Maddow: "Let Them Eat Fake"

Rachel Maddow does another bang-up job last week in discussing fake Republican outrage over issues that are not exactly rooted in fact.

From the so-called ACORN pimp scandel, to President Obama's recess appointments, to civilian trials for terrorism suspects, Rachel breaks down why all this supposed outrage is nothing more than an effort to win political points:



This is the exact point that so many were making during the health care debate. We can have an honest debate over what is the best way to reform our health care system, it is just hard when you have tea party members running around claiming that "Grandma is going to die" if reform passes.

When you set up a debate where your "facts" are rooted in everything but facts, it is really going to be hard to have a legitimate discussion on how best to move the country forward. When you have a whole news network that is helping to promote these "facts", it is going to be an even bigger struggle to push back against the misinformation with the truth. After all, it is much more interesting to discuss how a guy walked into an ACORN office while dressed as a pimp rather than how this same individual manipulated video in order to destroy a community organizing organization.

Nothing to see here...move along!

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.

Rudy Giuliani Swings and Misses

Former Mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani went on Fox and CNN this morning to blast President Obama for not saying "Islamic terrorist" in his State of the Union Address and for not addressing the failed Christmas Day bombing. Interesting since Obama did mention the words "terrorist", "terrorism", and "Al Qaeda" as well as specifically mention the Christmas Day bombing.

Giuliani went on to say that Obama not paying more attention to national security is like FDR "not mentioning Nazism and not mentioning the war" during World War Two. Watch:



This isn't the first time Rudy has just made stuff up and something tells me that it won't be the last. The real question is, when will these media outlets start calling Giuliani out over this madness?

Obama Retains Authority to Assassinate U.S. Citizens

From Dana Priest's piece in the Washington Post today (emphasis mine):

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush gave the CIA, and later the military, authority to kill U.S. citizens abroad if strong evidence existed that an American was involved in organizing or carrying out terrorist actions against the United States or U.S. interests, military and intelligence officials said. The evidence has to meet a certain, defined threshold. The person, for instance, has to pose "a continuing and imminent threat to U.S. persons and interests," said one former intelligence official.

The Obama administration has adopted the same stance. If a U.S. citizen joins al-Qaeda, "it doesn't really change anything from the standpoint of whether we can target them," a senior administration official said. "They are then part of the enemy."

Both the CIA and the JSOC maintain lists of individuals, called "High Value Targets" and "High Value Individuals," whom they seek to kill or capture. The JSOC list includes three Americans, including Aulaqi, whose name was added late last year. As of several months ago, the CIA list included three U.S. citizens, and an intelligence official said that Aulaqi's name has now been added.

This quote was toward the end of a larger article that discusses the growing military involvement of the United States in Yemen and is quite alarming.

The article claims that the Obama Administration has adopted the same view as the Bush Administration in their authority to target and kill U.S. citizens that they suspect of being terrorists. No formal charges, no trial, just authority to strike and kill those U.S. Citizens who the Government unilaterally labels as terrorists.

As Priest mentions, there is apparently a short-list with American names on it, that allows for zero evidence to be presented in order to verify the claims of the Government. Similar to why it is troubling to imprison detainees indefinitely without charge, it is just as troubling to learn that the President has determined that he has the authority kill U.S. citizens without any process of proving guilt.

From where does the Presidential authority for this kind of legal discretion derive? All those who had a problem with the Bush Administration for these kinds of abuses of power should have equal qualms with the Obama Administration for continuing these same actions.

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.

Rudy Giuliani: We Had No Domestic Attacks Under Bush

I think that this example could be revisionist history at its worst.

Rudy Giuliani, yes the same Rudy Giuliani who was mayor of New York City on 9/11/01, stated this morning on Good Morning America that: "We had no domestic attacks under Bush; we've had one under Obama."

Watch:



As is pointed out by Rachel Weiner at the Huffington Post, even if Giuliani meant POST 9/11, he still completely "forgot" about the shoe-bomber and the anthrax attacks. Curious considering Giuliani has previously been very quick to bring up the 2001 terrorist attacks in the past:




UPDATE: Giuliani's spokesman claims that Giuliani was “clearly talking post-9/11 with regards to Islamic terrorist attacks on our soil.” So, he left out not only the "post-9/11" part but also the "Islamic" part of his statement? Nice, but still factually wrong as he is still forgetting about the anthrax attacks and the D.C. sniper shootings.

Credit where credit is due however, George Stephanopolous has accepted responsibility for not pushing Giuliani on this claim during the interview.

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.

What's Black and White and More Dangerous to America Than Terrorism?

What fight does GOP House Candidate Allen Quist (MN) view as being bigger than the fight against terrorism?

The fight against radical liberals in Washington of course! Check out the comments at about the 3:10 mark in the video:



and here is the quote:

"It's because I, like you, have seen that our country is being destroyed. I mean, this is -- every generation has had to fight the fight for freedom. This is our fight. And this is our time. This is it. Terrorism, yes -- but that's not the big battle. The big battle is in D.C., with the radicals. They aren't liberals, they're radicals. Obama, Pelosi, Walz -- they're not liberals, they're radicals. They are destroying our country. And people all over are figuring that out."

If fighting so-called liberal "radicals" is a bigger threat than terrorism, then I wonder what the GOP feels should be done to these "radicals". After all, it was just days ago when Retired Air Force General Tom McInerney called for all Muslim males between the ages of 18-28 to be strip-searched at airports:



Isn't it amazing how reactionary some are to a botched terrorist attack?

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Earlier today I posted an exchange between Spencer Ackerman and Pat Buchanan on MSNBC's "Morning Joe". The point that I wanted to make was that after incidents like the failed terrorist bombing of the Northwest flight on Christmas, we often see the reactionaries come out of the woodwork.

