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Consider:

"It is better to be drunk with loss and to beat the ground, than to let the deeper things gradually escape."

- I. Compton-Burnett, letter to Francis King (1969)

"Cynical realism – it is the intelligent man’s best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation."

- Aldous Huxley, "Time Must Have a Stop"







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Wednesday, 9 June 2004

Topic: Corrections Noted

Brain Damage - Actual and Metaphoric

Just some things you might have missed...

From the Associated Press, Wednesday, June 09, 2004 -
Army Now Says G.I. Was Beaten in Role
LOUISVILLE, Ky., June 8 -- Reversing itself, the Army said Tuesday that a G.I. was discharged partly because of a head injury he suffered while posing as an uncooperative detainee during a training exercise at Guant?namo Bay, Cuba.

The Army had previously said Specialist Sean Baker's medical discharge in April was unrelated to the injury he received last year at the detention center, where the United States holds suspected terrorists.

Mr. Baker, 37, a former member of the 438th Military Police Company, said he played the role of an uncooperative prisoner and was beaten so badly by four American soldiers that he suffered a traumatic brain injury and seizures. He said the soldiers only stopped beating him when they realized he might be American.

Bruce Simpson, Mr. Baker's lawyer, said his client is considering a lawsuit.
Curious.

Last Saturday Nicholas Kristof had this to say in the New York Times -
... a military investigation concluded that there had been no misconduct involved in Mr. Baker's injury. Hmm. The military also says it can't find a videotape that is believed to have been made of the incident.

Most appalling, when Mr. Baker told his story to a Kentucky reporter, the military lied in a disgraceful effort to undermine his credibility. Maj. Laurie Arellano, a spokeswoman for the Southern Command, questioned the extent of Mr. Baker's injuries and told reporters that his medical discharge was unrelated to the injuries he had suffered in the training drill.

In fact, however, the Physical Evaluation Board of the Army stated in a document dated Sept. 29, 2003: "The TBI [traumatic brain injury] was due to soldier playing role of detainee who was non-cooperative and was being extracted from detention cell in Guant?namo Bay, Cuba, during a training exercise."

Major Arellano acknowledges that she misstated the facts and says she had been misinformed herself by medical personnel. She now says the medical discharge was related in part -- but only in part, she says -- to the "accident."

Mr. Baker, who is married and has a 14-year-old son, is now unemployed, taking nine prescription medications and still suffering frequent seizures. His lawyer, Bruce Simpson, has been told that Mr. Baker may not begin to get disability payments for up to 18 months. If he is judged 100 percent disabled, he will then get a maximum of $2,100 a month.

If the U.S. military treats one of its own soldiers this way -- allowing him to be battered, and lying to cover it up -- then imagine what happens to Afghans and Iraqis.

President Bush attributed the problems uncovered at Abu Ghraib to "a few American troops who dishonored our country." Mr. Bush, the problems go deeper than a few bad apples.
Well, the mistake has been corrected. Sort of. Baker will get his benefits.

Oops.

Training... indeed. This particular training unit was "Bad Apples 101" it would seem.

There has been other comment on this. What you would expect. If we beat our own guy to the point of serious brain damage in a simulation, then....

There's not much to add.

Ah, but there is!

There was this terrorism report issued by the State Department a few weeks ago. And it said our policies are working. Terrorism is way down! The administration had a few press conferences about that. All you who scoffed at our policies and said the war in Iraq was making things worse, who said we were creating more terrorists, who said, as Howard Dean said and got creamed for it, that killing Saddam's two sons and putting their mutilated bodies on worldwide display, that capturing and humiliating Saddam Hussein himself, did not make us any safer - well, IN YOUR FACE! All the naysayer cowards and shallow critics of Bush and his policies, well, now you know just how wrong you were!

Maybe.

Oops. Again.

U.S. Will Revise Data on Terror
The State Department works to amend its report on global attacks after critics alleged an undercount and political manipulation.
Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, Wednesday, June 09, 2004
WASHINGTON -- The State Department is scrambling to revise its annual report on global terrorism to acknowledge that it understated the number of deadly attacks in 2003, amid charges that the document is inaccurate and was politically manipulated by the Bush administration.

... On Tuesday, State Department officials said they underreported the number of terrorist attacks in the tally for 2003, and added that they expected to release an updated version soon.

Several U.S. officials and terrorism experts familiar with that revision effort said the new report will show that the number of significant terrorist incidents increased last year, perhaps to its highest level in 20 years.

... a senior official characterized the errors as clerical, and blamed them mostly on the fact responsibility for the report recently shifted from the CIA to the administration's new Terrorist Threat Integration Center.

