Before You Call McCain a "Hero": Think about it.
WARNING: GRAPHIC AND/OR DISTURBING PHOTOS CONTAINED HEREIN!
A diarest wrote this statement in his diary last night and it angered me that a self-proclaimed "lifelong Democrat" could, in the light of the reality of the facts of the last 7 & 1/2 years, could utter these words. He was trying to tell us the right way to sell Obama to folks like him-or how not to sell Obama to folks like him. It sounded much more like he was trying to convince himself not to vote for McCain himself. He writes:
"Quite frankly, I think John McCain's story is a lot more appealing. I don't agree with his political views, but I respect military service and I think he's the closest thing to an American hero on the national stage today. Don't ever try to equate anything in Barack Obama's background to being a Vietnam POW. I will automatically characterize you as not serious and not pay attention to another word out of your mouth".
Let's talk about "real heroes" and heroism below the fold...
I received this wingnut email today. My response is below. Why can't they put stuff in a normal font at normal size. Stupid ass formatting all around on these things.
Here it is
"I know everyone has a different opinion on the war and our current President. But, this article makes a lot of sense, and I hope you will take 2 minutes and read it and give it some thought. I have never seen the 'situation' expressed any better in words! Recently I was talking to a friend about the upcoming election and the candidates. As we ended our discussion he said 'the only decision you have to make is who you want sitting in that seat in the White House when - not if - when we get hit again and millions of American lives are put at risk!'
Many of you have probably followed the debate at the University of Berkeley re: the position of Professor John Yoo. Briefly, Yoo is deemed to be one of the chief enablers of the U.S. torture program and the author of key memos in this area. The New York Times, in an editorial, describes the memos (in part) as follows:
"The March 14, 2003, memo was written by John C. Yoo, then a lawyer for the Justice Department. He earlier helped draft a memo that redefined torture to justify repugnant, clearly illegal acts against Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners.
The purpose of the March 14 memo was equally insidious: to make sure that the policy makers who authorized those acts, or the subordinates who carried out the orders, were not convicted of any crime. The list of laws that Mr. Yoo’s memo sought to circumvent is long: federal laws against assault, maiming, interstate stalking, war crimes and torture; international laws against torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; and the Geneva Conventions."
Friday's animation over at Salon.com isn't funny at all--I've simply taken Marjorie Cohn's testimony about prosecuting the administration's war crimes and set it to a pretty simple bit of animation. But it puts a lot more focus on her words, and how we must do the right thing:
Also, thanks to any of you who made it to my show in New York on Thursday! We'll do it again in June or July, I'm sure.
In the comments of my last post at Hullabaloo, which noted that George W. Bush gave up on the FEC nomination of Hans von Spakovsky in solidarity with the troops, Jemand von Niemand ran through some of the week's highlights.
The following constitutes mainly a repost of something I've written last year, along with new commentary added. The reasons for this are two-fold: A) there has been zero development on the matter since last year; and B) today is BloggersUnite's Human Rights day.
It is the 13th century. The Catholic Church is almost 1,000 years removed from Constantine's legalizing Christianity. He did NOT make Christianity Rome's official religion. He "merely" spared fellow followers from being treated as they would come to treat others.
The church has come into great opulence, but some Christians, such as the Cathars and the Waldensians, believe that the materialism of the church is a bad thing. (The Cathars also believe in two Gods, suicide, flings and that Jesus wasn't son of God, but that's trivial compared to the threat to the church's wealth.)
When the Dominicans' effort at nonviolent conversion fails, the church has a problem: If people continue siding with the idea that the church should not collect material wealth, they are less likely to tithe, thus robbing the church of some of its ability to maintain a certain lifestyle. Equally usefully, the church gets a portion of heretics' possessions. Cha-ching!
So on this day in 1252, Pope Innocent IV issues a papal bull approving torture for rooting up, or Ad Extirpanda, heretics, and delineated rules for confiscating those heretics' estates.
If behavioral scientists are concerned solely with advancing their science, it seems most probably that they will serve the purposes of whatever individual or group has the power.
The quote above is from U.S. psychology pioneer Carl Rogers. It is worth pondering his statement as we consider both recent developments in the fight against U.S. torture, and more general considerations about the role of psychologists, physicians, and other scientific and medical personnel in interrogations for Bush's "War on Terror."
I was reading the New York Times's article on the decision by the "Convening Authority" at Guantanamo to drop all charges "without prejudice" against purported sixth 9/11 Al Qaeda hijacker Mohammed al-Qahtani, when my attention was drawn to an ad from the CIA trumpeting the announcement that they were seeking applicants for "National Clandestine Service Careers."
