The Re Collection

Robin Morgan on what would have been the 15th birthday of Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi

AlterNet: War on Iraq: Rape, Murder, and the American GI
Sometimes, a few nice American guys are found guilty — as Green and his buddies might be. Then all returns to “normal.” They’re sacrificed to save the ranks of those who train them to do what they did, and to save the careers of politicians who sermonize obscenely about “moral values” while issuing moral waivers.

This is NOT an incompetent administration — they are producing exactly the results they want.

d r i f t g l a s s: Plan Asinine
Because the Four Horsemen of the Republicans now have exactly what they want: an entire region completely destabilized and spiraling out of control, and at every single fucking instant when doing the smart thing was both possible and might have salvaged some part of this mess, the GOP went out of its way to kick the world off the balcony and onto the pointy rocks.

Over and over and over again.

And what is that but purposeful?

Get any of your GOP pals 3-4 beers drunk and poke ‘em a little in their jingo hole and they’ll tell you exactly what they believe is going on.

They want them all dead.

All of them.

All of the scary brown people between the Jordan River and Kasmir.

All of them, sitting on all of that sexy, Christian oil, screaming at us in some weird language that we can’t understand about how much they Hate Us For Our Freedom.

Any halfway competent reverse-engineering of the events of the last five years can only bring you to one conclusion: this Administration has been playing to lose in the region.

Why?

Because they are trying to reconstitute a doctrine of Corporate Christian Manifest Destiny and visit on the Middle East exactly the same kind of slaughter that has not been seen since Europe annihilated whole nations and peoples in the Americas, and for the same reasons: For God and Gold.

Who grieves for dead Iraqis?
Is blood on the hands of those Americans who support the war? Again, one must leave them to heaven. But in the objective order it is difficult to see why they are not responsible for the mass murders. They permitted their leaders to deceive them about the war, often enthusiastically. How can they watch the continuing murders in Iraq and not feel guilty?

How would you feel if the street were drenched with the blood of your son or daughter, if your father was in the hospital with his legs blown off?

We cannot permit ourselves to grieve for Iraqi pain because then we would weep bitter and guilty tears every day.

FIASCO: The American Military Adventure in Iraq

Stafford, Va.: Where does the crux of the blame for the FIASCO lie? There were a lot of efforts to incorporate lessons learned and new “ways of thinking” into military concepts, doctrine, education and training prior to OIF. Why did these efforts fail to take?

Tom Ricks: I’d say the book argues that you don’t get a mess as big as Iraq from the failings of one or two men, such as President Bush and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld.

Rather, I think there was a systemic failure. Sure, the Bush Administration made mistakes, and failed especially to recognized the nature of the conflict in which it was engaged (which as Clausewitz says, is the key task of the supreme leader).

But I would would say the military establishment bears much of the blame, especially for the flawed occupation.

In addition, the media and the intelligence community made mistakes.

Finally, I think that Congress was asleep at the wheel. That’s crucial. Congressional hearings provide oversight and accountability and (when done well) pump information into the American system. In other wars, you had hawks and doves. In this war you had the silence of the lambs. (emphasis added)

From Cenk Uygur at Huffpo:

How Many Civilians Do You Have to Kill Before You Become a Terrorist?

The United States and Israel love to throw around the word “terrorist.” It’s hard to name any of our enemies who we have not called a terrorist yet. I was led to believe that a terrorist was someone who killed innocent civilians for their military or political goals.

First, how is capturing two soldiers an act of terrorism?
Are Israel’s enemies not allowed to fight at all? If they have to audacity to challenge Israel in any way, do they automatically become terrorists? Is arguing with Israel also an act of terrorism? These days I wouldn’t be surprised. I imagine they’ll call it verbal terrorism. Sorry, I didn’t mean to give them any ideas.

Why is Israel allowed to take bold and aggressive military action (let alone the US) and no one is allowed to respond? If anyone has the nerve to fight back — terrorists!