Like Buchanan they argue for torture as well as for racial profiling and preemptive military strikes against whichever country the suspect(s) is/are from. It is a disconcerting pattern that always takes us two steps backward in meaningful discussions on how to handle these threats to the country.

One important point that receives little to no discussion within the corporate media is the cause and effect cycle that has been repeated time and time again in these incidents. Glenn Greenwald highlights this point in this post today. Here is an excerpt:

In the wake of the latest failed terrorist attack on Northwest Airlines, one can smell the excitement in the air -- that all-too-familiar, giddy, bipartisan climate that emerges in American media discourse whenever there's a new country we get to learn about so that we can explain why we're morally and strategically justified in bombing it some more. "Yemen" is suddenly on every Serious Person's lips. We spent the last month centrally involved to some secret degree in waging air attacks on that country -- including some that resulted in numerous civilian deaths -- but everyone now knows that this isn't enough and it's time to Get Really Serious and Do More.

For all the endless, exciting talk about the latest Terrorist attack, one issue is, as usual, conspicuously absent: motive. Why would a young Nigerian from a wealthy, well-connected family want to blow himself up on one of our airplanes along with 300 innocent people, and why would Saudi and Yemeni extremists want to enable him to do so?

[...]

Despite that taboo, evidence always ends up emerging on this question. As numerous reports have indicated, the Al Qaeda group in the Arabian Peninsula has said that this attempted attack is in "retaliation" for the multiple, recent missile attacks on Yemen in which numerous innocent Muslim civilians were killed, as well as for the U.S.'s multi-faceted support for the not-exactly-democratic Yemeni government. That is similar to reports that Nidal Hasan was motivated to attack Fort Hood because "he was upset at the killing of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan."

[...]

As always, the most confounding aspect of the reaction to the latest attempted terrorist episode is the professed confusion and self-righteous innocence that is universally expressed. Whether justified or not, we are constantly delivering death to the Muslim world. We do not see it very much, but they certainly do. Again, independent of justification, what do we think is going to happen if we continuously invade, occupy and bomb Muslim countries and arm and enable others to do so? Isn't it obvious that our five-front actions are going to cause at least some Muslims -- subjected to constant images of American troops in their world and dead Muslim civilians at our hands, even if unintended -- to want to return the violence? Just look at the bloodthirsty sentiments unleashed among Americans even from a failed Terrorist attempt. What sentiments do we think we're unleashing from a decade-long (and continuing and increasing) multi-front "war" in the Muslim war?

In a media world full of pundits who immediately label terror suspects as the epitome of evil, a deeper discussion of causation is often missed. This is the same thing that happened after 9/11 and after countless other attempts at acts of terrorism. Isn't it slightly obvious that the bombing and occupation of Muslim countries could spawn the kind of backlash that would motivate someone to retaliate against the country that is doing the bombing? It would be nice to see these points inserted into the mainstream discussions after incidents like these.

Old Debates Resurface in Lieu of Foiled Terror Attack

After the foiled terrorist attack on a Christmas Day inbound flight to Detroit, familiar conversations are popping up on the news networks and on blogs. There are renewed debates on racial profiling and people like Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) have floated the idea of preemptive action against Yemen.

Spencer Ackerman was on MSNBC's Morning Joe this morning debating Pat Buchanan who advanced many of the same arguments that we see made after an incident like this:



Buchanan's calls for torture and for trading judicial procedure for shadowy, behind-the-scenes tactics really seems crazy when you consider events of the last decade. It sure doesn't take long for figures like Buchanan to forget what we have learned when a situation allows for a reactionary response.

A Two-Tiered System of Justice

The blogosphere is all fired up regarding the recent news that Khalid Sheik Mohammed and five others are going to be brought to the United States to stand trial in civilian court. Here is one example from Doug Payton over at Considerettes:

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, is being promoted to, what amounts to, full citizen of the United States of America for purposes of standing trial, in civilian court, for his war crimes. He’ll get all the rights and privileges afforded citizens, and even just residents living under the laws of our land, even though he has never been either of those.

Nazis are rolling over in their graves. No doubt John Kerry, who called the war on terror a "law enforcement" issue is feeling vindicate today.

I suppose this type of reaction from the right is to be expected, even complete with hyperbole about Nazi's!

I first heard of this news on NPR in my car this morning and while my initial inclination was to applaud the Obama Administration for finally bringing charges against these individuals I then heard the other half of the announcement. Namely:

Holder also announced that five other detainees held at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will be sent to military commissions for trial. They were identified as Omar Khadr, Mohammed Kamin, Ibrahim al Qosi, Noor Uthman Muhammed and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.

Al-Nashiri is an accused mastermind of the deadly 2000 bombing of the USS Cole; Khadr is a Canadian charged with the 2002 murder of a U.S. military officer in Afghanistan. Khadr was 15 years old when he was captured in July 2002.

Holder said a venue for the military commissions has not been set.

Sigh. So the American system of justice is good enough for some, but we must resort to the controversial "Military Commissions" for others? That sure sounds like a two-tiered system of justice to me. Despite all the comments I have seen today saying that we should just execute KSM or that he shouldn't be afforded a trial, we should aspire to be a civilized society that has a fair justice system that can be applied to even the "worst of the worst". A fair justice system does not seem to jive with the ability of our leadership to simply pick and choose which accused terrorists get afforded a system of justice like that practiced in our civilian courts and which detainees will have to go through the more controversial Military Tribunal system that has been largely criticized.

The obvious question in this situation (as is all too often the case) is why? Why are some detainees deemed fit to stand trial in the United States under one system of justice while others will be tried under Military Commissions? Glenn Greenwald has some ideas:

So what we have here is not an announcement that all terrorism suspects are entitled to real trials in a real American court. Instead, what we have is a multi-tiered justice system, where only certain individuals are entitled to real trials: namely, those whom the Government is convinced ahead of time it can convict. Others for whom conviction is less certain will be accorded lesser due process: put in military commissions, to which most leading Democrats vehemently objected when created under Bush. Presumably, others still -- those who the Government believes cannot be convicted in either forum, will simply be held indefinitely with no charges, a power the administration recently announced it intends to preserve based on the same theories used by Bush/Cheney to claim that power.

