This entry begins with my support for a Cenk Uygur’s idea in favor of Obama signing an executive letter to correct the injustice committed against lieutenants Tsao and Choi. Also, at the light of previous experiences, I criticize Obama’s backpedaling on the release of the torture photographs so actually putting our troops abroad in danger just to please the Republican screenplay. Finally, I want to comment on Nancy Pelosi’s recent ordeal, whether or not the CIA is right, and on how this is a sin that has come back to visit the Democratic party from the past. I also post a funny video in the last part and, of course, the poll.
- A case for Sandy Tsao and Dan Choi
I have advocated for years for immigration reform based on the immorality of our current immigration laws. With that same spirit, it would be hypocritical not to advocate for repealing "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell", another immoral piece of legislation. I have before criticized the firing of gay translators in the aftermath of 9/11 as a very hard to understand right-wing concession to its own homophobia on times of national security crisis, especially when the Republican party rode on the national security issue in the mid-term elections of 2002. Nevertheless I must admit that I never dealt before with the moral grounds of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell".
I must thank Rachel Maddow for bringing to our attention this blatant injustice the first time and for updating us on the sad aftermath of the Dan Choi case. The last time he was in Maddow’s show, Choi mentioned that he had received the same unfair letter of dismissal Tsao received before (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...) for having admitted being gay.
Beyond the usual "family" mambo jumbo the Right reserves for this discussion on civil fields, in the case of the military the right says that homosexuality would pervert other soldiers. As journalists commissioned to Iraq have said, this is plainly stupid. Americans soldiers, especially in Afghanistan, interact with soldiers of other countries, where homosexuality in the army is allowed. One of those journalists testifies about the professionalism of these openly gay soldiers and swears that they never tried to "French kiss" him or even suggested him to have homosexual intercourse. Of course, the image of the gay person as somebody unable to control his sexual urges and who will spread homosexuality as if it were a virus is that ridiculous that only can fit in the minds of homophobic fanatics and those willing to deceive themselves to justify their hidden homophobia. Before and after the Civil War, blacks were actually accused of being unable to control their sexual lust for white women and even of suffering of a disease that pushed them to escape, disease for which, of course, flagellation was the only known cure. Of course, sexual incontinence was part of the XVI and XVII Centuries accusations against witches, accused of seeking extreme pleasure with the Devil himself, and even part of the accusations brought in 177 A.D. against the Christian community of Lyons, which was literally massacred. It’s also present in the many persecutions Jews have suffered in Europe, including the persecution perpetrated by the Nazis. Homophobia, meet your granny!
Then you find the religious "argument": homosexual acts are banned in the Bible. This is not only unconstitutional as the First Amendment clearly says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" but also it results from a conveniently and hypocritical selective reading of the Bible. If you take Paul out of the Bible, and we know of the many compromises made inside the Catholic Church about whose scripts could stay and whose scripts would be kicked out of the Bible, the mention of homosexuality is marginal and almost non-existent. On the other hand, the Bible also bans shellfish, but you don’t see the Religious Right demonstrating at the doors of Long John Silver’s and Red Lobster for serving shellfish. You don’t see either the Religious Right demonstrating against workplaces which do not observe the Sabbath day, something that, different from homosexuality, is even in the Ten Commandments.
Finally, "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" does not prevent gays from entering the military. What it does is to condemn gays to that hypocritical situation in which they have to lie and, doing so, as Choi denounced, to violate the code of honor for which soldiers live. With respect to the gay marriage issue, let me refer you to part III of a previous entry (http://www.dailykos.com/...).
On his side, Jon Stewart ridiculed "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" precisely comparing it to the ticking-bomb scenario so dear to right wing Republicans: "you have a death or live situation, a terrorist has confessed and your only translator available is gay...":
http://www.thedailyshow.com/...