I wonder how many of us would be “terrorists” if we were attacked and occupied by a foreign country?

Was the resistance to German occupation in France during World War II a terrorist operation? Oh no, that’s right, they were on our side, so they couldn’t possibly be terrorists. They were freedom fighters. Has anyone in history ever been more right than George Orwell?

But put all that aside and just answer this one simple question: How many civilians do you have to kill before you become a terrorist?

Right now, Hezbollah has claimed 17 civilian lives during their shelling of Israeli towns. God damn terrorists!

Israel has claimed 350 civilian lives in their bombardment of Lebanese towns.

I’m not making a value judgment or a statement on who started it or who had it coming. I’m asking a simple question — when do you become a terrorist?

Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald: Even neoconservatives now accepting defeat in Iraq

So that’s what our mission in Iraq has been reduced to — ceding most of Iraq to Iranian control and acknowledging that a civil war is now inevitable and we can do nothing to stop it. Worse, the only thing we can possibly hope to accomplish is to prevent Al Qaeda from turning Iraq into its new terrorist training ground, something it was entirely incapable of doing prior to our invasion.

Put another way, in exchange for the thousands of lives lost, hundreds of billions of dollars squandered, and destruction of U.S. credibility as a result of our invasion, the best we can hope for is what we already had — a situation where Al Qaeda cannot run free in Iraq — along with a vicious civil war and control by Iranian mullahs over most of Iraq. And that is what one of the leading neconservative advocates of the war is saying.

You know it’s a bad sign when a news report — the the Washington Post, no less — starts like this:

As Congress opened hearings yesterday on the treatment of terrorism detainees, the Bush administration’s view was neatly summarized by Steven Bradbury, the Justice Department lawyer serving as lead witness. “The president,” Bradbury said, “is always right.”

Gitmo, and the whole torture industry we’ve built, isn’t changing on his watch, you can be damn sure of that.

I don’t usually post about Democratic Party machinations, but this is a giddy day in Netrootsland.

Booman’s take: Lieberman Jumps Ship

Joe Lieberman jumped ship today. He pledged to run for reelection to his Connecticut Senate seat even if he loses the August 8th [Democratic Party] primary. Lieberman is engaged in some kind of verbal jujitsu, wherein he denies that an independent, unaffiliated run for the Senate against a Democrat and a Republican would prevent him from running as a Democrat. He claims he will merely be a ‘petitioning Democrat’.

Not so. The party must and will support Ned Lamont. […]

I am going to go out on a limb here and predict that Lieberman has just guaranteed that he will lose the primary. […]

The question then becomes, who will win in November? Lamont, Lieberman, or Republican Alan Schlesinger?[…] Too close to call. I doubt anyone will top 40%.

One thing I am sure of. The Netroots just flexed their muscles and Lieberman blinked. This is our first, real, tangible victory. Joe Lieberman has been forced out of the party. He will lose the primary. If we have to grudgingly accept him back into the fold in November, so be it. I hope the good people of Connecticut will not make the wrong decision.

I think it’s fair to say that today I rejoice with all my Netroots community, those who still have hope in the Dems, and those who work in other ways for progressive goals. Buh-bye, Joe; don’t let the gurney hit you on the way out.

Or, you know, more legalistically:

SCOTUSblog: Hamdan Summary — And HUGE News
[…] the Court held that Congress had, by statute, required that the commissions comply with the laws of war — and held further that these commissions do not (for various reasons).

I’ve been in such a funk, depressed by the news at every turn. This makes me feel a little better.

Update from the There May Be a God After All department:
Think Progress » Supreme Court Decision on Gitmo Undermines Bush’s Legal Case For Warrantless Wiretapping

The impact of today’s Supreme Court decision on military commissions goes well beyond Guantanamo. The Supreme Court has ruled that the Authorization for the Use of Military Force – issued by Congress in the days after 9/11 – is not a blank check for the administration.

