[reposted from corrente 4/12/10]
200 years of jurisprudence is being overturned by our constitutional law educated President, observed guest pundit Jack Rice on Countdown 4-7-10. He and Olbermann were discussing the President's recent authorization of the assassination of an American citizen.
Of course the writ of habeas corpus -- a legal action, through which a person can seek relief from unlawful detention -- was overturned by the Bush administration and incredibly, to many of us, that decision was sustained by President Obama. The foundations of habeas corpus were established by the Magna Carta of 1215 in England. Our original 13 colonies used them to organize our constitutional republic.
Eli Lake explains how Bush and now Obama have legally accessed such extreme executive power :
The font of this extraordinary authority is a congressional resolution passed just three days after the 9/11 attacks. It says, “The president is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”
That’s it? All from this one assertion authorized by the Senate? The vote to this apparently nightmare-generating “blank check” was a neat 98 to zip. As we all know, no one in the U.S. Senate likes to be called "soft on terror." What the Gucci-loafered, deluxe health care for the rest of their lives and those of their families', set unleashed onto the world! How much extraordinary suffering has come from this! How much care and feeding of terrorism around the world!
After 9/11 we had the world’s sympathy. Now, global anti-Americanism and revenge terrorism are entrenched. Festering. Growing exponentially.
The latest horror for us here at home, a betraying President with Tony Soprano legally-endorsed behavior. The right to assassinate an American citizen, far from any battlefield, without granting him or her due process. Another inalienable right thrown under the proverbial bus.
Glenn Greenwald points out, Obama has gone farther than the despicable John Yoo surreally and amorally extending the jurisdiction of executive privilege.
Instead, in Barack Obama's America, the way guilt is determined for American citizens -- and a death penalty imposed -- is that the President, like the King he thinks he is, secretly decrees someone's guilt as a Terrorist. He then dispatches his aides to run to America's newspapers -- cowardly hiding behind the shield of anonymity which they're granted -- to proclaim that the Guilty One shall be killed on sight because the Leader has decreed him to be a Terrorist. It is simply asserted that Awlaki has converted from a cleric who expresses anti-American views and advocates attacks on American military targets (advocacy which happens to be Constitutionally protected) to Actual Terrorist "involved in plots." These newspapers then print this Executive Verdict with no questioning, no opposition, no investigation, no refutation as to its truth. And the punishment is thus decreed: this American citizen will now be murdered by the CIA because Barack Obama has ordered that it be done. What kind of person could possibly justify this or think that this is a legitimate government power?
Is it legal? Even technically? It is not moral. It is not ethical. It sure as hell shouldn’t be legal.
Emperor Obama has now assumed the due-process-less thumbs up/thumbs down decreeing power over the life of an American citizen. He will rely, of course, on U.S. “Intelligence” sources.
Right. “Intelligence.” A one-word oxymoron. For incompetence. For corruption. For chaos. For violence. For collateral damage.
The people that brought you the Iraqi WMD’s “slam dunk.” The ones busily destabilizing Iran right now. I guess you would call them "Lose/Lose behind the scenes scenario-makers."
The ones who “rendered” innocent people. Tortured them savagely into making false confessions. (If the “detainees” survived the torture, that is. At least 100 (that we know of) did not.) Made them languish in cages for years and years.
There must be a special place in hell for people who implement and for those who perpetrate such horrors. There must be another special place in hell for people who are blithely okay with all that evil and cruelty going on.
Tim Reid has an article about the most recent disclosures of Wilkerson, General Colin Powell’s chief of staff:
Colonel Wilkerson, a long-time critic of the Bush Administration’s approach to counter-terrorism and the war in Iraq, claimed that the majority of detainees — children as young as 12 and men as old as 93, he said — never saw a US soldier when they were captured. He said that many were turned over by Afghans and Pakistanis for up to $5,000. Little or no evidence was produced as to why they had been taken.
He also claimed that one reason Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld did not want the innocent detainees released was because “the detention efforts would be revealed as the incredibly confused operation that they were”. This was “not acceptable to the Administration and would have been severely detrimental to the leadership at DoD [Mr. Rumsfeld at the Defence Department]”.
Referring to Mr. Cheney, Colonel Wilkerson, who served 31 years in the US Army, asserted: “He had absolutely no concern that the vast majority of Guantánamo detainees were innocent ... If hundreds of innocent individuals had to suffer in order to detain a handful of hardcore terrorists, so be it.”
He alleged that for Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld “innocent people languishing in Guantánamo for years was justified by the broader War on Terror and the small number of terrorists who were responsible for the September 11 attacks”.
Jason Leopold spells out the horror of one detainee, the same one Col. Wilkerson is testifying for now:
Hamad was arrested in his apartment in Pakistan in July 2002, rendered to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan for three months, where he says he was tortured, and then transferred to Guantanamo, where he was interrogated daily and subjected to even more torture by US military personnel.
