I had to laugh as confident Cheney hatchet man David Addington dropped Nancy Pelosi's name during torture hearings last week. It was right out of the Senate hearings in The Godfather II - where the Corleones have systematically corrupted key legislators, and are sending tough, coded messages even in their own public testimony.
Addington's message: 'Chairman Conyers, if these hearings go any further than today, I'll publicly ask why your precious Speaker - who my staff secretly briefed about these interrogation methods starting in 2002 - hasn't been called as a witness. You've earned enough political capital; I won't be charged. Don't push it.'
The Bush administration has done what the best con artists and criminals love to do: get The Mark involved in something illegal so they never go to the police - or even better, get police and prosecutors themselves involved.
Astonishingly, most Americans - including even avid news readers like us, I'm afraid - still know more propaganda than fact about Afghanistan's and the Taliban's role in 9/11. So please take a moment, take the poll (no peeking in the Wikipedia!) and then read the facts.
Also: excerpts from today's New York Times that make it clear why occupying Afghanistan might be even more dangerous than Iraq, and what we need to know to help save President Obama from likely disaster.
I was at the 2004 Valentine's Day Marry-In at SF City Hall with my different-sex partner, trying to get a proper marriage license. We would have succeeded, but there were so many gay couples there, City Hall ran out.
I'd be as thrilled to get a discrimination-based marriage license as I would be eating a delicious meal in a segregated restaurant.
How do so many recently married heterosexuals take such joy in grabbing privileges that are being denied to - who - their inferiors? We couldn't stomach it. We'd rather be heterosexual domestic partners. We've been waiting years for this day.
If that puts us in a tiny class with just Brad and Angelina - who say they've been waiting too - then so be it. But change would happen faster if heterosexuals didn't think about it as someone else's problem. I wish more people remembered all the white faces marching with Dr. King.
The denial is understandable, but in fact discrimination has been sullying - just a little - every marriage in California for the last few years, dragging down every heterosexual who's so eager for the privilege of marriage they looked the other way. Now it's a right.
Now maybe we can openly admit that freedom and fairness are everybody's problem.
Some of my favorite politicians love to repeat that John McCain is a hero. But in an election that so often turns on candidates' honesty and credibility, somebody please tell me - how is McCain a hero?
Please show me any real threat to my country from Vietnam that McCain ever fought to save us from.
If being captured and tortured makes a hero, then the captives at Guantanamo are heroes.
If following orders without question makes a hero, then Adolph Eichmann was a hero.
If killing without regard to whether your target is a threat to the USA makes a hero, then Lieutenant William Calley of the My Lai massacre is a hero.
There are plenty of genuine heroes among our veterans from both Vietnam and Iraq. We denigrate their service when we claim John McCain is a hero.
We all know this whole Iraq thing is kind of scary. It seems complicated, hard to explain, and ever harder to predict.
Well, we have good news. When you've done this lesson, Iraq will be easy to understand and predict. And all we have to do is put on our thinking caps, and follow the Golden Rule. That's where we imagine how we would feel if we were in the same situation as someone else, so we know how to behave and whether we're being mean or unfair.
It's going to be take LOTS of imagination, but any kid can do it. (Grownups may find it harder.) And when we're done, we'll know just how Iraqis think, and even what they'll do next. That could even save lives!
Ready? To think like an Iraqi in 2003, IMAGINE your country has a really terrible president -- the worst ever! Imagine he was world famous for torturing people, starting wars, and breaking the law -- and for the deaths of thousands of his own people. But somehow he stayed president for longer than anyone thought possible. (I TOLD you this took imagination!)
Now Imagine someone very powerful came to rescue us from this very bad man. ...
For almost 5 years the US has been claiming it's not occupying Iraq - it's "training" Iraqis to fight guerilla war insurgents in Iraq.
Bush, Petraeus, and McCain spent this year bragging about "the success of the surge" with little opposition from the other presidential candidates. No one dares mention that it was obviously the retreat of every British troop, and popular evil Moqtada Al-Sadr's leadership thuggery in demanding a cease-fire, that stopped most of the violence in southern Iraq.
Cut to this week. It turns out the huge armored vehicles we've trained the Iraqi Army to operate don't fit on the narrow streets of Basra or Sadr City in Baghdad. If the Iraqis in them manage to escape, the abandoned vehicles are soon riddled with graffiti. So the Iraqi Army demands air support from the US - and since we'll never offer them their own airborne vehicles, this means that as in Vietnam, it's Americans bombing civilian communities with no chance of distinguishing enemy from innocent.
It should have been clear from the outset that the "training" talking points were lies...