A system of justice which accords you varying levels of due process based on the certainty that you'll get just enough to be convicted isn't a justice system at all. It's a rigged game of show trials.

I think these implications and observations that are made by Greenwald, are being grossly overlooked in the corporate media's discussions on this issue. Most discussions are largely focused on the impact of bringing KSM to the United States for trial and the so-called "security risks" that it could pose. The greater implication that Grennwald outlines, is why these two systems of justice are being written. A very telling portion of Attorney General Eric Holder's statement on this issue was this segment (emphasis mine):

In each case, my decision as to whether to proceed in federal courts or military commissions was based on a protocol that the Departments of Justice and Defense developed and that was announced in July. Because many cases could be prosecuted in either federal courts or military commissions, that protocol sets forth a number of factors – including the nature of the offense, the location in which the offense occurred, the identity of the victims, and the manner in which the case was investigated – that must be considered. In consultation with the Secretary of Defense, I looked at all the relevant factors and made case by case decisions for each detainee.

More Greenwald:

There's supposed to be one justice system for everyone -- not multiple ones from which prosecutors can pick and choose based on assurances of ongoing imprisonment. Highlighting how dangerous this is, the DOJ's investigation of al-Nashiri was originally classified as a standard criminal case, but -- as his counsel pointed out today -- he was assigned to a military commission because there simply isn't sufficient evidence to convict him in a real court.

[...]

And for those of you who favor what Obama did today, I have two questions: (1) are you in favor of allowing serial murderers and child rapists to go free if the evidence against them is "tainted," or should special commissions be created to ensure their conviction, too; and (2) did you defend the Bush administration's use of military commissions on the same grounds that you're defending Obama today?

This system, that of our leadership being able to decide which system of justice each detainee gets, is flawed at best and has the potential to be unjust at worst. These criticisms are why these actions were opposed so strongly when former President Bush implemented these Commissions and why they should be equally opposed as President Obama continues their use.

Rachel Maddow to Liz Cheny: "I Will Not Bite"

Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, and Bill Kristol have launched a new organization called "Keep America Safe" whose mission statement reads in part:

Since 9/11, the United States Government, through our armed forces and our intelligence and law enforcement professionals, has succeeded in preventing any further attacks on the American homeland. This is a major achievement. By turning away from the policies that have kept us safe, by treating terrorism as a law enforcement matter, giving foreign terrorists the same rights as American citizens, launching investigations of CIA agents, cutting defense spending, breaking faith with our allies and attempting to appease our adversaries, the current administration is weakening the nation, and making it more difficult for us to defend our security and our interests.

Keep America Safe believes the United States can only defeat our adversaries and defend our interests from a position of strength. We know that America has, for 233 years, been an unparalleled force for good in the world, that our fighting forces are the best the world has ever known, and that the world is a safer place when America is trusted by our allies and feared and respected by our enemies. Keep America Safe will make the case for an unapologetic approach to fighting terrorism around the world, for victory in the wars this country fights, for democracy and human rights, and for a strong American military that is needed in the dangerous world in which we live.

They have also launched a new web ad:



Cheney's group is obviously targeting MSNBC in this ad though it is unclear whether the "they" that are referring to in the ad is MSNBC specifically or anyone who opposes the agenda of this conservative group. Regardless, Rachel Maddow responded last night on her show:



Considering that Rachel Maddow has invited many guests on her show to debate substantive issues in a respectful manner, it is going to be interesting to see if Cheney decides to take up Maddow's offer. I know one thing, if this does happen, it will be must see TV and I would like to see Maddow's full hour show devoted to this discussion.

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.

John Yoo Defends His Position on Warrantless Wiretaps

Former Justice Department Official and infamous author of the "torture memos", John Yoo, has written an editorial in today's Wall Street Journal in defense of his endorsement of warrantless wiretaps.

Yoo's piece defiantly speaks out against critics (including the Inspector General's report) who fault Yoo for providing legal advice that was not in good faith and worked to achieve the political goals of the Bush Administration.

Yoo sights the attacks of 9/11 as the catalyst for the warrantless wiretapping program and justifies it on the grounds of the need to protect America from another attack:

Suppose an al Qaeda cell in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles was planning a second attack using small arms, conventional explosives or even biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. Our intelligence and law enforcement agencies faced a near impossible task locating them. Now suppose the National Security Agency (NSA), which collects signals intelligence, threw up a virtual net to intercept all electronic communications leaving and entering Osama bin Laden's Afghanistan headquarters. What better way of detecting follow-up attacks? And what president -- of either political party -- wouldn't immediately order the NSA to start, so as to find and stop the attackers?

Similar to the justification for the torture of detainees in U.S. custody, Yoo sights the supposed unprecedented timeframe immediately following 9/11 and the need to adopt means that were unconventional (or in Yoo's eyes, very conventional) due to this "new" and threatening enemy. Yoo continues:

It is absurd to think that a law like FISA should restrict live military operations against potential attacks on the United States. Congress enacted FISA during the waning days of the Cold War. As the 9/11 Commission found, FISA's wall between domestic law enforcement and foreign intelligence proved dysfunctional and contributed to our government's failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks.

[...]

In FISA, President Bush and his advisers faced an obsolete law not written with live war with an international terrorist organization in mind. It was to meet such emergency circumstances that the Founders designed the presidency. As John Locke first observed, foreign threats "are much less capable to be directed by antecedent, standing, positive laws." Legislatures are too slow and their members too numerous to respond effectively to unforeseen situations. Only the executive can act to protect the "security and interest of the public."

