Woodward slams Rumsfeld

By Michael J.W. Stickings

For writing a memoir that is essentially one big steaming pile of dishonesty:

Rumsfeld's memoir isone big clean-up job, a brazen effort to shift blame to others -- includingPresident Bush -- distort history, ignore the record or simply avoid discussingmatters that cannot be airbrushed away. It is a travesty, and I think therewrite job won't wash.

The Iraq War isessential to the understanding of the Bush presidency and the Rumsfeld era atthe Pentagon. In the book, Rumsfeld tries to push so much off on Bush. That isfair because Bush made the ultimate decisions. But the record shows that it wasRumsfeld stoking the Iraq fires -- facts he has completely left out of hismemoir.

*****

When all the records are available, the othermemoirs written and the history complete, this failure to accept responsibilitywill likely be his legacy.

Woodward has his own failings -- he too often trusts his sources unthinkingly, his analysis is often lacking, or non-existent, and he rarely connects the dots in any satisfactory way -- but he is undeniably a well-respected and generally non-partisan reporter of the historical record. There is still much blame to go around -- Cheney deserves his fair share, too, along with the various other warmongers in and around Bush's bubble, as well as those pushing for war generally -- but clearly Rumsfeld was a key architect of the disaster that was (and to a certain extent still is) the Iraq War and Woodward should be applauded for holding him to account.

One just wonders if this isn't part of some anti-Rumsfeld smear campaign conducted by those on the right -- those in or around Bush's bubble -- who see him as an easy scapegoat, a convenient fall guy for all that went wrong. You wouldn't think it could be Rumsfeld's pal Cheney, but what about someone else?

Okay, maybe not. Maybe Woodward just had to respond to Rumsfeld's blatant dishonesty? Maybe. (It is, after all, at the estimable Tom Ricks's blog.)

Either way, he makes some excellent points. Read the whole thing.

Elephant Dung #17: At CPAC, Ron Paul libertarians attack Cheney and Rumsfeld

Tracking the GOP Civil War

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.) 

Highlighting a major divide within the Republican Party -- that separating isolationist (often Tea Party) libertarians from interventionist, warmongering neocons (and their ilk) -- Ron Paul supporters used the right-wing insanitarium known as CPAC to launch into a verbal assault on two of the major figures of the Bush regime, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the latter (hilariously) receiving this year's CPAC "Defender of the Constitution" award:

One shout of "where's Bin Laden?" rang out as Cheney spoke of Rumsfeld.

That led to the pro-Cheney contingent (which it should be said greatly outnumbers the opposition) to shout the hecklers down with the familiar "USA, USA" chant.

It was all very odd, especially considering that when Cheney appeared as the "surprise guest" at last year's CPAC he was greeted with the kind of cheers generally reserved for a rock star.

But Team Paul -- whose numbers appear to have grown at CPAC in 2011 -- were not going to let that happen this time around.

"Uh, Defender of the Constitution?" Justin Bradfield of Maryland scoffed when I caught up with him after he walked out of Rumsfeld's speech. "Let's see: he expanded the Defense Department more than pretty much any other defense secretary and he enforced the Patriot Act."

"[Speaking] as a libertarian, that's not really the type of person who should be getting Defender of the Constitution," he added.

Bradfield said the moment showed that "half" of CPAC this year is libertarian, which means his side is winning in the civil war between "libertarians and right-wing conservatives."

"We're loud," he said.

Ah, yes, the GOP civil war. (Hence this whole Elephant Dung series.) Good times.

Oh, by the way, someone even shouted "war criminal" at Cheney. Sure, that could have been someone on the left who just happened to be there, but the battle was clearly being waged between the Ron Paul Teabagging libertarians and the supporters of the warmongering neocons.

That divide isn't going away anytime soon, and it promises to contribute to the further fracturing of the GOP's coalition, not least with the Teabaggers gaining more and more confidence.

Here, watch it for yourself:

McCain slaps Rumsfeld

By Michael J.W. Stickings

McCain takes a swipe at Rumsfeld:

Sen. John McCain said he "thank[s] God" that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stepped down from the post in 2006 and didn't lead the Pentagon's strategy in Iraq during the last two years of George W. Bush's presidency.

"I respect Secretary Rumsfeld," McCain said Thursday on ABC's "Good Morning America," before quickly changing his tone. "He and I had a very, very strong difference of opinion about the strategy he was employing in Iraq, which I predicted was doomed to failure. Thank God he was relieved of his duties and we put the surge in. Otherwise, we would have had a disastrous defeat in Iraq."

A swipe of retaliation:

McCain's comments came in response to a question about the depiction of the Arizona senator in Rumsfeld's memoir, "Known and Unknown," in which he's described as having a "hair-trigger temper" and "a propensity to shift his positions to appeal to the media."

Not terribly juicy -- besides, does anyone really care what either of these two has to say these days?

Regardless, it's hard to disagree with Rummy on this one, and I suppose McCain's quite right as well that it was better not to have Rummy at the Pentagon anymore, even if he overstates the "success" of the surge.

Why, oh why, can't all the warmongers just get along?

