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Archive: POLITICS

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Creatures of Ambition

In new books writers as disparate as Naomi Wolf and Pat Buchanan conclude that America as we know her is disappearing. Both writers hope, but are not confident, that enough Americans will catch on in time to find the leadership to pull America back from the brink.

If polls are reliable, a majority of Americans are dissatisfied with President Bush and Congress. However, Americans are far short of Wolf and Buchanan's grasp of our peril.

Americans are unable to connect their dissatisfaction with the current political leadership with their choice of new leaders. All polls show that Hillary Clinton is far in the lead for the Democratic presidential nomination and Rudy Giuliani is far in the lead for the Republican nomination These are the only two candidates guaranteed to be worse than Bush/Cheney.

Both Hillary and Rudy are committed to the war. Both refuse to rule out expanding the war to Iran and beyond. Both are totally in the pocket of the Israel Lobby. Indeed, practically every Giuliani advisor is a member of the Lobby. Both defend the police state measures that "protect us from terrorism." And neither gives a hoot for the US Constitution and the civil liberties it guarantees. The Republican Giuliani is likely to overturn the Second Amendment even quicker than the Democrat Hillary.

Both Hillary and Rudy are creatures of ambition, not of principle. Both are one up on Karl Marx. Marx said truth serves class interests. For Hillary and Rudy, truth is what serves their individual interests. They both wear black hats, and the horse they ride is called power.

Paul Crig Roberts elaborates at Counterpunch

Do you Read TIME Magazine?

If so, and if you think that you are getting accurate news from a reliable mainstream source, think again. Glenn Greenwald spells it out in great detail here, here, and here, in that order. (You can easily get the gist of the story by skipping the first, and reading the two subsequent columns.)

2,000 Years

...the Bush/Cheney polemics about Iran continue to escalate. In light of the lack of evidence Iran is actually developing nukes, Bush equated Iranian "knowledge" to make nuclear weapons with World War III. "If you're interested in avoiding World War III," he said recently, "it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." This substantially lowers the bar for a U.S. attack on Iran.

A few days after Bush warned of World War III, Cheney called Iran "the world's most active state sponsor of terrorism," adding, "The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences ... We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon." These threats are eerily reminiscent of his rants in the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

In an unprecedented move, the Bush administration labeled the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. It appears the administration applied that label in an effort to trigger language in the 2002 Congressional authorization for the use of military force in Iraq. That authorization says, "The President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States."

Like Bush's invasion of Iraq, an attack on Iran would violate international and U.S. law. The U.N. Charter prohibits the use of military force except in self-defense or with the approval of the Security Council. Iran, which has not attacked any country for 2,000 years, hasn't threatened to invade the United States or Israel. Rather than protecting Israel, U.S. or Israeli military force against Iran will endanger Israel, which would invariably suffer a retaliatory attack.

In making its case against Iran, the administration points to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's alleged comment that Israel should be wiped off the map. But this is an erroneous translation of what he said. According to University of Michigan professor Juan Cole and Farsi language analysts, Ahmadinejad was quoting Ayatollah Khomeini, who said the "regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time." Cole said this "does not imply military action or killing anyone at all." Journalist Diana Johnstone points out the quote is not aimed at the Israeli people, but at the Zionist "regime" occupying Jerusalem. "Coming from a Muslim religious leader," Johnstone wrote, "this opinion is doubtless based on objection to Jewish monopoly of a city considered holy by all three of the Abramic monotheisms."

More from Marjorie Cohn at Alternet

Occupation Breeds Terror

When I first moved to this country, I was prepared to play my part by enlisting in the IDF and serving in the West Bank. While there, I saw for myself the effect my mere uniformed presence had on the Palestinians I encountered on a daily basis. Every interaction took place with me holding all the cards - it was me with the loaded gun in my hands; it was me barking instructions to "stop or I'll shoot", "lift up your shirt", "don't come another step closer"; it was me playing with my quarry as though they were puppets on the end of short, taut strings.

However, I still believed that we "did what we had to do", since it was a case of us or them, and we could never ease up in our actions for fear that the next Palestinian we encountered was the one with a bomb strapped to his chest. And so it continued, bursting into buildings to round up the residents and lock them in their own basement, so that we could take over the house and grab a few hours' sleep in the middle of a mission - and all perfectly acceptable in the context of war.

