U.S. Conducting 'Night Raids' in Afghanistan

As President Obama's newly presented budget figures show an increase in war spending, journalist Anand Gopal has a very interesting piece that is posted over at the Nation.

The piece should be read in full and covers some troubling behavior that has become all too familiar to the discussion of the so-called "War on Terror". Gopal tells the story of how U.S. forces have been taking Afghani citizens from their homes during "night raids" and killing innocents in the process:

November 19, 2009, 3:15 am. A loud blast woke the villagers of a leafy neighborhood outside Ghazni, a city of ancient provenance in the country's south. A team of US soldiers burst through the front gate of the home of Majidullah Qarar, the spokesman for Afghanistan's agriculture minister. Qarar was in Kabul at the time, but his relatives were home, four of them sleeping in the family's one-room guesthouse. One of them, Hamidullah, who sold carrots at the local bazaar, ran toward the door of the guesthouse. He was immediately shot but managed to crawl back inside, leaving a trail of blood behind him. Then Azim, a baker, darted toward his injured cousin. He, too, was shot and crumpled to the floor.

[...]

Weeks after the raid, the family remains bitter. "Everyone in the area knew we were a family that worked for the government," Qarar said. "Rahman couldn't even leave the city, because if the Taliban caught him in the countryside they would have killed him."

Beyond the question of Rahman's guilt or innocence, it's how he was taken that has left such a residue of hatred among his family. "Did they have to kill my cousins? Did they have to destroy our house?" Qarar asked. "They knew where Rahman worked. Couldn't they have at least tried to come with a warrant in the daytime? We would have forced Rahman to comply."

"I used to go on TV and argue that people should support this government and the foreigners," he added. "But I was wrong. Why should anyone do so? I don't care if I get fired for saying it, but that's the truth."

In addition to being abducted in the middle of the night, these "night raids" are usually just the beginning of the process:

Suspects are usually sent to one of a series of prisons on US military bases around the country. There are officially nine such jails, called Field Detention Sites in military parlance. They are small holding areas, often just a clutch of cells divided by plywood, and are mainly used for prisoner interrogations.

[...]

Of the twenty-four former detainees interviewed for this article, seventeen claim to have been abused at or en route to these sites. Doctors, government officials and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, an independent Afghan body mandated by the Afghan Constitution to investigate abuse allegations, corroborate twelve of these claims.

One of these former detainees is Noor Agha Sher Khan...

[...]

The interrogators blindfolded him, taped his mouth shut and chained him to the ceiling, he alleges. Occasionally they unleashed a dog, which repeatedly bit him. At one point they removed the blindfold and forced him to kneel on a long wooden bar. "They tied my hands to a pulley [above] and pushed me back and forth as the bar rolled across my shins. I screamed and screamed." They then pushed him to the ground and forced him to swallow twelve bottles of water. "Two people held my mouth open, and they poured water down my throat until my stomach was full and I became unconscious," he said. "It was as if someone had inflated me." After he was roused, he vomited uncontrollably.

Gopal goes on to describe suspicious deaths of Afghanis who were taken in these raids as well as citizens who are still unaccounted for after being abducted from their homes. Gopal states that some are more afraid of these night raids than they are of the Taliban.

The entire article is very interesting and I again urge you to read it in full, but these are the very topics that need to be discussed in full when President Obama continues to talk about pouring more money into this war. While drone attacks often make headlines, it is these covert operations, often carried out by Special Forces, that fly under the radar. When it becomes a viable strategy to scoop up seemingly random villagers in these raids to hold them, torture them, and then potentially release them, some very real questions needs to be asked about the long-term gains from such a policy.

Anand Gopal was also on Democracy Now! earlier in the week. You can watch his discussion on this issue by clicking here.

Revising Hell's History: Col. Larry James, Interrogation Policies, and Calls for Accountability

If ever the collective mindset surrounding a single word has changed over the last decade, it can be argued that the word “torture” must be high on that list. Prior to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, one may have used the word in passing to describe sitting through a boring lecture in college or their feelings about their grueling nine to five work week. Torture. Nearly a decade later, when one utters the word, their mind probably flashes to images that came out of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the many reports that have been released detailing how this word, how torture, became official governmental policy of the United States. The 2000’s took the concept of torture from that of something unlawful that was only put into practice by brutal dictators, to accepted policy that was put into place by a democracy. Torture had been rebranded and even had a snappy new euphemism: “enhanced interrogation techniques”. Cleaner, professional, sanitized.

Debates on the topic of interrogation policy lit up our television and computer screens. Were we really condoning torture…is the United States justified in using these techniques on detainees…do these policies break laws and should we investigate? We saw a Vice President insist that we (as a country) needed to go to the “dark side” to get information and we saw some defenders of these policies line up in support of what they would have been the first to condemn if done to a U.S. Marine. These were extraordinary times.

In the midst of it all, time continued its relentless march toward the future. America chose a new President who, amidst all of the questions that still surrounded this issue, insisted that we “look to the future” and not get caught up in the past. This new President boldly declared that the old era was over while still continuing to advance policies like extraordinary rendition and indefinite detention without charge. Now, in 2010 we no longer are witnessing intellectual arguments over policies surrounding torture on the evening news and the eight years under the previous Administration seem like an old memory. While there may no longer be a robust collective debate on this issue, there are moments when we are reminded of the continued ramifications that remain unresolved.

Most recently Scott Horton, a reporter for Harper’s, wrote a lengthy piece in which he blew the cover off of the official story of three deaths of detainees that were being held at Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba in 2006. At the time, the deaths were reported as suicides, but new witnesses have come forward to strongly suggest that an investigation needs to take place about the potential that these detainees were killed at a separate “black site” just outside of the official prison grounds. The soldiers who came forward in Horton’s piece did so after they had approached the Obama Justice Department with their story:

The Justice Department thus faced a dilemma; it could do the politically convenient thing, which was to find no justification for a thorough investigation, leave the NCIS conclusions in place, and hope that the public and the news media would obey the Obama Administration’s dictum to “look forward, not backward”; or it could pursue a course of action that would implicate the Bush Justice Department in a cover-up of possible homicides.

The Obama Justice Department did the politically convenient thing and told the soldiers that there was no justification for any such investigation into a cover-up of the deaths of these detainees. This behavior, that of refusing to look into potential criminal behavior by the Bush Administration, is nothing new. Though there is continued insistence that the United States is a land where the rule of law reigns supreme, the actions that can be observed in cases like this one tell a different story. These actions tell a story of concealed truths and a dark history that is eagerly being swept under the rug. While it is evident that some wish to keep that history hidden from sight, others have decided to take an active role in crafting a new, revisionist history. This is a history where those in power in 2002 did not advocate for torturous policies, but instead recognized the evil of the so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” taking place in Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq. This revisionist history consists of a narrative where those in leadership positions not only saw abuse, but actively took steps to correct its spread.

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Col. (Ret.) Larry James is the author of Fixing Hell: An Army Psychologist Confronts Abu Ghraib. James spent 22 years in the Army as a Colonel and was the Chair of the Department of Psychology at Walter Reed Medical Center. Currently, James is the Dean of the School of Professional Psychology at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. In Fixing Hell, James tells the story of how he was sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in January, 2003 and to Abu Ghraib in the summer of 2004 in lieu of the discovery of abusive interrogation tactics. James claims that he was sent to both locations because the leadership wanted these abuses stopped and wanted his services as a psychologist in order to design humane methods of interrogation. Here is a passage from right before he was sent to Cuba:

“I would have to deploy to Cuba and replace Major Leso myself. Colonel Cooper and Colonel Banks agreed that this was the right course of action, particularly because things were getting worse down there. Gitmo needed an experienced senior Army psychologist with a significant background in correctional and forensic psychology.”

In his book, James immediately establishes the narrative that the problems at Guantanamo Bay were structural. James doesn’t claim that the command structure at the prison was partly to blame, but insists that “all problems” at the prison could be attributed to this flaw. He also makes it known that once he arrived at the prison in January 2003, there was some inappropriate behavior taking place. He even describes witnessing one such interrogation, but instead of interfering or reporting the abuse, he lets it play out (emphasis mine):

“I heard lots of yelling, screaming, and furniture being thrown around. I saw Luther and three MPs wrestling with a detainee on the floor. It was an awful sight. I wanted to run back to my room and wash my eyes out with bleach. The detainee was naked except for the pink panties I had seen hanging on the door earlier. He also had lipstick and a wig on. The four men were holding the prisoner down and trying to outfit him with the matching pink nightgown, but he was fighting hard. My first instinct was to rush in and start barking orders at the men, demanding they stop this ridiculous and abusive wrestling match. But I managed to quell that urge and wait. I opened my thermos, poured a cup of coffee, and watched the episode play out, hoping it would take a better turn and not wanting to interfere without good reason, even if this was a terrible scene. I waited several minutes, but with no good end in sight I had to act.”