Here we have the crux of Yoo's defense. He claims that the FISA law was not created during wartime and was an obsolete law that was not up-to-date for the threats that we are currently facing in the so-called "War on Terror". He also claims that the process of changing the law is too slow, so it makes sense that the executive branch is the only branch that can make these decisions to "protect the 'security and interest of the public.'"

To address the claim that FISA is in fact an "obsolete law" that was "not written with live emergency circumstances" in mind, I find it helpful to review an analysis from May 21, 2007 written by Glenn Greenwald. Greenwald has written extensively on the issue of warrantless wiretapping over the last few years and in this entry he addressed the claims made by Mike McConnell in an op-ed that the FISA bill was, in fact, obsolete.

From that entry:

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration demanded a whole slew of changes to FISA which expanded the President's eavesdropping powers and which the administration claimed were necessary in order to bring FISA into the 21st Century by allowing surveillance of modern communication methods. Congress, needless to say, complied in full, and in October of 2001 -- contrary to McConnell's misleading Op-Ed -- it enacted, and the President signed, sweeping "modernizing" changes to FISA.

and what did President Bush say at the signing ceremony in October, 2001?:

The changes, effective today, will help counter a threat like no other our Nation has ever faced. . . .

We're dealing with terrorists who operate by highly sophisticated methods and technologies, some of which were not even available when our existing laws were written. The bill before me takes account of the new realities and dangers posed by modern terrorists. It will help law enforcement to identify, to dismantle, to disrupt, and to punish terrorists before they strike. . . .

Surveillance of communications is another essential tool to pursue and stop terrorists. The existing law was written in the era of rotary telephones. This new law I sign today will allow surveillance of all communications used by terrorists, including e-mails, the Internet, and cell phones. As of today, we'll be able to better meet the technological challenges posed by this proliferation of communications technology. . .

Yoo's claim, that the FISA legislation was "obsolete" and not "written with an international terrorist organization in mind", is simply not accurate. As shown above, the FISA legislation was amended shortly after 9/11 in order to give President Bush the tools to (in Bush's words) "meet the technological challenges posed by this proliferation of communications technology". Yoo is simply advancing the false claim that the FISA legislation had not been amended since 1978.

Also important to point out is that Congress explicitly proposed amendments to the FISA legislation in order to expand its scope and make in easier for warrants to be obtained, in 2002. The Bush Administration rejected them. Greenwald again:

...it is also critical to recall that the administration had multiple opportunities since those post-9/11 changes to expand the scope of FISA, and it was the administration which refused those changes on the ground that they were unnecessary. In 2002, multiple Senators sought to make it easier to obtain FISA warrants, and the Bush administration opposed those changes, insisting that it already had sufficient eavesdropping powers. And all throughout last year, Senators such as Diane Feinstein and Arlen Specter proposed endless FISA amendments to expand the scope of government eavesdropping (in response to claims that FISA was too narrow), and the Bush administration was completely uninterested in all of them.

It is clear that the Administration was not simply trying to protect the public from these "new" and never before seen threats, but their goal was to expand executive power and authority no matter what the law stated. Not only were they undertaking these actions, but they were doing it in secret and lying about it. To take one example, in April, 2004 Bush stated:

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so. It’s important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

The above can be interpreted in no other way, except that it is a lie.

In his piece, Yoo goes on to cite FDR eavesdropping on domestic and foreign communications (before Pearl Harbor and with a lack of Congressional authority) to justify the actions of President Bush. Interesting how Yoo does not address that the FISA legislation was passed over thirty years after this took place and was passed in order to protect people from being spied upon without just cause. Yoo's underlying point in citing the FDR example, as well as other examples that he references, is to make the point that during wartime the Presidential responsibility to protect the population Constitutionally supersedes all else. In his concluding paragraph Yoo states:

Our Constitution created a presidency whose function is to protect the nation from attack. Gathering intelligence -- including intercepting enemy communications -- has long been a key aspect of war. Our military and intelligence agencies cannot attack or defend the nation unless they know where to aim. As we confront terrorists who remain intent on attacking the U.S., using weapons we cannot anticipate, we should be skeptical of those who insist that we radically change the way this country has always made war.

Yoo's argument essentially boils down to that during wartime, Presidential authority is supreme and the decisions that the President makes to protect the population, are protected even if his actions would break the law during times of peace...after all, FDR did it. Yoo's response does not clear things up or provide any kind of more rational explanation on this issue. Yoo's continued defense of unchecked executive power (especially during wartime) only continues to enforce the criticisms that he gave opinions to meet political goals and that relied on a warped sense of the law. I will be interested to see how his Wall Street Journal piece is perceived around the media and blogosphere.



This piece is crossposted here.

Panetta's Reaction to Finding Out About Cheney's Secret Program

Rachel Maddow had a good point last night regarding the revelation that former Vice President Dick Cheney apparently ordered that his "secret assassination program" be kept from Congress.

If this was a program that was designed to secretly use the CIA to go around the world in an attempt to target, capture, or kill terrorists - then explains the reaction of CIA Director Leon Panetta? After all, the United States has a long history of targeting "terrorists" around the world with the goal of "capturing" or "killing" them, so it seems a little odd that Panetta acted the way that he did once he found out about this program. Panetta ordered that the program be stopped on the very day that he found out about it and he also went to Congress to disclose that this program had been hidden from them. Something tells me that we haven't learned all that there is to know about the nature of Cheney's secret program. Rachel Maddow explains:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

TIME magazine floats another possible idea:

CIA officials tell TIME there's another, somewhat less dramatic, possibility: a plan to conduct domestic surveillance. Spying on Americans is outside the CIA's purview and would be highly controversial — good enough reason for Cheney to want it kept under wraps.

but then the article quotes officials who claim that Panetta wasn't informed because the program wasn't "operational" and so it was "no big deal". If this program was "no big deal" and was a program designed to do what is essentially done every day in the so-called "War on Terror", then it makes no sense that Panetta would have such a severe reaction when finding out about this program. More details are almost certainly yet to be revealed.