Update 2: Glenn Greenwald explains the decicion in more accessible language, but his post is a downer, because he basically articulates my first reaction: What’s to make the Cheney administration actually follow this ruling when they don’t follow laws they don’t like, and don’t care who objects.

But his summary is upbeat:

Nonetheless, opponents of monarchical power should celebrate this decision. It has been some time since real limits were placed on the Bush administration in the area of national security. The rejection of the President’s claims to unlimited authority with regard to how Al Qaeda prisoners are treated is extraordinary and encouraging by any measure. The decision is an important step towards re-establishing the principle that there are three co-equal branches of government and that the threat of terrorism does not justify radical departures from the principles of government on which our country was founded. [Emphasis mine]

For me, it all comes back to the media (and the tide of public opinion it can influence), and whether they will stand up on this one, finally. Or whether Spector will find some balls. Don’t hold your breath on either.

Update 3: Happpy meter swings down with Digby. Back to my original news gloom.

Update 4: Glenn responds to Digby (and others) with sunshine and light, and I’m calling it for GG, who’s been studying and writing exclusively on Presidential powers for a while now. And he is one lawyer I trust.

Final Update: Christy at Firedoglake gleans the web for reactions, celebrations, warnings so I don’t have to.

Van Taylor wants you to know
Van is mad at Murtha for something he didn’t actually say. The Miami Sun-Sentinel misquoted him and no one checked the quote (sounds like bloggers have taken over, doesn’t it?) before running with it.

Van Taylor, the Republican candidate for the District 17 House seet, and the only R candidate who is an Iraq vet, is joining the swiftboating of John Murtha for his poistion on the war.

Of course the whole campaign is politically motivated and fueled by lies and distortion — else it wouldn’t be “swiftboating” but of course we can’t count on the media to clarify things for voters.

Fortunately, there’s a local blogger who takes on this task for the district. Nate Nance publishes the blog Common Sense, and tirelessly covers this race. If you live in this area, you should bookmark Common Sense and check it regularly. If you have local news that Nate might be interested in writing about, he’s got his email posted. And of course, use his comments to get a local dialog started — a civil, respectfull one, of course, regardless of your political persuasion..

Larry Beinhart says we should just “Give George Bush His War”

George Bush wants the war. He wants it to be his issue. Yes. Yes, please, let him have it. Let it be all his. But it has to be all his. I heard Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid on the radio and he said that it was time to get out of Iraq because it had gone on too long, with too many deaths, at too great an expense. Frankly, it sounded weak and wishy-washy. It sounded like the problem was that he - and the Democrats - just didn’t have the stomach for a long, tough fight. Which is how the Republicans want it to sound. That’s not the position to take. Nor is it the issue. The position to take is that it’s not America’s war at all. The issue is that it’s George Bush’s war. His own, personal, private obsession.

I doubt we will ever see Bush pay appropriately for his crimes, but I do think now that we will see him have to stew in widespread contempt from his fellow Americans once he is out of office and the full force of his distastrous presidency is felt. It is bound to be a dark time of much suffering, but any shame or embarrassment felt by George, assuming he is even capable of it, will be a little light in that darkness.

In many campaigns across this country this year, you hear of candidates running as fast as they can from the disaster in Iraq and the president who got us into it. But not in Bush Country.

Van Taylor, a Iraq War vet who wants to unseat Democrat Chet Edwards, must not have got the memo, or doesn’t think the folks around here are feeling the way Americans elsewhere are. He’s running hard on his vet status, and says he will be a War Senator, so sorely needed to help Bush, the War President. This rather curious stategy is probably his only recourse, though, since he has no other discernable qualifications for office and isn’t even from around here — apparently something pretty important to the locals (I’m new myself and that’s what I hear — I think it has something to do with college football).

Today’s Waco Trib included the following guest editorial by Waco resident Hal Ritter on Taylor’s battle plan for getting elected in George W. Bush’s congressional district. Ritter doesn’t seem to think Taylor’s paying attention either.

