A Spork in the Drawer

Curious

Emptywheel.

Read.

I'd like to know what that's all about.

.

Today In Straighttalky McMaverickness

Via Think Progress, the the future of out economy according to St. John:

Well, I would think that the absolute gravest threat is the struggle that we're in against radical Islamic extremism, which can affect, if they prevail, our very existence. Another successful attack on the United States of America could have devastating consequences.

It looks like Four-More-Years McCain is going to continue in the fine tradition of BushCheney and Rudy. Not that this is s surprise.

And according to Überlobbyist (and chief McCain campaign strategist) Charlie Black a terrorist attack on the US would be a fine thing:

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December was an "unfortunate event," says Black. "But his knowledge and ability to talk about it reemphasized that this is the guy who's ready to be Commander-in-Chief. And it helped us." As would, Black concedes with startling candor after we raise the issue, another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. "Certainly it would be a big advantage to him," says Black.

Black "deeply regrets the comments."

Of course, Black is quite right: Americans would run to the safety of a big, strong Daddy if such a thing happened. And, of course, if a terrorist attack were to occur a large number of people would suspect that BushCo™ was behind it. I'll wonder myself.

This is a textbook example of a Kinsley Gaffe.

It's going to be a long campaign season.

.

"Policy Mistakes"

In a column about the Senate Armed Services Committee report which demonstrated that orders to use torture - excuse me, harsh interrogation techniques - on suspected terrorists came from the top the LATimes' Tim Rutten writes:

As the Washington Post reported Tuesday, however, documents and e-mails collected by investigators for the Armed Services Committee show that officials working for then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld began their research into waterboarding, stress positions, sensory deprivation and other practices as far back as July 2002, months before military commanders began asking for permission.

Rutten seems to be fairly appalled by the actions of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Yoo, and Addington - he doesn't mention George, however - even going so far as to say, "The fact that these guys seem to have defined executive branch power as the ability to hold people in secret and torture them pushes the creepy quotient into areas that probably require psychoanalytic credentials."

But then Rutten concludes:

Part of the hysteria over all this that you see in places like the Wall Street Journal editorial pages stems from an anxiety that congressional inquiries, like that of Levin's committee, will lead to indictments and possibly even war crimes trials for officials who participated in the administration's deliberations over torture and the treatment of prisoners.

It's true that there are a handful of European rights activists and people on the lacy left fringe of American politics who would dearly like to see such trials, but actually pursuing them would be a profound -- even tragic -- mistake. Our political system works as smoothly as it does, in part, because we've never criminalized differences over policy. Since Andrew Jackson's time, our electoral victors celebrate by throwing the losers out of work -- not into jail cells.

So after condemning a policy of torture - and Rutten could have written about so many more illegal acts committed by the administration (illegal spying, destruction of evidence, violations of the Espionage Act...the list goes on) his preferred punishment for these criminals is...comfortable retirement.

No doubt the Kool Kidz of our benighted punditocracy are all nodding their oversized heads in agreement. Should President Obama and his Attorney General John Edwards - let's say - investigate and prosecute these crimes Rutten and his pals would unleash a firestorm of condemnation which would cripple the new administration.

And then, some years in the future, when another president repeats and even expands on these crimes the Ruttens of the country will shake their heads sadly then seek to dismiss concerns.

Unless, of course, another president is caught getting a blow-job. That sort of thing threatens our whole Constitutional system.

.

The Company They Keep

Newsweek's Isikoff and Hosenball report from the first day of the "trial" of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed:

He then declared, in a surprisingly high-pitched voice, speaking halting but clear English, "I cannot accept any attorney who is not governed by sharia [Islamic] law. I will represent myself. I will not be represented by anybody even if he is a Muslim, because he will be sworn to your American Constitution. I consider all the U.S. Constitution and laws evil. They are allowing for same-sexual marriages and many things that are very bad … Do you understand what I said?" [emphasis added]

The Republican Party will soon demand all charges be dropped so they can run him for political office.