Rumsfeld goes with the lies he wishes he had

By J. Thomas Duffy

Who knew? 

Lenny Bruce used to do a bit where he offered this advice:

Whatever happens, deny it. Flat-out deny it! If you really love your wife, deny it. If they walk in on you, deny it. Even if they got pictures, deny it. Even if she catches you with a chicken, deny it.

 I just can't picture Old Snowflakes being into Bruce, so he must have just taken his own advice and said, "You go to write a book with the lies you have, not the lies you might want or wish to have at a later time."

Yes, yet another of the Bush Grindhouse, one of their most prolific warmongers, has penned a "Not Me, Not My Fault" book, hitting the streets this week.

UGH!

From the NYT: 

“Two weeks after the worst terrorist attack in our nation’s history, those of us in the Department of Defense were fully occupied,” Mr. Rumsfeld recalls. But the president insisted on new military plans for Iraq, Mr. Rumsfeld writes. “He wanted the options to be ‘creative.’"

[snip]

His biggest mistake, Mr. Rumsfeld writes, was in not forcing Mr. Bush to accept his offers to resign after the abuse of Iraqi detainees by American military jailers came to light in early 2004. Mr. Rumsfeld insists that the abuses were the actions of rogue soldiers and that they did not reflect any approved policies, but nevertheless he offered to step down.

[snip]

While generally defending the Bush administration’s counterterrorism legal policies, Mr. Rumsfeld expresses some regrets. He suggests several times that some criticism and setbacks could have been avoided if the administration had gone to Congress for legislation authorizing the policies instead of relying on the president’s war powers. 

"Oh, if we only didn't didn't have contempt and scorn for our critics (you know, the "appeasers... the morally and intellectually confused" ), and only if we didn't piss on the Constitution and make up our own laws, maybe things would have turned out better."

Will Bunch over at Attytood doesn't mince words: 

Heh, that's funny. Of course, since there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and in fact there apparentrly had not been any for a number of years, the reason that Rumsfeld would like to take "that one" back is because he was lying. Maybe someday someone will free the Washington Post from the tyranny of the inverted pyramid and they can actually say that. 

Donald Rumsfeld lied.

Jack Stuef at Wonkette weighed in as well: 

America’s Grandpa of Death Donald Rumsfeld is having his memoir published on Tuesday, serving as an addendum to George W. Bush’s book in that it has actual, alleged facts, opinions, and memories in it. So: Abu Ghraib? Not his fault, but he really wanted to resign over it and feels very emo that big meanie Bush wouldn’t let him. Initial troop levels? Not his fault, nobody in the military ever asked him for more troops. Guantanamo? Not his fault the jail existed, and actually he made sure there was less torture and fewer prisoners. Hmm, anything we’re forgetting here? Oh, that one war. What was it called again? Anyway, not his fault, Bush came to him about Iraq before the U.S. even invaded Afghanistan, but at the same meeting, he also talked about Rummy’s son’s drug addiction, so all Rummy could do was cry about that. Whoops! 

And this: 

Ah, there you have it. Rumsfeld could have said, “What the fuck are you talking about going to war with Iraq for? Our country was just attacked by a foreign terrorist organization we need to go try to destroy. Iraq has nothing to do with this. Aren’t you more concerned with winning this war we haven’t even begun yet?” But instead, his son had done some drugs. Sure thing, Rumsfeld. Perfectly good excuse. You should drop some leaflets on the families of people, American and Iraqi, whose children have died in that war. “Sorry, my son was doing drugs. I was emotional at the time. Not my fault.” 

Stuef also had a suggestion for those plans to invade and occupy Iraq to be "creative" that "Rummy says Defense was preparing for offense on Afghanistan at the time, but Bush asked him to be “creative.” Creative! Perhaps the military could stage a production of Grease for the people of Iraq before taking a bow and dropping a bomb on them?

No, instead we just got greasy lies at the time and more polished greasy lies now, with the book.

I wonder if his Lie Tour will interfere with his and his former Shadow President's Armageddon weekends?

Like we said above, Ugh!

Bonus Rummy Riffs

Top Ten Cloves: What Would Be Different If Rumsfeld Was A Dog, But Still Secretary of Defense

Leave It to Rumsfeld ... There's Not Enough Lying Going On!

“They’re coming here for the American experience” ...Rumsfeld Weighs In On Immigration Battle; Won’t Tie It To War With Iran ...Suggests Army Recruiting Woes Could Be Solved With Mandatory Service By Illegal Aliens

Rummy On The Run? ... Let's Give Him Some Chase Music!

(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

I'm Pat f***king Tillman — why are you shooting at me?

By Edward Copeland 

That post title is the last words the former NFL star turned Army Ranger said before he was killed in Afghanistan by his own troops in 2004.

We are living in the Golden Age of Nonfiction. I thought it silly when the Oscars expanded best picture to 10 nominees, but I could live with them doubling the number of documentary feature nominees because documentaries get better and better. I have a difficult time cutting it down to five. I've only seen one 2010 documentary that I've given a negative review. More importantly, this meant that Oscar finalist The Tillman Story didn't make the final cut and it's the second-best 2010 documentary I've seen (so far).