But that was when I saw the wide, silent eyes of the families' children as we screamed at their father - their hero, their protector - and wrested from him the reins of power inside his own house. And that's when it started to dawn on me just what kind of effect our actions were having on the next generation, who were guaranteed to end up hating us when all they saw was us herding them like cattle and imposing our will on them through the sights of our guns.

Once I left the army, my forays into the West Bank were on more equal terms, as I sought to meet the very people whose towns I'd previously patrolled, to hear their stories about life under military rule. From Jenin to Bethlehem to Ramallah and beyond, the extent of the suffering and the depth of the torment was exposed to me time and again. There was no doubt in my mind that our mere presence in their daily routines was twisting the knife every time they encountered a soldier - and breeding extremism and radicalism all the while.

The unspoken truth that every Israeli knows, uncomfortable as it may be to admit, is that occupation breeds terror. Every incursion, every raid, every curfew and collective punishment, drives the moderates into the welcoming arms of the militants, who promise to return their honour and their wounded pride by fighting the oppressors' fire with fire of their own. And that fact alone should be enough to shake Israelis awake and realise that the occupation has to end, as much for our own security as for the sake of the Palestinians that we're subjugating.

More from Seth Freedman at The Guardian (UK)

Home of the Free?

Bilal Hussein is the AP photojournalist in Iraq who was detained by the U.S. military in April, 2006 and has been imprisoned ever since without charges of any kind. I wrote about the case previously, among other places, here and here. He is one of 24,000 people being held in Iraq without charges. Yesterday, the U.S. military -- which refused for 19 months to charge him with any crime -- suddenly announced that they were now recommending that he be tried on unspecified charges in an Iraqi court based on allegedly "irrefutable evidence" they now possess.

This morning I interviewed AP's Executive Editor, Kathleen Carroll, and AP's CEO Tom Curley regarding this case. Neither of them still have any idea what the charges are against Hussein, nor what the supposed new and "irrefutable" evidence is of his guilt. Worse, because 19 months have elapsed since he was detained, it is virtually impossible to conduct a meaningful investigation or to mount a defense. As Curley explained:

He has never been charged with any crime. There have been allegations made against him, and the allegations made against him in the past have been disproven by us after careful investigation.

Second, nobody from the U.S. military interrogated him from May 2006 until a couple of weeks ago. So he went about 18 months without having any value to the U.S. military. Under no circumstances can we imagine that there are new charges that have been made against him. They have not worked on the case. The people who initially detained him, the people who have initially interrogated him, are long since gone. This makes no sense at all. This is truly an abuse of the justice system.

Glenn Greenwald has much more on this important – and outrageous – example of abuse.

A Slice of (American) Life

Driving around this morning, looking at the long faces of Michigan fans coping with their team's pitiful performance against Ohio State, I found myself behind a dented, faded black pick-up at a stop light. Stuck to its tailgate was a very long bumper sticker, two lines deep, that read in large letters: "As Hillary, Jennifer, and Nancy Rise In Stature, They Give New Meaning To The Phrase Ho Ho Ho!" As the truck turned, I saw the driver, a grizzled chubby redneck with a goatee and ball cap. Direct from central casting. Too perfect to be real.

But he was. You see plenty of these types in these parts, tooling around in large 4-wheel, sometimes 6-wheel, gas guzzlers, sporting various nativist and paranoid bumper stickers about how the Democrats are commies, their women a bunch of overspending, castrating, ugly ass sluts. Not for them any serious class-based political thinking or expression. To the guy above and numerous others like him, Clinton, Granholm, and Pelosi aren't corporate-militarist whores, a gender-neutral if indelicate description, but simply hos. Should Hillary win the White House, look out for an explosion of similar white male fear products. Ain't no commie dyke gonna tell them what t'do!

Meanwhile, the global wars rage on, geopolitical corporate positioning to control the Earth's dwindling resources, oil and water chief among them. The water wars will eventually speed up, as there'll be less and less drinkable H2O to go around, and those with the power to grab what clean water remains will do so with little ceremony. The Israelis have shown the way for years, diverting water from Palestinian lands to their drinking fountains, swimming pools and water slides. A rational move. After all, what good is a water park in Gaza?