... For example, the State Department report listed 190 terrorist attacks in 2003, including 169 "significant" ones. But [Rep. Henry] Waxman said a review showed the report stopped counting terrorist incidents on Nov. 11, leaving out several major attacks, including bombings of two synagogues, a bank and the British Consulate in Turkey that killed 62 and injured more than 700.

Waxman said a State Department official blamed the Nov. 11 cutoff on a printing deadline.
Yeah, right.

But it's being fixed.

Baker's brain damage cannot be fixed.

Our brain damage? We'll see in November.

Posted by Alan at 21:33 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
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Topic: World View

The Day's Dialog: Hollywood and Paris, Back and Forth

In earlier January you'll find this - Automotive Psychology: If someone's going to die, let it be someone else. Is it possible to limit the damage an obsession does to others? - a discussion in Just Above Sunset of SUV's and why folks drive them.

And here you will find that the aging French rock star, sort of the Mick Jagger of France, sometimes discussed in these pages, Johnny Halliday, does indeed drive a big black Hummer H1 around Paris.

Encens? par ses premiers propri?taires de renom tels que Arnold Schwarzenegger ou pour la France Johnny Halliday, le Hummer H1 ?tait pr?sent? comme un ... - and so on. I've seen it. He does.

And that is the prelude to the comments that flew between the editor of As Seen from Just Above Sunset (me) and the editor of MetropoleParis (Ric Erickson).

Item one: Johnny H in trouble with his big black Hummer?

I alerted Ric to this Reuters item...
Paris Goes After SUVs
PARIS (Reuters) - Bulky four-by-fours could be banned from clogging up the chic streets of Paris after a top official in the capital's left-wing government described them as a polluting "caricature of a car" unsuited to city life.

An anti-sports utility vehicle (SUV) resolution passed by the city council could lead to a ban on the popular vehicles in about 18 months if it is included in an overall project to improve traffic flow in the city, Deputy Mayor Denis Baupin said Wednesday.

"You have to wonder why people want to drive around in SUVs," Baupin, a Greens party member, said on Europe 1 radio.

"We have no interest in having SUVs in the city. They're dangerous to others and take up too much space."

The city council voted Tuesday to urge Socialist Mayor Bertrand Delanoe to consider banning SUVs, which have become popular in recent years and now make up about five percent of the French car market -- just below the western Europe average.

Baupin said Paris, which has been setting aside more lanes for buses and bicycles since a Socialist and Greens coalition took over City Hall in 2001, could not legally ban SUVs outright. "Our idea is to limit the circulation of the most polluting vehicles," he said. "That means SUVs and lots of other vehicles that don't meet European pollution standards."

Baupin, who often cycles around Paris to promote more environmentally friendly transport, called SUVs a caricature of a car and said they were not adapted for use in a city. "It's made for a family on vacation ... and usually they only have one person in them," he said. "Let's be logical and only allow into the city cars that are adapted to it."
And Ric set the record straight -
Paris city council today voted to give SUVs a wrist-slap because they pollute much more than typical cheesy little French cars even if they are diesels.

This is a new crusade for the city council ruled by Socialists and backstopped by Les Verts.

Today's vote has no effect whatsoever - other than to put Mayor Delan?e's government on record as SUV-bashers.

Paris' city hall - the H?tel de Ville - is not thought to be air conditioned, and today's temperatures - 4 to 6 degrees higher than 'normal for the season' - (about 83 F) may be been behind the initiative launched by Denis Baupin, deputy mayor for bicycle issues. (Don't remember whether Denis is a Red or a Green. Everybody is trying to jump on the Green bandwagon these days.)

Quote: "You have to wonder why people want to drive around in SUVs," Baupin, a Greens party member, said on Europe 1 radio.

Denis may wonder, but everybody else knows Paris isn't Long Island or Orange County. France does not, despite controlling large parts of oil-rich Africa, have lots of dirt-cheap oil to squander on idiots who live in the 16th arrondissement, Neuilly, or the western suburbs.

Quote: "Baupin said Paris, which has been setting aside more lanes for buses and bicycles since a Socialist and Greens coalition took over City Hall in 2001, could not legally ban SUVs outright. "Our idea is to limit the circulation of the most polluting vehicles," he said. "That means SUVs and lots of other vehicles that don't meet European pollution standards."

Well, this could mean many of the cheesy little cars with diesel motors too. Diesel motors are much favored by French drivers because the rotten fuel they use is cheaper than regular gas. Cleaning up diesel emissions lags behind the traps put on gasoline-powered cars. About 50 percent of all private cars in France are diesel-powered.

