, one of the things that's coming out now is that they were waterboarding them to get a connection between iraq and al qaeda. and that the reason they waterboarded was to get information out so they could justify the invasion of iraq.
hasselback:	what do you think is gonna happen now —
behar:	so how does that work into your theory of how great it is?
hasselback:	look, i'm not saying it's great. i'm not saying, okay everybody, let's all go next door and get waterboarded. i'm, i'm concerned right now about nancy pelosi, who was supposedly briefed on this thing —
goldberg:	she lied —
ventura:	okay, they want her out now, right? because she lied? well, why didn't they ask for bush, bush and cheney to go out when they lied about why we went into iraq?
	[applause]
hasselback:	senator clinton! senator clinton, hillary clinton was right there with them, as were many democrats ...
ventura:	the point is, nothing is gonna happen cause they're all involved. the dems and repubs are both involved. that's why president obama's backing off from it, and they're not gonna do it now. it's a good thing i'm not the president. i'm an independent. because i would prosecute the people who did it, i would prosecute the people who ordered it, and they would all go to jail.
	[applause]
hasselback:	well, wouldn't they prosecute president obama in the future going backwards when he ordered the killing of the somali pirates? i mean, you have to think about —
ventura:	no, because the somali pirates —
goldberg:	there's a lot of differences ...
ventura:	that's apples and oranges. you're not talking about someone in custody who is supposedly under — okay, how would we feel, look how outraged we were when waterboarding was done to our vets in vietnam. where do you think we learned that? and we created the hanoi hilton right in guantanamo. that's our hanoi hilton. people have died there, people are tortured there — i'm ashamed of my country.
hasselback:	people aren't basing all those, extremists are not basing their behaviors on us, i can guarantee that, they are —
ventura:	because — should we stoop to their level?
hasselback:	look, we have —
ventura:	no. we should be above that.
hasselback:	absolutely —
ventura:	torture is wrong.
	[applause]
hasselback:	torture is wrong, but enhanced interrogation is —
ventura:	"enhanced interrogation" is dick cheney changing a word. dick cheney comes up with a new word to cover his ass.
	[crosstalk]
goldberg:	new question! new question!
ventura:	i've said it before: you give me a waterboard, one hour and dick cheney and i'll have him confessing to the sharon tate murders.
unidentified:	yeah baby!
	[applause]

smith:

our chief fox report correspondent jonathan hunt is live with us. johnathan, republicans seemed to keep the pressure on the speaker throughout the weekend and certainly continuing into today.

hunt:

yes, absolutely, this is the political gift that keeps on giving for the republicans. instead of this debate being about national security, what is and isn’t torture, what the bush administration should and shouldn’t have allowed and whether anybody in that administration should now be prosecuted, they are, they, the republicans are now able to frame this debate as to whether nancy pelosi is fit to continue as speaker. so shep, they are not about to let their foot off the gas in any way, shape, or form right now.

what dick said

and, more importantly, what he didn't say ...

---

*mid-atlantic shredding services
  (see also: zelikow memo)

quote of the day

gonzalo boye, spanish human rights lawyer and co-plaintiff filing torture and war crimes charges against the bush white house:

if they are innocent, they shouldn’t be afraid.

a modest proposal

for a modest president of a modest nation, offered to firedoglake's jane hamsher by constitutional lawyer bruce fein:

