January 2005

January 26, 2005

Nor, Apparently, Do Our "Moral Values"

Alberto Gonzales has asserted to the Senate committee weighing his nomination to be attorney general that there's a legal rationale for harsh treatment of foreign prisoners by U.S. forces.

But he said the Convention Against Torture treaty, as ratified by the Senate, doesn't prohibit the use of "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" tactics on non-U.S. citizens who are captured abroad, in Iraq or elsewhere.

Furthermore,

He warned that any public discussion about interrogation tactics would help al-Qaida terrorists by giving them "a road map" of what to expect when captured.

Er, pardoning my ignorance, but, isn't that the point?

Essentially, Gonzales (and the Bush Administration at large) is arguing that "terrorists" (that is to say, any persons we choose to label as "terrorists") are sub-human, and therefore not deserving of human rights.

So, "Security Detainees" in Iraq (something on the order of 70% of whom are not guilty even of the "crime" of resisting the U.S. occupation) can be tortured at will -- so long as we define any person we plan to torture as a "terrorist" and so long as we define our activities as something other than "torture" (particularly easy to do when the Attorney General refuses "to be drawn into a discussion of tactics that might constitute torture").

Same goes for the Guantanamo detainees: they're terrorists, we don't engage in torture. Q.E.D..

This type of practice is more less the very definition of "barbarism". But what more could we expect from a country that could murder four million Indochinese for the sake of proving to the world its "credibility" as a world hegemon?

Nevertheless, one can't help wonder (again) just how, in this light, the Administration expects that captured Americans shall be treated?

Or, at a further remove, just how such practices (and the even more barbaric practice of high-altitude bombing, and the leveling of whole cities) are supposed to reduce the likelihood of "asymmetric" responses (by the weak) and the establishment of similar "doctrines" (by the powerful)?

As a practical matter, that is -- never minding (for the sake of argument) the hypocrisy and immorality of the "War On Terror" and its associated "battles".

January 21, 2005

Quote Of The Millennium!

"We don't want a war in the Middle East, if we can avoid it." -- Dick Cheney, explaining why the United States might be forced to attack Iran before Israel does

At this time, Iran having been elevated to "top threat" status, it might be useful to revive the ol' "Threat-O-Meter"...

The United States has condemned Iran as a threat to global peace with its plans to process 37 tonnes of raw uranium, which one nuclear expert says could eventually yield material for five atomic bombs.

So, let's update our threat stats.

Nuclear Weapons "Stockpile":
Iran -- 5 (pending)
USA -- 10,455

Nuclear Weapons Tests Conducted:
Iran -- 0
USA -- 1,054

"Useable" Nuclear Weapons Programme?
Iran -- No
USA -- Yes

Used Nuclear Weapons in Combat?
Iran -- No
USA -- Yes (additionally, uses Depleted and/or non-Depleted Uranium munitions in combat)

Regularly Uses other Banned Weapons in Combat?
Iran -- No
USA -- Yes

Nuclear "Posture":
Iran -- "Tehran insists the only purpose of its nuclear programme is the peaceful generation of electricity."
USA -- "Nuclear weapons play a critical role in the defense [sic] capabilities of the United States, its allies, and friends. They provide credible military options to deter a wide range of threats [sic], including WMD and large-scale conventional military force. These nuclear capabilities possess unique properties that give the United States options to hold at risk classes of targets [that are] important to achieve strategic and political objectives."

Major Military "Interventions", January 2001 - Present:
Iran -- 0
USA -- 2 (does not include Colombia, Venezuela, Haiti, Philippines)

Major Military "Interventions", August 1945 - Present:
Iran -- 0
USA -- 8 (Depending upon one's definition of "major". Let's call it: Korea, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Panama, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq.)

Major and Minor Military "Interventions", August 1945 - Present:
Iran -- 1 (including 0 against USA)
USA -- 74, give or take (including 5 against Iran)

People Killed in Military "Interventions", August 1945 - Present:
Iran -- Fewer than 500
USA -- Several millions

Fiscal 2004 Military Expenditures:
Iran -- $4.8 Billion (2001 funding)
USA -- $399.1 Billion (depending upon how you're counting)

Foreign Military Bases:
Iran -- 0
USA -- 58 countries

"Axis of Evil" Shit-List?
Iran -- No (USA is not on list)
USA -- Yes (Iran is on list)

We will further update these stats as events require.

January 17, 2005

"It's A Global Free-Fire Zone"

So says a Pentagon adviser, to Seymour Hersh, in regards to Donald H. Rumsfeld's authority to "act swiftly, decisively, and lethally" in the so-called "War On Terror".

Given his record of incompetence in attempting to do so in Afghanistan and Iraq, Lord knows why the Bush Administration would ever consider entrusting to Rumsfeld to the task of "rolling up" the world's "terrorists".

