Color Me Disgusted

Josh Gerstein and Craig Gordon’s article in Politico yesterday, “Should America Torture?,” begs the question by assuming it’s a reasonable question to ask based on the specious notion that maybe, just maybe, if torture works, it might be all right to use. Not only that, they insert a rationale for “outlawing torture”–as if it were never illegal in the first place–that neglects what Obama has said on the subject. Say Gerstein and Gordon:

Obama took water-boarding and other tactics out of use — not because experts said they never work, but because they offer a recruiting tool for al-Qaida that on balance made America less safe, not more, the White House said Thursday.

Uh, hellllllo?! During his inaugural speech, Obama said:

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations.Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.

….Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with the sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use. Our security emanates from the justness of our cause; the force of our example; the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

There is nothing in that speech about stopping torture because it doesn’t work.  In fact, Obama repudiated the “false choice” between allegedly defending our nation in ways that he considered expedient because we somehow thought it would make us safe. In essence, he was arguing that we should act with courage rather than from fear.

Fear brought the Bush administration to its moral knees and left it cowering. Obama has tasked us with the obligation to stand on our feet once more.  I am not certain what the President’s up to now.   I think his political machinations may be such that he can say,”Oh, I’d rather just move forward,” while at the same time delegating authority to his Attorney General, who will decide what to do with those in the last administration that formulated torture as a policy and saw to it that war crimes were carried out by CIA operatives, medical personnel and psychologists. Obama may not approve the idea that Congress should investigate,  partly because some members of Congress approved torture themselves, but he may say something else,  such as, “I think we need to concentrate on the economy, health care and other government business.” That might be the best way for him to proceed, actually. And it would be strategically brilliant because how then could anyone blame him for legal proceedings?

This morning I brushed by an article on HuffPo entitled “Never Again.” How many times have we heard that mantra, and yet how many times, equally mantra-like,  does the same sort of thing happen over and over and over again? The Turks perpetrated genocide upon the Armenians, and still won’t admit to the crimes. The Nazis tried to exterminate all Jews, gypsies,  disabled, mentally ill, and homosexuals.  Serbians conducted ethnic cleansing on ethnic Albanians, Croats and Muslims.  They raped the women as a  tactic of war. The Tutsis massacred Hutus. The National Islamic Government of Sudan has taken Southern Sudanese women and children into slavery; the government-sponsored Janajaweed have murdered “upwards of at [least] 250,000 black Africans” in Darfur. The Israelis and the Palestinians have both perpetrated war crimes against each other.

Never again: those are just words now, a worn out refrain.

Simple Solution

No, not the pet spray.

No one seems to have figured out, least of all the DOJ, that in the case of Binyam Mohamed the government attorney didn’t need to plead state secrets. He could have asked for a continuation–more time to review the facts of the case before using precisely the same argument as the Bush administration’s.

Eric Holder was confirmed as Attorney General, what, eleven days ago?  I think he can have a little more time to get his act together.  Yeah.

So why wasn’t he given the chance?

Snark snark snarkety snark snark

I will try to be all Equal Opportunity and such, but might fall all over myself smacking one side multiple times…

• Nadya Suleman, mom of octuplets and  six other kids, three of whom are disabled, is the only person in the world who does not seem to realize she’s nuts.  Except Nadya was apparently slick enough to find another fertility specialist after her mother and father begged the first doc not to perform another IVF on their daughter.
• Dr. Michael Kamrava, “The Mad Doctor of Rodeo Drive”  and  Suleman’s IVF specialist, who is by now probably wishing he’d posted a stakeout on her house,  has had such stellar success rates as four pregnancies out of 20 procedures,  and is also known for experimental practices that don’t tend to work so well.  Hence, the poor odds.
• Tim Geithner, former prez of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, who was previously advised by such discredited luminaries as Alan Greenspan and Henry Paulson as well as former Merrill Lynch CEO John “I-Think-I-Deserve-My-Extravagant-Bonus” Thain,  has  won the battle over protecting financial institutions from “tougher conditions” and successfully duked it out with Obama aides  over whether bank executives’ pay should be limited or they should lose their jobs.   Shareholders have gotten a hall pass from Geithner, too.  So I guess we won’t see him sacked any time soon.  Or get the banks nationalized.  ‘Cause you know banks and AIG insurance execs and their  shareholders are way more important than the American people… (h/t Americablog)
• WaPo published an op-ed article lamenting the [so-called] stimulus’ dearth of defense programs because the authors, Tom Donnelly and Gary Schmitt, are worried the Obama administration will stop builing military goodies.  This despite the fact that we’re going to spend more on Defense this year than we did last year by 5.4%.
  
• The Weekly Standard Blog cites the previous in addition to  Loren Thompson’s article spreading a rumor that weapons will be cut from Defense programs  because we all know that going to war is the best way to stimulate a depressed economy.  Loren thinks the new administration should “consider the connection between … defense  and economic policies.”  Like, spending all that money in Iraq totally jump-started everything.
• Change We Can’t Believe In:  The Obama administration has not altered the Bush doctrine on state secrets.  The NY Times reports that the government lawyer made the same argument as the previous administration before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Binyam Mohamed and four other detainees.  Binyam Mohammed [allegedly] suffered gruesome torture, which the Times details, after undergoing extraordinary rendition to Morrocco.  Attorney General Holder is evidently worried that allowing Binyam Mohamed his day in court would jeopardize national security and tick off all the nations that are already pissed at the United States.  Riiiiiiiight.
  
• In other news, Congressional Republicans are on crack.  I was busy being sick and studying medical terminology, but I did hear one of them said that government doesn’t create jobs.  Uhhh, WPA anyone??  (I keep wondering whether these people have ever taken a U.S. history course in their entire lives.)
• I was going to write about how Dubya created four actual jobs before leaving office.  WaPo says he found jobs for some of his buddies at an obscure agency of the World Bank.  Isn’t that where he sent Wolfowitz? (Indeed.  And look what happened to him.)  It must be nice to make $3K a day plus travel expenses for per case as long as it lasts.  Of course, you have to land a case in the first place–but that would be close to $110,000 a year without the travel perks and the odds are so low that US appointments will get the job–so I decided not to write about it after all.