Cheney's Secret Assassination Program

A lot has been revealed recently about, what appears to be, a secret assassination program that was headed by former Vice President Cheney. Last week, details began to quickly emerge about this program and that Cheney allegedly ordered that it be hidden from members of Congress. Rachel Maddow gives a good summary of how events have unfolded:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

So it looks like Dick Cheney was running a secret assassination ring. This sounds oddly familiar, almost like someone said something about this earlier this year:

At a “Great Conversations” event (MP3) at the University of Minnesota last night, legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh may have made a little more news than he intended by talking about new alleged instances of domestic spying by the CIA, and about an ongoing covert military operation that he called an “executive assassination ring.”

[...]

At the end of one answer by Hersh about how these things tend to happen, Jacobs asked: “And do they continue to happen to this day?”

Replied Hersh:

“Yuh. After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet. That does happen.

"Right now, today, there was a story in the New York Times that if you read it carefully mentioned something known as the Joint Special Operations Command -- JSOC it’s called. It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They did not report to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or to Mr. [Robert] Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to him. ...

"Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on. Just today in the Times there was a story that its leaders, a three star admiral named [William H.] McRaven, ordered a stop to it because there were so many collateral deaths.

"Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us.

"It’s complicated because the guys doing it are not murderers, and yet they are committing what we would normally call murder. It’s a very complicated issue. Because they are young men that went into the Special Forces. The Delta Forces you’ve heard about. Navy Seal teams. Highly specialized.

"In many cases, they were the best and the brightest. Really, no exaggerations. Really fine guys that went in to do the kind of necessary jobs that they think you need to do to protect America. And then they find themselves torturing people.

"I’ve had people say to me -- five years ago, I had one say: ‘What do you call it when you interrogate somebody and you leave them bleeding and they don’t get any medical committee and two days later he dies. Is that murder? What happens if I get before a committee?’

"But they’re not gonna get before a committee.”

For one, it looks like Seymour Hersh has been proven correct. As we continue to hear stories of wiretapping, torture, and assassination squads one must ask what it is going to take to launch some kind of investigation into criminal activity on at least one of these topics.

Obama Administration Continues to Argue for Preventive Detention to Guard Against Future Crimes

From today's Wall Street Journal (emphasis mine):

The Obama administration said Tuesday it could continue to imprison non-U.S. citizens indefinitely even if they have been acquitted of terrorism charges by a U.S. military commission.

Jeh Johnson, the Defense Department's chief lawyer, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that releasing a detainee who has been tried and found not guilty was a policy decision that officials would make based on their estimate of whether the prisoner posed a future threat.

Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration argues that the legal basis for indefinite detention of aliens it considers dangerous is separate from war-crimes prosecutions. Officials say that the laws of war allow indefinite detention to prevent aliens from committing warlike acts in future, while prosecution by military commission aims to punish them for war crimes committed in the past.

This news is obviously disappointing and works to undercut the Obama Administration's continued statements promoting their adherence to the rule of law. Let's set aside, for a moment, the point that the Military Commissions system is flawed and pretend that it was a model process for bringing detainees to trial. What the Obama Administration is arguing is that even if detainees are acquitted by a Military Commission, they could still be legally detained until it can be determined that said detainee would not pose a danger to the United States. Why do they feel that this is an acceptable policy - because Military Commissions are only set up to punish people for "war crimes committed in the past" and therefore cannot determine who would commit war crimes in the future.

According to this rationale, it would make sense for the Obama Administration to set up an additional Commission whose job it would be to put detainees on trial in order to examine if they should be convicted on "evidence" that they would commit future crimes. This Orwellian argument certainly ranks up there with some of most disturbing arguments put forth by the Bush Administration over the last eight years.

Continuing on in the WSJ article:

Mr. Johnson said such prisoners held without trial would receive "some form of periodic review" that could lead to their release.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a leading Republican on detainee policy, approved. "Some of them will be able to get out of jail because they've rehabilitated themselves and some of them may in fact die in jail," Mr. Graham said. But "I don't want to put people in a dark hole forever" simply "because somebody like Dick Cheney, or you fill in the blank with a politician, said so."

I am glad that Graham approves of vague promises of "some form of periodic review" that may or may not lead to the release of those held without charge. What kind of laws and system of justice is the Obama Administration championing with their vague terminology and in endorsing a detention system that would make the previous administration proud? As Rep. Jerold Nadler (D-NY) said in that same WSJ article:

"What bothers me is that they seem to be saying, 'Some people we have good enough evidence against, so we'll give them a fair trial. Some people the evidence is not so good, so we'll give them a less fair trial. We'll give them just enough due process to ensure a conviction because we know they're guilty. That's not a fair trial, that's a show trial,"

Also interjected into this discussion is the issue of admitting "evidence" that was obtained using coercive techniques. The reliability of this evidence is at the center of the debate surrounding the issue of Military Commissions since statements obtained under coercion are currently admissible. It appears to be the thought of the Obama Administration that if they determine that so-called "evidence" obtained using coercive methods are not reliable and should not be admissible, then a number of convictions would be overturned due to their reliance on unreliable evidence. If these convictions are overturned, then it can be said that these individuals would continue to be detained if the Obama Administration is successful in arguing that they can continue to legally detain prisoners based on the threat of so-called "future crimes". The cancerous effects of torture continue to be felt.

About a month and a half ago, I posted a clip from the Rachel Maddow Show in which she discussed the speech during which President Obama first floated the idea of detaining people for so-called "future crimes". I am posting it again below because I feel that it continues to be relevant to this discussion.




