The Fall Of An Honest General

Over at the New Yorker there's a great article about Army Major General Antonio Taguba who investigated the abuses at Abu Ghraib. His honest report sank his career.

Taguba, describing the moment nearly three years later, said, sadly, “I thought they wanted to know. I assumed they wanted to know. I was ignorant of the setting.”
...
Taguba, watching the hearings, was appalled. He believed that Rumsfeld’s testimony was simply not true. “The photographs were available to him—if he wanted to see them,” Taguba said. Rumsfeld’s lack of knowledge was hard to credit. Taguba later wondered if perhaps Cambone had the photographs and kept them from Rumsfeld because he was reluctant to give his notoriously difficult boss bad news. But Taguba also recalled thinking, “Rumsfeld is very perceptive and has a mind like a steel trap. There’s no way he’s suffering from C.R.S.—Can’t Remember Shit. He’s trying to acquit himself, and a lot of people are lying to protect themselves.” It distressed Taguba that Rumsfeld was accompanied in his Senate and House appearances by senior military officers who concurred with his denials.

The Klown Kar Unloads

From The Raw Story:

Tea party-backed Representatives Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and Steve King (R-IA) on Saturday held a press conference in Egypt to thank the country’s military for overthrowing the elected government, and at one point even seemed to suggest that the Muslim Brotherhood had been behind the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

“Together, we’ve gone through suffering. Together, the United States and Egypt, have dealt with the same enemy,” Bachmann explained. “It’s a common enemy, and it’s an enemy called terrorism.”
...
During Saturday’s press conference, Gohmert praised Egyptian coup-leader General Abdel Fatah el-Sissi by comparing him to U.S. President George Washington.  

“We met with for a long meeting General el-Sissi and many of the military leaders, and my friend Steve King mentioned again about our heritage in America,” he explained. “George Washington, doing what no one had ever done before him, led a military in revolution, won the revolution, and then resigned and went home.”  

“And we met, in General el-Sissi, a man who is leader of the military, who might have a shot at being elected president, but is more concerned about giving his life to help his country, Egypt,” Gohmert said.

I think there's a difference between the two generals. I don't remember George Washington killing hundreds of people who protested after he won the revolution.

Surveillance State

Between today's news and yesterday's news, I'd say we're looking at the tip of the iceberg.

Take Your Same-Sex Business Elsewhere

The Revised Code of Washington, section 49.60.030, covers freedom from discrimination and begins with this statement: 

(1) The right to be free from discrimination because of race, creed, color, national origin, sex, honorably discharged veteran or military status, sexual orientation, or the presence of any sensory, mental, or physical disability or the use of a trained dog guide or service animal by a person with a disability is recognized as and declared to be a civil right. 

Washington state senator Sharon Brown, and at least eleven other senators, including Spokane's Mike Padden, have offered up a bill to create exemptions in the state's anti-discrimination law.

It leads off with...

AN ACT Relating to the right to engage in commerce free from discrimination;

It sounds good so far. But here is the text they want to add.

(4) Nothing in this section may burden a person or religious organization's freedom of religion including, but not limited to, the right of an individual or entity to deny services if providing those goods or services would be contrary to the individual's or entity owner's sincerely held religious beliefs, philosophical beliefs, or matters of conscience. This subsection does not apply to the denial of services to individuals recognized as a protected class under federal law applicable to the state as of the effective date of this section. The right to act or refuse to act in a manner motivated by a sincerely held religious belief, philosophical belief, or matter of conscience may not be burdened unless the government proves that it has a compelling governmental interest in infringing the specific act or refusal to act and has used the least restrictive means to further that interest.

It doesn't apply to any protected class under federal law, which includes race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, familial status, disability, veteran status, and genetic information.

But it would apply to a same-sex couple wishing to get married and wanting to buy flower arrangements from a florist for their wedding ceremony. The right to commerce free from discrimination would not apply to them. Such is the value--and danger--of sincerely held religious beliefs, philosophical beliefs, and matters of conscience of a business trumping those of the customer.

And such would be the effect of those beliefs when they are forced upon the citizenry by legislators.

