The Opposite of Peace Is — War?

Been reading a lot about World War II lately. My father fought in that war. He lost the hearing on one side thanks to shrapnel that perforated his eardrum. He lost many of his friends. He nearly lost his life.

But my reason for reading is both greater and lesser than a desire to know a little piece of my father's history: I am writing a novel set in that period.

And today, I came across something that encapsulates very nicely the malaise that the reading of the past several weeks has engendered in me. FTA:

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

And what is this bill?

This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.

Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler, War Is A Racket

While Japanese farmers, office workers, and civilians were restricted to the grayest of lives by the sumptuary laws enforced before and during WW II, while Japanese intellectuals trembled under the heavy hand of the thought police and suffered torture by the Kempeitai, while Chinese peasants starved and their children were forcibly inducted into the military to fight against superior armies and lose their lives for a pittance, the wealthy crooks who engineered these wars became wealthier still. Come rain or shine, they continued to find ways to profit from the vast human suffering.

George W. Bush paid for the war in Iraq by borrowing billions of dollars from the Chinese. Now your grandchildren will have to repay that debt. I hear some people say Obama is creating a huge debt by borrowing additional monies to stimulate the economy. Unfortunately, the hole that Bush left has to be patched before everything else leaks out of it. And the only way to patch that hole is to stimulate the economy into spending.

People forget that the U.S. economy runs on consumer spending. Before George Dumbya left office, the Iraq war had already cost us three TRILLION dollars. We are bringing our troops back now, but that costs money too. Then there's the issue of reintegrating them into the smashed civilian economy. All the while, the war profiteers like Dick "Dick" Cheney sit back on their seats and bwa-ha-haaa themselves into something like an orgasm. I wish it were an organism. Something intestinal and painful and lengthy.

How many kids have lost their parents in this war? Iraqi kids? Somewhere between one and five million? American kids? Somewhere between three and ten thousand? Nobody really knows. In 2004, when the total casualty figures were around 2,000, Scripps stated that 900 American children had lost a parent to the war. However, the casualty toll has doubled since then, and most of the soldiers in this war have been professional military and reservists, which means they tend to be older, married, and have more children.

How many kids are getting back parents who are not the people they used to be? Broken in body or mind or both? How many kids have to grow up really fast, to become caretakers to their parents instead of being children any more? Smedley Butler was right. War IS a racket.

Blackwater mercenaries made two to three times the salaries of military men for the same work. No-bid government contracts made a lot of people very rich. The wholesale plunder of Iraqi oil made other people (or sometimes the same people) very rich. To us, the taxpayers, is left the broken mess, the debris, the tortured, the cripple, the lame, the halt, the blind, the miserable, people who are still fighting the war in their heads, crying themselves to sleep or drinking or drugging to forget. And they are living among us as are their suffering parents and spouses and children.

The dividends of peace are happy human lives. However, these do not represent adequate profits to those whose greed drives them to profit above all else. And to achieve those profits they will willingly sacrifice every last man, woman, and child of us upon an altar of blood.

Skeptical Eye for an Eye

Historic Bible pages put online
Will this tell us what we yearn to know;
Ancient text translated into languages
Unknown to the earth’s mortal choir,
Source of so much grief and slaughter?

Read more Head-Lines

BEFORE/BEGINNING/NOW

BEFORE OBAMA



BEGINNING OBAMA





NOW OBAMA

Investigating Torture from Intrepid Liberal Journal

Former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega made news recently urging that we don't rush into appointing a special prosecutor to investigate crimes of torture under President George W. Bush. In a provocative April 20th post entitled "Of Black Holes and Radio Silence," Ms. de la Vega wrote:

"There is no doubt that sometime in 2002 - if not before - Bush administration officials and their lawyers began orchestrating a torture campaign, which they calculatedly attempted to justify through specious legal memos. They continued to abuse prisoners, and to conceal that mistreatment from Congress and the public, through at least 2008. In all of this conduct, they have committed grave crimes for which they must be held accountable. I believe this to be a national imperative of the highest order."

However, she also argues that,

"First, the bottom line: From the perspective of anyone who wants Bush and Cheney and their top aides to be held accountable for their crimes, the designation of some sort of independent prosecutor right now would be the worst possible eventuality. It's a move that has so many downsides - and holds so few real benefits - that I would be more inclined to question President Obama's motives if he appointed a special prosecutor than if he did not. There is a reason why former prosecutor Arlen Specter - a Republican senator from Pennsylvania - has voiced support for a special prosecutor, while former prosecutors Patrick Leahy and Sheldon Whitehouse - Democratic senators from Vermont and Rhode Island, respectively - would prefer a public inquiry."

Please note that Ms. de la Vega's post was written prior to Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter becoming a Democrat.

Overall, Ms. de la Vega contends that appointing a special prosecutor now would undermine the cause of truth and accountability. It is her contention that transparent and public hearings would facilitate more popular support for prosecuting wrong doers than currently exists. As she wrote on April 20th:

"What we continue to need, in sum, are unwavering spotlights, even more civic education, and, most importantly, an irrefutable and cohesive factual narrative - comprised of direct and circumstantial evidence - that links the highest-level officials and advisers of the Bush administration, ineluctably, to specific instances and victims of torture. What we will surely have, however, if a special prosecutor is named, will be precisely the opposite: The initiation of a federal grand jury investigation right now would be roughly the equivalent of ceremoniously dumping the entire issue of torture into a black hole. There will be nothing to see and we will be listening intently to radio silence, trying to make sense of intermittent static in the form of the occasional unreliable leak. For years. There may never be any charges and we will almost certainly never have the unimpeachable historical narrative that we need."