Things are very bad in this part of the country, and it will get worse before it gets better, assuming that "better" has any contemporary meaning. I suppose it's easier to pretend that our economic problems are primarily due to liberal commie fags than to a global economic arrangement that squeezes the powerless until they're tossed on the garbage heap. Besides, painting corporations and their political servants as pussies doesn't make for snappy bumper stickers.

Dennis Perrin

Update From Pakistan

via Amitava Kumar

Salahuddin Ahmed, a young and brilliant lawyer in Karachi, a member of the Sindh High Court Bar Association, is unable to see his country through Jha’s eyes. In a note sent to me yesterday, he wrote:

All independent TV news channels were taken off air. Army officers have been stationed in the offices of all major newspapers to censor objectionable news. Criticism of Musharraf and his regime and the army has been made punishable with 3-years imprisonment. Satellite dishes and receivers have been banned in order to prevent the dissemination of news and information. Pakistan has been isolated from the international world and is being run along the lines of Burma and North Korea.

Naturally, the entire nation rose up in protest. We are proud to say that the Bar Associations have been in the forefront of these protests. On 5th November, over 2500 protesting lawyers, all over the country, were brutally assaulted and arrested by police and para-military forces. While some were subsequently released, the majority remain behind bars.

The Pakistan Bar Council, supported by Bar Associations throughout the land, has called for an indefinite boycott of the High Courts and the Supreme Court until such time as the judiciary is restored to the position prevailing on 2nd November 2007.

Likewise, thousand of human rights activists and political workers have been summarily detained. All these arrests and detentions have been made immune from challenge in the courts.

In any event, after the mass culling of the superior courts, it is futile to approach the courts. Lawyers have taken a unified stand that they will not approach any court for their release until the judiciary is restored to its original position.

Under international pressure, Musharraf has now announced that he will hold elections early next year. It is our stand that any elections held in the absence of a Constitution and Fundamental Rights and an independent judiciary will be farcical exercise and a mere eye-wash.

One Hundred Percent (WRong)

The journey to the martial law just imposed on Pakistan by its self-appointed president, the dictator Pervez Musharraf, began in Washington on September 11, 2001. On that day, it so happened, Pakistan's intelligence chief, Lt. General Mahmood Ahmed, was in town. He was summoned forthwith to meet with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who gave him perhaps the earliest preview of the global Bush doctrine then in its formative stages, telling him, "You are either one hundred percent with us or one hundred percent against us."

The next day, the administration, dictating to the dictator, presented seven demands that a Pakistan that wished to be "with us" must meet. These concentrated on gaining its cooperation in assailing Afghanistan's Taliban regime, which had long been nurtured by the Pakistani intelligence services in Afghanistan and had, of course, harbored Osama Bin Laden and his al-Qaeda training camps. Conspicuously missing was any requirement to rein in the activities of Mr. A.Q. Khan, the "father" of Pakistan's nuclear arms, who, with the knowledge of Washington, had been clandestinely hawking the country's nuclear-bomb technology around the Middle East and North Asia for some years.

Musharraf decided to be "with us"; but, as in so many countries, being with the United States in its Global War on Terror turned out to mean not being with one's own people. Although Musharraf, who came to power in a coup in 1999, was already a dictator, he had now taken the politically fateful additional step of very visibly subordinating his dictatorship to the will of a foreign master. In many countries, people will endure a homegrown dictator but rebel against one who seems to be imposed from without, and Musharraf was now courting this danger.

[snip]

What has failed in Pakistan, as in smashed Iraq, is not just a regional American policy, but the pillars and crossbeams of the entire global Bush doctrine, as announced in late 2001. In both countries, the bullying has failed; popular passions within each have gained the upper hand; and Washington has lost much of its influence. In its application to Pakistan, the doctrine was framed to stop terrorism, but in that country's northern provinces, terrorists have, in fact, entrenched themselves to a degree unimaginable even when the Taliban protected Al-Qaeda's camps before September 11th.

Jonathan Schell's full piece can (and should) be read at TomDispatch.com

Surprise, Surprise

The US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran has been held up for more than a year in an effort to force the intelligence community to remove dissenting judgments on the Iranian nuclear program. The aim is to make the document more supportive of Vice President Dick Cheney's militarily aggressive policy toward Iran, according to accounts provided by participants in the NIE process to two former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers.