For the Bush Administration, the wars in Afghanistan and later in Iraq weren't just campaigns for whatever reason they chose to give on any particular day, they also were part of a re-election strategy and whenever there was a chance to sell a positive story to the lazy eager-to-echo-anything press, they took it. So, when Pat Tillman, who earned millions in the NFL for the Arizona Cardinals, decided to give up his football career to join the fight against terrorism after 9/11, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told his subordinates to keep special watch on him. This was an American hero in the making that would make for great P.R.

Things didn't turn out that way exactly, though the government and high-ranking Pentagon officials did their best to keep their heroic scenario when Tillman was killed April 22, 2004, the initial story was the he died from enemy fire in an ambush, going so far as to credit him for saving the lives of some of his fellow soldiers and Gen. Stanley McChrystal awarded him the Silver Star posthumously. Just one problem: That was all a lie. Tillman died as a result of friendly fire and it took years and the persistence of his family to get at the truth.

Director Amir Bar-Lev gives a detailed portrait of who Tillman was both before and after his enlistment and with testimony from others who served with him, evokes a sense of outrage at the coverup, misguided accusations and fall guys the government used because their desired tailor-made American hero failed to pan out the way they envisioned. Ironically, during his unit's Iraq deployment Tillman was even there to witness the lengths they went in setting up the false tale of Pvt. Jessica Lynch's rescue. They were kept waiting 24 hours before retrieving Lynch to allow time for the camera crew to arrive. During his time in Iraq, Tillman also turned against Bush and the war effort, commenting to fellow soldiers that the Iraq war was "so fucking illegal." Bar-Lev keeps the focus moving with complete clarity and this documentary is quite a change-of-pace from his previous one, 2007's My Kid Could Paint That.

Narrated by Josh Brolin, The Tillman Story shows the true Pat Tillman, one that defied all stereotypes one would lump on the star athlete. He was a well-read man (Chomsky and Emerson; most religious texts, despite his atheism) who graduated from Arizona State with a 3.8 G.P.A. While the administration and the media were eager to wrap Tillman's decision to forgo his lucrative NFL career with a simple patriotic motive, Tillman himself refused interviews on the subject.

Even though both he and his very close younger brother Kevin joined up as Army Rangers, Tillman was determined to keep his reasons private. However, before he'd ever made the decision to enlist, various NFL players were filmed giving reactions to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and this footage was usurped by the Pentagon in their P.R. efforts to define Tillman's motive, be it true or not.

The entire Tillman family could be viewed somewhat as iconoclasts, compared to most Americans, so as far as I'm concerned that's what endears them to me all the more. When his family first learns of his death, they were given the false story of the ambush and the enemy fire. Still, even at the large, made-for-television memorial service Washington assembled (despite the fact that on his enlistment papers Pat Tillman specifically said he wanted no military funeral. Military officials even tried to take advantage of his grieving wife Marie to get Pat buried at Arlington.), while speakers spoke of God's blessings, etc., ignoring Pat's quite vocal status, like most of his family, as an atheist, his youngest brother Rich thanked the previous speakers for their thoughts but said, "Pat isn't with God. He's fucking dead."

Once soldiers on the scene spoke out and the Pentagon was forced to admit that Tillman was a victim of friendly fire, D.C. realized they picked the wrong family to screw with as his mom began a years-long campaign to get at the truth about the coverup. The story as told proves both inspiring and frustrating, as the Army drops so many documents, most redacted, upon Dannie Tillman, that she and another veteran start approaching them like some sort of crossword puzzle to decipher what names and words are blacked out.

In one of the most infuriating incidents, Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, who Tillman served under in Afghanistan, went on ESPN and made comments to the effect that the reason the Tillman family wouldn't let it go and just accept the Army's story was that because they were atheists and didn't believe in God, it would be hard for them to accept any truths. Eventually, after they finally got a congressional inquiry, Kauzlarich was demoted in retirement and remains the only person who received any sanction for the coverup.

On the other hand, the soldiers who did speak to the truth, were all punished in other ways for essentially being whistle-blowers.

Credit for the excellence of The Tillman Story should also be given to Mark Monroe for compiling this massive amount of information into a workable script for Bar-Lev to direct into such a coherent, compelling and, yes, chilling film. It almost makes me want to synopsize the entire documentary, but it's better to see it for yourself.

The ultimate irony about Pat Tillman is that the Bush Administration wanted to mold him into a hero for their own cynical, political purposes but by the covering up of the way he died, it enabled us to see who the real Pat Tillman was and he was more patriotic and a hero on a far grander scale than any P.R. flaks could have dreamed up. It's tragic that he died the way he did, but it's reassuring to know that men like him still exist in the first place.

(Cross-posted at Edward Copeland on Film.)

'At the undersecretary level, you are pretty much hitting the reset button'

By Creature

When the news broke that Robert Gates was staying on as Secretary of Defense I wasn't thrilled but was willing to withhold judgment until we knew what would happen to the people below Gates. That is, the people held over from the ideology-driven Rumsfeld years. Today the Washington Post has the answers and the news is good. According to the transition team many of Gates' top deputies are on their way out the door. Hopefully with that door hitting them on the way out. Good riddance.

