Month: June 2009

Why do we have government agencies if they don’t work?


DHSThe Department of Homeland Security warned of extremists elements in our country with the potential to wreck havoc in our society; the right was up in arms and cried foul and someone from some hate group walked into the Holocaust Museum in the backyard of DHS and killed a guard!!  What good is Homeland Security?

Oh sure, they are one of the biggest government agencies, outspending the Justice and State departments, and during the Bush years we were told they were essential to the safety and well being of America.  During their lifetime they have expanded a terrorist watch list which numbers into the hundreds of thousands, many who are innocent and probably don’t even know their names are there; elevated risk levels and the blood pressures of scores of Americans with faulty terror level alerts that usually panned out to be nothing at all or based on tortured confessions from rendered suspects we’ve never heard nor seen, and all this at a considerable expense to the taxpayer.  Yet, an 88 year old man can walk down a city street in Washington, DC with a rifle, and into a government building and shoot and kill someone employed there.

The guy is a former felon, 88 years old, used a rifle in this attack, had an internet history of making incendiary comments and lived in the greater metropolitan Washington, DC area and all that the federal government has to offer couldn’t save that police officer from this guy’s dementia.  I could understand the federal government not being able to follow all 12 or 14 911 hijackers……you could argue there were just too many for the government to keep up, but one guy with a history in the heart of the government……  Basically this means the government is not the instrument we should trust or turn to in order to protect us in our daily lives.  It cannot do this, despite the promises it makes to the contrary; and all those right leaning individuals who are now slamming Obama with claims that he’s made the country unsafe for us, ask them what did their Department of Homeland Security do for Stephen Johns, the guard killed by that pathetic gunman on Wednesday, June 10?

Waterboarding in the news again!


waterboardedI saw Jesse Ventura on one of the talk shows ask the rhetorical question, ‘if waterboarding isn’t torture, why don’t the police waterboard criminal suspects to get information from them’, or words to that effect.  Of course at the time I thought to myself, ‘score one for Ventura’.  After reading this bit of shocking news, I wish Jesse hadn’t gone there!

The Independent Police Complaints commission is investigating claims that Metropolitan police officers mishandled prisoners and submerged the head of one man in a bucket of water during the course of a raid. The allegation was made by Metropolitan Police employee, thought to be a serving officer.

There was alarm at the allegations at Scotland Yard, which has faced several crises over the actions of its officers in past months, including the death of a man at the G20 protests.

The officers under investigation were among 10 based in Enfield, north London, who were suspended in February in one of the worst allegations of corruption to hit the Metropolitan police in recent years.

And there’s this

A group of Scotland Yard officers were suspended after “serious allegations” about their behavior during the arrests of five suspects last year, police said Tuesday.London’s police force did not go into detail, but Sky News television, the Daily Mail and The Times of London newspapers reported that six officers were accused of “waterboarding” drug suspects.

The papers gave varying accounts of the exact technique used by police, with the Times saying that officers poured water on a cloth and placed it over a suspect’s face to simulate the experience of drowning. The Daily Mail said police officers repeatedly dunked the suspects’ heads in buckets of water.

At first glance this shouldn’t be so disturbing, because British police have shot at and in one case shot and killed an innocent man, lied about why and how he was shot with nothing happening to the offending officer(s). On a more visceral level is the terrible thought that criminal behavior is now commonly employed by police the world over  plunging the world into chaos.  We’ve written about police brutality here in the States and now waterboarding or some variation thereof used in the UK seems to suggest an attitude of ‘anything goes’ in government’s reaction with its citizenry.  Whereas possession of marijuana used to be viewed as an offense which merely got a person a ticket, and large amounts a court date and maybe a few years in jail, now law officers see nothing wrong with waterboarding suspects.  Whereas failure to yield to a police or emergency vehicle would get one a ticket, now one is liable to be arrested and brutalized by law enforcement officers!  So I wish Jesse hadn’t mentioned that the reason  the law doesn’t waterboard suspects is because it’s illegal, because now it appears they don’t it’s illegal and a necessary part of the trade!  As an aside, I wonder if any of the officers in the UK charged with this served in Iraq either in the regular British army or as mercenaries……..make that contractors.  Finally, I’m glad to see that it was someone on the force who turned these thugs in. The only way this problem of criminal behavior on the part of the police is going to get solved is when good cops turn in the bad ones who then get prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.  I love good, faithful, law abiding police and appreciate their service to the society; the bad ones are the reasons we should cherish and internalize the 2nd amendment.

Peace is not an option for the occupiers of the West Bank


MIDEAST-ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-WEST BANK-SHOOTING-VIDEOFollowing up on the story posted below about the Global Peace index and how low Israel ranks comes this story that underscores that ranking and demonstrates how a country is sometimes its own worse enemy.

Two Israeli officers have testified that troops in the West Bank beat, bound and blindfolded Palestinian civilians as young as 14.