This article is crossposted here.

NPR Ombudsman Continues to Defend NPR's Policy of not Using the Word "Torture"

I have been keeping an eye on an interesting back and forth that has been going on over the last week between the Ombudsman for National Public Radio, Alicia Shepard and journalist Glenn Greenwald.

Shepard has been receiving emails from listeners of NPR about their policy of not using the word "torture" in describing waterboarding and other techniques that were used during the interrogation of detainees in U.S. custody. (Instead, NPR opts to use the terms "harsh interrogation tactics" and "enhanced interrogation techniques".)

In response to these letters from viewers, Shepard wrote a piece in order to address these concerns. From her article:

How should NPR describe the tactics used to coerce information out of terrorism suspects?

Ted Koppel, the former ABC Nightline host and commentator on Talk of the Nation, said in May that the U.S. should "define it [torture] as being any technique or practice which, when applied to an American prisoner in some other country or captured by some other entity, that we would object to. If we object to it being done to an American, then I think it's thttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=114432749054567487orture."

That seems clear enough, but the problem is that the word torture is loaded with political and social implications for several reasons, including the fact that torture is illegal under U.S. law and international treaties the United States has signed.

Both Presidents Bush and Obama have insisted that the United States does not use torture. Officials during the Bush administration acknowledged the use of what they called "enhanced interrogation techniques."

Also, not all interrogation could be classified as torture. Sleep deprivation, nudity and facial slaps are different from, say, pouring water on a cloth over someone's face for 20 to 40 seconds to create the sensation of drowning -- a practice known as waterboarding.

[...]

It's a no-win case for journalists. If journalists use the words "harsh interrogation techniques," they can be seen as siding with the White House and the language that some U.S. officials, particularly in the Bush administration, prefer. If journalists use the word "torture," then they can be accused of siding with those who are particularly and visibly still angry at the previous administration.

There has been no clear consensus on what constitutes torture, noted Brian Duffy, NPR's former managing editor in late April.

[...]

To me, it makes more sense to describe the techniques and skip the characterization. For example, reporters could say that the U.S. military poured water down a detainee's mouth and nostrils for 40 seconds. Or they could detail such self-explanatory techniques as forcing detainees into cramped confines crawling with insects, or forced to stand for hours along side a wall.

A basic rule of vivid writing is: "Show, Don't Tell." An excellent example of using facts rather than coded language was a 2005 piece by former NPR reporter John McChesney. It gave meticulous details of tactics used against an Iraqi detainee at Abu Graib who later died.

Glenn Greenwald, who has written extensively about the issue of torture and the media coverage that surrounds the debate, responded to Shepard's piece with an entry of his own. Greenwald writes:

She describes Koppel’s standard as "clear enough" -- and it is. So why doesn’t NPR use that standard? Because -- she argues -- "the word torture is loaded with political and social implications for several reasons, including the fact that torture is illegal under U.S. law and international treaties the United States has signed."

So what? How does the fact that torture is illegal mean that NPR shouldn’t describe as "torture" tactics which -- when used against Americans -- the U.S. government has long condemned as "torture"? Her objection to Koppel’s very sensible standard is a total non-sequitur. How does the criminality of torture serve as an argument against what Koppel advocated? It doesn't. She’s just in defend-NPR-at-any-cost mode and wants to justify its refusal to use the word "torture," and Koppel’s standard would compel the opposite conclusion, because so many of the tactics that were authorized by Bush were ones the U.S. -- and the rest of the civilized world -- have always called "torture."

[...]

The U.S. has prosecuted those acts as torture in the past. Multiple media outlets and even the U.S. Government have routinely described those acts as “torture” when used against Americans, rather than by Americans. The tactics are ones we copied from manuals designed to inure our own troops to the torture techniques used by some of the world’s worst tyrants. They resulted in numerous deaths. Until the Bush administration decided to call it something other than "torture" so that they could do it, nobody had any questions about whether this was "torture."

If there are tactics about which there is a reasonable dispute, then those need not be called torture by NPR. But many of the tactics that were authorized are "torture" in every sense of the word.

[...]

Here’s the nub of the matter – the crux of journalistic decay in America. Who cares if NPR is "seen" as siding with the White House or its critics? How it is perceived -- and who it angers -- should have nothing to do with how it reports. Its reporting should be guided by the truth, by verifiable facts, and by the objective meaning of words [notably, NPR's excuse -- "the Right will get angry at us if we call it 'torture'" -- is identical to The Washington Post's excuse for why they stopped calling Dan Froomkin a reporter (it angers the Right); it's amazing how much The Liberal Media makes editorial decisions based on a desire to please the Right].

Also, note that Shepard explicitly admits that, with its language choice, NPR has opted to be "seen siding with the White House and the language that some U.S. officials, particularly in the Bush administration, prefer." That, too, is an odd choice for a supposedly Liberal Media outlet. And note her snide and revealing assumption -- conventional wisdom among the establishment media -- that the only people who want these tactics to be called "torture" are those "who are particularly and visibly still angry at the previous administration" (or, as David Ignatius put it, "liberal score-settlers").

Greenwald then extended an interview request to Shepard so that the two could discuss the issue on Salon Radio. Shepard declined the request saying that she didn't want to get into a "shouting match". Instead, Shepard has gone on a couple of NPR shows to discuss and defend her article. Here is an audio clip of her on "On The Media" offering some of the same justification:



In response Greenwald wrote another piece highlighting the fact that Shepard had declined the interview request, pointing out that none of his interviews could be categorized as a "shouting match", and further criticizing her position. That entry resulted in this wacky email exchange between NPR's Senior Manager of Media Relations, Anna Christopher, and Glenn:

E-mail from Anna Christopher to GG:

Glenn,

I just saw your most recent column, criticizing Lisa [sic] Shepard for declining your interview request. Could you please give me a call when you have a chance?