This is the only instance in the entire book where James describes witnessing inappropriate conduct in detail during interrogations and despite the initial reaction of wanting to “wash his eyes out with bleach”, his response to this instance is to pour himself some coffee and not “interfere without good reason”. After James does decide to act, he simply speaks with the interrogator, suggests that he instead give the detainee a McDonald’s fish sandwich and the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated, and claims that this new “humane” and trust-building tactic began to spread like wildfire throughout the prison.

During the five months that James spends at Guantanamo Bay, he states that he had free reign to put policies in place to stop the abuses and that psychologists only accessed the medical records of detainees to protect them, not use the information in coordination with interrogators to maximize the effects of the torture. Then, when it was time for Col. James to leave Guantanamo in May of 2003, he says that he was proud to know that he has instituted polices that fixed all of the problems stating that there have been “…no incidents of abuse at Guantanamo Bay by either an interrogator or psychologist reported since my arrival in Cuba in January 2003”.

The accuracy of James’ statement is contradicted by mountains of reports and articles that have been written not only since he left Cuba in 2003, but since his book was published in 2008.

Still, after James left Cuba in 2003, he was summoned to Abu Ghraib in June 2004 to, as he states, clean up the practices at that prison as he did in Guantanamo Bay. In his book he often claims that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were the result of bad leadership and how this led a handful of troubled soldiers to cross the line and commit these abuses. James tells the stories of how sexual frustrations played a role in the chaos at the prison and uses his “psychological expertise” to tell the reader how he knew one of the soldiers at the prison was a lesbian:

“I didn’t have to ask her if she was a lesbian, but as a highly trained psychologist I spotted all the signals that made that a pretty safe conclusion. At the very least, this was one tough gal, no matter her sexual orientation. Her voice was deeper than mine, and if I had any tattoos I’m sure that I would have chosen more feminine ones than hers.”

James tells the same kind of story in Abu Ghraib as he told in Guantanamo and how he became the leader that the prison needed to get turned around. He even makes the claim that there were “no more incidents of abuse reported by an interrogator or a psychologist” after he arrived in June 2004.

Even though James is a psychologist and represents himself as a medical professional, he describes an internal struggle that he has surrounding his role as both a soldier and a healer. Despite this conflict, James picks a side:

“It was clear to me that I was no longer a doctor but rather a combatant with the sole purpose of helping the Army kill or capture the enemy.”

It is this conclusion that leads to questions about whether James felt that he was a combatant when he was interacting with detainees at Guantanamo Bay and when he expresses disdain for groups and individuals that have been critical of United States policy. Here is how James describes the International Committee of the Red Cross in his book:

“Like most other soldiers, I saw the ICRC representatives as a bunch of radical left do-gooders, mostly from Europe, who were as interested in giving America a black eye as they were in truly helping the innocent. Every ICRC rep I met had long, disheveled ‘60s and ‘70s hairstyles as well as Birkenstock sandals—the consummate hippie motif. They thought all of the detainees were completely innocent and only needed to be hugged more.”

James denies that he ever did anything inappropriate or criminal while he was at Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib and claims that his critics have no evidence to back up their charges. In fact, James claims that he was never at either location when abuses were occurring. This is a puzzling claim considering many publicly available documents that shed more light on the time period when James was stationed at Guantanamo Bay.

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Col. Larry James, PH.D. arrived at the Guantanamo Bay prison facility in January 2003 as the Chief Psychologist of the Joint Intelligence Group and a senior member of the Behavioral Science Consultation Team (BSCT). James’ stint at the prison facility lasted until May 5, 2003. According to what James wrote in Fixing Hell he was responsible for improving interrogation methods and his boss, Major General Geoffrey D. Miller, was also on board with implementing humane and respectful tactics:

“General Miller had discussed how I would be replacing Major Leso, and that it would be my job to teach the interrogators how to get intel without yelling, slapping, sleep deprivation, humiliation, or food deprivation.”

[…]

“While working with them [juvenile prisoners], I was still expected to oversee the rest of the interrogation process at Gitmo and to fix what had gone so wrong in the past.”

Through the words of James, it is quite clear that his role was to oversee the interrogation process and while he claims that he did, that abusive techniques were addressed, and that all the problems were fixed during his tenure, officially released documents tell another story.

In November 2008, the Senate Armed Services Committee concluded an investigation into the treatment of detainees that were held in U.S. custody. The bipartisan report was released on April 21, 2009 and covered military interrogations. Some of the conclusions that the report reached were as follows:

- Once President Bush made a written declaration on February 7, 2002 that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, it opened the door for techniques such as waterboarding, nudity, stress positions, and others to be used.
- High level Bush Administration officials and Cabinet members held meetings in 2002-2003 that specifically discussed interrogation techniques.
- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s authorization of “aggressive interrogation techniques” on December 2, 2002 was a direct cause of abuse at Guantanamo Bay.
- When Major General Geoffrey Miller visited Iraq in August and September 2003, he encouraged interrogators to be more aggressive during interrogations.
- The detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 was not the result of a few soldiers acting alone, but the techniques depicted in the infamous photos were the result of their approval in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

The 232 page report also details some of the behavior that transpired at Guantanamo Bay in the Spring of 2003, the same time period that Col. James was present and working to (in his words) “fix what had gone so wrong in the past”. Contrary to the statements made by James in his book regarding Maj. Gen. Miller, on Page 129 of the Senate Armed Services Report it states:

“General Hill’s March 21, 2003 memo stated that both he and MG Miller felt that approval of all of the previously authorized techniques (in Categories I, II and III) was “essential”. General Hill stated that ‘both Geoff Miller and I believe that we need as many appropriate tools as possible’ and called Category II and the one previously authorized Category III technique ‘critical to maximizing our ability to accomplish the mission, now and in the future.” The ‘critical’ techniques referred to by General Hill included stress positions, deprivation of light and auditory stimuli, removal of clothing, use of detainee phobias such as dogs, and the one Category III technique the Secretary had authorized, which included grabbing, poking and light pushing.

This was during a time period when Generals and a Working Group were looking into techniques that should be used and which techniques were appropriate at Guantanamo.

Also during this time period, the SASC Report states that a “Commander’s Inquiry” was launched to investigate claims that military personnel and military police were forcing detainees to participate in “physical training”. According to page 133 of the report, an interrogator, two analysts, and a member of the GTMO Behavior Science Consultation Team (the same BSCT team of which Col. James was a senior member) were interviewed for this inquiry. The report states that all of these figures “believed that the technique was appropriate, approved, applied properly, and was common practice…”

The report goes on to say that a subsequent memo (entitled a “Historic Look at Inappropriate Techniques used at GTMO”) was later filed and was very critical of the Commander’s Inquiry saying that it did not adequately review multiple claims of inappropriate behavior nor follow through with appropriate discipline. One of the incidents that was not reviewed, was one in which a female military interrogator wiped (what she told the detainee was) menstrual blood on his face and forehead. Furthermore according to the SASC Report, this “Historic Look” document concluded that:

"…the incidents occurring during the Spring of 2003 signif[ied] a consistent problem at GTMO.” It stated that it was “clear” that interrogators “may use several if not all of the techniques that require SECDEF notification.” The memo also concluded that the “interpretation of the SECDEF approved techniques has resulted in variations on how techniques are applied (i.e., is yelling, loud music and strobe lights environmental manipulation?)” and “[d]espite these revelations by interrogators, the supervisory chain of command reports that these techniques are not used.”

Not only does the SASC Report refute the claim made by Col. James that “…no incidents of abuse at Guantanamo Bay by either an interrogator or psychologist reported since my arrival in Cuba in January 2003”, but it also shows that these same patterns continued after James left GTMO in May 2003 after he claimed to have instituted policies “intended to prevent prisoner abuse at all military prisons.”

The SASC Report discusses the interrogation of Mohamadou Walid Slahi that began in July 2003 and went on through the end of that summer. Slahi was subjected to “variable light patterns” and “rock music to the tune of Drowning Pool’s ‘Let the Bodies Hit the Floor’”. Slahi was also shown a fake letter which contained information that Slahi’s mother had been captured and would soon be brought to GTMO. The fake letter also made sure to point out that she would be the first female prisoner at the “previously all-male prison environment.”