But this pressure on intelligence analysts, obviously instigated by Cheney himself, has not produced a draft estimate without those dissenting views, these sources say. The White House has now apparently decided to release the "unsatisfactory" draft NIE, but without making its key findings public.

A NIE coordinates the judgments of the US's 16 intelligence agencies on a specific country or issue.

A former CIA intelligence officer who has asked not to be identified told Inter Press Service (IPS) that an official involved in the NIE process says the Iran estimate was ready to be published a year ago but has been delayed because the director of national intelligence wanted a draft reflecting a consensus on key conclusions - particularly on Iran's nuclear program.

In which upstanding American newspaper did this item appear? None, of course. Read on in the Asia Times

(More) Classification Abuses

An Egpytian national, Abdallah Higazy, sued an FBI agent for having violated his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The district court dismissed the claims, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed, in part, thereby reinstating the suit.

Higazy was staying in a hotel in New York City on September 11, 2001, and the FBI came to suspect (mistakenly) that Higazy had something to do with the attacks of that day. Higazi alleges that the FBI coerced him into falsely confessing to a role in the attacks. What was the nature of the coercion?: Higazy claims that the FBI agent "explained that if Higazy did not cooperate, the FBI would make his brother 'live in scrutiny' and would 'make sure that Egyptian security gives [his] family hell.'" This was a serious threat, because Higazy well knew that the Egyptian authorities regularly engage in torture and other horrible acts. As Higazy explained: "The Egyptian government has very little tolerance for anybody who is —they’re suspicious of being a terrorist. To give you an idea, Saddam’s security force—as they later on were called his henchmen—a lot of them learned their methods and techniques in Egypt; torture, rape, some stuff would be even too sick to . . . . My father is 67. My mother is 61. I have a brother who developed arthritis at 19. He still has it today. When the word ‘torture’ comes at least for my brother, I mean, all they have to do is really just press on one of these knuckles. I couldn’t imagine them doing anything to my sister."

Faced with this threat of harm to his family, Higazy confessed, even though in fact he had no connection to 9/11.

How do we know all of this? Because it was in the court of appeals' opinion, posted by Howard Bashman the day it was issued. Apparently, however, the government had persuaded the court to seal Higazy's allegations of the FBI's threats. And so the court quickly pulled its original opinion, replaced it with a redacted version that omits the described threats ("This opinion has been redacted because portions of the record are under seal."), and asked Bashman to take down from his site the earlier version of the opinion. To his credit, Howard refused, in part because the court failed to provide him with any explanation of why the publication of the opinion is a threat to national security.

The story about the publication, redaction, and attempted suppression, of the court opinion is, of course, very interesting and important in and of itself.

But let's not lose sight of the more fundamental problem: What was the justification for the court "sealing" Higazy's allegations in the first instance?

Marty Lederman has more at Balkinization

Religious Zealotry in The Military

Forty-two years ago, at the age of 18, I took the oath of office on my first day as an Air Force Academy cadet. The mission of the academy was not only to train future leaders for the Air Force but for America as well, because, in the end, most academy graduates do not serve full military careers. The honor code became an integral part of everyday life. These are the values that I, and most graduates of the 1960s and early ’70s, took with us from our four years at the academy.

I, as did many graduates, underwent pilot training followed by tours of duty in Vietnam. Like military men and women of today, we did our best to become technically competent and professional leaders. Never, during my four years at the academy and subsequent pilot and combat training, was the word warrior used; nor, whether as a cadet or officer, did I ever encounter “Christian supremacist” rhetoric.

In April of 2004, my son, after receiving a coveted appointment to the United States Air Force Academy, asked me to accompany him to the orientation for new appointees. This 24-hour visceral event changed my life forever, and crushed my son’s lifelong dream of following in my footsteps.

The orientation began with a one-hour “warrior” rant to appointees and parents by the commandant of cadets, Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida. The fact that the word warrior had replaced leadership was a signal of what was to follow. I later learned that cadets, to determine when a new record was established, had created a game in which warrior was counted in each speech Weida gave.