All trucks are diesel.
And as I said to Ric once over coffee on the Right Bank a few years ago, Paris smells that way. Diesel fumes. Paris in the summer smells like... like one morning when I was walking through the French Quarter of New Orleans as the narrow streets were being washed down and the trucks were making their morning deliveries. Wet cobblestones and diesel fumes.

A few years ago I drove a diesel rental car all over the Avignon-Arles-Aix triangle. The car wasn't thrilling. That's France. Not a car place.

___

Item two: Paris imitates Baghdad (spotty electricity)? "We're moving into a new rhythm."

This from the Associated Press -
Protesters cut power to Paris train stations
Laurence Frost, Paris, France 07 June 2004 17:00
French trade union activists claimed responsibility for surprise power outages on Monday that delayed hundreds of thousands of rail passengers in Paris. They warned of more protests over plans for the partial privatisation of the country's utilities.

The communist-backed CGT union said the outages were a response to attempts by the government to rush through new laws that would transform Electricite de France and Gaz de France from state agencies into listed companies.

Trains to and from Paris's St Lazare station were severely disrupted by the outages that began at 3.30am local time on Monday morning, while three other main line stations suffered partial power losses. All services were back to normal by about midday.

"It's a deliberate action in the face of a speed-up by the government, which is saying that the parliamentary debate could happen very quickly," said Gerard Rodriguez, a senior official at the CGT's mining and energy division.

"Throughout the week, there will be more actions like this," Rodriguez said. "We're moving into a new rhythm."

Power outages sometimes accompany strikes by EDF workers, who descended on Paris by the tens of thousands on May 27. But the decision to target train stations without warning represents a departure from the usual tactics and a clear toughening of the union militants' stance.

A group of militants also cut off power on Monday to the home of a conservative parliamentarian from the rural Lot region, Michel Roumegoux, who advocates reform of the national utilities, France-Info radio reported.

France's national railway operator, the SNCF, said it will seek compensation from EDF after the cuts caused 250 trains to be cancelled or delayed, affecting about 500 000 passengers.

It said the Paris-Nord, Paris-Lyon and Montparnasse stations were also affected, although less severely than St Lazare.

The CGT and other unions have called a nationwide strike for June 15, when the government is set to present its partial privatisation plans to lawmakers.

Besides dropping their special status as public enterprises -- as demanded by European Union authorities in Brussels -- the conservative government wants to sell part of the two utilities on the stock market.

It argues its plans do not amount to privatisation, since it has pledged to retain controlling stakes in both groups as well as allowing employees to keep generous pensions and other advantages they enjoy as public sector workers.

Financial benefits such as cheap debt granted to EDF under the current French law have been repeatedly criticised by EU competition authorities, which in December ordered the power giant to pay back ?900-million in tax breaks plus interest.

The European Commission also said it has obtained a commitment from France to end EDF's special status as a public enterprise by the end of 2004.

The French government is pushing ahead with a wide-ranging privatisation program as it struggles to shore up its finances and rein in the bulging national debt.
And of course Ric set us straight on this too - on these actions regarding opening up the electricity market to competition - something that cost California between eight and thirteen billion dollars a few years ago, and gave us Arnold Shwarzenegger (the man who made the Hummer commercially available to us all) as our new governor.
Without warning on Tuesday morning, protesting EDF workers blacked out the St Lazare train station, causing havoc for hundreds of thousands of hapless commuters. The workers are protesting against government plans to open the state monopoly of electricity production and distribution to competition.

French consumers are perplexed. Nobody has explained to them how 'competition' will reduce power prices while maintaining service at acceptable levels. EDF workers fear there will be job cuts.

The right-wing national government claims it is under pressure from Brussels to open up the French energy market to competition. It is never mentioned that EDF may produce power at lower cost than its competitors in neighboring countries, and may itself be in the position to take them over.

While power for consumers is not cheap - in the recent past the EDF has raised prices and based its logic on world energy price levels (the war in Iraq) - the fact remains that the bulk of power produced in France comes from nuclear sources, developed at the insistence of the government, and heavily paid for by taxpayers.

For, as in all other countries, it is taxpayers and consumers who pay for everything, not governments.

EDF workers say that power supplies are a 'public service' that can only be efficiently ensured on a national level.

Labor action has been led by the CGT union, which is Communist. While the Communist Party in France has fallen on hard times, the same cannot be said of the CGT which is under pressure from even more militant unions. Union members who think the CGT is mamby-pamby join SUD.