(Cross-posted at State of the Day.)

Rumsfeld is right, believe it or not, about Afghanistan

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Did you happen to catch Rumsfeld's op-ed in the Times on Saturday? And did you happen to read it? I won't blame you if you didn't -- who cares what Rumsfeld thinks about anything at this point? -- but, believe it or not, once you get past the pro-Bush, pro-Iraq Surge self-aggrandizing, he actually had some interesting, and correct, things to say about what is needed in Afghanistan.

Specifically, he argues that success in Afghanistan will not be achieved "with the same tactics or strategies," that is, with the Surge, employed in Iraq. At the beginning of his piece, he calls the Surge "one of the most impressive military accomplishments in recent years," but it hasn't been nearly the overwhelming success he makes it out to be. Iraq may be less violent that it was, but the country is still a long way off from political reconciliation. Indeed, I would argue, as others have, that the Surge has just contributed, along with other factors and developments, to a temporary lull.

Regardless, Rumsfeld is right that:

The way forward in Afghanistan will need to reflect the current circumstances there -- not the circumstances in Iraq two years ago. Additional troops in Afghanistan may be necessary, but they will not, by themselves, be sufficient to lead to the results we saw in Iraq. A similar confluence of events that contributed to success in Iraq does not appear to exist in Afghanistan.

What's needed in Afghanistan is an Afghan solution, just as Iraqi solutions have contributed so fundamentally to progress in Iraq. And a surge, if it is to be successful, will need to be an Afghan surge.

Again, I would hesitate to call what has happened in Iraq genuine and lasting "progress," but his point is a sound one nonetheless. Simply sending more troops to Afghanistan isn't the answer, or the only answer. It may be part of the answer, but the situation there is not the same as in Iraq: "In a struggle with an adaptable, thinking enemy, there is no single template for success. More is not always better. One size does not fit all."

Of course, there's nothing really new about Rumsfeld's argument. Slate's Fred Kaplan, for example, made much the same point, without all the pro-Bush, pro-military, pro-war cheerleading, back in August. (I respect Kaplan as a serious, sober thinker on foreign and miliary policy. So I applaud Rumsfeld for agreeing with him, at least on some points.) But Rumsfeld is certainly right that there is an "emerging consensus" that more troops are needed in Afghanistan. It's what McCain supported, and it's also what Obama supports. To be sure, Obama clearly doesn't think that only sending more troops is the answer, but he will likely approve a troop increase -- and it does look like more troops are on the way.

I have been supportive of the war effort in Afghanistan in the past, but what concerns me is that there are different efforts at work here:

-- On the one hand, there is the effort to defeat the Taliban insurgents, support the elected government in Kabul, and provide security throughout the country, as least as much as possible.

-- On the other hand, there is the effort to find and destroy al Qaeda in the Afghan-Pakistan border region.

These efforts are not necessarily in conflict with one another -- on the contrary, establishing sustainable peace and security in Afghanistan would likely weaken al Qaeda's position and could possibly contribute to broader security throughout the region -- but it's not clear to me what the priority is. Are the U.S. and the allies, including Canada, my country, there to keep the peace, build a nation, or destroy an enemy? For all three, perhaps, but I'm not sure if, long-term, the first two are achievable objectives -- the third may not be either, but it's worth more of an effort than Bush gave it, what with his decision, supported by the likes of Rumsfeld, to switch focus to Iraq.

To his credit, though, Rumsfeld understands that military action is not enough. As he notes, "[l]eft unanswered in the current debate is the critical question of how thousands of additional American troops might actually bring long-term stability to Afghanistan -- a country 80,000 square miles larger than Iraq yet with security forces just one-fourth the size of Iraq's." As he puts it, only "indigenous forces" can ultimately succeed in bringing peace and stability to the country.

What is needed is a plan for Afghanistan that involves more than just more troops, more than just another Iraq-like surge. It needs to come from Obama, but it also needs to involve, and have the support of, the international coalition that is currently struggling to make any progress whatsoever.

I am now more skeptical than ever when it comes to the prospect of success in Afghanistan, and I am especially skeptical of the ongoing military campaign there, but Obama's statements on Afghanistan during the campaign do suggest that, unlike McCain, he understands the problem there to be more than just a military one. For example, he proposed increasing non-military aid and working collaboratively with Pakistan. However, as Juan Cole put it at Salon back in July, "[s]tepped-up military action... is still the central component of his plan," even though, it is not "at all clear that sending more U.S. troops to southern Afghanistan can resolve the problem of the resurgence of the Taliban there." What's more, it's not just Rumsfeld who is throwing cold water on the "more troops" plan. As Greg Mitchell wrote at Editor & Publisher yesterday, many experts have come out with "cautionary views" of the situation.