As the summer wore on, Slahi was reported to have been cooperative with interrogators yet his level of interrogation did not change. In an October 17, 2003 email that is highlighted in the SASC Report, that was sent from a GTMO interrogator to a member of the BSCT, it was discussed how Slahi was now hearing voices and knew that this was not normal. The member of the BSCT, LTC Diane Zierhoffer replied, “sensory deprivation can cause hallucinations, usually visual rather than auditory, but you never know…In the dark you create things out of what little you have…”

This is the same BSCT team that Col. James had been a senior member of only months earlier and where he claims he left in place policies that would prevent the abuse of future detainees.

It is clear through the SASC Report as well as through supplemental documents, that torture at Guantanamo Bay was instituted from the top down. It started with President Bush’s declaration that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to the detainees at the prison, continued with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s authorizations, and percolated right down into the individual cells of detainees. As much as Col. James wants his readers to believe that the abuse stopped upon his arrival, it is overwhelmingly clear that it did not. Abuses happened during James’ 5 month tenure at the prison facility and it is clear that health care professionals were involved with interrogations. It is also clear that these problems were not “fixed” once James left GTMO and the Scott Horton piece that I reference in the introduction is further proof that suspicious deaths even occurred 3 years after James supposedly installed measures to protect against abuse.

Major General Miller, who Col. James mentions was on board with treating detainees humanely, made a trip up to Iraq in June 2003. This was one month after Col. James departure from GTMO. The SASC Report mentions that Miller thought they were running a “country club” in Iraq and that they were not “getting the maximum” out of the prisoners. When Miller was asked by another Major General what he meant, Miller replied, “you haven’t broken [the detainees] psychologically” and that he would get back to him on “some techniques you can use” to break them. The Abu Ghraib scandal broke in late 2003 and Miller was put in charge of the prison in March 2004.

General Miller’s conduct both during and after the tenure of Col. James in GTMO, should raise serious questions about the claims that Miller was trying to implement policies that would allow for the humane treatment of detainees. What should also be cause for concern is the amount of fundamentally misleading and false statements that can be found in Col. James’ book. From the characterization of Gen. Miller, to the statement about the absence of abuse at the prison post-2002, and to his statements about the role that he played during his tenure at the prison. When there are so many statements that seem to contradict various reports and official documents, one would think that it would only be appropriate to further examine the actual role that Col. James did play when so many documented abuses were ongoing. No in-depth investigations have been conducted and James is still a licensed psychologist in Louisiana, Ohio and Guam.

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Currently, Col. Larry James is retired from the military and is the Dean of the School of Professional Psychology at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. Though retired from the military, James is still very much involved in issues of terrorism and the psychology of terrorists. This week, on February 3-4, James is leading a “Psychology of Terrorism Executive Workshop” at Wright State University. The stated goals of the Workshop are to:

- Define Psychological Terrorism
- Identify Types of Psychological Terrorism
- Discuss the role of the media in counterterrorism efforts
- Identify how demographics are used to recruit teenage terrorists
- Understand the psychological make-up of the suicide bomber
- Discuss strategies to prevent psychological terrorism

The website indicates that the intended audiences for this Executive Workshop are law enforcement officials, members of the Department of Homeland Security, DOD, and the Border Patrol. According to the agenda, there will be a total of four presenters at this Workshop (including James) and the program fee is $2,000 (lodging and transportation are not included).

The Campus Anti-War Network is planning to protest this event and there are continued calls from the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Canadian Center for International Justice, and Physicians for Human Rights to investigate James and his potential involvement in the abuses that took place in Cuba and Iraq. These organizations feel that it is important for those who were responsible for carrying out and implementing policies of torture, to be held accountable for their actions. It is also important to recognize the difference between actual accounts of what took place in GTMO, Afghanistan and Iraq and the revisionist history that is found in books like Col. James’ “Fixing Hell”.


This piece is cross posted here.

Confusion Surrounding Afghanistan Exit Strategy

As the Obama Administration's deadline on closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay came and went without the prison being close to closing, it is important to try and get the Administration to use as specific language as possible when they make future commitments to the American people.

One of these issues is the date for when troops will begin to withdraw from Afghanistan. As you can see by this recent video that was posted by Rethink Afghanistan, the message isn't even that clear to members of the Administration:



If the Obama Administration is serious about a troop withdrawal and is not just hedging their bets with conflicting statements, then it would certainly be helpful for the President to clarify the confusion that is surrounding this issue.

Scott Horton Discusses GITMO on MSNBC

After writing this extensive piece for Harper's the other day, Scott Horton appeared on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night to discuss his article. You can read my summary of his piece here, but his work certainly deserves a full read.

Here is the video from Countdown last night:



It is simply a lie when you continue to hear either former Bush Administration officials or other pundits continue to claim that torture was not the official policy of the United States. There are documented instances of many detainees that have died while in U.S. custody and there are credible accounts of mistreatment and torture that continue to be brought to light. The "look to the future, not to the past" mantra of the Obama Administration on this topic continues to become more insulting as more and more stories of mistreatment are reported. It is especially alarming when (as appears to be the case in this instance) the Obama Administration actually has a chance to investigate substantive claims of wrong-doing and actively refuse to do so.

We are said to live in a nation where no one is above the law, but instead we are witnessing a system where those in power are actively shielding their eyes from those who break the law. We deserve better.

Afghanistan Heating Up

This piece of news, that of an attack yesterday by the Taliban on Kabul, should continue to remind everyone that attention needs to be paid to the complicated situation that continues to evolve in Afghanistan. From the LA Times:

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan - Taliban militants unleashed a carefully coordinated, deadly attack on the heart of Afghanistan's capital and its U.S.-backed government today, killing five people and injuring more than 70 in an attack that illustrated the insurgency's ability to strike at will at virtually any target.

The five-hour assualt, carried out by seven Taliban insurgents wielding AK-47 rifles, grenades, rocket launchers and suicide bomb vests, plunged downtown Kabul on a bustling workday morning into a state of war. Afghans shopping or heading to work screamed as they darted for cover while bursts of gunfire rang out overhead and explosions shook the downtown area.

In addition to the above news I have been disturbed recently by a kind cheerleading that some are engaged in over the decrease in number of civilians that the U.S. killed in 2009 in Afghanistan.

I think Derrick Crowe over at Firedoglake sums it up the best:

This sort of self-congratulation is as myopic as it is callous. The pro-Kabul-government coalition killed roughly 600 people whose right to life exists independent of the U.S.’s desire to eliminate Al-Qaida and the Taliban. Only the most idiotic messengers would cheer about this statistic in public. Imagine a man cheering that he only beat his wife six times this month compared to eight times last month. That’s what chief ISAF spokesman Col. Wayne Shanks means when he says, "Statistical kinds of things don’t play that well [in Afghanistan].” Journalists, bloggers and public officials who tout this statistic like it’s some sort of victory should have their pulses checked and their canines examined.

The Many Secrets of Guantanamo Bay

Whether it be in conversations about Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, or any other country around the world, the policies of the Bush Administration are essential to take into consideration when examining where we find ourselves today. The election of Barack Obama to the Presidency did not change this fact no matter how much he wants to "move forward" and "not look to the past". The policies of the last Administration have far-reaching consequences and unless they are investigated to the fullest, we will not be able to fully heal as a country.

One of the areas where this especially holds true is in policies surrounding detention and interrogation. Scott Horton has a striking and disturbing new piece that was published in the latest edition of Harper's Magazine that demonstrates just how relevant this topic continues to be, even when the corporate media isn't reporting on the implications.

Horton's piece is entitled "The Guantanomo 'Suicides': A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle". It is a well researched and a very detailed account that should be read in full, but I will do my best to provide a summary.

The article begins with the story of three detainees who died on June 9, 2006 while being held in the Guantanamo Bay prison facility in Cuba. The official story goes that the prisoners coordinated a type of "suicide pact" and elaborately tricked the guards into thinking that they were sleeping when they were actually binding their hands and feet, stuffing a towel down their throats, and hanging themselves in their cells.

Now, some of the former personnel at the prison have come forward and raised questions about this official story and have indicated that this country should be investigating three homicides that took place at a special "dark-site" in Guantnamo Bay.

According to the NCIS, each prisoner had fashioned a noose from torn sheets and T-shirts and tied it to the top of his cell’s eight-foot-high steel-mesh wall. Each prisoner was able somehow to bind his own hands, and, in at least one case, his own feet, then stuff more rags deep down into his own throat. We are then asked to believe that each prisoner, even as he was choking on those rags, climbed up on his washbasin, slipped his head through the noose, tightened it, and leapt from the washbasin to hang until he asphyxiated. The NCIS report also proposes that the three prisoners, who were held in non-adjoining cells, carried out each of these actions almost simultaneously.