Hat tip to tahoebasha2 and Code Breaker, whose under-read diaries here and here inspired me to run their information through the dKos wringer one more time.
I have come to rely on dailyKos for almost all of my news. In fact, I'm downright smug about it. When someone offers up an item from the news, I usually say something along the lines of "I know. What really happened is . . ." When someone dismisses something I've read here as propaganda or wild speculation, I just sigh at their ignorance. I have learned that if I read something here which has gone unchallenged or uncorrected, then it is virtually always accurate. And I usually learn it somewhere between a day and six months before any non-Kossack. But yesterday the great orange glow was dimmer than it should have been.
Memos written at the request of high-ranking government officials by Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo on August 1, 2002 (also signed by Jay Bybee, now a federal judge) and March 14, 2003, assured the Bush administration that
. . . . the Department of Justice would not enforce the U.S. criminal laws against torture, assault, maiming and stalking, in the detention and interrogation of enemy combatants."
Of course, we know that the purpose of Yoo’s memos were simply established as a means of legal clearance for all that ensued thereafter.
Daniel Levin, Acting Assistant Attorney General Office of Legal Counsel (December 30, 2004)
. . . .specifically rejects Yoo’s definition of torture, and admits that a defandant’s motives to protect national security will not shield him from a torture prosecution. The rescission of the August 2002 memo constitutes an admission by the Justice Department that the legal reasoning in that memo was wrong. But for 22 months, the [sic] it was in effect, which sanctioned and led to the torture of prisoners in U.S. custody."
Note: all quoted material above from Marjorie Cohn, President National Lawyers Guild.
The NLG has issued a White Paper explaining why the memos, which purported to give objective legal advice, subject all those involved to prosecution under international and U.S. domestic law. This includes people who ordered the torture, approved it or gave advice to justify it.
Guild President Marjorie Cohn testified on May 6 before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties of the House Judiciary Committee, that some lawyers in the Department of Justice were "part of a common plan to violate U.S. and international laws outlawing torture."
The 14-page White Paper details the ways in which the lawyers, including Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, and William Haynes, counseled the White House on how to get away with war crimes.
I don't know if anyone has diaried this already, if so, I apologize. I just could not resist drawing attention to this when I saw it at Huffington.
The GOP has decided that the "compassionate conservatism" of 2008 will be "change you deserve". A short list of things this slogan is being used to market includes... oh yeah! Effexor! The anti-depressant! This is absolutely priceless, more below...
Charges dropped against '20th' hijacker U.S. officials have said Saudi was subjected to harsh treatment
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The Pentagon has dropped charges against a Saudi at Guantanamo who was alleged to have been the so-called "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11 attacks, his U.S. military defense lawyer said Monday.
(Cross-posted with author’s permission from WallWritings Friday, May 9, 2008)
Guest Column by Andrew Weaver
Milo’s Note: Andrew is one of the originators of the protest to locate the Bush library at Southern Methodist University and has been a primary source for several of my diaries on the subject. Andrew is a United Methodist minister and research psychologist living in New York City. He is a graduate of The Perkins School of Theology, SMU.
There is a disturbing narrative running unchecked across the web. This same narrative is not even mentioned in the traditional media. For the last 20 or more years this country has filled jails and prison, clogged the courts, and ruined many a life all in the name of Law and Order. It is only slightly ironic that after all of this, something that has change to US for the worse, when it should be applied for one of the best reasons, has been judged as politically bad for the nation.
It the recent Newsweek, Dahlia Lithwick, a gifted writer who has focused on the real truths all through this Administration, joined the same dangerous narrative. Glenn Greenwald, a kind of web hero to many of the Progressives against the last 7 yrs responded to me during a Q&A at Firedoglake, that he felt the same way as laid in Dahlias article. To be very clear, Glenn also said if he were appointed our new Atty. Gen., his first act would be the opposite. Have you figured out the narrative yet ?
While NeoCon Torture Fetish Fascists are touting this as a fine example of why we need secret concentration camps to be able to imprison and torture people without trial or even evidence, there is of course another view to be taken... the rational one.
This morning I attended the military commission hearings of Omar Khadr, a Canadian detainee who has been held in U.S. custody for over five years, most of that time in Guantánamo Bay. Like Mohammed Jawad, another detainee held at this prison, Khadr has also grown up at Guantánamo Bay. He was captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan when he was 15 years old. The U.S. government has alleged that he conspired with and provided material support to al-Qaeda and that he killed a U.S. soldier by throwing a grenade at him.
...a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.
The advisers were members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.
At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.
This is just the latest evidence that abuse of detainees was systematic and that Bush and his inner circle--as well as senior military officials--are to blame.
What do we do with this knowledge?
What does Barack Obama do?