Some days ago, Cenk Uygur (http://www.theyoungturks.com/) suggested a good idea to right this wrong while "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" is not repealed: an Executive Letter from Obama to correct the injustice committed against Tsao and Choi. Unfortunately the White House has already said that they would not approach this issue on a case-by-case basis. Among some unfortunate backpedaling, backpedaling on this would be a healthy choice. You know, the premise of a serious counterinsurgency strategy cannot be "the terrorist are fools". The terrorists are not fool. Actually they find pretty convenient that one of their main enemies, us, the Great Satan, gets rid of part of its talent for not abiding to a hypocritical and inefficient standard. The same thing can be said of xenophobia. Had we had engaged in serious immigration reform, our army would benefit of the many talents of these people in a transparent way. Nevertheless, despite the present immigration law, some illegal immigrants, probably those who have valid social security numbers, managed to serve in the military and even died for America following the orders of their commander in chief (The flaws of their commander in chief are not their fault). If the United States repeals "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" and engages on immigration reform, our government will send an important short-term message to fundamentalist terrorists: "We are really serious about going after you and so we are using all our resources to get you".
- Connecting the dots between Cheney’s friends and Iraq. Update to my entry "Actually terrorists know torture exists and The Birth of a Nation was not a documentary" (http://www.dailykos.com/...)
a) Keith Olbermann was the first one I ever saw on cable news connecting the dots between torture and the fabricated link between al-Qaeda and Iraq to justify the war of Iraq. I have said many times in these entries that only for those still believing in unicorns the war of Iraq could have been motivated by weapons of mass destruction, 9/11, democracy, massacres, etc., etc. Iraq is maybe the second most important oil reserve. Halliburton was fined during Cheney’s tenure as President of that company when Halliburton’s contracts with Iraq through subsidiaries were exposed. At the time, American companies were forbidden of making contracts with Iraq. The war of 2003 didn’t stop the massacres against Kurds and Shiites, which had happened years before, but it stopped the deals between Saddam and the Russians, Chinese, and French. In the aftermath of the Sunni awakening (putting Sunni insurgents in our payroll hoping that Al-Maliki will not sweep the floor with them as soon as we leave), Al Hunt and other American companies have advanced at the regional and national Iraqi levels to get oil concessions in that country. Not to mention the priority we gave to the oil port of Al-Bakr and the Ministry of Oil while we left the population on their own after the fall of Saddam. Neocons are part of a choreography allowed by the press for too much time but if at this time you don’t connect the dots, you probably believe in unicorns, in Jay Severin having a secret crush on Edward James Olmos and in Santa Claus coming to vote for Mitt Romney in the Republican Primary of 2008.
Is it possible that Salman Rushdie (http://www.youtube.com/...) has been one of the very few who has questioned the unsubstantiated premise that al-Qaeda’s main goal is to hit us again? Even Democrats accept this puerile Republican talking point as a fact! Even Sheuer, author of "Imperial Hubris", with whose conclusions I disagree but whose diagnosis of the Middle East is pretty good in many ways, has realized that this is baloney.
b) The ticking-bomb tale gets discredited in Congress
A recent hearing at the Senate Judiciary (http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/...) was the event when, beyond the short reach of the lines of these entries, the ticking-bomb scenario got discredited, at least for any normal mind. The interrogator "Soufan", behind a screen gave testimony saying that enhanced interrogation (torture) was "slow, ineffective, unreliable, harmful of efforts to defeat al Qaeda" and that "waiting 180 hours for sleep deprivation not work in ticking time-bomb" scenarios. For this same reason, the dozens of times we waterboarded al-Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were completely useless for the favorite tale of the Republican right: the ticking-bomb scenario.
c) Enhanced interrogation for the skinheads who plot to assassinate Obama?
On October of 2008, a plot by white supremacists to assassinate Obama was uncovered in Tennessee (http://crooksandliars.com/...). How many Republicans have you heard screaming for using torture, a.k.a. enhanced interrogation, in this case? You know, maybe there are other white supremacists planning to assassinate Obama this precise moment and it’s a matter a minutes, seconds, like in the series 24, to extract from them the truth that would save lives and only torture is the only way to save those lives, isn’t it? Because this is also a terrorist plot, isn’t it?
d) An inconvenient backpedaling
Obama has recently opposed a court ruling ordering the release of photos of torture linked to the CIA. The argument is that, like the photos of the Abu Ghraib abuse, those images could be use by Islamic fundamentalists for propaganda. The Republican right has celebrated such decision as an example of bipartisanship and maturity and as a step on the right direction on matters of national security. Actually, this decision is not only hypocritical but also harms our national security.