All in all, it has been a 'normal' news day in Paris. The pocket-Napoleon Nicolas Sarkozy went out to EDF headquarters in La Defense yesterday to 'do' something, and the news was mainly about how he sneaked through heavy pickets with the help of fully-amoured CRS anti-mutiny troops wielding their traditional iron-bar clubs. A couple of TV-news people got wrecked too.

In France unarmed civilians are not particularly afraid of armed police, the CRS and its dogs, or the armed forces. When the people are 'in the right,' they have a right to fight for their rights. But attention if you are a visitor - none of it is make-believe. The iron in the clubs is real.

... from the barricades, ric
Ric mentions the scary CSR guys. One of them once asked me for a light. I complied. He had a sub-machinegun. Allowing him his cigarette break seemed prudent.

And Ric adds to that - adding detail to the weekend Bush visited Paris (June 5) that he had previously reported here...
A paratrooper armed with a machinegun stopped me on Sunday to ask where I thought I was going. I was up behind the Jeu de Paume because I wanted to look over that empty field of dirt that lies beside Rivoli inside the Tuileries towards the Louvre. There was supposed to be a new labyrinth in there.

I couldn't remember the word 'labyrinth,' so I asked the soldier if his gun was loaded. I couldn't remember the word 'charg?' either. He said it was a secret. There also wasn't any labyrinth. So I asked him if he would shoot if necessary. He said that was a secret too.

This was near the Place de la Concorde. From the front of the Jeu de Paume I could see a sizeable temporary wall drawn up in the place, making a fortress of the Crillon and the US embassy beyond it. But where I was on the Tuileries side, behind the Jeu de Paume building, I didn't understand what the paratrooper was guarding.

He was polite, but wary. When I left him with his secrets I wished him a 'bonne weekend.' All part of a day's work in Dodge City.

...goodnight from Paris, ric
Secrets everywhere. Anti-terror troops with odd attitudes. Here. Paris. What a world.

And goodnight from Hollywood.

Posted by Alan at 19:16 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
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Tuesday, 8 June 2004

Topic: The Law

Smoking gun? What smoking gun?

There is more regarding yesterday's post - Ask a lawyer, get an answer... - which was about the report Rumsfeld requested and received in March of 2003 outlining how we could get around legal restrictions on torture. The report laid out the case that the president has the power as commander-in-chief to set aside any laws - by his own fiat (not the car)- and such a fiat would protect anyone who was following his orders. Torture is okay for the greater good and the president is, in effect, above the law.

And there was a bit too about our new weapon - the long-range column of electromagnetic wave energy is known as the "Active Denial System" (ADS). Unbearable pain. No marks. No permanent, traceable damage.

A friend wrote this in reaction, an American living in France at the moment -
In my mind, this is the smoking gun, strongly implying that the abuses were in fact a matter of policy. Only an implication, however, without that classified list of acceptable practices. It does seem to me (and I may be romanticizing the past) that not so long ago - let us say "Iran-Contra affair" - that such legalistic maneuvers after the fact let alone before it would have been considered by the public as prima facie evidence that some wrongdoing had occurred. Alas, no more.

This is an important break with the past. Any administration has so many means at its disposal to withhold information that actual constructive evidence against it can rarely be produced. If, therefore, it has no fear of even the appearance of wrongdoing and can no longer be damaged by such appearances (speaking of Regan), then it has little to fear. And we have much.

The thing which strikes me as the most disturbing about the new "torture ray" - aside from my desire to buy one - is that it harkens back to the days when dirty cops used to beat suspects about the head with a telephone book. This left no marks, but sufficiently bounced the brain around inside the skull that confessions were easily induced. Because there were no visible signs of torture, it was rather problematic for the suspect claim that said confession was obtained under duress. Nope, no 5th amendment issue here.

This is to say nothing of the tendency of the tortured to say whatever they think will make the torture stop. Most of the brass has admitted that the torture employed in Iraq has yielded very little. But I'm certain that contrary to the images from the torture we've seen in Mel's movies where the hero or villain stoically refuses to give the information he has, "Marathon
Man" is probably more the reality -

"Is it safe?"

"Oh yes, it's very safe. Couldn't get any safer"

ZAP!

"Is it safe?"

"... nope. Totally unsafe. Magic 8 ball says come back later."

And so on....

Even if this "invisible" torture yields useful information, it is disturbing, and not only for legal reasons. It does rather conform to certain stereotypes in the Arab world that we are "dishonorable". Better to them that we beat them in public with a lash until they tell us what we want to hear. Better to me, too.
Well, moves are afoot.