At Bagram, according to Hamad's lawsuit, "dogs were set upon [him] while watching United States military personnel laughed and mocked him." Moreover, he was forced to stand for three days without "sleep or food" and eventually collapsed. He was then sent to a hospital where it took him two weeks to recover.
"Mr. Hamad was not given notice of the basis for his detention until more than two years after first being detained, when a Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) was convened in November 2004," according to the lawsuit, filed in US District Court for the Western District of Washington at Seattle earlier this week. "Not until March 2005, nearly three full years after initially being detained, was Mr. Hamad officially labeled an 'enemy Combatant' by the flawed CSRT process," according to the lawsuit.
Of course this and other atrocities of “misjudgment”, “incompetence”, “criminality” are getting little attention by a corporate-loving media and seemingly callously detached public.
An article by Medea Benjamin neatly sums up some of the latest revelations of US atrocities:
Baghdad: U.S. aerial shooters chuckle as they let loose a torrent of bullets, killing over a dozen people, including two Reuters staff. Then they unleash another round on an Iraqi who—passing by in his van—tries to help the wounded. When the American soldiers discover they have hit two children in the van, they can be heard snorting, “It's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle.”
No one—from those who pulled the triggers to those who gave the okay—has been punished for the murder of these innocents. That’s because this blatant disregard for human life falls within the rules of engagement. And the only reason the incident came to light is thanks to Reuters for its persistence and to Wikileaks for procuring the footage and putting on their site.
Gardez, Afghanistan: US Special Operations forces surround a home where a party is taking place for the birth of a grandson. Two men come out to see why they are being surrounded. They are shot dead. The US soldiers later report they found three women inside the house, gagged and murdered by their own relatives.
The Times of London later reports that the women were killed by the American soldiers. Not only that. To hide the murder, the soldiers dug bullets out of the women’s bodies and washed the wounds with alcohol to hide the evidence. One of the women was a pregnant mother of 10; another was a pregnant mother of six; the third was a teenage girl.
The soldiers dug out the bullets from the women’s bodies to cover up their crimes? Benjamin goes on about the drone killings of innocent people:
Our killing of civilians has spread to Pakistan, where the most deadly attacks come from unmanned drones. A report by the New America Foundation speculates that U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan have killed somewhere around 700 to 1,000 people, one-third of them civilians.
What about this recklessness and disregard for human lives in achieving military goals of operation? Is attention going to reducing the travesties, or reducing their media coverage back in America?
Remember when Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair back in January announced this assumed executive right of assassination and assured America that the President indeed took this awesome privilege quite seriously.
He added, "The reason I went this far in open session is I just don't want other Americans who are watching to think that we are careless about endangering … lives at all. But we especially are not careless about endangering American lives ...."
Whew. For a sec there I thought we might be in trouble. They trashed one of the most important civil rights of the constitution, the right to due process, but they are promising not to be “careless”! Promising for themselves. Promising, too, for all subsequent presidents and administrations with this now assumed extraordinary and dangerous “Mafiosi” privilege?
Eric S. Margolis recently quotes the Roman jurist, Cicero: “laws are silent in times of war.” He has much to say about the free-wheeling black ops CIA, mercenaries and other intelligence agencies and their questionable behaviors in our seemingly perpetual “war time.”
To the Pentagons’ anger, CIA runs its own killer paramilitary units and drone assassination operations, 90 per cent of whose victims are civilians, according to Pakistani media investigations. CIA’s paramilitaries report only to HQ in Langley —which does not talk to the Pentagon. Pakistan’s feeble government is not even informed in advance of Predator strikes and assassinations on its own territory. How many of the 15 other US intelligence agencies and NATO forces are running their own little illegal private armies? US mercenaries are responsible for a growing number of civilian deaths. It’s only a matter of time before all these cowboys begin shooting at one another. Reliable sources in Pakistan report that US-paid mercenaries are staging bombings there and in Afghanistan in an attempt to incite popular anger against Islamic or tribal militants, and draw Pakistan’s army deep into the fray.
Washington brands all Al Qaeda and Taleban “illegal combatants,” denying them due process of law and the Geneva Convention’s prisoner protections. Murdering or torturing such “terrorists,” says Washington, is lawful. So what about all the US mercenary Rambos running amok, who wear no uniform, kill at will, and have no legal oversight and, as we saw in Iraq, get away with murder?
Greenwald asks the money question to us Democrats and/or progressives.
And what about all the progressives who screamed for years about the Bush administration's tyrannical treatment of Jose Padilla? Bush merely imprisoned Padilla for years without a trial. If that's a vicious, tyrannical assault on the Constitution -- and it was -- what should they be saying about the Nobel Peace Prize winner's assassination of American citizens without any due process?