Yes, they're both at the MLK memorial. But Obama has said repeatedly he will never drag the divisive battles of the sixties into his generation's America. And though he says it to contrast himself with Hillary's generation, her policy is, of course, identical.
Here is the speech that completed King's legacy as a figure of international freedom, justice and peace:
Since TV networks today are forbidden to play anything but "I Have a Dream", why call attention to it? Moral and practical answers, below the fold.
Indistinguishable voting records.
All always voting to fund the Iraq war.
All condemning it whenever they're not in office.
All insist it's a "mistake", not a crime.
All oppose impeachment.
All favor the drug war.
All oppose marriage equality.
All oppose single payer health care.
With just those 3 candidates, tonight's friendly Democratic debate resembled some unacceptably narrow selection at a political MacWorld:
Yes, we've got a nice range of iPols for you today.
All functionally identical.
Did you want the white, the brown, or the female model?
Progressives practically have the 2008 presidential election sewn up!
Most Americans have never been more ready for a change. Most intuitively view the Republicans' strongest candidate this way:
Rudy - he’s like a pit bull. It’s great if somebody is breaking in your house. But if they’re not, you know, the pit bull might eat your kids. -- Bill Maher
Yes, the leading Republican is a Bush clone - someone who screwed up 9/11 (ignoring warnings that the Command Center didn't belong in the World Trade Center) and stood on rubble with a bullhorn for photo-ops instead. He chronically breaks his marriage vows, slams US troops to protect Bush, and has a temper and lisp funnier than Dr. Evil.
A total newcomer could beat Giuliani. Or Al Gore certainly could. A Michael Bloomberg could. Or any wealthy Ross Perot clone (remember "that giant sucking sound - our jobs" that Ross predicted NAFTA would bring? What a weirdo!).
In particular, a progressive upstart like a Jimmy Carter or a John Anderson could capture disgusted voters - there's never been a better time. There's only one way we could lose! -
In a popular diary today, thereisnospoon again pointed out that Iraq is not a war, it's an occupation, and we're not going to understand the options for ending it until we face the truth.
Suppose a gang tries to rob your house. You stop them with stealth, force, and your home field advantage, and kill some of them, but can't quite get them out of your house or summon police. They're in for a while.
Now suppose eventually a couple of people in your family get tired or get bribed and are caught helping the gang. They get shot along with the occupiers.
At that moment the police finally call back.
Do you report an ongoing attack by a gang?
Or do you report "domestic violence" that's being limited and managed by a well-intentioned but incompetent gang? The gang loves this report, of course. It practically guarantees that no one will demand they leave and no one will come to help.
The career criminal is Alberto Gonzales - famous torture advocate, death row assassin, federal law enforcement dismantler, and replacement to a previous Attorney General who took the law too seriously.
The 'cop' is Arlen Specter of course, one of 100 cops all terrified to utter the words "you're under arrest" - which in this context would mean mentioning their power and duty to Impeach.
Every week another cop explains the perp is just about to turn himself in or his mob boss should really fire him - when in fact both of those criminals are practically screaming "TOP OF THE WORLD, MA!" like defiant Jimmy Cagney in a sea of flames. Cops this optimistic and this lazy could be funny in a movie comedy or perhaps a distant third world country.
This week Democrats have gotten it together to call a no confidence vote. Bravo! But they're still allergic to the word 'impeach'. When Senators say he'll step down to avoid a scolding from them, Gonzales and Bush must laugh pretty hard.
Remember way back on March 14th, when Harry Reid got many of us excited with his prediction that Alberto Gonzales would be gone within days? Now, this was long before the deadly emails, Kyle Sampson's contradictions, and the historic, embarassing testimony where Gonzales said 'I forgot' over 70 times.
Some of us who were right about the Iraq war and the PATRIOT Act (unlike Reid) knew instantly Reid was dead wrong - just from the way he said it:
""I've been around this place a long time. And I know Bush has a reputation for being stubborn, but boy, this borders on a point of beyond stubbornness, maybe foolishness, if he hangs onto him. ... I have had people who are into the law more than I am at this stage who feel that there are people ... who've done things that are illegal...
A lawmaker still surprised by Bush, who says he's no expert in the law, makes incorrect statements in the passive voice about an organization he supposedly leads. Does this remind you of anyone? Oh yeah - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
One of the striking things you notice, covering a debate like this, is the vast gulf between what the reporters and pundits see and what the people see. I spent most of the debate in the stifling habitat of a media room with the likes of CNN's Jeff Greenberg and Candy Crowley. As the first big question about Iraq was lobbed at the Big Three--Clinton, Obama and Edwards--the mediocracy collectively pounded away at their laptops, taking down every word in a veritable symphony of typing. When the same question then went to Kucinich, the man who intrepidly preached against the war in 2004 when the others would not, all hands rested.
