Resolution - The Torture Song

David Ippolito, who has made a singing career out of relatively impromptu weekend concerts in New York City's Central Park has written a great song of accusation on the topic of torture. Susan Forbes Hansen placed it in my hands last Wednesday, and I've been playing it in my car ever since.

Lieberman loves torture, just not the photos

Creepy Joe™ Lieberman has lobbied for the continued use of enhanced interrogation techniques, that most people now refer to simply as "torture." He thinks it will help get good information in case someone ever walks a nuclear device into the Chrysler Building. CJ™'s been watching a bit too many episodes of 24.

Now, it seems, he's not so fond of releasing photos of torture, because those photos will put our troops in danger. That's an argument he's resisted when others have used it to explain how torture actually works against us.

His mobius strip logic is classic Lieberman. As long as the enemy doesn't find out our soldiers were sodomizing their sons, they can't use it against us.

Wrap your flag around this patriots

To all those true Americans who have risen to the defense of waterboarding, and other forms of torture as a means to defend our beloved homeland, read what Seymour Hersh has to say about the dirty secrets of Abu Ghraib.

Hersh is careful not to speak until he has the facts on topics, and he's rarely been wrong.

And when you're done reading, think about how sodomizing a boy in front of his mother protects the homeland and makes this country great. You'll have to reach deep into the playbook of the Catholic church to come up with the appropriate defense.

The leaders in the Bush administration, all the way to Bush himself, and the leaders in the military and secret agencies are culpable in allowing this country to sink to despicable levels of official torture. And if Obama doesn't do something about it, he's responsible too.

A nation of lawlessness

It's a simple as this. Representatives of our country should not be committing crimes. Representatives of our country should not be committing torture.

Barack Obama did the right thing by releasing the "torture memos" yesterday. Glenn Greenwald has a cogent argument as to why Obama deserves credit.

One could, and IMHO, should argue that the torturers need to be prosecuted (we cannot abide by an "I was just following orders" defense).

But one should not argue, as former CIA director Hayden has, that the crimes ought to be left in the shadows.

Another rendition of "Hail to the Chief"

(An extraordinary rendition flight. Note the flag.)

UPDATE: Looks like I got punked too.

I'm not expecting to agree with everything the new president does, but his failure to put an end to extraordinary rendition dulls the shine on his restoration of other Constitutional rights.

I can't see how someone who seems to understand the need for the United States to adhere to the letter of the law can allow a policy which allows secret U.S. agencies to kidnap people from the streets, anywhere in the world, and throw them into jails without the benefits or personal freedoms, or guaranteed representation and due process.

It's a shameful sin of omission in Obama's current attempts to resurrect the reputation of America, and restore the rights we are all guaranteed by the Constitution.

An Obama spokesman said: "Obviously you need to preserve some tools – you still have to go after the bad guys."

Sorry, but I'm not willing to allow any administration to define who the bad guy is, if the bad guy doesn't have the right to declare that a mistake may have been made.

Pull back the shades, throw open the window, let the stink out

I have to keep reminding myself to remain skeptical, but Barack Obama keeps making me smile.

Yesterday he continued his repudiation of Bush administration policies regarding secrecy, influence, communications and openness. He took a stand against lobbying. He told his staff that they were working for you and me, and not for themselves. He declared that he was willing to talk to Iran and other enemy governments, without preconditions. And the day before he put a hold on military tribunals

Today, he'll close Gitmo and the secret CIA black site prisons, outlaw torture, or harsh interrogation, and he'll order a legal review of all suspected terrorists being held without the benefit of habeas corpus.

Wonder what he'll do tomorrow.

Of course, follow-through is everything, but so far he's delivering on his promise.

Torture, wiretapping and the rule of men

Take the time to read this excellent essay by Glenn Greenwald about the relationship of torture of prisoners defined as "terrorists" and the passage of the FISA bill. He'll convince you that our political leaders have capitulated to government criminals who have convinced them to create a country run by the rule of men, and not by the rule of laws.

Greenwald makes the argument that people who complain about the lawlessness implicit in torture and warrantless wiretapping are marginalized as shrill, hysterical leftists who don't understand the threat of terrorism, and who are getting caught up in the minutiae of laws which don't really affect the great majority of law abiding citizens. This is an argument that even our ally and friend Colin McEnroe (WTIC-AM) has made when callers have forwarded debate on the FISA issue.

Greenwald also recommends the already-acclaimed new book on torture and the Bush administration, The Dark Side, by New Yorker investigative journalist Jane Mayer.

The malodorous blossom of American democracy

True democracy, and American democracy are two different things. Though the explication of that notion is fodder too massive for a single blog entry.

But here are two very recently-revealed instances of a perverse breed of democratic notions.

In our zeal to protect freedom and liberty we have become plagarists of the worse kind. The New York Times reveals today that torture techniques used at Guantanamo were lifted verbatim from an article written by Alfred Biderman in 1957 explaining the techniques used by Communist Chinese interrogators to elicit false confessions from captured American airmen. Complete with charts, graphs and illustrations, this document was used as a how-to course by the military trainers at Guantanamo. That is to say, freedom-loving Americans copied the horrifying techniques of a totalitarian government to gather likely-false information from captured "terrorists." Pitiful.

Yesterday, the Times reported on just how well democracy is spreading in the "new" Iraq. It seems that the government there, particularly the military, is acting just like ours, and ignoring the needs of wounded veterans. I guess with the constant US military presence in Iraq, the examples of cruelty and malfeasance are in full view, and easily copied.

