Random thoughts

PRIORITIES
The American people had no problem with kidnapping random and sundry foreigners on foreign soil, guilty or not, and “renditioning” them to torturous regimes under the pretext of national security. We had no problem with funding such tortuous regimes with oodles of your tax money (but God forbid we help working Americans get health care). We had no problem with our agents doing the torturing themselves. We had no problem with the horrors revealed in Wikileaks’ Afghan and Iraq war logs (sorry I can’t link to them as Wikileaks’ site curiously appears to be down). Heck, we had little problem with the insane and counterproductive aggression against Iraq in the first place, even after the WMD fairy refused to show us where those weapons were. But we draw the line at airport pat downs and body scanners?

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NATIONAL 'DON'T USE YOUR BRAIN' DAY
First, there was a national “Don’t Buy Gas” Day protest. Now, there’s a “Buy Nothing” Day. Do people realize how stupid and pointless these one day protests are? Do you seriously think you’re sending a warning to the consumerist economy by refusing to spend a dime on useless crap today but then going out and buying useless crap tomorrow? Is the self-indulgence of empty symbolism really that powerful? If you really want to send a message, don’t change your day. Change your dang lifestyle.

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ACCOUNTABILITY FOR ONE, ACCOUNTABILITY FOR ALL
If teachers should be held “accountable” via their students’ test scores, shouldn’t corrections officers be similarly held “accountable” via their released prisoners’ recidivism rates?

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THE JUDICIARY HIJACKED BY THE MOB
So Mike Huckabee is gloating that he and his fellow theocrats helped oust several Iowa Supreme Court justices who ruled in favor of equal protection of the law for gay citizens. He claimed that the ruling sent a message.

It sent a message indeed: beyond a certain level, we shouldn't have elected judges.

The system here in New York is fine. Trial court judges are elected. But appellate court judges, those who set precedents, are appointed by the governor and approved by the legislature but to a limited term of office. This gives them a certain degree of accountability but shields them to a certain extent from mob fury.

The judiciary is not supposed represent the "will of the people." It's supposed to uphold constitutions, including minority rights protections, regardless of what the hysteria or scapegoat of the day happens to be.

And it sent another message about why electing judges is dangerous: it lends itself to the same corruption of outside money as the election of politicians.


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OXYMORON OF THE DAY
New York’s governor-elect wants the judiciary to intervene in a few close election recounts to ensure that we have a “functioning Senate” in January. It’s amusing that he thinks the courts can impose this. Between being run by boobs and criminals (convicted, indicted and not-yet-indicted), NYS hasn’t had a functioning Senate in several years.

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MONEY WELL SPENT?
The US alone has spent $56 billion on “Afghanistan reconstruction.” For reference, if the US had instead divvied up that money equally and directly given it to the people, that would have put $2000 in the hands of every single Afghan.

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FORTUNATELY NO ONE EXPECTS COHERENCE FROM SPORTS ANNOUNCERS
Soccer commentators should be thrashed for improper use of the word 'unlucky.' Hitting a shot 15 feet over the cross bar or, worse, out for a throw in is NOT unlucky; it's incompetent. Unlucky is the FC Dallas player who scored the own goal on Sunday night.

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RADIATING FURY
Last month, Hundreds of gallons of radioactive water from a cleanup at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory spilled from a drainage pipe into the Mohawk River in NY’s Capital District, according to an article in the Albany Times Union. A failed sump pump system caused about 630 gallons of tainted water -- containing Cesium-137, Strontium-90, uranium and plutonium -- to overflow into a culvert draining directly into the river, [the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation] reported.

The T-U described these as ‘known carcinogens.’

I can’t imagine why there’s public reticence about the expansion of nuclear power as an energy source.

Justice for dummies

Germany recently arrested and charged an alleged former Nazi with running a death camp in the 1940s.

Cambodia is putting on trial senior Khmer Rouge members for torture committed in the 1970s.

A Peruvian court convicted and sentenced to a quarter century in jail its former president Alberto Fujimori for widespread human rights abuses in the 1990s.

The United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone is currently trying former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor for hideous war crimes and crimes against humanity also committed in the 1990s.