Interestingly, though the Trib found the piece worthy of publishing on their editorial page, they did not think it quite worthwhile enough to make available on their web site. Since their guest column is basically a long letter to the editor that got promoted, and all the lte’s are printed — even the absolutely idiotic ones that blame CBS for the death of their Iraq crew — this makes no sense whatsoever. But then this is Waco; they do things there own damn way down here, in case you haven’t heard. At any rate, I paste in full, with no link, and no apology to the Trib.

So now warriors are needed?

Why is Van Taylor’s military past more important than others? (more…)

TomDispatch presents a fascinating, troubling and infuriating overview of the Intelligence Community (IC) in the US.

[… T]he real story of American intelligence is simply growth and bureaucratic infighting. The Bush administration, supposedly made up of “conservatives” who loath (and once endlessly railed against) “big government,” have ensured that, like the Pentagon, the IC, already an entangled monstrosity when they arrived, would experience its greatest growth spurt in memory, becoming an ever more bloated example of hopeless big government.

[snip]

Even if all its competing parts really did add up to a “community” — rather than a group of warring, bureaucratic mini-states on a collective proliferation mission — what kind of “intelligence” could possibly come out of such a conglomerate entity?

[snip]

An update from Firedoglake, fast becoming my favorite blog.

Ever since Pach launched his broadside against the War on Terror and the cover it has provided for a whole host of executive sins, the comments section on that post has looked like Chickamauga: The Morning After.

Wingnuttia came unglued. …

Jane quotes Kung Fu Monkey on ths subject:

The problem is, these yahoos have managed an ugly trick. They have turned criticism of the policies of Bastards in Suits into criticism of The People in Uniform Getting Shot At. […] . If the history of modern warfare has taught us anything, it’s that the Bastards in Suits spend an awful lot of time working the kinks out of plans involving The People in Uniform dying unpleasantly. They often screw that up. When they do screw up, it is incumbent upon Bastards in Suits to suffer criticism and fix the situation, as by comparison The People in Uniform are suffering shattered skulls, missing limbs and death. Which is, on my scale, exponentially more traumatic than criticism.

And Digby summarizes for us:

[I]t is long past time for people to start the public counter argument, which has the benefit of appealing to common sense. Many Americans are emerging from the relentless hail of propaganda that overtook the nation after the traumatic events of 9/11. Iraq confused people for a while, but that confusion is leaving in its wake a rather startling clarity: the “war” as the government defines it is bullshit. It will take a while for this common sense to become conventional wisdom, but it certainly won’t happen if nobody is willing to say it out loud.

This WOT insanity must end. We are losing everything to it, everything civil and decent about our culture and society. It is almost too late. Wake the fuck up, people! Open your eyes and step into the light.

Firedoglake - Firedoglake weblog » Memorial Day Truth: There Is No “War on Terror”

Terror is an emotion. Emotions are part of human nature and cannot be eradicated. A “War on Terror” is therefore a war on humanity. The Bush administration has exploited the fear and shock of a nation in the wake of a surprising and dramatic act of violence to whip national fear and paranoia into a constant boil. Why?

The evidence suggests the whole point has been to seize power and steal money. We are witnessing a creeping coup in the United States, the overthrow of the idea, promulgated by our founders and by writers like Tom Paine, that the “Law is King:”

[…]

Bushco has enslaved Americans into a psychological reign of “War on Terror” that amounts to a criminal protection racket. We are told we must be afraid. That is, we are told we must live in terror. This is to protect us from. . . terror. Then, because we feel terrified, we must give up our freedom - freedom to write what we believe without fear of reprisal, freedom of due process and habeas corpus protection, freedom from secret intrusion into our private lives by government.

Today is Memorial Day. Today we remember countless patriots who died and fought for those freedoms our president tells us we must abandon. . . in the name of “freedom.”

A worthwhile read. I agree with Pachacutec. A commenter also provides an illustrative quote from history:

“Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.”