Of course, Obama hasn't yet presented his foreign policy team, and it's not clear what more nuanced plan he will offer. But if he is really about change, and I still think he is, then he should think outside the box on Afghanistan -- and not merely propose that a troop reduction in Iraq be matched with a troop increase in Afghanistan, as if the only real problem with the war in Afghanistan thus far has been too few troops.

You can send as many troops there as you like, after all, but it won't mean victory, however that is even defined, is at hand.

Tortured Thinking, Part I - the Players

By Carol Gee

The Senate Committee on the Judiciary/Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, held an important hearing on "Detainee Interrogation Rules" May 6. (The above opening link is to the committee's news release with good highlights of the hearing's testimony). The committee also authorized a subpoena for Bush administration lawyer David Addington, who actually may be willing to testify, though he might not say very much.

Judiciary Committee Chairman, John Conyers D-MI, laid the groundwork for finding out more about the role of senior government lawyers in the development of the legal opinions authorizing interrogation methods via a series of so-called torture memos:

1. 8-1-02, the Bybee memo to Alberto Gonzales containing a narrow definition of torture -- allowed interrogation methods. Withdrawn in 2004.
2. 12-2-o2, DOD Secy. Rumsfeld approved the harsher interrogation methods used at Guantanamo Bay, which may have echoed the earlier memo.
3. 3-14-03, DOJ John Yoo memo, also involved Jim Haynes, the DOD's attorney for Rumsfeld. It was similar to 8-1-02 but more extreme. This is the memo withdrawn by DOJ lawyer Jack Goldsmith.
   

Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, swore in a panel of witnesses who gave a more in-depth picture than we have previously known of our nation's recent history of "severe interrogation," what some call torture. Witnesses included British law Professor Phillipe Sands and Georgetown Professor David Luban. Other witnesses were former administration Counsel's Office lawyer David B. Rivkin and Professor Marjorie Cohn, President of the National Lawyers Guild. Hat tip to "SmileySam" at Daily Kos for his interesting article on the hearing, including some very good links. Also, this Kos blogger borrows from Dan Froomkin's well-linked blog at the WaPo: "Torture Showdown Coming."

Republicans on the Committee who asked questions included Ranking Member, Rep.Trent Franks of Arizona, Rep. Darrell Issa of California, Rep. Mike Pense of Indiana, and Rep. Steve King of Iowa. Rep. Issa was true to form, picking a fight early with Chairman Nadler over limiting members' opening statements. When denied he demanded a roll call vote on the chair's ruling, resulting in 4 "yes," 2 "no," 1 (Issa) "Hell, no" votes.

Later the Republicans were relatively thoughtful in their questioning. Rep. Franks made a point about the Yoo memo "trying to get specific," asking Professor Luban about the term "severe pain." Luban replied that to him it refers to ideas such as a dentist's drill with no anesthetic or a broken bone. He described water-boarding as "suffering." Rep. Pence discussed his idea that our methods need to be kept secret so that "terrorists could not train themselves to resist specific methods." And he wanted to find out, after 9/11 with addition American lives perhaps on the line, how you gain information from detainees who will not respond to relationship-building techniques, what he termed "the Oprah Winfrey methods." Rep. Issa supports a ban on torture. His question to David Rivkin produced the witness' opinion that, "investigations can "degenerate into a witch hunt." Rep Steve King believes that focusing on the "narrow exceptions" of U.S. torture, rather than our "long history" of justice does a disservice to the country. In asking Professor Sands to give an instance of "when our enemies were more moral that we were," King fell into a delicious trap that provoked wry smiles as he back-peddled from Sands' answer. Sands (a British citizen) said, to paraphrase, "The United States has long been the historical moral leader of the world. And, as I spent the past year working on my investigation of what happened after 9/11, I met many military leaders of whom I had a very favorable impressions. Things went wrong under the political appointees."

To be continued with "Tortured Thinking, Part II - the Witnesses." In the meantime boys and girls, your homework is to read Phillipe Sands' "Green Light." For extra credit you can watch the hearing on C-SPAN television or watch the video posted at the House Judiciary website. (links below)

References:

• The hearing is available in full at C-SPAN: House Hearing on Guantanamo Bay and Interrogation Rules: Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) presides over a a House Judiciary Constitution, Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Subcmte. hearing on detainee treatment and interrogation techniques at facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They voted to authorize a subpoena for Vice President Cheney?s chief of staff and former legal counsel, David S. Addington to appear at a later hearing. 5/6/2008: WASHINGTON, DC: 2 hr. 22 min.


• The Senate Committee on the Judiciary -- Committee website


• " The Green Light." Professor Phillipe Sands wonderful new article this month (should be required reading) in Vanity Fair Magazine, Intro:
  

  As the first anniversary of 9/11 approached, and a prized Guantánamo detainee wouldn’t talk, the Bush administration’s highest-ranking lawyers argued for extreme interrogation techniques, circumventing international law, the Geneva Conventions, and the army’s own Field Manual. The attorneys would even fly to Guantánamo to ratchet up the pressure—then blame abuses on the military. Philippe Sands follows the torture trail, and holds out the possibility of war crimes charges.