Ms. de la Vega's position stems from her longtime experience as a federal prosecutor. She served as a Justice Department Attorney under Presidents Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II. She is the winner of numerous Attorney General's and community awards, including the prestigious Director's Award for Superior Performance. For over twenty-years, Ms. de la Vega targeted violent gangsters and sophisticated white-collar criminals in Minneapolis where she served as an Assisted United States Attorney and San Jose, where she was Branch Chief and a member of the Organized Crime Strike Force.

Since retiring from government service in 2004, Ms. de la Vega has been among the most vocal in pushing for accountability on a broad range of crimes allegedly committed during the Bush administration. In 2006, her book, the United States vs. George W. Bush, et al was a New York Times best seller.

Ms. de la Vega agreed to a telephone podcast interview with me about her views with respect to investigating torture and support for public transparency. Special thanks to Vern Radul, known in the blogosphere as Edger, where he manages Antemedius.com for persuading Ms. de la Vega to do the interview. Our conversation was just under twenty-minutes as I posed numerous devil's advocate questions.

Click here to access a flash media player for this interview on my blog. This interview can also be accessed at no cost via the Itunes Store by searching for either the "Intrepid Liberal Journal" or "Robert Ellman.

Listen to: "Intestigating Torture: An Interview With Former Federal Prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega" posted at the Intrepid Liberal Journal, on Monday, May 18th. http://intrepidliberaljournal.blogspot.com/2009/05/investigating-torture-interview-with.html

Truth & No Consquences

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

Unless hermetically sealed in a dungeon, I assume readers are aware of the “torture memos” authored by Bush administration lawyers in 2002-2003 and released to the public this past week by the Justice Department. Their release followed intense debate between Attorney General Eric Holder who advocated transparency and CIA Director Leon Pannetta who argued on behalf of secrecy.

Each time I started to read one I stopped out of disgust. I finally read them all yesterday after initially avoiding it. Ultimately, as citizens we all have a duty to familiarize ourselves with this dark chapter in our history yet it took me a couple days to overcome my reluctance and read these documents. Having done so I urge everyone to do the same and not simply rely upon the punditocracy and blogosphere for interpretation.

President Obama courageously and in my view rightly, authorized their release because we must not shield shameful truths under the false pre-text of national security. The criticism of former Bush officials notwithstanding, releasing these memos is an important step in the Obama administration’s efforts to rehabilitate America’s image.

The cost to our national security in releasing memos with respect to banned torture techniques is outweighed by the higher consideration of restoring America’s respectability with the civilized world. We can’t ignore our immoral transgressions because the world hasn’t and the national security argument is a false construct. Indeed, these now banned policies were ineffective at best and harmed our national security by further radicalizing the world against us.

Read More +/-

Many on the left are understandably outraged at the administration’s decision not to prosecute intelligence operatives who implemented these policies and have invoked the “Nuremberg defense” in venting their criticism. I sympathize with their argument even as I feel conflicted about it. Yes, I acknowledge feeling conflicted about what to do with CIA employees who were promised legal cover. Not all “truths” are absolute.

It doesn’t seem right to prosecute these people after the Justice Department promised they would not be prosecuted in the first place. To do sends a message that we expect these people to do our dirty work with the understanding they will be abandoned once the going gets tough.

I’d like to think I would have the moral courage to say no after receiving orders to engage in torture and resist the criminal rationalizations of White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Justice Department lawyer John Yoo. It’s easy for any of us on the outside to say these people should be prosecuted. We might feel differently if we had to walk in their shoes.

It also doesn’t seem right to simply ignore what they did. The CIA required cover from the Justice Department because they knew the Bush administration torture guidelines were illegal as well as immoral. Suppose this administration or succeeding presidents order their operatives to conduct immoral and illegal activities with respect to future detainees?

Is it not better to establish a precedent that punishes “following orders” that are illegal and reward those who stand up for the rule of law? Even if these employees are not criminally prosecuted they should pay a professional price and be fired. The culture needs to be changed and won’t be without some kind of accountability.

Without hesitation I firmly believe those who helped design these policies such as White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo merit prosecution to the fullest extent of the law. Prosecution should also include Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush and anyone else identified either through a truth and reconciliation commission or congressional investigation as designing and ordering criminal policies in our country’s name. It is to our everlasting shame that foreign courts are willing to prosecute Americans for war crimes, while we allow our own to go on as if nothing ever happened.

President Obama apparently believes absolving the prior administration for war crimes is analogous to President Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon: the only way to allow the country to move ahead. At least President Ford though “pardoned” Richard Nixon. The act of pardoning Nixon, although condemned at the time, at least acknowledged the man committed acts subject to prosecution. And Nixon had already paid a price.

There has been no reckoning for the figures that shamed our country or any sort of official acknowledgment that they engaged in criminal behavior. Congressional Democrats should have insisted upon accountability while the Bush administration was in power. It is to the everlasting shame of the Democratic Party that they did not impeach Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Gonzales after he later became Attorney General, when they had the chance.

I believe a mature democracy should be able to conduct the people's business and simultaneously pursue the truth no matter where or how high up it leads. If President Obama however truly believes prosecuting former members of the Bush administration, including Bush and Cheney to be a distraction the nation can’t afford, then he should pardon them. Let's assume for the sake of argument that President Obama is correct. That criminal prosecution of Bush, Cheney and their minions would paralyze the body politic at a time when action is needed on multiple fronts.

At least the act of pardoning sends a message that the United States of America acknowledges their wrongdoing for posterity. It would also forever mark those pardoned long after bloggers like me are dead. Pardoning them would further stain those who enabled their heinous policies. Those enablers not only include the Republican Party but Democratic leaders such as Nancy Pelosi and Jay Rockefeller of the Senate Intelligence Committee who were briefed on these policies. Even if the entire Bush cabal never serves a second in prison, pardoning them is far preferable than simply “not prosecuting” the most feculent administration in American history.

Otherwise, releasing these memos amounts to truth without any consequences. And that's not acceptable.

Dear President Obama ...

... for someone who is supposed to know law and who has repeatedly pledged to respect not only the rule of law of your country but also international laws and treaties, you and your administration are definitely acting like two-faced, mendacious, incompetents.

Read More +/-

Indeed (emphasis added):

Obama Justice Dep. defends Rumsfeld in torture case

In a brief filed Thursday evening, Obama Justice Department lawyers extended many of the same arguments made by Bush attorneys – that top government officials have qualified immunity from prosecution and that Guantanamo detainees do not have constitutional rights to due process.

The Department of Justice has asserted that a Supreme Court ruling reaffirming the rights of Guantanamo detainees to habeus corpus does not apply to plaintiffs in a case against former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld because the plaintiffs were released from prison four years prior to the SCOTUS decision.

“It is fair to say that the current brief that is filed by the new administration supports a lot of the arguments that were made by the previous administration,” said Kate Toomey, an attorney with Baach Robinson & Lewis who is representing the former detainees in an interview with RAW STORY. “They continue to assert that torture was in the scope of employment and could be reasonably expected. They continue to assert that these [top officials] be entitled to immunity. They also continue to argue that detainees at Guantanamo don’t have constitutional rights.”

Let me remind you of what I previously conveyed to your CIA director, Mr. Leon Panetta:

(...) the Convention Against Torture, which was signed by President Reagan in 1988 and ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1994, explicitly states the following among others (emphasis added):

Article 2

1. Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.
2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

Article 4

1. Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture.
2. Each State Party shall make these offences punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account their grave nature.

Article 5

1. Each State Party shall take such measures as may be necessary to establish its jurisdiction over the offences referred to in article 4 in the following cases:
   1. When the offences are committed in any territory under its jurisdiction or on board a ship or aircraft registered in that State;
   2. When the alleged offender is a national of that State;
   3. When the victim was a national of that State if that State considers it appropriate.
2. Each State Party shall likewise take such measures as may be necessary to establish its jurisdiction over such offences in cases where the alleged offender is present in any territory under its jurisdiction and it does not extradite him pursuant to article 8 to any of the States mentioned in Paragraph 1 of this article.
3. This Convention does not exclude any criminal jurisdiction exercised in accordance with internal law.

Article 7

1. The State Party in territory under whose jurisdiction a person alleged to have committed any offence referred to in article 4 is found, shall in the cases contemplated in article 5, if it does not extradite him, submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution.
2. These authorities shall take their decision in the same manner as in the case of any ordinary offence of a serious nature under the law of that State. In the cases referred to in article 5, paragraph 2, the standards of evidence required for prosecution and conviction shall in no way be less stringent than those which apply in the cases referred to in article 5, paragraph 1.
3. Any person regarding whom proceedings are brought in connection with any of the offences referred to in article 4 shall be guaranteed fair treatment at all stages of the proceedings.

Article 12

Each State Party shall ensure that its competent authorities proceed to a prompt and impartial investigation, wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committee in any territory under its jurisdiction.

Article 15

Each State Party shall ensure that any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made.

Incidentally, I ended this previous reminder of the laws of the land of your country, Mr. President, with the following probing question (addressed then to Mr. Panetta):

Are you then saying that you, and therefore the Obama administration, repudiate such laws?

It would seem that I now have an unequivocal answer to this question.

Hence, Mr. President, you and your administration stand in utter contempt of the laws of your own country, as well as of your own constitution and all international laws and treaties signed by your country to this effect.

Just be reminded of your very own words (emphasis added):

"But what we cannot do is have the president of the United States state, as a matter of policy, that there is a loophole or an exception where we would sanction torture. I think that diminishes us and it sends the wrong message to the world."

Therefore you, sir, are a blatant, shameless, hypocritical, and untrustworthy, liar.

Allow me to paraphrase what I conveyed already to your CIA director:

It should be obvious to you now, sir, that your demonstrated legal strategies so far not only constitute implied condoning of torture, but furthermore constitute a disavowal of the law of your country regarding torture - and consequently A) this makes you directly complicit after the fact of any and all acts of torture performed under the Bush administration; and B) this makes you directly complicit after the fact of the policies of torture sanctioned/approved/encouraged/allowed by the Bush administration.

All of which, under the same laws outlined above, render you and your administration equally guilty of criminal offences as outlined by said laws against torture.

Ergo: you and your administration are no better than your (criminal) predecessor and his administration.

Here is but yet another case in point: your pledge of government transparency versus your mendacious actions in this respect.

Mr. President Obama - you are a sham and an incompetent - and a criminal one at that.

Just. Like. Your. Predecessor.

You, sir, are no change at all.

You are merely an extension - and continuation - of the crimes against Humanity, human rights and civil rights, that have been committed over the last eight years, and which are now still being committed under you and your equally criminal administration.

Consequently, you may consider yourself put on notice regarding such criminality.

After all - ignorance of the law is not an excuse to justify breaking the law ... as you should well know.

May you go down as much in infamy as your predecessor has.

That, at the very least, would constitute small comfort to those of us who genuinely and sincerely uphold human rights, human decency and civil rights - you know - the truly civilized ones.

An ideal that you, sir, and your damned administration, cannot claim to be anymore.

(Cross-posted from APOV)

A Conversation (sort of) with George W. Bush

The audience of 2,000 of your sycophants paid $3,100 dollars per table to, I can only assume, listen to you apologize for your pathetically corrupt and mostly incompetent eight years as president. ...No. That would have been too unlike you. Huh, George?

"I want the president to succeed.

Gee! That’s mighty patriotic, not to mention grown-up of you, junior!

“I love my country more than I love politics.”

You’ve got one hell of an unpleasant way of showing it. This tells me that you haven’t a clue as to what the word “love” even means, which goes a long way in explaining why you think water boarding isn’t torture.

“I'm not going to spend my time criticizing Obama.”

That’s right, George. Your time will best be spent making jokes like the one you made in front of the crowd- "I actually paid for a house last fall. I think I'm the only American to have bought a house in the fall of 2008." –you miserable sack of shit!

“It's time for the former president to tap dance off the stage.”

Oh, but you’re still dancing, George! You’re still imagining yourself a Fred Astaire instead of a Fred Muggs!

“My purpose here today is not to criticize the president. He deserves my silence.”

The world deserves your silence, George. I’m rather sure, if they could’ve had their druthers, you’d have been silenced years ago.

“If he wants my help, he can pick up the phone and call me."

Again, George, you imagine yourself a man who has anything worthy to offer President Obama or humanity… other than your sincerest apology.

"I think it is essential that he be helped in office."

That’s funny. I, and millions of others, thought it was essential that you be helped OUT of office all the way back in two thousand and three.

"This is my maiden voyage.”

Damn, George! Must you also scare the children of Canada?

“My first speech since I was the president of the United States and I couldn't think of a better place to give it than Calgary."

You meant “…a safer place”, didn’t you?

"I’m going to write a book that’ll ask people to consider what they would do if they had to protect the United States as president.”

I can save you the trouble of writing a book that you’ll never read and neither will anyone else. The answer to your fallacious argument is `the opposite of you’. 

“It's going to be about the 12 toughest decisions I had to make."

Fascinating stuff, George! I suppose if the title of your book were “…the 12 mistakes (or crimes) I committed while in office.” then the number 12 would be laughably small, but at least it wouldn’t be a work of fiction...

"I'm going to put people in my place, so when the history of this administration is written at least there's an authoritarian voice saying exactly what happened."

What the-? …Okay. A couple of things right off the bat. Firstly, the Geneva Conventions do not permit you to put people in your place, George. Torture, I’m happy to say, is illegal again.

And secondly, when history is written about you George, it will indeed employ the word `authoritarian’ …And it will certainly, I hope, unlike your administration’s secrecy involving every-goddamned-thing, illustrate exactly what, when, where, how, why and to whom it happened!

"I want people to understand what it was like to sit in the Oval Office and have them come in and say we have captured Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, the alleged killer of a guy named Danny Pearl because he was simply Jewish, and we think we have information on further attacks on the United States."

You’re not the president anymore, George, so stop repeating the idiotic talking points (lies), you slithering shit-heel!

"I'm flattered people even want to hear me in the first place."

Come on, George! Your flatterers or ‘have mores’ can hardly be considered people, if, by people, you mean `human, with a heart, a brain, and dignity’…

"We just had a poll in our country where people decided that the foreign policy of the Bush administration ought to stay in place for four more years."

I guess one thing’s for certain; you haven’t changed one measly nth of a damned iota of a hairsbreadth of a mite-sized smidgen! You’re still lying like a damn dog! 

(In the 1950s, the Russian newspaper, Izvestia, described J. Fred Muggs, as "a symbol of the American way of life", and said, "Muggs is necessary in order that the average American should not look into reports on rising taxes, and decreasing pay, but rather laugh at the funny mug of a chimpanzee.")

Tip of the hat to The Huffington Post

RIP OFF

(Click to enlarge)

Dear CIA Director Leon Panetta ...

I would simply like to bring to your utmost attention that your internal e-mail boldly declaring that "agency employees who took part in harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects are not in danger of being punished" is in direct contravention of the law of your country.

Read More +/-

Indeed, the Convention Against Torture, which was signed by President Reagan in 1988 and ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1994, explicitly states the following among others (emphasis added):

Article 2

1. Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.
2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

Article 4

1. Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture.
2. Each State Party shall make these offences punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account their grave nature.

Article 5

1. Each State Party shall take such measures as may be necessary to establish its jurisdiction over the offences referred to in article 4 in the following cases:
   1. When the offences are committed in any territory under its jurisdiction or on board a ship or aircraft registered in that State;
   2. When the alleged offender is a national of that State;
   3. When the victim was a national of that State if that State considers it appropriate.
2. Each State Party shall likewise take such measures as may be necessary to establish its jurisdiction over such offences in cases where the alleged offender is present in any territory under its jurisdiction and it does not extradite him pursuant to article 8 to any of the States mentioned in Paragraph 1 of this article.
3. This Convention does not exclude any criminal jurisdiction exercised in accordance with internal law.

Article 7

1. The State Party in territory under whose jurisdiction a person alleged to have committed any offence referred to in article 4 is found, shall in the cases contemplated in article 5, if it does not extradite him, submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution.
2. These authorities shall take their decision in the same manner as in the case of any ordinary offence of a serious nature under the law of that State. In the cases referred to in article 5, paragraph 2, the standards of evidence required for prosecution and conviction shall in no way be less stringent than those which apply in the cases referred to in article 5, paragraph 1.
3. Any person regarding whom proceedings are brought in connection with any of the offences referred to in article 4 shall be guaranteed fair treatment at all stages of the proceedings.

Article 12

Each State Party shall ensure that its competent authorities proceed to a prompt and impartial investigation, wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committee in any territory under its jurisdiction.

Article 15

Each State Party shall ensure that any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made.

Therefore, it should be obvious to you now, sir, that your aforementioned e-mail declaration not only constitutes implied condoning of torture, but furthermore constitutes a disavowal of the law of your country regarding torture - and consequently A) this makes you directly complicit after the fact of any and all acts of torture performed by CIA agents since 2001 (i.e. under the Bush administration); B) this makes you directly complicit after the fact of the policies of torture sanctioned/approved/encouraged/allowed by the Bush administration; and C) by extension due to the context of your nomination as CIA director by President Obama, this makes the Obama administration directly complicit after the fact (through your own implied condoning) of the policies of torture sanctioned/approved/encouraged/allowed by the Bush administration.

All of which, under the same laws, render you and the Obama administration equally guilty of criminal offence as outlined by said laws against torture.

Are you then saying that you, and therefore the Obama administration, repudiate such laws?

If that is not the case, then I strongly suggest to you, sir, that you seriously reconsider your position ...


(Cross-posted from APOV)

Rush Limblah blah blah...

Submit Your Slogan

The Democratic Party will go through all of the submitted slogans, and the winner will have his or her submission appear on a billboard in Rush Limbaugh's hometown of West Palm Beach, Florida -- and receive a free T-shirt featuring the winning slogan.

Bush was to diplomacy what Rush is to neutrality.

Bush/Cheney Action...

Demand that Bush/Cheney be held accountable

for possible constitutional abuses

Goodbye, George W. Bush!

GWB has challenged my soul for the last eight or so years. I will be happy to have him off the scene. I hope that all the karma that GWB sent into the universe will return to him many times over.

Meanwhile, I giggle every time I watch this video from David Letterman's segment: Top 10 George Bush Moments. It only takes a couple minutes. I know you'll like it. Even Letterman could not keep a straight face...

Oh the memories! (Commit Them)

(A Poetic Justice Photomontage)

Rice and Gates Make Case for More Troops in Iraq
by Guy Raz
All Things Considered, January 11, 2007 • President Bush's secretaries of State and Defense spent their days defending his new plan in Iraq, first at a White House news conference and then on Capitol Hill. Secretaries Rice and Gates found only minimal support for a greater troop commitment in Congress. (More...)

The mouth of the desert stretches for miles
With mountains for teeth; men have their days taken
Under the searing sky’s furnace while others
Come seeking their death’s scent at night
Scouring the archfiend waste and carrying greetings
That blindly quake end to end with pale-hatred.

Commit them anon, rush them forward
And we’ll only suffer the graveness of more death,
More tumbledown hope under the searing sky.
Do not provoke this flesh-charred failure
Into our dear children’s breath, our ache-filled bones,
Like the noiseless chatter of death without end.


Copyright © 2007 mrp / thepoetryman

SUNFLOWER (A one woman short play)

B. i. g. 1/20/09

Team Players, All

Dear George,

Let’s chit-chat about the change that isn’t change, about the new dawn breaking over America that is really a setting sun. Let us wallow in the rhetoric of a new birth that is little more than a forceps-welding grave digger.

The Left sits in silent awe, believing that a Messiah has arrived. Give him a chance, they say. Now that the Democrats are running the show, it will all be different.

Progressives nurse the delusion that they can exert enough pressure to move the party to the left. They cite the sweat equity they put into your successor’s campaign and believe that each hour they spent phone banking is a political marker they can cash in on the day following the inauguration.

They forget that there’s a big difference between working a phone bank and making a six-figure campaign contribution. Those who write the checks never phone bank, they have a fact-to-face with the candidate in which they give him his marching orders.

The Democratic Party is no more. If you keep a person in a fearful crouch long enough, not only will he accept his cowering as the norm, but he will convince himself that such a crouch is necessary for his well being. This is equally true for a political party. The Rabid Right has the Democrats so cowed that any sort of progressive agenda is a pipe dream.

The circle is complete, and the Beltway is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wall Street.

Besides, it’s a hell of a lot easier to scam a frightened person than a brave one. Fear makes the mind malleable. We see this in the silence that has met the Israeli offensive in Gaza. AIPAC has the Beltway so frightened that there ain’t nobody who’s going to say anything about Israel’s indiscriminate bombing campaign.

The Beltway’s silence drowns Palestinian screams.

Our politicians still defend Israel’s right to exist, though any nation with two-hundred nuclear warheads doesn’t need any outside support to survive. Our support has nothing to do with Israel’s survival. The ultimate goal is a Trail of Tears for the Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank. Those who stay will do so under six feet of earth.

Rest assured that the new administration will “play nice” and all that you have done will remain untouched. Thirty years of abuse from the Right has taught the Democrats to be good team players.

Your admirer,

Belacqua Jones

_______________________________________________________________

Do me a favor...Stop by Case's blog,  

Open Letters to George W. Bush from his ardent admirer, Belacqua Jones, 

and thank him for his unwavering contribution to the progressive blogosphere.

Dear Mr. President - spoken word poetry by Alix Olson

Alix Olson

“A slam poet and activist, she can go from raging to adorable in the space of a couplet.”

Hillary Clinton on Morales and Bolivia

(This morning's post is reprinted from The Democracy Center, a progressive blog on Bolivia.)

As the Bush administration heads out the door, the U.S. Bolivia relationship is basically in political tatters. A relationship that started off rocky but hopeful when President Morales took office, descended into an ongoing diplomatic spitting war – over issues ranging from the U.S. Embassy asking Fulbright scholars and Peace Corps volunteers to gather intelligence for it, to charges that Morales was abandoning the battle against illegal coca.


All that hit rock bottom in September when Morales charged the U.S. Ambassador with stirring up political protest against the government and sent him back to Washington, followed by the U.S. sending Bolivia's ambassador packing, decertifying the Bolivia anti-coca effort, and axing Bolivia from a trade program threatening 20,000 jobs.


So the question is whether that sour turn in U.S. relations will change course under President Barak Obama. Morales has made it clear both in private and in public, in a series of speeches in the U.S. last month, that he is hopeful for a new start. How does the incoming administration feel about Bolivia?


Last January, we asked a friend of the Democracy Center, Tim Provencal, a former Maryknoll lay missioner in El Alto, to wade through the snows of Dover, New Hampshire and ask then-candidate Hillary Clinton a question about Bolivia. That video is a part of the Democracy Center's Voices from Latin America campaign which you can learn more about here.


Today Clinton is President-elect Obama's designate for U.S. Secretary of State. That makes her public comments in January, in which she voiced strong support for Morales, all the more relevant. Here's a video of her comments:

Here is a portion of what she had to say:


I understand the pent up desire of the people of Bolivia, especially the indigenous people, to finally have a say in their country and in their future…and I think that the United States has made a series of miscalculations. Granted they go back decades but they've been a particular problem in this [the Bush] administration. I believe we should have done much more to support Morales. He has done what is understandable, as a populist leader, he has turned to those like Chavez who have offered to help him…so I will try to create a new relationship with Latin America and that certainly includes Bolivia.


Time and politics, and the developments in the U.S./Bolivia relationship since September, can certainly have an effect on the way Secretary Clinton will steer that relationship. But if her views expressed in public in Dover a year ago hold, the door seems open for a change of course – and that would be a good thing for both countries.

Bush Incompetence - Self-Admitted Without Awareness Of It

Let's hear it again from the (lame duck) Supreme Incompetent-In-Chief himself (emphasis added):

Five years after he declared victory in Iraq on the US aircraft carrier USS Lincoln, President George W. Bush says he was "unprepared" for a war in Iraq that has gone on to claim thousands of American lives and tens of thousands of Iraqis.

"I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess," Bush tells ABC's Charlie Gibson in an interview to be broadcast tonight, and said he didn't know if he'd have gone to war if he didn't think there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

"That is a do-over that I can't do," Bush said.

He said incorrect intelligence about Saddam Hussein's arsenal was the "biggest regret of all the presidency."

"I think I was unprepared for war," Bush remarked. "In other words, I didn't campaign and say, 'Please vote for me, I'll be able to handle an attack,'" he said. "In other words, I didn't anticipate war. Presidents -- one of the things about the modern presidency is that the unexpected will happen."

But also he tried to spread the blame -- and his credulity -- for bad intelligence on others.

"A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein," Bush said. "It wasn't just people in my administration. A lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington, D.C., during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence."

"I listened to a lot of voices, but ultimately, I listened to this voice: I'm not going to let your son die in vain," he said. "I believe we can win. I'm going to do what it takes to win in Iraq."

In the interview, Bush also defended his administration's response to a now paralyzing economic crisis spurned by the failure of the US credit markets.

"When you have the Secretary of the Treasury and the Chairman of the Fed say, 'If we don't act boldly, we could be in a depression greater than the Great Depression,' that's an 'uh-oh' moment," he said.
It's not his fault at all, you see.

It's the fault of them terrorists.

It's the fault of that darn Global War on terror (TM).

It's the fault of that damn war in Afghanistan.

It's the fault of intelligence agencies and the cooked intelligence they were ordered to produce.

It's the fault of that damn war in Iraq.

It's the fault of all his advisors and senior cabinet members - especially Cheney.

It's the fault of Congress.

It's the fault of other world leaders.

It's the fault of Wall Street and the economy.

It's the fault of scientists and the environment.

It's the fault of the Constitution and all those other quaint laws.

It's the fault of his decisions and signing statements.

It's the fault of his intellectual sloth-driven ignorance.

It's the fault of his "gut-checks".

It's the fault of everyone and everything.

But it is not George W. Bush's fault if his inept Presidency proved destructively catastrophic.

He's the victim here, you see ...

Then again - that is the lot of incompetents like Bush. Remember the 4th principle of incompetence?

Fourth Principle: Incompetence does or says anything to defend itself.

(...) incompetents never take responsibility for their wrongdoings, or those of other incompetents within their "circle". This is what I wrote before: "Incompetents will do and say anything to defend themselves and other incompetents, including disassembling, obfuscating, lying and blaming others". Here's something else that I also wrote previously: "They lie, they misrepresent, they use decoy arguments and make ad hominem attacks. For them, the use of duplicity, of secrecy, of arguments of (non-existent) conspiracy, of fact (and non-fact) selectivity/cherry-picking, of quacks/fake experts, as well as putting forth logical fallacies, are simply means to an end." For incompetents, everything is about spin and truthiness - never about facts and truth. Even when they are blatantly caught, incompetents continue to react and reason with their intellectual sloth-driven infantile/adolescent immaturity - they will deny that they did anything wrong or that they have lied, then they will blame/attack (read: character assassinate) their "accusers". I call this: "Lie and Cry".
Q.E.D. yet again.

However, let us remember that incompetents stick together and defend/protect/justify each other - one more case in point:
To mark World AIDS Day, Saddelback Pastor Rick Warren is hosting a Civil Forum on Global Health at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. Warren will present President Bush with the first “International Medal of PEACE” from the Global PEACE Coalition in recognition of his unprecedented contribution to the fight against HIV/AIDS and other diseases. The “International Medal of PEACE” is given for outstanding contribution toward alleviating the five global giants recognized by the Coalition, including pandemic diseases, extreme poverty, illiteracy, self-centered leadership and spiritual emptiness. The Bush administration reports that its AIDS initiative helped treat two million people this year living with HIV/AIDS.
(because Bush did so much to fight AIDS indeed ...)

Which makes me wonder whether Bush will follow on Bill Kristol's advice to keep on dishing out medals of freedom to his incompetent peers/subbordinates:

In his new Weekly Standard column, right-wing pundit Bill Kristol lays out a to-do list for President Bush before he leaves office. He urges Bush to deliver speeches “reminding Americans of our successes fighting the war on terror.” Kristol dreams, “Over time, Bush might even get deserved credit for effective conduct of the war on terror.”

After urging Bush to fight the incoming administration’s desire to close Guantanamo, Kristol concludes with this:

One last thing: Bush should consider pardoning–and should at least be vociferously praising–everyone who served in good faith in the war on terror, but whose deeds may now be susceptible to demagogic or politically inspired prosecution by some seeking to score political points. The lawyers can work out if such general or specific preemptive pardons are possible; it may be that the best Bush can or should do is to warn publicly against any such harassment or prosecution. But the idea is this: The CIA agents who waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and the NSA officials who listened in on phone calls from Pakistan, should not have to worry about legal bills or public defamation. In fact, Bush might want to give some of these public servants the Medal of Freedom at the same time he bestows the honor on Generals Petraeus and Odierno. They deserve it.

In the Bush era, the Medal of Freedom has come to absurdly represent a reward for those who carried out policy failures at the urging of the Bush administration. By this standard, the implementers of torture and warrantless wiretapping certainly qualify for such a medal.

The Wall Street Journal reported recently that the White House “isn’t inclined to grant sweeping pardons for former administration officials involved in harsh interrogations and detentions of terror suspects.” President-elect Barack Obama is reportedly unlikely to pursue criminal cases against such officials, but is said to be considering a 9/11-style commission that would investigate counterterrorism policies and make public as many details as possible.”

Bush’s “record of stonewalling inquiries into his administration’s legally questionable behavior — the torture policy that led to the Abu Ghraib nightmare; illegal wiretapping; the politically motivated firing of federal attorneys — justify concern that he may be considering pardoning officials involved in those misdeeds,” the New York Times warns in an editorial this morning. “If he wants to try to reclaim his reputation, he can start by not abusing the pardon power on his way out the door,” the Times writes.

(talk about incompetence cheerleading for the rewarding of incompetence ... and the list would be long indeed)

In any event - thus the Bush Grand Delusion Magic Circus Farewell Show goes on.

However, I will add this: in the end, it is definitely the fault of the American people for having elected Bush ... twice.


(Cross-posted from APOV)

THIS IS THE END (FOR YOU)

ANTI-FLAG...

The Bush Legacy Equation: Authoritarianism + Corporatocracy = Fascism

Following up from this previous post, here are more disastrous Presidential directives being enacted by outgoing President Bush The Incompetent (emphasis added):

1) The Dept. of Labor proposed a regulation Aug. 30 that changes how workplace safety standards are met. Labor experts contend that the administration, which previously issued only one new workplace safety standard and that under court order, is trying to make it a bureaucratic nightmare for future administrations to make workplace safety rules.

Here’s what it would do:

Currently, if the Occupational Safety and Health Admin. or the Mine Health and Safety Admin. want to introduce a new safety standard on, say, the level of exposure to toxic chemicals, it issues what is called a notice of proposed rule-making. This notice is published in the Federal Register and then debated by labor, business and relevant federal agencies.

The new regulation would add an “advanced notice of proposed rule-making,” meaning OSHA and MSHA would have prove that, say, the said chemical was seriously harming workers.

This would open the door for industry to challenge the validity of the risk assessment and then, if necessary, the actual safety standard that may come from that risk assessment.

“The purpose of this sort of rule is to require agencies to spend more time on a regulation which gives them less of a chance to actually regulate,” said David Michaels, a professor of workplace safety at George Washington University, “You’re adding at least a year, maybe two years, to the process.”

The regulation has not been finalized.

2) The administration proposed a rule that changes the employer-employee relationship laid out in the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act.

Here’s what it would do:

The Family and Medical Leave Act says that employers must give their workers 12 weeks of unpaid leave if they are sick or need to take care of a family member or newborn. The employer’s health-care staff can check the legitimacy of the family or medical leave claim with the employee’s doctor or health-care provider.

The proposed regulation would allow the employer to directly speak with the employee’s doctor or health-care provider. The employer could also ask employees to provide more medical documentation of their conditions.

Why such a rule — which may threaten an employee’s privacy– is needed is unclear. The only study the Labor Dept. has done on the act was in 2000. The department collected comments from employers before issuing the proposed regulation, but a report analyzing the comments was never issued.

The regulation also would gives employees the right to waive their rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act, making it the first national labor law to be optional. A worker, for instance, cannot waive his right to earn a minimum wage or get paid more for overtime.

The regulation was finalized on Election Day.

3) The Dept. of Health and Human Services proposed a rule Sept. 26 that would expand the reasons that physicians or health care entities could decline to provide any procedure to include moral and religious grounds. The language of the regulation says the department hopes to correct “an attitude toward the health-care profession that health-care professionals and institutions should be required to provide or assist in the provision of medicine or procedures to which they object, or else risk being subjected to discrimination.”

Here’s what it would do:

The rule change seems to apply to abortion. But they are already several rules that say physicians or health-care entities can deny an abortion request. Some women’s health advocates contend that the proposed regulation’s broad language is meant to increase the number of physicians who not only don’t provide abortions but don’t provide contraception.

“Contraception is certainly the target of this rule,” contends Marylin Keefe, director for Reproductive Health at the National Partnership for Women and Families. “The moral and religious objections of health-care workers are now starting to take precedence over patients.”

The regulation is notable for another reason. A rule involving an employee’s religious rights must be referred to the Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission, yet the commission was never told of this proposed regulation.

A bureaucratic battled erupted when EEOC’s legal counsel, Reed Russell, wrote a regulation comment (pdf) blasting both the substance of the proposed rule and its disregard for the rule-making process.

The regulation has not been finalized.

4) On July 31, the Justice Dept. proposed a regulation that would allow state and local law enforcement agencies to collect “intelligence” information on individuals and organizations even if the information is unrelated to a criminal matter.

“This is a continuum that started back on 9/11 to reform law enforcement and the intelligence community to focus on the terrorism threat,” said Bush homeland security adviser Kenneth L. Wainstein in a statement.

Critics say it could infringe on civil liberties.

Here’s what it would do:

“It expands local law enforcement’s ability to investigate criminal activity that it deems suspicious,” said Melberth of OMB Watch. “But what’s suspicious to you may not be suspicious to me. They could be investigating community organizations they think are two or three steps away from a terrorist group.”