See Ashcroft Says Bush Rejects Use of Torture
JOHN J. LUMPKIN, Associated Press Writer - Tuesday, June 08, 2004
WASHINGTON - Attorney General John Ashcroft said Tuesday he was not aware of any order by President Bush that would violate U.S. laws or treaties banning torture of military prisoners captured in Iraq or elsewhere in the war on terrorism.

"This administration rejects torture," Ashcroft declared under tense questioning by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But he steadfastly refused to comment directly about a policy paper on this issue, or say whether Bush ever responded to it.

But, Ashcroft did say, "The Department of Justice will both investigate and prosecute individual who violate the law. The Torture Act is a law that we include in that violation."

... Said Ashcroft: "The president of the United States has not ordered any conduct that would violate the Constitution of the United States, that would violate not one of the laws enacted by the Congress, or that would violate any of the various treaties."

Ashcroft would not comment directly on the 2002 departmental memo that laid out a rationale in which the president was not necessarily bound by anti-torture laws or treaties because of his authority as commander in chief to protect national security.

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., asked Ashcroft whether there is any presidential order that "immunizes (from prosecution) interrogators of al-Qaida suspects?"

"The president has issued no such order," Ashcroft replied.

The attorney general said the policy memo on this issue would not be made available to the committee, however. And Ashcroft said that while he respected the constitutional right of Congress to ask questions, "there are certain things that, in the interest of the executive branch operating effectively, that I think it is inappropriate for the attorney general to say."
Don't ask. Don't tell.

It's not your business.

But Biden went on, being a pain-in the-ass rather nicely:
"Do you think torture might be justified - not a memorandum - just a question to you, attorney general of the United States?" Biden asked.

"I am not going to issue or otherwise discuss hypotheticals. I will leave that to academics," Ashcroft replied.

"John, you sound like you're in the State Department," Biden shot back.

"I condemn torture. ... I don't think it's productive, let alone justified," Ashcroft responded.

Biden told Ashcroft "there's a reason why we (Congress) sign those (anti-torture) treaties" and it is to protect U.S. military personnel.
Biden doesn't get it. I think the idea is others cannot do this torture thing - if they do they will get blasted. We can do such things. One of the perks of being the only superpower left in this world?

The AP item goes on to explain that Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said Monday that a policy paper detailing staff legal analysis was part of an internal administration debate on how to obtain intelligence from al-Qaida operatives in U.S. custody, within the confines of a standard of humane treatment. The intelligence sought was to prevent terrorist attacks, he said.

And that makes lots of things okay, as the current argument goes.

Di Rita also said the final set of interrogation methods adopted for use at Guant?namo in April 2003 are humane, legal and useful -- and more restrictive than the methods some had proposed.

So, gee whiz, it could have been worse. We were practicing great restraint. Give the Bush team some credit here!

I'm not sure any of this makes it all better.

Does this story have legs? Perhaps.

___

Note:

Kevin Drum at the Washington Monthly is keeping track of these administration memos and position papers regarding torture of enemy prisoners - if you're enthralled by this "smoking gun" idea. He points out that the Washington Post came up with another one today, from August of 2002.

Four. Here's his summary:
January 9, 2002: Justice Department lawyers John Yoo and Robert J. Delahunty argue that "customary international law of armed conflict in no way binds...the President or the U.S. Armed Forces." Despite this "anything goes" argument, they go on to say that President Bush could still put Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters on trial as war criminals if they violate international laws.

January 25, 2002: White House counsel Alberto Gonzales warns that treatment of Taliban prisoners could be interpreted as war crimes. To avoid this possibility, he recommends that President Bush exempt captured Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters from the Geneva Conventions.

August 2002: A Justice Department memo about torture says that "necessity and self-defense could provide justifications that would eliminate any criminal liability." Translation: torture is OK if we really, really think we need to do it.

April 2003: The Department of Defense says that "(the prohibition against torture) must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his commander-in chief authority." In other words, as long as the president approves it, torture is OK.
___

The administration says that despite this rather chilling obsession with torture, all prisoners have been treated humanely. Maybe. But surely I'm not the only one who finds it disturbing that the topic of torture came up almost immediately after 9/11 and continued to be a subject of conversation on such a regular basis after that? They have an almost Nixonian penchant for trying to figure out how far they can go, how much they can get away with, and how best to protect themselves from future prosecution for war crimes.

I've got something simpler for the plainspoken President Bush: "We don't torture prisoners. Not on my watch." Why didn't he say that instead and just put the whole subject to rest?
If you have to ask why, you don't understand the man.