The same Republican right that opposes closing Guantanamo, despite being one of the main issues used by Islamic fundamentalists in recruiting propaganda, opposes the release of the above mentioned photos because they can be used by Islamic fundamentalists in recruiting propaganda. This position is based on the critical premise of the Republican proposal on national security that the terrorists are stupid and that if we don’t tell them that we torture, they won’t know and so they won’t be able to use it in recruiting propaganda. Is it possible that this bunch of clowns have been able to position themselves as the party with the strongest national security credentials in a first world country?
What Islamic terrorists will do is to use testimonies of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and of the cases of those tortured abroad under our policy of rendition to sell the idea that those photos are so terrible that Abu-Ghraib is a playground in comparison and, worst, they will use this case to say that actually Obama’s policy is not going to be different from Bush’s and that Obama’s speech to the Muslim world was nothing but an act. This has been a terrible decision for Obama to make. Of course, while the Republican party aired horror ads (like the one parodied by Rachel, which I attach at the end of this entry), the Democratic party aired an add based on the series Survivor, a very cool add, too cool, pussy if you want in comparison with the Republican ad with Carmina Burana music in the background. Once again, the Republican party takes the lead on national security and the Democratic party seeks the second place!
- The post 9/11 Democratic sin
We all remember the infamous campaign of Saxby Chambliss against Max Cleland in Georgia in the mid-term elections of 2002. The bully-pose adopted by the Republican party traumatized most Democrats, who retreated fearing that not abiding by the Republican screenplay could put their seats at risk. I have criticized this in many previous entries, I will not mention every one, the way Democrats caved in the public debate. Thus, despite all the historic experience on counterinsurgency, our counterinsurgency strategy was reduced to the number of troops on Iraq; our national security budget, to the contracts on heavy weaponry and overpriced services with campaign contributors (I have mentioned before sometimes the case of the Trophy system of Humvee defense as a paradigmatic example of this point) and our urgently need intelligence effort, to "enhance interrogation". Time after time Democrats looked defenselessly reduced and fragile in their seats while Republican with injected eyes took over the positioning on national security with one bizarre argument after the other. Now those same Republicans say: "You didn’t make objections at the time".
Nancy Pelosi, as you know, has been accused of knowing of the use of torture in specific cases all this time. Pelosi has, in a maybe unprecedented way, accused the CIA of deceiving Congress. On one side, Leon Panetta himself has publicly defended the CIA. On the other, notes made by Senator Bob Graham of Florida have discredited the alleged accuracy of the CIA records and Republicans have opposed Pelosi’s calls for a widespread investigation. What almost nobody says is that, at worst, Pelosi is guilty of hypocrisy, of having fallen for the fear of looking weak on national security, as many other Democrats who abided by the Republican screenplay did, of leaving John Conyers alone when he wanted hearings on the fake reasons for the war of Iraq, of not co-signing Jane Harman’s letter. That should not destroy her career but make it stronger with a healthy self-criticism because it was not her who rationalized torture (like John Yoo), who authorized torture (like Cheney and Rumsfeld) or who practiced torture (like CACI and Triton Corp in Abu Ghraib). The same applies to most other Democrats who did not even dare to ask where those tactics had worked before because, as you also know, as insurgencies are nothing new, it would have been appropriate to know if that screenplay had some base on reality and history, not even after the bizarre year Paul Bremer spent in Iraq! That is why a commission of truth with public hearings is so needed besides the appointment of a special prosecutor: because our Democratic Senators and Congressmen did not dare to make the relevant questions in time and now we are in a deep ocean of lies and misconceptions.
Certainly I don’t approve of Obama’s backpedaling on some promises but I cannot blind my eyes to the lack of support the Democratic party is giving to him in this and in other issues (like the way conservative Democrats have blocked some nominations made by the Executive). While the Democratic party laughs moronically at the adaptation of the series Survivor to a 30" TV spot, the Republican party is still a well assembled noise machine with an irrational but real positioning on matters of national security. The first year of an administration that wants to be transformative is critical and it is being wasted in good part by Democratic Senators like Ben Nelson, who expects that that additional vote, necessary for the bill but embarrassing before his voters, would come by itself in 2012.
- The promised funny parody made by Rachel Maddow of the Republican party’s terrorizing ad on Guantanamo:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...