.

One Of The Great Tragedies

Newt Gingrich...sane as ever:

"This is ... one of the great tragedies of the Bush administration," Gingrich continued. "The more successful they've been at intercepting and stopping bad guys, the less proof there is that we're in danger. And therefore, the better they've done at making sure there isn't an attack, the easier it is to say, 'Well, there never was going to be an attack anyway.' And it's almost like they should every once in a while have allowed an attack to get through just to remind us."

Operation Northwoods, anyone?

[Via BooMan.]

.

Always Keeping America Safe

Nelson Mandela is on the Ministry of Homeland Security's terrorist watchlist.

Yes, that Nelson Mandela.

Feel safer now?

.

Speaking Of Iraq...

Frederick of Hollywood:

We will not be a safer country, we will not be a safer America if the whole world watches us being defeated by a bunch of kids with improvised explosive devices.

Doddering Fred is starting to sound like his hero. Remember what George said earlier this year?

...it is our job to “work to change the conditions that moved 19 kids to come on airplanes to murder our citizens. … I could not send a mother’s child into combat if I did not believe it was necessary."

I can' figure out which it is. Are terrorists twelve feet tall and made of steel or little children?

.

In Case You Missed It...

...The CIA's new "Terrorist Buster" logo:

And yes, judging by the name, it's supposed to look like this:

Still, I suppose it could've been worse. The CIA could have designed a logo based on this guy:







I know I keep saying it but we really are ruled my morons.

.

There's A Surprise

This has been coming on for awhile but the murder-minded Stu Bykofsky, who wants to see "another 9/11" because it would teach us a lesson, has opened the floodgates and allowed us to see the true face of the rightwing. Bykofsky is now a hero to the FoxRushHannity crowd.

There it is: The rightists want - WANT - another massive terrorist attack resulting in enormous numbers of dead Americans (presumably not including themselves; their lives are too precious). No doubt in their twisted little fantasy worlds this would allow the imposition of martial law and the internment of evil liberals.

Insert a Nazi analogy if you wish. Our pals on the right have earned it.

---

ADDED: Josh Marshall says, "The surprising part of this, however, is that a variety of far-right media outlets seemed to embrace Bykofsky's message...For a column that pines for mass murder, this isn't the reaction I expected."

Sorry, Josh, you really haven't been paying attention.

.

A New Low

George this morning:

"I strongly believe that is the case,” he said, adding that it is our job to “work to change the conditions that moved 19 kids to come on airplanes to murder our citizens. … I could not send a mother’s child into combat if I did not believe it was necessary."

"19 kids"?

Honestly, there's nothing more that can be said for this sociopathic moron.

.

Who's Supporting Terrorism?

All because of bananas:

On April 24, 2003, a board member of Chiquita International Brands disclosed to a top official at the Justice Department that the king of the banana trade was evidently breaking the nation's anti-terrorism laws.

Roderick M. Hills, who had sought the meeting with former law firm colleague Michael Chertoff, explained that Chiquita was paying "protection money" to a Colombian paramilitary group on the U.S. government's list of terrorist organizations. Hills said he knew that such payments were illegal, according to sources and court records, but said that he needed Chertoff's advice.

Chiquita, Hills said, would have to pull out of the country if it could not continue to pay the violent right-wing group to secure its Colombian banana plantations. Chertoff, then assistant attorney general and now secretary of homeland security, affirmed that the payments were illegal but said to wait for more feedback, according to five sources familiar with the meeting.

But since Chiquita was paying money to right-wing killers it wasn't terrorism because right-wingers by definition can't be terrorists. Heck, if St. Ronnie Reagan were alive he'd probably call the paramilitaries "the moral equal of our Founding Fathers."

But legal sources on both sides say there was a genuine debate within the Justice Department about the seriousness of the crime of paying AUC. For some high-level administration officials, Chiquita's payments were not aiding an obvious terrorism threat such as al-Qaeda; instead, the cash was going to a violent South American group helping a major U.S. company maintain a stabilizing presence in Colombia.