— Herman Goering, at the Nuremberg trials

Myself, I am not afraid of terrorists. The numbers game alone, is in my favor; and anyway, they can only kill me — and still they will not achieve their goal. But Bushco and the neocons can make my life unhappy — and we do have a right to pursue happiness, remember — by restricing my freedoms and lessening my safety. Here’s another pertinent quote that should be applied: “Give me liberty or give me death.”

Update: John Avarosis weighs in.

Bloggers Against Torture

Join Us!

Join Us!

I know it will come as a huge surprise to my loyal readers — all two of you — that I am taking a firm stand on this issue.

Add your blog to the anti-torture side of the internets by clicking the Join Us link. It’s a small step, but if enough do it, it may garner some Corporate Media attention and perhaps instill some small bit of shame among those who…I know who am I kidding, those folks have no shame or they wouldn’t be involved in the disgusting business in the first place.

Nonetheless, it can’t hurt, and will give you a reason to harp some more on such quaint notions as human rights and American idealism during the month of June (in addition to the always festive queer rights topics that June has provided for some time now).

If you follow the links, you will get to the site of the new film Road to Guantanamo which opens (somewhere, not where I am) on June 23. There is more info on the whole torture business as well in other links.

As difficult as it is to deal with this, this is being done in our name and so we have a responsibility to learn and of course to act to stop it. We cannot turn our eyes away and pretend it is not happening, which is a natural and understandable reaction. A new kind of strength is required in this movement now, and we (in which I of course include myself) must find it in ourselves.

The NY Times acclaimed foriegn policy wonk, Tom Friendman, is absolutely firm about when that little Iraq thing is going to be over.

Yes, at some point, like W. S. Merwin’s Anniversary of My Death, it will actually be six month’s out from our exit — with a “decent outcome” no less (but for whom, one wonders) — and if he calls it somewhere close to that point, he will be deemed, by his pundi-class admirers, a genius.

So why not just keep up the refrain? What does he have to lose? Certainly not his credibility!

This Petition and signatures and comments will be delivered to the White House by many activists, including Cindy Sheehan, between 1 and 3 p.m. ET on May 18, in cooperation with the national conference of the Network of Spiritual Progressives — Join us!

Afterwards, Ray McGovern will lead a march to Rumsfeld’s house.

Dear President Bush and Vice President Cheney,

We write to you from all over the United States and all over the world to urge you to obey both international and U.S. law, which forbid aggressive attacks on other nations. We oppose your proposal to attack Iran. Iran does not possess nuclear weapons, just as Iraq did not possess nuclear weapons. If Iran had such weapons, that would not justify the use of force, any more than any other nation would be justified in launching a war against the world’s greatest possesor of nuclear arms, the United States. The most effective way to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons would be to closely monitor its nuclear energy program, and to improve diplomatic relations — two tasks made much more difficult by threatening to bomb Iranian territory. We urge you to lead the way to peace, not war, and to begin by making clear that you will not commit the highest international crime by aggressively attacking Iran.

Sign here:
Sign Petition Opposing Attack on Iran | AfterDowningStreet.org

From Daily Kos :: Comments to
“The REAL reason the press threw Colbert down the memory hole”

Why this whole thing makes me angry

I’ve been trying to figure out why it makes me so angry that the press ignored this story despite the fact that they were sitting there staring at it for what, half an hour? It’s not that they missed it, they actually consciously chose not to report it.

And I realized the reasons that makes me so mad is that:

(1) This was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Bush is perhaps more averse to criticism than any previous president, and he is allowed to hide from it 99% of the time. That Colbert was chosen to speak is something of a small miracle in itself.

(2) He nailed it. Anyone who says “but, but… it wasn’t funny” has totally missed the point. The point is: a comedian just got up and had the balls to criticize President Bush on almost every aspect imagineable - to his face. If you look closely, Colbert actually looks directly at Bush throughout much of the time he’s at the podium.