Ray McGovern addresses the posturing of President Obama as protector against terrorism and the reality of his military imperialism. Also, how the CIA establishes questionable associations with “good terrorists” as in the adage “the enemies of our enemy are our friends”. Good terrorists? Like how we chum up to the Afghan non-Taliban drug lords against the Taliban ones? Get enmeshed in their in-fighting? Sounds very much like Cheney’s amoral ends justifies the means mantra. How is that working out for us currently in Afghanistan, one might ask. With Karzai stamping his foot, threatening to throw in with the Taliban team. You just can’t make this stuff up!
McGovern speaks of questionable covert US ops in Iran.
Into the memory hole went the past news reports about the Bush administration earmarking $400 million to support covert operations designed to frustrate Iran’s nuclear program and to destabilize its political system. There also have been troubling reports that the United States has helped “good” terrorist organizations, like Jundullah, in striking violent blows against Iran’s regime.
Again, in reference to the beating of war drums against Iran going on right now with our politicians and corporate loving media Matthew W. Hutchins gives us Noam Chomsky’s take on Obama and the Iranian issue:
The escalation of tensions between Iran and the United States is entirely absurd to Chomsky in light of the widespread acceptance of the rights of Iranians to develop civilian nuclear technology. He sees the cult of American Empire in the government's condemnations of Iran for refusing to follow the demands of the international community, because the definition of “international community” used in such rhetoric amounts to little more than the opinion in Washington, D.C. and among its allies. He cited to the hypocrisy of the U.S. position in its historical relationships with the three nations that did not ratify the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty: Israel, India, and Pakistan. These three nations, said Chomsky, have all received nuclear technology from the United States in violation of security council resolutions, but most Americans would not realize this, given the pro-government bias of the media.
Essentially, Chomsky believes that President Obama's foreign policy has embodied a continuation of the policies of George W. Bush's second term in office.
Eva Golinger writes of the US's and Obama’s aggressive posturing toward Venezuela:
... Although many fell beneath the seductive smile and poetic words of Barack Obama, it’s not necessary to look beyond the past year to see the intensification of Washington’s aggressions against Venezuela. The largest military expansion in history in the region – through the US occupation of Colombia – the reactivation of the Fourth Fleet of the US Navy, as well as an increased US military presence in the Caribbean, Panama and Central America throughout the past year, can be interpreted as preparation for a conflict scenario in the region.
Snip
Clinton’s regional trip was part of a strategy announced by the Obama administration last year, to create a divide between the so-called “progressive left” and the “radical left” in Latin America. It’s no coincidence that her first tour of the region coincided with the announcement of a new Latin American and Caribbean Community of States, which excludes the presence of the US and Canada.
THE COMING CONFLICT
A military conflict is not initiated from one day to the next. It’s a process that involves first influencing public perception and opinion – demonizing the target leader or government in order to justify aggression. Subsequently, armed forces are strategically deployed in the region in order to guarantee an effective military action. Tactics, such as subversion and counterinsurgency, are utilized in order to debilitate and destabilize the target nation from within, increasing its vulnerability and weakening its defenses.
Is our Commander-in-Chief addressing the needs and reality of the poor, boots on the ground youth of the U.S. military, as well as its innocent victims overseas, aside from assuring our troops recently that their traumatic brain injuries will definitely be addressed if need be? Wow. That is pretty cold comfort.
Regarding the men and women serving and dying or getting wounded or at best repeatedly traumatized in this seemingly perpetual war, Allen L. Roland talks about what he calls a moral bankruptcy in US leaders and many citizens. (His statistics on suicide, btw, don’t take into account suicides of veterans after they are home from combat.)
This is the seventh anniversary of George W Bush's FOLLY ~ the blatant illegal attack and occupation of Iraq ~ which to date has resulted in the following staggering statistics:
Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered Since The U.S. Invaded Iraq "1,366,350"www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeath...
Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In America's War On Iraq: 4,703
Number Of International Occupation Force Troops Slaughtered In Afghanistan : 1,692 http://icasualties.org/oef/
But here is a shocking statistic that you won't hear in most western news media: over the past nine years, more US military personnel have taken their own lives than have died in action in either the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. These are official figures from the US Department of Defense, yet somehow they have not been deemed newsworthy to report. Last year alone, more than 330 serving members of the US armed forces committed suicide - more than the 320 killed in Afghanistan and the 150 who fell in Iraq (see wsws.org).
Roland further addresses these horrifying statistics re suicide:
Since 2001, when Washington launched its “war on terror”, there has been a dramatic yearly increase in US military suicides, particularly in the army, which has borne the brunt of fighting abroad. Last year saw the highest total number since such records began in 1980. Prior to 2001, the suicide rate in the US military was lower than that for the general US population; now, it is nearly double the national average.
Why ? These soldiers have been little more than political pawns for White house Middle East power games and financial maneuvering and they know it. As Finian Cunningham writes in Global Research " In their guts, these US soldiers must know ~ as many other ordinary people around the world do ~ that these wars are nothing but a desperate, pathological bid by a dying power to salvage its crumbling empire ~ an empire that enriches a tiny elite and impoverishes the majority. Is it any wonder that many of them simply lose the will to live? "
Paul J. Balles calls us "the world’s sickest warrior state":
We have now reached a stage where our extreme horrors of brutality and cruelty have exceeded our past records. We no longer have the rationale of moral righteousness of the earlier wars.
