Where's the Outrage?

Glenn has spent a couple of days talking about a study from Harvard’s Kennedy School. Glenn ended with the NYT editor basically stating that they were intellectually dishonest. At least that’s how I read the statement. (I’ll have more to say about this later. I blockquoted everything that Glenn wrote to avoid confusion.) Here’s what Glenn said:

In response to the Harvard study documenting how newspapers labeled waterboarding as “torture” for almost 100 years until the Bush administration told them not to, The New York Times issued a statement justifying this behavior on the ground that it did not want to take sides in the debate.  Andrew Sullivan, Greg Sargent and Adam Serwer all pointed out that “taking a side” is precisely what the NYT did:  by dutifully complying with the Bush script and ceasing to use the term (replacing it with cleansing euphemisms), it endorsed the demonstrably false proposition that waterboarding was something other than torture.  Yesterday, the NYT’s own Brian Stelter examined this controversy and included a justifying quote from the paper’s Executive Editor, Bill Keller, that is one of the more demented and reprehensible statements I’ve seen from a high-level media executive in some time (h/t Jay Rosen):

Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, said the newspaper has written so much about the issue of water-boarding that “I think this Kennedy School study — by focusing on whether we have embraced the politically correct term of art in our news stories — is somewhat misleading and tendentious.”

Whether an interrogation technique constitutes “torture” is what determines whether it is prohibited by long-standing international treaties, subject to mandatory prosecution, criminalized under American law, and scorned by all civilized people as one of the few remaining absolute taboos.  But to The New York Times‘ Executive Editor, the demand that torture be so described, and the complaint that the NYT ceased using the term the minute the Bush administration commanded it to, is just tendentious political correctness: nothing more than trivial semantic fixations on a “term of art” by effete leftists.  Rather obviously, it is the NYT itself which is guilty of extreme “political correctness” by referring to torture not as “torture” but with cleansing, normalizing, obfuscating euphemisms such as ”the harsh techniques used since the 2001 terrorist attacks” and “intense interrogations.”  Intense.  As Rosen puts it:  “So, Bill Keller, ‘the harsh techniques used since the 2001 terrorist attacks’ is plainspeak and ‘torture’ is PC?  Got it.”

Worse, to justify his paper’s conduct, Keller adds “that defenders of the practice of water-boarding, ‘including senior officials of the Bush administration,’ insisted that it did not constitute torture.”  Kudos to Keller for admitting who dictates what his newspaper says and does not say (redolent of how Bush’s summoning of NYT officials to the Oval Office caused the paper to refrain from reporting his illegal NSA program for a full year until after Bush was safely re-elected).  Senior Bush officials said it wasn’t torture; therefore, we had to stop telling our readers that it is.

Tags: Media, Torture by ecthompson
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• The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has created between one and 2.07 million jobs. Sweet!
• It’s been several days, but I’m not sure I understand the Department of Justice’s conclusions in the Anthrax Report. The only suspect happens to have committed suicide. I just don’t know.
• Vice President Cheney remains in the hospital. I wish him well. I’m hoping that he can get out of the hospital and explain why he was so wrong about this report.
• Some people make a big deal out of Canadian Premier Danny Williams’s decision to come the United States to get his heart surgery. This is in spite of the evidence that there is no difference in outcome between the United States and Canada in cardiac surgery. There are at least 50 centers in the United States that perform the operation that he needed. Yet he went to Miami. Miami isn’t known as the best cardiac center in the United States. I don’t even think it’s in the top 10. Maybe, just maybe, he wanted his pillows fluffed and a sweet atmosphere for recovery. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that — if you can afford it.

From Political Animal:

• Rough day for Toyota on Capitol Hill: “The president of Toyota’s U.S. operations acknowledged to skeptical lawmakers on Tuesday that the company’s recalls of millions of its cars may “not totally” solve the problem of sudden and dangerous acceleration.” (Ed. It seems to me that Toyota has learned from the Americans how to cut corners. See the Ford Pinto.)
• White House officially calls for health insurers to lose their anti-trust exemption.
• Dick Cheney apparently suffered his fifth heart attack yesterday, but is expected to be discharged from the hospital within a couple of days.
• Good to see House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) condemn Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) for his tacit support for last week’s suicide bomber in Austin.
• In light of Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) bizarre remarks about having been misled about TARP policy in 2008, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) called the conservative senator’s comments “pathetically untrue” and “cowardly.” Harsh, to be sure, but true.
• California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) is unimpressed with his party’s talking points on health care policy.
• This may not turn out well: “GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham confirmed Monday he is working with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to break the logjam on closing the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and bringing the prisoners to trial.”

Tags: Healthcare, Military, Terrorism, Torture by ecthompson
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Not long ago, I had a friend of mine try to convince me of the righteousness of torture. He believes that if you are a terrorist that you deserve to be tortured. I mentioned that that is not consistent with our Judeo-Christian heritage. It didn’t matter to him. I mentioned that George Washington strictly forbade torture during the Revolutionary War. He almost asked, “George who?” I mentioned how we won World War II following the guidelines set out by General Eisenhower, which again forbade torture. He said that was different. I said we almost lost the Philippines by torturing captives. It’s only when we started acting humanely that we began to win that war. Finally, I mentioned that we signed on to the Geneva Conventions. As a matter fact, we would delete country to push for the rules that specifically address folks like Al Qaeda and innocent civilians. He wouldn’t hear any of it.

Now, we have the darling of the Right, four-star general David Petraeus. The architect of the surge. The commander who almost single-handedly turned Iraq around. He was on Meet the Press. He gave a resounding “no” to torture and recommended closing Guantánamo Bay. I wonder if he will stay the darling of the Right now.

Video:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Transcript:

MR. GREGORY: Can I ask it a slightly different way, if you don’t want to talk about what specifically is being learned? Presuming that both U.S. forces and Pakistani officials are doing the interrogation, do you wish you had the interrogation methods that were available to you during the Bush administration to get intelligence from a figure like this?

GEN. PETRAEUS: I have always been on the record, in fact, since 2003, with the concept of living our values. And I think that whenever we have, perhaps, taken expedient measures, they have turned around and bitten us in the backside. We decided early on in the 101st Airborne Division we’re just going to–look, we just said we’d decide to obey the Geneva Convention, to, to move forward with that. That has, I think, stood elements in good stead. We have worked very hard over the years, indeed, to ensure that elements like the International Committee of the Red Cross and others who see the conduct of our detainee operations and so forth approve of them. Because in the cases where that is not true, we end up paying a price for it ultimately. Abu Ghraib and other situations like that are nonbiodegradables. They don’t go away. The enemy continues to beat you with them like a stick in the Central Command area of responsibility. Beyond that, frankly, we have found that the use of the interrogation methods in the Army Field Manual that was given, the force of law by Congress, that that works. And…

MR. GREGORY: Well…

GEN. PETRAEUS: And that is our experience…

MR. GREGORY: In terms of recruitment threats…

GEN. PETRAEUS: …in, in the years that we have implemented it.

MR. GREGORY: In terms of recruitment threats, do you consider the prison at Guantanamo Bay in the same way? Do you consider it to be related, or do you think, in other words, should it be closed, or do you believe it was short-sighted to set a deadline certain for its closure?

GEN. PETRAEUS: I’ve been on the record on that for well over a year as well, saying that it should be closed. But it should be done in a responsible manner. So I’m not seized with the issue that it won’t be done by a certain date. In fact, I think it is–it’s very prudent to ensure that, as we move forward with that, wherever the remaining detainees are relocated and so forth, whatever jurisdiction is used in legal cases and so forth, is really thought through and done in a very pragmatic and sensible manner.

Tags: Al Qaeda, Media, Obama administration, Torture by ecthompson
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I’m going to have a lot more to say on this a little later (see below). John Yoo was the architect of the Bush administration’s torture memos. He was inside the office of legal counsel along with David Addington, Vice President Cheney’s legal council, were the ones who came up with the idea of unlimited presidential power during war time and torture.

While I’m bumbling and stumbling over how to describe John Yoo, Glenn had no trouble laying out Yoo’s crimes and the administrations misdeeds. I’m a little disappointed in this interview. Although Stewart tried, he was unable to corner Yoo. Here’s part 2 of the interview.

From Glenn Greenwald:

(1) The fact that John Yoo is a Professor of Law at Berkeley and is treated as a respectable, serious expert by our media institutions, reflects the complete destruction over the last eight years of whatever moral authority the United States possessed. Comporting with long-held stereotypes of two-bit tyrannies, we’re now a country that literally exempts our highest political officials from the rule of law, and have decided that there should be no consequences when they commit serious felonies.
(2) While Yoo’s specific Torture Memos were ultimately rescinded by subsequent DOJ officials — primarily Jack Goldsmith — the underlying theories of omnipotent executive power remain largely in place. The administration continues to embrace precisely these same theories to assert that it has the power to violate a whole array of laws — from our nation’s spying and surveillance statutes to countless Congressional oversight requirements — and to detain even U.S. citizens, detained on American soil, as “enemy combatants.” So for all of the dramatic outrage that this Yoo memo will generate for a day or so, the general framework on which it rests, despite being weakened by the Supreme Court in Hamdan, is the one under which we continue to live, without much protest or objection.
(3) This incident provides yet more proof of how rancid and corrupt is the premise that as long as political appointees at the DOJ approve of certain conduct, then that conduct must be shielded from criminal prosecution. That’s the premise that is being applied over and over to remove government lawbreaking from the reach of the law.

The DOJ is not the law. They are not above the law and they do not make the law. They are merely charged with enforcing it. The fact that they assert that blatantly illegal conduct is legal does not make it so. DOJ officials, like anyone else, can violate the law and have done so not infrequently. High DOJ officials — including Attorneys General — have been convicted of crimes in the past and have gone to prison.

(4) Since the Nuremberg Trials, “war criminals” include not only those who directly apply the criminal violence and other forms of brutality, but also government officials who authorized it and military officials who oversaw it. Ironically, the Bush administration itself argued in the 2006 case of Hamdan — when they sought to prosecute as a “war criminal” a Guantanamo detainee whom they allege was a driver for Osama bin Laden — that one is guilty of war crimes not merely by directly violating the laws of war, but also by participating in a conspiracy to do so.

From TPM:

Jon Stewart took a moment at the start of last night’s Daily Show to reflect on his frustrating interview with former Bush Department of Justice lawyer and ‘torture memo’ author John Yoo.

“I was gonna nail him baby, eeeee…. slipped right through my fingers,” confessed Stewart. “It was like interviewing sand. … You set that hook, you know what I mean? You think you got something going, you set the hook, and you’re expecting a little fight, you’re gonna pull back on the marlin, and you’re gonna reel it in, and basically though you look over and he’s just lying on your boat back like this, and then you don’t know what the f*ck to do. So uhh, he got me.”

Tags: Bush Administration, Torture by ecthompson
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From EmptyWheel:

Tags: Bush Administration, Torture by ecthompson
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I’m sorry that I’m not available to gather a comprehensive post for today. Unfortunately, I got beaten up pretty good at work. It wasn’t the number of patients. It was the complexity of their cases.

• The Obama administration released a highly redacted CIA report on interrogations. The report should remove all doubt that we did torture detainees. The report states that “systematic, clear and timely guidance” to interrogators were missing especially early in 2002 and 2003. There’s a reason for this. That’s exactly what the Bush administration wanted. Remember, the gloves are coming off. You can see a lot more of the description of the abuses — here.
• Attorney General Eric Holder appointed John Durham as a special prosecutor. The scope of the special prosecutor’s charge is very narrow. This may be problematic.
• It was pretty clear that President Obama really did not want to get deep into this. It was clear that he did not want to bog down his presidency, but we are here nonetheless.
• The two memos (here and here) that Vice President Dick Cheney asked for were released. If these memos prove that torture worked, I don’t see it.
• I’ve been wanting to post something for weeks on the swine flu. Somehow I never had the time or I posted something else instead. As a physician, let me say that the swine flu will be back. Without appropriate precautions, we may be in deep trouble. During flu season approximately 200,000 Americans are hospitalized. Estimates for the swine flu are as high as 1.8 million! Be vigilant.
• Jeffrey Smith has six reasons not to prosecute CIA interrogators. He was general counsel of the CIA from 1995-1996. Take your time and read the six reasons. They’re not as outlandish as they sound. Okay, they are a little outlandish.
• The Los Angeles coroner came to the conclusion that almost every American came to several weeks ago — Michael Jackson died from an overdose of a drug called propofol. I’ve thought about this for weeks. Propofol is a drug that I’m very familiar with. I use it almost every day in the intensive care unit. I know some of the original investigators who worked with developing the drug. The drug is extremely well-tolerated. It is fast acting and it goes away very quickly. It is a perfect drug, if there’s such a thing, to induce anesthesia. I use it as a sedative in the ICU for patients who are on the ventilator. Yet a doctor used it at somebody’s house? The stupidity is too much for me to comprehend. Hopefully, we’ll find out that the doctor took appropriate precautions (appropriate monitoring equipment along with materials needed to place Michael Jackson on the ventilator if necessary).

Tags: Entertainment, Obama administration, Torture by ecthompson
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• In spite of the uptick in new home starts for June, I still think the housing market is significantly depressed and it will be so for some time. Resale values have yet to show anything like a rebound. Dean Baker, the codirector of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, agrees with me (and it may be more appropriate to say that I agree with him).
• New York has started to confront their homeless problem by sending people home. New York has paid for one-way tickets for over 500 families. I guess the question is, do these people want to go home? Are they going into an atmosphere that will help them get back on their feet? Or is New York simply dumping the problems on other cities?
• Recently, many Americans have come to believe that our government is completely inept and only private business can get things done efficiently and cost-effectively. I have argued vehemently against this notion. Yahoo! is another example of a business that had no vision and poor leadership. Within the last 18 months Yahoo! told Microsoft to go take a hike. Now, with Yahoo! in a considerably weaker position, a deal has been reached with Microsoft over a search partnership. This is another example of how business can make huge mistakes just like everyone else. They aren’t magically smarter than the rest of us.
• House Democrats have announced a deal that would trim $100 billion from their health care bill. According to press reports, healthcare providers would not be paid based on Medicare reimbursement rates. I’m not sure exactly what this means.
• On Monday, the Washington Post editorial page advocated for prosecutions of those officers who’ve gone beyond what was outlined in John Yoo’s memo. Again, this goes against the American tradition of holding those who were responsible for the deviant policies responsible. We need to stop looking at the bottom. We need to investigate and prosecute from the top down. Glenn has more.
• There appears to be some discussion on Capitol Hill that may end SCHIP. This may be good or it may be disastrous. The program has clearly helped millions of children. This program needs to be rolled into a single payer system. We don’t need to be cutting back benefits.

Tags: Economy, Healthcare, Torture by ecthompson
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Michael Jackson update — the cops are looking for a second physician.  Jackson’s primary physician Dr. Conrad Murray has lawyered up.  Randy Jackson appears to be making the funeral plans.  (Randy is the youngest brother.)  Michael Jackson will be on the cover of Time magazine.  The Jackson family may be looking to get a second autopsy. (TMZ has been two to four hours ahead of the MSM on this story.)

Last night the Washington Post reported that president Barack Obama was looking into writing an Executive Order continuing indefinite detention, without trial, on several detainees.  My stomach is beginning to turn.  Glenn, Joan and others have extensively commented on this craziness.  I understand about the responsibility to keep us safe.  I also understand about the rule of law.  Getting Congress to change the laws in spite the fact that these guys have been in our custody for several years just doesn’t smack of American justice.

Enbattled Governor Mark Sanford has stated clearly that he will not resign… some sort of biblical analogy involving King David which really did not fit the situation.  Furthermore, I think that he has completely lost his ability to quote the Bible to anybody.  He needs to just sit down and read it for while.  He may comprehend some of its teachings and lessons.  (Psst… Governor. Start with the 10 Commandments.)  Sanford should be the second governor to be impeached this year for dereliction of duty.  Now I have not read the South Carolina Constitution but I’m sure it has something in it about being a complete moron.

The violence in Iraq appears to be escalating.  Motorcycle bombs killed 20 in separate attacks.  More than 250 people died in attacks this week.  It is sad that we’ve done such a poor job at creating an environment for peace.  We created a great environment from which Bectel, Halliburton and Blackwater can extract millions of dollars.

In a bizarre story, the wife of Representative John Conyers, the chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, pled guilty to one count of corruption in Detroit yesterday.  Monica Conyers accepted two cash bribes of at least $3000 each.  Really? Seriously?  I mean, it if they don’t hand you a suitcase that has enough money in it for you to live in a Caribbean island the rest of your life, what’s the point?

The swine flu slowly but surely continues to march on.  It should not be forgotten nor taken lightly.  Currently in the United States there are 27,717 cases with 127 deaths.  I’ve not heard anything new on the vaccine.  It seems to me that it is very likely that the swine flu will spike again as winter approaches.  We must be diligent.  Frequent handwashing.  Stay home when sick.  This could be a huge problem.

Tags: Civil Rights, Domestic Issues, Entertainment, Healthcare, House of Representatives, Iraq, Torture by ecthompson
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Now, this is good stuff.

My special guest is Marcy Wheeler who scooped the mainstream media I actually reading the torture memos. She was one of discovered that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was waterboarded over 100 times. I discussed with my producer, Agnes, who’s back from a long hiatus, the importance of people being involved in the government.

Marcy Wheeler and I go into some detail about the torture memos. This should not be missed. Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

From the Bybee memo:

Our advice is based upon the following facts, which you have provided to us. We also understand that you do not have any facts in your possession contrary to the facts outlined here, and this opinion is limited to these facts. If these facts were to change, this advice would not necessarily apply.  Zubaydah is currently being held by the United States.  The interrogation team is certain that he has additional information that he refuses to divulge.  Specifically, he is withholding information regarding terrorist networks in the United States or in Saudi Arabia and information regarding plans to conduct attacks within the United States or against our interests overseas.  Zubaydah has become accustomed to a certain level of treatment and displays no signs of willingness to disclose further information. Moreover, your intelligence indicates that there is currently a level of “chatter” equal to that which preceded the September 11 attacks. In light of the information you believe Zubaydah has and the high level of threat you believe now exists, you wish to move the interrogations into what you have described as an “increased pressure phase.’”

We spend some time discussing this paragraph.  It is very important.  I think that it shows, since none of the criteria were met, that even under the Bush torture memos, we violated even that standard.  This is a great interview.  enjoy!

 

 The Errington Thompson Show 4-25-09 [47:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Podcasts, State and Local Politics, Torture by ecthompson
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There is more evidence that we tortured and/or abused prisoners at Bagram Air Force base in Afghanistan. This is so un-American.

From the BBC:

Bagram has held thousands of people over the last eight years and a new detention centre is currently under construction at the camp.

Some of the inmates are forcibly taken there from abroad, especially Pakistanis and at least two Britons.

Since coming to office US President Barack Obama has banned the use of torture and ordered a review of policy on detainees, which is expected to report next month.

But unlike its detainees at the US naval facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the prisoners at Bagram have no access to lawyers and they cannot challenge their detention. (more… )

From Human Rights Watch:

# In November 2002, the CIA was reportedly involved in the torture and killing of a detainee in Afghanistan. A CIA case officer at the “Salt Pit,” a secret U.S.-run prison just north of Kabul, ordered guards to “strip naked an uncooperative young Afghan detainee, chain him to the concrete floor and leave him there overnight without blankets,” the Washington Post reported on March 3, after interviewing four government officials familiar with the case. According to the article, Afghan guards “paid by the CIA and working under CIA supervision” dragged the prisoner around the concrete floor of the facility, “bruising and scraping his skin,” before placing him in a cell for the night without clothes. An autopsy by a medic listed “hypothermia” as the cause of death, and the man was buried in an “unmarked, unacknowledged cemetery.” A U.S. government official interviewed told the Post: “He just disappeared from the face of the earth.”
# Two detainees were killed in December 2002 at Bagram airbase. These cases were previously reported by Human Rights Watch and were the subject of an exhaustive investigation by the New York Times. According to documents obtained by Human Rights Watch and a criminal investigation file obtained by the Times, two Afghan detainees named Dilawar and Habibullah died at Bagram airbase after being chained to the ceiling and severely beaten by U.S. guards and interrogators. Military intelligence officers knew of the pattern of abuses at the time, but failed to stop them. Although several soldiers were eventually charged with assault—in the wake of continued reporting on the case by Human Rights Watch—no personnel have been charged with homicide. In the months after the deaths, the U.S. military continued to tell journalists that the detainees had died of natural causes. (more… )

Tags: Afghanistan, Torture, War on Terror by ecthompson
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This is a great show.  It takes place after the famous tea bagging parties, so  I go out of my way not to talk about tea, tea bags, tea baggers, taxes, tax cuts or anything else that has to do with tea bagging.  The subject has been done so many times.  We can’t go there anymore.

Aaron is preparing to go to a broadcast convention in Las Vegas.  We spend a little time talking about Vegas and some of the great comedians that I’ve seen in Vegas, including Bill Cosby, Jackie Mason and Bob Newhart.  I also talk about some of the great shows which can be seen in Vegas, which would include Cirque du Soleil.

The torture memos, four separate documents, were released this week.  The first is a memo by Jay Bybee, who at the time was Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel.  The second memo was written approximately three years later by Stephen Bradberry, acting Assistant Attorney General at the Office of Legal Counsel.  Steven Bradbury has a second memo from that same date, May 10, 2005.  This is the third of the four memos.  Finally, Stephen Bradberry writes a last memo on May 30, 2005.  These memos are eye-opening.  I have had an opportunity to read all of them.  Of course, Marcy Wheeler has.

A new law in Afghanistan is passed in which a man does not need to have consent in order to have sex with his wife.  This is crazy with a capital “C.” I’m figuring the phrase “human rights” and “Afghanistan” don’t belong in the same sentence… at least not at this time.

Susan Boyle.

Elizabeth Warren, who is overseeing the TARP funds, is on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  They’re in the middle of an interesting yet depressing discussion about how we have handed billions of dollars to these large corporations with little or no accountability.  Just as I think Jon Stewart’s head is about to explode (and mine), Professor Warren launches into a thoughtful history of banking regulation in the United States since the early 1800s.  It is a famous explanation and I play her whole discussion point.  It is extremely insightful.  As Jon Stewart said, “That was like financial chicken soup for me.”

Credit default swaps, no-money-down mortgage loans, deregulation… I spend a good deal of time trying to make sense out of the craziness in the financial system.  Basically, I don’t think that there’s any one thing that has caused our financial implosion.  Instead, I believe it was a series of things.  I guess the point of my discussion is that we need more regulation of the financial industry in order to prevent meltdowns like this in the future.  Expect a financial institutions to push back against any regulation.  There’s going to be significant opposition both from Democrats and Republicans over reigning in the banks.

Why is everything so complex? I discuss some recent trouble I’ve had with my blog.  I’ve had trouble posting and updating my blog.  My computer gurus were somewhat stumped at what was wrong.  I’m not sure that there’s anything else in American society that can be so frustrating as a computer or computer program that is not working as it should.  I’m not sure why it’s so frustrating but it is.  By the way, we did figure out the problem with my blog and it’s now up and running.

I cover these topics and more.  My podcasts are also available on iTunes.  Enjoy!

 

 The Errington Thompson Show 4-18-09 [47:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Domestic Issues, Podcasts, The Daily Show, Torture by ecthompson
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Paul Krugman had an outstanding column which posted on Thursday.  He discussed the engine that may be driving all of this violent extremism which has resulted in the shooting at the Holocaust Museum and the cold-blooded murder of Dr. George Tiller.  Krugman said, “Conservatives were outraged (at the Department of Homeland security report).  The chairman of the Republican national committee denounced the report as an attempt to ’segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration’ and label them as terrorists.”  He went on to say, “Today, as in the early days of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.”  Krugman hit the nail on the head.

One of the tactics that the conservatives use is what I’ll call the Diana Ross Doctrine — Upside Down.  Hopefully, some you are old enough to remember Diana Ross’ hit single Upside Down.  It is a nice tune in which she describes being disoriented by her lover.  She is in fact turned — upside down.  Conservatives have taken what is obviously a right wing extremist and applied the Diana Ross doctrine.  Now, magically we’re supposed to believe that a white supremacist who hated Jews and Blacks was a left-wing extremist.  I thought left-wing extremists were like ecoterrorists?

What the hell is going on in Iran?  Both sides have claimed victory.  Extremely confusing.

Great Healthcare summary here.  BTW, the Swine Flu is still here and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.  There are now over 17,000 cases and 45 deaths.  The World Health Organization has declared a pandemic and the MSM yawned.

EmptyWheel has an excellent post on the Senate Select Committee On Intelligence.  Both she and I shared a skepticism over Senator Dianne Feinstein’s ability to truly investigate torture.  She seemed to be somewhat of a Bush administration cheerleader.  Yet, it appears that she is slowly but surely performing a thorough investigation.  In a separate post Marcy, who loves lists, sets out the chronology that led up to the May 10, 2005 memos on torture.  Marcy is incredibly detail oriented.  She compiles information that can’t be found almost anywhere else.  (By the way, why is Senator Dianne Feinstein chairman of the Senate select committee on intelligence?  Why isn’t Senator Rockefeller?  What happened?  I’m just asking.)

I saw a snippet of the report that President Obama had fired the Inspector General of the Corporation for National and Community Service (whatever that is).  Well, Talking Points Memo has the background story.  It appears that the Inspector General, Gerald Walpin, was doggedly pursuing Kevin Johnson, a big Obama supporter, who is also the mayor of Sacramento, for misappropriation of funds through a charity that he runs called St. Hope Academy.  The whole story is rather intricate, but it appears that the US Attorney General thought there was no case, yet Gerald Walpin continued to pursue Johnson.

Glenn Greenwald has had a series of posts which relate to one of the basic tenants of conservatism, at least conservatism as it is practiced in the United States.  Conservatives like to say that their ideals are being prosecuted.  They like to protect themselves as a persecuted minority instead of the most prosperous and privileged among us.  Glenn has more.

Finally, there’s some good criticism about President Obama’s economic plans.  As in any democracy, there is supposed to be and give-and-take.  At the beginning of the economic stimulus discussion there seem to be a lot of excellent ideas on spending.  These would have been long-term investments into our infrastructure.  Many of these great ideas, including high-speed rail, which in my opinion would have paid dividends down the line, were tossed out in the sake of fiscal responsibility, party unity or whatever. Von of Obsidian Wings has a great post on how we are missing our economic targets.  I fear that we may be looking at another jobless recovery.  The jobless rate for new graduates is ridiculously high.  We have to figure out a way to produce jobs or Obama will be a one-term president.

Oh, by the way, a new painting by Leonardo da Vinci has been discovered… sort of.  The painting appears to be a copy of the long-lost original which many have been based on a nude Mona Lisa.

Updates: I forgot that the Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup yesterday. I’m sorry. I grew up in Dallas. I still don’t get hockey and I have this problem with Pittsburgh. Still.

The shuttle was scheduled to takeoff today (Saturday), but there appears to be a hydrogen leak. This is a problem.

Tags: Economy, Healthcare, Iran, National Intelligence, Obama administration, Party Politics, Terrorism, Torture by ecthompson
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I’ve mentioned high-value terrorists. I wrote about Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or Mohammed Al-Qahtani (most of this story comes from Jane Mayer’s book, The Dark Side). In August 2001, prior to September 11, Al-Qahtani arrived at the Orlando airport in Florida.  He had $2800 in cash and no luggage.  He came here on a one-way ticket from Saudi Arabia and was refused entry into the country.  Further detective work, after 9/11, showed that Mohammed Atta was waiting for him in the parking lot.  Al Qahtani was captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan in December of 2001.  He was in United States custody for almost 7 months before he was fingerprinted and identified as an Al Qaeda operative.  He was the 20th hijacker.  He was at the famed Malaysia meeting in 2000. (Why we didn’t get better intelligence at the Malaysia meeting is still a mystery to me.  Why we allow the Malaysian intelligence agency to take the lead is mind-boggling.)

FBI interrogator Ali Soufan, who interrogated Abu Zubaydah before he was taken away by the CIA, was called into question Al-Qahtani.  He got a lot of information in a short period time.  He even identified a sleeper cell located in Chicago.  This wasn’t enough information for US officials, who “knew” that Al Qahtani was holding out.  Tougher measures were needed.  My question is why would officials assume that a low-level screw-up who’d been captured twice in less than six months would have a treasure trove of information?  I’m just asking.  It is clear that there was a lot of outside pressure being placed on US officials.  In April of 2002 there was a terrorist attack on a synagogue in Tunisia.  The US Consulate in Karachi was attacked in June.

It is clear that towards the end of 2002, the FBI backed out of the picture.  There’s a steady stream of information from Washington to Guantánamo and back to Washington.  Donald Rumsfeld and the commander of Guantánamo Major General Dunlevy had what was described as “close and constant contact.”  By November of 2002, the gloves indeed came off.  For 48 of the next 54 days, Al-Qahtani was only allowed to sleep for four hours a day.  Besides being stripped naked, he was strip-searched and forced to undergo enemas in front of females.  He was intentionally touched by females, making it impossible for him to pray (you can’t pray if you’re unclean and you’re unclean if you’re touched by female).  He was forced to stand so long his feet and hands swelled.  He needed to have his hands and feet bandaged and elevated to treat the painful swelling.  At one point, he was treated like a dog, which included being placed in a leash and forced to jump around.  There was more degrading treatment.  He became so dehydrated at one point the physician had to start a special IV.

What did we learn from these harsh interrogations of Al-Qahtani?  Nothing.  The process was slow and time-consuming. I’m forced to scratch my head and ask the question, “Why?”  We learned nothing.  We should’ve known he knew nothing.  Now my question is, how do we try this guy? How do we put him in jail, where he belongs, for the rest of his life?

Tags: Al Qaeda, Bin Laden, Bush Administration, Torture by ecthompson
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Matthew Alexander is a former interrogator. He was in Iraq and interrogated over 300 prisoners. He was told time and time again that the torture of Muslims motivated Muslims to pick up arms against the United States. So who do you think is lying… Cheney or this former interrogator, Matthew Alexander? It seems to me that VP Cheney is trying to keep himself out of jail.

Tags: Al Qaeda, Bush Administration, Iraq, Torture by ecthompson
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I just saw the movie Angels and Demons. It was much better than The Da Vinci Code. Tom Hanks has lost 35 or 40 pounds and he looks good. The movie lacks those dull, slow parts that so dominated the first one. It’s very entertaining and, in my opinion, more respectful of religion.  It is well worth the admission price.

North Korea proved that they are less respectful of the rest of the international community by setting off some sort of nuclear device earlier today. It will take several days to analyze the data, but it seems clear that North Korea set off some sort of large device. Now what? Should there be consequences for defying the international community? Who should enforce those consequences? The United States? Should the United States try to enforce something unilaterally? That sounds a lot like what the Bush administration did with Iraq. The international community will not go for the US going its own way, again. Should the United States, Russia, China and the European Union try to do something jointly? It is important to remember that no matter what we do, North Korea has the ability to retaliate, not against us, but against the South Korean civilians. It will be interesting to see if President Obama will be able to forge a coalition that will actually force North Korea into some sort of international compliance.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell went on the offensive yesterday to combat charges that several Republicans, including Dick Cheney, have thrown at him (remember, Powell left the Republican party). He argued that he is still Republican. To paraphrase his argument, the Republican Party needs to, dare I say it, change. Now there are a lot of Americans who still believe that Colin Powell can save the Republican Party. I don’t know. Maybe he can. I know it’s a long way to the 2012 elections, but I don’t see Colin Powell as a viable candidate. I believe that his reputation is too tainted with the stain of Iraq. I just don’t see how the Republican Party can move forward without dealing with some of their more radical elements. This would include Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and Dick Cheney.

Many progressives are upset that Barack Obama has decided to push ahead with military commissions. Personally, I think that military commissions set a terrible precedent. Putting precedent aside, though, I understand that President Obama is in a terrible situation. People like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the so-called “20th hijacker” Al-Qahtani are clearly terrorists. If given the opportunity, they would try to wreak havoc either on the United States or United States interests around the world. They need to be tried and jailed for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately, both of them were subjected to harsh interrogations (torture). There’s no court in the United States that would try these guys. Most, if not all, of the evidence would be thrown out. So what do you do with them? Indefinite detention without charges seems repugnant to me. If we could find a way to try Terry McVeigh and the so-called Blind Sheik, then we should be able to find a way to try and convict these two terrorists. We have to have some evidence that was not obtained by illegal means. We must. (I hope.)

Finally, Ryan Leaf has been arrested. I’m not laughing at the misfortune of others, but… just a little over 10 years ago, Ryan Leaf was the number two draft choice for the San Diego Chargers. He went from the anointed one to a bum in less time than Sarah Palin has. The former NFL quarterback has been indicted on drug and burglary charges. This says something about our society and about Ryan Leaf. Maybe putting athletes up on a pedestal is not the best idea.

Oh, this is a great Memorial Day story.

Tags: Civil Liberty, Domestic Issues, Movies, North Korea, Obama administration, Party Politics, Torture by ecthompson
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On one hand I like to commend this guy, conservative talker Eric “Mancow” Muller for being brave enough to be waterboarded. On the other hand, though, when you read descriptions about it, it’s clear that waterboarding is torture. I don’t have to hit my head against the wall to know that it’s going to hurt. I have no desire to jump out of a speeding car to find out that I could break bones. I have no desire to have somebody put a wet cloth over my nose and mouth while I aspirate water. I feel pretty confident that that’s drowning. Also… what took him so long? The United States has been waterboarding since 2002 and I posted my first video of somebody getting themselves waterboarded back in 2006. That was three years ago. Where’s this guy been?

Watch the video:

From TP:
Turns out the stunt wasn’t so funny. Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop. He only lasted 6 or 7 seconds.

“It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that’s no joke,”Mancow said, likening it to a time when he nearly drowned as a child. “It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back…It was instantaneous…and I don’t want to say this: absolutely torture.”

“I wanted to prove it wasn’t torture,” Mancow said. “They cut off our heads, we put water on their face…I got voted to do this but I really thought ‘I’m going to laugh this off.’”

Tags: Party Politics, Torture by ecthompson
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I’ve become somewhat overwhelmed by what my country, the United States, has done. While I’m still struggling with the definition of “torture,” I believe that some abuse (most of the things that I’ve read) can be classified as torture. We have a long history in our country of delineating good treatment from bad treatment of detainees (prisoners or soldiers).

I’ve come across a story of Khaled el-Masri (I found the story in Jane Mayer’s book, the Dark Side. Other accounts of this tale can be found here and here.)  El-Masri was a Muslim of Lebanese descent but became a German citizen in 2003. He had a German passport. Going across from Macedonia into Serbia for a vacation from the family, he was stopped at a checkpoint. For 13 days he was held by Macedonian authorities. He was not allowed to call his family. He was not allowed access to a lawyer. As it turns out, he has the exact same name as a terrorist the United States government was looking for. As a twist of fate, this happened around the holidays so the Macedonian authorities had difficulty verifying the new German passport.

Almost immediately the CIA was alerted of his capture. The CIA wanted him transferred to a prison in Afghanistan. So, basically we have a man who was stopped at a checkpoint. He is arrested and detained for 13 days without Macedonian authorities verifying that the redesigned passport was indeed an official German passport. United States officials, the CIA, desperately wanted to talk with this man.

After 13 days, El-Masri believed that he was going to be released. He was taken to the airport, where he was blindfolded and led into a small room. In this room, he was stripped of all his clothes, photographed and beaten. Earplugs were placed in his ears, a hood is thrown over his head and he was thrown on a jet, tranquilized and sent to Afghanistan. Over the next 149 days, a debate raged within the CIA. The head of the counterterrorism division believed that he, el-Masri, was in fact a terrorist, even though she has never seen or spoken with this man. CIA agents, in Afghanistan and at Langley, argue that they have no evidence against him. In Afghanistan, el-Masri was thrown in a cold dank cell. The water was foul and the food was even worse. He developed chronic diarrhea. He lost some 40 to 50 pounds. He was given frequent enemas.  According to reports, he was threatened with death. “You’re in a country where no one knows about you. There is no rule of law. If you die, you will be buried here. No one will ever know.”

After 149 days, El-Masri was released as only the CIA could do it. There is no explanation. He was simply flown to Albania. He was driven down the long winding road and given back his possessions, told to walk and not look back. He was met by three men who gave him some food and took him to the Tirana airport. From there he was flown home.

I have a problem understanding how you can whisk somebody away from their family for almost five months without one shred of evidence. I find this completely mind-boggling, nauseating and stupid.  One CIA officer call the program of rendition – Kidnap, Inc.

Tags: Bush Administration, Security, Torture by ecthompson
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Torture has been very difficult for me to get my arms around. In spite of the relatively clear definitions of torture there are these odd words that appear in the definition like “prolonged.” How long is prolonged? And, as a friend of mine pointed out, being put in jail will surely cause mental suffering. Is that torture? I guess my answer is that society decides what is torture and what isn’t. We’ve decided that it is not acceptable to slap prisoners.

One of the problems in this “war on terror” is that we allowed the Bush administration to label terrorists as enemy combatants. We were allowed to dehumanize people who were captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Once you dehumanize someone, it becomes much easier to torture.

If I have some time later on this afternoon, I hope to provide more clarity. Scott Horton, who has been on my radio show several times, has an excellent post on one of the extremes of torture –

In a recent television appearance, one of the nation’s foremost retired military leaders, General Barry McCaffrey, said: “We should never, as a policy, maltreat people under our control, detainees. We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the C.I.A.” The fact of dozens of homicides is frankly acknowledged in discussions with military and intelligence experts, but the press seems to regard the subject as taboo.

Writing at the Daily Beast, John Sifton takes us on a tour of the deaths that resulted from the Bush Administration’s torture policies. The Bush Justice Department knew about these homicides and did nothing. Here’s one that resulted from a formally approved practice that Capt. Ian Fishback described as “smoking a PUC,” a person under control, or prisoner:

in December 2003, a 44-year-old Iraqi man named Abu Malik Kenami died in a U.S. detention facility in Mosul, Iraq. As reported by Human Rights First, U.S. military personnel who examined Kenami when he first arrived at the facility determined that he had no preexisting medical conditions. Once in custody, as a disciplinary measure for talking, Kenami was forced to perform extreme amounts of exercise—a technique used across Afghanistan and Iraq. Then his hands were bound behind his back with plastic handcuffs, he was hooded, and forced to lie in an overcrowded cell. Kenami was found dead the morning after his arrest, still bound and hooded. No autopsy was conducted; no official cause of death was determined. After the Abu Ghraib scandal, a review of Kenami’s death was launched, and Army reviewers criticized the initial criminal investigation for failing to conduct an autopsy; interview interrogators, medics, or detainees present at the scene of the death; and collect physical evidence. To date, however, the Army has taken no known action in the case.

more of Scott’s post.

Tags: Bush Administration, Torture by ecthompson
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Prisoner forced to wear womens underwear on his head

Under the War Crimes Act, which was signed into law in 1996, torture is defined as

The act of a person who commits, or conspires or attempts to commit, an act specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control for the purpose of obtaining information or a confession, punishment, intimidation, coercion, or any reason based on discrimination of any kind.

Many of the things that Republicans have argued now don’t seem to apply.  Placing one in jail can be mental suffering but it is not intended to obtain information or a confession.

So, this photo…  a prisoner who was stripped naked and forced to wear women’s underwear on this head.  Is this torture?

Tags: Torture by ecthompson
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There seems to be a lot of intentional confusion over who said what. Republicans, including former CIA chief and minority leader of the House Intelligence Committee, Porter Goss, have been accusing Nancy Pelosi of lying. Marcy Wheeler has an absolutely fabulous summation.

Tags: Congress, Domestic Issues, Torture by ecthompson
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