And Lord knows how the President thinks that given H. Rumsfeld the authority to destroy any living being anywhere in the world is any different from bin Laden's mandate to his followers.

And Pentagon Spokesman Lawrence Di Rita's response is kind of interesting.

The only civilians in the chain-of-command are the President and the Secretary of Defense, despite Mr. Hersh’s confident assertion that the chain of command now includes two Department policy officials. His assertion is outrageous, and Constitutionally specious.

We'll give Di Rita the benefit of the doubt and assume he'd had a long night when he penned the phrase "Constitutionally specious", rather than "Constitutionally dubious".

But, uh, when in the fuck has the Bush Administration ever worried about the Constitutional dubiousness of its activities? Two glaringly germane counter-examples of which all the world is only too aware leap immediately to mind.

First, of course, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, conducted without UN authority were obvious violations of International Law (which supersedes the Constitution).

Second, the Supreme Court has ruled that the Guantanamo detentions are unconstitutional (not that the Bush Administration has taken heed of the ruling).

The Pentagon's indignant response only heightens the likelihood that Hersh's reporting is more less accurate. But if it would like to assuage concerns, the Pentagon need merely to provide a full line-item accounting of the its budget.

Begin holding your breath...NOW!

January 11, 2005

Let Him Dangle

You know what Dubya says about trial lawyers...

A lawyer for Charles Graner, accused ringleader in the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal, on Monday compared piling naked prisoners into pyramids to cheerleader shows and said leashing inmates was also acceptable prisoner control. [...]

"Don't cheerleaders all over America form pyramids six to eight times a year. Is that torture?"

Where did he come up with the "six to eight times a year" figure? This is one of the more bizarre statements of recent memory. Did he research this? One would think that they would form pyramids six to eight times a week, just in practice.

Anyway, while scantily clad, American cheerleaders are presumably not naked when forming their human pyramids, and presumably not forced at gun-point into doing so, and presumably it's not done as a form of degradation in the hopes of breaking the cheerleaders' wills.

Womack said using a tether was a valid method of controlling detainees. "You're keeping control of them. A tether is a valid control to be used in corrections," he said. "In Texas we'd lasso them and drag them out of there."

Is he a lawyer, or a comedian? Or is he drunk?

Apart from saying the methods were not illegal, Graner's defense is that he was following orders. "He was doing his job. Following orders and being praised for it," Womack told the court, adding later that Graner would testify in the case.

Trying to have his cake and eat it too. But he may have forgotten George Bush's admonition to the Iraqis:

And all Iraqi military and civilian personnel should listen carefully to this warning. In any conflict, your fate will depend on your action. Do not destroy oil wells, a source of wealth that belongs to the Iraqi people. Do not obey any command to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone, including the Iraqi people. War crimes will be prosecuted. War criminals will be punished. And it will be no defense to say, "I was just following orders."

It's pretty clear that the torture policies emanated from Rumsfeld's office, and were authorised by the President. So, those are the primary war criminals, if we accept the Nuremberg Principles (and since we established the Principles, we probably should oughta accept them):

Principle III. The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.

But, as Bush noted, this doesn't absolve Graner of his crimes:

Principle IV. The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

Womack tried to establish that civilian intelligence officers and others wanted the guards to maltreat prisoners to get information.

Again, why would he try to establish this if the activities weren't illegal?

And while this is the angle the Bad Apples' attorneys should be pursuing (even though it wouldn't absolve the Apples), the ultimate crimes still are recognised not as crimes, but as heroic deeds: invading and occupying a sovereign country, deploying banned weapons (depleted uranium, cluster bombs, napalm), killing 100,000 people, bombing populated areas, razing cities to the ground, failing to protect civilian infrastructure, failing to respect civil liberties.

These crimes aren't even recognised as such with regards to Korea and Vietnam, let alone Iraq and Afghanistan. So we've yet a long ways to go before we can truly claim the mantle of "civilised". But if we keep trying, perhaps we'll get there someday.

January 09, 2005

Fiscal Disobedience

The United States has been accused from at least three different quarters of committing genocide in Iraq.

The charge was first laid by a bureaucrat: former UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq Denis Halliday, in 2000; arguing that the Anglo-American oil-for-food shenanigans were a "deliberate policy to destroy the people of Iraq".

In November of last year, a soldier, 12-year Marine veteran Jimmy Massey echoed Halliday:

A recent study estimated the number of Iraqi deaths since the start of the war in March 2003 at around 100,000. When asked if this number seemed accurate, Massey responded:

"Yes, but that of course does not include the thousands more who will be dying from disease because of a lack of medical supplies, clean water, or proper sanitation. It does not include the hundreds of thousands that died in Iraq before the war even began from the sanctions. We are committing genocide in Iraq, and that is the intention."