See? These terrorists are a stabilizing force.

Chiquita Brands Intl. has a long history of evil acts, including crushing the Cincinnati Enquirer for daring to expose its crimes.

Continuing with the WaPo:

Then, on April 24, the company executives met with Justice officials, including Chertoff. They disclosed the payments and Justice officials said they were against the law. Hills said he agreed, but stressed that Chiquita would have to withdraw from the country if it did not pay AUC, and noted this could affect U.S. security interests in that region.

That's when, according to the five sources, Chertoff acknowledged that the matter was complicated, and said that he would get back to them after conferring with other administration officials.

A week later, Hills and Olson told the company board's audit committee that Justice had advised them that there would be "no liability for past conduct" and that there was no "conclusion on continuing the payments," according to a summary of the case filed by the prosecution. The company authorized new payments to AUC starting on May 5.

It's good to have friends among the Bush Crime Syndicate.

The attorney general of Colombia, Mario Iguaran, and other Colombian officials have dismissed Chiquita's assertions that it was a victim of extortion and paid AUC to protect its workers. An Organization of American States report in 2003 said that Chiquita participated in smuggling thousands of arms for paramilitaries into the Northern Uraba region, using docks operated by the company to unload thousands of Central American assault rifles and ammunition.

Iguaran, whose office has been investigating Chiquita's operations, said the company knew AUC was using payoffs and arms to fund operations against peasants, union workers and rivals. At the time of the payments, AUC was growing into a powerful army and was expanding across much of Colombia and, according to the Colombian government, its soldiers killed thousands before it began demobilizing.

To paraphrase an old saying, one company's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.

And here I thought situational ethics were a bad thing. Silly me.

"I'm Chiquita banana and I've come to say -
I'm gonna kill you if
I don't get my way."

.

[bangs head on desk]

Shiny new policy:

President Bush has signed an order that allows the U.S. government to block the assets of any person or group that threatens the stability of Iraq.

The order exempts the United States.

White House spokesman Tony Snow says the order targets terrorist and insurgent groups, including those supported by Syria and Iran, that are not covered by existing measures.

Mr. Bush's action allows the U.S. Treasury and other agencies to freeze the property and assets in the United States of people or entities deemed to be working to destabilize Iraq or undermine reconstruction or humanitarian efforts.

No person or entity was designated under the order when it was announced Tuesday. [Emphasis added.]

[Via Holden.]

.

Hello, Mr. Brown

Car bomb found in central London:

Officers carried out a controlled explosion on the device left in the busy Haymarket area of the capital.

"International elements" are believed to be involved, Whitehall sources told the BBC.

Okay, under Blair "Whitehall" wasn't all that reliable.

But still...

.

Good Job, George And Dick

None of this would have happened without you:

The Iraq war, which for years has drawn militants from around the world, is beginning to export fighters and the tactics they have honed in the insurgency to neighboring countries and beyond, according to American, European and Middle Eastern government officials and interviews with militant leaders in Lebanon, Jordan and London.

[...]

Last week, the Lebanese Army found itself in a furious battle against a militant group, Fatah al Islam, whose ranks included as many as 50 veterans of the war in Iraq, according to General Rifi. More than 30 Lebanese soldiers were killed fighting the group at a refugee camp near Tripoli.

None of this is surprising since DeFib Dick continues to demonstrate to the world that he's a delusional madman:

“We’re fighting a war over there because the enemy attacked us first,” Cheney said. “These are men who glorify murder and suicide. Terrorists are defined entirely by their hatreds.”

The terrorism fight now centers on Iraq, the vice president said, because that is where the enemy has massed. “The security of this nation depends on the outcome,” Cheney said.

They weren't there before you got your war on, jackass.