Both the soldiers, from the Harub battalion, highlighted the tight tying of the plastic hand restraints placed on detainees. “There are people who think you need to tighten the restraints all the way, until no drop of blood will pass from here to there,” one soldier said. “It doesn’t take much time until the hands turn blue. There were a lot of people that you know weren’t feeling anything.”

“The soldiers who took [detainees] to the toilet just exploded [over] them with beatings; cursed them with no reason. When they took one Arab to the toilet so that he could urinate, one of them gave him a slap that brought him to the ground. He had been handcuffed from behind with a nylon restraint and blindfolded. He wasn’t insolent, he didn’t do anything to get on anyone’s nerves … [it was] just because he’s an Arab. He was something like 15 years old.” The soldier said he saw a lot of soldiers “just knee [Palestinians] because it’s boring, because you stand there 10 hours, you’re not doing anything, so they beat people up.

There were a lot of reservists that participated, and they totally had a celebration on the Palestinians: curses, humiliation, pulling hair and ears, kicks, slaps. These things were the norm.”

This is systematic violence against people for the most part are under the authority of the Israeli government and it is this type of government sanctioned violence that keeps Israel in much the same company as Sudan, Somali, and Iraq, and it is all done with the knowledge and blessings of the US government.

Should we take this kinda’ stuff seriously or not?


capemanIt’s pretty amusing reading in a way, but I also wonder if it was written to be that way in order to obscure  what is really going on;  the New York Daily News is as mainstream a media outlet as they come, and we all know what that means, don’t we?  Nevertheless, this article on one Daniel James Murray, aka the Capeman, threatening President Obama after insisting in a bank if he didn’t receive the money he wanted to withdraw (read that steal) without producing the necessary identification would result in someone’s death reads almost like a comic book.  Capeman claims he was on a mission to kill the President, and thankfully he was caught gambling his heist away in a Nevada casino before accomplishing that mission.

Two things about this; first the kook nature of it.  I believe all murderers are kooks, mentally unhinged, unstable, but the tendency to consistently portray those who plot to kill a president or actually do so in that way is conspiratorial in my view, because murderers are also calculating, and methodical, two characteristics that embody saneness.  That said, why make references to this guy muttering while walking down the streets of his upstate New York neighborhood with a cape on in order to underscore that point, and why is he withdrawing money from a bank in Utah an area which houses unsavory movements some of which vehemently oppose a President Obama and a continent removed from his home state of New York?  Had he moved there to become a part of the community of like minded people in Utah?  That relationship has not been explored or revealed by the corporate, read mainstream, media.   Finally the reference in almost all news stories on this to how Murray owns guns is telling, all too predictable and typical.  It is media’s attempt to get people to recoil at the idea of private gun ownership; anyone who owns weapons must by nature be suspicious and plotting towards a violent goal.  My retort to the anti-gun bias in Murray’s story is if he is as mentally unbalanced as some assert in news reports, how was he able to legally possess so many firearms?  In many municipalities sound and emotional well being are key in order to legally purchase firearms.  Was the guy mentally unbalanced or not and does the area where he purchased his firearms prohibit people who are unbalanced from owning guns?  If yes, someone else is also responsible for his illegal procurement of  weapons.  Perhaps this isn’t the lone gunman plot we are so accustomed to reading about when it comes to attempts against politicians as it may seem?

The Global Peace Index


israeli_flagThe Global Peace Index offers some interesting insight into what is considered a peaceful country and what isn’t.  The top ten peaceful countries are in order, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Austria, Sweden, Japan, Canada, Finland, Slovenia.  Denmark and Norway have been the scene of some pretty violent opposition to Muslim immigration to their countries, but evidently the citizens have managed to coexist peacefully with one another.  The Netherlands another country that has seen stiff opposition to immigrants is the 22nd most peaceful country and France is ranked number 30.  America is ranked 83 which surprised me considering we invaded three countries and are the only country at war with other countries, or forces in other countries.  The ten most violent countries in the world are Zimbabwe, Russia, Pakistan, Chad, The Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Israel, Somalia, Afghanistan and finally Iraq, the most violent country of the 144 countries considered.  With the exception of Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan, all of the other worst offenders are fighting their own populations and not foreigners invading their territory. (Guess who that invader is in two of the cases.)  Only one of the 10 worst countries is an ally of America, while the others have cold to almost no relations with the United States and face some sort of condemnation from America as a result of their human rights violations against their own.   Israel meanwhile continues to enjoy copious amounts of US aid,  materiel and support for its apartheid like policies towards its Arab citizens and neighbors.  Noteworthy too is the fact that Israel has been in the bottom 5 consistently for the last three years. It is definitely time for CHANGE.

Main Stream Media At it Again-What the AP left out of Obama’s speech


The AP posted a transcipt of Obama’s speech in Cairo, but this is what they left out:

Threatening Israel with destruction — or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews — is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.