[...]

The fact that at least two of the prisoners also had cloth masks affixed to their faces, presumably to prevent the expulsion of the rags from their mouths, went unremarked by the NCIS, as did the fact that standard operating procedure at Camp Delta required the Navy guards on duty after midnight to “conduct a visual search” of each cell and detainee every ten minutes. The report claimed that the prisoners had hung sheets or blankets to hide their activities and shaped more sheets and pillows to look like bodies sleeping in their beds, but it did not explain where they were able to acquire so much fabric beyond their tightly controlled allotment, or why the Navy guards would allow such an obvious and immediately observable deviation from permitted behavior. Nor did the report explain how the dead men managed to hang undetected for more than two hours or why the Navy guards on duty, having for whatever reason so grievously failed in their duties, were never disciplined.

One of the soldiers that Horton spoke to is Army Staff Sergeant Joseph Hickman. When Hickman arrived at Guantanomo Bay, he quickly stumbled upon a compound near the main prison that he says other soldiers called "Camp No". The name refers to the answer that anyone would get when they asked about this compound: "no, it doesn't exist". Hickman then described some of his duties that seemed odd, including a secret van that was dubbed "the paddy wagon":

Hickman was instructed to make no record whatsoever of the movements of one vehicle in particular—a white van, dubbed the “paddy wagon,” that Navy guards used to transport heavily manacled prisoners, one at a time, into and out of Camp Delta. The van had no rear windows and contained a dog cage large enough to hold a single prisoner. Navy drivers, Hickman came to understand, would let the guards know they had a prisoner in the van by saying they were “delivering a pizza.”

The paddy wagon was used to transport prisoners to medical facilities and to meetings with their lawyers. But as Hickman monitored the paddy wagon’s movements from the guard tower at Camp Delta, he frequently saw it follow an unexpected route. When the van reached the first intersection, instead of heading right—toward the other camps or toward one of the buildings where prisoners could meet with their lawyers—it made a left. In that direction, past the perimeter checkpoint known as ACP Roosevelt, there were only two destinations. One was a beach where soldiers went to swim. The other was Camp No.

Hickman claims that on the night of June 9, he watched this "paddy wagon" depart his location at "Camp America" and drive to Camp No. He observed this three times in a row and then, a few hours later, he says that the paddy wagon returned and various soldiers unloaded something out of the back of the van. 45 minutes to an hour later, Camp Delta was abuzz:

He asked a distraught medical corpsman what had happened. She said three dead prisoners had been delivered to the clinic. Hickman recalled her saying that they had died because they had rags stuffed down their throats, and that one of them was severely bruised. Davila told me he spoke to Navy guards who said the men had died as the result of having rags stuffed down their throats.

[...]

By dawn, the news had circulated through Camp America that three prisoners had committed suicide by swallowing rags. Colonel Bumgarner called a meeting of the guards, and at 7 a.m. at least fifty soldiers and sailors gathered at Camp America’s open-air theater.

[...]

According to independent interviews with soldiers who witnessed the speech, Bumgarner told his audience that “you all know” three prisoners in the Alpha Block at Camp 1 committed suicide during the night by swallowing rags, causing them to choke to death. This was a surprise to no one—even servicemen who had not worked the night before had heard about the rags. But then Bumgarner told those assembled that the media would report something different. It would report that the three prisoners had committed suicide by hanging themselves in their cells. It was important, he said, that servicemen make no comments or suggestions that in any way undermined the official report. He reminded the soldiers and sailors that their phone and email communications were being monitored. The meeting lasted no more than twenty minutes. (Bumgarner has not responded to requests for comment.)

The rest of Horton's piece describes how documents were seized from prisoners at the compound regardless of client-attorney privilege and how the autopsies of the three men who died, seemed suspicious (all of their neck organs had been removed during the autopsy). The families of each of the three men had independent autopsies performed and there was bruising and other evidence of torture on the bodies.

Upon returning to the United States, the soldiers that Horton spoke with for this piece went to the Justice Department so that they could look into this matter and after much silence from the DOJ, on November 2, 2009 they concluded that the "gist of the information" could not be confirmed.

The silence here is deafening and the greater details that are present in Horton's piece should be read as they are even more disturbing than the brief outline that I have provided here. What is necessary to remember here is that there are still close to 200 people being held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Many without charge and many with uncertain futures. Despite President Obama's pledge to close the facility within a year, it remains open and many question marks continue to be raised about the conduct within this facility.

It is alarming at best to continue down the road of "looking forward" when stories like this one continue to come out. For a country that claims to be a "nation of laws" to simply ignore these gross abuses and ignore rather than investigate potential criminal wrong-doing should simply be unacceptable. It is true that there is a lot on the plates of those in Washington these days, but it is stories like this one that emphasizes just how deep our countries wounds are. This is not something that can be swept under the rug rather it is a topic that needs to be shouted from the rooftops until it is constructively addressed. Policies that were deliberately in place to create conditions in which things like this could happen are not simply forgotten without consequence. There are very lasting and harmful effects from the last eight years that must be addressed before we can heal and move on as a better and a more humane people.

It is time to bring this conversation back into the national dialogue.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, Capitalizing on Terrorism and Fear

There is something that is just stomach-churning when politicians politicize terrorism-related events for their own personal financial gain. Take Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI). Just days after the failed Christmas Day bombing attempt on a flight to Detroit, Hoekstra sent out this letter to his constituents:

Dear Friend:

We don't have much time, so I will get right to the point.

In the midst of enjoying Christmas with my family, we were quickly reminded that there is still a war against the American way of life; on Christmas morning, it came right here to Detroit.

We know the story. A cowardly terrorist was allowed to board a flight bound for our state, and armed with explosives, attempted to murder countless passengers and potential victims on the ground.

Unnamed heroes aboard the plane likely averted disaster.

Shockingly, yesterday morning, Barack Obama's Homeland Security Secretary went on TV and said "the system worked"!

They just don't get it. The system didn't "work" here. Far from it! It is insulting that The Obama administration would make such a claim, but then again, these are the same weak-kneed liberals who have recently tried to bring Guantanamo Bay terrorists right here to Michigan!

My promise to you, as your governor, my first duty and most solemn responsibility is to keep Michigan safe!

For almost a decade I have been a leader on National Security and at the forefront of the war on terror. I understand the real and continuing threat radical jihadists pose to our great state of Michigan and our great Nation.

I have pledged that I will do "everything possible" to prevent these terrorists from coming to Michigan.

But I need your help.

If you agree that we need a Governor who will stand up the Obama/Pelosi efforts to weaken our security please make a most generous contribution of $25, $50, $100 or even $250 to my campaign.

When I first ran for Congress after 15 years in the private sector, I believed that while we may have serious policy differences with those on the left, protecting America was neither a Democrat nor Republican issue.

In fact, in the days following September 11, 2001, I spent hours in meetings with my Democrat colleagues, making sure that we were doing everything we could to prevent another terrorist attack.

There should be no partisan rancor when it comes to keeping our citizens safe.

Unfortunately, as the Democrat party drifts further and further to the left, their leaders are making decisions that should frighten us all.

Since President Obama took office, he and his left-wing cronies have taken steps to undermine the work of our brave men and women who work tirelessly to keep us safe.

First came his brazen and naive pledge to close Guantanamo Bay without any idea where to put the Jihadists who will never stop trying to do us harm.

Next, his Justice Department announced plans to reinvestigate intelligence officers involved in interrogating known terrorists in a program that undoubtedly saved American lives. According to seven former CIA directors, this investigation will have a "devastating impact on CIA morale, America's counter terrorism efforts and our foreign intelligence partnerships."

As if this wasn't enough, now comes word that they are prosecuting Navy SEALs on the word of wanted terrorist and his lawyer; while at the same time the President is sending Gitmo prisoners home to Yemen. I can only imagine what will happen when they link up with their fellow Al Qaida jihadists to make more plans to attack our great country.

Not on my watch!

Barack Obama's policies may impress the "Blame America First" crowd at home and his thousands of fans overseas, but they sure don't do anything to protect our families in Michigan or the rest of America.

And while the Obama/Pelosi agenda may be popular in the mainstream media, we should not be governed by the editorial pages of the New York Times.

I will be a governor who fights, every day, to keep Michigan safe.

Won't you join me?

As you know, I have spoken out as loudly as I can against the dangerous policies of the Obama administration.

And while we face many challenges here in Michigan, I know that as Governor, my most solemn obligation will be to work every day to make sure that Michigan families are safe. And I will stop at nothing to make sure that I fulfill this obligation, no matter what the administration in Washington tries to do.