While it comes as no surprise to those of us who have been paying attention, on Saturday The Dick openly stated contempt for our laws and Constitution:

As Army officers on duty in the war on terror, you will now face enemies who oppose and despise everything you know to be right, every notion of upright conduct and character, and every belief you consider worth fighting for and living for. Capture one of these killers, and he'll be quick to demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States. [...]

Remember: A terrorist is anyone who George labels a terrorist, including you and me.

20 January, 2009 can't come soon enough.

.

Indeed

In the wake of some of Jerry Falwell's finest plotting to blow up protesters the Booman Tribune's Steven D has some questions:

Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, ring any bells, oh Wise Men of the Punditocracy? Eric Rudolph? Or how about Barbara Joan March,the woman who sent the Supreme Court Justices rat poisoned cookies to eat? Or Chad Conrad Castagana, the idiot who mailed fake anthrax powdered envelopes to Keith Olbermann, Jon Stewart, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and David Letterman (among others)? Or the Alabama militia group that planned to do a little "free range" murdering of Mexican immigrants before the FBI spoiled their party?

Or maybe you Media Masters of the Broderverse can explain to me why the people who just want to peacefully protest an illegal war in Iraq are the walnuts in America's Patriotic Pie, when between 1995 and 2005 there were 60 right wing terrorist plots (that we know about) which were foiled by law enforcement?

But the phrase "Christian terrorists" will never pass the lips (or the fingers) of our finest and most respected pundits.

That would be shrill.

.

Terrorism Is Good

Rosa Brooks on Luis Posada Carriles:

I'm talking about a man who was — until 9/11 — perhaps the most successful terrorist in the Western Hemisphere. He's believed to have masterminded a 1976 plot to blow up a civilian airliner, killing all 73 people on board, including teenage members of Cuba's national fencing team. He's admitted to pulling off a series of 1997 bombings aimed at tourist hotels and nightspots. Today, he's living illegally in the United States, but senior members of the Bush administration — the very guys who declared war on terror just a few short years ago — don't seem terribly bothered.

[...]

The Cuban-born Posada was trained by the CIA at the School of the Americas in 1961. From Venezuela, he later planned the successful 1976 bombing of a civilian Cuban jetliner (apparently with the knowledge of the CIA). He was arrested for the crime, but he escaped from a Venezuelan prison before standing trial.

Posada later aided Ollie North's illegal efforts to get arms to the Nicaraguan Contras, tried repeatedly to assassinate Fidel Castro and was behind a 1997 string of Havana hotel bombings. Recently declassified U.S. government documents suggest that, throughout most of his career, Posada remained in close contact with the CIA.

[...]

It's not as if the evidence against Posada is seriously in dispute. In 1998, for instance, he "proudly admitted authorship of the hotel bomb attacks" to the New York Times, "describ[ing] them as acts of war intended to cripple a totalitarian regime by depriving it of foreign tourism and investment." He dismissed the civilian casualties as "sad" but assured the reporter that he slept "like a baby." (When asked about these admissions in 2005 by the Miami Herald, he coyly replied, "Let's leave it to history.")

If all this sounds eerily familiar, it should. We've heard the same callous justifications for terrorism from Bin Laden and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

This is very simple: Posada was "fighting" evil Commie bastards so he's a "freedom fighter." That innocent civilians were killed and maimed, well, "collateral damage", don't'cha know.

I mean, would Ollie North consort with terrorists? No! North only consorts with freedom fighters.

Oh, and don't let the word "hypocrisy" cross your mind.

---

ADDED: Eugene Robinson:

Cardone's point was that if the government really wanted to keep Posada behind bars because he was a career terrorist, prosecutors should have prosecuted him as a terrorist. Then, faster than you can say "Patriot Act," authorities could have made him disappear into the netherworld of indefinite detention where terrorism suspects named Muhammad are kept.