jane:	... so, ah, george bush pardons everybody on the way out the door, there's a new president: what would you like to see happen in a new administration, in order to be able to look back, and i'm assuming that you're not one of the people who says "let bygones be bygones, let's all look forward" ... ?
bruce:	the first thing the president ought to do is announce that we don't have any war against international terrorism, that these are criminals, and we will treat them as criminals, we'll capture them as criminals, and try them, prosecute them, and punish them as criminals. second thing he should do is say "i don't have any power to detain americans as enemy combatants, ah, we either charge you with [a] crime or let you alone." third thing he'd say "i do not have any power to violate federal laws in gathering foreign intelligence. i can't commit torture, i can't violate fisa, i can't open your mail, except in accordance with what congress has prescribed." fourth thing he should say is "i'm not gonna invoke execute privilege and use secrecy to prevent you from knowing what i'm doing. absent weapons systems, my government will be transparent, and i'll make certain all my officials come and testify before congress. there may be need for executive sessions, if there's sensitive information, but i will not claim executive privilege and hide from congress anything." another thing that he should say is "i do not have authority to engage in extraordinary rendition. i can't go abroad and simply kidnap people, stick them in an interrogation chamber, torture them, dump them out without any political or legal recourses. and i won't do that. that is a formula for returning the world to a hobbesian state of nature, and authorizing other foreign governments to kidnap americans who might be sympathetic to some indigenous force, chechens in russia for instance, or tibetans in china. and the fifth thing he should say is "i'm shutting down the military commissions in guantanamo. all those people charged will be moved to civilian, ah, sector for trial consistent with due process, and all the guantanamo bay detainees will have a right to habeas corpus and i'm not detaining even non-citizens as enemy combatants. if i think i have evidence they've committed a crime, i prosecute them, otherwise, y'know, they can go back." and perhaps the most important thing — i don't have enough time to fully amplify on this idea — is to say "the united states of america chief, really cardinal mission, is to protect america and make it a more perfect union. we don't need and it doesn't make us safer to have a military footprint all over the globe. and i will work to eliminate all of our foreign troops abroad. defense will mean we'll have a defense against anyone who wants to attack us. if anyone attacks us, we'll incinerate them, but other than that, we, um, wish other people in the world happiness and freedom but we're not gonna sacrifice our men and women to protect the lives of people who have no loyalty, no taxes that pay to the united states, they're not u.s. citizens or who aren't involved in any way. we don't go abroad in search of dragons, as john quincy adams said in 1826, to project our power abroad. it's that, that craving for international stature and prestige that's caused disaster to the constitution of the united states," and i'd want to see a president of the united states say "that era is over." "now i'm a president of modesty. i don't want to leave my footprints in the sands of time based upon fighting wars and attempting to transform the world in our own image. we've got enough problems making ourselves a more perfect union, and i'm not gonna do something that i don't know how to do, and in any event, it's not up to me to risk men and women's lives for a people who owe no loyalty to the united states." that is what i'd like to see. now regards to the people who are outgoing? i'd want to say the president should announce that he certainly will open criminal investigations if there was wrongdoing in the prior administration, ah, and he's gonna make certain that and pledge that he would expect a succeeding administration after his to do the same, if his administration committed any wrongdoing. um, and so he's not gonna hold this administration up to any more immunity than he would grant a predecessor administration.
jane:	i hope we get that president.

scenes from an interrogation

where: not a dark, cold, clammy fetid hold deep in the bowels of a former soviet gulag. nor, for that matter, the bright, panelled, spacious chambers of the hague's international criminal court:

tom:	this story was made public by abc a few weeks ago. it claims that you, rice, tenet and others met in the white house to discuss different methods of "enhanced interrogation," is that correct?
ashcroft:	[angrily] correct? is what correct? is it correct that this story ran on abc? i don't know that. i don't know anything about it! is it a real story? when was this story, huh? huh?
tom:	um, early april, april 9th, i think ...
ashcroft:	[interrupting] you think? you think? you don't even know! next question!
tom:	the article says that you discussed "whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning"...
ashcroft:	i said, next question!

ashcroft:	no. no, [my position on torture] doesn't violate the geneva conventions. as for other laws, well, the u.s. is a party to the united nations convention against torture. and that convention, well, when we join a treaty like that we send it to the senate to be ratified, and when the senate ratifies they often add qualifiers, reservations, to the treaty which affect what exactly we follow. now, i don't have a copy of the convention in front of me ...
me:	[holding up my copy] i do! [boisterous applause and whistling from the audience] would you like to borrow it?
ashcroft:	[after a pause] uh, you keep a hold of it. now, as i was saying, i don't have it with me but i'm pretty sure it defines torture as something that leaves lasting scars or physical damage ...
student:	liar! you liar! [the student is shushed by the audience]
ashcroft:	so no, waterboarding does not violate international law.