In the same month, a civilian, Iraqi blogger Riverbend, in reaction to the savage assault upon Fallujah, minced no words: "Iraqis will never forgive this, never. It's outrageous. It's genocide, and America -- with the help and support of Allawi -- is responsible."

That three people from disparate walks of life -- but all of whom have seen the results of American policies up-close -- would charge the United States of committing genocide should give us an idea of the realities on the ground in Iraq. Whether or not we want to use that specific word to categorise the policies, the magnitude of the injustice being perpetrated in our names is (at least, for those with eyes to see) incontrovertible.

Meanwhile, the website costofwar.com is tracking the monetary cost of the war in Iraq. At this writing, it tots up to just over $149 Billion -- and rising at the rate of about $1,500 per second.

Not-so-coincidentally, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has let it be known that, "The governors must expect flat funding on everything other than homeland security and defense. Not just the governors, but the American people."

Meanwhile, the President has set as his top priority for his second term the privatisation of Social Security; and has appointed a panel to "craft proposals...that could become the groundwork for Bush's bid to overhaul the nation's complex tax code."

Would you like some input into the process? Go ahead and contact your representative -- and see how rigorously your recommendations are taken into account.

Meanwhile, if you don't approve of an ever-more-regressive tax code, and don't approve of the uses to which your tax dollars are put, and don't approve of being written off as merely a member of a "focus group" whose opinions account for naught; go ahead and raise a stink.

The state will be only too happy to bash your skull up real good, as it did (for example) to protesters in Miami in November of 2003 -- in what Miami Mayor Manny Diaz called "a model for homeland security".

So if you're opposed to Taxation Without Representation, and you're opposed to getting your skull bashed up real good, what's to do? How about hitting 'em where it really hurts: in the pocketbook.

War Tax Resistance is a time-honoured form of Civil Disobedience, and its practice is as important now as it's been at any time since the Vietnam era. It should not be undertaken without first receiving counselling -- but this does not mean that it should not be undertaken. Merely that one should understand the potential consequences (which in almost all cases will be financial), and take steps to avoid them.

And what to do with the tax dollars withheld from Uncle Sam? Besides investing in alternative funds which can direct the money towards the types of funding that Bill Frist wants us to quit dreaming about, here are two ideas.

First, if we can get resources into the hands of Iraqi (and Palestinian) civilians, it can help to mitigate the effects of our government's genocidal policies.

Second, the manpower-strapped military is offering monetary incentives for re-enlistment. If we can counter these incentives with even greater incentives to not enlist, we can systematically drain the military of the cannon fodder needed to carry out our leaders' nefarious designs.

Think of your tax dollars as a "disobedience fund".

The potential consequences of Tax Resistance are real. But they can be overcome; and more importantly, while real, they're a lot less horrific than the consequences (some of which enumerated above) resulting from citizens' consenting to pay their taxes.

Contact the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee today, won't you?

January 02, 2005

Innocent Until Proven Negroid

Administration officials are preparing long-range plans for indefinitely imprisoning suspected terrorists whom they do not want to set free or turn over to courts in the United States or other countries, according to intelligence, defense and diplomatic officials.

The Pentagon and the CIA have asked the White House to decide on a more permanent approach for potentially lifetime detentions, including for hundreds of people now in military and CIA custody whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts. [Emphases added.]

So the Bush Administration has arrogated to itself the right to apprehend any nigger anywhere in the world (so long as he is "suspected" of being a "terrorist") and hold him without trial for the duration of his life.

This blogger has decried, ad nauseum, the practice of bombing, shooting, or detaining on sight "suspected terrorists". And certainly we've known of Bush's and Pals' fascistic tendencies for long enough. But what does it say about our culture that such an announcement can appear in a Sunday edition of the fricking Washington Post, in a story whose tone implies that the subject is fucking waterskiing chipmunks (or whatever)?

As is their wont, the Democrats offer up token un-principled "dissent": "We don't want to set up a bureaucracy that ends up making it impossible to protect sources and informants who operate within the groups we want to penetrate."

But the "opposition" doesn't understand that

"... In Europe, the custodial interrogations have yielded almost nothing" because they do not use the threat of sending detainees to a country where they are likely to be tortured.

So here's George Bush's America:

If you're a nigger, we suspect you of being a terrorist. To get information out of you, we'll either torture you or threaten to outsource (so to speak) you to a country where you are "likely" to be tortured. If (because, in all likelihood, you're completely innocent) we can't get anything out of you, we'll throw you into the slammer for the rest of your life. But, to show you how fucking decent we are, we'll "allow" you "more comfort and freedom than [you] have now" and we'll "allow socializing among inmates". Have a nice day (and may God have mercy on your black ass).