I'll wager that the evidence against Posada, which I find compelling, is more solid than the secret evidence against most of the detainees at Guantanamo. But Posada's alleged crimes were against the Castro regime. George W. Bush's stance toward Cuba has been even more hardheaded and counterproductive than the policies of his predecessors. This administration has tightened the travel ban, increased economic pressure and made a show of planning for a post-Castro Cuba.

.

Objectively Pro-Terrorist

The BushCheney Administration, that is. The case is Luis Posada Carriles, Cuban terrorist, and the administration has been doing everything possible to not chuck him into jail:

A federal judge on Tuesday threw out immigration fraud charges against Luis Posada Carriles, the Cuban exile militant who was facing trial later this week, saying the government manipulated his statement to investigators.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone said the interpretation of the April 2006 interview "is so inaccurate as to render it unreliable as evidence of defendant's actual statement."

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said prosecutors were reviewing the ruling and considering whether to appeal it.

Now, as a strictly legal matter the judge might have made the correct ruling. And maybe the DoJ will appeal. But considering Posada's history of terrorism, most notoriously the bombing of Cubana Flight 455 which killed 73 people, there's more than enough evidence to imprison him or, better yet, extradite him to Cuba or Venezuela. Yet for years the BushCheney Administration has been dragging their heels.

We're constantly being told that terrorism is bad. Is this an example of "one person's terrorist is another's freedom-fighter"?

Situational ethics!

.

Utter Insanity

I'm not the NRA:

The National Rifle Association is urging the Bush administration to withdraw its support of a bill that would prohibit suspected terrorists from buying firearms.

[...]

In a letter this week to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, NRA executive director Chris Cox said the bill, offered last week by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., "would allow arbitrary denial of Second Amendment rights based on mere 'suspicions' of a terrorist threat."

"As many of our friends in law enforcement have rightly pointed out, the word 'suspect' has no legal meaning, particularly when it comes to denying constitutional liberties," Cox wrote.

While it's true that a suspect isn't necessarily guilty, this is still insane.

Why does the NRA side with Islamofascist terrorists?

.

Nope

Try again:

"Failure in Iraq should be unacceptable to the civilized world," Bush told the allied military officers, linking the "war on terrorism" to the 20th century fights against fascism and communism.

Al Qaeda terrorists "murder the innocent to advance a focused and clear ideology," he said. "They seek to establish a radical Islamic caliphate so they can impose a brutal new order on unwilling people, much as Nazis and communists sought to do in the last century."

Here we go again. The Nazi Germans and the Soviets had large, mechanized, and well-trained modern armies (the latter having nukes, as well). al Qaeda and al Qaeda-wannabes have bomb belts and little organization. That George and the cultists who still follow him (hello, Rick Santorum!) still haven't figured this is a good indicator that they're people not worth taking seriously.

Even if terrorists were to acquire some form "WMD's" any destruction, however deadly, would be localized. This isn't to say that there is no threat; just that the threat is considerably different - and less - than than the apocalyptic visions offered by the modern American rightwing.

I recently finished reading Ann Hagedorn's excellent Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America, 1919. Much of the book deals with the first Red Scare and how an ephemeral - dare I say existential? - threat was immediately used to persecute anyone "we" didn't like. African Americans, unionists, Socialists, immigrants, you name it were transformed into "Bolsheviki" and Anarchists who at any any moment would rise up and overthrow the government, abolish churches, seize homes, make women communal property and empower blacks unless the utmost vigilance was maintained. Free speech and Habeas Corpus were abolished and mass arrests, mass deportations, false imprisonment, and torture became the norm. The President, the Attorney General, Senators, Representatives, and a young, ambitious man named J. Edgar Hoover all used these for political advantage and instilled fear in the populace.

Using many of the same techniques - though maybe more subtle - George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and their followers have been trying to return us to those days. Perhaps, though, like in 1920-21, 2006-07 will show that the American people have regained a sense of collective sanity and reject these would be authoritarians. And perhaps 2008, like 1922 will bring us - and I hesitate to use this term - a "return to normalcy."

