When the war crimes of this administration are finally tallied, when all the bloody injustices of Guantanamo and Bagram are fully accounted, when the hundreds of subversions and perversions of civil liberties and international and U.S. law and all the assaults on simple human decency and "Christian" values are added up, does anyone doubt that history will remember the reign of terror of George W. Bush as one of the darkest and most shameful periods of American history.

There are thousands of human beings--most of them demonstrably innocent of any crime--being held at Baghdad Airport, Guantanamo, Bagram and other detention centers around the world in clear violation of basic human rights and under conditions that military insiders describe as "torture lite." How will you bring this corrupt, and corrupting, system under control?

The methods employed by the C.I.A. are so severe that senior officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation have directed its agents to stay out of many of the interviews of the high-level detainees, counterterrorism officials said. The F.B.I. officials have advised the bureau's director, Robert S. Mueller III, that the interrogation techniques, which would be prohibited in criminal cases, could compromise their agents in future criminal cases, the counterterrorism officials said.

posted by Jerry Bowles 11:07 PM

Lessons Incurious George and the Neocons Never Learned

In the business section of the Thursday, May 13, Japan Times (page 10), there is a brief, below-the-fold story titled "Ghosn emphasizes diversity as key to corporate success".

Mr. Ghosn is Carlos Ghosn, who has become a legend in Japan for his turnaround of Nissan, after the Japanese automaker was taken over by Renault. He will be leaving Japan this year to take over Nissan's North American operations. A better example of the sophistication that both appreciates cultural differences and the drive that gets things done is hard to find. In the speech reported here, Ghosn says,

A multicultural environment is filled with opportunities. Benefits are gained in open exchange. You do not learn much from people who are exactly like you. You learn the most from interacting with people whose makeup is different from your own--from people with a different background, age, language, education or social experience.

.
These are lessons that John Kerry, the diplomat's son, has learned. Incurious George never has (what a waste of a Yale education!) and the Neocons blinded by their own narrow vision, plainly never have either.

posted by John 9:46 PM

Nader's "hesitation pitch"

Like baseball Hall of Fame great Leroy "Satchel" Paige said... don't look back, someone might be gainin' on you.

posted by Groom 6:37 PM

It's the Incompetence, Stupid

David Corn suggests that by focusing on the venality of Bush administration officials we are missing a far easier and more damming point: they are incompetent.

posted by Jerry Bowles 6:03 PM

Twin Towers, not Iraq, will send Rummy packing

The mother of all debts... the US trade deficit has surged to an historic high and analysts are concerned that the Washington won’t be able to attract the $1.5 billion/day to pay the vig on the current account deficit. Rummy’s head will need to roll in order to avoid an economic fatwa. Otherwise, it won’t matter if Bubba Bandar be wearing his kakhis or his mufti. Shrubby, Lord Cheney, Lord Rummy and Snowman all will be sweating it out in the line over at payday loans just like the rest of us average Americans.

posted by Groom 2:44 PM

This Fish Rots From The Head Down

From page 24 of Richard Clarke's book, Against All Enemies (emphases mine). This exchange reportedly took place on the evening of September 11, 2001, just after Bush's address to the nation stating that "[w]e will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them." Here, Clarke quotes Bush directly, at a meeting of his National Security staff:

"I want you all to understand that we are at war and we will stay at war until this is done. Nothing else matters. Everything is available for the pursuit of this war. Any barriers in your way, they're gone. Any money you need, you have it. This is our only agenda." The President asked me to focus on identifying what the next attack might be and preventing it.

When, later in the discussion, Secretary Rumsfeld noted that international law allowed the use of force only to prevent future attacks and not for retribution, Bush nearly bit his head off. "No," the President yelled in the narrow conference room, "I don't care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass."

Now, read this and tell me if the "torture-'em-till-they-talk" orders didn't come directly from the Oval Office.

posted by Michael 2:06 PM

They did it "for Jessica Lynch"

Another shoe drops in the world of vigilante justice.

posted by Groom 9:47 AM

Quote of the Day (and it's not even 8:00 in the morning here yet)

From my pal Karen, who e-mailed to say: "Does everything seem to be getting worse and worse? I'm starting to wonder if this isn't a surreal dream, and I'll wake up to find that Clinton is still president and our biggest national problem is a California tart in a beret."

posted by jabartlett 8:55 AM

Berg, Bryant and Till

I understand why soldiers get killed. It’s the same reason boxers sometimes die and football players end up in wheelchairs—it’s part of the job.