Torture on a sliding scale

For as much as they insist that they don't torture, the Bush administration has done its damnedest to readjust the definition of "torture" and the restrictions agreed to under the Geneva Convention.

Now, it's revealed, that the CIA has the right to torture under certain circumstances - to prevent a terrorist act. Since the Bush administration thinks terrorism can be anything from protesting the war to blowing up a humvee, it seems like the CIA can torture at will.

This latest argument is featured in Sunday's New York Times reporting on a letter of clarification by Brian A. Benczkowski, adeputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department in response to requests from the Senate Intelligence Committee, and in particular, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon.

According to Benczkowski, as cited by The Times:

“The fact that an act is undertaken to prevent a threatened terrorist attack, rather than for the purpose of humiliation or abuse, would be relevant to a reasonable observer in measuring the outrageousness of the act,”

And:

“to rise to the level of an outrage” and thus be prohibited under the Geneva Conventions, conduct “must be so deplorable that the reasonable observer would recognize it as something that should be universally condemned.”

Just wonder who in the Bush administration that "reasonable observer" might be.

The torturer-in-chief

George Bush lost his moral compass along time ago, and now the country is lost in the woods.

No one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition

But the fact that Dick Cheney met with other White House higher-ups on a regular basis to approve specific torture techniques for specific prisoners, is not surprising anymore.

You know it's bad when lawyers think one of their own is giving them a bad name

Yes, John, they're talking about Yoo.

Cali leads the way

Leave it to legislators in California to suggest legislation which would strip torture doctors of their licenses.

Cali is always ahead of the wave. Let's hope this legislation spreads.

H/T to Susan Forbes Hansen.

Tennessee plates

Maybe even more interesting are the registration plates, and the bullet hole.

We're torturing people, people

Regrettably, as I predicted a few days ago, the press of the United States has ignored an amazingly important set of memos authored by John Yoo about the president's right to torture alleged terrorists.

It's disheartening that this issue, as complex and riven with shame as it is, has not been an important headline. This goes to the core of the notion of an imperial presidency which has stripped our government of the checks and balances guaranteed by our constitution.

And the press is preoccupied with a presidential campaign that hasn't said anything new in three months, the final four and American Idol.

Of course there were exceptions, but Keith Olbermann is not considered part of the main street media.

UPDATE: There's also an important editorial in the New York Times.

Just because we can, doesn't mean we should

Once upon a time in an America that never really existed, some of the most respected members of our community were doctors and lawyers. They were professionals to be envied and trusted. To be emulated. These were careers to aspire to.

But as Glenn Greenwald pointed out yesterday, one of our country's most brilliant lawyers, John Yoo, is also one of our country's most diabolical. He used legal language and argument to justify torture, and to circumvent the power of the constitution. Greenwald concludes that Yoo is one of several war criminals in the Bush administration, and should be treated as such.

Perhaps more shocking to me are doctors who allow themselves to be drawn into the process of torture. I heard it again in the interview with Murat Kurnaz on 60 Minutes. Kurnaz recalled how he was strung from the ceiling, and when he seemed to be failing, a doctor came in, examined him, and declared he was fit for more torture. Who are these doctors? How do they justify their actions? Didn't we all grow up with the horror of torture and cruel experimentation by German doctors in Nazi death camps? And yet they still exist.

Should these torture doctors and lawyers ever be able to practice in the United States again. Would you want them treating or representing you?

They are the real monsters who make the ogres and beasts of fairy tales pale in comparison.

The American inquisition

When it's convenient to him, as it is in the case of the Protect America Act passed by the Senate, George Bush champions bipartisan bills. When it suits his purpose, he chastises Congress to pass bills that reflect the will of the people.

He has such a bipartisan, will-of-the-people bill on his desk now, which he plans to veto. It prohibits the CIA from conducting the kind of torture forbidden in the Army Field Manual. He will make the United States an official torture state.

How this is possible from a man who declares himself a born-again Christian, an advocate of freedom and liberty, a proselytizer for Democracy?

It is shameful that we have let this man continue to act as our representative to the world. He has made a sham of the Constitution, a mockery of Democracy and has been the leader of our country's moral and ethical decline.

George Bush's worst nightmare

A respected Air Force colonel, former advocate of the Military Commissions system, a dogged prosecutor, and now, a vociferous opponent to the "rigged" trials of Guantanamo terrorists.

Soon, we'll be hearing from the Pentagon and the White House about Colonel Morris Davis' mental breakdown from post-traumatic stress, or some other smear campaign in their attempts to create a smokescreen.

The newly revealed photos from Abu Ghraib, out today, prove again that we are not the noble nation we believe ourselves to be.

A damning indictment from an insider

It's been a busy week so far, and it was only last night that I got to the Sunday New York Times Opinion section.

One of the most powerful criticisms of imprisonment, torture, and prosecution of terrorists held in Guantanamo is offered by Morris Davis, a former Air Force colonel and chief prosecutor for military commissions at Guantanamo.

Morris had the moral courage, and the respect for the letter of the law to retire when asked to use testimony acquired through the use of torture, and he refused. He was also placed under a gag order and ordered not to testify, when requested, by a Senate committee.

This speaks volumes to the moral vacuum of this administration, the Pentagon, and our country has fallen into.

The military is about to conduct show trials, well, not trials, but kangaroo courts, to try accused 9/11 attackers. The verdicts reached, will be forever tainted by the injustices meted out by the United States.

Why quibble about a few moments of terror when an election's at stake

Creepy Joe™ Lieberman is a man of principle, though his principles seem to shift as opportunity dictates. In the past, he's said "Torture, bad." Now he says, "Torture, good."