Together, let's stand up for America, and stand up for Michigan. Please, help me fight by making a most generous contribution of $25, $50, $100 or even $250, so that we can fight together to protect our families, our state, and our freedom!

Yours Truly,

Pete Hoekstra

P.S. I am running for Governor to bring conservative leadership to Lansing. I will fight every day to lower taxes, create jobs and stand up for our shared values. Please make a secure, online donation to my campaign of $25, $50, $100 or even $250. Thank you.

Yeah! You tell 'em Pete! Obama is dangerous and you will protect Michigan from these terrorists...but can't do it without a small donation of course.

Former Speaker of the House even went on Hannity last night to say that this botched terror-related incident has helped Rep. Hoekstra in his re-election efforts (h/t ThinkProgress):



What a great campaign he is running right? He is capitalizing on all the right incidents and using fear to stock his campaign coffers! Nothing like pushing the popular GOP meme that Republicans are strong on defense and Democrats are weak.

Nevermind 9/11 of course.

Framing the Debate on the Surveillance State

There are moments that come along where it is important to highlight the framing of an issue that is prevalent in the corporate media. These discussions can help us understand the limits that are placed on such conversations and perhaps more importantly, these discussions can illuminate important viewpoints and data that are often left out of the prevailing narrative.

I had one of these moments in reading Glenn Greenwald's recent entry on how the corporate media often pits a debate between "keeping Americans safe" and "protecting our privacy/civil liberties". His whole piece is very illuminating and I encourage you to read the entire entry in full. I will provide a few snippets that demonstrate the foundation of his argument:

Every debate over expanded government surveillance power is invariably framed as one of "security v. privacy and civil liberties" -- as though it's a given that increasing the Government's surveillance authorities will "make us safer." But it has long been clear that the opposite is true. As numerous experts (such as Rep. Rush Holt) have attempted, with futility, to explain, expanding the scope of raw intelligence data collected by our national security agencies invariably impedes rather than bolsters efforts to detect terrorist plots. This is true for two reasons: (1) eliminating strict content limits on what can be surveilled (along with enforcement safeguards, such as judicial warrants) means that government agents spend substantial time scrutinizing and sorting through communications and other information that have nothing to do with terrorism; and (2) increasing the quantity of what is collected makes it more difficult to find information relevant to actual terrorism plots.

[...]

The failure of the U.S. Government to detect the fairly glaring Northwest Airlines Christmas plot -- despite years and years of constant expansions of Surveillance State powers -- illustrates this dynamic perfectly. As President Obama said yesterday, the Government -- just as was true for 9/11 -- had gathered more than enough information to have detected this plot, or at least to have kept Abdulmutallab off airplanes and out of the country. Yet our intelligence agencies -- just as was true for 9/11 -- failed to understand what they had in their possession. Why is that? Because they had too much to process, including too much data wholly unrelated to Terrorism. In other words, our panic-driven need to vest the Government with more and more surveillance power every time we get scared again by Terrorists -- in the name of keeping us safe -- has exactly the opposite effect.

[...]

The problem is never that the U.S. Government lacks sufficient power to engage in surveillance, interceptions, intelligence-gathering and the like. Long before 9/11 -- from the Cold War -- we have vested extraordinarily broad surveillance powers in the U.S. Government to the point that we have turned ourselves into a National Security and Surveillance State. Terrorist attacks do not happen because there are too many restrictions on the government's ability to eavesdrop and intercept communications, or because there are too many safeguards and checks. If anything, the opposite is true: the excesses of the Surveillance State -- and the steady abolition of oversights and limits -- have made detection of plots far less likely. Despite that, we have an insatiable appetite -- especially when we're frightened anew -- to vest more and more unrestricted spying and other powers in our Government, which -- like all governments -- is more than happy to accept it.

When a new terrorism related incident unfolds (like the failed Christmas Day bombing) we also tend to see plenty of comments advocating policies that are based in reactionary fear. Not only are policies floated to expand the security state like Glenn mentions above, but we see figures come forward to advocate profiling and expanding military action against other countries. Another element that emerges and is also stomach-turning, is when politicians use these incidents to not only be reactionary but to use it as a political opportunity. Take Rep. Peter King (R-NY) on ABC when he is asked what President Obama could specifically do to improve counter-terrorism efforts. King responds that Obama should use the word "terrorism" more often:




Perhaps an appropriate follow-up would have been to ask King how using that word would specifically save lives.

They Hate us Because we are Free?

David Rohde is a New York Times reporter that was captured by the Taliban and held for seven months before he was released. He is currently writing about his time as a hostage in a series at the New York Times and in his second installment of the series today, he wrote:

For the next several nights, a stream of Haqqani commanders overflowing with hatred for the United States and Israel visited us, unleashing blistering critiques that would continue throughout our captivity.

Some of their comments were factual. They said large numbers of civilians had been killed in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Palestinian territories in aerial bombings. Muslim prisoners had been physically abused and sexually humiliated in Iraq. Scores of men had been detained in Cuba and Afghanistan for up to seven years without charges.

To Americans, these episodes were aberrations. To my captors, they were proof that the United States was a hypocritical and duplicitous power that flouted international law.

When I told them I was an innocent civilian who should be released, they responded that the United States had held and tortured Muslims in secret detention centers for years. Commanders said they themselves had been imprisoned, their families ignorant of their fate. Why, they asked, should they treat me differently?

Glenn Greenwald has been writing about this and reacts to this passage by Rohde by saying:

So much of this disparity is explained by a basic lack of empathy: imagine if every American spent just a day contemplating how they'd react if some foreign army from a Muslim nation invaded and bombed the U.S., occupied the country for the next several years with 60,000 soldiers, killed tens of thousands of citizens here, set up secret prisons where they disappeared Americans for years without charges or even contact with the outside world, imposed sanctions that blockaded food and medicine and killed countless children, invaded and ransacked our homes at will, abducted Americans and shipped them halfway around the world to island-prisons, instituted a worldwide torture regime, armed their allies for attacks on other Western nations, and threatened still other invasions.

Do you think Americans might be seething with rage about that, wanting to kill as many of the people from that country as possible? Wouldn't it be rather obvious that the more that was done to Americans, the more filled with hatred and a desire for violence they would be? Just consider the rage and fury and burning desire for vengeance that was unleashed by a one-day attack on U.S. soil, eight years ago, by a stateless band of extremists, that killed 3,000 people.

But..."they" hate us because we are free right?

9/11/09 - Remembering our Collective Humanity

I don't really have much to say on this eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. So much has happened since that day, that day when the whole country was glued to their televisions and computers unsure of what to make of the tragic events. When I find myself watching footage from 9/11/01, I am almost overwhelmed in thinking about all of the historical steps that the United States would take beginning on 9/12. Wars, torture, lawsuits, the Patriot Act, wiretaps...connecting how we travelled from then to now is a confusing, frustrating, and often enraging task.

People were very afraid after the attacks and who wouldn't be afraid? Normalcy was abruptly interrupted by the horrific images that the entire world got to see in real time on television. The whole world seemed to be spinning as all kinds of information flowed into our heads and as all of us tried to make sense of every last detail. Some of us turned to our peers to comfort our fears, some of us turned to our families, and some of us turned to the leaders of this country for direction and guidance. Our leaders fed on this fear. Our leaders took this fear, mixed it with rage, and began to march this country into a war that is still going on to this day. All of a sudden we were bombarded with color-coded warning systems, enemies that seemed to take on mythological characteristics, and a version of Patriotism that was more interested in gathering support for "payback" as opposed to discussing a rational way forward.

The next thing you know, we were being led into a war that was based on false claims, our phones were being tapped to "protect us", and our leaders were justifying torturing prisoners and their supposed authority to hold them without charge for an indefinite amount of time. We had spiraled out of control and were a nation that was divided. "With us or against us", black and white, good versus evil. No middle ground and no questioning. Our leaders told us that they knew best and anyone that objected to torture or to launching an unprovoked war were labeled anti-American and accused of living in a "pre-9/11" mentality.

This was quite amazing considering that the real story on 9/11/01 centered around the heroism of the ordinary. In New York City, boundaries that once separated, were broken and stereotypes seemed irrelevant to those who were caught in the chaos of the falling towers in Lower Manhattan. Heroism was not defined in a singular figure that was a Hollywood creation, heroism was defined in the collective. The coworkers who helped others to safety, passersby who lent a helping hand to those fleeing the smoke and debris, and those who ran back into the danger to bring the helpless out. Simply put, we were human that day. Our labels didn't matter, our colors didn't matter, and our beliefs didn't matter...our humanity mattered.