There were no excuses for Abu-Ghraib, but our interest in that inhuman travesty dried up and blew away. We have little concern about our violations of human rights in Guantanamo. We care less about ill-treatment of Arabs and Arab Americans in the USA.
But the most extremes - the real horrors - of this war come with the primitive killer mentality developed in our youth. I've now seen a half dozen documentary films and read eyewitness accounts that reveal troops or pilots gloating over the massacres of civilians who just happened to be available targets.
Without doubt, the US has not only become the world's major power, it has become the world's sickest warrior state. Neither conscience nor empathy for others defines the qualities of the sociopath.
It's past time for humanitarians to reject the double standards set by warmongers and supported by arms-makers and the mainstream media. The clergy needs to stop preaching sanctimonious sermons. Finally, educators should adopt and teach a zero tolerance policy for self-righteous warriors.
I think Obama may be lost to the group-think of the covert military gamesmen. Nixon and Bush at least had some guilt to be covert about it all. The secrecy doctrine of non-accountability. But as Richard Wolfe points out, again on Olbermann's show, 4/7/10, Obama and his administration seem quite proud of this lunging into the world of black ops “fun.” Helps them, undoubtedly, with Republicans and the Fox News crowd. Let’s really take care of that threat of being called “soft on terror” once and for all! Getting into the assassination business. Yeah, that's the ticket!. The serious, stomping up and down on habeas corpus rights, too. That will show those bleeding heart liberals with all their snark!
Glenn Greenwald revealed that the Obama administration deliberately leaked the Obama assassination decree to the NYT and WP on 4/6/10.
In your face AMERICA!!!!
I consider Obama’s choices “High Crimes and Misdemeanors.” But high crimes and misdemeanors? Can anyone join me in this? Gee whiz, the bar has gotten so high for that in this day and age, what does an ethically derailed person have to do to inspire any sort of reaction in this learned helpless, boiled frog society of ours? What Rachel Meadow calls an “ethical freak show of a universe.” The normalization of high crimes and misdemeanors!!! With a President and media who successfully conflate morality with the negative "ideology".
Some liberals are still working hard for Bush and Cheney to be impeached. How ironic. Obama seems to be passing them out with his present lawless, constitution gutting shenanigans. Doing his triangulating, out-Republican-ing the Republicans once again, like in health care, as we liberals watch on, in continuing horror.
Hubris on steroids is Obama? Overachievement for his corporate sponsoring puppeteers, the ones ever organizing a “new (more profitable) world order”?
As for Congress. The Democrats so pathetically, Pavlovianly, phobic about being decried as “soft on terrorism” not to mention corrupt from insane lobbying bribery -- all of them, that is! So obsessed with the upcoming elections. Winning at all costs, no matter what citizen rights have to be jettisoned. Not exactly a source of support for liberals. For any of us, really. Most of them deserve impeachment themselves.
I recently in a blog accused 300 members of the House of treason. Faster than the speed of light, which is pretty dazzling for one of our two normally glacially-moving national legislative bodies, they presented a bipartisan (bipartisan!!! again, how dazzling) letter to Hillary Clinton to assure Israel, a petulant Netanyahu, neocons in both this and that country, all Jewish voters understandably cronied up with the welfare of Israel, and that ever powerful and vengeful AIPAC lobby that Israel’s welfare was our top U.S priority. Say what? And Israel, the country that really taught us the true meaning of pre-emptive defensiveness, should not have any doubt of unconditional support. Say what?
In other words, our US tax paying money and the blood of our soldier children would readily be spent on behalf of Israel according to these, our oath-taking representatives (I’d add “in name only”). They are assuring Israel we have her back whatever her decisions .... War with Iran? YOU BETCHA!!!! What are friends for?
Yeah, codependent, opportunistic, self-serving, manipulative, sociopathic friends, that is.
So we have a Roman emperor, militaristic President, still with that photogenic smile (what more do we all need than that smile), and a Congress that might as well move to Israel for where its true loyalty and capacity for pro-action lies.
I didn’t think anyone could possibly wrest the “most deserving impeachment award” from Bush and Cheney, but Obama incredibly seems to be working it hard.
Of the original, earnest, 80 million Obama supporters, I sure as hell hope you are paying attention right now!
--------------
Is it legal? Even technically? It is not moral. It is not ethical. It sure as hell shouldn’t be legal.
Is there an answer you have for the first two questions you asked in this quote? “It sure as hell shouldn’t be legal” doesn’t answer either of them. “It is not moral” doesn’t answer either of them. “it is not ethical” doesn’t answer either of them.
What is the answer, Libby?
Is it legal?
I recently in a blog accused 300 members of the House of treason.
Libby, you have got to calm down.