• Representative Nadler writes at the Huffington Post (11/15/07), "No More Clever Word-play on Torture," on the torture-banning legislation subsequently vetoed by our current president: The Orderly and Responsible Iraq Redeployment Appropriations Act.


• Nov. 8, 2007 -- Hearings by the same committee on water-boarding torture at Guantanamo Bay.

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)

Cirque de Military Analysts

By J. Thomas Duffy

Back in the early 1980s, during my brief period of performing stand-up comedy, we are at a Open Mike Night at The Comedy Store up on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, CA:

A young ventriloquist got his time on stage and up he went, with his dummy, taking a moment to move the stool and get himself situated -- and placing the dummy in front of the microphone.

A small wave of titters and laughs went about the room, believing, as one could easily at the moment, that this was part of the routine ... The ventriloquist began his set, barely audible for the packed room and soon, the small titters and laughs stopped ... After a few more moments, it became clear, that the ventriloquist was keeping the dummy in front of the microphone.

Some in the crowd began shouting at him, telling him, quite directly, to move the microphone, to use the microphone ... He continued, through the seemingly never-ending five-minutes without moving the dummy away from the microphone

To be kind, it wasn't part of the act.

Not totally unlike the blockbuster news broken last night by the NYT, with the Cirque de Military Analysts being mouthpieces for the Pentagon and Bush Grindhouse.

Dummies, up in front of the microphone, pouring out the words of their masters.

We riffed on this late last evening and, in the light of day, rereading the article, as well as all the blowback out on the WWW and Blogosphere, it leaves a more disgusting aftertaste.

While we, and others touched on it, it really is colossal, that the overarching goal of the Bush Grindhouse, and the likes of Torie Clarke and Rumsfeld, wasn't that welfare of the soldiers being sent into this blunder (or the lives of the innocent Iraqi citizens), but whether or not they could control the message, control the media.

That was what was most paramount.

Hell, they planned (and executed) which military man would speak on which network, and give this message or that message, better than anything they planned on the ground in Iraq.

They were more upset by a general speaking out-of-turn, speaking truth, than whether-or-not our soldiers were safe, that they had the proper training, equipment, and armor.

It was Wag The Dog, Director's Cut!

While this is wrong on so many levels, including the NYT publishing this, perhaps as a Mea Culpa, being they were, perhaps, the biggest cheerleader as to WMD's and going into Iraq, that retired military people engaged in this, with total disregard, abdicating, even, in retirement, the moral equivalent, of protecting their soldiers.

Much like a bevy of other Bush Cronies, they simply were looking to cash-in on it.

Larisa Alexandrovna, on her blog At-Largely, has a good post, in which she offers clear vision:

An excellent article in the NYT today illustrates our continued march toward the marriage of corporate and state interests, otherwise known as fascism...

As does Greg Mitchell, out on the HuffPo:

But to get you started, a few points to keep in mind:

-- The article has at least three tracks: One, the Pentagon deploying the analysts (some 75 in number) and the TV outlets happy to run with them; two, the analysts' further conflict-of-interest in being tied to defense contractors with billions of dollars invested in the war effort; three, the complete lack of interest by the TV outlets in either of the first two connections, or ignoring what they did know. In fact, the networks raised no objections to the Pentagon paying for trips by the analysts.

-- The effort began in "selling the war" -- going where even Judy Miller feared to tread -- and there are some startling admissions by some team members that they knew they were being sold a fairy tale on WMD, but went along with it anyway. The moral bankruptcy is truly disgusting."

And Libby, over at Newshoggers, speaks for many:

No surprises here. Simply more proof that we have more to fear from our own government than we do from terrorists.

Haven't seen or heard the three major candidates weigh in on this yet.

And, likely, for at least two of them -- Hillary and Obama -- we won't hear anything, it being two-days out from PA voting (and if they have the balls to call this repugnant, or such, Christ, make sure they're wearing a Flag Lapel Pin when the do it ... We don't want to stress out Nash McCabe any further).

**********

Some More Links

Praire Weather: "We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you..."

Steve Benen: Puppets of the Defense Department

Mustang Bobby/Shakesville: The Puppetry of the Pentagon

Think Progress: Pentagon uses military analysts as ‘puppets’ to push talking points

"I'm sorry, can you lie a little louder?"













(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

Penn = Rumsfeld?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From Sam Stein at HuffPo:

Longtime Clinton adviser and confidant Paul Begala took full aim at Mark Penn on Friday, expressing scorn for the recently demoted strategist, and comparing his time with the Clinton campaign to that of Donald Rumsfeld's tenure as Secretary of Defense.

"I have nothing but contempt for Mr. Penn," said Begala at a New York City breakfast sponsored by the non-profit group Public Agenda. "And for those of us who wanted to see him out from the beginning, it became almost a Rumsfeldian thing. And he is not even fired. He has been demoted. How could this be?"

Seriously, Begala doesn't know how it could be? Is it really possible that someone who has spent so much time deep in the heart of Clintonworld, if not necessarily Hillaryland, could be so clueless? I mean, it's not like Penn has never been good for/to the Clintons and their interests. Remember 1996? Remember Bill's second term? Or how about his work for Clinton friend Tony Blair? (And, of course, he and Bill are on the same side with respect to Colombia and free trade. Penn may be too centrist/conservative for the liking of Hillarylanders, but is he not a rather good Clintonian?)

