The article on Taguba continued:
While the Obama Administration has "reaffirmed its commitment to valuing human rights and international law" by officially closing CIA black sites and the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Taguba insisted that "there are a lot of stories that have yet to be told."
In an effort to make those stories known, Taguba has been travelling the country seeking to foster dialogue between human rights advocates and the nation's armed forces. According to Taguba, the two groups "share a common denominator based on ethical considerations of democratic principles." Human rights advocates seek to ensure the preservation of democratic ideals and U.S. armed forces are trained to "provide services in a manner that exemplifies America's ideals" and to protect America's value system and its' way of life, not simply to secure its borders at all costs.
Taguba explained that the Army's core values-honor, integrity, courage, and selfless service-are but one part of a broader set of moral foundations upon which the Army operates. For example, Taguba declared that the Army is required to adhere to international laws, including all four Geneva conventions, as well as the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and to demonstrate "responsibility, accountability, and discipline."
Make no mistake: this guy totally gets it. Why isn't he our Secretary of Defense? This is not just an idle bit of snark. The realization that our values are vital to our defense is one that continue to overlook at our utmost peril.
In my November 2007 diary, "Where's Obama? Questioning v Reinforcing [Foreign Policy] CW #3 (Political Duality of Rep v Dem 6c)", I wrote:
The Two Cold Wars: Kenan's and Nitze's
In a remarkable paper, "Kennan's Long Telegram and NSC-68: A Comparative Analysis," East European Quarterly, Vol. 31, no. 4, January 1998, Efstathios T. Fakiolas analyzed two key documents from the formative days of the Cold War. Kennan's Long Telegram, which first formulated a comprehensive picture of the Soviet threat, and laid the foundations for the doctrine of containment, and NSC-68, the national security directive primarily authored by Paul Nitze, which formed the blueprint for how the US fought the Cold War throughout most of its duration....
Kennan relied on the "tectonic plates" model, in which there many other non-state actors, the world is not "zero-sum," and there is often opportunity for mutual cooperation. Nitze relied on the billiard ball model, which sees the international system as "composed solely of egoistic sovereign states interested in maximizing their relative power capabilities at the expense of others," and sees "world politics is a 'zero-sum' game in which national security conceived of in military and territorial terms is the one and only states' national objective."
As a result, Kennan favored a strategy of containment that emphasized strengthening the West socially, economically and culturally, addressing its flaws which the Soviets exposed. In contrast, Nitze ignored issues of the Wests internal flaws, and focused almost exclusively on military force to combat the Soviet Union.
It's my own observation, based on this analysis, that we fought Nitze's Cold War, but we won Kennan's. It was not, in the end, our military strength that defeated the Soviet Union, it was the appeal of our culture of openness and freedom. The history of Eastern European resistance movements, especially in Checkoslavakia and Poland, makes this abundantly clear. Through their influence on dissident culture, Frank Zappa and Lou Reed did more to win the Cold War than any division of tanks ever did-or even a wing of nuclear armed B-52 bombers.
What's more, part of the consequences of fighting Nitze's Cold War was the creation of the al Qaeda and the Taliban--in short, our current "war on terror", however Obama may chosen to rebrand it.
To go beyond mere rebranding, and to actually secure our future--along with the rest of the world, we need to embrace Kennan's vision, which sees our adversaries criticisms as opportunities to perfect our own flaw, and sees adherence to our highest values as our greatest defense.
Major General Taguba grasps this very well. He is clearly the one man who is both morally and intellectually ready to lead our Department of Defense in a winning direction. Indeed, there doesn't seem to be anyone else remotely qualified who even has a clue what that direction might be.
But Obama can't even begin to see this, because he's so wrapped up in covering for those whom he ought to be subjecting to the most thorough and withering investigation and interrogation.
The same is true of Obama's action or inaction with respect to others mentioned in the introductory section of this diary. Thomas Tamm, the former Justice Department attorney who blew the whistle on the Bush Administration's domestic spying operation still faces the threat of possible prosecution. He was interviewed this week on Democracy Now!, This is how Amy Goodman introduced the segment:
The New York Times is reporting the National Security Agency has been intercepting private email messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year.