On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people — Muslims and Christians — have suffered in pursuit of a homeland.  For more than 60 years they’ve endured the pain of dislocation.  Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead.  They endure the daily humiliations — large and small — that come with occupation.  So let there be no doubt:  The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable.  And America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.  (Applause.)

For decades then, there has been a stalemate:  two peoples with legitimate aspirations, each with a painful history that makes compromise elusive.  It’s easy to point fingers — for Palestinians to point to the displacement brought about by Israel’s founding, and for Israelis to point to the constant hostility and attacks throughout its history from within its borders as well as beyond.  But if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth:  The only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.  (Applause.)

That is in Israel’s interest, Palestine’s interest, America’s interest, and the world’s interest.  And that is why I intend to personally pursue this outcome with all the patience and dedication that the task requires.  (Applause.)  The obligations — the obligations that the parties have agreed to under the road map are clear.  For peace to come, it is time for them — and all of us — to live up to our responsibilities.

Palestinians must abandon violence.  Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and it does not succeed.  For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation.  But it was not violence that won full and equal rights.  It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America’s founding.  This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia.  It’s a story with a simple truth:  that violence is a dead end.  It is a sign neither of courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus.  That’s not how moral authority is claimed; that’s how it is surrendered.

Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build.  The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern, with institutions that serve the needs of its people. Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have to recognize they have responsibilities.  To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, recognize Israel’s right to exist.

At the same time, Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel’s right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s.  The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.  (Applause.)  This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace.  It is time for these settlements to stop.  (Applause.)

And Israel must also live up to its obligation to ensure that Palestinians can live and work and develop their society.  Just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not serve Israel’s security; neither does the continuing lack of opportunity in the West Bank. Progress in the daily lives of the Palestinian people must be a critical part of a road to peace, and Israel must take concrete steps to enable such progress.

And finally, the Arab states must recognize that the Arab Peace Initiative was an important beginning, but not the end of their responsibilities.  The Arab-Israeli conflict should no longer be used to distract the people of Arab nations from other problems.  Instead, it must be a cause for action to help the Palestinian people develop the institutions that will sustain their state, to recognize Israel’s legitimacy, and to choose progress over a self-defeating focus on the past.

America will align our policies with those who pursue peace, and we will say in public what we say in private to Israelis and Palestinians and Arabs.  (Applause.)  We cannot impose peace.  But privately, many Muslims recognize that Israel will not go away.  Likewise, many Israelis recognize the need for a Palestinian state.  It is time for us to act on what everyone knows to be true.

Too many tears have been shed.  Too much blood has been shed.  All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of the three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra — (applause) — as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, peace be upon them, joined in prayer.  (Applause.)

The third source of tension is our shared interest in the rights and responsibilities of nations on nuclear weapons.

This issue has been a source of tension between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran.  For many years, Iran has defined itself in part by its opposition to my country, and there is in fact a tumultuous history between us.  In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government.  Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians.  This history is well known.  Rather than remain trapped in the past, I’ve made it clear to Iran’s leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward.  The question now is not what Iran is against, but rather what future it wants to build.

I recognize it will be hard to overcome decades of mistrust, but we will proceed with courage, rectitude, and resolve.  There will be many issues to discuss between our two countries, and we are willing to move forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect.  But it is clear to all concerned that when it comes to nuclear weapons, we have reached a decisive point.  This is not simply about America’s interests.

Hat tip to Kabobfest.

Response to the No Comment video below


dollarsGoing against my No Comment column rules, I have decided to address the raw and racist nature of the remarks in the video below.  Not because of what is said, I believe in the right of people to say whatever they want to say, and if I don’t like their speech, I simply don’t listen, but I’m addressing who is saying it.  Basically it boils down to not biting the hand that feeds you.

Israeli Jews are free to vent and display their true thoughts about the President of the United States, but they should remember we, American citizens are footing their bill and as such don’t take too kindly to outward signs of disrespect for the institutions which are making it possible for them to live in peace and security while sowing the seeds of destruction and murder they do on a daily basis with their neighbors.   If you don’t like the President, tell him to stop giving you, yes that’s right giving you, because we all know you aren’t paying any of it back, the more than 30 billion dollars in US aid you hope to get over the next decade.  While I know that’s not as much as Uncle Bernie probably gave you in his heist of US wealth, it’s still more than a pay check of mine or two which I could use to educate my own children instead of some ungrateful spoiled brat who’s double dipping.  Yes I heard the reference in the video to “our country” and wondered which one you were talking about!

And if you insist on pissing people off like you have us, with your disrespect of the President….then don’t expect us to look the other way when you break the law.  Expect that we’ll be as hard with you on enforcing the law as we are with your enemies.  All those blockades we supported when you cried terrorist this and that will be used against you when you engage in illegal activity in much the same way as your opponents.  It’s only fair because when you don’t give any quarter you shouldn’t expect any, right!!  So, give back all the free military hardware you received with a wink and nod….it’s not yours in the first place, it’s ours and by ours I mean America’s!