Posted by Alan at 11:14 PDT | Post Comment | View Comments (1) | Permalink
Updated: Tuesday, 8 June 2004 12:05 PDT home

Monday, 7 June 2004

Topic: The Law

Ask a lawyer, get an answer...

The Wall Street Journal is actually turning out to be one fine newspaper. As many have recently been pointing out, these folks report real news, important stuff - scooping the Washington Post and New York Times. Of course their editorial page is still the dominion of brutish Neanderthal rants against those who perversely choose to be poor (the "lucky duckies" who don't pay the proper percentage of their pitiful income in taxes but use up all the damned sevices), against those who do not see George Bush as a towering moral figure, and also the domain of the loony and sentimental Peggy Noonan and her magic dolphins rescuing heroic folks fleeing Cuba for Miami.

Today the news half of the paper - not the opinion half - dropped another bombshell.

The newspaper got hold of a classified draft of a Pentagon report from 2003 that pretty much works out why President Bush is not bound by laws prohibiting torture - and the report concludes that the Justice Department cannot prosecute our soldiers, or any government agents, who engage in torture at his direction.

The item is only available in print, and on the net if you have a paid subscription to the paper. That's a bit expensive. Reuters has a summary. The bootleg copy of the full article, every word in proper format, is here - but if you believe in the value of copyright laws your really shouldn't click on that.

Ah, but as of late in the day June 8th the Journal posted the complete memo, their source materiel for the story, and it is available online - with no restrictions. They got their scoop, and this posting, open to the world, is clearly a sort of in-your-face "ha ha" to all the other newspapers that don't seem to get the hot items. Judith Miller at the Times, the nation's most influential newspaper (the paper of record, as they say) - Judith Miller, perhaps the key journalist who bought everything Chalabi claimed and reported it all as unquestionably true (with the approval of her editor Howell Raines), and who then bought the White House line that she was on the right track (Cheney said on Meet the Press that all the WMD stuff had to be true because it wasn't just him claiming all this, it was the "liberal" New York Times) - Judith Miller who thus was one pivotal influence in making this war possible... well, Judy, here's what real "source information" looks like. Howell Raines was forced to resign. Judy, it's your turn, even with your Pulitzers.

But I digresss...

What this all comes down to is that back in March of 2003, just before we rolled into Iraq, Donald Rumsfeld asked for, and received, an extensive legal memorandum. The idea was to establish a legal basis for what to many, like the International Red Cross and most world opinion, now seems like torture - the messy stuff in the photos and what has been reported from Guant?namo.

What Rumsfeld got was a hefty pile of paper the reviews our own laws and international treaties forbidding torture, and then goes on to lay out why those restrictions might just "be overcome" by national-security considerations - or by a few well chosen legal maneuvers.

The Journal got their hands on the March 6, 2003 draft of this report. Of course some passages were deleted. Security. And what was missing? An attachment listing specific interrogation techniques and whether Rumsfeld, or others, must grant permission before these curious and painful techniques could be used. But the general idea is clear, isn't it? The Journal also tells us that the complete draft document - including those missing details - was classified "secret" by Rumsfeld and scheduled for declassification in 2013.

So pretend it's 2013 - for the fun of it. From the Journal:
The draft report ... deals with a range of legal issues related to interrogations, offering definitions of the degree of pain or psychological manipulation that could be considered lawfull. But at its core is an exceptional argument that because nothing is more important than "obtaining intelligence vital to the protection of untold thousands of American citizens," normal strictures on torture might not apply.
Yep. Things changed when the towers went down. The old rules do not apply.

And to juice things up a bit, the Journal tells us one of the authors of the draft report is William Haynes, now awaiting confirmation as a federal judge.
According to Bush administration officials, the report was compiled by a working group appointed by the Defense Department's general counsel, William J. Haynes II.

Air Force General Counsel Mary Walker headed the group, which comprised top civilian and uniformed lawyers from each military branch and consulted with the Justice Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies. It isn't known if President Bush has ever seen the report.
One assumes Bush has not seen the report. He delegates.

But what is so newsworthy about this classified report? Try this - arguments that we can use torture, legally:
Civilian or military personnel accused of torture or other war crimes have several potential defenses, including the "necessity" of using such methods to extract information to head off an attack, or "superior orders," sometimes known as the Nuremberg defense: namely that the accused was acting pursuant to an order and, as the Nuremberg tribunal put it, no moral choice was in fact possible."
Yeah, read that carefully. Our personnel can be protected. It worked for the Nazi guys.