Penn may be a rather loathsome political creature, and many in Clintonworld/Hillaryland (like Begala) may dislike him intensely, and perhaps justifiably so, but "nothing but contempt" for a Clinton loyalist from another seems a bit strong -- not to mention disingenuous, opportunistic, and revisionistic.

(Penn = Rumsfeld? Ouch. But I'm not sure if that's more of an insult to Penn or Rumsfeld.)

(For a tempered defence of Penn, see The Plank's Josh Patashnik here.)

Torturing from the top

By Michael J.W. Stickings

See, it's not all about John Yoo. The U.S. didn't just start torturing its detainees because a government lawyer said it was okay, or because some executive-branch extremist like David Addington determined that anything and everything was permissible in a time of war, or because some dim-witted troops at Abu Ghraib just didn't know any better. At some point, early on, a decision to allow torture, to enable it, must have been made -- and it must have been made at the highest levels of government. To put it another way, the decision to turn America into a nation that tortures must have been made at the top. The so-called "principals" must have signed off on it and Bush himself must have signed off on it.

And, it seems, they did just that. Here's ABC News:

In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News.

The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of "combined" interrogation techniques -- using different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time -- on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.

The advisers were members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

As the national security adviser, Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by most of the principals or their deputies.

That's right -- not underlings like Yoo, not lawyers and academics, not bureaucrats and soldiers, but the very top officials in the U.S. government: Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, Tenet, and Ashcroft. They signed off on it. They were the enablers of torture. They were the ones who turned America into a nation that tortures.

And they must be held accountable.

Does he get a new girlfriend with this job too? ... Does the job "pay for itself"?

By J. Thomas Duffy

Maybe it's the clarion call of his old colleague, Donald Rumsfeld, that tugs at his heartstrings of public service.

Wolfowitz Returns to U.S. Government as Adviser:

As we said when the job offer was reported in December, the board meets quarterly to provide advice to the secretary of state and one of her deputies based on classified intelligence on some of the most important issues in United States foreign policy today, from Iran to North Korea."

Egad!

The Wolf Man, back, prowling the corridors of State.

Hmmm, Rumsfeld calling for a new Propaganda Agency... Wolfowitz, back at the State Department, advising, among other things, on Iran ...

Do we smell a build-up here? ... Get the old team together, for the final run down the stretch, putting their considerable prevarication skills to use for a push into Iran?

Does the girlfriend get a gig, too?

Are we gearing up to go after the Filipino Monkey?

Will we soon here the rhetoric, from the Wolf Man, or, perhaps the Madam Secretary herself, that a preemptive, offensive entry into Iran will "pay for itself"?

From The Lede, back in December:

"Another official called the reported appointment “amazing.” That comment alluded to Mr. Wolfowitz’s staunch support for the Iraq War when he was deputy secretary of defense under President George W. Bush. He hasn’t won much good will since then, either during a relatively quick rise and fall as World Bank president, or in his current post at a conservative think tank in Washington.

But if nothing else, Mr. Wolfowitz really needs no introduction, especially to his detractors on the blogs, who are a puzzled, angry lot today:

The Next Hurrah: “Condi, is it a coincidence that so many people responsible for gaming the intelligence to get us into Iraq are on your advisory board?”

The Brad Blog: “In Bushworld, incompetence must be rewarded.”

Arms Control Wonk: “Andrew Sullivan has a better line than I can muster.”

Andrew Sullivan: “He’s advising Condi on WMDs. Curveball wasn’t available?”

So far, The Lede has not turned up any bloggers weighing in to support Mr. Wolfowitz."

On the downside, with the protracted, ugly, almost never-ending saga of his resignation from The World Bank, will the next President be able to get him out of this position?

Stay tuned Wolf Fans, this one is surely to be a ever-giving gift!

**********

Bonus Wolfie Whoppers

Yes, Wolfie, People Will Be Talking, For Years, About You ... The Results - The Garlic Weekly Poll

Larisa Alexandrovna - Scott Ritter: Neocons as Parasites

"Hillary 1984" Video Blogger Takes On Wolfowitz

Andrew Cockburn: The Puppet Who Cleared the Way for Iraq's Destruction

Developing Story! White House Giving World Bank, Wolfowitz Green Light To Blame McNulty; New Strategy Of Leveraging Scandals; Cheney Says Embattled Hero "Definitely In Final Throes" At World Bank

Yeah, it's a head-scratcher for us, too, Wolfie...

(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

Rumsfeld on the run

By Capt. Fogg

See Rummy run -- run Rummy. If there's one think that could brighten up the dark Sturm und Drang of Tropical Storm Noel working its way north toward Florida, it's the prospect of Donald Rumsfeld in a trench coat, skulking his way over the wet midnight cobblestones down the narrow, misty and medieval streets of some German city; jack-booted Gestapo and barking Rottweilers hot on his trail.