The regulation has not been finalized.(Read also this, if you will)

All of the above bring me back to the following other previous posts:
U.S. Bailouts = Bush's Final Pillage?

North American Security State: I Told You So ...

Reloaded: Do You Hear The Jackboots Coming To Town?

Oligarchy And The Idiots Who Rule Us

Got Protest? Lose All That You Own - Including Your Rights

Shhhhh ... Don't Speak, Don't Say A Word ...

Marching Straight Towards Authoritarianism

This Is How A "Soft" Dictatorship Works

Gitmo USA

Domestic Spying Abuse: You Were Warned

Can You Hear Jackboots Thundering On The Horizon?

While No One Was Paying Attention ...

Security, Hallowed Be Thy Name And Dominion

On The Final Steps In "Crossing The Rubicon"

More U.S. Secret Prisons And Indefinite Detentions Galore!

The *Real* "Axis Of Evil" Of Our Times

More Case Of Abusive, Paranoid-Driven Security State Domestic Spying

The Authoritarian Security State At Work

The Problems With The FISA Capitulation Bill

Your Privacy - Government Style

Brownshirts 'R US

Domestic Spying: The Ever Convenient Rationale Of The Security State

No One Is Safe: The Real Low Down

Telecom Immunity Capitulation: The Other Problem With This

Welcome To The Security State Of North America

Behold The Wisdom Of SheepIn essence, what Bush is doing in his last days in office is finalize the establishment of tools which allow the government to fully monitor and control the population through what can only be described as an authoritarian security state, while at the same time giving corporations not only unrestrained and unchecked freedoms to do as they will, but furthermore granting them actual powers to infringe upon, intervene into - and consequently, dictate - the private lives of people.

Indeed (emphasis added):
Whenever you apply for a job, you must submit yourself to all sorts of intrusions in your privacy, regardless what kind of job you apply for - from giving urine and/or blood samples, to granting permission for "security checks" on you (including credit reports), to submitting to wide-ranging questionnaires to assess your personality, including your psychological/cognitive/emotional state of being (not counting having to actually go through the ludicrous exercise of submitting yourself to a lie detector).

And when you are employed, you are under constant scrutiny - electronic or otherwise - in order to continually assess your performance during your "day at work". In addition, how many companies/corporations nowadays have "proper employee conduct" codes to which all employees must adhere to - including outside of the work place?

But company/corporate "elites" crave total control over their employees and there are large periods of time in a day, a week, a month and a year, when their employees escape their ever-watching, scrutinizing and controlling gaze: off-work hours, week-ends, holidays and vacation time.

Companies/corporations have kept increasing their requirements of what they consider "appropriate performance" on the part of their employees, while freezing (or reducing) wages at the same time.

In short: they ask you to do more and more and more, while they pay less.

Now imagine a day when company/corporate elites can actually know what you do in your "off-work" time - surfing the internet? Watching TV? Renting/buying movies? Reading books? Going to shows? Cheering your favorite team? Just spending time with your family in the backyard?

Imagine also if your employers became intimately aware of every facet of your private life, including whether you are having an affair (or your partner/spouse does), you or a member of your family has been diagnosed with a grave illness, your sexual practices (with or without your partner/spouse), which political party you adhere to, etc.

What kind of power, then, would your employers hold over you, your job and your career?

As example, how many people have so far been fired for "moral conduct incompatible with moral values/proper employee conduct" of a company/corporation outside of work, based only on rumors? Now imagine what can and will happen when actual facts are known.Here is but one tiny example to support this:
I just read something that has verily shocked and outraged me. Via Raw Story - Workers told to shape up or pay up:

"Looking for new ways to trim the fat and boost workers' health, some employers are starting to make overweight employees pay if they don't slim down. Others, citing growing medical costs tied to obesity, are offering fit workers lucrative incentives that shave thousands of dollars a year off health care premiums."

At the last, the companies and corporations are now flatly coming out, unafraid and unfettered, to proclaim their intent of actually controlling your lives as they see fit.

Not only does this constitutes a serious breach of human rights, such encroachment into our personal, private lives would leave us open to any desire, whim and fancy of the moment from high-minded, arrogant corporate bureaucrats whom, let us not forget, will ever remain watchful of the bottom line first and foremost, rather than your health and/or well being.

What's next? Employees being fined for not eating enough veggies? For eating too much meat? For drinking too much coffee? For listening to "non-approved" kinds of music or artists? For reading "non-approved" books or blogs? For watching "non-approved" TV channels and/or shows? For smoking cigarettes or having a drink, at home?

For dating a "non-approved" other?

For having a "non-approved" number of children?

For having a "non-approved" overall lifestyle?

For holding "non-approved" political views?

For following a "non-approved" religion, or specific denomination?

For belonging to a "non-approved" party?

For (fill in the blanks)?

For non-conforming to every single dictate of your employers?

(...) Via at-Largely: Chicago police stormtroopers swarm a gathering of poetry reading on private property - without warning and without warrants. Now, I am not a "fan" of poetry, but still ... looks like the Powers-That-Be decided that poetry was not for your own good, or something to this effect? Perhaps the quite innocent, legal and constitutional gathering was perceived as an exercise in subversion - perhaps even indulging in reading the Constitution, the most subversive type of literature of all? Or perhaps the nefarious shadow of poetic terrorism is on the rise again? How about the clear and immediate danger to Homeland Security for reading in public? After all, knowledge is a very dangerous thing indeed.

And further down we slide the slippery slope ...Yup.

Incidentally, there is a word for all of this: fascism.

The Bush legacy is nothing but a long litany of gradual destruction of the constitution, civil rights and human rights, all in order to leave way for a fascist state.

What is the price to pay indeed after eight years of Bush ...


(Cross-posted from APOV)