Rebecca Solnit has a good piece posted today at TomDispatch.com on this very point and it is worth your time to read. These moments that allowed for the magnification our collective humanity were the real stories of 9/11 and I think that point needs to be stressed and remembered. This was all but forgotten as this country raced off into the so-called "War on Terror" and began eroding the very characteristics of humanity that were magnified on 9/11.

I will close with a portion of Solnit's piece:

Every city that has had, or will have, a disaster should have such a carnival of remembrance and preparation. For one thing, it commemorates all the ways that San Franciscans were not defeated and are not helpless; for another, it reminds us that, in disaster, we are often at our best, however briefly, that in those hours and days many have their best taste of community, purposefulness, and power. (Reason enough for many of those who are supposed to be in charge to shudder.) For the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleanians were invited to ring bells, lay wreaths, pray, encircle the Superdome, that miserable shelter of last resort for those stranded in the hurricane and flood, and of course listen to music and dance in the streets to second-line parades, but also to keep volunteering and rebuilding. (Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of that disaster is the vast army of citizen-volunteers who came to the city's aid, when the government didn't, and are still doing so.)

New York has its pillars of light and readings of names for the anniversary of 9/11, but it seems to lack any invitation to the citizenry to feel its own power and prepare for the next calamity. For there will be next times for San Francisco, New York, New Orleans, and possibly -- in this era of extreme and turbulent weather, and economic upheaval -- a great many other cities and towns in this country and elsewhere.

That hydrant on a quiet residential corner of San Francisco is about the only monument to the 1906 earthquake and fire. The rebuilt city, the eventual rise of disaster preparedness, the people who go on with their everyday lives -- these are the monument San Francisco needed and every city needs to transcend its calamities. New Yorkers could gather in Union Square and elsewhere to remember what happened, really remember, remember that the heroes weren't necessarily men, or in uniform, but were almost everyone everywhere that day.

They could open their hearts and minds to discuss mourning, joy, death, violence, power, weakness, truth and lies, as they did that week. They could consider what constitutes safety and security, what else this country could be, and what its foreign and energy policies have to do with these things. They could walk the streets together to demonstrate that New York is still a great city, whose people were not frightened into going into hiding or flight from public and urban life. They could more consciously and ceremoniously do what New Yorkers, perhaps best of all Americans, do every day: coexist boldly and openly in a great mixture of colors, nationalities, classes, and opinions, daring to speak to strangers and to live in public.

The dead must be remembered, but the living are the monument, the living who coexist in peace in ordinary times and who save one another in extraordinary times. Civil society triumphed that morning in full glory. Look at it: remember that this is who we were and can be.

This piece is crossposed here.

American Exceptionalism and the Backlash to Obama's Interview with Al Arabiya

When I heard that President Obama gave an interview to Al Arabiya television the other day, I knew that there was going to be some intense backlash. Before long, bloggers and pundits were outraged that Obama was "apologizing" to the Muslim world for the conduct of America during the so-called "War on Terror". Take Ben Shapiro, columnist for Townhall.com and Worldnetdaily.com, whose latest piece is entitled "The Day America Lost the War on Terror".

As one might imagine, Shapiro starts by claiming that America "lost the War on Terror" on the day that Barack Obama was elected President of the United States, November 4, 2008. Shapiro then goes on to use broad, sweeping, and overly dramatic language to make the point that Obama is making America less safe and that Obama's global agenda will end up killing the idea of Ameircan exceptionalism.

Let's start off with Obama's interview to Al Arabiya to which you can find the video here and the transcript here. The clips of the interview that have been circulating and that many have focused on are as follows:

Now, my job is to communicate the fact that the United States has a stake in the well-being of the Muslim world that the language we use has to be a language of respect. I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries...the largest one, Indonesia. And so what I want to communicate is the
fact that in all my travels throughout the Muslim world, what I've come to understand is that regardless of your faith -- and America is a country of Muslims, Jews, Christians, non-believers -- regardless of your faith, people all have certain common hopes and common dreams.

And my job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives. My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy. We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect. But if you look at the track record, as you say, America was not born as a colonial power, and that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there's no reason why we can't restore that. And that I think is going to be an important task.

I think that you're making a very important point. And that is that the language we use matters. And what we need to understand is, is that there are extremist
organizations -- whether Muslim or any other faith in the past -- that will use faith as a justification for violence. We cannot paint with a broad brush a faith as a consequence of the violence that is done in that faith's name.And so you will I think see our administration be very clear indistinguishing between organizations like al Qaeda -- that espouse violence, espouse terror and act on it -- and people who may disagree with my administration and certain actions, or may have a particular viewpoint in terms of how their countries should develop. We can have legitimate disagreements but still be respectful. I cannot respect terrorist organizations that would kill innocent civilians and we will hunt them down. But to the broader Muslim world what we are going to be offering is a hand of friendship.

Obama stresses a few different points in these clips:

- Muslims, Christians, Jews, and people of every faith all share in common hopes and dreams.
- The Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who want to live good lives and leave a better world for the next generation.
- Though we (America) have not been perfect and have made mistakes, we are not the enemy of the Muslim people.
- Obama believes that the relationship between the Muslim world and America can be restored.
- Language matters and we cannot "paint with a broad brush a faith as a consequence of the violence that is done in that faith's name.

If you read some of the postings and writings of those who are critical of Obama's approach in this interview, you would get an entirely different feel of what Obama said. I will focus on some points from Ben Shapiro's most recent piece, but the themes he puts forth are similar in many of the critiques that I have been reading.

The following clips are from Shapiro's piece:

In the interview, he demonstrated with the utmost clarity that his understanding is inversely proportional to his arrogance. He started by humbling America before the world. “(A)ll too often the United States starts by dictating,” Obama said, shame for his country dripping from his lips. “So let’s listen.” There was no call for the Muslim world, which has sponsored genocide after genocide, terrorist group upon terrorist group, to listen.

Obama apologized for President Bush’s “Islamic fascism” terminology, equating
Muslim terrorism with nonexistent terrorism by Jews and Christians...There was
no call for the Muslim world to actively fight terrorism—honesty is not the
Obama administration’s policy.

Most sickeningly, Obama openly jettisoned his constitutional role as the caretaker for America’s national interest. Instead, Obama posed himself as an honest broker between America and the Muslim world...He stated that his job is to speak for the Muslim world, defending them from Americans’ negative perceptions...

Shapiro begins by stating his displeasure with Obama "humbling America before the world" due to Obama's comments that we need to communicate and that we are willing to listen and not just dictate. "With shame for his country dripping from his lips," Shapiro quips and then complains that Obama didn't ask the "Muslim world" to listen. Perhaps Mr. Shapiro does not realize that when two countries engage in diplomacy, both sides get a chance to talk and both sides get a chance to listen. This is also characteristic of how a productive conversation takes place. Just because Obama has pledged to listen to other countries does not automatically mean that he won't also make America's voice heard. In fact, Obama specifically says this later in the interview: "We are going to follow through on many of my commitments to do a more effective job of reaching out, listening, as well as speaking to the Muslim world." (emphasis mine).

Shapiro then goes on to chide Obama for "apologizing" for former President Bush's use of the term Islamic fascism, for "equating Muslim terrorism with nonexistent terrorism by Jews and Christians", and for not being honest because he didn't call for the Muslim world to actively fight terrorism. Firstly, Obama never "apologized" for Bush's use of that term, he only explained why he believes it important not to paint any faith with a broad brush. Secondly, the blind eye that Shapiro turns toward terrorism committed by other religions throughout history is alarming. Thirdly, Obama has continually stated in speeches leading up to the election that one of his goals is to work with other nations, Pakistan included, to develop strategies to combat terrorism and their ability to gain access to weapons and funding. And Obama is the one not being honest?

Above it all, what Shapiro finds most sickening, is that Obama sees it as his job to "speak for the Muslim world, defending them from Americans' negative perceptions", and actually, I also find it troubling. I find it troubling that it is even necessary for the President to have to explain to us that the Muslim world is full of exceptional people, not simply terrorists. I find it troubling that this even needs to be addressed and quite indicative of the discourse of the last eight years, that a population need to be dissuaded from believing that an entire group of people do not all harbor ill will toward Americans.

However this is not why Shapiro is troubled. He is troubled that Obama is a "global imperialist" that seeks to not advance the interests of America but of the world. "Not all Muslims are “extraordinary people'," Shapiro writes, "and the interests of suffering Muslims do not always align with American interests."

