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More on Woodward's Embedding in the White House

In a sometimes scathing article prepared by Howard Kurtz without the benefit of an interview with Bob Woodward himself (he refused, choosing the softball setup of Larry King Live over the more probing questions of Post writer Howard Kurtz), today's Washington Post here examines the problem of journalists whose focus on profits (lucrative book deals for Woodward) and celebrity (access to the innermost offices of the White House, like an equal, for Woodward) can place forwarding their own career ahead of providing the public timely information on the workings of government.

Woodward, who in his youth won praise for his tenacious reporting on Watergate and the corruption in the Nixon administration, has lost his bearings in the midst of successful middle age.  His dependence on the powerful leads to rosy-glasses views of their thinking and their actions and a tendency to report it as they want it to be told rather than to peek under the carpet to find the hidden dirt.  Woodward claims that to get stories, he has to have the trust of the powerful.  Kurtz notes an inherent conflict as the bonds of trust with readers appear to be frayed and the consummate outsider reporter has become an insider protecting rather than exposing the current administration.  Granted "unfettered access" to the Bush administration, Woodward becomes subject of questions such as "Why does an administration not known for being fond of the press put so much effort into cooperating with Woodward?"  Id.

Why, indeed?  Kurtz notes that liberals consider Woodward a co-opted "enabler," a "court biographer."  Id. One wonders whether information that Woodward had squirreled away from interviews for his books might have better been used to inform the public in a more timely manner of the inner workings of the White House.  Sydney Schanberg's article in the Village Voice, All the Reporter's Men, notes that Woodward consistently grants confidentiality to his sources.

"[He] promises all his interviewees that he will make no immediate use of what they tell him and will publish it only much later, in the book, which means perhaps too late for the electorate or Congress to act upon it before the White House makes and carries out crucial decisions--such as sending troops into combat."  Id.

Schanberg gives an example on page 423 of Plan of Attack reporting on a long interview with Bush in December 2003.

"[Bush tells Woodward that he] wanted to make sure that his acknowledgment that no weapons of mass destruction had been found so far would not be published in The Washington Post until the book was released.  'In other words, I'm not going to read a headline, 'Bush Says No Weapons.'  'I promised he would not...'"  Id.

Woodward's pursuit of his own self interest thus appears to come at a hgh cost to the public right to know--his access denies others similar access, and his use of that access to write books and withhold information from press stories public restricts the public's knowledge.

What is clear from the Woodward affair is that we need journalists who are aggressive, tenacious, and interested in sharing with the public the information that they manage to ferret out from the secretive corners of government.  While the more detailed information that comes later from embedded journalists is historically interesting, we must always consider the source.  The tendency of hostages to become emotionally bound to their captors should serve as a warning against trusting too completely that a journalist embedded with his sources has been as forthcoming as required.

Maybe Woodward's loss of credibility and admission of wrongdoing will be a good lesson for other journalists.

More on Alito

Remember how the radical right-wing base of the Republican party called for Harriet Miers to step down before any vote could be taken?  They were worried that she might not prove to be a right-wing ideologue who could be counted on to vote in Supreme Court cases their own radically right-wing views.  Since those views are not the views of the majority of the people in this country on issue after issue, they were afraid that she would understand that the Constitution is document for the ages, one that must be interpreted to further both liberty and equality through a democratic institutional framework that denies overall power to any one branch in order to better protect the ordinary American from the development of oligarchy or dictatorship.

It is beginning to be clear why that same right-wing base now makes contented cooing sounds whenever the current nominee Alito is mentioned.  He is, quite clearly, their man. 

It is no accident that he is a man and not a woman, for his ideologies have been quite unmistakenly anti-feminist, anti-minority, and pro-entrenched power from early on. Little guy beware, if this man takes on the lifetime power of a Supreme Court Justice.  He will likely vote to restrict or eliminate the rights of women to control their own reproductive capacity.  His decisions will likely erode the fundamental right to privacy that we Americans had thought the most traditional and natural of the rights reserved to individuals under the Ninth Amendment of the Bill of Rights.   His own description of his political philosophy makes that clear.  See this posting.

Equally worrisome is his likely continued rejection of rights for those condemned to be killed by the state in the name of (rough) justice.  Governor Ryan's commutation of the sentences of all those facing the death penalty in Illinois was just the starkest indication of the fundamental injustice of the death penalty.  Innocent persons clearly are condemned to die throughout this great country of ours, sometimes on well-intended testimony of eyewitnesses whose memories of events turn out to be clouded by the way in which they have come to tell their stories and sometimes on intentional misstatements by witnesses who submit to pressure, perceived or real, to invent a story to gain leniency for themselves.  Incompetent lawyers with no preparation for the case fall asleep at trials.  Tainted juries and vindictive judges sit in judgment.  How this country can continue to participate at all in retributive executions in this modern age is hard to comprehend, given the hefty weight of enlightened opinion throughout the developed world that such punishment is inhumane and beneath the dignity of the human race.

But we do still have death penalties, and we do still have enormous errors in death cases.  So the role of the Supreme Court in serving as the literal court of last resort is tremendously important.  We should not lightly put a person on that bench who has little apparent understanding of the importance of preventing fundamental miscarriages of justice that occur when innocent persons are executed by the state.  Alito's past again gives rise to grave concerns, as reported in this commentary by Boalt Hall Law Professor Goodwin Liu in the LA Times about Alito's record in five controversial death penalty cases.

"In every one of these five contested cases, Alito voted against the inmate and issued an opinion.  Individually and especially as a whole, these opinions show a troubling tendency to tolerate serious errors in capital proceedings.  Whatever one may think of the death penalty, Alito's record should give pause to all Americans committed to basic fairness and due process of law."

* * *

  "[I]t is precisely in the most contentious cases that Alito has shown an unbroken pattern of excusing errors in capital proceedings and eroding norms of basic fairness."

Does a judicial nominee's ideology matter or should we merely be concerned with whether the nominee has demonstrated adequate legal knowledge and mental agility to deal with the pressing issues that come before the Supreme Court?  The advise and consent function of the Senate serves as a check on the executive branch's ability to pack the Court with cronies who will simply rubber stamp the executive's actions and view of the world.  It also provides an opportunity for the more deliberative of the two legislative chambers to consider how a nominee will approach the law during their lifetime sinecure on the bench and to assess whether that nominee's probable path on the bench resonates, in particular, with the current values and understanding of protective civil rights guaranteed by the "living" Constitution. 

And make no mistake about it, both the right and the left understand that the ideology of the persons who sit on the Supreme Court matters.  That is why the radical right was up in arms about the Miers nomination and calmed by the Alito nomination.  That is why the radical right is now supporting ads that push all their core groups' buttons--asserting that Alito's opponents want to take God out of government, permit gays to marry, support late-term abortions, and sanction burning of the American flag.  See this story in Sunday's Washington Post.

As progressives who care about equal treatment of all under the law and protection of the individual civil liberties that are threatened by the post-9/11 turn to greater police powers, we consider that it is becoming ever clearer that Alito adheres to an extreme right-wing ideology that would turn the clock back to a pre-New Deal era of Lochnerian economic rights and attenuated civil rights.  He is not the right man for this time.

Alito's Past

A David Kirkpatrick report in the Nov. 27, 2005  New York Times on Samuel Alito's background, From Alito's Past, a Window on Conservatives at Princeton, raises some genuine concerns about his understanding of civil liberties and his dedication to equal justice for all.  Alito was a member of Concerned Alumni of Princeton, an alumni-sponsored group founded initially to protest admission of women.  Until its demise in 1987, the group fought change at Princeton, "charging repeatedly that the administration was lowering admission standards, undermining the university's distinctive traditions and admitting too few children of alumni." 

The position of the group smacks of racism and sexism.  The undesirable groups that were being admitted instead were African Americans, Latinos, and women.  Concerned Alumni issued a pamphlet suggesting that racial tensions and loose campus life were causing campus crime to surge. Another brochure condemned the administration's goal of increasing women and minorities because it would "vitiate the alumni body of the future."  Id.  Even Senator Bill Frist (a 1974 Princeton graduate) considered Concerned Alumni's position "distorted, narrow and hostile."  Id.   The group went on to defend Princeton's socially exclusive eating clubs against administration plans to create general dining halls, claiming that the demise of the eating clubs was an effort to end de facto segregation.

Alito, in applying for a Reagan administration promotion in 1985, provided his membership in Concerned Alumni as evidence of his proper conservative ideology.   This evidence of his values is not reassuring--in fact, it suggests that he would not bring to the Court a proper understanding of the Court's role in protecting the very groups that the Concerned Alumni so resented as invading their traditional Princeton domain.

US use of depleted uranium in ordinance?