How can anyone consider your opinions reasonable…when you present them the ranting way you do…and when they contain nonsense like this?
If he object is to change things…to change people’s minds on these issues…you sure as hell are not going to do it like this.
Calm down.
Is there an answer you have for the first two questions you asked in this quote? “It sure as hell shouldn’t be legal” doesn’t answer either of them. “It is not moral” doesn’t answer either of them. “it is not ethical” doesn’t answer either of them.
What is the answer, Libby?
Is it legal?
I recently in a blog accused 300 members of the House of treason.
Libby, you have got to calm down.
How can anyone consider your opinions reasonable…when you present them the ranting way you do…and when they contain nonsense like this?
If he object is to change things…to change people’s minds on these issues…you sure as hell are not going to do it like this.
Calm down.
Sometimes anger is appropriate. Sometimes the lack of anger reveals stunning amoral dysfunction.
That I agree with, Libby. Sometimes both are true.
I truly hope that I am not exhibiting "stunning amoral dysfunction"--that this is not one of those times.
But even when "anger is appropriate"--as it may well be in this case, often it makes more sense to keep one's eyes on the prize...and rein in the anger in order to seem more credible.
That really is all I was saying, Libby. Honest!
I truly hope that I am not exhibiting "stunning amoral dysfunction"--that this is not one of those times.
But even when "anger is appropriate"--as it may well be in this case, often it makes more sense to keep one's eyes on the prize...and rein in the anger in order to seem more credible.
That really is all I was saying, Libby. Honest!
And if you have time...I'd love an answer to my question: Is it legal?
Superb post -- superb annotations -- so many esteemed minds in TOTAL agreement. bush the lesser started it, holder, the poster boy for obama, inherited it, obama owns it.
The question "Is it legal" is so stupid, it doesn't even merit an answer.
-R-
The question "Is it legal" is so stupid, it doesn't even merit an answer.
-R-
Libby,
;-)
You're gonna have to tell him!
;-)
You're gonna have to tell him!
not only a classic case of passive-aggressive personality disorder, but combined with:
PSYCHOPATHY
Aggressive narcissism
Glibness/superficial charm
Grandiose sense of self-worth
Pathological lying
Cunning/manipulative
Lack of remorse or guilt
Emotionally shallow
Callous/lack of empathy
Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy
A lethal and incurable condition.
PSYCHOPATHY
Aggressive narcissism
Glibness/superficial charm
Grandiose sense of self-worth
Pathological lying
Cunning/manipulative
Lack of remorse or guilt
Emotionally shallow
Callous/lack of empathy
Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy
A lethal and incurable condition.
I believe you are supposed to look forward, not backwards...
In some ways, I fear Obama may end up doing more lasting harm than the Bushies, because he effectively legitimizes their actions by not prosecuting them, giving them the stamp of bipartisan approval.
Take an issue like torture. The methods the Bush team approved must now be considered legal in the eyes of the US government, because if they weren't, the Obama administration would be obligated by law to prosecute those responsible. I actually wish he would issue a pardon to the former members of the Bush administration who were responsible for that policy. Yes, it would mean that they get away with it, but it would at least confirm that they broke the law -- and that the law remains unchanged.
In some ways, I fear Obama may end up doing more lasting harm than the Bushies, because he effectively legitimizes their actions by not prosecuting them, giving them the stamp of bipartisan approval.
Take an issue like torture. The methods the Bush team approved must now be considered legal in the eyes of the US government, because if they weren't, the Obama administration would be obligated by law to prosecute those responsible. I actually wish he would issue a pardon to the former members of the Bush administration who were responsible for that policy. Yes, it would mean that they get away with it, but it would at least confirm that they broke the law -- and that the law remains unchanged.
Thanks, Libby -- will "pm" you longer thoughts so as not to hog space on your blog. Short responses to Mark's and Norwonk's comments: Are people here aware of the recent publicity for Nassi Ghaemi's book _First Rate Madness_ (discussed a few days ago at Big Salon) _advocating_, in a sense, "mental illness" for leaders? A bit of a stretch to extend this to "narcisisstic personality disorder" but the underlying concept rings straight true to a recent blog of mine. Would be interested in any relevant thoughts. Norwonk, your response interested me greatly -- certainly a "new twist" for me and my thinking so far. For the sake of working against what we all seem to be agreeing here is (if I dare use this troubled-history/controversial word) "evil", which is worse? To continue the policies (and not denounce their previous initiators and agents) or to declare a formal pardon -- seemingly sending the (non-legalistic) message, hey, we don't think what they did was so bad"? You've raised many issues, Libby, with your usual persistence and thoroughness, for which my ongoing appreciation. R
Unfortunately Norwonk...that is toothpaste that will never be put back in the bottle.
The prosecution of Bush, Cheney was...still is...a very, very, very long shot at best. The chances of actually getting an indictment were slim; the chances of getting a conviction if indicted even slimmer; and the chances of not getting over-turned at the Supreme Court level is one atom wide.