What I don’t understand is why women jog at midnight in an isolated part of a park, why any civilian visits a country at war or on the State Department’s warning list, why civilians work for hazard pay in dangerous countries, and why people who are afraid of getting cancer from second-hand smoke work in bars. I know it’s because they can and that’s where some jobs are and because in a free society they should be able to do what they want when they want and not expect to be raped, killed, or get cancer.

But all such attitudes and behavior is reckless; no, actually it’s stupid. It seems that Americans want the adventure but not the responsibility, the benefits but not the risk.

It was amusing yesterday (no, actually it was sickening) to see the media try to juggle coverage of Nicholas Berg (a surprise beheading), Kobe Bryant (a no surprise plea of “not guilty), and the day-old news about Emmett Till (a surprise reopening of a “flashpoint” civil rights murder in 1955). The news programs gave all the stories pretty much the same weight. There is not much of a sense of news "judgement," especially on cable. To treat all three cases as equally important is a reflection of the sorry state of affairs (and journalism) in America. Clearly, the most important story was that of Till, who suffered Berg’s fate without the opportunity for Bryant’s plea at the hands of fellow Americans—less than 50 years ago, in a repressive climate that is frighteningly reminiscent of today.

The present abuses at Abu Ghraib are no more an isolated part of American culture than past lynchings in Mississippi. While the media is focused on a “small group” of rotten apples spoiling the whole bunch, both cases show the consequences of indifference to human rights that starts and is sustained at the top.

posted by Josh 8:07 AM

Outrage, Cubed

After reading his depraved rantings from the Abu Ghraib hearings yesterday, this is a letter I just submitted at Sen. Inhofe's website:

You, sir, absolutely disgust me. Your comments during the testimony of Gen. Taguba yesterday prove, without a doubt, that you are utterly unworthy of the high office you hold. What twisted perversion of America did you grow up in?

Although I am obviously not one of your constituents (thank God), I will do everything in my power to see that you never hold any public office again -- including dogcatcher, because even a dog deserves better treatment than the torture and abuse you seem to think the Iraqi captives deserve (the vast majority of whom, by the way, were rounded up by MISTAKE).

I find it hard to believe that a man who espouses the moral code of NAZI GERMANY represents the State of Oklahoma in the Senate. Have you no conscience? Have you no moral compass? Have you, sir, at long last, no sense of decency?

That felt good. Feel free to visit his website yourself, and "pile on" (no photographic pun intended).

posted by Michael 4:19 AM

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Reflections on a Hearing

Ruth and I were really tired last night. Having slipped away early from a Democrats Abroad meeting in Tokyo, we were thinking of going to bed when CNN announced that live coverage of the Senate hearing at which Major General Antonio Taguba would be questioned about his report on abuses of detainees in Iraq would soon begin. When it did begin, I found myself riveted to the screen. Here are a few things that crossed my mind then and this morning.

The unexpected joint appearance of Taguba with Lt. General Smith and Undersecretary for Intelligence Carbonne was, one commentator noted, a device for limiting the time that Taguba would speak and, since the speaking order was Carbonne-Smith-Taguba to frame his remarks before he made them. In strong contrast was the amount of time that Senators from both parties spent complimenting Taguba on his professionalism, adding credibility both to his testimony and to the report on which it was based.

As the questioning unfolded, I was impressed by Taguba and the care with which he answered the questions put to him. The most important piece of evidence I heard was his statement that he and his team had examined charges of abuse at four facilities under the control of the 800th MP brigade and that abuses at Abu Ghraib were substantially different and much more severe than those at the other three facilities, where complaints were more on the order of being slapped in the face than the sort of obscenities perpetrated at Abu Ghraib.