Close Your Eyes And Pretend It Didn't Happen

The Constitution Project released a report on detainee treatment. Don't expect it to change anything. Here are a couple of findings:

U.S. forces, in many instances, used interrogation techniques on detainees that constitute torture. American personnel conducted an even larger number of interrogations that involved “cruel, inhuman, or degrading” treatment. Both categories of actions violate U.S. laws and international treaties. Such conduct was directly counter to values of the Constitution and our nation.

The nation’s most senior officials, through some of their actions and failures to act in the months and years immediately following the September 11 attacks, bear ultimate responsibility for allowing and contributing to the spread of illegal and improper interrogation techniques used by some U.S. personnel on detainees in several theaters. Responsibility also falls on other government officials and certain military leaders.

There is no firm or persuasive evidence that the widespread use of harsh interrogation techniques by U.S. forces produced significant information of value. There is substantial evidence that much of the information adduced from the use of such techniques was not useful or reliable.

Concerning Congress:

It is now evident that Congress did little to fulfill its primary obligations in addressing how the United States treated prisoners from Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries during the first few years of the Bush administration. At the very least, the first job of Congress in such a situation is oversight, finding out what may be going on and informing the public, through hearings and reports. This was in notable contrast to two previous periods in U.S. history. In 1902, regarding Filipinos, and 1949, regarding Germans, it had confronted the unpopular issue of prisoner abuse openly. But this time Congress stepped aside, effectively ceding that task to the press.

Concerning the Obama Administration:

The Justice Department’s rules for cases involving classified information greatly restrict prosecutors’ ability to act without the approval of the original classifying agency. Without CIA approval, classified information about the circumstances of a detainee’s death could not be discussed while interviewing witnesses, or presented to the grand jury. This may have been a formidable obstacle to prosecutions for detainee deaths in CIA custody, though it is impossible to know if it was decisive without public disclosure of the reasons DOJ declined to prosecute.

In a number of other civil and criminal cases, the Obama administration has robustly defended the CIA’s prerogative to keep information about its treatment of detainees secret. Obama’s Department of Justice successfully argued for the dismissal of Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc.,142 a suit by five rendition victims against a Boeing subsidiary that allegedly participated in flying them to torture overseas, on the basis of the state-secrets privilege. It also successfully opposed Supreme Court review of another rendition victim’s suit, Arar v. Ashcroft.143 

The Obama administration has also criminally prosecuted more individuals under the Espionage Act for providing classified information to the press than all other presidential administrations combined. From its passage in 1917 until 2009, the Espionage Act was used in three criminal prosecutions. It has been used six times under the Obama administration, most recently to prosecute CIA officer John Kiriakou for unauthorized disclosures to journalists about the identities of CIA personnel involved in the interrogation and torture of Abu Zubaydah. Kiriakou was sentenced to 30 months in prison for these revelations.

Why won't this report result in anything more than a short article in the local paper? Because the people who are outraged by it already were in the first place. The media was just as complicit as it was compliant. The last thing Congress wants to do is revisit its shameful role of abdicated responsibilities. And the Obama administration is hell bent on keeping everything secret.

There are a number of possible reasons the United States will not be judged by the same standards it applied to war criminals in the past who committed the same offenses. Exceptionalism. Avoidance. Denial. Hubris. It doesn't matter. The details may be kept secret by the Obama administration, but it's a contemptible secret privy to us all.

Our National Shame

An op-ed in the New York Times today written by Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel, held captive by the U.S. military for over 11 years.

Last month, on March 15, I was sick in the prison hospital and refused to be fed. A team from the E.R.F. (Extreme Reaction Force), a squad of eight military police officers in riot gear, burst in. They tied my hands and feet to the bed. They forcibly inserted an IV into my hand. I spent 26 hours in this state, tied to the bed. During this time I was not permitted to go to the toilet. They inserted a catheter, which was painful, degrading and unnecessary. I was not even permitted to pray.

"Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."  

The policy of indefinite detention is anathema to the America I know. It's a shame that's not the case for our political leadership. Given the hopelessness of their situation, what choice other than death do the detainees have? And why are so of us few bothered by that?

Restoring The Public Trust

In today's Spokesman Review (and on line yesterday) we have an article in which a high ranking member of the police department acknowledges the department made mistakes in the Otto Zehm case.

Interim Chief Scott Stephens has this to say:

“I definitely think there were mistakes made that certainly caused a lack of confidence in the way the Spokane Police Department managed the entire incident. I think we have to own the mistakes we’ve made, acknowledge that and take measures that they don’t repeat.”

And then this:

“I think it’s important … so the public has confidence in what we are doing. I’m more than happy to share what those lessons were and what changes were made when it is appropriate. My desired outcome is that we restore the public trust and confidence in their department.”

I'm puzzled as to why there has to be an appropriate time to share what changes have been made. Plus, the changes I would expect would not only include how investigations of police conduct are done. I think there's a strong need for evaluating the police department's Use of Force policy. Reducing the public's fear of unwarranted use of force would also help with restoring the public trust.

What We've Become

Prospective Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry says he is open to sending the U.S. military to Mexico to help fight the drug cartels.

“It may require our military in Mexico working in concert with them to kill these drug cartels and to keep them off of our border and to destroy their network,” Mr. Perry said during a campaign appearance here.

“I don’t know all the different scenarios that would be out there,” he said. “But I think it is very important for us to work with them to keep that country from failing.”

This is the same type of thinking that pushed us over the moral edge when we decided to declare a Global War on Terrorism and use the military to fight it. The war was not against a state, but against a small organization whose members were out in the global hinterlands. The enemy in this war became so conflated and the definition of a terrorist so expansive that Congress has to pass a bill that declared Nelson Mandela wasn't a terrorist so he could travel to the United States.

Our military has been involved in Afghanistan for ten years. We helped overthrow the Taliban and installed a government that cannot exist without our continued presence. We used to drop bombs and shoot cruise missiles. Technological advances have given us the ability to use remote controlled aircraft to stay over a target for a long time and then hit it with a missile.

That target, as we witnessed recently, can even be an American citizen, a decision cleared by U.S. government lawyers. And how hard can that be these days? During the Bush Administration John Yoo said the President's constitutional authority was broad enough to order the massacre of a village. He also helped provide legal justification for "enhanced interrogation techniques", better known in other circles as torture. So clearing the extrajudicial killing of Anwar Awlaki via a remote controlled aircraft launching a missile shouldn't be hard to do. And as you can see from many of the comments on any articles about this, most people don't consider the violation of his constitutional rights to be an issue. And many that do think that killing a terrorist is worth trumping the law. Instead, celebrate that we killed another terrorist.

An American Propaganda Film Prescient Of 21st Century America

Horribly acted but the similarity to today is just as uncanny as it is disturbing.

Is Morality An Insurmountable Climb?

We learn from today's Spokesman Review that Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the first Guantanamo detainee tried in a US court, was convicted of one count of conspiracy to damage or destroy U.S. property but cleared of 276 counts of murder and attempted murder.

The fact he was only found guilty of one charge upsets some people. The presiding judge would not allow a witness to testify since the only reason we know about the witness is because we tortured Ghailani.

From the article:

“This tragic verdict demonstrates the absolute insanity of the Obama administration’s decision to try al-Qaida terrorists in civilian courts,” Rep. Peter T. King, R-N.Y., said, calling the decision “a total miscarriage of justice.”

Congressman King is correct. It is insane to try suspected terrorists in our civilian courts when we tortured them to get the evidence we needed to convict them. And he is correct that this is a total miscarriage of justice. The Obama administration claims the authority to indefinitely detain a suspect even if they are found not guilty. So it's not like they were going to let Ghailani go if he was acquitted of all charges.

We have descended the slippery slope. Former President George W. Bush admits to authorizing the use of water boarding, a form of torture our country has considered illegal for 90 years. He is an admitted war criminal and there is no outrage. But don't you dare besmirch his character by saying he doesn't care about black people.

The Obama administration continues using the policies implemented by the Bush administration where state secrets are paramount and trials would simply be for show because indefinite detention is the reality.

Just when you think there's nowhere for our country to go but up, it somehow finds a way to slide farther down.

Survey On Don't Ask - Don't Tell

The Department of Defense is surveying thousands of service members about how they would react in a variety of situations if Don't Ask - Don't Tell is repealed. Now remember that the whole idea behind Don't Ask - Don't Tell, implemented in 1994, is that a gay person could serve in the military as long as they didn't make their sexual orientation known. This did not stop people from suspecting someone was gay. Heck, it didn't stop some people from knowing if a fellow service member was gay. So let's have a look at how the Department of Defense worded the survey questions.

I consider this statement leading off the questioning to be a bit comical.

Throughout this survey, "gay or lesbian" and "homosexual" are used interchangeably.

Isn't that a relief?

Here's one series of questions:

Did you ever serve in combat with a Service member of any rank whom you believed to be homosexual?

About how many other members of that combat unit also believed the Service member to be gay or lesbian?

How did that unit perform in combat?

Say what? Somehow suspecting a unit member is gay affects the combat performance of that unit? Nothing about training, equipment, or other factors? Just to make sure, here's the next question.

Among all the factors that affect a unit's performance in combat, how much did the belief that the Service member was gay or lesbian affect the unit’s combat performance:

Another question: If Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is repealed and you are working with a Service member in your immediate unit who has said he or she is gay or lesbian, how, if at all, would it affect how often your immediate unit socializes together off-duty?

Hmm, what if your unit consisted of an even number of men and women? How would that affect how often your unit socializes off duty?

If Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is repealed and you are assigned to share a room, berth or field tent with someone you believe to be a gay or lesbian Service member, which are you most likely to do?

* Take no action
* Discuss how we expect each other to behave and conduct ourselves while sharing a room, berth or field tent
* Talk to a chaplain, mentor, or leader about how to handle the situation
* Talk to a leader to see if I have other options
* Something else
* Don't know

First of all, how is that different from believing a person is gay or lesbian with DADT in place? I'm guessing that rooming with a gay or lesbian is scary because they're such predators, right? Not like those guys who rape their fellow female service members. BTW, if you choose "something else" you must type that in another box.

If a wartime situation made it necessary for you to share a room, berth or field tent with someone you believe to be a gay or lesbian Service member, which are you most likely to do?

Is it scarier in wartime?

If Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is repealed and you are assigned to bathroom facilities with an open bay shower that someone you believe to be a gay or lesbian Service member also used, which are you most likely to do?

Fend them off as they see me naked and instinctively attack me!

If a wartime situation made it necessary for you to share bathroom facilities with an open bay shower with someone you believe to be a gay or lesbian Service member, which are you most likely to do?

Curl up in a fetal position when the incoming mortar rounds start hitting!

If Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is repealed and a gay or lesbian Service member attended a military social function with a same-sex partner, which are you most likely to do?

Imply that all the single guys are dating each other?

If Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is repealed and you had on-base housing and a gay or lesbian Service member was living with a same-sex partner on-base, what would you most likely do?

Yes, what if you lived right next door to a pair of them?

Last of all, here's a question that should not get a single "no" answer.

Do you have any family members, friends or acquaintances who are gay or lesbian, or whom you believe to be gay or lesbian?

We've all met someone we believe is gay. Somehow noticing that is very important in our society.

Turning The Hate Around

You may have seen images like this. Members of the Westboro Baptist Church, a small church in Topeka, Kansas, are led by Reverend Fred Phelps who, for lack of a better characterization, is pretty much batshit insane. He takes members of his church, who are mostly family members, to cities around the country for anti-gay picketing.

This young man has found the best answer for such a protest if it comes to a locale near you.

Must Protect Marriage

Last month the district council of Washington, D.C., passed a bill allowing same sex marriage in the District of Columbia. Three days later the mayor signed it and now the measure goes to Congress for a 30-day review. I can't say for sure what Congress is going to do, but I suspect they're going to let it go since there's Democratic party majority.

But the bill doesn't sit well for our very own Cathy McMorris Rodgers who, along with numerous other members of Congress, has signed onto an amicus brief asking that the D.C. Superior Court

...asking the court to reverse a D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics decision prohibiting the same-sex marriage question to be put before voters.

It seems the board issued an interesting decision.

In two separate rulings since June, the elections board has stated that a public vote on same-sex marriage would be discriminatory against gay men and lesbians.

That's kind of different. I'll have to mull that one over.

Regardless, all this fuss over same sex marriage is such a waste. It's not as if not allowing gays to marry makes them go away. They're still going to live together. They're still going to have children and have custody of children. So why shouldn't they have the same legal rights as everyone else?