My son and I then made our way to the modernist aluminum chapel, where I expected to hear a welcome from one or two Air Force chaplains offering counsel, support and an open-door policy for any spiritual or pastoral needs of these future cadets. In 1966, the academy had six gray-haired chaplains: three mainline Protestants, two priests and one rabbi. Any cadet, regardless of religious affiliation, was welcome to see any one of these chaplains, who were reminiscent of Father Francis Mulcahy of “MASH” fame.

Instead, my son’s orientation became an opportunity for the academy to aggressively proselytize this next crop of cadets. Maj. Warren Watties led a group of 10 young, exclusively evangelical chaplains who stood shoulder to shoulder. He proudly stated that half of the cadets attended Bible studies on Monday nights in the dormitories and he hoped to increase this number from those in his audience who were about to join their ranks. This “invitation” was followed with hallelujahs and amens by the evangelical clergy. I later learned from Air Force Academy chaplain MeLinda Morton, a Lutheran who was forced to observe from the choir loft, that no priest, rabbi or mainline Protestant had been permitted to participate.

I no longer recognize the Air Force Academy as the institution I attended almost four decades earlier. At that point, I had no idea how invasive this extreme evangelical “cancer” had become throughout the entire military, that what I had witnessed was far from an isolated case of a few religious zealots.

David Antoon's full piece can be read at Truthdig.com

Our Great Ally

LAHORE, Pakistan -- It was close to midnight last Saturday when Gen. Pervez Musharraf finally appeared on state-run television. That's when police vans surrounded my house. I was warned not to leave, and hours later I learned I would be detained for 90 days.

At least I have the luxury of staying at home, though I cannot see anyone. But I can only watch, helpless, as this horror unfolds.

The Musharraf government has declared martial law to settle scores with lawyers and judges. Hundreds of innocent Pakistanis have been rounded up. Human rights activists, including women and senior citizens, have been beaten by police. Judges have been arrested and lawyers battered in their offices and the streets.

These citizens are our true assets: young, progressive and full of spirit. Many of them were trained to uphold the rule of law. They are being brutalized for seeking justice.

Musharraf justified his draconian measures by saying he needed to be able to use all his might to fight the terrorists infecting our country. Yet the day after he declared an emergency, the Dawn newspaper reported that scores of terrorists were released by the government. While tyranny was being unleashed on peaceful citizens, the notorious militant Fazalullah (also known as Maulana Radio) had seized the beautiful town of Madyan, according to the Daily Times, and hoisted his "Islamic" flag over buildings while the security forces surrendered.

Musharraf has implied that militancy increased in Pakistan because of judicial interference in governance. But until this past March, the judiciary had yielded to all executive demands. Five years ago, the general dismissed the then-chief justice and his colleagues, charging that they were obstructing his process of democratization. What is democratic about a judiciary that's not independent?

more from Asma Jahangir in the Washington Post

Russert

I see Meet the Press is turning 60. I never see the show myself, and so there are better people to critique it than I, but I did read the transcript of Tim Russert's moderation of the Democratic presidential debate last week, and it was shocking.

Take a look at this exchange:

RUSSERT: I want to ask each of you the same question. Senator Clinton, would you pledge to the American people that Iran will not develop a nuclear bomb while you are president?

CLINTON: I intend to do everything I can to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.

RUSSERT: But you won't pledge?

CLINTON: I am pledging I will do everything I can to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.

RUSSERT: But they may.

CLINTON: Well, you know, Tim, you asked me if I would pledge, and I have pledged that I will do everything I can to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.

Now, consider everything that is embedded in that question. First of all, who the hell is the journalist Tim Russert to demand a "pledge" on anything from a presidential candidate? Isn't he supposed to elicit information about their views? But more important, just what does it mean to "pledge to the American people that Iran will not develop a nuclear bomb while you are president"? I'll tell you what it means: It means a promise to begin an unprovoked nuclear war. For there is no way to ensure that Iran will not develop a nuke save using nukes on them ourselves. We don't even know what kind of nuclear program Iran has; we don't know if it's removable by conventional means. We don't have the troops to invade Iran, which is a stupid idea anyway, thanks to George W. Bush and company, and so the only way to be absolutely certain that Iran won't develop a nuclear bomb would be to promise to nuke it. But if Russert asked that question, he would sound like a lunatic. So he asked -- no, demanded -- of the candidates that they respond to his lunatic question as if he were the clever one and they were on the defensive. And this is the most influential television journalist in America. Reels the mind.

via media critic Eric Alterman, from his blog Altercation

Good questions

As some readers will recall, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger delivered a scathing (some – including I – would say outrageous) introduction to Iran's President Ahmadinejad when the latter spoke at the university. John Caruso has written a terse, appropriate letter to Bollinger in the wake of recent events.