To show you how democratic we are, when you try to take away the right of people living in your borders to express themselves without violence, we’re going to call you on it and start boycotting those institutions of yours that support such racist laws as those your foreign minister wants to pass against Palestinians, because that’s not democratic, and we won’t call you our only democratic ally in the Middle East any longer.  Please don’t cry about this being interference in your internal affairs.  The world is a smaller place and made smaller by the billions of dollars of loans that go back and forth across borders, and you for the moment are not a truly independent state.  We’ve invaded countries where people living there have said far less than the petulant lads and lasses in this video, so don’t get snippy with US.  You are here today, but can easily be gone tomorrow!  Remember Saddam Hussein?

Finally, I refer you all to Glen Greenwald’s excellent blog on this subject.  It’s another smack down for those who want their cake and eat it too when it comes to Israel and her indiscretions.

Police Brutality in a ‘with us or against us’ society


brutalityThe public displays of police brutality caught on tape are stark, violent, gut wrenching, heart breaking, and indicative of an age old problem of us and them politics.  It used to be such rawness wasn’t seem by most of us in main stream society, because it was done to “other” people secreted away in “their” communities and never under the omnipotent eye of video cameras but times have certainly changed and today can police brutality smack us in the face as powerfully as it does the victim at the end of an officers arm, baton, taser, gun.

The most egregious example of brutality involved an EMT with a patient on the way to a local hospital in Oklahoma.  There’s a video on youtube if you can bear to watch it without hurling either your lunch/breakfast/dinner or your computer through the nearest window.  In that video an Oklahoma highway patrol officer berates the EMT driver for not pulling over while he, the trooper tried to pass.  The video was shot by a family member of the patient riding in the ambulance.  In that video you can see the victim of the police brutality calmly tell the family member who was shooting the video to remain calm, not interfere with the patrolman, stay out of the way, don’t do anything to provoke the officer and let the EMT people handle it.  The person giving this advice was the one assaulted by the officer, who literally had both hands around the neck of the technician!  It was like watching a legal lynching, and given the characters and setting it probably felt that way for many who saw the incident.  The EMT, Maurice White had done nothing to provoke this officer who felt justified in trying to restrain him by choking him?

Another widely publicized example of brutality where size, experience, weight were far more on the side of the law enforcement officer than the victim is the case of Malika Calhoun, a teenager who was pummeled by a King County sheriff’s deputy, Paul Schene in Seattle, Washington, because she was “lippy” an offense for which police assault is most likely NOT the punishment.  The video can be seen at the link below.

One wonders whether the offending officer treats women as callously in his social reactions with them as he did in this professional encounter with a teenaged girl.  Regardless there is no excuse for such excessive physical force and one can only hope the officer is relieved of his duties permanently.

What is distressing is in each of the examples mentioned above, the offending officer had a partner with him who did nothing to restrain him, or even is not responsible for revealing the brutality to their superiors or the public in general.  In both cases officers were caught by the unblinking eye of video cameras they either ignored or didn’t realize were present filming their indiscretions.  In many cases, therefore, I would assert the partners of the offending officers are just as responsible for the brutality we see as the assaulting officer himself, and should be disciplined as well.

How does this get to the us and them theme of my title?  There has always been this idea among law officers that they were the last bulwark against a marauding public hell bent on destroying all we hold dear….almost the same thing said about the Muslim hordes we’ve told we must  detest and distrust.  Police who got carried away in the performance of their duties were exempt from punishment and their excesses were viewed with a blind eye, or a wink and a grin by superior officers because cohesion of the “force” was more important than the rule of the law.  The public that these offices were sworn to protect and serve were all too often the victims of these officers who found purpose in protecting one another from “them” the public.  There was nothing to restrain them, except an all too infrequent application of the rule of law against them.  In some cases that worked, however!  Witness Norm Stamper’s claims.

Forty-three years ago I was an idealistic, vaguely liberal 21-year-old when the San Diego Police Department hired me. The last thing on my mind was taking to the streets to punish people. And lest there be any doubt about the department’s policy, the police academy, even then, drove it home: excessive force was grounds for termination.

So, why did I abuse the very people I’d been hired to serve?

Not to get too psychological, I did it because the power of my position went straight to my head; because other cops I’d come to admire did it; and because I thought I could get away with it. Which I did–until a principled prosecutor slapped me upside the head and demanded to know whether the U.S. Constitution meant anything to me.

It comes down to this: real cops, those with a conscience, those who honor the law, must step up and take control of the cop culture.

