Is it already too late for America? I'm starting to think that the anti-tax, anti-government conservative movement that started in the mid-70s, elected Reagan and led to the terrible Bush Presidency may have effectively destroyed the country, leaving it bankrupt, corrupt,ungovernable, ruled by a wealthy elite -- and we're only now just starting to realize it. To cover tax cuts we stopped maintaining the infrastructure and started borrowing. To satisfy their hatred of government we increasingly stripped away rule of law, regulation, and belief in one-person-one-vote. We are seeing the consequences of all of that coming back to roost now.
Reagan left us with massive debt and ever-increasing interest payments. Bush left us with $1.3 trillion deficits and a destroyed economy that would force further increases in the borrowing for years - to be blamed on Obama. The "free marketers" gave away our manufacturing base that will take decades and massive capital investment to recover. Obama can try, but it may just be too late to do anything about the borrowing. We need massive investment in jobs and infrastructure, and a national economic/industrial plan. But, with their own Reagan/Bush debt as ammunition, conservative ideologues continue to block every effort at investment to get out of the mess we are in.
If a group of dedicated scholars, attorneys, journalists, and activists had tried to generate a comprehensive list of impeachable offenses committed by George W. Bush as president, and only 35 of them had been introduced into Congress, one of the many discarded ones, in rough and overly detailed form, might have read something like this:
In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution "to take care that the laws be faithfully executed", has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, caused the United States of America to kidnap, imprison, intimidate, coerce, threaten, confine, abduct, and carry away the elected, constitutional President of Haiti, and his wife, a U.S citizen, in violation of United States statutes, to wit:
Obama joined the leaders of Britain and France in accusing the Islamic republic of clandestinely building an underground plant to make nuclear fuel that could be used to build an atomic bomb. Iranian officials acknowledged the facility but insisted it had been reported to nuclear authorities as required.
Obama should try reading intelligence reports, like 2007's National Intelligence Estimate (the combined consensus report by all sixteen known U.S. intelligence agencies), which stated quite clearly that there is no concrete evidence of a weapons program in Iran. In July and August of this year, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed the lack of evidence although it refuses to state anything definitively. Yet still Obama, the D.C. political establishment, and the corporate media continue to lie to the contrary.
We've already been lied into one failed war, lied into ramping up another failed war, are so hurting for fresh soldiers that the Pentagon is now actively accepting white supremacists, yet still the establishment seeks to lie us into another conflict. And some people have wondered why my signature now has an image of Obama and Bush morphed into one unholy beast. Now you know.
Eight years ago today, two planes flew into the World Trade Center, another crashed into the Pentagon, and a fourth landed in a Pennsylvania field. The raw power of that day came to be symbolized by a date composed of three numbers. Three numbers that evoked the shock of being attacked, the horror of the sounds and images on our television sets, and the heroism of so many men and women. Three numbers that framed the events of the last decade and seemed like they would define my generation.
But eight years ago, many in my generation couldn’t vote. We didn’t choose the President, his wars, or his policies. In fact, young Americans have largely rejected the politics of fear and division that dominated those formative years of our political consciousness—voting 2 to 1 in favor of Barack Obama. Today we remember the victims and honor our heroes, but we also have a new President, new crises, and three new numbers: 3-5-0. 350.
It seems almost trivial to accuse someone who launched an illegal war that has killed over a million people of torture. But if we are going to prosecute the lowest ranked torturers, it makes sense to look up the chain of command.
There is no doubt that George W. Bush conspired to commit torture, cruel and inhuman treatment, and murder. How do I know? He said so.
In his January 28, 2003, State of the Union, Bush said: "All told more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. And many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way: they are no longer a problem to the United States."
(Please note: This originally posted on http://www.stevesword.com/ and will be cross-posted on MyDD too.)
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near." - SunTzu The Art of War
So those of you who read this site regularly probably know that I like to spout off at length about the linguistics of our political culture. But there are times when actions truly do speak much, much louder than words. Let me begin at the beginning.
I am strongly in favor of an investigaton or prosecution of the Bush/Cheney administration. One resource that I would recommend is www.AfterDowningStreet.org.