That did not, for a moment, mean that he was going along with dumping the blame on the seven MPs who currently face courtmartial. He did not seek to exculpate them for what are clearly heinous acts, but he not only pointed out "a lack of discipline, no training whatsoever and no supervision", a clear dereliction of duty on the part of their superiors at the company, battalion and brigade level; he also noted the confused chain of command created when tactical control of the prison was transferred from the MP's General Karpinsky to the 205th Military Intelligence unit's Colonel Pappas and the October-December timing of the events, which followed General Miller's visit to promote the use of techniques developed at Guantanomo Bay to accelerate the flow of intelligence. While remaining perfectly clear that the MI and civilian contractors had no "directive" authority over the MPs and slamming General Karpinsky's claim that she was shut out of the parts of the prison where the events took place, he also said repeatedly that evidence indicated that the MPs had been "influenced" by individuals whom they perceived (wrongly) as "competent authorities."

In contrast to Taguba's focus on specifics of the situation in which the absues at Abu Ghraib took place, the up-the-line defenses offered by Smith and Cabonne were weak. They asserted, correctly I believe, that training in the Geneva Convention begins in boot camp and that interrogation do's and don'ts are spelled out in Army Manuals. What seemed feeble, however, was the repeated excuse that key documents, the International Red Cross Report and Taguba's own report had only recently, within the last couple of weeks, "reached their level." This, too, may be true--but, if so, it points to a major systemic flaw in a military that prides itself on rapid and comprehensive acquisition of information and quick battlefield response to information received. The fact that it took soo many months for information and images with the devastating consequences that we have seen to reach the upper echelons of the Pentagon suggests all too plainly that key leaders and policymakers have been fatally isolated by their eminence from the grim realities of a situation that they are attempting to manage at a distance.

There may be something to the argument that the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld doctrine of pre-emptive war and the current administration's contempt until bludgeoned over the head for international law and multilateral decision making parallels or anticipates the breakdown of moral and legal order at Abu Ghraib. There is something, too, to Luc Sante's observation that the attitudes displayed in the images we have seen are those seen previously in photographs of Southern lynchings. Taguba's testimony points, however, in another, equally damaging direction, the indifference to detail and isolation of the highest echelons of command and control from the feedback needed to be effective--not to mention moral and humane.

posted by John 11:05 PM

I wish now that I had protested against the war before it started....

Before the war, there were many protests against it, but I never bothered to protest, even though I was strongly against the war. Why?

Well, because I didn’t associate myself with any of the groups that were organizing to protest. I didn't like ANSWER's name (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), for example, because it typified the messy idealism of the left that bothers me. (Stop war and end racism? How about just stop war?) Also, I'm not anti-war: I figure as long as men are the dominant sex--and they'll be dominant if their numbers continue to be roughly equal to women's--we'll have war.

No, I was against the war for pragmatic reasons--too expensive, not necessary, won't be carried out well because Bush, Rumsfeld, and Cheney are profoundly unwise and they'll forget about the peace.

I guess I was the equivalent of a left-wing person who is too idealistic to vote for Kerry: I didn't want to sully myself by associating with naïve peaceniks in a march.

I could have carried my own sign, something like Pragmatic Moderate Against the War. But I just didn't bother.

And now, I wish I had.

posted by Vicki 9:04 PM

Thoughts on a Beheading

Beheading is nasty business and the only reasonable response by reasonable people is outrage. The timing of the release of the videotape is unfortunate because it allows rightwing showboats like Senator Inhofe and their apologists like war slut Andrew Sullivan to say, "See, we're right. These people are barbarians."

But, they aren't right. All societies have criminals and having debates about relative degrees of barbarism or using the crimes of a few to libel an entire culture is the ultimate slippery slope. Were Nick Berg's killers more barbarous than the fine Americans who beat Matthew Shepherd and left him lashed to a fence to die in the winter cold because he was gay? More barbarous than those Texans who chained James Byrd to a pickup truck and dragged him to his death because he was black? More evil than those Mississippians who crushed 14-year-old Emmett Till's skull for whistling at a white woman?

To accusations from rightwingers that liberals are quick to point fingers at American abuse and ignore it from others, I say, there are no apologists for Saddam Hussein among responsible liberals and this idea that we ought to be comparing his crimes to the behavior of the jailers at Abu Ghraib misses the point. As the richest and oldest democracy on earth, we have an obligation to set higher standards for ourselves.

posted by Jerry Bowles 5:57 PM

Arabs are the New “Niggers”

Yoko Ono once famously stated that “woman is the nigger of the world.” I think it’s safe to state that in America Arabs and Muslims have now been granted that status.