But the core idea is even more newsworthy:
The president, despite domestic and international laws constraining the use of torture, has the authority as commander in chief to approve almost any physical or psychological actions during interrogation, up to and including torture, the report argued...

A military lawyer who helped prepare the report said that political appointees heading the working group sought to assign the president virtually unlimited authority on matters of torture - to assert "presidential power at its absolute apex," the lawyer said...

The working-group report elaborated the Bush administration's view that the president has virtually unlimited power to wage war as he sees fit, and neither Congress, the courts nor international law can interfere...

Citing confidential Justice Department opinions drafted after Sept. 11, 2001, the report advised that the executive branch of the government had "sweeping" powers to act as it sees fit because "national security decisions require the unity of purpose and energy in action that characterize the presidency rather than Congress"...
Yep, he be the man. Statutes and such do not matter. He has absolute power.

Really? Yes indeed.
To protect subordinates should they be charged with torture, the memo advised that Mr. Bush issue a "presidential directive or other writing" that could serve as evidence, since authority to set aside the laws is "inherent in the president."
The authority to set aside the laws is "inherent in the president?"

Why the hell did we then go through all that Watergate business with Nixon?

Phillip Carter, a former military officer and a lawyer, comments that this may not be so.
Even in wartime, the President's authority to act is limited by the Constitution, and where Congress has specifically proscribed activity. Advice to the contrary is wrong, and any actions which follow this advice are probably unlawful as well.
Don't tell that to Rumsfeld.

Robert Dreyfuss adds this:
...here's how the Pentagon's shysters split the torture hairs: "The infliction of pain or suffering, whether it is physical or mental, is insufficient to amount to torture,' the report advises. Such suffering must be `severe,' the lawyers advise, and they rely on a dictionary definition to suggest that it `must be of such a high level of intensity that the pain is difficult for the subject to endure.'

The report goes on to say that Congress has no business trying to regulate whether U.S. soldiers or other officials torture prisoners, since that would violate the commander-in-chief's constitutional power to wage war. "Sometimes the greater good for society will be accompanied by violating the literal language of the criminal law," says the report.
Okay. Who then defines the greater good?

The Journal has stirred up a hornets' nest.

And here's a curious comment from Josh Marshall -
So the right to set aside law is "inherent in the president". That claim alone should stop everyone in their tracks and prompt a serious consideration of the safety of the American republic under this president. It is the very definition of a constitutional monarchy, let alone a constitutional republic, that the law is superior to the executive, not the other way around. This is the essence of what the rule of law means -- a government of laws, not men, and all that.

Now, we know that presidents sometimes break laws and they frequently bend them, if only in cases where the laws don't seem to anticipate a situation the president finds himself confronting. There is even an argument that the president can refuse to enforce laws he deems unconstitutional.

But there is no power inherent in the president simply to set aside the law. Richard Nixon famously argued that "when the president does it that means that it is not illegal." But the constitutional rulings emerging out of Watergate said otherwise. And history has been equally unkind to his claim.
Marshall goes on to discuss how Jefferson analyzed this issue. A president MAY break the law. Of course. But Jefferson argued that when he does, he is then obliged to explain that he has and ask for a judgment - he should, Jefferson says, submit himself for punishment for breaking its laws, even in its own defense. Click on the link for detail.

That is not going to happen here.

Torture? Well, humiliation, pain and suffering, a few homicides, a bit of rape. Not just in one prison but in many. But....

Just a few bad apples. Not our policy. Nothing to see here. Just move on, folks.

___

But if you are going to torture people, we seem to have a nifty new tool!

See Beam burns into the future
Greg Gordon, Minneapolis Star Tribune Washington Bureau Correspondent, May 30, 2004

Ands this is it!
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Test subjects can't see the invisible beam from the Pentagon's new Star Trek-like weapon as it heats the water molecules in their bodies. But no one has withstood the pain it produces for more than three seconds.

People who volunteered to stand in front of the directed energy beam say they felt as if they were on fire. When they stepped aside, the pain disappeared instantly.

The long-range column of electromagnetic wave energy is known as the "Active Denial System" (ADS) for its ability to prevent an aggressor from advancing. Senior military officials, who plan to deliver the device for troop evaluation this fall, say years of testing have produced no sign it will lead to health effects beyond perhaps causing skin to temporarily redden.

It is among the most potent of a new generation of futuristic "less-than-lethal" weapons being developed by the Defense Department -- tools that could dramatically alter the way soldiers fight wars and police control riots.

... When the beam hits a person, it penetrates 1/64th of an inch beneath the skin and heats water molecules to 130 degrees in less than a second.