The best start would be a bi-partisan truth commission, modelled on the 9/11 commission. As we push for that, let us make every effort to suspend judgment. That is, if we say "Bush is a criminal, but we can't convict until we prosecute, so let's prosecute as a formality", then we sound like this is a partisan witch hunt, such as what Kenneth Starr did to Clinton. If we proceed with that approach, and fail to convict, then there will be a big PR backlash in favor of Bush and against the prosecutors. And even if we do convict, the appearance of partisan bias may still make it look like an unjust conviction.
Instead, let us say: "There have been serious allegations against Bush, Cheney, and others. Let us conduct an independent, bi-partisan investigation. If Bush is innocent, his name will be cleared. If he is guilty, he will face the legal consequences." Of course, no matter how far we bend over backwards to be fair, objective, and bi-partisan, the far right (Rush, Hannity, Beck, and so on) will scream and yell about bias. But it should be possible to do an investigation in a way that about 90% of the American people will agree is fair.
I believe that there are several serious charges to consider. The most serious charge is brought by former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, in his book "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder". Bugliosi alleges that Bush knowingly lied to get us in to war in Iraq, and should therefore be tried for the murder of over 3,000 American troops who died there. Bugliosi also goes to great lengths to distinguish the actions of Bush from the actions of other presidents who have sent American soldiers to die in foreign wars; the main difference is that the other Presidents believed their actions to be justified, and did not lie to the American people about the reasons for war.
Another of the charges against Bush is war crimes. If the acts of torture carried out in Abu Ghraib were not abberations carried out by "a few bad apples", but were ordered by the Bush administration, then the Bush administration has broken various American and international laws. Likewise, it is known that waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques" have been used in Gitmo, and that these were authorized by the Bush administration. If waterboarding is torture, and if torture is a serious violation of U.S. and international laws, then again the Bush administration deserves prosecution.
Another crime connected to Gitmo is the treatment of prisoners of war and terror suspects. Americans can be held by the government as crime suspects, but they must be charged with a crime, and given a lawyer and a trial. Jose Padilla was held without charge or trial for over three years.
Anyway, the above list should be a good starting place. I am not even a lawyer, and I created the list above from my memory of headlines and with the help of a few minutes of internet research. Each of the alleged crimes listed above deserves investigation, and if supported by the facts, several of them may deserve prosecution. And all of that should be supported by a majority of Americans. If done correctly, an investigaton of the Bush administration is both good policy and good politics.
In May 2005 we launched AfterDowningStreet.org to publicize the Downing Street Minutes. By June we'd had great, if fleeting, success. During the following months and years, mountains of new memos and statements emerged on the Iraq War lies, many of them more damaging than the Downing Street documents. But increasingly nobody cared, because evidence of crimes was less interesting once Congress had dropped the pretense that it might take action. The single most powerful, and yet largely ignored, document yet to emerge, might, now in 2009, finally, produce results. And, of course, it is our friends over in England who are, as always, two steps ahead of us.
The evidence for the necessity to hold Bush administration officials accountable for the use of torture continues to grow. Light is being shed, not only on the acts of torture, but also on the indiscriminate and wantonly careless manner in which detainees were designated as such "high value" that they should be considered appropriate subjects for torture interrogation techniques.
On Tuesday, June 16th, the Washington Post reported (CIA Mistaken on 'High-Value' Detainee, Document Shows) that CIA documents confirm the Bush administration was mistaken about Guantanamo detainee Abu Zubaydah being a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda.
The Post report confirmed what Brent Mickum, one of Abu Zubaydah's lawyers, told a torture accountability forum on May 30th, that "Abu Zubaydah was never even a member of al-Qaeda much less a high-level member." Nevertheless, Zubaydah, a Palestinian, was held at a secret CIA facility after his capture in Pakistan in March 2002 and was subjected 83 times to waterboarding.
Mickum on his client Abu Zubaydah at torture accountability forum May 30th:
Mickum wrote about these mistakes by the Bush administration in a March 30th article "The Truth About Abu Zubaydah" published in the British newspaper Guardian.