That's a bit over-dramatic of course, but Rummy went on the run yesterday. Embassy officials bundled the former Secretary of Defense out of the land of "surrender monkeys" and into Germany when news got out that the International Federation for Human Rights along with the Center for Constitutional Rights, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights and the French League for Human Rights had filed criminal complaints involving "ordering and authorizing torture." Nice to hear the French have more guts than we do - but not surprising.

Rummy had been greeted by taunts of "murderer" and "war criminal" upon showing up for breakfast, shortly before fleeing for his safety to an "undisclosed location" in Germany. French police are however allowed to follow a fleeing fugitive over the border. Run Rummy. Run, run, run.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Everything may be held against them

By Edward Copeland

Dubyaland is on an executive privilege frenzy as they now are invoking the right to keep their dirty laundry private to withhold records from congressional investigators looking into the friendly-fire death of former NFL star Pat Tillman and the subsequent propaganda campaign use of his tragic death by claiming that certain papers relating to discussion of the friendly-fire shooting "implicate Executive Branch confidentiality interests."

Although Pentagon investigators determined quickly that he was killed by his own troops, five weeks passed before the circumstances of his death were made public. During that time, the Army claimed he was killed by enemy fire.

Tillman's family and others have said they believe the erroneous information peddled by the Pentagon was part of a deliberate cover-up that may have reached all the way to President Bush and then-Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld. The committee said Friday it had scheduled a second hearing on Tillman's death for Aug. 1, this time to probe what senior Pentagon officials knew and when.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., agree that the documents that the White House have turned over are inadequate and provide little in the way of answers for their investigation.

The document production from the White House sheds virtually no light on these matters," Waxman and Davis wrote to White House counsel Fred Fielding, part of a renewed request for additional papers.

The White House claims that the only things they've withheld were internal matters not connected to Tillman, a bogus argument which doesn't fly with Waxman and Davis since one packet of documents consisted merely of newspaper clippings about Tillman's death and there were no records of how or when Donald Rumsfeld was even informed of the death.

Bush, the Nazis, and torture

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Andrew Sullivan has an extremely important post up -- he put it up yesterday, but I'm just now getting back to blogging after a day off to rest -- on the similarities between the Nazis' interrogation techniques (or methods of examination) and those approved for use by Bush and his underlings (and approved, too, by many of his supporters). Make sure to read his entire post. Here are some comments:

The Germans call it verschärfte Vernehmung, which means "enhanced" or "intensified" or "sharpened" interrogation. Andrew includes a Gestapo directive that outlines when such interrogation may be use, on whom it may be used, why it may be used, and what methods may be applied. As Andrew explains, "[t]he methods... are indistinguishable from those described as 'enhanced interrogation techniques' by the president". But he also notes that Bush has gone even further than the Nazis: "Also: the use of hypothermia, authorized by Bush and Rumsfeld, was initially forbidden. 'Waterboarding' was forbidden too, unlike that authorized by Bush."

Of course, the Nazis went much further than this. The U.S. has, too, but not nearly as far, and so the comparison between Bush and the Nazis must be understood in context. Still, what Andrew shows is that "[t]he Nazi defense of the techniques is almost verbatim that of the Bush administration," and he provides extensive evidence to show even more similarities, including the approved use of "stress positions," "repeated beatings," "[f]reezing prisoners to near-death," and the "withholding of medicine and leaving wounded or sick prisoners alone in cells for days on end".

The word "interrogation" is a euphemism. This is torture -- and nothing less. It's what went on in places like Dachau. More recently, it's what's been going on in U.S. detention facilities around the world as "authorized by Bush and Rumsfeld," not to mention Cheney, Gonzales, and other officials, elected and unelected alike, and as supported by many Republicans in Congress and many mainstream conservatives, including prominent pundits, bloggers, and media personalities like Charles Krauthammer, Glenn Reynolds, and Rush Limbaugh. Here's more from Andrew:

Critics will no doubt say I am accusing the Bush administration of being Hitler. I'm not. There is no comparison between the political system in Germany in 1937 and the U.S. in 2007. What I am reporting is a simple empirical fact: the interrogation methods approved and defended by this president are not new. Many have been used in the past. The very phrase used by the president to describe torture-that-isn't-somehow-torture -- "enhanced interrogation techniques" -- is a term originally coined by the Nazis. The techniques are indistinguishable. The methods were clearly understood in 1948 as war-crimes. The punishment for them was death.

No, I'm not suggesting capital punishment (and Andrew isn't either, of course), which I'm against. But consider the historical context for what Bush is doing as president. That he has abused his authority to wield power like the Nazis, and with such arrogance and brutality, should be viewed as one of the defining elements of his presidency. If America is an empire in decline, and if there is, as I think there is, a sickness eating away at its soul, there can be little doubt that a symptom of that sickness and decline, one that is spreading the sickness and accelerating the decline, that is blocking any attempt at recovery and making everything so much worse, can be found at the very apex of government, in the White House and in the various corridors of power occupied by those who have turned Lincoln's last, best hope into a savage instrument of oppression.