If you or your interns want to make a request to interview NPR staff, that goes through me. I would have been able to tell your intern – who so tenaciously pursued her last week – that Lisa was on vacation and unreachable until Thursday. She didn’t ignore your request. And the last time I checked, requests are just that – requests. Not demands. Able to be accepted or declined.

Thank you,

Anna

Anna Christopher | Senior Manager, Media Relations

* * * * *

Reply from GG to Anna Christopher:



Anna - You apparently didn't read the column very carefully. We were told by someone from NPR -- Anna Tauzin -- that Alicia Shepard was [out of the office] last week and would therefore respond to the interview request by Monday. That's exactly what I wrote today. Tauzin did authorize us to say: "We were told by NPR that the Ombudsman is out of the office this week and her office will get back to us by Monday with a response." That's exactly what I wrote.

I didn't say she ignored my request, so why would you deny that she did? In fact, I said the opposite: that she responded to the request by refusing to be interviewed.

If there are internal NPR structures about who has what responsibilities, that's up to NPR to make clear. Tauzin never once said it was you who had to be contacted for the interview request. She was more than willing to convey the request to Shepard, and the Salon intern then spoke with Shepard herself yesterday.

I didn't suggest that Shepard broke the law by refusing to be interviewed by me -- only that people like her who opine pedantically on controversial matters have an ethical obligation to engage critics of their views.

If you'd still like to talk, let me know and I'll give you a call -

Glenn Greenwald

* * * * *

No further reply received from NPR.

In listening to Shepard's responses and her other appearance on NPR's "Talk of the Nation" yesterday, she continues to assert that this is a political debate and that NPR should not be taking sides in this debate by labeling tactics such as waterboarding, as torture. This is an important point in her defense and in journalism today as a whole. Shepard appears to view objectivity as presenting both sides of a debate and letting the viewers/listeners decide for themselves what is true. This should not be the role of journalists whose job it is to collect facts on a story and then present these facts regardless of who it offends or how they will be "perceived" by one side of the debate.

Objectivity is not saying "while one side of the debate claims that 2 plus 2 equals four, others are arguing that 2 plus 2 actually equals five." The role of journalism is to assert that it is an undeniable fact that 2 plus 2 equals four and that the people who disputing this fact have no basis for doing so. In this example above, if one presents both "sides" of this story, it gives equal validation to both arguments regardless of the indisputable fact that 2 plus 2 really does equal four. There can be no debate over this so why should it be the role of a journalist to pretend like there is one?

Similarly, just because the Bush Administration claims that waterboarding, a tactic which they approved and used on detainees, does not constitute torture does not automatically make it so. I am glad that Greenwald pointed out an exchange that happened on the Daily Show back in 2004 which illustrates this quite well:

Stewart: Here's what puzzles me most, Rob. John Kerry's record in Vietnam is pretty much right there in the official records of the U.S. military, and hasn't been disputed for 35 years.
Corddry: That's right, Jon, and that's certainly the spin you'll be hearing coming from the Kerry campaign over the next few days.
Stewart: That's not a spin thing, that's a fact. That's established.
Corddry: Exactly, Jon, and that established, incontrovertible fact is one side of the story.
Stewart: But isn't that the end of the story? I mean, you've seen the records, haven't you? What's your opinion?
Corddry: I'm sorry, "my opinion"? I don't have opinions. I'm a reporter, Jon, and my job is to spend half the time repeating what one side says, and half the time repeating the other. Little thing called "objectivity"—might want to look it up some day.
Stewart: Doesn't objectivity mean objectively weighing the evidence, and calling out what's credible and what isn't?
Corddry: Whoa-ho! Sounds like someone wants the media to act as a filter! Listen, buddy: Not my job to stand between the people talking to me and the people listening to me.

Without objective analysis of facts and evidence by journalists, they merely become stenographers who repeat what they hear no matter the validity of the claims. Under this policy, all one side would need to do would be to lie, assert the lies as fact, and get them out into the media to make their claims look like they have credibility. As Judith Miller knows all too well, this is probably not the best strategy.

Alicia Shepard's defense of the official NPR policy is a prime example of what is wrong with the so-called "mainstream media" in today's country and it shows just have far journalistic integrity has slipped over the years. In the "Talk of the Nation" segment she specifically states that in the discussion surrounding torture the Bush Administration does "have a different side. Whether it is to dupe people or not, again, the role of a journalist is to put that information out there..." So according to Shepard, even if government officials are lying or trying to "dupe" people, it is the "role of journalists" to put that false message out to the public without any investigation into the validity of the claims so the public can draw their own conclusions.

If anyone is still wondering how the media could have provided us with coverage that helped lead us into the Iraq War, this is a prime exhibit of the mindset that allows for the media to uncritically report facetious claims.

Fanning the Flames

Below is Glenn Beck's rambling response to the Holocaust Museum shooting and it includes:

- a warning that there will be more of this type of behavior
- a warning that Jews and conservatives will be the likely scapegoats of this violence.
- a defense that he doesn't stir the pot of hysteria, but merely points it out. (See the gas can skit in my previous post as well as my post on his 9/12 Project.)

and a host of other ramblings including items about Iran's nuclear program:




Michael Rowe has a recent piece that discusses this topic:

This week, nearly two years later, James von Brunn, driven by his own twisted version of Coulter's publicly-proclaimed perspectives regarding the "imperfection" of Jews, entered the Holocaust Museum in Washington and put them into action, with tragic and deadly consequences.

