(and for the fascist intelligence services analyzing that last sentence, it’s fucking hyperbole you ass-hats)

From Harpers Magazine:

…the Nelly account shows that health professionals are right in the thick of the torture and abuse of the prisoners—suggesting a systematic collapse of professional ethics driven by the Pentagon itself. He describes body searches undertaken for no legitimate security purpose, simply to sexually invade and humiliate the prisoners. This was a standardized Bush Administration tactic–the importance of which became apparent to me when I participated in some Capitol Hill negotiations with White House representatives relating to legislation creating criminal law accountability for contractors. The Bush White House vehemently objected to provisions of the law dealing with rape by instrumentality. When House negotiators pressed to know why, they were met first with silence and then an embarrassed acknowledgement that a key part of the Bush program included invasion of the bodies of prisoners in a way that might be deemed rape by instrumentality under existing federal and state criminal statutes. While these techniques have long been known, the role of health care professionals in implementing them is shocking. Neely’s account demonstrates once more how much the Bush team kept secret and how little we still know about their comprehensive program of official cruelty and torture.

These people are (among other things) torturers and war criminals.

Here’s a little video I plan on keeping on hand over the years and months ahead…

A New World Order?

Nah, that’s crazy talk.

Sort of interesting though, if you think a bit about what has happened since then and is still happening up to today.

In the aftermath of 9/11, the frequent chyron you heard on the news and political talk is “why do they hate us?”. Since then, given our conduct in Afghanistan (repeated deaths of civilians as “Collateral Damage’) and Iraq (Abu Ghraib particularly), our wholesale and repeated use of extraordinary rendition, and the torture of  ‘enemy combatants’ in Guantanamo, who have been subjected to cruel and unusual punishment and held for over 6 years without knowing the charges against them, we’ve multiplied the reasons ‘they hate us’ exponentially.

Having said that, let’s look at one of the central issues mentioned over and over, which is America’s seemingly blind support of Israel. Let’s discuss the current Israeli incursion against the people of Gaza, for instance.

While Israel is being condemned internationally by organizations like the Red Cross for the brutality of it’s current military actions against the people (not soldiers, or even ‘terrorists’, the civilians – including women and children) of Gaza,  both houses of the United States Congress just passed resolutions supporting Israel’s actions. In the U.N., the United States Government is actively blocking a cease-fire resolution.

The bombs that Israel is dropping have been supplied by the United States, special order and rush delivery, in time to be dropped on Gaza right now.

Why do they hate us? It’s the hypocrisy stupid.

I would never say that our support of Israel justifies terrorist attacks against the United States and it’s citizens, but do you think our active support of Israel’s undeniably brutal actions helps or hurts us in the region? When exactly do we get around to ‘winning hearts and minds‘?

As Glenn Greenwald has repeatedly pointed out, how does our unbridled support, regardless of the circumstances, help us as a nation?

If you don’t see the problem with mindlessly supporting Israel while they actively prevent reporters from getting into the area to report on what is going on, on who is doing what, as to why Israel has bombed 2 U.N. protected schools with children inside (the schools were being used as shelters for those who had been displaced by the attacks), I’m not sure I can do anything to overcome your moral ambivalence.

Perhaps Cenk Uyger’s framing can get through to you. Please watch this (about 6 minutes):

So, I ask you, if the friend of your enemy supplied your enemy with weapons, which were then used to  blow up the school where your wife and your child were seeking refuge, what would you do?

What if you were living at below poverty level, in an area that you couldn’t leave, and your enemy took actions to essentially begin “shooting fish in a barrel” and at least seemed to be indifferent to civilian casualties (if not outright targeting them), what would you do?

And what if the friend of your enemy had a 40 year history of siding with and supplying your enemy, helping to create the conditions which leave you trapped and impoverished, all the while proclaiming to be the worlds “shining city on a hill” in terms of freedom, equality, and respect for human rights?

What would YOU do if you lost your family under these circumstances?

Does this help remove the causes of terrorism, or does this create new recruits that may someday come looking to attack us as allies of their enemy? Do desperate people do desperate things?