The turnaround for this officer was the application of the law AGAINST him, not by him, for his illegal activity; that was all that was needed to get him to see the error of his ways, and likely spare a lot of innocent people from his lawlessness.  This brings me to the present and where we are as a country.  We pride ourselves in being a country where the rule of law reigns supreme, is equally applied to all and insures a social harmony that preserves our values and way of life.  That said, we should see and insist  the rule of law apply to lawless law enforcement officers as well as lawless politicians, no matter how high they are in the political hierarchy.  Doing so preserves our way of life as vigorously as fighting terrorists on foreign soil.  This notion that we have to aggressively fight an external foe that means us harm in ways that are universally considered illegal with no legal consequences to us is the type of hubris which causes nations to disintegrate, diminish and disappear over time at varying rates of  speed.  The polarization of such a society into those who are the enforcers and those who are the victims of that enforcement leads to civil unrest and violence, certainly anathema to our ‘way of life’, yet both sides would claim vociferously they are defending it!  There is no other recourse than the unwavering application of the law against all who break it.  Doing so restores confidence in all to the principles which this country was founded, and gives meaning to those who’ve sacrificed for it.

These are our neighbors


eboo_patel

“I Am an American With a Muslim Soul”

Ilove America not because I am under the illusion that it is perfect, but because it allows me — the child of Muslim immigrants from India —

to participate in its progress, to carve a place in its promise, to play a role in its possibility. John Winthrop, one of the earliest European settlers in  America, gave voice to this sense of possibility. He told his compatriots that their society would be like a city upon a hill ,a beacon for the world. It was a hope rooted in Winthrop’s Christian faith, and no doubt he imagined his city on a hill with a steeple in the center. Throughout the centuries, America has remained a deeply religious country, while becoming a remarkably plural one. Indeed, we are the most religiously devout nation in the West and the most religiously diverse country in the world. The steeple at the center of the city on a hill is now surrounded by the minaret of Muslim mosques, the Hebrew script of Jewish synagogues, the chanting of Buddhist sangas, and the statues of Hindu temples. In fact, there are now more Muslims in America than Episcopalians, the faith professed by many of America’s Founding Fathers.

One hundred years ago, the great African- American scholar W.E.B. Du Bois warned that the problem of the century would be the color line. The 21st century might well be dominated by a different line — the faith line. The most pressing questions for my country (America), my religion (Islam), and all God’s people may well be these: How will people who may have different ideas of heaven interact together on Earth? Will the steeple, the minaret, the synagogue, the temple, and the sanga learn to share space in a new city on a hill? I think the American ethos — mixing tolerance and reverence — may have something special to contribute to this issue.

America is a grand gathering of souls, the vast majority from elsewhere. The American genius lies in allowing these souls to contribute their texture to the American tradition, to add new notes to the American song. I am an American with a Muslim soul. My soul carries a long history of heroes, movements, and civilizations that sought to submit to the Will of God. My soul listened as the Prophet Muhammad preached the central messages of Islam, tazaaqa and tawhid, compassionate justice and the oneness of God. In the Middle Ages, my soul spread to the East and West, praying in the mosques and studying in the libraries of the great medieval Muslim cities of Cairo, Baghdad, and Cordoba. My soul whirled with Rumi,  read Aristotle with Averroes, traveled through Central Asia with Nasir Khusrow. In the colonial era, my Muslim soul was stirred to justice. It marched with Abdul Ghaffar Khan and the Khudai Khidmatgars in their satyagraha to free India. It stood with Farid Esack, Ebrahim Moosa, Rahid Omar, and the Muslim Youth Movement in their struggle for a multicultural South Africa. In one eye I carry this ancient Muslim vision on pluralism; in the other eye I carry the American promise. And in my heart, I pray that we make real this possibility: a city on a hill where different religious communities respectfully share space and collectively serve the common good; a world where diverse nations and peoples come to know one another in a spirit of brotherhood and righteousness; a century in which we achieve a common life together.

A dangerous step backward


I believe the Department of Homeland Security, born of the fraudulent premise of 911 and the need for expanded government, should not exist, but it certainly shouldn’t be staffed by those people who are responsible for the lies and myths of the war on terror.  That said, I was happy the DHS got off to an interesting start when they declared the biggest threat to the security of the “homeland” was our own violent rightwing extremist groups fuelled by recession, the return of disgruntled army veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, and hostility over the election of the first black president.  The shooting death of Dr. George Tiller, a doctor who performed abortions in the state of Kansas was an endorsement of that warning issued earlier this year. I don’t like the idea that President Obama is staffing this very department with Bush political appointees who are responsible for the illegal activity the US has participated in over the last 8 years in our name.

President Barack Obama has nominated Philip Mudd, who was deputy director of the Office of Terrorism Analysis at the CIA during the Bush administration  to be under secretary of intelligence and analysis at Homeland Security.  Mudd is into ethnic cleansing/targetting.

Philip Mudd, who had just joined the bureau from the rival Central Intelligence Agency, was pitching a program called Domain Management, designed to get agents to move beyond chasing criminal cases and start gathering intelligence.

Drawing on things like commercial marketing software and the National Security Agency’s eavesdropping without warrants, the program is supposed to identify threats. Mr. Mudd displayed a map of the San Francisco area, pocked with data showing where Iranian immigrants were clustered — and where, he said, an F.B.I. squad was “hunting.”