.

Big Surprise

Among those crimes that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has supposedly confessed to is a plot to assassinate former President Jimmy Carter.

It should come a no surprise that our friends on the Right, those Paragons of Patriotism, those Deacons of Decency, are cheering the planned killing of Carter.

Can we now dispense with the notion that our Rightwing is substantially different from al-Qaeda et al?

.

Good Timing

Alleged Architect Of 9/11 Confesses To Many Attacks

Apparently, Mohammed confessed to just about every crime except for the Kennedy assassination.

I'm sure the release of this news now has nothing to do with the US Attorney purge, Walter Reed, Iraq, &c. &c. &c.

---

ADDED: Attaturk has the full list of what Mohammed confessed to.

.

Remember Afghanistan?

Delusional Dick not blown up in Afghanistan.

Less importantly, more than a dozen killed and dozens more wounded.

Maybe we should call Cheney "Dick of Death."

.

That's Not Writing, That's Typing

Now, I won't pretend to be an especially gifted writer but if I ever compose something this bad go ahead and shoot me:

THERE IS AN IDEA out there. Perhaps not a fully formed one. Perhaps more like the whisper of one gusting like a sudden draft through the rafters of the conservative house, causing some to look toward the attic and ask fearfully, "What was that?"

This wisp of a notion is simply this: Maybe a Democrat should win in 2008.

Personally, I don't believe in this poltergeist, at least not yet. But every now and then, I must confess, I do shiver from its touch.

Yes, only Doughy Pantload could manage sentences that clunky.

(And if you want to see Jonah shiver walk him to an Army recruiting office.)

.

Our Friends

Iraq:

A man sentenced to death in Kuwait for the 1983 bombings of the U.S. and French embassies now sits in Iraq's parliament as a member of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's ruling coalition, according to U.S. military intelligence.

Jamal Jafaar Mohammed's seat in parliament gives him immunity from prosecution. Washington says he supports Shiite insurgents and acts as an Iranian agent in Iraq.

[...]

Al-Maliki's political party, Dawa, claimed responsibility for the Kuwait bombings at the time but now disavows them. The Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim party was forced into exile under former dictator Saddam Hussein, who was executed in December.

The prime minister says the situation is embarrassing -- not only to his government but to a U.S. administration that holds up Iraq's government as a democratic model for the region.

Even a proverbial scorecard doesn't help in trying to keep track of all the screw-ups this administration has given us.

.

Why Bother?

Just line them up and shoot them:

The Pentagon has drafted a manual for upcoming detainee trials that would allow suspected terrorists to be convicted on hearsay evidence and coerced testimony and imprisoned or put to death.

[...]

The Pentagon manual is aimed at ensuring that enemy combatants _ the Bush administration's term for many of the terrorism suspects captured on the battlefield _ "are prosecuted before regularly constituted courts affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized by civilized people," according to the document.

Uhhh, executing someone based on hearsay evidence is NOT "recognized by civilized people". Nor is coerced testimony. This is a continuation of BushCo's™ policy of "we'll do what we want when we want".

So why bother to even pretend that they're holding trials?

.

Leahy To Revisit MCA

The return of Habeas Corpus?

An effort to restore habeas corpus rights for enemy combatants could be the first test of the Democrats' resolve to change course in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who is expected to become chairman, confirmed Thursday that he is drafting a bill to undo portions of a recently passed law that prevent terrorism detainees from going to federal court to challenge the government's right to hold them indefinitely.

Reversing the Damage

Leahy's goal is to "try and do something to reverse the damage," said his spokeswoman, Tracy Schmaler.

Depending how the legislation is worded, it could set up a partisan showdown and even draw a veto from President Bush, according to experts.

[...]

"It was crazy," he said during an interview broadcast Wednesday on National Public Radio. "After 200 years of habeas corpus, we threw it out after just a few hours of debate."

It's a start.

[Via Glenn.]

.

Keith

.