The New York Times revealed something unexpected in a brief article on Iranian nuclear plans hidden on pageg 13 of the international section of the Sunday, November 27, paper entitled "Iranian Attacks West's Efforts to Cut Back Nucler Plans".  According to the story, Iran's president objected to Bush administration pressure on Iran to drop its nuclear program.  Iran claims that it is developing nuclear energy, but the US claims the program is part of an effort to develop nuclear weapons.  Iran's president Ahmadinejad suggested that the U.S. should be "tried as war criminals in courts" because it has "used uranium ordinance in Iraq."  The Times goes on to state that "[s]ince the Iraq war started in 2003, American forces have fired at least 120 tones of shells packed iwth depleted uranium, an extermeloy dense material used by the United States and British militaries to penetrate tank armor." 

The mainstream media has not reported much about the US use of depleted uranium  (DU) weapons at all.  It is not on Fox News or other programs.  It has not been covered in the LA Times or the Washington Post.  The Salt Lake Tribune covered it last year, here, when it reported on Envirocare's lobbying for a DU clean up job.   It is covered in much more detail on websites such as counterpunch , webcom (scroll down to DU section, mostly covering the first Gulf War), International Action Center, TruthOut.org or the cutting edge or, of course, foreign news outlets such as this story in 2003 about the first Gulf War's use of DU ordinance and this story in the Herald about the health dangers from DU in Iraq and this story in the Herald about the illegality of use of DU ordinance.   As Professor Rokke notes in the last Herald story cited,

'There is a moral point to be made here. This war was about Iraq possessing illegal weapons of mass destruction -- yet we are using weapons of mass destruction ourselves.' He added: 'Such double-standards are repellent.'

The US used about 300 tons of DU weaponry in the first Gulf War and 120 tons inthe second.  The US military also used considerable DU ordinance in Afghanistan, including a new "bunker-buster" weapon.  See a detailed story about depleted uranium ordinance use in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the increased cancers likely to result, here.

So why have mainstream media outlets decided that information about use of DU ordinance in Iraq and Afghanistan and explanations of the level of radioactive contamination to which Iraqi civilians and US troops are exposed do not merit considerable attention?  Just think what might happen if Americans understood that our own military used WMDs against Saddam Hussein's country, even though Saddam did not have WMDs.   The media should make information about DU ordinance use in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the health effects it is likely to cause for Iraqis and US soldiers, a continuing subject of their reports.  Americans should understand the extended harm that the military is causing through this war and occupation of choice in Iraq.

The So-Called Patriot Act and Rights of Individual Citizens

When you get on a public bus, you expect to ride to your destination without being disturbed by the police.  That, at least, was the case until 9/11 seemed to make all private rights disappear in a national quest for security that has emboldened police to act as though they have a right to stop and search ordinary citizens in any situation without any suspicions whatsoever.  Deborah Davis, a commuter in Colorado, has been arrested for refusing to show her ID when police got on a public commuter bus and demanded identification of every person riding the bus.  See her website, here.   See a discussion about the right to request identification and the question of whether there should be a "national identity card" on the Homeland Security website, here.  The Supreme Court ruled that states can treat failure to provide identification as a crime in cases where the request for identification is based on reasonable suspicion.  See a discussion and link to the Supreme Court case here.

Meanwhile, Congress is working on extending the Patriot Act.  The House passed an extension of the act that was sought by the White House, see NPR here and CNN here.  But the Senate passed a less expansive version, intended to provide somewhat stronger civil liberties protections, see here.  A deal fell through right before Thanksgiving, especially because of concerns about extending the provisions for too many years, as reported in the Boston Globe here, the Salt Lake paper's reprinting of an Orlando Sentinel editorial here, and the Los Angeles Times here.  The negotiators will return in earnest after the Thanksgiving break.  This act--with its egregious invasions of privacy through secret searches of bank records, library records, bookstore purchases and even homes--has removed almost the last vestiges of privacy from search without reasonable cause that was the cornerstone of civil rights provided under the Constitution.   Congress should take a step back and consider how to add additional safeguards for ordinary Americans before extending any of the provisions.

At the same time, the FBI is conducting clandestine intelligence of US residents without doing the required paperwork or submitting to proper oversight.  Sometimes that surveillance goes on for years.  Sometimes the FBI neglects to get authority for seizing bank records and even conducts "unconsented physical searches."  See this story from October 24, 2005's Washington Post.  And the Pentagon is reaching further and further into domestic affairs, establishing deep databases on ordinary American citizens under the guise of protecting us from potential terrorist attacks.  See this story in the Washington Post this week. 

"Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, said the data-sharing amendment would still give the Pentagon much greater access to the FBI's massive collection of data, including information on citizens not connected to terrorism or espionage."

"The measure, she said, "removes one of the few existing privacy protections against the creation of secret dossiers on Americans by government intelligence agencies." She said the Pentagon's "intelligence agencies are quietly expanding their domestic presence without any public debate." "

One by-product of the constant hype about a "war" on terrorism is a related White House reach for power.  The executive branch claims the right to set the rules and determine the appropriate course of action for any actions related to the struggle against terrorism.  The Sunday New York Times carries an in-depth report by Adam Liptak, here, on the inconsistency in decisions to treat individuals suspected of terrorism as criminals entitled to due process protections through trial or enemy combatants held without charges or due process rights in military brigs.

The events of 9/11 were tragic, yet this response is even more tragic, since it strips this country of its defining essence as a haven for freedom from dictatorial authority.  Congress must wake up to the necessity of re-creating a strong legislature that fully realizes the separation of powers built into the Constitution.   All of this suggests a need for much tighter congressional oversight, not more lax rules that permit military and intelligence groups even greater leeway.

Death Penalty: Do the Innocent Die?

There are many things wrong with the justice system in this country, particularly in this post-9/11 age when civil rights are at risk of vanishing in the desire for Pentagon databases on citizens and Presidential executive power over them.  But one thing is particularly wrong with the system, and that is the use of the death penalty.  Even aside from the moral issue of the state taking the life of one of its citizens, the horrible truth about the death penalty is that we can never be sure whether the person killed by the state was actually guilty of the crime for which he or she was convicted.

For a sobering story about a  likely miscarriage of justice in applying the death penalty to an innocent person, read about Juan Moreno here.  Convicted at 19 and killed by the state of Texas at 26, Morena was almost undoubtedly innocent.  Both the eyewitness who identified him and a friend who could have save him have admitted that their fear of the authorities kept them from telling the truth.

This is one further proof that we need to end the barbarous death penalty and join the rest of the world of civilized nations.

More on Bush's "They did it, too" defense and his "stay the course" approach

Mr. Bush is on the attack (again).  Whenever things begin to go badly for Bush (as they often have), he seems to be incapable of acknowledging the problem and engaging a wide group in assessment of possible solutions.  Instead, he tends to have two response.  First, he asserts that everything is wonderful and that his opponents are simply wrong.  When that fails, he goes on the attack and blames somebody else for the problem.

The "blame game"--Congress did it, too!

Bush from the beginning planned to attack Iraq, and up until the invasion senior White House officials arduously built the case for removing Saddam.  Rice used fear of nuclear attack, talking of mushroom clouds as though the administration knew with certainty that we faced such a threat from Saddam if we did not act swiftly.  Bush constantly beat the drums of war, claiming that further UN inspections were useless because we were so sure that Saddam was succesfully hiding his chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.  Cheney was the most certain of all, implying that the evidence to which he was privy required a belligerant response.

Congress depended on the information these senior officials provided.  The Downing Street memo, with its red flag that the Bush White House was "fixing" the intelligence to support its decision to go to war, was not available to Congress or to the public.  The Defense Department's internal memoranda that provided evidence that sources such as "curveball" were untrustworthy were not available to Congress or to the public.  Unlike Bush, Congress did not have daily intelligence briefings with the heads of the agencies.  Trusting in their chief executive to reveal as much as possible and to carefully probe the intelligence officials in daily briefings, Congress affirmatively responded to Bush's demand for authority to go to war. 

Now, as more information surfaces about the uncertainties and weakness of the intelligence used to justify the invasion, many people are calling for an accounting.  Americans have a right to know whether the intelligence was "fixed" or whether the problem was sheer incompetence writ large.  We need to know, because we cannot possibly protect ourselves over the long run if we cannot correct the problems that led to the quagmire in Iraq.

Mr. Bush does not want a genuine investigation of these matters.  Instead, he and Cheney attack those who now question the intelligence used to go to war with the blame game.  Congress voted for the resolution, he said, after seeing the same intelligence the White House had.  It's your fault as much as mine that we are in this mess, he seems to say.  What silliness.  Bob Graham, former Senator and member of the intelligence committee, has written an op-ed in the Washington Post at this URL   in which he articulates the problem with Bush's blame game approach.  He notes that the Bush White House was so intent on its pre-determined decision to invade Iraq that it had not even asked the intelligence agencies to produce a "national intelligence estimate."  When the Senate did so, those privy to the document saw considerable uncertainty about each of the claims made so assuredly in public by Mr. Cheney and others.  The summary of the NIE provided to the public, however, removed all the doubts and uncertainties--an apparent effort to buttress the White House's case for war.  In that context, Graham notes,

"The president's attacks are outrageous. Yes, more than 100 Democrats voted to authorize him to take the nation to war. Most of them, though, like their Republican colleagues, did so in the legitimate belief that the president and his administration were truthful in their statements that Saddam Hussein was a gathering menace -- that if Hussein was not disarmed, the smoking gun would become a mushroom cloud."

"The president has undermined trust. No longer will the members of Congress be entitled to accept his veracity. Caveat emptor has become the word. Every member of Congress is on his or her own to determine the truth."

The "stay the course no matter what game"--We're there so we're going to stay there.

After the invasion, however, we learned  that there were no WMDs.  The substitute rationale, that we had invaded Iraq to liberate its people from their admittedly cruel dictator who imprisoned and tortured his own people, was not very convincing in a world where we have supported many dictators, including Saddam, for appropriate quid pro quos.  It was even less convincing as information about military use of waterboarding, dogs, nudity, blasphemy and other psychological and physical torture, and even murder, became apparent.  How could we claim to have unseated Saddam for those reasons, when we were practicing them ourselves, and even writing legal memorandum to find rationales for torture even though apparently in violation of our law and international agreements.  The third rationale, that we invaded Iraq to sow the seeds of democracy, finds little sustenance when we continue as an occupying force and when the constitution, even with our prodding and control of Iraq's resources, provides for an Islamic government. 

And the longer we stay, the worse the results.  We imprison thousands of Iraqis, detained without due process.  On the mere suspicion or report from some informant, our bombs strafe homes and cares where we think insurgents are hiding, but often we seem to have killed innocent women and children, bridal parties, and families whose father, perhaps out of fear, was merely driving erratically.  The insurgency has continued to grow, in spite of the many times that Cheney and the generals have assured us that it is on its last legs.  It is, in part, fueled by outside terrorists like members of al-Queda who have found Iraq to be an ideal training and recruiting ground.  But even more, the insurgency is an Islamic and Arabic resistance against the American occupation.  The longer we stay, the more our occupation and influence on the government and its institutions is a focus of the insurgency.  The longer we stay and fail to restore order or even to rebuild schools and provide a stable society, the more the Iraqi view of America as a stabilizing friend recedes and their view of us as a destabilizing agent in a frightening world increases.  The longer we stay, the more the ethnic strife among Sunnis, Kurds and Shi'ias re-kindled by our occupation resembles a civil war.  That civil confrontation will not end in one year, or two, or even five.  The most likely stable conclusion is a Shi'ia dominated state that is allied with Iran.  Our presence likely cannot prevent that result.

Accordingly, a majority of Americans now wants us to get out of Iraq as expeditiously as possible.  More than 2000 troops' lives have been lost, and tens (or hundreds) of thousands of Iraqi lives have been lost.  We believe it is time to end this occupation and give a multinational coalition a chance to work with Iraq to try to help it find a solution.  Even a long time hawk and supporter of the Iraq invasion, Congressman Murtha, has proposed that the military establish a timetable to withdraw from Iraq "as soon as practicable" and make arrangements to leave a smaller multinational force in place, at the sidelines, to help Iraq as requested.  The Republican majority in Congress, like Bush, cannot deal with open deliberation about serious issues.  Instead, they tried to embarass Murtha and those calling for withdrawal by substituting a resolution calling for immediate withdrawal, without arrangements for any multinational force.  Why is it that the Republican majority cannot understand the importance of engaging in a serious debate on the issue of how to exit the Iraq quagmire?

The Iraqi people are also well aware that the American presence interferes with their efforts to resolve their differences and pushes them ever deeper into civil war.  This week, even the Shi'ias, Kurds, and Sunnis have finally found one thing on which they can agree--they passed their own consensus resolution calling for the American military to set a timetable for withdrawal. 

The Bush response has been to go on the attack.  In speeches before friendly miltiary audiences, Bush has condemned the call for a pragmatic withdrawal and claimed that America will stay the course until it is victorious.  (Bush does not seem to understand the irony of these speeches, in light of his May 2003 "victory" landing on an aircraft carrier to proclaim "mission accomplished" in Iraq.)  On the Lehrer News Hour tonight on PBS, General John Vine responded to a question whether the US should withdraw with a resounding "no."  General Vine appeared to think his decision, and not the Iraqi's, was the one that mattered.  No one mentioned our declaration when a constitution was adopted in January that Iraq was now sovereign and we would leave upon the Iraqi's request. 

If the Bush White House distorted the intelligence to force us to war, we must know that.  An investigation is necessary, and it must be an independent one that will not kowtow to the White House.  Our future depends on learning from these mistakes of the past.

Similarly, we cannot continue this partisan gamesmanship in lieu of the serious and difficult deliberation in which we should engage regarding our exit from Iraq.  We must get out, and we must do so soon rather than later.  The question is how soon is practicable, and how can we arrange some assistance to Iraq to help it reconstruct after the carnage we brought upon it. That question, too, must be answered, because our future depends on returning to a focus on thwarting those who would engage in terrorism while retaining our deeply cherished respect for individual rights.  The silliness of the blame game and the stay-the-course game has to stop.  We have to get serious about these matters.

Murtha, Anti-War Sentiment, and Bush's "They Did It, Too" Defense

Even the Wall Street Journal seems to be recognizing that arrogant militarism is no longer in style in America.  A November 21 article by David Rogers, Murtha Firestorm Could Alter Prisoner Debate, at A6, notes that the Republicans refused to hold a reasonable discussion of John Murtha's call for a U.S. troop withdrawal "as soon as practicable" and with a reasonable force left to assist, in defined ways, the nascent Iraqi government.  Instead, after refusing to hold debates about withdrawal and the way the war is being waged in Iraq, they forced an immediate vote on "immediate" withdrawal of all troops--a position that Murtha did not espouse and that might given even anti-war activists some pause.   

But the Republican "stay at all costs" response and the White House's digging in its heels by refusing to provide any planning for extricating ourselves from the civil war we initiated (while blaming everybody for his war of choice, with his "but after hearing what we said about Saddam's WMD, they thought we ought to invade, too" defense) surely is a costly mistake.  The Journal suggests that the challenge "could rebound against the White House on a second front in the war debate: the treatment of military prisoners." Rumsfeld is busy making the rounds of the talk shows, saying there are no plans at all for troop withdrawals in 2006 (is anyone surprised?).  Bush is busy making belligerant speeches to military personnel accusing those who dissent from his incompetent handling of the invasion and occupation of Iraq as being unpatriotic and letting the troops down. I don't think that talk will go down well--it is our great concern for the needless sacrifice of young American lives, and the needless engendering of greater and greater Iraqi and Muslim animosity towards our genuine American values that animates us. 

Bush's belligerance is especially ironic when it comes to the torture issue. Even very respected Republicans are pushing for legislation to bar inhumane treatment of detainees and establish interrogation standards, after the Bush regime established a policy that appeared to condone torture and then refused to hold military brass accountable for the widespread abuses that we have seen at American military (and CIA) prisons around the world.  Yet Cheney is actively and openly lobbying for an exemption from the torture amendment for the CIA, and Bush has threatened to veto any anti-torture amendment.   This arrogant disregard for rights does not sit well, especially when we claim to have invaded Iraq (after all the other excuses and rationales are set aside as they must be) to remove a cruel and inhumane dictator and let Iraq's people be free.

At the same time, it turns out that the "Iraqi" government that we have installed in Iraq is handing out torture and death much in the same way that the Saddam regime we replaced was doing.  We've condemned that of course, and demanded an independent investigation.   But note that it makes it even harder to claim that we need to stay on indefinitely in Iraq.  It offers proof that our worst behaviors may be emulated (imprisonment without habeas corpus, and potential subjection to torture or murder in prison) and our most cherished values underappreciated (due process rights, equal treatment of persons, innocence until proved guilty). 

With that, what becomes of our rationale for staying in Iraq to help them establish a democracy?  Our presence feeds the insurgency, like fresh oxygen feeds a fire.  Our military handling of detainees breeds civil rights abuses, like a teen gang breeds a new generation that disrespects the law.  Our bombing of civilians, in the name of targeting suspected terrorist havens, raises suspicions about our motives and colors Iraqis views of the society we would establish.   

Now, a report is circulating around Europe and on the internet that the U.S. military used a condemned phosphorous chemical in its invasion of Fallujah, which caused severe burns.   See this story in Monday's New York Times. 

The Times reports that "the State Department and Pentagon have so bungled their response--making and then withdrawing incorrect statemenhts about what American troops really did when they fought a pitched battle against insurgents in the rebellious city--that the charges have produced dozens of stories ... suggesting that the Americans used banned weapons but tried to cover it up." 

Later in the story, Daryl Kimball, director of the Arms Control Association, is reported as stating, "There are legitmiate questions that need to be asked."

It turns out that the military claimed absolultely that we had not targeted civilians or enemies with phosphorous shells.  But then it turned out that firsthand accounts by American officers in two military journals reported the use of white phosphorus munitions aimed directly at insurgents in Fallujah to flush them out.  Suddenly, the Pentagon found itself reversing--yes, we used phosphorous against insurgents, but it was "perfectly legitimate for us to use this stuff against enemy combatants" even though it was also possible that it had ended up affecting civilians as well.  In other words, just another episode in the Bush military/industrial complex PR machine--say what you want people to believe until you have to change it; when you do change it, just assert that whatever you did was right anyway.

With our credibility damaged, even Americans cannot be sure any more.  That means it is time to end this war and occupation.  Perhaps not "immediate" withdrawal, but Murtha's "as soon as practicable" sounds like the best plan yet to come out of Washington.

CPB and Tomlinson, Times and Judith Miller, Post and Woodward

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is intended to be non-partisan--its purpose, in fact, is to shield PBS from political meddling.  In other words, it was to be a buffer between politicians and the broadcasters that would shield them from political interference. 

The inspector general of the Corporate for Public Broadcasting has now issued a report suggesting that Kenneth Tomlinson, former CPB Chairperson, violated both federal law and ethical guidelines by improperly using his position to interfere with PBS programming in an effort to turn it to the right.  One part of that effort was getting rid of Bill Moyers and cutting his highly regarded news documentary program to half the time.  Tomlinson funded a Wall Street Journal program to fill the freed-up half hour at an unusally high price tag of $4.1 million for the first season.  He also hired a "consultant" to investigate Bill Moyers' programming to determine how many of his guests were liberal or conservative.  Before the public release of the report and in connection with a preliminary presentation to the CPB board, Tomlinson resigned.  See the report in Media Matters here and the Washington Post here.

Even though the inspector general report also indicated that Tomlinson recruited Patricia Harrison, the current President of CPB, on a partisan basis, the board of CPB said it still supports her.  Harrison is a former co-chair of the Republican National Committee. And, according to the Post story,

"Despite his departure, the CPB remains firmly controlled by conservatives. Tomlinson's successor as chairman, Cheryl F. Halpern, is a longtime contributor to Republicans, including President Bush and Sen. Trent Lott (Miss.). Its vice chairman, Gay Hart Gaines, another Republican contributor, was a founder and former chairman of GOPAC, a powerful GOP fundraising group.  Tomlinson, a former editor of Reader's Digest, remains chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, a federal agency unrelated to CPB that oversees the government's international broadcasting services."

The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial Nov. 17 that was sharply critical of the CPB inspector general's report.  See PBS and Us, Wall St. J., Nov. 17, 2005, at A16.  The Journal claims that Tomlinson was merely carrying out the mandate of CPB to ensure there was balanced programming.  The Journal editorial implies that Tomlinson's view of a need of an injection of strong Republican viewpoints was necessary, calling Moyers' program at the top of the public-affairs programming a "satrapy." 

What isn't said in all this is just how skewed towards the right so much of the media is--even PBS.  On any Jim Lehrer News Hour program, guests from the right will tend to outnumber guests from the left.  Moyers' program was liberal in tone, but it was well-respected for its thoroughly investigated programs and its open and fair discussion of ideas.  Unlike the Journal's program laden with unreflective free market ideology, the Moyers' program engaged in open inquiry representing the best of what journalism should strive to be.

Remember that this episode takes place against a finding in late September by the Government Accountability Office, a non-partisan arm of Congress, that the Bush administration had illegally used goverment funds to support covert propaganda by hiring conservative pundits to promote its policies.  We also saw the disturbing pattern of government video news releases that have been provided to stations and broadcast as though they were independently produced without attribution to the government.  Propaganda in that fashion is what we associate with dictatorships and oligarchies like the USSR and China.  It has no place in a democracy.

The disturbing flip side of the propaganda coin is the increasing secrecy of this regime and related politicization of bureaucratic decisionmaking, from the FDA to the EPA, from FEMA to the FCC.  The December 1, 2005 issue of the New York Review of Books has an interesting article by Michael Massing entitled "The End of News?".  Massing notes some disturbing trends from a recent report on government secrecy by OpenTheGovernment.org, including an increase of 81 percent in the number of documents that are classified now compared with before 9/11, and a record 64 percent of federal advisory committee meetings in 2004 were closed to the public.  We all know that the Pentagon has banned television from photographing the return of bodies from Iraq.  Massing reports that even William Safire, a conservative pundit, has suggested "that 'the fundamental right of Americans, through our free press, to penetrate and criticize the workings of our government is under attack as never before."  Id. at 23. 

The pattern of behind-closed-door decisionmaking, without media attention and broad dispersal of information, has disastrous results for the public.  Take the example of the morning-after birth control pill, as described in the New York Times here and in the Chicago Tribute here.  A GAO report released November 14 indicates that the FDA rejection of the pill was problematic.  Top political appointees made the final decision, which is very rare.  In an unprecedented approach, the officials disregarded the recommendation of the independent advisory committee and the agency's own scientific review staff.  The rationale proffered contradicted past agency practice.  And the officials decided before the lower-level committees had even finished their review. 

This heightened government secrecy and control of perspectives is aided by the demise of the Fairness Doctrine, which--together with the increasing consolidation of media outlets in the hands of a few very wealthy corporations--has made possible a "disciplined and well-organized news and opinion campaign directed by conservatives and the Christian right."  Id.  Distorted perspectives can be spread easily through radios talk shows and websites, especially when targeted at audiences who are unlikely to read newspapers or keep themselves informed by reading widely across various media outlets.  The final blow is journalists who become insiders through close ties to particular staffers or officials, leading to reporting of White House perspectives with uncritical coverage.  Years after its reporting helped the White House make the case for its planned invasion of Iraq based on Saddam's (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction, the New York Times had to apologize for its inadquately sourced and researched stories.

The Valerie Plame outing is the perfect storm of hubris of the powerful, government secrecy, embedded reporting, disciplined conservative opinion creation, and smear campaigns reverberating through the talk shows of Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, and others.  While Tomlinson's departure clears the air somewhat at CPB and the GAO reports at least brought the Bush use of propaganda into the open and called attention to the politicized decision-making at the FDA, the ongoing saga of Judith Miller and the Joe Wilson smear campaign continues to get foggier.  We now have significant evidence that indicates Bush's chief of staff Karl Rove, vice president Dick Cheney and Cheney's now-indicted former chief of staff Scooter Libby were engaged in multiple discussions with multiple reporters about Wilson's wife Valerie Plame and her connection with the CIA. 

Adding to the intrigue, we now learn that Bob Woodward at the Washington Post had talked with some senior White House official even before Libby spoke with Miller about Pflame.  Woodward kept his conversation secret for seventeen months, even appearing on media shows and disparaging Fitzgerald's investigation.  See this New York Times story.   He apparently revealed his knowledge now only because of the need to testify. The Los Angeles Times offers a scathing indictment of Woodward, here, as a journalist who was seduced by his access to the powerful.  Not only did Woodward keep secret the fact that he had been approached by a senior White House official about Plame while he trashed the investigation into the Plame affair on national media, but he also failed to inform his reading public that his interviews on his latest book had been conducted in the manner of spineless journalism in dictatorships--he had submitted his questions to Dick Cheney ahead of time for approval.  Id.  The LA Times has this to say about this access-needy style of journalism.

"It's a journalistic strategy style dependent on the cultivation of access to well-placed officials greased by promises of "confidentiality." It's a way of doing journalism that still serves its practitioners' career interests, but less and less often their readers or viewers because it's a game the powerful and well-connected have learned to play to their own advantage.  Whatever its self-righteous pretensions, it's a style of journalism whose signature sound is less the blowing of whistles than it is the spinning of tops."

Until journalists start to do their job again, we can expect to have more "spin" and less whistle blowing. 

To help prevent spin, the use of anonymous sources should be more restricted, so that government officials cannot so easily co-opt the press.  How about a rule that anonymous sources are fine when they are speaking against interest--in other words, a government official who is blowing the whistle on a government activity can be offered confidentiality because that official could not speak without confidentiality and the information that official offers is important to the American people's understanding of their government.  The corollary would provide that a government official who is merely offering selected gossip that the official wants to have disseminated should not be offered confidentiality.   There's simply no justification.  Confidentiality in that case only furthers government misleading of the public about its activities. 

Two other rules are necessary to deal with Judith Miller and Bob Woodward's mistakes.  No journalist should be able to mis-identify a confidential source (Miller's agreement to the misleading description "Hill staffer" for Libby) and no journalist should be permitted to maintain exclusive information about sources--there should be a memo to the file, accessible by appropriate superiors in editorial offices, that outlines all relevant information about the source, the source's control of interview format, and the information actually provided in the interview.

With a government like this one, that sets its policy based on ideology without the benefit of transparency and the informed discussion that open, public meetings can engender, we cannot afford a guillible press that merely feeds us the line it was fed.  It is time for the press corps to wake up and make a dash for the nearest exit.  Dis-embed and get to work.

What Do Iraq, the Budget Bill, and the Spate of Scandals Have In Common?

These are bad times.  Young men and women in their primes die needless deaths in occupying a country that is splitting apart at the seams, Shi'ia against Sunni, Kurd against Shi-ia.  We watch each day as more suicide bombs take more lives senselessly and insurgents (or should we call them the resistance?--even our generals now admit most are not foreign fighters) fight to the death from town to town and cave to cave.  We hear about precision targeted bombs destroying homes the military claims are occupied by insurgents but Iraqis gather bodies of their four-year-old children for us to see, in death, and judge for ourselves.  We are reminded of another war, in another time, when we were younger and more hopeful that we could end the insanity. 

Mark Twain, in his War Prayer, depicts a people asking God to "help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells, ...help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire, ...help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land."  That is what war is--each side claiming to have God on its side as it lays waste to the other side.

Remember that we began this war of choice on the claim that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction AND that he posed an imminent threat to us.  Bush's first charge to his national security group was to consider an invasion of Iraq.  After 9/11, Richard Clarke has told us how Bush pressed for a connection with Iraq. Rice and Cheney. strident spokespersons for the neo-con group including also Feith, Hadley, and Wolfowitz who had been planning an invasion of Iraq for a decade, claimed certain knowledge about those weapons, and used suggestions of connections with Al-Queda and the image of mushroom clouds, that oppressive symbol of the cold war era, to draw us into a fear-inspired resolution to displace Saddam.  This was a war that was eagerly sought after with an impatience that refused to let the apparently successful inspections thwart the war plan, and the intelligence that was used to hype the war was itself distorted, as we know from the Downing Street memo and Defense Department memos that we now know revealed considerable doubt about sources of information about Saddams purported WMD.  Yet none of that doubt made it into Mr. Bush's or Mr. Cheney's speeches.  There was a mission to engage in war, and they foolishly (and incompetently) expected the Iraqi people to welcome them with roses.   Bush flew onto a carrier deck to claim "mission accomplished" when fewer than 200 of the more than 2000 brave troops had yet died.   

Now people are asking the questions they should have asked then, and some effort is being made--haltingly, and only against the best effort of Republicans to stifle it--to investigate the beginnings of this war.  Part II of the Senate investigation may finally take place.  We need to know, because we need to understand what went wrong.  Was it purely the incompetence of a politicized intelligence agency setting out to please its master at all costs?  George Tenet's behavior (eager to please the neo-cons by providing the intelligence analysis they wanted and calling the WMD case a "slam dunk") suggests that possibility.  Or did the pressure from the most powerful vice president in our history lead to distortions?  Did Cheney intentionally distort the truth when he repeatedly claimed that he had intelligence that we hadn't seen that made him certain of Saddam's WMD, and that he was sure our troops could waltz into Baghdad.  It is hard to think of all the speeches made by Bush and Cheney and Rice about Iraq without suspecting manipulation. 

The current wave of charges and indictments suggests a ruling party that has lost all sense of decency and is so intent on maintaining power and enriching itself and its friends at the public trough that it cannot recognize the depths into which it has sunk.  Abramoff, lobbyist and friend of the most powerful in Washington, propositioned one African leader for a multi-million dollar contract based on access to Mr. Bush through use of Abramoff's ties with connected Republicans.  Scanlon, Abramoff's one time sidekick, is apparently going to turn state's witness against Abramoff.   

Cheney's former chief of staff has been indicted for obstructing justice in the investigation of the outing of Joe Wilson's wife Valerie Plame, and now it appears that Bob Woodward at the Washington Post was told about Plame by a senior White House official even before Libby told Judith Miller.  This new information makes the existence of a White House plot to do anything in their power to smear Wilson seem even more credible.  Regrettably, it also makes Bob Woodward look a lot like Judith Miller--the two of them seem to have become so embedded, in their eager use of proximity to power, that they were incapable of any longer serving their original role of investigative journalists.  Miller agreed with Libby to misreport his function (a former Hill staffer rather than a current senior White House official), and Woodward had gotten to the point that pieces of secret information could be casually dangled without his recognizing that his access was being used.  Note that Woodward appeared in the media and made strongly derogatory comments about the Fitzgerald investigation several times during the two years after a White House official told him about Plame and before he told anyone--even his editors--that he had been part of the very situation that Fitzgerald was investigating!

The Fitzgerald investigation is continuing, with a new Grand Jury.  It is quite possible that Bush's right-hand man, Karl Rove, may still be indicted.  At the least, we now know that even earlier than Libby's talk with Miller a senior White House official was revealing information to reporters about Plame.  It may not have been an intentional smear campaign, but it sure looks and smells like one.

How does all this connect?  Our troops are over in Iraq, fighting a war we cannot win in a situation where our very presence exacerbates the growing tensions between the various ethnic groups.  The executive branch of our government appears intent on responding to criticism and dissent with blame rather than developing a practical plan for removing our troops from Iraq.  This is not new, and it has worked well for them in the past.  But it is a bankrupt strategy that ignores the importance of assessing what went wrong in the leadup to Iraq and disrespects American citizens' right to know about executive use and abuse of power.  The majority in Congress is in another form of denial--parceling out more tax subsidies for business (Gulf Opportunity Zones that will do almost nothing for the poor victims of Katrina) and tax cuts for the wealthy (especially if the House passes a bill to extend the capital gains and dividends rate cut) while pulling the rug out from under the poor. 

The factor that ties all these tragedies of the Bush Administration together is sheer hubris.  The hubris of a government that is so focused on its desire to undo the functionning of the New Deal state that it doesn't care who is hurt in the process is the same as the hubris of a government that is so focused on exercising military might to control oil resources that it doesn't understand that we will be hurt in the process.  It's time to let this ruling party know that we don't like their arrogance, we don't like their policies, and we don't want them giving away our country to their big corporate buddies.

Wal-Mart Film Showing Dec. 16

Volunteers for a Better America and IBEW will host a free showing of the Wal-Mart film, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, produced by Brave New Films on December 16, 2005, at 6:30 at the union hall 2901 N. Mattis in Champaign, Illinois.  Refreshments will be available before the film and a panel of speakers will host a question and answer session immediately after.  Speakers will include Mike Herbert of IBEW, Professor Ron Peters of the University of Illinois, Larraine Cowart, and other community leaders from local churches and government (to be updated as invited speakers are confirmed). 

The Hall seats about 150 persons and admission will be on a first-come, first-served basis.   To sign up for the film so we have some idea how many to expect (and whether we need to arrange another showing), please RSVP at this site, here.  The film runs about one hour and a half, and we expect the panel discussion to last about 45 minutes (or as long as there are questions from the floor). 

We hope that you will join us for the film and the interesting discussion afterwards.  If  you would like more information about activism about Wal-Mart's labor, management, and purchasing practices and the impact of those practices on all of us, check out these sites:  Wal-Mart Watch  and Wake Up Wal-Mart.  If you would like more information on showings of the Wal-Mart Film and other activist groups that are involved, go to Brave New Films website here.

Detainees Rights (2)

The Senate has passed a bill, sponsored by Republican Lindsay Graham, that fits right in the Bush Administration's executive control pocket--removal of habeas corpus rights to judicial process in U.S. courts--for detainees at Guantanamo.  Habeas review is the most basic due process right that permits a person being held to challenge the grounds for his or her detention.  In the case of detainees from the Administration's so-called "war on terror,"  courts would review whether the Administration's decision to treat a detainee as an "enemy combatant" is appropriate.  That categorization entails a number of consequences, and under the Administration's apparent views towards use of cruel, degrading and inhumane treatment, worrisome concerns about possible rendering to other countries for torture or seclusion in a "black site" somewhere around the globe. 

The following is a letter from the President of the American Bar Association condemning the Senate's action in removing this most basic liberty right from people who may be entirely innocent and whose labelling as enemies has been handled by a military that has proven itself incompetent to protect basic rights and incapable of appreciating the importance of speedy trial determinations.

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Michael S. Greco 321 N. Clark St. Chicago, IL 60610-4714 (312) 988-5109 FAX: (312) 988-5100 AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION President

November 15, 2005 The U.S. Senate last week adopted with no hearings and with little debate Senator Lindsey Graham's proposal to eliminate habeas corpus rights for Guantanamo detainees, denying them access to federal courts. The American Bar Association urges the senators to reconsider and defeat that enormous change to our fundamental legal system. Throughout our nation's history, starting with the defense by lawyer, later president, John Adams of Massachusetts, of the British soldiers who fired on patriots in the Boston Massacre, it has been our commitment to basic principles of justice, even for the most unpopular among us, that has allowed us to maintain the high moral ground in the world, the most strategically important territory for us to occupy as we struggle with the enemies of freedom. Our influence in the world is directly affected by our actions with respect to those we detain. The prisoners in Guantanamo have been held there, largely incommunicado, for four years. That fact alone offends our heritage of due process and fairness. The writ of habeas corpus was developed precisely to prevent the prolonged detention of individuals without charge, by allowing those held to petition the federal courts. To eliminate the right of habeas corpus would be shocking to our nation. As Senator Graham himself has stated repeatedly, in the battle against terrorism we cannot allow ourselves to become like the enemy. Adoption of his amendment would undermine the very principles that distinguish us from our enemies. Michael Greco, President

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After complaints from Americans across the country, a "compromise" has been worked out in the Senate.  The compromise still removes habeas rights, but at least does allow a detainee who has had a military tribunal hearing a right of appeal of that decision to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. 

The compromise itself falls far short of the legal process that we should provide to anyone that we have detained.  It assumes the accuracy of the military's categorization of a person as an enemy combatant, and does not permit challenges to that categorization through the judicial process.  The evidence is clear that the government has held hundreds (counting Iraq, thousands) of persons for months and years without verifying their status as enemies.  More than 500 prisoners have finally been released from Guantanamo.  Among those, many are not charged in their home country--all evidence would suggest that they were innocent of terrorism and merely inadvertently caught up in the dragnet of anti-terrorist fervor.  These are the people who will have no redress from the courts if they cannot go to court to challenge their status, as determined on the ultimate sayso of the person holding the office of President of the United States.  The power of dictators is based on removal of rights such as these.  We should not move down that slippery slope by our actions towards those detained in Afghanistan, Iraq and even within our own borders as in the case of citizen  Pareda who was stowed away in a military brig.

This news comes as Congress prepares to extend the so-called "Patriot" Act without making substantial changes to remove the noxious provisions threatening the liberty of every American.  Military access to book purchases, library information-seeking and military databases storing concentrated information on ordinary American citizens are a significant threat to Democracy.  Congress should bury most of those provisions and restore the liberty that true patriots have fought for throughout our history.

This Congress, and this person holding the office of President, have so far shown an inability to understand the importance of the most basic due process rights.  Let's hope that they can get the message now.

Judicial Nominations: is Alito like Ginsburg?

The talk in all the media these days is about Bush's third Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.  As we learn more about Alito, it is clear that his ideology runs to the extreme right.  He explicitly asserted an anti-abortion right position in 1985.  His views tend to be to the right of even the conservative members of his current court.  He would undoubtedly move the Supreme Court to the right, in decisions dealing with fundamental issues of extreme importance to the country at this time.  It appears clear that corporatist viewpoints would be furthered; individual rights (other than property rights) would be whittled away.

The right-wing is claiming that it would be inappropriate to consider his ideology in making the decision to confirm.  This claim is almost laughable in the context of their consideration of Harriet Miers, who was rejected by them primarily on ideological grounds as not being conservative enough.  Remember that Harriet Miers was also pressured to withdraw her naming, demonstrating that the commitment to an "up or down" vote applies only to those candidates that the right-wing already has decided will get an up vote.

Even during the Roberts confirmation process, the right-wing talk was busy bringing up Ruth Bader Ginsburg's nomination as an example of the Republican's willingness to confirm any Democratic president's nominee.  To hear them tell it, Justice Ginsburg's confirmation came even though Republicans considered her an extremist on the left. This "Ginsburg Fallacy" was brought up again on the night of Alito's confirmation, by Sean Hannity. The facts, however, are otherwise.  Ginsburg was--and is--a centrist whose selection was pushed by Republicans.  See the Washington Post account, here. 

Let's hope the rest of the media take guidance from the Post's approach.  They should set the record straight rather than permitting the right-wing to spin the American people a yarn yet one more time.

Detainees Rights

Senators reached a compromise last night to their plan, approved 49-42 last week, to prevent detainees abroad from having any right to judicial review of their detention.  The Washington Post today  here notes that the compromise is better than the original removal of review, but still raises significant concerns in the case of a government that has a known record for holding persons merely suspected of terrorist activity for years, rendering some to countries that are known to commit torture, and engaging in abusive practices in military and CIA prisons (including the maintenance of "black sites" without access by the Red Cross) that leave our record on human rights suspect in the eyes of the world.  The first two paragraphs of the story are worth quoting in full.

"HERE'S A QUIZ: What is the proper congressional response to an administration that is holding prisoners in secret facilities with no Red Cross access, asserting the right to treat those prisoners cruelly and inhumanely, and insisting that the president -- and the president alone -- can make the rules for how all detainees are to be dealt with and when (if ever) they are to be released?

If your answer is that Congress should further enable the administration by barring prisoners' last chance of judicial review, then you're on the same wavelength as Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and a plurality of his colleagues. Last week the Senate voted, 49 to 42, in favor of Mr. Graham's proposal to strip the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear challenges by inmates at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to their confinement or to the administration's plans to try some of them in a kind of military court. Senators announced a bipartisan compromise last night in the form of a plan that would allow limited appeals rights when military commissions convict someone or when they are designated enemy combatants. Assuming it is adopted tomorrow, that would be a significant improvement over the original language, although important problems would remain. As senators continue to work toward a final version, they should think hard about what they are doing and how their action will be perceived in the world."

We have compromised our integrity by the mere appearance of condoning torture, and may actually have committed torture regularly in our prisons.  We have held thousands of detainees, many of them innocent, in prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, without sufficient process.  We have held persons in Guantanamo for years without any rights.  It is time that those persons were provided appropriate due process rights.  The Senate's first approach--to deny all habeas rights to persons held abroad--was wrong.   Let's hope the Senate does that "hard thinking" recommended by the Post and comes up with a policy for judicial review of those held by the military and intelligence arms of the government that we Americans can be proud of.

If not now, when?

As more Americans come to terms with the way this nation rushed to war against Saddam based on discredited intelligence sources like "Curveball" and stale reports from past intelligence sources, the scales of ignorance are beginning to fall from our eyes.  Seeing the distortions, we now look more closely at each of the different programs put forward by this Administration.  We compare the waste of dollars for corporate allies to perform the reconstruction of the Iraqi areas that our military devastated to the still fumbled waste of monies to provide shelter for Katrina's evacuees and the rebuilding of levees that, we now learn, may have been shoddily built by Army contractees in the first place.   We learn to question the reports of Iraqi "insurgents" killed, and wonder just how many innocent men, women and children have been slaughtered in this horrible war.  See here for more about Iraqi civilian deaths.

As we watch the corporatization of our universities and the privatization of our military and the monetization of our elections, we worry.  Can a university dedicate itself to the fundamental research that has always been the driving energy of human civilization if it is spending most of its time chasing the corporate dollars that promise big labs and bigger name recognition?  Can a military dedicate itself to defending our people and our society if it is spending most of its money for corporate mercenaries whose focus on the bottom line allows them to cut corners while the military brass leave the troops on the ground without adequately protective armor?  Can a government elected by kow-towing to corporations and their owners and spending millions of their money to secure its seat expect to deliberate on proposals for the good of society rather than simply shoveling legislation towards its corporate masters?  These are the questions we have to ask, now that we doubt the sincerity and the good intentions of the heads of state.

We worry most, perhaps, about an endless war to secure a nameless goal on behalf of a people that wants our occupation forces to be gone from their land.  We are building permanent military bases along the oil pipelines in the North of Iraq, but failing to provide decent health care to the children.  We are continuing to bomb homes, even when they contain women and children, and to imprison "detainees" without providing due process to determine guilt.  We continue to condemn other nations for what they do not do that we think they should do, but we continue to render prisoners to countries that commit torture and to hold prisoners in "black sites" in the secret recesses of the world where we may commit torture. 

This war can bring us no good; nor can it bring the world good.  Our occupation of Iraq is merely inciting terrorists who will grow in numbers the longer American troops remain on Iraqi soil.  It is time to bring our troops home, close the new bases we established in Iraq and Afghanistan, and let detainees go unless we provide them a fair trial.

See this article in this week's The Nation for a novel approach to this issue--taking on the corporatist establishment by pushing politicians to make ending the Iraq occupation a top priority.

Secret Police and Torture

Today's New York Times carries an interesting article on the "Heavy Hand of the Secret Police Impeding Reform in Arab World."  It discusses the many ways that the role of governmental police )the mukhabarat, in Arab societies) in protecting national security can become a role of the government in using "preventive" arrests to stifle dissent and prevent democratic discussion of everything from ideas about ideal government to problems with corrupt governments.

Recall Ari Fleisher's early post-9/11 comment that those who express dissent or disapproval of actions after 9/11 are aiding the enemy.  Mr. Bush recently reiterated that theme in a speech to Veterans intended to recast himself as the "Warrior" president making the right decisions to protect us during the "war on terror."   Cheney, who most directly linked Saddam to 9/11 and continued claimed "certainty" that Saddam had WMD long after the invasion had substantiated that he had not, is actively lobbying against the bill (already passed by the Senate) that would make it clear that the United States does not treat prisoners cruelly, degradingly or inhumanely.

Let's hope that Congress reads the Times.  The current push for a President with enormously enhanced executive powers, including the "right" for the CIA to torture detainees who the President alone determines represent a threat to our national security and the potential control of the military over emergency responses to disasters in the country (from terrorist attacks to major weather emergencies) is a cause for grave concern. 

News Gazette Stories

When a local newspaper covers a story, one hopes that it will provide information that readers need to know to understand the context of the story and to make their own determinations about the reasonableness of the position being espoused by people in the news.

Today's story in the News Gazette about Tim Johnson, local congressman from the 15th Congressional District, and his support for Winkel for the U.S. Attorney position from Central Illinois did not satisfy that desire.   There is not much discussion about Mr. Winkel's qualifications (or lack thereof) for the position, though he admits he has no experience as a prosecutor.  There is not much about the importance of the position and the types of cases with which a U.S. Attorney may be involved.  There is no information about the people who hold U.S. Attorney positions in other parts of Illinois, such as the Northern or Southern Districts, or elsewhere in the country, to provide some context so that the people of Central Illinois can understand the caliber and experience of people ordinarily appointed to such positions.  The media story seems to reduce to a tale of partisan opportunism--how to give a retiring politician a new position at high pay and do it in a way that lets the party's choice as a replacement effectively get an "interim appointment" that (the party hopes) gives a real boost from incumbency to being able to keep the seat later.  The people don't get a say in the matter--it is all between the two Republican Party chairs in Champaign and Vermillion Counties (naming the successor to Winkel) and Republican leaders in Congress such as Dennis Hastert to put the nomination forward. Of course, Illinois' senators are both Democrats, so other perspectives will come in at that point.  On the whole, though, it appears that the Republicans see a win-win for the party.  The question is whether it is a lose-lose for the people.

One of the U.S. Attorneys for Illinois, of course, has been in the news a good bit lately.  That's Peter Fitzgerald, who indicted Cheney's former chief of staff "Scooter" Libby for obstruction of justice and perjury (among other charges).  Mr. Fitzgerald is universally acknowledged to be a highly qualified and able Republican-appointed prosecutor with considerable experience whose handling of the investigation into the Plame affair has won him accolades from both sides of the aisle in Congress. 

Mr. Winkel appears to fall rather short in comparison.  The News Gazette does not provide much information to go on, but you can find out more at the Tim Johnson Watch blog, here (and at other blogs referenced therein).

Cheney's Dark Side

As we all know now, we hold many prisoners at Guantanamo, where they have little redress and little hope of a decent life.  We hold many others in prisons in Iraq, where there have been stories of people getting lost in the bureaucracy, and stories of prisoners being murdered.  We've seen the pictures of abuse in Abu Ghraib, and heard tales of similar abuse at Guantanamo, including desecration of the Koran, and at other prisons we run (or our hired mercenaries run) throughout our Middle Eastern colonies.  We ordinary Americans have said that it must stop, but the White House and military chiefs claim it is just a few rotten bad apples.  They continue to claim this, despite the abundant evidence of a policy permitting torture and encouraging sadistic treatment of prisoners.  Waterboarding has turned up as a sanctioned activity in every military prison for terrorist suspects that we know anything about.

Dana Priest's Washington Post story revealed even more about our treatment of prisoners during this period of undermining the due process that is the foundation of our country.  Read about the CIA's "black sites" at an earlier post here.

Congress is finally facing up to the shame that the United States has brought upon itself through its treatment of prisoners taken in its invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.  John McCain and 89 other Senators have sent a clear message to Rumsfeld and Bush that torture will no longer be tolerated.   The bill provides a blanket ban against "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment of persons under custody or control of the United States government."

But Bush and Cheney have refused to accept that verdict.  Cheney, in fact, is actively campaigning against Congress' anti-torture bill.  He wants to be sure that at least the CIA is exempted.  Cheney, that is, believes that the CIA should have the right to commit torture--inhumane treatment of prisoners--whenever it wants to.  He believes Americans should "work, though, sort of the dark side ... in the shadows in the intelligence world."  See this Nov. 7 Washington Post story by Dan Fromkin.  Cheney's argument, apparently, is that the bad guys do bad things so we should to, using "any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective."  Id.

We might have hoped that after Abu Ghraib Mr. Bush would have recognized the American people's disgust with the idea of American torturers.  Or at least that he would acknowledge the advice of experts in interrogation that information obtained through torture is inevitably less credible than information obtained through more patient, legal methods of questioning.  Or at a minimum that he would see that his stance favoring torture garners negative attention throughout the Arab world.  If he has any doubts, he should read Richard Cohen's editorial in the November 8 Washington Post about the views of a Muslim driver in Jordan named Bassam.  Cohen calls Cheney "the unashamed lobbyist for torture." Id.

Mr. Bush, however, seems as usual to be under the influence of his powerful VP.  The Nov. 7 Washington Post story by Dan Fromkin reports this response to a query about holding prisoners in secret prisons, without Red Cross access, and Mr. Bush's general support for a CIA exemption from the proposed ban on torture. (he has threatened to veto the McCain bill).

"The executive branch has the obligation to protect the American people; the legislative branch has the obligation to protect the American people.  And we are aggressively doing that.  We are finding terrorists and bringing them to justice.  We are gathering information about where the terrorists may be hiding.  We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans.  Anything we do to that effort, to that end, in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law.  We do not torture."

There was a time when the phrase "bringing them to justice" meant that people who were suspected of having committed heinous crimes would be brought to trial so that their case, and the case against them, could be heard in an impartial tribunal and judged according to clear principles of law.  Mr. Bush appears to use the phrase to imply mere capture and detention on his say-so. 

Furthermore, Mr. Bush makes it clear that he thinks "anything we do...any activity we conduct" is automatically within the law.  It is as though Mr. Bush believes the defensive arguments devised several years ago by his counsel's office, suggesting that as Commander-in-Chief he can take any actions whatsoever and those actions will be per se lawful.  With that world view, it is easy to see how he can utter such an apparently contradictory statement of being able to "do anything" yet "not commit torture."  It is clear that Mr. Bush thinks that the anything he is entitled to command done includes torture, whenever he thinks it appropriate.  Why else would he and Cheney seek an exemption from a ban on "cruel and degrading treatment" unless they thought they might use it.  Yet he can in the same breath aver that nothing illegal will be done, since his underlings have convinced him that any action he takes during war is legal.

No wonder he appears to want us to be in a perpetual state of war.  In his view of things, that apparently means perpetual power for the military-industrial complex.  And no one asking those pesky questions about how the military and the CIA are treating the people they have locked up in brigs and prison camps around the world.

Globalization and Market Economics

Economic theory has recently exploded as a means of assessing appropriate policies from foreign policy to tax policy and tort laws to environmental policy.  Even elementary school children are familiar with cost-benefit analysis, and may at times employ it successfully to inveigle something out of their parents (the benefit of providing us this treat now will be far greater than the cost of not doing so.....)

Interesting, then, was the news in the October 29, 2005 New York Times Business Section, that the efficient market hypothesis is dead.  The paper covers a breakfast at Columbia Business School hosted by Bruce Greenwald, Robert Heilbrunn professor of finance and asset management.  See Joseph Nocera, The Heresy That Made Them Rich, New York Times, Oct. 29, 2005, at B1, here. 

"Most business schools emphasize modern potfolio theory, which has as its central tenet that the market is so efficient it can't be beaten with any regulatory.  Portfolio theory stresses ... diversification as the best way to spread market risk. ...As [Warren] Buffet [said] recently, "You couldn't advance in a finance department in this country unless you taught that the world was flat.""

"[T]he value investing program that Mr. Greenwald runs preaches something else ... that the market can be beaten. ... A 'value' stock is, at bottom, a cheap stock.  And a value investor is someone who has the facility to ferret out cheap stocks that don't deserve to be cheap. ... "For a value investor, the only relevant questions are: Is it a good business?  And will it be a better business in five years?" "  Id. 

In essence, value investing claims that the "[e]fficient market theory is basically dead." Id.   That statement is particularly interesting given the way claims of efficient markets drive free-market arguments for government not to regulate in order to let the markets determine how best to handle problems.

Similar claims are made for globalization.  Just let companies have a free hand to globalize their business, the claim goes, and everyone's boat will float higher.  The rich will get richer, but the poor will have work and do better as well.  Interestingly enough, another prominent academician is contesting that theory as well.  Dani Rodik has recently written about the problems presented by poor workers from globalization, as promoted by many of the huge multinational corporations.  See this article in Harvard Magazine.  An excerpt from the beginning of the article appears below.

"Globalization has brought little but good news to those with the products, skills, and resources to market worldwide. But does it also work for the world's poor?

That is the central question around which the debate over globalization—in essence, free trade and free flows of capital—revolves. Antiglobalization protesters may have had only limited success in blocking world trade negotiations or disrupting the meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but they have irrevocably altered the terms of the debate. Poverty is now the defining issue for both sides. The captains of the world economy have conceded that progress in international trade and finance has to be measured against the yardsticks of poverty alleviation and sustainable development.

[Many countries have failed to benefit from globalization.]   Latin American countries were buffeted by a never-ending series of boom-and-bust cycles in capital markets and experienced growth rates significantly below their historical averages. Most of the former socialist economies ended the decade at lower levels of per-capita income than they started it—and even in the rare successes, such as Poland, poverty rates remained higher than under communism."

CIA Prisons

In a related post on Volunteers for a Better America here, we noted the Washington Post's revelation on November 2 that the CIA runs "black site" prisons in countries around the globe.  Those prisons hold secret prisoners that exist in a never-never world of interrogations and indefinite detention without redress.  They may also be subject to torture.

While the Post devoted a large space to the story, and small town newspapers picked the story up as a filler in later papers, media broadcasts have hardly mentioned it.  It appears that stories about military and intelligence prisons in countries that may torture and even sometimes kill detainees is just old hat.

FAIR points out another element of this story--the fact that the Post acceded to the U.S. government officials' requests not to name the countries in which the CIA secret prisons are located.  By so doing, the Post became complicit with the White House and those countries in the illegal detention of prisoners in violation of their laws.  You can read the FAIR story here.

Scanlon's Scams

It will be interesting to see whether the broadcast and print media publish information about former Tom Scanlon, Jack Abramoff's former business partner and Tom DeLay's former aide, that was revealed in Senate Indian Affairs hearings.  The hearings are investigating the pair's apparent conning of Indian tribes for millions of dollars.  It appears that a memorandum related to their lucrative casino ventures also reveals a great deal about their lack of respect for the people they were manipulating by raising "values" issues.  The following is from a report on Salon.com here.

Consider one memo highlighted in a Capitol Hill hearing Wednesday that Scanlon, a former aide to Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, sent the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana to describe his strategy for protecting the tribe's gambling business. In plain terms, Scanlon confessed the source code of recent Republican electoral victories: target religious conservatives, distract everyone else, and then railroad through complex initiatives.

"The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees," Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. "Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them."

If the media would cover this kind of information, maybe it would make it harder for con artists  to abuse people's confidence so easily.

CIA Prisons

If you haven't written or called John McCain to thank him for putting forward legislation, approved by 90 Senators, to provide that the United States will not engage in cruel and degrading treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody, you may want to do so.  He has taken a courageous position, since Vice President Cheney and CIA Director Porter Goss have pushed Congress hard for an exception that would allow the CIA to engage in authorized torture.  Hopefully both houses of Congress will pass this anti-torture legislation so that we can all rest easier that our country stands firm on the right side on this issue.

In the meantime, more information is slowly becoming available about the CIA's network of hidden prisons established after 9/11.  The Washington Post's Dana Priest reported here that these "black sites" are "known to only a handful of officials in the United States."  Officials connected with them have not provided information about the facilities, interrogation techniques or detention policies in any open Congressional hearings, but apparently some of these prisons are in Eastern European countries in violation of their legal requirements. "More than 100" detainees have been sent to these sites, where CIA interrogators are permitted to use "enhanced interrogation techniques" (like waterboarding)  that include tactics prohibited under the U.N. Convention Against Torture and under current U.S. military law after the revelations of abuses at Abu Ghraib.

As Bob Herbert noted in his November 3, 2005 OpEd in the New York Times (at A27), holding prisoners without any rights and without "the basic minimum safeguards of prisoners of war" means that if they are tortured, no one in the outside world will know it.  If they are innocent, they have no redress.  Herbert quotes Michael Posner, executive director of Human Rights First, who notes that "What we've done is essentially to throw away the rule book and say that there are some people who are beyond the law, beyond scrutiny."  As Herbert says, "This is the border along which democracy bleeds into tyranny."

Priest does indicate that there is considerable internal debate at the CIA about the black site detentions.  That is a hopeful sign, given the widespread concern that torture violates our international agreements and is a heavy price to pay for information that is likely to be unreliable.  NPR's All Things Considered also reported tonight that the EU had initiated an investigation of this matter. 

Let's hope that the Congress will continue to probe these matters and force these practices to end.  America should pull back from this quagmire of lifelong detentions of people without due process in prisons that are sequestered away from the ordinary world. 

Have You Seen This on Broadcast News? Wal-Mart Memo

Wal-Mart, faced with the imminent release of the Wal-Mart Movie by BraveNewFilms, is taking an aggressive stance to counterpunch before the film even arrives at house parties around the country on November 13.   There is a long write-up on the AOL news service, at this link,  about Wal-Mart's aggressive response to the movie, as well as an opportunity for readers to participate in several polls on related issues. 

The blogosphere has weighed in with comments on the Wal-Mart controversies.  See this link for an example.

But the most interesting piece of news is the report that the Labor Department signed an agreement with Wal-Mart that made major concessions to the giant company, such as giving the company 15 days' notice before an inspection for child labor violations, without any quid pro quo.  The government even let Wal-Mart's lawyers write substantial parts of the settlement, without permitting the department's own lawyers to review it.  See Steven Greenhouse, Labor Dept. Is Rebuked Over Pack With Wal-Mart, New York Times (Nov. 1, 2005).  California Democrat George Miller noted that "The sweetheard deal put Wal-Mart emp-loyees at risk, undermined government effectiveness, and further undermined public confidence that the government is acting on its behalf."  Id.

Meanwhile, Wal-Mart is busy trying to figure out what to do about the fact that the American public is learning about its extraordinarily poor labor practices, such as not providing decent health care options to its employees, with the result that many of their children have to use Medicaid to get health care.  See this internal Wal-Mart memo.  Under the barrage of criticism, the company plans to host a "self-study" conference to be attended by about 80 press and media people, to create at least a media/PR impression that it is addressing its many problems.  See this story. 

Will Wal-Mart convince the media to tell its story its way?  Let's hope that the media will be wiser than it has been in recent years when powerful people try to manipulate the information that Americans receive.

Jay Sekulow--More on the News that the News Doesn't Cover

Jay Sekulow is the right-hand man to Pat Robertson and an important figure in Bush's failed efforts to convince the ideological right-wing base that Harriet Miers would be a solid right vote on the Court because of her conservative religious leanings.  He is a busy man, making very good money doing the "good work."  There's a lengthy story on him at this post in the Legal Times.  One wonders why the broadcast media and national newspapers have not covered this story, rather than leaving it to more obscure law journals.

Here's an excerpt from the story that gives a sense of the kind of information it provides.

"It is the Jay Sekulow who, through the ACLJ and a string of interconnected nonprofit and for-profit entities, has built a financial empire that generates millions of dollars a year and supports a lavish lifestyle -- complete with multiple homes, chauffeur-driven cars, and a private jet that he once used to ferry Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia."

The broadcast media seems to find hours for weeks on end to spend exploring the fate of one missing teenager on Aruba, but it can't cover stories like these that would help inform the public about figures in the news who carry significant influence. 

One suspects the consolidation of the media under a few large corporate owners is a significant part of the problem.  It is a problem that should be addressed, because the American people deserve to know just what drives these people, from Sekulof, to Abramoff, to Norquist, who push particular ideological perspectives like anti-abortion agendas and tax reforms favoring flat taxes on labor to replace the income tax and similar benefits for the wealthy.

The failure in Iraq

Thought for the Day, from Patrick Cockburn, The War So Far: A Failure Worse than Vietnam, Counterpunch (Nov. 2, 2005):

"The need for the White House to produce a fantasy picture of Iraq is because it dare not admit that it has engineered one of the greatest disasters in American history. It is worse than Vietnam because the enemy is punier and the original ambitions greater."

Why did Libby Do It?

We now know a good bit about the Plame affair and the way that various officials in the Bush White House used their insider positions to smear Joe Wilson in the public's eyes. Libby, Cheney, Rove--they all discussed Wilson in the context of their participation in the Iraq war council whose objective was to convince Americans that pre-emptive war (imperialistic war) in Iraq was necessary to protect us from terrorism. As the events of the summer and fall wound down, with Matt Cooper testifying about his sources, and finally Judy Miller revealing some of what she knew, we discover that Libby was in the thick of the Plame affair and, if the information included in the indictment is true, that Libby claimed to have gotten whatever information he had on Plame from journalists even when his own notes indicate that Vice President Cheney informed him that Wilson's wife was at the CIA.  Rove is also on record as indicating that he was informed by Libby.  See the Washington Post story here and a story in the Village Voice here.

What any thinking person has to ask is this--why would Libby have lied so many times as he apparently did before the Grand Jury, about conversations he had with multiple people who would also undoubtedly be testifying at some point before the Grand Jury?   Libby is a very smart man,