Some F.B.I. officials found Mr. Mudd’s concept vague and the implied ethnic targeting troubling. How were they supposed to go “hunting” without colliding with the Constitution? Would the C.I.A. man, whom some mocked privately as Rasputin, take the bureau back to the domestic spying scandals of the 1960’s? And why neglect promising cases to, in Mr. Mudd’s words, “search for the unknown”?

I am troubled by Mr. Obama’s appointments who use methods against American citizens and others we have already come to associate as illegal.  Where is the change we were promised and the return to the rule of law? Moreover, what signal does this nomination send to a country Obama has pledged to work with to resolve differences with it when Mudd has been known to go after and try to prove terrorism on the part of Iranian expatriates in America? Unfortunately, the Mudd nomination hasn’t raised the ire that Charles Freeman’s did, who subsequently had to withdraw from consideration to a top intelligence post because of AIPAC pressure, and most likely the Mudd nomination will go through after an appearance of resistance from the Republican party to their own one time appointee. It’s all very macabre, the delicate dance that goes on between the two political parties. Were it not so serious with ramifications for the entire country it would be entertaining to watch. As it is, it’s nothing more than the shuffling of the same players on a game board.

War Crimes-A mounting body of evidence


FlightSuitWe the people have had placed before us a mounting body of evidence that suggests the war in Iraq was not fought for the purposes stated, was executed illegally and perhaps for the interests of a foreign power, and all the players from the President on down knew every mechanism they would use to get the country to accept war would be deceptive and illegal.

The latest news is that a biographer for George W. Bush claims Bush told him, Mickey Herskowitz in 1999, if elected he would invade Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein. Herskowitz supposedly had a personal relationship with Bush and had worked with him on several projects before so it’s significant Bush would confide in someone about something so imminent.  It’s apparent Bush had already signed on to the idea of getting rid of Saddam Hussein long before 911 and in keeping with both Bill Clinton’s Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 and Project for a New American Century’s plans to overthrow Iraq; all he needed was an excuse.  Did one just happen to fall into his hands, i.e. 911 or was it created for the excuse to invade Iraq?  Everything we now know about Iraq is a lie.  There were no weapons of mass destruction despite the persistent claims to the contrary, there was no link between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein or any global terror organization, despite the best efforts of the US to torture such information out of people, but there was Bush’s strong desire to initiate a war to overthrow  a toothless dictator made so by a decades old sanction regimen which depleted Hussein’s power and decimated his countrymen……for what?

According to Herskowitz, who has authored more than 30 books, many of them jointly written autobiographies of famous Americans in politics, sports and media (including that of Reagan adviser Michael Deaver), Bush and his advisers were sold on the idea that it was difficult for a president to accomplish an electoral agenda without the record-high approval numbers that accompany successful if modest wars…..

According to Herskowitz, George W. Bush’s beliefs on Iraq were based in part on a notion dating back to the Reagan White House – ascribed in part to now-vice president Dick Cheney, Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee under Reagan. “Start a small war. Pick a country where there is justification you can jump on, go ahead and invade.”………

Republicans, Herskowitz said, felt that Jimmy Carter’s political downfall could be attributed largely to his failure to wage a war. He noted that President Reagan and President Bush’s father himself had (besides the narrowly-focused Gulf War I) successfully waged limited wars against tiny opponents – Grenada and Panama – and gained politically. But there were successful small wars, and then there were quagmires, and apparently George H.W. Bush and his son did not see eye to eye.

In other words to make candidate Bush look good, presidential.  Wars were resume enhancers, according to some in George Bush’s Republican party.  There was no issue of national security, national interests, protection of the “homeland”; wars were a way to get ahead, and the everyday soldier was the one on whose backs such wars were a key to politicians’ success.  In other words, as Christopher Hedges has realized and aptly written about, ‘war is a force that gives us meaning’.  We find glory in war and fight them because it defines us, not because we need to preserve freedom or security.  Today’s politician uses war as a way to shape a nation’s identity, not its borders or save its citizens.  Such an attitude leads me to wonder how much of what we see today is really us against them, or is it all just “us”?

An interesting aside to the talk about torture

Desertion is a moral imperative when continued service implicates a soldier in crimes against God and mankind.


Will Griggs who writes excellent pieces on is blog, Pro Libertate addresses frankly what it is people in the military are to do when confronted with commands from superiors that they commit illegal acts. Stopping along the way in his argument to point out that putting our soldiers in harms way is something they must expect when they enlist in the military, Griggs thinks there is no excuse for not releasing the photos.  He writes:

Yes, it’s entirely likely that releasing the photographs of torture and sexual assault — including homosexual rape and, God forgive us, the defilement of children — would lead to dangerous and potentially lethal complications for armed government employees who are killing people and destroying property in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, countries they invaded and continue to occupy by force.