What Shapiro views as a "global imperialist" is actually a figure who appears to understand that the decisions the United States makes, have a global impact. It is specifically the viewpoint that is advanced by Shapiro, that of advancing American interests at all costs, that has the result of discounting how the rest of the world is affected by such decisions. It is this viewpoint that supports ridding Iraq of a dictator who is a perceived threat to the United States without taking into account the potential blowback of millions of children growing up in a ravaged country with a hatred of those who destroyed their homeland. It is this mindset that fails to see that what may be in the world's interest, is also in America's interests as well. "Global Interest Imperialism dooms American exceptionalism," Shapiro concludes. Perhaps America's greater exceptionalism will come when we realize that our progress as a country, lies in advancing the human interests of the global community.

Cheney Defends Torture, Claims Country is Guided by "The Hand of Providence"

Last week, a group of conservative journalists sat down with Vice-President Cheney for a two hour discussion on the last eight years in the White House and about his service in various Presidential Administrations. Among these journalists, was Erick Erickson of the website HumanEvents.com and his latest piece discusses some of the topics about which the outgoing Vice President spoke.

Naturally, the so-called "War on Terror" was a topic that came up during this time and Erickson mentions that Cheney feels that the Administration did not get credit for a lot of things that didn't happen; or to translate, Cheney is again making the claim that since the United States has not been attacked since 9/11, it is evidence that the Bush Administration's policies have worked. It is obvious that Cheney feels that torture is among the "policies" that have provided results in keeping America safe because Erickson then quotes Cheney as saying:

We’ve ended up in a situation where critics label everything the administration does as “torture.” “That word,” he sighed, “is used with reckless abandon."

The fact that Cheney is still arguing semantics in regard to using the term "torture" as opposed to the more Orwellian "enhanced interrogation techniques" is more indication that Administration officials feel that these policies were actually beneficial and feel that they did nothing wrong. Regardless of the term used, it is more important is to focus on what has been implemented as acceptable ways of treating detainees, how those policies have broken laws, and how it affects the United States and its ability to keep the country safe in the future.


We know, from the Senate Armed Services Committee report released a few weeks ago, that what Cheney and Bush Administration officials felt would be acceptable, has led to the abuse and deaths of detainees that were in U.S. custody. A report issued last year by Physicians for Human Rights found abuses such as detainees being stabbed in the cheek with a screwdriver and another detainee had injuries consistent with being sodomized. Combine this with the comprehensive records that the ACLU has kept of detainee deaths that are consistent with homicide and one continues to wonder if using the term "torture" really is being used with such "reckless abandon". If this is deemed an appropriate way to treat detainees, the majority of which have never been charged with a crime, then perhaps America needs to step down from pedestal of morality upon which these same leaders claim we are perched.

Erickson's piece continues:

Many of the administration’s opponents have never let go of the belief that terrorists could be prosecuted. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is the best example: the dividing line between the Bush administrations admirers and its most vehement critics falls along not just party lines, but separates those whose views are legalistic and academic and those who view war pragmatically.

What is striking about this statement is not just Erickson's amazement that there are those who "have never let go of the belief that terrorists could be prosecuted" as if prosecuting criminals is some hair-brained idea, but his distinction between those who view the war in legalistic terms versus pragmatic terms. To think that war should be viewed through one lens or another is to fall trap to same black and white mindset that this Administration has grown so fond of during the last eight years. Breaking the law the way this Administration has done and disrespecting the very idea of the law in the name of pragmatism is still breaking the law. Upholding the law is not some ideology with which those who have supposed "pragmatic vision" can simply disagree with.

What drives Cheney and other members of the Bush Administration to believe that they are above the law? Perhaps the answer lies in Cheney's response to a question by conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer during the two-hour long interview. Krauthammer asked Cheney if he felt that the "hand of providence" played a part in American history. Erickson documents:

The Vice President replied that he thought the United States had a very special place and was unique in history. “Clearly genius was involved in establishing the Republic. . . . We’ve either been extraordinarily fortunate from time to time or one can see the hand of providence.”

With the belief that your god is on their side and is guiding the path of the country that they lead, then it becomes easier to justify breaking laws in the name of advancing the cause of a country that has a "special place" and is guided by the "hand of providence". Such a perversion of adherence to the rule of law, justified by a belief in divine guidance is a reinforcement of why there needs to be an independent investigation of crimes committed over the last eight years.

9/11/01: Seven Years Later Where Do We Stand?

As I sat in Memorial Hall this past Monday and listened to Independent Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader address the crowd on various issues, my mind began to wander through all that has happened in this country since September 11, 2001. We often hear that it was the "day that changed everything" and our current leaders often accuse critics of thinking in a "pre-9/11 mindset", but with so much of this rhetoric used in order to achieve political gain we often find ourselves in discussions that are empty of substance. It is simply unproductive and intellectually dishonest to operate under the mindset that a second time-line of historical events began on 9/11/01. While it is certainly true that the events which transpired on that day radically altered the foreign and domestic policy of the United States, these attacks and the subsequent policy decisions implemented by our country's leadership must continue to be understood within the broader context of history and examined with a critical eye.

Immediately following 9/11 the Bush Administration and the leadership in Congress embarked upon a foreign policy that has resulted in an occupation of two countries, a crackdown on civil liberties at home, and the expansion of economic forces into areas of the world that are of strategic importance to so-called "American interests". This expansion of economic forces has led to a rapid increase in the corporate influence over war and occupation. It was first reported in the Los Angeles Times in July, 2007 that the number of private contractors in Iraq exceeded the number of U.S. troops. The private contractors in Iraq do everything from providing oil services to guarding high level diplomats:

The most controversial contractors are those working for private security companies, including Blackwater, Triple Canopy and Erinys. They guard sensitive sites and provide protection to U.S. and Iraqi government officials and businessmen.
Security contractors draw some of the sharpest criticism, much of it from military policy experts who say their jobs should be done by the military. On several occasions, heavily armed private contractors have engaged in firefights when attacked by Iraqi insurgents.
Others worry that the private security contractors lack accountability. Although scores of troops have been prosecuted for serious crimes, only a handful of private security contractors have faced legal charges.

Most importantly, these private contractors who perform functions usually designated to the military, are not beholden to any public interest but to a bottom line. Companies like Blackwater, have already had their contracts renewed in Iraq and are expanding their services domestically (which I will discuss in a moment).
Like the foreign policy decisions implemented since 9/11/01, domestic policy has been passed which has done little for the advancement of Democracy. The PATRIOT ACT was passed a little over a month after the attacks on the World Trade Center and has only aided in the crackdown on civil liberties and dissent within the United States. The most recent example of this was in St. Paul, Minnesota for the Republican National Convention. This Convention saw preemptive police raids on media groups and journalists arrested for doing their job. The city of St. Paul with the help of Federal officials worked to stamp out dissenting voices using police intimidation and force. 8 members of the RNC Welcoming Committee were arrested in one of the preemptive house raids and have been charged with "furthering terrorism" under a Minnesota law that is similar to the PATRIOT Act. This is explained in a recent piece authored by Nat Perry and posted on consortiumnews.com:

The language of the Minnesota law is eerily similar to the original Patriot Act, passed hastily in the aftermath of 9/11. Section 802 of the Patriot Act defines domestic terrorism as "activities that (A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the U.S. or any state; (B) appear to be intended (i) to influence policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (ii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S. ..."
Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Bar Association have long objected to this definition, particularly the provision of (B)(i). The prohibition against seeking to influence government policy by "intimidation" is so vague and so subjective that virtually any act of civil disobedience or confrontational protest could fit under the definition, the critics have said.

In addition to vague legislation which is being used to clamp down and even criminalize dissent, we are now seeing the domestic expansion of private contracting firms. Blackwater is notorious for their actions in Iraq and most notably for their involvement in the Nissour Square Massacre, but a recent article in the Los Angeles Times by reporter Jeremy Scahill makes it clear that private contracting firms see the United States as an open market as well:

Blackwater is also winning at home. The company recently fought back widespread local opposition to its plans for a new warfare training center in San Diego. When residents and local officials tried to block it, Blackwater sued the city. A federal judge, appointed by President Bush's father, ordered San Diego to stand down. Now the company is entrenched, guns a blazin', in San Diego and is well positioned to cash in on the increasingly privatized border-patrol industry.
Blackwater's California expansion is just one of several ventures that reveal how Blackwater is growing. Among the others:
* Prince's private spy agency, Total Intelligence Solutions, is now open for business. Run by three veteran CIA operatives, the company offers "CIA-type services" to governments and Fortune 1000 companies.
* Blackwater was asked by the Pentagon to bid for a share of a whopping $15-billion contract to "fight terrorists with drug-trade ties" in countries such as Colombia, Bolivia, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. Analysts say it could be the company's "biggest job" ever.
* Blackwater is wrapping up work on its own armored vehicle, the Grizzly, as well as its Polar Airship 400, a surveillance blimp Blackwater wants to market for use in monitoring the U.S.-Mexico border.