Certainly, our Semitic friends have had this role in the past, when the smelly plague survivors of Western Europe decided to leave their wives and hunting lodges to travel to the gleaming cities of the Abbasid Caliphate. But at no time in my memory have we had the ability to so stigmatize and generalize a people and part of the world that is incredibly complex and variated.

At social gatherings, on airplanes, in business meetings, I have heard otherwise intelligent and tolerant people describe people from the Middle East in the most ignorant terms. They are all “fanatics,” they are all “untrustworthy,” they are all “uneducated.” I spoke at length to an airline pilot on Sunday who admits that he is on guard whenever he sees someone who appears to be an Arab come on his plane, and in fact, this blanket – and perhaps understandable – apprehension and dislike now extends to his feelings to all Arab people, whether traveling or not.

Is it any wonder that the young and unsophisticated soldiers who guarded the Iraq prisoners were so easily able to view their charges as less than human? In his brilliant essay on today’s “op-ed” of the New York Times, Luc Sante compares the Abu Ghraib photos to the pictures that circulated in the nineteen twenties of smiling white people gathered around black lynching victims. It is an apt comparison as we as a nation come lurching to a confrontation with a people about whom we know next to nothing, and all of it bad.

If we are ever to disabuse ourselves of our monolithic view, it would help if we as a nation appreciated the following:

· Islam is an extremely rich and varied religion, whose success has largely depended not on conquest, but on trade.

· Islam in its more radical variation appeals to those who seek a better life in the Middle East and elsewhere not because they hate infidels but because the religion offers a kind of democracy and political participation missing in most regional autocracies.

· Islam is a difficult religion to “secularize,” since it is largely based on practice (prayer, the hajj) which defines the adherent.

· Islam is not inherently backward-looking but holds to a religious tenet (“ijtahad”) which calls for engagement with the modern world.

While it seems inevitable that our current course of policy will lead us inexorably to a view of the Arab people even more hardened and obtuse, one would hope, that like the Tom Friedmans of the world who still cling to a dream of a democratic Iraq, we will still someday be able to come to respect and understand our current great “other.” But then again, it may require an invasion of aliens for us to seize upon our common humanity.

posted by Evelyn 2:48 PM

Iraq puts Bliar on slippery slope

British PM Tony Bliar won't need to buy his lead shoes over at John Lobb's. The latest flap over prisoner abuse by British army personnel has caused British subjects to further distance themselves from the one time "boy wonder" of the Labour Potty. A new poll from the Times of London indicates that the Conservative party and their candidate for PM would defeat Bliar and Labour if a vote was called. There is also a blistering commentary by Martin Kettle in today's Guardian. Like Confucius say, nation where people carry umbrella know when shit hit fan.

posted by Groom 12:25 PM

Radical Thought

Watching Senator Jim Inhofe (Neanderthal-OK) raging on about being "outraged about the outrage" over Abu Gharaib at this morning's Senate hearing, I had a perverse thought: Maybe what this country really needs is another four years of George W. Bush. Another war--with Syria or North Korea--concentration camps for American Muslims, Dow 2000, censorship of the Internet, repeal of Roe, nine Scalias. The radical Christian nationalist thing is like a fever that just has to run its course. Four more ought to do it.

posted by Jerry Bowles 11:37 AM

Ships Leaving the Sinking Rat

"All but the most blindly devoted Bush supporters can see that Bush administration officials have no clue about what to do in Iraq tomorrow, much less a month from now." Lowering Our Sights, Robert Kagan, May 2, 2004


"This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and, having thought, to have second thoughts." Time for Bush to See The Realities of Iraq,
George F. Will, May 4, 2004


"We went into Iraq with what, in retrospect, seems like a childish fantasy. We were going to topple Saddam, establish democracy and hand the country back to grateful Iraqis. We expected to be universally admired when it was all over." For Iraqis to Win, the U.S. Must Lose, David Brooks, May 11, 2004

posted by Jerry Bowles 9:17 AM

Last call for alcohol…

It’s no secret that the White House has “issues” with Brazil… the government of populist leader Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva doesn’t “play ball.” Brazil isn’t part of the “coalition of the willing.” They don’t buy in to the Bush notion of “free trade.“ With a population of 200 million, Brazil has a powerful group of ethnic Lebanese-Syrian citizens who oppose US policy in Iraq. They aren’t comfortable with US trust fund brats posing as eco-tourists and trying to save their rain forest. And while we struggle with the cost of oil imports and prospects of three dollar gas, half the cars in Brazil run on ethanol fuel made from locally grown sugar.