The facts surrounding the handling and treatment of Abu Zubaydah that have so far come to light raise enormous doubts about Dick Cheney's assertions that the techniques he authorized were used sparingly, only on "high-value" suspects and yielded positive results. Closer to the truth is that the use of these torture techniques was reckless, in most cases based on implausible and mistaken information, and may involve a cover-up by the OLC.
David Broder has wasted some valuable space in the Washington Post urging President Obama to hold firm against torture investigations. No wait, that's wrong. Space in the Post isn't valuable anymore. That explains why they're willing to publish this brilliant conclusion:
Suppose that Obama backs down and Holder or someone else starts hauling Bush administration lawyers and operatives into hearings and courtrooms.
Suppose the investigators decide that the country does not want to see the former president and vice president in the dock. Then underlings pay the price while big shots go free. But at some point, if he is at all a man of honor, George W. Bush would feel bound to say: That was my policy. I was the president. If you want to indict anyone for it, indict me.
Is that where we want to go?
Yes. That's exactly where we want to go. But Broder, like Peggy Noonan, just wants to look the other way. So the precedent would be this:
President wants to do something illegal. Wants to really bad. Compliant legal aides rewrite rules for him to do so. Underlings break laws based on said legal advice.
No one gets punished.
David Broder turns 80 this year. He should use the occasion to retire and the Washington Post should use the occasion to put something more insightful in the vacated space.
Leading human rights organizations in the United States on March 20th presented charges of human rights abuse and torture against the U.S. government to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which can recommend actions, including prosecutions, to the U.S. government, other nations' governments, or the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
We urge Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a non-partisan independent Special Counsel to immediately commence a prosecutorial investigation into the most serious alleged crimes of former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Richard B. Cheney, the attorneys formerly employed by the Department of Justice whose memos sought to justify torture, and other former top officials of the Bush Administration.
Our laws, and treaties that under Article VI of our Constitution are the supreme law of the land, require the prosecution of crimes that strong evidence suggests these individuals have committed. Both the former president and the former vice president have confessed to authorizing a torture procedure that is illegal under our law and treaty obligations. The former president has confessed to violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
We see no need for these prosecutions to be extraordinarily lengthy or costly, and no need to wait for the recommendations of a panel or "truth" commission when substantial evidence of the crimes is already in the public domain. We believe the most effective investigation can be conducted by a prosecutor, and we believe such an investigation should begin immediately.
Sign a petition asking Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in war crimes. Sign now.
Collect signatures in the real world by printing out this PDF. Please enter the data you collect on the petition online and/or mail the completed (or partially completed) forms to JDS, 4407 Garrison Street NW, Washington DC 20016.
Phone and Email and fax the Office of the Attorney General at 202-514-2001 AskDOJ@usdoj.gov fax:202-307-6777 to request a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in war crimes.
Today Obama's CIA nominee, Panetta, recanted yesterday's testimony admitting that we, the United States, rendered persons to foreign countries to be tortured. There is ample public testimony from military and CIA officials that the U.S. has rendered persons to be tortured.
The Bush administration perpetuated its torture policy by secretly ordering the use of torture while publicly proclaiming that we do not use torture as a method of interrogation. Panetta's public statement today that he has no evidence that we rendered persons to be tortured makes it clear that the Obama administration will continue the Bush pro-torture policy.
The only way, let me repeat, the only way we as Americans can stop our policy of using torture as a method of interrogation is to shed light on our past actions, admit what we have done, and work to bring to justice those who ordered the use of torture. Panetta's public denial of our past policy of rendering persons to foreign countries to be tortured will work to effectively obstruct attempts to investigate our past practices, and it will greatly impede efforts to bring those who ordered the use of torture to justice.
I take Mr. Panetta's public statements today before a Congressional Committee to be proof positive that the Obama administration is a pro-torture administration.
She said it! I never thought this day would come. Change has truly arrived in America, even before the Presidential Inauguration. Today, on Fox News, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, the only person who could, the woman who for so long would not, stated, she is Open to the Prosecution of Bush Administration Officials. Oh joy! Oh, bliss. Never did I imagine this moment might become a reality. Even the idea that this could be a possibility eluded me. Today, on January 18, 2009, finally, I have hope. I believe in the future, as Michelle Obama expressed, "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country, or I will be when I see an actionable censure.