If our rulers were genuinely concerned about danger to “our troops,” they would release the Abu Ghraib documents and bring the troops home. There — problem solved! Instead, they are illegally suppressing the photos and keeping the troops in the field — and now letting it be known that the U.S. military will remain mired in Mesopotamia (which is the more tractable of the two ongoing conflicts) for another decade or longer.

Well stated and let’s not forget several commanders of troops in war theaters have already averred that decisions regarding the “interrogation”, read torture, of detainees have put American personnel in danger with the indigenous societies they occupy, yet we hardly hear any objection to such tactics raised on those grounds.  What the release of those pictures would entail is the inescapable conclusion that US personnel must be prosecuted for war crimes, or at the very least criminal behavior, as it did in the case of several army personnel currently serving time for their part in actions caught on camera.

Griggs takes things a step further than any other writer I have read to date.  He chides and refutes the official reason for not releasing the photos, ‘the consequence would be to imperil our troops, the only protectors of our foreign policy’ by saying, ‘the foreign policy referred to entails open-ended entanglements in the affairs of nearly every nation on earth, as well as plundering huge sums from taxpayers to sustain a grotesquely huge military establishment and bribe political elites abroad. That foreign policy cultivates misery and harvests war and terrorism.’  Griggs thinks, as do I, that there should be consequences for illegal activity and if releasing the photos causes some to fear those consequences, so be it.

Although I wish harm or death on no human being, it seems to me a good idea to adjust the current set of incentives in such a way that at least some American military personnel, as they deal with another gust of blowback, will have an overdue confrontation with their conscience and decide unilaterally to end their service of the world’s largest criminal enterprise, the government of the United State (spelling intentional).

Am I trying to incite desertion? Reducing the matter to terms simple enough for Sean Hannity to understand them — yes, I am, where desertion is the only way to avoid upholding an immoral, unsustainable policy and serving a depraved Regime. Desertion is a moral imperative when continued service implicates a soldier in crimes against God and mankind.

Perhaps that is one of the consequences the military establishment is trying to avoid, i.e. the moral awakening of its enlisted corps and their refusal to support goals that are anathema to American values. It’s a particularly sticky situation for politicians to espouse American values which include life, and liberty while asking people to risk their lives to curtail those very things either on a foreign and distant soil or on our own here in America. The turmoil caused by an awakening that such requests are inconsistent with all we’ve been taught is probably more traumatic than fighting the war itself. I have often wondered whether this conflict in the soul of the military is the reason for such a high incidence of suicide in the military; if that were the case, desertion would be a far better alternative.  Griggs makes a very powerful and strong case for members of the US military not remain within the military as long as it asks them to commit illegal and morally reprehensible acts against people under its authority. I fully concur.  Well done, Mr. Griggs!

Release the hounds!


releasing houndsIt started out as a trickle but it has crescendoed to the point it is becoming increasingly more difficult for the Obama administration to ignore, in my opinion, the call for an investigation into Bush administration era torture.

It began with the “conservative” radio personality ‘Mancow’ undergoing a fake waterboarding and then declaring to his radio audience it really is torture.  There was a slight diversion to this confession involving emails sent by publicists and whether what happened was real or fake; clearly it was nothing as horrendous as what actual detainees go through, but the distraction caused a blip on the national conscious.  David Petraeus continued the onslaught when he said that Bush violated the Geneva Conventions.  This was significant coming from a political appointee, as it were, of the Bush administration.  Unfortunately that admission has not been enough to get Bush, et.co to shut up, as Mr. Cheney still insists that torture was NOT really torture, just enhanced interrogation techniques that are not violations of international law.

Janet Karpinski chimed in saying the orders for illegal and criminal behavior on the part of the soldiers under her command came from the very top of the military structure and beyond.  Her interview below, underscores the assertion that abusers at Abu Ghraib were merely following the orders given them by superiors outside the military command structure……intelligence “contractors”.

Lately we have General Ricardo Sanchez, the former commander of all coalition forces in Iraq, calling for a truth commission to investigate the abuses and torture which occurred in Iraq.  He went on to say that his troops were abandoned by the Bush administration while they were in Iraq and that here was not one instance of actionable intelligence that came out of interrogation techniques which were, or bordered on, criminality!

This last point was further underscored by CIA officials, past and present who ridiculed claims that illegal interrogations were necessary to stop imminent treats against the US.  This all leads up to a huge body of evidence that would seem to make it difficult for a controlling legal authority, ANY controlling legal authority to ignore and that efforts to initiate some type of criminal prosecutions of those people responsible are critical.  Do we as a country have to be observers to the prosecution of our elected officials by authorities outside our borders or will we be willing and active participants in bringing such people to justice?  Calls for the latter, in some form or another,  have come from every segment of our society, up to the very highest levels of the political and military branches of government.  To continue to ignore, placate, make excuses for and cover up criminal behavior only makes the US a pariah country on other countries’ lists, joining the likes of North Korea, Iraq, Sudan, Iran and old castaways like Libya, the former USSR, Nazi Germany, et.al.  There really is no choice for us but to pursue, at the very least, a grand jury to investigate charges against these officials.