If these entities can hold to account former heads of state for human rights abuses committed decades ago, then why can't US officials prosecute those who authorized secret torture sites, torture more generally and any of the other violations of American and international law okayed only a few years ago by the US government during the so-called war on terror?

Sadly, some in power and their apologists are more concerned with 'not giving the Republicans any ammo' than re-establishing America's respect for civilized values and the rule of law.

Third world countries and the supposedly incompetent UN are mature and decent enough to apply justice and the rule of law. Certainly the self-described Greatest Nation on Earth and Leader of the Free World can hold itself to at least a high a standard.

Religion and torture

So a poll shows that 62% of white evangelicals and 51% of white Roman Catholics believe that torture (or whatever the euphemism of the day happens to be) can often or sometimes be justified, with only 16% and 20% respectively saying it could never be justified.

I wonder what the head of the Catholic Church thinks about that.

Barbarians inside the gate

Next time Dick Cheney or barbarians like him claim that torture (or whatever euphemism they prefer) is 'necessary,' remind him of this...

A truly lame lame duck ducks

"They say we're disturbing the peace. But what really disturbs them is that we're disturbing the war." -Howard Zinn

By now, most of you have probably heard that during a particularly patronizing press conference by President Bush in Baghdad, an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at the American misleader as well as a number of verbal insults. It is the only accountability for this massive crime against humanity that Bush is likely to ever face.

Shoe throwing is one of the most serious insults in Arab culture. The journalist was wildly praised in the Arab media. An ironic reaction in a region that, Bush and his cronies claimed, was supposed to be magically transformed into a pro-American utopia after the invasion of Iraq.

The journalist's boss pointed out that the reporter was no disgruntled Saddamite and pointed out that "his family was arrested under Saddam's regime." The journalist ' his actions were for Iraqi widows and orphans,' according to the BBC.

Following the shoe 'assassination attempt,' some brain dead journalist actually asked Bush if he felt threatened by the incident. American soldiers are out there dodging IEDs. Iraqi civilians are being targeted by savage militias and homicide bombers. And someone had the gall to ask Bush if he felt threatened by a flying shoe?

Worse yet, Bush continued to pontificate about how the incident provided that the 'new' Iraq was so fantastic because a guy was free to throw shoes!

The journalist was arrested and hauled away. This shows how completely ignorant Bush is of any notions of what real freedom is all about. If you get arrested for doing something, then BY DEFINITION you are NOT really free to do that something. It doesn't take Einstein to understand this.

Worse yet are unconfirmed reports that the journalist is being tortured in US custody. He allegedly suffered a 'broken hand, ribs, suffered internal bleeding and sustained an eye injury.' I hope he enjoys his 'liberation.'

The rumors may or may not actually be true, though the charges were made by the journalist's brother. But it's a mark of how far America's reputation has fallen that the rumors are completely plausible. Do the delusional still think 'they hate us because we're free'?

This presumption of guilt what happens when you have an immoral administration allergic to the most fundamental notions of civilization deciding to essentially legalize a barbaric practice like torture... in the name of 'freedom.'

An anti-terrorist interrogator speaks on torture

An addendum to my piece on Bush's pro-barbarism position...

Adirondack Musing points to this interesting video on the website of Foreign Policy magazine.

A former FBI special agent who interrogated members of al-Qaeda speaks about torture, its ineffectiveness and its unnecessity. He adds that in his quarter century as an interrogator neither he nor anyone he worked with encountered the mythical 'ticking time bomb' scenario often contrived by proponents

Bush's pro-war crimes stance disgraces America

"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." -Thomas Jefferson

Waterboarding, according to Human Rights Watch, dates back to at least the Spanish Inquisition, and has been used some of the world's cruelest dictatorships, including the Chadian regime of Hissène Habré, the genocidal Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and the imperial Japanese during World War II.

Hissène Habré is facing charges for war crimes, something the Bush administration applauded.

The US government sought war crimes trials for senior Khmer Rouge members.

US military commissions prosecuted several Japanese soldiers for war crimes for waterboarding American troops during World War II.

In fact, these Japanese soldiers were EXECUTED by US officials after their conviction for waterboarding.

US soldiers were court martialed for waterboarding prisoners during the Vietnam War and during the guerilla war in the Philippines in the early 20th century.

This means that waterboarding has been considered a war crime not only by international standards, but by US standards as well.

Now, President Bush decides to overtly support the use of waterboarding torture.

Bush officially supports a form of torture used by Spanish Inquisitioners, Axis of Evil North Korea and Pol Pot's minions. He supports a form of torture that the most evil regimes of our time have used.

It can be unambiguously stated that the supposed beacon of civilization has a president who is officially on record as supporting actions that several generations of Americans have considered torture.

We have a president who is officially on record as supporting war crimes.

Maybe the Vermont towns of Brattleboro and Marlboro have it right.

Just click your heels and intone, "They hate us because we're free."

Democrat hypocrisy torturing America

This op-ed in The Los Angeles Times contends that the 'legality of torture takes over as the political litmus test in campaigns and confirmation hearings.'

And the author argues that this is not a bad thing.

Far more than the abortion debate ever did, the debate about torture goes to the very heart of what (if anything) this country stands for. Do we want to be the nation imagined by the signers of the Declaration of Independence, a nation with "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind," committed to a vision of human dignity and unalienable rights, limited government and the rule of law?

Or would we rather bring back the methods of the Spanish Inquisition?

As litmus tests go, that's not such a bad one.

And as such, it's a test that the Democratic Senate failed.

During his confirmation hearings for attorney general, Michael Mukasey waffled on the question of whether waterboarding was torture.

He said he found it personally 'repugnant' but that he'd have to wait until he received secret briefings to determine whether it was legal.

No secret briefing should be necessary.

The US military has already banned its use.

And more to the point, waterboarding has been prosecuted in U.S. courts since the late 1800s and was regarded by every U.S. administration before this one as torture.

But it's a tactic that the CIA still uses, which is why Mukasey was quizzed about it.

The UK Independent reported that a former anti-terrorism advisor to President Bush, Malcolm Nance, denounced the practice and stated categorically, "waterboarding is a torture technique – period".

While US media reports typically state that waterboarding involves "simulated drowning", Mr Nance explained that "since the lungs are actually filling with water", there is nothing simulated about it. "Waterboarding," he said, "is slow-motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of blackout and expiration. When done right, it is controlled death."

Michael Mukasey can't figure out whether this Inquisition tactic is legal or not.

But this didn't seem to bother the Democratic-controlled US Senate.

Only 40 of its members were repelled by Mukasey's equivocation on torture and war crimes enough to vote against him.

When the Democrats gained control of Congress, they had us believe that everything would change. Yet when pro-torture attorney general Alberto Gonzales resigned, the Democratic-controlled Congress approved a pro-torture successor.

NY Sen. Charles Schumer called on Gonzales to resign for failing to uphold the rule of law and the Constitution.

Schumer not only voted for Mukasey to be attorney general, the New York senator actually recommended him to Bush in the first place.

The Democrats spent six years pissing and moaning about how terrible that fascist George W. Bush is. But when they have a chance to actually stop him, to make an important stand in favor of American values, they cave yet again.

The Democrats are clearly unwilling or unable to take a clear stand against torture and militarism. This is yet another example of why The Greens are the best choice for those who want to advance a progressive agenda.

The banality of torture and how it undermines American security

Alberto Gonzales once wrote an infamous memo arguing that torture was legal. More than that, he argued that torture was necessary and the rule of law obsolete. The man is now the chief law enforcement [sic] office of this country

So i was interested to read a piece in the NPR News blog on the banality of torture.

It's eerily similar to a comment made by Gen. Jacques Massu, the commander of French forces during the brutal Battle of Algiers.

"Torture was part of a certain ambiance," he said in 2000. "We could've done things differently."

Far from helping the cause, torture undermined France's fight against Algerian nationalism by galvanizing the undecided against the torturers and revolting France's allies. Torture is having exactly the same effect in undermining America's fight against Islamist radicalism, a cause where the support of allies is even more critical.

When the most powerful nation on Earth, one that spends almost as much on so-called national defense as the rest of the world combined, claims that it will perish if it doesn't torture people or if it actually respects international law, then it can't expect the benefit of the doubt from anyone. Regardless of its sanctified national myth.

Thanks to the Bush administration's crusade against American values, America's integrity is probably at an all-time low. It's a sad fate for a country once seen as the moral leader of the free world by the peoples of Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe.