Antiwar.com Blog

Lenin’s Tomb has an excellent rundown on the Iraqi elections.

I responded to a post by Justin Logan in which he says, “…the problems with antiwar.com are many,” by asking such as? He answers in the comment thread here, and my reply is below the jump on this post, because Justin’s blog apparently does not allow HTML in its comments and I need linkage. Continue reading “Foreign Policy & a Beltway Libertarian”

A fascinating Zogby poll of Iraqis was released yesterday.

Some key results:

• Only 9% of Sunnis says they will definitely vote, 76% say they will definitely not vote.
• Majorities of both Sunni Arabs (82%) and Shiites (69%) favor U.S. forces withdrawing either immediately or after an elected government is in place.
• 53% of Sunnis believe that ongoing attacks in Iraq are a legitimate form of resistance.

has a reasonably good record in the US, but it must take some radical rethinking of his methodology to get accurate results in today’s Iraq. Some interesting results here.

Daily Kos has a No on Gonzales statement that at this time is signed by 454 bloggers. If you’ve posted opposing Gonzales, add your blog to the database here.

The statement:

Unprecedented times call for unprecedented actions. In this case, we, the undersigned bloggers, have decided to speak as one and collectively author a document of opposition. We oppose the nomination of Alberto Gonzales to the position of Attorney General of the United States, and we urge every United States Senator to vote against him.

As the prime legal architect for the policy of torture adopted by the Bush Administration, Gonzales’s advice led directly to the abandonment of longstanding federal laws, the Geneva Conventions, and the United States Constitution itself. Our country, in following Gonzales’s legal opinions, has forsaken its commitment to human rights and the rule of law and shamed itself before the world with our conduct at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. The United States, a nation founded on respect for law and human rights, should not have as its Attorney General the architect of the law’s undoing.

In January 2002, Gonzales advised the President that the United States Constitution does not apply to his actions as Commander in Chief, and thus the President could declare the Geneva Conventions inoperative. Gonzales’s endorsement of the August 2002 Bybee/Yoo Memorandum approved a definition of torture so vague and evasive as to declare it nonexistent. Most shockingly, he has embraced the unacceptable view that the President has the power to ignore the Constitution, laws duly enacted by Congress and International treaties duly ratified by the United States. He has called the Geneva Conventions “quaint.”

Legal opinions at the highest level have grave consequences. What were the consequences of Gonzales’s actions? The policies for which Gonzales provided a cover of legality – views which he expressly reasserted in his Senate confirmation hearings – inexorably led to abuses that have undermined military discipline and the moral authority our nation once carried. His actions led directly to documented violations at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and widespread abusive conduct in locales around the world.

Michael Posner of Human Rights First observed: “After the horrific images from Abu Ghraib became public last year, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld insisted that the world should ‘judge us by our actions [and] watch how a democracy deals with the wrongdoing and with scandal and the pain of acknowledging and correcting our own mistakes.'” We agree. It is because of this that we believe the only proper course of action is for the Senate to reject Alberto Gonzales’s nomination for Attorney General. As Posner notes, “[t]he world is indeed watching.” Will the Senate condone torture? Will the Senate condone the rejection of the rule of law?

With this nomination, we have arrived at a crossroads as a nation. Now is the time for all citizens of conscience to stand up and take responsibility for what the world saw, and, truly, much that we have not seen, at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. We oppose the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General of the United States, and we urge the Senate to reject him.

This message is from Human Rights First:

This week the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on the nomination of Alberto Gonzales for United States Attorney General.  Gonzales is the architect of U.S. torture policies that defined torture so narrowly that it undermined discipline in the military, put American fighting men and women at greater risk, and compromised the ability of the United States Government to hold the moral high ground.

Human Rights First is formally opposing Alberto Gonzales’ confirmation and they have created a web movie that explains how Gonzales’ legal advice opened the door for the prison abuse scandals that shocked the United States and the rest of the world. Click here to view the web movie now!

Once you’ve seen the movie, you can take action by urging your Senators to vote against Albert Gonzales’ nomination for U.S. Attorney General. 

Hmmm:

I still strongly believe that no blogger is obligated to write about any topic, but I just find it interesting that web personalities who one would think would be big Michael Moore fans are collectively shrugging their shoulders over this. …

Nothing (so far) at Eschaton, Daily Kos, James Wolcott, Josh Marshall, Kevin Drum, Matthew Yglesias, Tapped, The Left Coaster…

– National Review blogger Jim Geraghty on Tuesday (one of three long posts on Moore’s Oscar snub)

[zip, zilch, nada]

– blogger Jim Geraghty today (as of 8:00 pm Central) on America’s deadliest day yet in Iraq

Not so much as a “we mourn the fallen” from Glenn Reynolds, either, though he does have some “good news” from Iraq, so he’s apparently still aware the place exists. Ditto Andrew Sullivan, Jeff Jarvis, and Roger L. Simon (these were the only ones I checked, but I think they’ll suffice to establish a pattern). Guess Fred Reed is right:

No one in the mysteriously named “elite” gives a damn about some kid from a town in Tennessee that has one gas station and a beer hall with a stuffed buck’s head. Such a kid is a redneck at best, pretty much from another planet, and certainly not someone you would let your daughter date. … Thank God for throwaway people.

UPDATE 10:30 pm CT: Jeff Jarvis has since added a note on this disastrous day:

We pay more attention when more people die. That’s ridiculous, even offensive. Others died yesterday and the day before. Some died in accidents, some at the hand of insurgents/terrorists/murderers. None of them should have died, of course. Some try to blame the president for these deaths; too few blame the murderers with blood on their hands.

And more stay-the-course yada yada yada. But at least he mentioned it.