Much the same thing happened on May 31st when Scott Roeder entered the Reformation Lutheran Church during Sunday services and slaughtered abortion provider provider Dr. George Tiller. Media analysts continue to explore a possible continuum between Tiller's murder and FOX host Bill O'Reilly's well-documented on-air tirades against the doctor, whom he repeatedly called "Tiller the Baby Killer." O'Reilly broadcast his vendetta to millions and millions of FOX viewers already infected with evangelical superstitions and a horror of science, especially science as it applies to a woman's right to choose.

If O'Reilly had been a serious journalist or broadcaster instead of a sclerotic, chronically-aggravated right-wing rage pimp, he might have had the professional self-awareness or ethical sense to realize that he was putting George Tiller's life in danger over the more than 28 broadcasts in which he used Tiller's name. But O'Reilly, like, for Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, and indeed Coulter herself (to name only the gratin of that particular food chain) is neither of those things.

[...]

When challenged on the inherently destructive nature of their enterprise, they invariably claim that their First Amendment right to free speech is being abrogated. Or, like Ann Coulter defensively does in those instances, they cite their place on the New York Times bestseller list. Or the ratings. In other words, since people buy it, watch it, or listen to it in huge numbers, it must have merit, and it must be right.

[...]

There was a time when decency, even honor, was an essential part of the American dialogue in its most ideal form, and part of its very identity. There was a time when our culture would have recoiled in horror at the vituperation flowing unchecked from radios, televisions, and the Internet, instead of applauding it as "common sense," "free speech," or "mavericky," or "a spin-free zone."

There was a time when intellectual honesty was not considered unpatriotic; when compassion for, and understanding of, your fellow man was a sign of strength, not weakness. There was a time when the phrase Have you no shame? meant something, and the First Amendment was not used as toilet paper to wipe up the excremental verbal degradation of vulnerable segments of the American population. A time when it was expected that citizens would understand the difference between free speech and irresponsible speech.

and in an interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, senior Political Analyst Chip Bartlet weighs in:

Well, it’s very clear that the kind of agitating rhetoric that’s used by certain leaders in the pro-life movement—the anti-abortion movement, more accurately called—sets up a dynamic in which some people are more likely to act out in violence.

But this goes all the way up to a whole range of right-wing demagogues, on not just issues involving women, but racism and homophobia. And let’s name names: Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs. These are people who are creating an environment of violence against targets that are scapegoats. And these are demagogues who may have a First Amendment right to say these things, but we have an absolute obligation as citizens in a civilized society to call them for what they are, that they’re demagogues, they’re hate-mongers, and they are setting up a situation in which some people will choose violence as the only alternative to achieve their political goals.

White Supremacist Opens Fire at Holocaust Museum in Washington

There are reports streaming in to all the news outlets stating that James W. von Brunn, an 89 year-old white supremacist, walked into Washington's Holocaust Museum and opened fire injuring two. From the Times article I linked to above:

Von Brunn, who claims on his own website to have been a decorated PT-boat captain and lieutenant in the US Navy during World War II, has written a book entitled ‘Kill the Best Gentiles!” According to its preface, its purpose it “to present WHITE YOUTH” with factual information to explain that an “age old CONSPIRACY does exist to destroy Western Civilisation.”

Von Brunn also has a Wikipedia user profile in which he champions the virtues of Western culture and the practice of eugenics. In another article he claims that Holocaust history is destroying Western civilization.

[...]

In 1981, von Brunn entered the Federal Reserve in Washington with a shotgun to make a citizens arrest, he later said, to protest about high interest rates. He was sentenced to 11 years in jail.

On his website, he claims he was convicted by a “Negro jury, Jew /Negro attorneys, and sentenced to prison for eleven years by a Jew judge. A Jew/Negro/White Court of Appeals denied his appeal.”

While details are still emerging my thoughts once again are turned toward the Department of Homeland Security report that was released a few months ago and outlined the possibility of a rise in right-wing extremist violence. Again, not that all conservatives or people who hold right-wing viewpoints are extremists who want to commit violent acts, but with the election of President Obama we have seen rhetoric that began during the campaign escalate into a very angry opposition. An opposition that is angered by policies and fueled by rhetoric that we must stop Obama at all costs in order to save our Democracy from Fascism.

On a somewhat related note, I was recently criticized in the comments section of a recent post for writing, "to an almost obsessive degree", on an instance of right-wing terrorism (the death of Dr. Tiller) while ignoring "a left-wing political murder". This "left-wing political murder" that this poster referred to was this incident:

Muslim convert charged with fatally shooting an American soldier at a military recruiting center said Tuesday that he doesn't consider the killing a murder because U.S. military action in the Middle East made the killing justified.

"I do feel I'm not guilty," Abdulhakim Muhammad told The Associated Press in a collect call from the Pulaski County jail. "I don't think it was murder, because murder is when a person kills another person without justified reason."

Obviously my lack of posting on that story does not mean that don't find that shooting any less disturbing, it is very disturbing and should also be labeled as domestic terrorism. What I don't accept is the broad labeling of this as a "left-wing" incident. Are there members on the fringe of the left that demonize military recruiters? Yes. Is there a left-wing movement that advocated violence on military recruiters that Muhammad was a part of? No. In fact, much of what we know in this story paints Muhammad as an American who was converted to radical Islam while he spent time in a prison in Yemen. Scott Roeder, however, has a much different background that includes participation with radical right-wing anti-abortion groups and various offenses for damaging abortion clinics.

There are also two other differences. There is no one that I am aware of on the left, who is attempting to justify the murder of the military recruiters. No one is saying that justice was served or that people were saved because of this shooting. Secondly, there was not a presence of cable television hosts who continually targeted these military recruiters as "killers" or suggesting that they ran a "death mill". There was no talk of "stopping" these recruiters and mentioning that anyone who didn't stop them would have blood on their hands.

While both of these scenarios are domestic terrorism, there are notable differences that complicate these scenarios more than putting them in neat little boxes of "right-wing terrorism" and "left-wing terrorism".