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence.
Fools said I, you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows. Hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might reach you.
But my words like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed
In the wells of silence
If a far right crazed wingnut can get it right, why can't the rest of us?
This comparison is one that we can use to good effect, but only if we do it continuously and loudly.
A friend of mine Tuesday morning, a nearly unquestioning Obama supporter, said to me, and I quote:
No argument from me. Ford should have been stood against the wall and shot for that pardon. Nixon cooling his heels in the clink for a few years would have prevented this mess, no doubt.
Ford's pardon of Nixon was the beginning of the end of any hope Ford had of being politically effective, and absolutely killed his future chances for reelection.
The Israeli propaganda blitz around their attack on Gaza has been greeted with uncharacteristic skepticism by the American public and even by some of the mainstream US press. Even the Jewish American community is uneasy about this one, in a way perhaps unparalelled since the 1982 Israeli attack on Lebanon and siege of Beirut. Jews for Peace in Los Angeles are actively protesting the Gaza atrocities, and newspaper articles from around the US on local protests held this weekend often mention mixed Arab-American and Jewish-American rallies.
If it is true that Americans are greeting Israeli talking points with more criticism this time, is it because we have been intensively exposed for the past 8 years to precisely this sort of mental manipulation by Bush-Cheney and their stable of Neoconservatives?
Let's take some of the basic techniques of propaganda practiced by Bush and compare them to those deployed by the Israeli leadership in the past 8 days.
Well, of course, Jaun had no difficulty at all drawing parallels between the neocon propaganda and what's going on now in Israel vis-a-vis Gaza. But the important point is rather the flip side: not that an expert critic can see all these connections, but that even a wannabee dittohead can't avoid them. They can just feel their unspoken 5-0, 40-love advantage slipping away. The fate awaiting them all is that of Martin Indyk in the Democracy Now!interchange with Norman Finklestein that I wrote about earlier this week.
But that's only the tip of the iceberg. Because, you see, I've got a little secret to share with you all: Empires Fall.
The Apologetics are emerging en force this week, and one worth noting is Phillip Zelikow who published his attempts at self-justification over at the Foreign Policy Magazine's "Shadow Government" blog.
Unfortunately Mr Zelikow's style tends toward the very dry and impenetrable sort that pervades official Government policy presentations, like, say, the 2002 National Security Strategy, which he, along with Condi Rice and Stepehn Hadley authored and which forms the basis for his assessment of Bush's Legacy, so it's very difficult at first to for laymen as such to figure out what the fuck he is trying to say. Much easier to just sort of nod to the awareness that Bush did have a profound impact on foreign policy, point out that most of it sucked but that there is some plausible argument that some points of his policy did OK, maybe, and walk away.
But Zelikow's position is such that, when he says "What Bush Got Right," and then proceeds to frame the analysis around the policy documents he crafted, he's essentially saying, "What I, Phillip Zelikow, Got Right," and so walking away actually entails letting this man win the argument that "The Bush Doctrine"lead to some positive outcomes.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration is seriously considering "orderly" bankruptcy as a way of dealing with the desperately ailing U.S. auto industry.
Time to stock up on gasoline, canned food, an ammo... it's going to be like a Mad Max movie around here...
An Iraqi girl screamed Tuesday [January 2005] after her parents were killed when American soldiers fired on their car when it failed to stop, despite warning shots, in Tal Afar, Iraq. The military is investigating the incident. New York Times photo. (via The Cunning Realist)
Last night on Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor," host Bill O'Reilly slammed Muntader al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President Bush, and said that if he had been there, he "would have physically taken the guy down." Guest Juan Williams agreed, but he widened his condemnation to Iraqis in general, who he said were behaving like "ingrate[s]" for not appreciating what the United States has done for them:
WILLIAMS: But on a serious level, how many American lives have been sacrificed to the cause of liberating Iraq? How much money has been spent while they're not spending their own profits from their oil? American money. So I just think it's absolutely the act of an ingrate for them to behave in this way. Just unbelievable to me.