Given the accountability concerns that were discussed earlier in this piece as well as the overall concerns over a corporation performing these types of services, I decided to ask Independent Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader about this issue during his recent discussion at Memorial Hall. I asked Nader if he would speak to the significance of the growing influence of private contracting firms with tasks that have traditionally been run by the government. Nader stated that this is "another step towards fascism" in today's society. "There should be a group whose purpose it is to put Blackwater out of business," Nader continued, "There have got to be indicators when a society is on their way to fascism...these are the indicators."

So here we are, seven years after the attacks that have led to a war on a feeling, the occupation of countries, the suppression of rights and liberties at home, and the failure to have an honest discourse on exactly what is happening to this country. It should have been an indication to the path we were on when President Bush had to be pushed into even having an investigation into the 9/11 attacks by the family members of those killed. Critical thinking and transparency have been sacrificed in the name of fear and security and those who stand up to defend the Constitution are now labeled as "soft on terror" and caught in the "pre 9/11 mindset". While the attacks on 9/11/01 were a defining moment in the eyes of many Americans we simply can not let ourselves be caught up in the rhetoric that so often surrounds that day. We must view 9/11 in its historical context and examine the events that have happened since that day by utilizing a full historical timeline. Violations of the Constitution should not be acceptable simply because "we were attacked" and detainees shouldn't be tortured because "there are people who want to kill us." The path on which this country finds itself is unacceptable and we must stand up and demand that it change. Let us use this seventh anniversary of these attacks to mourn those who were lost that day, mourn those who have become casualties of imperialist policies since that day, and declare that all of this madness has gone far enough.

This article can also be found at: http://www.cincinnatibeacon.com

The (Great?) FISA Compromise

After much rhetoric from members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, the legislative body is set to pass the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. President Bush and supporters have argued for quite some time that immunity needs to be granted to large telecommunications companies that actively spied on Americans in 2001-2005 without warrants. Shortly after the New York Times initially broke the story, Bush and Administration officials began to publicly push for Congress to grant these companies retroactive immunity so that they could not be sued for spying on Americans without warrants.

Advocates of civil liberties argued that the telecommunications companies should not be granted retroactive immunity for violating the Constitution and other protections granted by civil liberties legislation. President Bush argued that listening to conversations is a valuable tool in the so-called "War on Terror" and that NOT giving these companies immunity would discourage them from turning over records of phone calls in the future which would, in turn, hamper America's ability to protect its citizens.

This FISA Amendments Act of 2008 has been touted in the media as a "compromise" of an earlier Protect America Act. This is viewed as a compromise because immunity is not simply granted for all telecoms, but judges can examine whether or not the telecoms in question deserve immunity from specific lawsuits. Judges will look to see if the telecoms acted within the authorization of the President by providing a written directive which can be written by numerous government officials, stating their actions were legal. If the telecoms can provide this, then the lawsuits can be dismissed. As quoted from this article in The Nation:

"The bill, in short, is worse than granting absolute immunity: it is an effort to suborn the legitimacy of the federal courts by having a judge rubber-stamp the dismissal of cases against the telecoms without looking at the substance of what, in fact, was done. It reduces the separation of powers to a check-the-box exercise."

The bill also allows the government to create new surveillance programs that last a year apiece which focus on people who are "reasonably believed" to be outside the U.S. borders. It also provides that as long as the government doesn't intentionally target someone who is known to be in the United States, they can collect as much data as they would like. The process of data collection is also to be reviewed by judges however as stated in the previously referenced article in The Nation:

"Specifically, the role of judges is limited to ascertaining whether the Attorney General has completed a certification promising that either he has followed the law, or that he will follow the law soon. If the Attorney General cannot meet even this spectacularly low bar, the bill gives the government time to amend and to re-file the certificate."

It seems that we have gone backwards with our collective thought on this matter. Whereas the original FISA bill was enacted after the Watergate scandal in 1978 to protect American's privacy, as a country we now have retroactively given a pass to telecom companies that broke the law and illegally turned over recorded phone calls to our government. This was the type of action that the original law sought to protect us from. Now, upon learning of these actions by the telecom giants, instead of upholding the law, our elected leaders have legislatively gone back in time to pardon these companies in the name of national security. This is further example of the collective shift in thought which has continued to erode our civil liberties and rights in this so-called "Post 9/11 era". The Democratic Party continues to show its cowardice on such issues and continues to show no real alternative to the Republicans on some of the most important issues of our times. In a more drastic move, Barack Obama showed a reversal in language. Last year Obama said that he would support a filibuster of any bill that would give retroactive immunity to telecom companies, but this week he has stated the following:

"Given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as president, I will carefully monitor the program."

Obama now supports the so-called "compromise" and he also uses language similar to the current Administration when describing the telecoms actions as an important and effective intelligence collecting tool.

We certainly deserve better on this issue.

A Sanitized War: Coverage both McDonald's and the Pentagon can Agree on

The lens through which the citizens of the United States view war is often sanitized and "advertiser friendly". In the run-up to the Iraq war, the focus of the media was often aimed at the weaponry that would be used in the war and a fascination with the technological aspects of the United States military. Different types of aircraft were analyzed and their capability for dropping bombs on Iraq were discussed like analysts were discussing a video game. Once the campaign of "Shock and Awe" was underway we saw cameras perched on hotel balconies beaming images of wild explosions back to our living rooms. Spectacular clouds of smoke and fire filled the Iraqi sky as bursts of sporadic anti-aircraft fire swept across our screens. The invasion of Iraq also provided us with a new way to view war, through the eyes of embedded reporters. We were told that this would give us a never before seen, first-hand look at how wars are fought by putting reporters alongside troops on the front lines. This move was pure genius on the part of the Department of Defense because the reporters who were embedded with the U.S. troops developed a militarized type of Stockholm Syndrome. What I mean by this is that the reporters developed a unique bond with the troops who were protecting them and because of this, objective and independent journalism suffered. We began to see the war through the eyes of the invading forces and sanitized war coverage was what we consumed.

The reality of war is not good for advertisers. Picture this: a reporter, on the ground in Fallujah takes his cameraman to the scene of where U.S. forces just clashed with Iraqi resistance fighters. Some civilians were caught in the crossfire and three children, ages ranging between 8 and 14, were gunned down. The reporter is fresh on the scene and instructs his cameraman to show the bodies of the dead children, with pools of blood still fresh on the ground. After this report the network must throw to commercial and then you see an advertisement for McDonald's complete with happy children and families laughing and living in a carefree world of Big Mac's and Happy Meals. This is specifically what advertisers do not want; certainly a war without the casualties is more appealing for the advertisers to sell their products. Not only do advertisers benefit from such sanitized coverage, but the government also benefits from an "advertiser-friendly" war. There is a known realization that people would be horrified if they saw actual images of war: the dead bodies, the maimed civilians, and the voices of the oppressed. This is illustrated by the ban that was placed on the media (by the U.S. government) of photographing the coffins of U.S. service men and women upon their return to the U.S. They want our support for the war, as long as we get to see the war they want us to see.

Who benefits from this type of coverage? Clearly the news networks benefit from such coverage. As illustrated, advertisers will continue to spend money to advertise in programs that are sanitized so as not to conflict with the Utopian worlds that they present to us in each :30 second commercial. The government also benefits from such coverage. Public support for wars can be manipulated much easier if the public sees the war through a lens that does not present a true reality.

Who does not benefit from this type of coverage? First and foremost, all of us do not benefit from this type of coverage. We are not seeing the full picture and we are not getting independent reporting that shows us reality, no matter how ugly. I argue that we need to see these images on our television screens and in our newspapers. We need to see the dead children, the maimed populations, and hear the voices of the oppressed. There are some who may say that they do not want those types of images on their televisions and I say to them, that if that is the case, then maybe we should rethink what we are doing overseas and stand up for ending the torment of the Iraqi population. Public opinion would strongly shift if we started showing the actual images of war on our television screens. We are indeed a compassionate people, we just need to be given the full and accurate picture of what is happening.

Let's give up our fascination with machines that make war on populations and refocus our attention on the real issue surrounding war, the human cost. The human cost of the Iraqi family that has lost a child due to a cluster bomb, the human cost of the American family whose child came back from serving in Iraq and has committed suicide, and the human cost of the population of Fallujah whose children are experiencing birth defects thanks to the white phosphorous that the United States used in their assault on the city. If our country wants our support for war, we must be prepared to see the ugly, gritty, brutal human cost of war.