Month: December 2004

It seems the looming confirmation hearings of Alberto “Torture is OK” Gonzales may be causing some behind the scenes turmoil, as evidenced by this article by NY Times international editor Andrew Rosenthal today, coupled with a New and Improved CYA Torture Memo from the US Justice Department. (Here’s the memo in PDF.) The torture memo, according to Jess Bravin in the Wall Street Journal (locked behind subscription, but Phil Carter quotes it here), “concludes that even under its wider definition of torture, none of the interrogation methods previously approved by the Justice Department would be illegal.” In case you were worried that anyone in the Bush administration broke the law or anything.

Rosenthal mentions the JAG controversy of last spring (I wrote about it here, and if you need to refresh your memory of the role of the delightful Mary Walker, see Billmon’s post from last spring, Praise the Lord and Pass the Thumbscrews) which makes me wonder if that controversy is still percolating behind the scenes and if they’re the ones refusing to go along with the…um, government self-exoneration. Rosenthal writes,

This month, several former high-ranking military lawyers came out publicly against the nomination of the White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales, to be attorney general. They noted that it was Mr. Gonzales who had supervised the legal assault on the Geneva Conventions.

Jeh Johnson, a New York lawyer who was general counsel for the secretary of the Air Force under President Clinton, calls this shift “a revolution.”

“One view of the law and government,” Mr. Johnson said, “is that good things can actually come out of the legal system and that there is broad benefit in the rule of law. The other is a more cynical approach that says that lawyers are simply an instrument of policy – get me a legal opinion that permits me to do X. Sometimes a lawyer has to say, ‘You just can’t do this.’ ”

Normally, the civilian policy makers would have asked the military lawyers to draft the rules for a military prison in wartime. The lawyers for the service secretaries are supposed to focus on issues like contracts, environmental impact statements and base closings. They’re not supposed to meddle in rules of engagement or military justice.

But the civilian policy makers knew that the military lawyers would never sanction tossing the Geneva Conventions aside in the war against terrorists. Military lawyers, Mr. Johnson said, “tend to see things through the prism of how it will affect their people if one gets captured or prosecuted.”

Well, no one in the White House or Pentagon need worry about getting captured or prosecuted, so their more freewheeling approach to torturing prisoners is at least understandable from that perspective. No wonder Rosenthal says, “Now America has to count on the military to step up when the civilians get out of control.” So much for civilian control of the military those old Founding Father types thought was important. They clearly never imagined a Bush Administration or a War on Terrah.

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A real road map for Middle East peace by John Nichols, December 30, 2004

Daily Yomiuri columnist John Jerney reporting, I’m the only one who’s been paying close enough attention to bring this story to a close.

It turns out that John Nichols is a hero! All along, selflessly, away from the limelight, he’s been getting out the word and he intimates he’ll do the same in 2005.

Ufot has been thoroughly discredited, it’s not raining frogs, it’s raining Questions. He won’t fall into John’s trap again, there will be no countdown next year.

As for poor Jack Newfield, he feels betrayed, behind his back John’s been gushing over a self-hater. Their relationship may be over, but they’ll always have tikkune.

After reading my post yesterday quoting Lt. Col. Paul Hastings as saying, “The terrorists are growing more desperate in their attempts to derail the elections and they’re trying to put it all on the line and give it all they can,” the author of the blog Hairy Fish Nuts sent a link to Desperation Watch, his collection of “desperate” quotes. So, there’s another thing to start bothering me as I read articles about Iraq. The desperate theme is almost as irritating as “anti-Iraqi forces” used to describe the resistance.

But, another thing about the “desperate” post seemed relevant this morning.

The former regime elements have watched Tikrit . . . slip away from their grasp over a period of time to the point where they have minimal influence over the local situation. They are desperate.

December 29, 2004 – spokesman for the 1st Infantry Division Maj. Neal O’Brien

You’d think that if the resistance had “minimal influence” over Tikrit, the US would use it’s stretched-thin manpower elsewhere, wouldn’t you? Like in Mosul, maybe.

Something Eli said the other day has been bugging me when I read news articles about the Iraqi resistance, because I never really noticed it before.

With MacWorld approaching, I’m reminded of the famous Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field. But Jobs has got nothing on the U.S. and Israeli governments, and the Reality Distortion Field they cast on the American corporate media.

Virtually every single attack by Iraqi insurgents these days is heralded in the media as “an attempt to derail the upcoming elections.” Not once have I heard an attack described as “an attempt to expel the American occupiers” or, perhaps less provocatively, as “an attempt to weaken the American resolve to continue their occupation of Iraq.” Even today, when there were a series of attacks not on elected officials or candidates but Iraqi police and National Guard, a Reuters article links the attacks to bin Laden’s message about the elections yesterday, notwithstanding the fact that bin Laden simply called for a boycott of the elections, and did not call for a “holy war” on elections on Reuters claims.

I came across this perfect example of where this is coming from today :

Insurgents tried to ram a truck with half a ton of explosives into a U.S. military post in the northern city of Mosul on Thursday then ambushed reinforcements in a huge gunbattle in which 25 rebels and one American soldier were killed. Warplanes fired missiles and strafed gunmen during the fight.

The assault on the outpost, which U.S. soldiers finally repulsed, appeared to be better coordinated than past attacks, with guerrillas apparently pulling out their strongest assaults in an effort to derail Jan. 30 elections, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Hastings said.

“The terrorists are growing more desperate in their attempts to derail the elections and they’re trying to put it all on the line and give it all they can,” Hastings said.

Right. It isn’t the occupation, it’s the elections. That’s why they’re attacking the US and anyone collaborating with the US. After the “elections,” which the US has already admitted will do nothing to stop the resistance, what will the next excuse be? I can already hear it. “They just don’t want Iraq to have a constitution,” they’ll say as they continue to occupy the country, and Americans and Iraqis continue to die. We just go from one Mission Accomplished moment to the next.

Mercy Corps is a reputable aid agency that has swiftly begun providing assistance to Tsunami-damaged areas in Asia, and accepts online donations (I just donated and they acknowledged immediately and it was painless). Here is some info on what they are doing now, from Care2.com:

Mercy Corps’ emergency team is on the ground, assessing damage and beginning a lifesaving response. They’ve started rushing shelter materials and other essential items to children and families who survived the earthquake. In the critical days ahead, Mercy Corps staff will work with local governments and other organizations to ensure that the greatest needs are being met.

Mercy Corps has the experience and expertise to effectively and efficiently respond to this disaster. They have operated in many areas of Southeast Asia for many years. They were the first U.S. agency to respond to the devastating earthquake in Bam, Iran last December. This year, they served over 6 million people in 35 countries.

Today, Mercy Corps need your generous, timely donations to help the thousands of survivors who will need shelter, food and medicine. Please give what you can now.

In a segue: looking at a map of the affected countries in Asia, and the numbers of casualties each country suffered, it was apparent that Myanmar (Burma) has been, somehow, miraculously spared — 90 People Killed in Burma – or at least this is all the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), the country’s ruling military junta is admitting to. What a pity that speaking what must be the truth is seen as weakness and will result in the people in that country not getting aid they so clearly could use.