me:	first off, mr. ashcroft, i'd like to apologize for the rudeness of some of my fellow students. it was uncalled for — we can disagree civilly, we don't need that. [round of applause from the audience, and ashcroft smiles] i have here in my hand two documents. one of them, you know, is the text of the united nations convention against torture, which, point of interest, says nothing about "lasting physical damage" ...
ashcroft:	[interrupting] do you have the senate reservations to it?
me:	no, i don't. do you happen to know what they are?
ashcroft:	[angrily] i don't have them memorized, no. i don't have time to go around memorizing random legal facts. i just don't want these people in the audience to go away saying, "he was wrong, she had the proof right in her hand!" because that's not true. it's a lie. if you don't have the reservations, you don't have anything. now, if you want to bring them another time, we can talk, but ...
me:	actually, mr. ashcroft, my question was about this other document. [laughter and applause] this other document is a section from the judgment of the tokyo war tribunal. after wwii, the tokyo tribunal was basically the nuremberg trials for japan. many japanese leaders were put on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including torture. and among the tortures listed was the "water treatment," which we nowadays call waterboarding...
ashcroft:	[interrupting] this is a speech, not a question. i don't mind, but it's not a question.
me:	it will be, sir, just give me a moment. the judgment describes this water treatment, and i quote, "the victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach." one man, yukio asano, was sentenced to fifteen years hard labor by the allies for waterboarding american troops to obtain information. since yukio asano was trying to get information to help defend his country — exactly what you, mr. ashcroft, say is acceptible for americans to do — do you believe that his sentence was unjust? [boisterous applause and shouts of "good question!"]
ashcroft:	[angrily] now, listen here. you're comparing apples and oranges, apples and oranges. we don't do anything like what you described.
me:	i'm sorry, i was under the impression that we still use the method of putting a cloth over someone's face and pouring water down their throat ...
ashcroft:	[interrupting, red-faced, shouting] pouring! pouring! did you hear what she said? "putting a cloth over someone's face and pouring water on them." that's not what you said before! read that again, what you said before!
me:	sir, other reports of the time say ...
ashcroft:	[shouting] read what you said before! [cries of "answer her fucking question!" from the audience] read it!
me:	[firmly] mr. ashcroft, please answer the question.
ashcroft:	[shouting] read it back!
me:	"the victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach."
ashcroft:	[shouting] you hear that? you hear it? "forced!" if you can't tell the difference between forcing and pouring ... does this college have an anatomy class? if you can't tell the difference between forcing and pouring ...
me:	[firmly and loudly] mr. ashcroft, do you believe that yukio asano's sentence was unjust? answer the question. [pause]
ashcroft:	[more restrained] it's not a fair question; there's no comparison. next question! [loud chorus of boos from the audience]

quote of the day

craigie @ sadly, no!:

i never get tired of reading how our beautiful, advanced civilization of love and fairness cannot survive unless we kill all the brown people while they sleep.

dubya foreign policy 101

josh marshall:

even more interesting is another argument president bush is poised to make: namely, that vietnam is more than just an analogy. he will argue that the terrorist threat we face today is in some measure the result of our withdrawal from vietnam, as it emboldened the terrorists to attack us. the president will also make the argument that withdrawing from vietnam emboldened today's terrorists by compromising u.s. credibility, citing a quote from al qaeda leader osama bin laden that the american people would rise against the iraq war the same way they rose against the war in vietnam, according to the excerpts. i'm not sure i've ever seen a better example of president bush's comically inept strategic thinking. actually, lack of strategic thinking. i'm sure you've noticed how, as the president's policies go further and further down the drain, he more and more often cites the authority of osama bin laden as the rationale for his policies. in this case, we must stay in iraq forever wasting money and lives and destroying our position in the world because if we don't we'll have proved osama bin laden right. it's like a very sad version of a sixty year old falling for that dingbat head fake ten year olds used to play when i was a kid in elementary school in which: kid a says he wants the football kid b says, 'fine, but if you take the football, you're gay.' and then kid a stalks off hopelessly bamboozled and unable to parry this paralyzing riddle. apparently we have permanently ceded our foreign policy to the whim of osama bin laden's taunts.

josh's schoolyard analogy is amusing, but it's actually not quite accurate, especially if the football is intended to represent u.s. withdrawal from iraq.

bush clearly intends to stay in iraq until the end of his term, if no one forces him out, an event which, at this late stage, seems less and less likely. so bush clearly doesn't want the football. it's the other kids in the yard, the good, sensible, tired, restless public, who really want the football and have been badgering poor dubya to get it for them.

bush's vietnam analagy is just one more in an endless (at least until january 2009) series of lame excuses for not getting the football that everyone else wants but dubya has no intention of delivering.

a moment of clarity

well yeah. i was just sitting here, eating my muffin, drinking my coffee, when i had what alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity. — hitman jules winnfield, pulp fiction (1994)

finally.

after spending the last six years crazy drunk on all fear all the time!^®, has the mainstream media sobered up?

matthews: well, i'll tell ya one thing — i agree with what fareed zakaria wrote in newsweek this week, which is: terrorism isn't explosions and death. terrorism is when you change your society because of those explosions. and you become fearful to the point where you shut out immigration. you shut out student exchanges. you shut people out of buildings. you begin to act in almost a fascist manner because you're afraid of what might happen to you. that's when terrorism becomes real and frighteningly successful. that's what i believe, and that why i question the way giuliani has raised this issue. he raises it as a spectre. in a weird way he helps the bad guys.

bait

noun:

1. food used to entice fish or other animals as prey.

   related terms: sitting duck. decoy. cannon fodder. chum.

2. our fighting men and women in iraq, thoughtfully served up on a platter for the bloodlust of our insatiable enemy.

   ... according to disgraced-clintonite-turned-pundit dick morris, who extolled the virtues of the occupation from the comfort and convenience of his studio desk at fox news:

i think that withdrawal from iraq, it obviously gives al qaeda a huge victory — huge victory. on the other hand, if we stay in iraq, it gives them the opportunity to kill more americans, which they really like. one of the things, though, that i think that the anti-war crowd has not considered, is that if we're putting the americans right within their [the terrorists’] arms’ reach, they don’t have to come to wall street to kill americans. they don’t have to knock down the trade center. they can do it around the corner, and convenience is a big factor when you’re a terrorist.

(btw dick, you may not have been told, but i heard that something may have already happened to the trade center ...)

you'll of course remember dick morris from his last appearance on this blog, when in the wake of hurricane katrina he boldly predicted that president bush's ratings "are gonna soar!"

if by "soar" he meant sore or sour, he's been vindicated.

but it may be that time of day when, like that proverbial stopped watch, dick might actually be onto something, since his bff in iraq, nominal al qaeda deputy ayman al-zawahiri, admitted that he knows too well where his care packages are coming from:

in a new video posted today on the internet, al qaeda's no. 2 man, ayman al zawahri, mocks the bill passed by congress setting a timetable for the pullout of u.s. troops in iraq. "this bill will deprive us of the opportunity to destroy the american forces which we have caught in a historic trap," zawahri says in answer to a question posed to him an interviewer. continuing in the same tone, zawahri says, "we ask allah that they only get out of it after losing 200,000 to 300,000 killed, in order that we give the spillers of blood in washington and europe an unforgettable lesson."

and who says al qaeda aren't grateful?