Bad idea. A non-conviction would mean the shit would be carved in stone from now on. As it is--it is bad--I will acknowledge that. But still better than a failed prosecution.
The prosecution of Bush, Cheney was...still is...a very, very, very long shot at best. The chances of actually getting an indictment were slim; the chances of getting a conviction if indicted even slimmer; and the chances of not getting over-turned at the Supreme Court level is one atom wide.
Bad idea. A non-conviction would mean the shit would be carved in stone from now on. As it is--it is bad--I will acknowledge that. But still better than a failed prosecution.
Oops, make that "tube!"
As imagination has never been frank's strong point (other than the demons that inhabit the misfiring neurons in the object upon his shoulders), nor has knowledge of current events interfered with his fantasies, it would be surprising if he knew this:
"Two cases this month, including one by a federal appellate court, have furthered the possibility that Rumseld may be found personally liable for damages to victims of torture. It's a momentous sea change from his record of legal impunity in prior torture cases. The difference is, in the two suits that have been given the green light, the victims were American citizens."
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/rumsfeld-and-the-rule-of-law/1185473
It would be unfathomable to presume that frank had the slightest clue as to where such a prosecution could lead.
"Two cases this month, including one by a federal appellate court, have furthered the possibility that Rumseld may be found personally liable for damages to victims of torture. It's a momentous sea change from his record of legal impunity in prior torture cases. The difference is, in the two suits that have been given the green light, the victims were American citizens."
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/rumsfeld-and-the-rule-of-law/1185473
It would be unfathomable to presume that frank had the slightest clue as to where such a prosecution could lead.
Your rage is palpable and warranted. We have become a nation of sheep, with a third world educational system and horrid health care for our most needy and elderly. Rated
Glad to see You back, PodunkMarte -- was beginning to worry about You, and I echo Your thoughts on Libby's well thought out post, thoroughness, and persistence.
What a rush to see the rs, the comments and to make the right hand list for a bit! :)
Only have a few moments to dash off some further thoughts, on a break at work. This blog was written over a year ago but I still stand by it. Still waiting for the ethical and legal nightmare to be addressed not only in our economic fraud-fiasco but with the military one. Still wearing my black arm band that I thought I could remove in a matter of weeks once Obama got his act together and pulled out the moral compass. Oooops. He forgot to pack it when he moved into the WH apparently! Or didn't he have one in IL either????? You would think someone would have shared this! Oprah maybe?
Frank, if I considered those horrifying psuedo-institutionalized horrors of assassination, torture, droning, etc. legal I wouldn't be calling for Obama's impeachment.
What is happening in this country. Henry Paulson scribbles something on three pages and he is handed $700 billion of taxpayer dollars immediately to rescue the casino capitalists that committed fraud on us.
John Yoo to please the Bush cabal decides that torture is not torture and ignores human law, legal law and international law and there is a secret torture program, a Spanish Inquisition-type program institutionalized. God knows and nobody else the extent of the CIA black ops and whatever other black ops are so black we don't even have an inkling about the scope of their evil.
I know I don't win friends often talking about Israel, it being that proverbial third rail. Time that it wasn't imho! Our Congress is astonishing how particularly pimped out they are to AIPAC! And are shamelessly now enjoying the bennies over there vacationing while their constituients are drowning.
Mark, thanks for you continued enthusiastic support. I always sense I will have at least one nodding reader for my assertions. That in a sane world indeed would be rants but in this "ethical freak show of a present universe" as Rachel calls it (someone observed this on this site a while back about given the extenuating insanity I wasn't really ranting after all) they are appropriate in tone, deserved in tone, in trying to push back at amorality and apathy and sociopathy in the top levels of leadership.
Norwonk, interesting perspective. Obama's simply ignoring the morally and legally unignorable really does set up lots of dangerous precedents for follow up presidents, though he is making a fine amoral mess of things himself.
It used to be when 60 minutes came to your door, things changed. Now does 60 minutes really rout out evil or do they cherrypick, too, or Frontline? And even horrors are addressed by decent journalists, where is the legal accountability followup?
Who went to jail on any of this. Bernie Madoff? Only because he burned the rich, too, I guess.
I was thinking of that speech in the movie A Man For All Seasons with Paul Scofield (Sir Thomas Moore) and he talks about without law the winds will blast across the land and there is no protection for anyone. I should try to google and find it. It has been so long. But that Scofield speech Obama should heed, because as I have said before, he treats the laws and the constitution like they are only part of a "suggestion box" on his watch. Cherrypicking the laws or issues that are most convenient for him and his cronyism and his re-election. Dear God!
I don't think there is a lot wrong with our system of government in terms of the structure if it were really followed up on. I think there is a lot wrong with the corruption of the PEOPLE NOT BEING PROFESSIONAL AND ETHICAL and diluting the power of the watchdog groups. So saturated with corruption is our leadership it can't begin to fix itself from within. We need a whole new CROP OF PEOPLE OF CONSCIENCE in there.
The media proves how amoral the leadership and they themselves are. The media is so out of touch and so clueless about people with real lives and the suffering coming down faster and faster now.
All that hype about death panels. It turns out to be the three branches of government ironcially that are the real death panels. No, I don't think that is hysterical hyberbole. I think it is tragically true.
PodunkMarte, your book sounds intriguing. Will look into it. I know there is a hot one on sociopaths going around, or is it psychopaths? I didn't think sociopathy is contagious but they are charming intimidators and certainly line up any unawake enablers for themselves.
Frank, again, the spirit of the law is a given. To PERVERT the letter of the law and defy the authentic spirit of the law is evil, and often done retroactively in this shameless climate to help cronies or the profiteers bribing you with campaign money etc. (like Obama with FISA betrayal so early on when we all felt that leaden lump in our tummies ... who the hell is this guy who caved immediately!)
Erika thanks for the support re the anger. I have more guilt about getting angry prematurely commenting on blogs of others. On my own I figure let it rip. I feel we can't afford to feel sorry for Obama, though I do, since I think he must be a wounded man psychologically, but who isn't, but to presume to take on that enormous power and responsibility and turn out to be so lacking in empathy and I believe true character (which personality covers up early on).
They say when one person under-reacts to things, the person in conflict with the under-reactor over-reacts to compensate. It is a natural social phenomenon. Maybe that accounts for my ramping up my anger in my writing. I am sorry when it is offputting and I have gotten that feedback from allies and not so much allies, but I am going through my stages of grieving and also maybe anger makes me feel more like a survivor than a victim.
Gotta go! ty all. libby
Only have a few moments to dash off some further thoughts, on a break at work. This blog was written over a year ago but I still stand by it. Still waiting for the ethical and legal nightmare to be addressed not only in our economic fraud-fiasco but with the military one. Still wearing my black arm band that I thought I could remove in a matter of weeks once Obama got his act together and pulled out the moral compass. Oooops. He forgot to pack it when he moved into the WH apparently! Or didn't he have one in IL either????? You would think someone would have shared this! Oprah maybe?
Frank, if I considered those horrifying psuedo-institutionalized horrors of assassination, torture, droning, etc. legal I wouldn't be calling for Obama's impeachment.
What is happening in this country. Henry Paulson scribbles something on three pages and he is handed $700 billion of taxpayer dollars immediately to rescue the casino capitalists that committed fraud on us.
John Yoo to please the Bush cabal decides that torture is not torture and ignores human law, legal law and international law and there is a secret torture program, a Spanish Inquisition-type program institutionalized. God knows and nobody else the extent of the CIA black ops and whatever other black ops are so black we don't even have an inkling about the scope of their evil.
I know I don't win friends often talking about Israel, it being that proverbial third rail. Time that it wasn't imho! Our Congress is astonishing how particularly pimped out they are to AIPAC! And are shamelessly now enjoying the bennies over there vacationing while their constituients are drowning.
Mark, thanks for you continued enthusiastic support. I always sense I will have at least one nodding reader for my assertions. That in a sane world indeed would be rants but in this "ethical freak show of a present universe" as Rachel calls it (someone observed this on this site a while back about given the extenuating insanity I wasn't really ranting after all) they are appropriate in tone, deserved in tone, in trying to push back at amorality and apathy and sociopathy in the top levels of leadership.
Norwonk, interesting perspective. Obama's simply ignoring the morally and legally unignorable really does set up lots of dangerous precedents for follow up presidents, though he is making a fine amoral mess of things himself.
It used to be when 60 minutes came to your door, things changed. Now does 60 minutes really rout out evil or do they cherrypick, too, or Frontline? And even horrors are addressed by decent journalists, where is the legal accountability followup?
Who went to jail on any of this. Bernie Madoff? Only because he burned the rich, too, I guess.
I was thinking of that speech in the movie A Man For All Seasons with Paul Scofield (Sir Thomas Moore) and he talks about without law the winds will blast across the land and there is no protection for anyone. I should try to google and find it. It has been so long. But that Scofield speech Obama should heed, because as I have said before, he treats the laws and the constitution like they are only part of a "suggestion box" on his watch. Cherrypicking the laws or issues that are most convenient for him and his cronyism and his re-election. Dear God!
I don't think there is a lot wrong with our system of government in terms of the structure if it were really followed up on. I think there is a lot wrong with the corruption of the PEOPLE NOT BEING PROFESSIONAL AND ETHICAL and diluting the power of the watchdog groups. So saturated with corruption is our leadership it can't begin to fix itself from within. We need a whole new CROP OF PEOPLE OF CONSCIENCE in there.
The media proves how amoral the leadership and they themselves are. The media is so out of touch and so clueless about people with real lives and the suffering coming down faster and faster now.
All that hype about death panels. It turns out to be the three branches of government ironcially that are the real death panels. No, I don't think that is hysterical hyberbole. I think it is tragically true.