From: John Caruso
To: Lee Bollinger
Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2007 23:01:54
Subject: Do you have any comment on Musharraf's imposition of martial law?

Dr. Bollinger,

You famously said that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad exhibited "all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator." By contrast, when you were discussing Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, you said things like "rarely do we have an opportunity such as this to greet a figure of such central and global importance," "it is rare that we have a leader of his stature at campus," and "we at Columbia are eager to listen" to him.

Ahmadinejad, as you know, was democratically elected--unlike Musharraf, who seized power in a coup. Ahmadinejad also wields little genuine power in Iran, in contrast to Musharraf, who has had control over the government and military of Pakistan for years. And now Musharraf has suspended the Constitution, dissolved the Supreme Court, blacked out communications and news sources, and has already jailed about 500 opposition party figures, lawyers, and human rights advocates.

So I have two questions for you:

1) Given your willingness to suggest the word "dictator" to describe the democratically-elected Ahmadinejad, do you feel that the term should be applied to Musharraf as well?

2) Assuming that the answer to the previous question is "yes", and given that this is just a reprise of actions Musharraf had taken in the past, do you have any regret for your previous fulsome praise of him?

Thanks in advance for your time.

John's blog

A National Disgrace

If there is any doubt about how the Bush administration treats government whistle-blowers, consider the case of Teresa Chambers. She was hired in early 2002, with impeccable law enforcement credentials, to become chief of the United States Park Police. But after Chambers raised concerns publicly that crime was up in the nation's parks, she was rebuked by superiors and fired. When Chambers fought to regain her job through the legal system meant to protect whistle-blowers, government lawyers fought back, and associated her with terrorists. Despite a multiyear legal struggle, she is still fighting for her job.

Whistle-blowers have faced hostility not only under Republican administrations. During President Clinton's tenure, Bogdan Dzakovic, an undercover security agent with the Federal Aviation Administration, suffered retribution for speaking out about weak airport security -- three years before Sept. 11, 2001. Dzakovic was passed up for promotion time and again, and today, he says, he remains consigned to data entry duties for the Transportation Security Administration.

Every year, hundreds of federal workers sound the alarm about corruption, fraud or dangers to public safety that are caused or overlooked -- or even covered up -- by U.S. government agencies. These whistle-blowers are supposed to be guaranteed protection by law from retaliation for speaking out in the public's interest.

But a six-month investigation by the Center for Investigative Reporting, in collaboration with Salon, has found that federal whistle-blowers almost never receive legal protection after they take action. Instead, they often face agency managers and White House appointees intent upon silencing them rather than addressing the problems they raise. They are left fighting for their jobs in a special administrative court system, little known to the American public, that is mired in bureaucracy and vulnerable to partisan politics.

Much more on this important topic from James Sandler at Salon.com

More on Mukasey and Waterboarding

This New York Times article suggests that Judge Mukasey cannot announce that waterboarding is illegal at his confirmation hearings for Attorney General because of concern that this would lead to criminal prosecutions and civil suits against CIA operatives who performed interrogations.

Do not believe it.

The Congress twice bestowed immunity in the Detainee Treatment Act and the Military Commissions Act. And if CIA operatives acted in good faith on OLC opinions, which are binding law in the executive branch, they are immune from prosecution. Even if these immunities do not extend to civil lawsuits, such lawsuits are likely barred by a combination of immunities created for government (and military) personnel. The Administration has been quite careful to ensure that its members-- and those obeying its orders-- will never be held to account in any American court of law.

To be sure, if Bush Administration officials travel abroad, they may be indicted and tried for war crimes. But if so, that is already true, and Judge Mukasey's statement would not trigger liability: it would merely be additional evidence-- if any were needed-- that waterboarding is a war crime.