I’m not saying we should be siding with Hamas and Gaza necessarily, I’m saying that given this set of circumstances we shouldn’t be siding with Israel, and we shouldn’t be putting Israels support and safety above that of our own. Human rights are human rights. You can’t pick and choose the humans you apply them to.

It reminds me of that good-old saying: Who Would Jesus Bomb?

Amazing to me that both Dems and Republicans supported and enacted this tripe, but then I’m not really surprised by much anymore.

From Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Today, the federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals gave another setback to the Bush Administration’s claims for sweeping new Executive powers. The court found the National Security Letter (NSL) statute’s gag provision unconstitutional in Doe v. Mukasey. The NSL law allows the government to seek your electronic communications transactional records from your ISP without obtaining a court order. The gag provisions required the recipient of a NSL to stay quiet as long as the government desired, with only a fig leaf of judicial review.

The fig leaf was not good enough to satisfy the First Amendment. The Second Circuit struck down the statute’s truncated judicial review provisions, which required the court to treat the FBI’s assertions as conclusive absent evidence of bad faith. In addition, the government was required to initiate judicial proceedings to enforce the gag, instead of the ISP who received the NSL. The Court also construed several controversial aspects of the NSL statute narrowly, substantially reducing the scope of the FBI’s gag power.

The Second Circuit allowed the FBI to continue to issue NSL to communications service providers, but only pursuant to the new narrower interpretation. The Court did not address the Fourth Amendment implications of NSLs, since the government had withdrawn the NSL at issue before the court ruled, leaving the gag order as the only live issue. District Court Judge Marrero’s prior decision is also worth reading.

The sad thing is, after the last 8 years, I have no reason to believe that “we the people” will do a thing to prove them wrong. Consider the embarrassment and shame brought about by the internment of Japanese-American citizens during World War II. If we still have a country recognizable as America in 10 to 20 years (which is in some doubt from my perspective), how much deeper our shame, our guilt, our humiliation?

We are the people who stand by and do nothing while torture, war, and war crimes are carried out in our name. We are the Germans who stood by and did nothing as Hitler and Nazi fascism turned their society upside down and exterminated “undesirables”.

We are America, the torture nation.

From the Los Angeles Times – “Cheney Was Key in Clearing CIA Interrogation Tactics:

Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that he was directly involved in approving severe interrogation methods used by the CIA, and that the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should remain open indefinitely.

Cheney’s remarks on Guantanamo appear to put him at odds with President Bush, who has expressed a desire to close the prison, although the decision is expected to be left to the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama.

Cheney’s comments also mark the first time that he has acknowledged playing a central role in clearing the CIA’s use of an array of controversial interrogation tactics, including a simulated drowning method known as waterboarding.

It’s also worth noting that Cheney is claiming the CIA came to him saying what they wanted to do, when history and evidence have made it very clear at this point that the policy came from the top-down.

Quite a few people are reporting good results, so who I am I to not give it a try?

I’m succumbing to the pressure and trying this out.

Please stay tuned for your irregularly scheduled content…

What a “quaint” idea…

Maybe “the people” (the few who are paying attention) should give some extra weight to what a career professional like Thomas Tamm, the “NSA Whistle-Blower” has to say on the topic:

(h/t: Great Scat!)

Yeah, that’s right. So what? The point is that al Qaeda said they’re going to take a stand. Well, first of all in the post-9/11 environment Saddam Hussein posed a threat. And then upon removal, al Qaeda decides to take a stand. And they’re becoming defeated and I think history will say, one, the world was better off without Saddam, two, along with the Iraqi troops we have denied al Qaeda a safe haven because a young democracy is beginning to grow, which will be an important sign for people in the Middle East.

His vice president Darth Cheney upon being reminded that 2/3 of Americans do not support the Iraq war:

So?

Any one else noticing a pattern here?

Also torturing their  people (Abu Ghraib anyone?) may have made the “war crimes” president a wee bit unpopular in the land he “liberated”.