You know what I call that?? A f&cking news story!! Regardless of whether you thought his jokes were funny or not, there’s simply no escaping the fact that this is a news story because Colbert criticized Bush to his face like no one has before.

And not only did he criticize Bush, he also criticized the media itself, and the interelationship of the two. He showed a video with Helen Thomas chasing a fictional White House press secretary who was scared shitless to answer the simple question of why we invaded Iraq.

But no, that’s not news.

I keep going back to the old joke about the headline that states: “Bush says world is flat; Dems disagree”. In every other case, the press will slavishly present two sides of the story. Like in the Abramoff case when they kept wanting to call it a bipartisan scandal even though it clearly was not.

Yet now, where are the two sides? Do we get a headline that says “Colbert satire rips Bush; Repubs downplay significance”? No. We get spoiled “reporters” who simply decide the story isn’t worth running at all. I’m fed up with this.

When someone does something nice for you without expecting anything in return, it’s only right to thank them.

Consortiumnews.com

In the U.S. government’s pursuit of the death penalty for Zacarias Moussaoui, FBI officials have inadvertently revealed how an even mildly competent George W. Bush could have prevented the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people – and set the country on a dangerous course for revenge.

FBI agent Harry Samit, who interrogated Moussaoui weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, sent 70 warnings to his superiors about suspicions that the al-Qaeda operative had been taking flight training in Minnesota because he was planning to hijack a plane for a terrorist operation.

But FBI officials in Washington showed “criminal negligence” in blocking requests for a search warrant on Moussaoui’s computer or taking other preventive action, Samit testified at Moussaoui’s death penalty hearing on March 20.

Samit’s futile warnings matched the frustrations of other federal agents in Minnesota and Arizona who had gotten wind of al-Qaeda’s audacious scheme to train pilots for operations in the United States. But the agents couldn’t get their warnings addressed by senior officials at FBI headquarters.

Another big part of the problem was the lack of urgency at the top. Bush, who had been President for half a year, was taking a month-long vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, and shrugged off the growing alarm within the U.S. intelligence community.

A horrific collection of post-traumatic stess disorder stories. Read and weep.

This collectin compiled by someone who should know: retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Anthony Zinni. His list of the 10 biggest mistakes made before and after the invasion of Iraq, from his May 12, 2004 speech at the Center for Defense Information:

Hat tip to Carnacki at Political Cortex

Most of my posts are just links to recommended reading, but this article by Don Hazen of Alternet, AlterNet: Bring the Sixties Out of the Closet, I’m calling special attention to. I see so much on the left denegrating the actions of the 60’s, and refusing to acknowledge the many positive results that the activists of the era achieved, not the famous ones only, but all the unknown marchers and peacemakers.

In the face of this [Bush era post-election] semiparalysis, ’60s values need to be liberated to give us some inspiration and updated to fit our present day. These values don’t belong to just one generation, but rather to a historical river of ideas and ideals that stretch back into history. They are ready to be claimed by new generations and reclaimed by those who remember what it was like the first time around.

Read the whole thing.

Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald: The Death of Shame in our Pundit Class

It is truly difficult to understand how these same people can continue to pompously opine on these matters, and still claim an entitlement to be listened to, without at least confessing their errors. The magnitude of misinformation and deceit in which our country was drowning during that time is difficult to convey. And from the fact that 70% of the country had been falsely persuaded that Saddam personally participated in the planning of the 9/11 attacks to the way in which our media mindlessly swallowed and regurgitated outright military fiction such as the Jessica Lynch fantasies, this carousel of shame and deceit is virtually endless.

There are not many episodes in our national history which can compete with the invasion of Iraq in terms of the profound failures of every one of our institutions — failures which allowed this sort of deceit and detachment from reality to persist. But until we identify those responsible and end the influence which they continue to exert over our political dialogue, we will continue to be at risk of following them down these same deceitful, destructive paths.