The real reason why Judge Mukasey cannot say that waterboarding is illegal is that Administration officials have repeatedly insisted that they do not torture, and that they have acted both legally and honorably. If Judge Mukasey said that waterboarding is illegal, it would require the Bush Administration to admit that it repeatedly lied to the American people and brought shame and dishonor on the United States of America. If Judge Mukasey were to say waterboarding is illegal and not just "a dunk in the water" in Vice President Cheney's terminology, he would have announced that, as incoming Attorney General, he is entering an Administration of liars and torturers.

More from Jack Balkin at his Balkinization blog

Sydney Blumenthal, writing at Salon.com, really captures the essence of the story:

Mukasey is not a free agent. He had been strictly briefed and in his testimony was following orders. He has avoided calling waterboarding torture because that is consistent with the administration's position and past practice. Mukasey's refusal to disavow waterboarding reveals his acceptance of his assignment to a secondary role as attorney general, an inferior agent, not a constitutional officer, to certain political appointees in the White House.

Those who are responsible for waterboarding have defined and dictated Mukasey's evasions. His acquiescence demonstrates that no one in his position could take a contrary view to that of David Addington, Vice President Cheney's former counsel and now chief of staff, who directed and coauthored the infamous memos by former deputy assistant director of the Office of Legal Counsel John Yoo justifying torture, and charged the current acting director of OLC, Stephen Bradbury, to issue new memos rationalizing it.

Addington is the reigning legal authority within the administration, presiding over the attorney general no matter who would fill the job. Addington rules by decree and tantrum, intolerant of any alternative opinion, which he suppresses with intimidation and threat. Gonzales, as White House counsel and then attorney general, was the marionette of Karl Rove and Addington. Rove is gone, but Addington remains.

In his confirmation hearings, Mukasey has proved he will dance as the strings are pulled. His positions on waterboarding express precisely the relationship between the Bush White House and its Justice Department. Mukasey's testimony telegraphs that the White House will continue to call the shots. He has already ceded the essence of his power even before assuming it. His vaunted integrity and independence have been crushed, short work for Addington.

Waterboarding

There has been a lot of recent talk about the practice of 'waterboarding' during interrogations. Most recently, the current nominee for U.S. Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, failed to answer the question of whether waterboarding is torture during his confirmation hearing. And needless to say, Rudy Giuliani has pretty much embraced it as an acceptable technique.

Well, why don't we take a look at what a real expert has to say, and what the technique actually entails.

As a former Master Instructor and Chief of Training at the US Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) in San Diego, California I know the waterboard personally and intimately. SERE staff were required undergo the waterboard at its fullest. I was no exception. I have personally led, witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people. It has been reported that both the Army and Navy SERE school’s interrogation manuals were used to form the interrogation techniques used by the US army and the CIA for its terror suspects. What was not mentioned in most articles was that SERE was designed to show how an evil totalitarian, enemy would use torture at the slightest whim. If this is the case, then waterboarding is unquestionably being used as torture technique.

The carnival-like he-said, she-said of the legality of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques has become a form of doublespeak worthy of Catch-22. Having been subjected to them all, I know these techniques, if in fact they are actually being used, are not dangerous when applied in training for short periods. However, when performed with even moderate intensity over an extended time on an unsuspecting prisoner – it is torture, without doubt. Couple that with waterboarding and the entire medley not only “shock the conscience” as the statute forbids -it would terrify you. Most people can not stand to watch a high intensity kinetic interrogation. One has to overcome basic human decency to endure watching or causing the effects. The brutality would force you into a personal moral dilemma between humanity and hatred. It would leave you to question the meaning of what it is to be an American.

We live at a time where Americans, completely uninformed by an incurious media and enthralled by vengeance-based fantasy television shows like “24”, are actually cheering and encouraging such torture as justifiable revenge for the September 11 attacks. Having been a rescuer in one of those incidents and personally affected by both attacks, I am bewildered at how casually we have thrown off the mantle of world-leader in justice and honor. Who we have become? Because at this juncture, after Abu Ghraieb and other undignified exposed incidents of murder and torture, we appear to have become no better than our opponents.

With regards to the waterboard, I want to set the record straight so the apologists can finally embrace the fact that they condone and encourage torture.

[snip]

1. Waterboarding is a torture technique. Period. There is no way to gloss over it or sugarcoat it. It has no justification outside of its limited role as a training demonstrator. Our service members have to learn that the will to survive requires them accept and understand that they may be subjected to torture, but that America is better than its enemies and it is one’s duty to trust in your nation and God, endure the hardships and return home with honor.