The Times is also reporting the NSA attempted to wiretap a member of Congress, without court approval, on an overseas trip in 2005 or 2006. But the plan was ultimately blocked because of concerns from some intelligence officials about using the NSA to spy on a member of Congress.
The article in today's Times was written by Eric Lichtblau and James Risen, the same reporters who first revealed in 2005 that President Bush had secretly authorized the NSA to intercept the phone calls and emails of Americans without a court warrant.
Out first guest today is the whistleblower who originally tipped the Times off about the surveillance operation. His name is Thomas Tamm. In 2004, he called the New York Times from a subway payphone and told Eric Lichtblau about the existence of a secret domestic surveillance program. At the time, he was a Justice Department attorney in the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review.
The decision to become a whistleblower has permanently altered Thomas Tamm's life. In 2007, the FBI raided his home, seized three computers and personal files. He's suffered from depression and is in $30,000 debt. Late last year, Thomas Tamm risked arrest and admitted to Newsweek magazine that he was the one who tipped off the New York Times. Tamm still faces possible arrest for disclosing classified secrets.
This afternoon, the Nation Institute and the Fertel Foundation are recognizing Thomas Tamm by awarding him the 2009 Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling. The prize is named after Vietnam veteran Ron Ridenhour, who helped expose the My Lai massacre. Thomas Tamm joins us now in Washington, D.C.
Thomas Tamm is an American hero for exposing one of the most wide-ranging cases of government lawbreaking in American history. Barack Obama cannot recognize and admit this because he has become an apologist and an accomplice after the fact to the very same Bush Administration lawlessness that Tamm was crucial in exposing.
Obama is on the wrong side of this, just as he is on the wrong side of the "war on terror" by trying to expand the failed military-based policies of the Bush Administration into Afghanistan.
Honoring, respecting, and listening to those who stood up to the darkness of the Bush years is a key aspect to much-needed de-Nazification of America not only because it's the right thing to do--and that's more than reason enough--but also because it is pragmatically the only way to reorient ourselves 180 degrees away from the failed policies of the Bush Administristration, as well as the deeper assumptions on which it drew.
Then there's Lt. Ehren Watada:
Ehren Watada (born 1978) is a First Lieutenant of the United States Army who in June, 2006, refused to deploy to Iraq for his unit's assigned rotation to Operation Iraqi Freedom.[1][2] Watada said he believed the war to be illegal and that, under the doctrine of command responsibility, it would make him party to war crimes. At the time, he was assigned to duty with the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, part of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, as a Fire Support Officer. Watada was the first commissioned officer in the U.S. armed forces to refuse to deploy to Iraq.[3]
Watada's February 2007 court-martial ended in a mistrial when he argued that his orders were unlawful, because Military Judge John Head ruled that question can not be resolved within the military justice system, saying the argument was thus reduced to an admission of guilt. A second court-martial was scheduled but was stayed in October 2007 by U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle, who issued an order stating that Watada's "double jeopardy claim is meritorious" and no evidence that it lacks merit was presented.[4] The Army challenged the injunction, and Judge Settle ruled on October 21, 2008, that Watada cannot be retried on three of the five counts, but abstained from deciding whether the remaining two charges of conduct unbecoming an officer may go forward.[5]
Watada was more than willing to fight in Afghanistan. But he made the mistake of educating himself about Iraq before being shipped off there, and he came to the perfectly logical conclusion that it was not a legal conflict under international law, and his participation there would constitute a war crime. Once again, Obama cannot recognize the legitimacy of Watada's position, because doing so would require a clear repudiation of the Bush Regime, when Obama is all about the blur.
This is but one more crystal clear example of why we desperately need a clean break with all of that moral depravity. It's why we need a program of thorough de-Nazification. Every single bit of complicity with their lawless brutality, violence and inhumanity needs to be completely repudiated.
Blurring the differences, as Obama has foolishly devoted himself to doing, is merely a way to prolong, extend, and support the future comeback of all the tragically anti-American ideas that have haunted our nation for the past 8 years.
We need to affirm the patriotism, honesty, integrity and humanity of heroes like General Taguba, Thomas Tamm, Lt. Ehren Watada and Alyssa Peterson. They are true American heroes, and need to be honored as such, in order that our country might reclaim its soul.
We need a program of thorough-going de-Nazification. |
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