In an attempt to discredit “Lula” and his populist, non-aligned policies and tarnish Brazil‘s image with international lenders, the New York Times on Sunday published an article by Larry Rohter alleging that the Brazilian leader has a drinking problem. The Times article had all the classic earmarks of US Embassy “press guidance” written all over it. With their narrow focus on Kerry counterspin, it's not surprising that the Daily Howler failed to see the story on their radar screen. The government of Brazil has responded by saying "we do not consider this article to be valid journalism."

posted by Groom 8:30 AM

Monday, May 10, 2004

BBC vindicated in Bliar WMD reporting

Earlier this year Lord Hutton counducted an inquiry into improper activity by the BBC when it accused the Bliar government of "sexing up" reports of WMD in Iraq in order to justify the war. The law lord concluded that BBC journalist's charge that Bliar and his minions jacked the intel was "unfounded." Now, a follow-up investigation has found that the BBC and Gilligan followed normal production procedures in the presentation of the core script of that program. Bliar is alleged to have ordered the "sexed up" intelligence report just one hour after a phone conversation with... president Bush.

posted by Groom 10:51 PM

"Huddled Masses," The Sequel

What Bush sees:

What the Arab world sees:

posted by Michael 7:03 PM

Bubba Bandar to the rescue...

Now that Iraq's oil exports from Basra port have been cut in half by a terrorist attack that shut down one of the two main pipelines, the Saudis, who just a few weeks ago were calling for reduction in output, are calling for OPEC, the world's largest non free trade organization, to turn the faucet back on big time. Prices are easing downward. Bubba did say he'd do anything to help "the incumbent" stay in office. But the $64 question is whether he was wearing his Dockers and Luccheses that day or if he was in mufti?

posted by Groom 6:46 PM

Maybe This Is The "Democracy" Bush Envisions For Us All?

From the Financial Times:

Coalition military intelligence officers believed 70-90 per cent of Iraqi detainees were "arrested by mistake", according to a leaked Red Cross report on prisoner abuse, further details of which were disclosed on Monday.

The confidential report, given to the US and British governments in February but covering events in March to November last year, describes a pattern of indiscriminate arrests involving destruction of property and brutal behaviour towards suspects and their families.

* * * * *

The report, published in full on Monday by the Wall Street Journal, said arrests tended to follow a pattern. "Arresting authorities entered houses usually after dark, breaking down doors, waking up residents roughly, yelling orders, forcing family members into one room under military guard while searching the rest of the house and further breaking doors, cabinets and other property.

"Sometimes they arrested all adult males present in a house, including elderly, handicapped or sick people. Treatment often included pushing people around, insulting, taking aim with rifles, punching and kicking and striking with rifles."

Not to mention that most if not all of this shouted, chaotic questioning takes place in a foreign tongue. On the basis of which, they throw you in prison indefinitely and torture you.

If this is what Bush means by "democracy," I'm signing up with the "terrorists" . . .

posted by Michael 6:19 PM

Just Wondering

Okay, okay. I get Kerry's strategy. If you see a man who has just been run over by a crosstown bus there is no point in going over and punching him in the face. It just makes you look bad. But, what if the guy who has just been run over is a vampire? Wouldn't it be prudent to drive a stake through his heart just in case?

posted by Jerry Bowles 5:46 PM

The Morons Who Lost the War

The Military Times, in its latest editorial, hints that it's time for Rummy (and by implication, Bush) to go:

A failure of leadership at the highest levels

Around the halls of the Pentagon, a term of caustic derision has emerged for the enlisted soldiers at the heart of the furor over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal: the six morons who lost the war.
* * * * * *
But the folks in the Pentagon are talking about the wrong morons.
* * * * * *
This was not just a failure of leadership at the local command level. This was a failure that ran straight to the top. Accountability here is essential — even if that means relieving top leaders from duty in a time of war.