2. Waterboarding is not a simulation. Unless you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word.

Waterboarding is a controlled drowning that, in the American model, occurs under the watch of a doctor, a psychologist, an interrogator and a trained strap-in/strap-out team. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning. How much the victim is to drown depends on the desired result (in the form of answers to questions shouted into the victim’s face) and the obstinacy of the subject. A team doctor watches the quantity of water that is ingested and for the physiological signs which show when the drowning effect goes from painful psychological experience, to horrific suffocating punishment to the final death spiral.

Waterboarding is slow motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of black out and expiration –usually the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch and if it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia. When done right it is controlled death. Its lack of physical scarring allows the victim to recover and be threaten with its use again and again.

Call it “Chinese Water Torture,” “the Barrel,” or “the Waterfall,” it is all the same. Whether the victim is allowed to comply or not is usually left up to the interrogator. Many waterboard team members, even in training, enjoy the sadistic power of making the victim suffer and often ask questions as an after thought. These people are dangerous and predictable and when left unshackled, unsupervised or undetected they bring us the murderous abuses seen at Abu Ghraieb, Baghram and Guantanamo. No doubt, to avoid human factors like fear and guilt someone has created a one-button version that probably looks like an MRI machine with high intensity waterjets.

3. If you support the use of waterboarding on enemy captives, you support the use of that torture on any future American captives. The Small Wars Council had a spirited discussion about this earlier in the year, especially when former Marine Generals Krulak and Hoar rejected all arguments for torture.

Read more from Malcolm Nance's Small Wars Journal

The Failure of Journalism

In recent years, very few journalists in positions of power have done their jobs seriously, honestly and well. John Pilger is one of those very few, and he spoke eloquently about the problem at Columbia University in 2006, when The Heyman Center for the Humanities brought together Pilger, Seymour Hersh, Robert Fisk and Charles Glass for a discussion entitled 'Breaking the Silence: War, lies and empire'.

Here's an excerpt of Pilger's thoughts:

During the Cold War, a group of Russian journalists toured the United States. On the final day of their visit, they were asked by their hosts for their impressions. “I have to tell you,” said their spokesman, “that we were astonished to find, after reading all the newspapers and watching TV, that all the opinions on all the vital issues were, by and large, the same. To get that result in our country, we imprison people, we tear out their fingernails. Here, you don't have that. What's the secret? How do you do it?”

What is the secret? It's a question now urgently asked of those whose job is to keep the record straight: who in this country have extraordinary constitutional freedom. I refer to journalists, of course, a small group who hold privileged sway over the way we think, even the way we use language.

I have been a journalist for more than 40 years. Although I am based in London, I have worked all over the world, including the United States, and I have reported America's wars. My experience is that what the Russian journalists were referring to is censorship by omission, the product of a parallel world of unspoken truth and public myths and lies: in other words, censorship by journalism, which today has become war by journalism.

For me, this is the most virulent and powerful form of censorship, fuelling an indoctrination that runs deep in western societies, deeper than many journalists themselves understand or will admit to. Its power is such that it can mean the difference between life and death for untold numbers of people in faraway countries, like Iraq.

During the 1970s, I filmed secretly in Czechoslovakia, then a Stalinist dictatorship. I interviewed members of the dissident group, Charter 77. One of them, the novelist Zdener Urbanek, told me, “We are more fortunate than you in the West, in one respect. We believe nothing of what we read in the newspapers and watch on television, nothing of the official truth. unlike you, we have learned to read between the lines of the media. unlike you, we know that that real truth is always subversive.” By subversive, he meant that truth comes from the ground up, almost never from the top down. (Vandana Shiva has called this 'subjugated knowledge').

Pilger's full piece can be read at his site

Ahh, Finally some relief

I've become terribly frustrated – and I know that I'm hardly alone – with the quality of the questions posed, and often the style of questioning used by Democratic comittee members when inept and/or dishonest members of the Bush Administration sit before them. It's especially irritating to note that many of these members are trained lawyers, yet still do a poor job.

Today, Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL) gave a superb demonstration of how it should be done, when questioning voting section chief John Tanner: