It is after all THE stellar marketing ploy. You are so backed into a corner you can not possibly call yourself a member of the human race if you don’t support prosecution of war crimes. But.
May 2009 archive
May 15 2009
Six Excuses
1. Nothing to see here.
Obama: “photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib.”
2. A few bad apples have been dealt with.
Obama: incidents “were investigated — and, I might add, investigated long before I took office — and, where appropriate, sanctions have been applied….[T]his is not a situation in which the Pentagon has concealed or sought to justify inappropriate action. Rather, it has gone through the appropriate and regular processes. And the individuals who were involved have been identified, and appropriate actions have been taken.”
3. No good would come of this.
Obama: “the publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals.”
4. We have to protect the troops.
Obama: “In fact, the most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.”
5. There will be a chilling effect.
Obama: “Moreover, I fear the publication of these photos may only have a chilling effect on future investigations of detainee abuse.”
6. This is a new argument, not just the same old excuses.
Gibbs: “The President isn’t going back to remake the argument that has been made. The President is going — has asked his legal team to go back and make a new argument based on national security.”
You should read the whole article because Froomkin pretty much shoots down every one of these excuses.
Hat tip Glenn Greenwald, also worth reading (warning, graphic images).
May 15 2009
Muse in the Morning
 Muse in the Morning |
An Opened Mind XXXVIII
 Film at 11
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May 15 2009
Political Math (w/ “Corporate Dem” Friendly Instructions!)
+
1 Democrat President
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60 Democrats in the Senate*
FUCKING EXCUSES!!!
*Soon they will have Franken
May 15 2009
THIS is GOOD! FREEDOM or FEAR!
From Freedom or Fear! I had planned a different post entirely, but I received this and I think it is quite good! I think you’ll agree!
I think you’ll have to agree that this is very well put together! Music is good, too!
(P.S. I still plan on doing the one I had in mind!)
May 15 2009
The Bush End-Run on Torturing Prisoners
Are we done with the finger pointing yet? The CIA says that “Democrats” were briefed. The “Democrats” say that the CIA is lying. Nobody is talking about the fact that waterboarding is illegal anymore. The Bush administration tried to do an end-run around Congress, that much we know now.
The Florida Democrat also expounded on the process by which congressmembers were briefed.
“The basic law which comes out of the Church Committee hearings that were the topic of some discussion earlier this morning on NPR states that the executive should brief the full House and Senate intelligence committees on any proposed or ongoing activities,” Graham said. “The one exception to that is what is referred to as covert action, where there is a conscious desire to keep the signature of the United States, its fingerprints, off an operation. In that case the president can direct that only the eight leaders, the four congressional leaders and the four leaders of the intelligence committees will be briefed. This is the so-called Gang of 8. In those briefings, you’re not allowed to bring any staff. Generally you’re called to the meeting with limited notice and no opportunity to prepare since you’re not informed as to what the subject of the briefing is going to be. And then after the briefing you can’t discuss it with anyone except those that were in the room.”
Did you see the end-run they tried to pull? Follow me after the fold…
May 15 2009
Bombs in Pakistan kill civilians, make more terrorists
By Abdul Malik Mujahid
During the last thirty years of wars in Afghanistan, Afghan civilians have had one safe place to escape to: Pakistan.
They fled the Soviet invasion. They fled civil wars. They fled US bombing. Pakistan took care of millions of these Afghan refugees.
Now that safe haven with its lush green valleys is burning with bombs.
And the hosts, the people who themselves welcomed Afghan refugees, at times literally into their homes or into campsites on their farms, are on the run. They are streaming out of Swat, Dir, and Buner, and registering as refugees in Mardan and the fertile valleys of Pakistan. The UN says about two million Pakistanis have been displaced during the last year of drone attacks, bombing and fighting.
Pakistan is bombing its own land and its own people who are caught between the Taliban and the Americans.
Whomever I talk to among Pakistanis, it seems, there is an emerging consensus. They hate both the Taliban who blast schools and the Americans who bomb Madrasahs. Both kill civilians.
May 15 2009
The Green, Green Shoots of Hope
“Well, let’s not start sucking each other’s dicks quite yet. …”
-Winston Wolf
A quick Google search brings up in the neighborhood of 28,000,000 results for the masterfully concocted propaganda term “Green Shoots”. Just when it appeared that looter capitalism was on the ropes with Jim ‘Mad Money’ Cramer being exposed as a preposterous fraud who shilled for the Wall Street casinos and angry mobs were descending on the homes of AIG bankers the oligarchy went to the mattresses to save their spoils system. Helicopter Ben came out and launched the first fusillade of this malarkey on his 60 Minutes interview of March 15th. This on the heels of the now famous leaked internal memo from Citigroup CEO Vikram ‘the Bandit’ Pandit that spoke of wonders of money falling from the sky and the healthy quarterly results of his banking colossus and the pure hit of optimism opium was picked up and run with by the corporate public relations armies and their pocket media. The crack ho economy received the kiss of the sweet, sweet spike and it’s been to the moon Alice ever since. But it’s all a big lie of Hitlerian proportions.
May 14 2009
Quote for Discussion: Judge Learned Hand
Spirit of Liberty, 1944
We have gathered here to affirm a faith, a faith in a common purpose, a common conviction, a common devotion.
…What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws, and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few – as we have learned to our sorrow.
What then is the spirit of liberty?
I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of those men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interest alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten – that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side-by-side with the greatest. And now in that spirit, that spirit of an America which has never been, and which may never be – nay, which never will be except as the conscience and courage of Americans create it – yet in the spirit of America which lies hidden in some form in the aspirations of us all; in the spirit of that America for which our young men are at this moment fighting and dying; in that spirit of liberty and of America so prosperous, and safe, and contented, we shall have failed to grasp its meaning, and shall have been truant to its promise, except as we strive to make it a signal, a beacon, a standard to which the best hopes of mankind will ever turn; In confidence that you share that belief, I now ask you to raise your hand and repeat with me this pledge:
I pledge allegiance to the flag and to the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands–One nation, Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
May 14 2009
Four at Four
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The Guardian reports Barack Obama’s climate change bill is weakened, but still intact. The legislation was “weakened in a number of key areas by the compromises with the Democratic hold-outs” in oil and coal producing states.
In its current form, the bill now calls for a 17% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2020. That falls below the original target of 20%…
The new version of the bill also lowers the bar for electricity companies to generate a portion of their power from renewable sources, such as wind or solar. The first version had set a standard of 25% by 2025.
That has now been watered down to 15% by 2020, and as low as 12% for some parts of the country that have not developed renewable energy.
Meanwhile, The Guardian adds Senate Republicans block Obama’s nominee for top environmental post. “David Hayes, an environmental lawyer, fell three votes short of the 60 needed for confirmation as the deputy interior secretary… It was the first time an Obama nominee has fallen on the Senate floor, in a defeat engineered by Republicans from oil-rich states.”
Four at Four continues with an update from Pakistan, Obama’s pictures reversal, and Russia hints at an Arctic war.