I am happy to see that those no longer under the constraint of political correctness have come out and made strong statements of assertion against former political allies.  It’s now time for us as a society to do the same and demand that from our elected officials, under threat of a significantly truncated political career when their time for reelection comes up. Can we do that?

Cheney’s lies


If you think, as I do, that Dick Cheney is off his rocker, you’ve hit the jackpot.  If you think, as I do, that Cheney’s a liar you’ve won the daily double.

Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, says former Vice President Dick Cheney’s claims — that classified CIA memos show enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding worked — are wrong.

Levin, speaking at the Foreign Policy Association’s annual dinner in New York on Wednesday, said an investigation by his committee into detainee abuse charges over the use of the techniques — now deemed torture by the Obama administration — “gives the lie to Mr. Cheney’s claims.”

The Michigan Democrat told the crowd that the two CIA documents that Cheney wants released “say nothing about numbers of lives saved, nor do the documents connect acquisition of valuable intelligence to the use of abusive techniques.”

“I hope that the documents are declassified, so that people can judge for themselves what is fact, and what is fiction,” he added.

Cheney is a mentally unstable man with a mean streak a mile long running down his back. He gave in to the animal side of human nature and has led the rally cry for other Americans to join him on this dark, unstable journey of lawlessness and inhumanity. He managed to do so, thus far, through the bully pulpit and an obsequious press that parroted his every proclamation. Now that the curtain has been removed and the wizard exposed, why do we continue to be threatened by such a sick individual?

A tortured confession


I found this confession story interesting in light of all the talk about what is and is not torture and how legitimate it as an information gathering method.  Take a look and see if you’re persuaded:

Mitchell, 44, said yesterday that he was tortured into confessing crimes that he did not commit. He was arrested in 2000 after Christopher Rodway, a British engineer, had been killed in the first attack and his wife injured.

Mitchell said he was made to stand for nine days with his hands chained above his head and prevented from sleeping.

He added that each night he was tethered hand and foot and suspended with a metal bar behind his legs to expose his buttocks and the soles of his feet. He also claimed he was beaten with an axe handle until he gave the answers his jailers were looking for.

He said: “It went on and on. I used to consider myself a strong person but everybody has their breaking point. I was alone and in pain and if it wasn’t me being beaten it was others and I could hear their screams.”

He eventually confessed to being part of a bomb plot masterminded by the British embassy. “It was a ridiculous story, but that was what they wanted,” he said.

Now finish the story and say whether you still agree that you have to do what you have to do to get information on terrorist activity, even it means torture.

Mitchell said: “The turf war did not exist. That was made up by the Saudi secret police to justify their own existence.”

He was locked away in solitary confinement for almost a year before he saw a lawyer.

When he eventually was given access to a legal representative he discovered he had already been sentenced to death without a trial. No evidence other than his confession was ever brought forward.

If we condemn such acts of barbarity, as we should, let’s not stop at the Saudi gate!

Netanyahu whines


Of course that’s the way it’s portrayed to the West, but we all know, Netanyahu threatened, but the essence of what happened is this:

after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told journalists that the Obama administration “wants to see a stop to settlements — not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a confidante. Referring to Clinton’s call for a settlement freeze, Netanyahu groused, “What the hell do they want from me?”

For starters Ben, how about respecting the territorial integrity of your neighbors and cease and desist from IAF overflights of Lebanese airspace?  In fact, gearing up for another war, Israel has threatened to attack Hizbollah forces, read Lebanese Hizbollah forces, on Lebanese soil if they attempt to defend themselves from such Israeli aggression!  Talk about chutzpah.

Meanwhile, since the US president has stated he would like to see a cessation of settlement activity in the West Bank, he should make it conditional on the uninterrupted flow of US aid in dollars and materiel to Israel.  If they want to keep it, they have to give up settlement expansion. Perhaps Israel thinks the American empire is in decline and cannot make such demands on them, which accounts for their refusal to entertain the idea of halting settlement growth.  The message to Netanyahu is ‘if you want your settlements, you build them with your own dime, or shekel as it were, but not with US tax payer dollars’. The US economy could certainly use the money it gives in aid to Israel to strengthen not only our own economy, but our backbone when it comes to dealing with the recalcitrant Israelis as well.  Are you listening Mr. President?

Are Americans that dumb?


Paper runs ad urging Obama’s assassination
which stated:

May Obama follow in the steps of Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy!

and then added the mea culpa, the advertising staff did not make the connection between Lincoln, Kennedy and the other two American presidents? Yeah, and I have a bridge to sell you in the Florida Keys.  Noting that the publisher of the newspaper in question, The Warren Times Observer, did not reveal who placed the ad, I suggest his newspaper be closed for aiding and abetting al-Qaida terrorists!