Question you should use to pester your wingnut friends and acquaintances: "Why does the US military hate America?"

posted by Michael 5:35 PM

Prison abuse starts at home

Wackenhut. Corrections Corporation of America, Correctional Medical Services. The private contractors who said they could do it better in the wake of the Attica massacre three decades ago have come up short, creating a culture that covers-up abuse, complete with lobbyists who grease legislators and right-wing think tanks who pimp the cause.

The United States has the world’s highest per capita incarceration rate. Shrubby’s home state of Texas is right at the top of the standings. Nobody wants to look at prison abuse at home. And nobody in Congress is bothering to ask why, with all the abuse and torturing, wasn’t the quality of the information the “interrogators” dumped into the intelligence cycle any better than it was. Just look where we are now in Iraq.

posted by Groom 2:23 PM

Here We Go Again

Just in time for campaign season, your latest terror threat! Coming off the bench, the dreaded Dirty Bomb! With the usual cast of characters: the ex-Soviet agents, Al Qaeda's Weapons of Mass Destruction Committee (are the members of the committee appointed, or is there an election?), and other assorted "evil doers".

I wonder, does the press just recycle old threats, or do we really have something to worry about?



Brian Rodgers

posted by FPN 12:09 PM

Will Kerry Snatch Defeat from the Jaws of Victory?

Zogby believes the election is Kerry's to lose and while he is doing an excellent job of doing just that right now he has always been a good closer. The handful of people who haven't already decided are looking for an alternative to Bush. Kerry needs only to offer a halfway decent reason for them to break his way. Let's hope Zogby is right because Kerry has been dismal since he fell under the thrall of the DLC types.

posted by Jerry Bowles 10:43 AM

Higher and Deeper

The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required)that the Red Cross lodged complaints about abusive treatment of Iraqi prisoners over a year ago, well before U.S. officials acknowledged problems. The Journal published a full copy of the confidential report today which said, in part:

"ICRC delegates directly witnessed and documented a variety of methods used to secure the cooperation of the persons deprived of their liberty with their interrogators." The report said the abuses - some "tantamount to torture" - include brutality, hooding, humiliation and threats of "imminent execution."

"These methods of physical and psychological coercion were used by the military intelligence in a systematic way to gain confessions and extract information and other forms of cooperation from persons who had been arrested in connection with suspected security offenses or deemed to have an 'intelligence value.'"

The ICRC confirmed the authenticity of the report.

posted by Jerry Bowles 9:03 AM

The other war for oil… Colombia and Venezuela

Venezuela sits on 348 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, substantially more than Iraq. Saudi Arabia only sits on 261 billion. The Bush administration doesn’t like it that 13 percent of total US oil imports come from Venezuela particularly when our petrodollars fill the tank of maverick leader Hugo Chavez. That number will rise with oil hanging out at $40/barrel.

Unable to think beyond the Cold War paradigm, Rice-a-roni and her NSC compadre Contra Thug Abrams are trying to convince the world that the cantankerous Chavez is the region’s next Fidel Castro. But he’s no more corrupt than Shrubby, Lord Cheney, “Kenny Boy” Lay or Bernie Ebbers. Should it be any surprise then that 56 coup-ready mercenaries, many from Colombia, were rounded up and arrested Saturday at the ranch of Roberto Alonso, an anti-Castro Cuban living in Venezuela.

Depending on who you talk to, about 1,000 US military personnel (not including “contractors”) operate in Colombia as “trainers” and “advisers”…and nobody’s asking what kind of interrogation techniques they use. As you read this, the White House wants to increase the number of troops and contractors operating in Colombia.

As if they aren't wasting enough of our tax dollars on bonehead national security moves, Rice-a-roni, Abrams, Roger Noriega and “consultant” Otto Johan Reich would like nothing more to have a contingent of US troops posted along the Colombia-Venezuela border (when you can figure out where it is). Yesterday, the State Department issued a denial that Washington was planning to increase the number of US troops in Colombia under the guise of “anti-terrorist” operations.

The White House propaganda technique of linking Chavez with Fidel Castro is no different than the methodology it has used successfully to convince more than 50% of all Americans that Saddam Hussein is linked incontrovertibly with Osama bin Laden. Just a few more fabrications and Congress will be bamboozled into rubber stamping whatever troop and contractor levels the White House wants to send to Colombia.