PodunkMarte, your book sounds intriguing. Will look into it. I know there is a hot one on sociopaths going around, or is it psychopaths? I didn't think sociopathy is contagious but they are charming intimidators and certainly line up any unawake enablers for themselves.
Frank, again, the spirit of the law is a given. To PERVERT the letter of the law and defy the authentic spirit of the law is evil, and often done retroactively in this shameless climate to help cronies or the profiteers bribing you with campaign money etc. (like Obama with FISA betrayal so early on when we all felt that leaden lump in our tummies ... who the hell is this guy who caved immediately!)
Erika thanks for the support re the anger. I have more guilt about getting angry prematurely commenting on blogs of others. On my own I figure let it rip. I feel we can't afford to feel sorry for Obama, though I do, since I think he must be a wounded man psychologically, but who isn't, but to presume to take on that enormous power and responsibility and turn out to be so lacking in empathy and I believe true character (which personality covers up early on).
They say when one person under-reacts to things, the person in conflict with the under-reactor over-reacts to compensate. It is a natural social phenomenon. Maybe that accounts for my ramping up my anger in my writing. I am sorry when it is offputting and I have gotten that feedback from allies and not so much allies, but I am going through my stages of grieving and also maybe anger makes me feel more like a survivor than a victim.
Gotta go! ty all. libby
The word intelligence isn't an oxymoron; however it is being misused for propaganda purposes; this practice goes back hundreds of years. They're actually refering to espionage but this doesn't sound good so they use the wrong word and repeat it over and over again. Espionage ins't intelligent!
On a minor note whether or not Chomsky, or anyone else, "believes" something isn't so important as whether or not they showed the work to how they came to their conclussions and if that work holds up. In most cases that I know of Chomsky has done this much better than his critics and he is almost certainly right.
Also for what it was worth when Hitler was in power he decided what was legal and until he was overthrown killing Jews was legal. It shouldn't be legal! If it is now then as soon as the current laws are changed then they may have to answer and we will have to decide all over again about the "just following orders" excuse and other similar arguments.
I know in some ways this won't be as extreme but there are still some similarities.
On a minor note whether or not Chomsky, or anyone else, "believes" something isn't so important as whether or not they showed the work to how they came to their conclussions and if that work holds up. In most cases that I know of Chomsky has done this much better than his critics and he is almost certainly right.
Also for what it was worth when Hitler was in power he decided what was legal and until he was overthrown killing Jews was legal. It shouldn't be legal! If it is now then as soon as the current laws are changed then they may have to answer and we will have to decide all over again about the "just following orders" excuse and other similar arguments.
I know in some ways this won't be as extreme but there are still some similarities.
As always, Zachd, thanks for the thoughtful feedback. I really appreciate what you say here:
"Also for what it was worth when Hitler was in power he decided what was legal and until he was overthrown killing Jews was legal. It shouldn't be legal! If it is now then as soon as the current laws are changed then they may have to answer and we will have to decide all over again about the "just following orders" excuse and other similar arguments."
But when you say:
"I know in some ways this won't be as extreme but there are still some similarities."
I think it is similarly extreme. In so many dimensions. And we as a culture seriously are becoming like those "Good Germans" who were good people letting evil things happen.
Watching Markinjapan's videos about drop weapons and anti-human rules of engagement and how amoral and hellish the position of young impressionable troops are, say, in a military patriarchal culture where independent thinking and feeling is said to be threatening for the survival of the "group". And desensitization through training, culture, and chronic trauma is merciless and intensifying with every minute.
"Also for what it was worth when Hitler was in power he decided what was legal and until he was overthrown killing Jews was legal. It shouldn't be legal! If it is now then as soon as the current laws are changed then they may have to answer and we will have to decide all over again about the "just following orders" excuse and other similar arguments."
But when you say:
"I know in some ways this won't be as extreme but there are still some similarities."
I think it is similarly extreme. In so many dimensions. And we as a culture seriously are becoming like those "Good Germans" who were good people letting evil things happen.
Watching Markinjapan's videos about drop weapons and anti-human rules of engagement and how amoral and hellish the position of young impressionable troops are, say, in a military patriarchal culture where independent thinking and feeling is said to be threatening for the survival of the "group". And desensitization through training, culture, and chronic trauma is merciless and intensifying with every minute.
Based on what we've been taught Hitler seems more extreme due to the intensity of the Mass Murder and the fact that it was more blatant. However in the long run the current circumstances may be more insidious in some ways. One example is that by relying on complex institutions to destroy the environment many peopole4 can be slowly killed in a manner that they might consider torture but plausible deniablity will be maintained as long as it is out of mind out of sight, or not reported. The sweet old lady who burns a lot of gas during a cross country trip in a mini-van can do her part to destroy the environment without thinking about it. Of course there should be much less plausible deniability for the corporate exec who distorts the data and uses public relations like Melody Stacy sponsoring Exxon Mobil to convince the public that they care and are benevolent.
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