...
On the other side of campus, the local folks and students who couldn't get into the media-choked debate hall assembled in the gymnasium for a "community celebration." While all reportorial eyes and ears were locked in unison on the "viable" candidates, the loudest cheers among the juiced-up thousands gathered in the gym were mostly for Kucinich and Gravel.
Senator,
Your speech today was an important start. Thank you. You have the platform and the power be the agent of the change you're calling for in Iraq. Frankly, your speech also has critical flaws that need correction if you're going to succeed.
For one thing, don't keep trying to blame the Iraqi people. Such talk leaves you and this administration unaccountable. As the US administration fails to meet its own benchmarks, the troops must come home. That's right now. The US blaming the Iraqis is like the Democrats blaming Bush. You've been choosing to fund this, and now you have to stop.
Likewise, stop saying the Iraqis need our "training" on how to conduct a war in Iraq. If they ever need a lesson in killing half a million of civilians, shooting at Iraqi police, torture, getting massacred in amphibious vehicles, or leaving 1/2 billion pounds of explosives unguarded for terrorists - well, we can offer them that training course on line.
Finally, this diary proposes a bill you can introduce that will help our bravest veterans' families enormously and guarantee a quick end to the war.
The Democrats won what should be their most important victory yet on Iraq last month. The bill that passed says, if the President wants $100B more Iraq funds now, he must at least pretend he'll pull troops out of Iraq next year. And in a weird way, he's stuck because he's too honest to do the latter. He says he'll veto instead. Bush has pledged to cancel the new funding for the Iraq war!
But, various habitual compromisers, losers and cowards in the Senate are eager to take 4 Giant Steps away from that victory and back into Iraq.
It's a lot of work. So many steps!:
promise Bush those Iraq war funds anyway
convince a skeptical public that Iraq war funding keeps our troops and us safer
cancel the hard-won bills that already passed the House and Senate
Dick Cheney, Joe Lieberman, Rush Limbaugh, and the President are ecstatic.
Emerging winner/vertebrates Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have to deal with it, and so do we.
More than 150,000 US citizens are being held hostage in Iraq, with no plan for their release.
An average of two or three dead hostages emerge from the crime scene each day, always in the dead of night. And each day several dozen living hostages are released, all missing limbs or otherwise severely injured.
A new ransom payment of $100B has been demanded by their kidnapper.
If the latest ransom demand is not met, the lead kidnapper has threatened to let even more hostages die – of exposure and at the hands of well-armed gangs – and to blame the negotiators.
But this week brings a moment of truth, where US citizens can profoundly effect the hostage negotiations. The conventional wisdom – that missing a ransom payment abandons the hostages – is finally being challenged.
Differences between the 2008 candidates on Iraq just got much starker. As Bush renewed his threat to veto Congress's Iraq Supplement because of its withdrawal provisions, John Edwards responded immediately:
"If the president vetoes a funding bill, Congress should send him another bill that funds the troops, brings them home, and ends the war. And if he vetoes that one, they should send him another that does the same thing."
Edwards' position on confronting Bush puts him to the left of Obama.
At the same time, Senate leader Harry Reid has awakened, teaming up with Russ Feingold with a new, stronger Iraq withdrawal bill that says he won't roll over either. (Hillary says she hasn't read it.)
In stark contrast, this week Obama signaled he will vote for any Iraq war funding bill the president will sign rather than "playing chicken with the troops on the ground" - in effect, helping Bush call Congress's bluff in advance of any veto.
The ABC News article cites the "influential" Daily Kos, and closes with a powerful quote from Markos Moulitsas, below the fold.
Republican Defense Secretary Gates, who serves at the Pleasure of the President:
"I came to this job thinking that Guantánamo Bay should be closed. ... no matter how transparent, no matter how open the trials, if they took place in Guantanamo; in the international community they would lack credibility."
"I would immediately close Guantanamo Bay, move all the prisoners to Fort Leavenworth (an army base in Kansas) and truly expedite the judicial proceedings in their cases."
Sen Hillary Clinton:
[crickets chirping]
Sen Barack Obama:
[crickets chirping]
Former Sen John Edwards:
[crickets chirping]
Please correct me if I'm wrong here! I want to be wrong.
In any case, before you leap to conclusions, it would be utterly inappropriate and unfair to call the leading Democratic presidential candidates pussies regarding this issue.