What’s wrong with the Chavez agenda of share-the-wealth populism, bootstrap programs for indigenous people and alliances of convenience with left wing groups and drug organizations? We look the other way when this stuff goes down in Pakistan, and Turkey, not to mention Indonesia. Right-wingers say the Chavez regime encourages the “bad guys" in Colombia (including the FARC and mainstream tyros, and left wing liberation theology types) who seek regime change, land reform, better income distribution, improved education, access to health care and eradication of hunger. These basic building blocks of Democracy and social justice are exactly what the Contras, and our puppets in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador worked so hard to destroy.

One reason the White House and their Cuban and Colombian friends can’t uproot Chavez is that he owns a get-out-of-jail free card courtesy of OPEC, the world‘s most powerful non-free trade organization. Former OPEC Secretary General, Ali Rodriguez, a Chavez ally, who started his political career in Venezuela as a left wing guerrilla, seems to have a sixth sense for knowing when Washington’s proxy workers plan to drop their next dime.

Bottom line… by continuing to alienate Chavez and acting unilateraly in Colombia, the White House increases the probability of broader linkage between local populists and guerrillas and international Islamic groups with ties to drugs and drug money who already have a strong foothold in the northern tier of Latin America, up the Isthmus and into Mexico. Two decades after Ronald Reagan bragged that his efforts to drive down the price of oil "brought OPEC to its knees" Shrubby's pal Bubba Bandar is getting the last laugh.

posted by Groom 2:34 AM

Another Great Headline from Newsweek

American Terminator
Character flaws: The U. S. can inflict great damage while sustaining none, and is programmed to rebuild itself, but not others. That’s its problem.

posted by John 12:41 AM

Have You Seen This Man?


Call 800-no cajones

posted by Jerry Bowles 12:37 AM

Sunday, May 09, 2004

Is it time to get out?

Michelle Goldberg at Salon.com offers a fascinating roundup of opinion from left and right that is calling for the USA to cut its losses and get out of Iraq. The most telling line in the piece is the one from a Poli Sci professor who notes that these opinions, once confined to the fringes, are "creeping toward the center." Also fascinating is a Zogby analysis of how this trend is posing problems for both the Bush and Kerry campaigns.

posted by John 11:38 PM

NEWSWEEK: In Recent Months, Some Senior Members of Congress Given Highly Classified Briefings Indicating U.S. Interrogators Not Necessarily 'Going to Stick With The Geneva Convention'
Can we say that, to paraphrase a fine old military saying, the shit doesn't just flow down hill. The fan just sprayed it all over the room.

posted by John 11:09 PM

Meet the New "C"

Tony Bliar rewards his friends and protectors. John Scarlett fronted some big time points to Bliar on the WMD fabrications and the death of MOD investigator David Kelley. Now Bliar has named the former Cold Warrior to run MI6. Let's hope there's more transparency. More veracity. In a nation where the concept of civil service still means something, that some lessons have been learned.

posted by Groom 2:08 PM

Democracy is Messy

Seymour Hersh shows, again, why he is a national treasure.

posted by Jerry Bowles 12:59 PM

Come, Let Us Reason Together

April 2003 - The Defense Department approves interrogation techniques for use at the Guantanamo Bay prison that permit making detainees disrobe entirely for questioning, reversing normal sleep patterns and exposing prisoners to heat, cold and "sensory assault," including loud music and bright lights. Policy approved at highest levels.

August 2003 - Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, former head of the Guantanomo Bay concentration camp and now the man responsible for fixing things in Iraq, conducts an inquiry on interrogation and detention procedures in Iraq with the goal of producing more intelligence. He recommends that "that the guard force be actively engaged in setting the conditions for successful exploitation of the internees."

His recommendation appears to be in direct conflict with Army Regulation 190-8, which states: "All persons captured, detained, interned or otherwise held in U.S. armed forces custody during the course of conflict will be given humanitarian care and treatment from the moment they fall into the hands of U.S. forces until final release or repatriation." It also runs counter to the traditional mission of military police to maintain safe and orderly prisons.

November 2003 - General Ricardo Sanchez issues an order that gives the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade tactical control over the Abu Ghraib prison.

October - December 2003 – MPs at Abu Ghraib engage in what Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba later finds to be "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses" inflicted on Iraqis held at Abu Ghraib and points to credible evidence that military police guards were improperly drawn into the role of s