"It tricks the pain sensors into thinking they're on fire," said Rich Garcia, a spokesman for the Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M.

Garcia knows firsthand. He was among hundreds of test volunteers who stood with their backs facing the device.

"They did a full body back shot," he said. "It hit in the small of my back first. For the first millisecond, it just felt like the skin was warming up. Then it got warmer and warmer and you felt like it was on fire."

He said he lunged away.

"As soon as you're away from that beam your skin returns to normal and there is no pain," Garcia said. "I thought to myself, 'Why, you wimp. You know it's not causing any damage. You'll be able to override it.' Each of the next three times, I was on there a little bit longer ... about two seconds. It felt like my hair was on fire."

... Maj. Jonathan Drummond of the Air Force's Directed Energy Bioeffects Division noted that the weapon could provide U.S. forces "with a nonlethal capability in military operations other than war." Among possible uses, he listed peacekeeping, humanitarian operations and crowd control.

Marine Capt. Dan McSweeney, a spokesman for the Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, pointed to "instances in Iraq where crowd situations have unfortunately ended in violence" and death.
Okay. Crowd control.

But if your needed information? This could be really useful.
"It seems fundamentally a weapon that's designed to create a great deal of pain and fear," said Johnson, the center's executive director. "The concern I would have is ... once this kind of technology is available and there's a perception that it's safe and nonlethal, it seems like a natural device to be used in interrogations."
Unbearable pain. No marks. No permanent, traceable damage. Donald Rumsfeld is smiling tonight.

Posted by Alan at 20:17 PDT | Post Comment | View Comments (1) | Permalink
Updated: Tuesday, 8 June 2004 22:12 PDT home


Topic: Election Notes

Capturing lightning in a bottle: The Reagan Magic Formula

Do the Democrats need their own Ronald Reagan? Ezra Klein has some thoughts on that:
Much is made of Reagan's intelligence, or lack thereof. What's lost in the constant condescension is that simplicity can be a weapon and complexity a handicap. While we revel in politicians who can easily rattle off budgetary minutiae, that sort of speech turns off most listeners. So while our great orators let their rhetoric soar around the specific, hopscotching from fact to argument to evidence; his built up from the general, consciously converting oversimplifications into policy statements. While studies back us up on welfare, his invocation of the welfare queen with her Cadillac was a much stronger retort than our Brookings report. It's less honest but more effective, a devil's trade we rarely make.

Finding a candidate with the communicative ability and the brilliance we desire is tough; Clinton was such a man and it was that silver tongue that saved him from his wandering crotch. John Edwards was another, though he lacked the wonkish quality that comforts us. Kerry's speech almost parodies the problem, if and when he wins, his victory will repudiate Bush more than glorify him. His inauguration will be a triumph over his talent on the podium, not a function of it.

The upside is that the right hasn't recaptured the magic either. Neither Bush Sr. nor Dole could be considered powerful orators. Bush Jr. captures Reagan's simplicity but can't translate it into powerful rhetoric. As his string of failed speeches attests to, Americans are not turned on by reduced absolutism alone.
So, let's see here. Keep it powerful AND keep it simple-minded. The Reagan magic. Bush only has the simple-minded part down pat. The other half is missing - something to say. Kerry has much too say. And says it with nuance and detail - that man just cannot keep it simple, because it never is simple. But, damn, it's dull.

It sure is hard to please the American electorate.

And too I see the British fellow turned American, Andrew Sullivan, who thinks Ronald Reagan hung the moon (he just worships the man), and thinks Margaret Thatcher was our modern Athena (Minerva) - simply the best of all women - in spite of all this, has just about given up on the Republican Party. He's ticked off. Yes, it is hard being a gay conservative.

His problem?
Just read this story about the Texas Republican Party. Their convention began with prayers and invocations, as any religious gathering might do. One pastor who spoke to the group said the following: "Give us Christians in America who are more wholehearted, more committed and more militant for you and your kingdom than any fanatical Islamic terrorists are for death and destruction. I want to be one of those Christians." Then [he] read the platform, proposing, among other things, "new restrictions on lawsuits brought over exposure to asbestos" and making it a felony for anyone to perform a marriage for a same-sex couple. If you want to know why someone who loved Ronald Reagan can no longer support the Republican Party, then the extremism of George W. Bush's own party in his home state is Exhibit A.

Republicans who say that these people do not represent the GOP as a whole can prove this by taking them on. But they won't, will they? They never do.
Things are never so simple.

Posted by Alan at 18:32 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
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