brainiac conspiracy

Bipartisanship

Its such a rare thing in these highly charged and polarized times, so it's such a relief when we find an example of policies that both Republicans and Democrats alike can agree are essential to the healthy functioning of a civil society:

Lesley Stahl: How does the water boarding that you engaged in, how did that work?

Jose Rodriguez: The detainee was strapped to an inclined board with his feet up so that no water would go--

Lesley Stahl: So his head was back.

Jose Rodriguez: So his head was back. And a cloth was placed over the mouth and nose. And water was applied to it.

Lesley Stahl: Oh he couldn't breathe through his nose.

Jose Rodriguez: So when he was saturated, then the air flow would be stopped.

Lesley Stahl: And he'd have the sensation of drowning.

Jose Rodriguez: And he would have the sensation.

Lesley Stahl: And was he naked?

Jose Rodriguez: In many cases, nudity was used extensively. And it worked well.

Lesley Stahl: Why is nudity effective?

Jose Rodriguez: It is effective because a lot of people feel very vulnerable when they're nude. And also because of the culture. Nudity, it is not something that is common...

Lesley Stahl: Was it waterboarding that broke the dam with Abu Zubaydah?

Jose Rodriguez: I think he was more taken aback by the insult slap.

Lesley Stahl: Oh, what's the insult slap?

Jose Rodriguez: It's just slapping somebody with an open hand so that you don't hurt 'em.

Lesley Stahl: By "hurt," you mean you don't break his jaw?

Jose Rodriguez: We don't break his jaw. And the objective is not to inflict pain. The objective is to let him know there's a new sheriff in town, and he better pay attention.

Because if there wasn't complete bipartisan consensus among our leaders in Washington, someone in a position of authority might deign to interrupt the White House Correspondents Dinner or some other vital function of state with some intemperate remarks about Geneva Conventions and war crimes and messy stuff like that. Thankfully, the Real Americans and the Kenyan Kommies have finally found something they can agree on: That the ritual brutalization of foreigners who don't like our policies deserves the full protection of the state. If that's not the purest expression of American Exceptionalism, I sure don't know what the hell is.

So congratulations to all the parties involved for Keeping Us Safe & Defending Our Freedoms™. We only had to adopt the standards of the Soviet legal system to do it.

(Via NoSpoon.)

---Vitelius

As Above, So Below

They really do hate us for our freedoms.

That when a government fails to respect its own laws, it's going to engage in, well, breaking the law. This lawbreaking can take myriad forms---some relatively benign, others less so---and while our leaders' stated intentions may be pure as the driven snow while they are violating the law, it doesn't take an advanced degree in sociology to know that state-sanctioned lawbreaking eventually leads to a breakdown of societal norms---and sometimes when it happens, it's not very pretty to behold. But this is why we have laws in the first place, and why we expect everyone, including our leaders, to obey them. If the President of the United States doesn't respect the law, what obligation does some 19-year-old Army private have?

Our leaders will console us once again with the Parable of the Few Bad Apples, and some low-lying heads will roll. But from Abu Ghraib to warrantless wiretapping to slaughtering civilians to indefinite detentions to targeted assassinations to urinating on Korans---or even trolling for Colombian hookers---these lawless acts are all interrelated since they are reflective of the basic fact that lawless governments behave lawlessly, and once granted the power to flout the law, they will continue to do so, to ever-more-damaging effect, until the citizenry demands an end to it. When the citizenry doesn't do this, the social order starts to crumble, and the creep towards Mafia/warlord government commences. The view from here is that we're already well along the way to the eventual Mobutu-ization of the Republic.

---Vitelius

Meanwhile, Bradley Manning

Never really understood the wisdom of alienating an entire region of the planet for the sake of placating a couple hundred thousand people in south Florida, but that's pretty much been our default Latin America policy for my entire lifetime. It may be smart politics in an election year, but it's never been particularly coherent policy in any year---especially so now, in our glorious Homeland Security Era---and it really doesn't matter if the policy is being peddled by right-wing Republicans or Kenyan Marxist Democrats:

Under U.S. pressure, Cuba’s Raul Castro was not invited to this meeting, and many influential regional leaders, led by Rousseff and Santos, indicated that they would not attend another without Cuba.

Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, declined to attend the summit in protest, and other leading leftists close to Cuba, including Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, did not show up.

Chavez, who usually thrives on the attention of regional forums, was also not present, because of illness.

But the issue still resonates throughout Latin America, evoking the Cold War-era political divide between left and right that Obama on Sunday said had ended.

“The fact of the matter is that Cuba, unlike the other countries participating, has not moved to democracy, is not respecting human rights,” Obama said. “I’m hoping the transition takes place.”

Transition to democracy. Respect for human rights. The jokes just write themselves.

One of these days we are going to regret pissing off so many of our little brown brothers. But I guess it's inevitable when you view millions of people primarily as assets to be exploited rather than as fellow citizens of the planet who'd like the freedom to choose their own forms of government, and their own forms of economic exchange.

Update: Also too, Friends in Freedom.

---Vitelius

I'll Take "Assassination Insurance" for $600, Alex

Difficult questions, simple answers.

---Vitelius

Transparency in Government

Looks awesome on a bumper sticker, less so as a best practice.

Still not understanding why the administration continues doing this. Do they think they'll get any credit from the Republicans for it? Or is this just the latest gambit to stay BFFs with the boys at Langley?

They had questions from ordinary people for the President Elect submitted on their website and voted up or down. The top question at the end of the voting had come from Bob Fertik of Democrats.com and it was this: “Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor---ideally Patrick Fitzgerald---to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?”

Not only was the answer no, but it had to be inferred because President Change U. Wish refused to answer the question. I’ve always assumed I could guess why: a president wouldn’t want previous presidents subject to the rule of law, because then he would be too. Just this week I was suggesting that allowing the Justice Department to enforce laws against Cheney could save Obama’s electoral prospects at the risk of seeing Obama, too, land in prison some day.

If we do indeed wake up one day and find ourselves ruled by an authoritarian government, it won't be because of some military coup d'etat, it'll be because the oily ethics of bipartisan consensus greased the skids for the fascists to take power via the ballot box. I suspect we'll eventually come to regret the fact that (a) our leaders chose to behave in this lawless manner, and that (b) everyone in positions of legal authority let them get the hell away with it.

---Vitelius

Original Intent

Remember that passage in the 76th Federalist where Madison and Hamilton debated the merits of rectal cavity searches?

Funny, neither do I.

---Vitelius

Some Say White People Were Involved

Just idle speculation here, but do ya think, just maybe, it's possible that some so-called black militant group that bills itself as a fucking militia is probably, like, not very black?

Yes, I know, it could be seen by some as irresponsible to speculate on this. But it would be positively irresponsible not to!

Besides, it's not like we haven't seen this kind of "backdraft" gambit before, at least in my neck of the woods:

In the life of the political leader, there sometimes comes a defining moment, an episode in which he creates himself indelibly and for all time. For Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty, that moment came on the morning after the mayoral primary in April, 1969. On primary night, two-term incumbent Yorty had performed abysmally, pulling down just 26 percent of the vote, lucky even to make it into the June run-off against Councilman Tom Bradley, who had won an impressive 42 percent. Confronted with the prospect that his political career was over, Yorty decided he would rather poison his own city than let its voters retire him.

And so he embarked upon the most vile and demagogic campaign in the history of modern L.A. He red-baited Bradley; he black-baited Bradley. Los Angeles, he said, had become "an experimental area for taking over of a city by a combination of bloc voting, black power, left-wing radicals and, if you please, identified Communists." Tom Bradley, he said, had sinister ties to Angela Davis, the Black Panthers and Dorothy Healey, the local Communist leader. And if voters didn't believe Yorty, they could turn to the community throw-away papers that ran stories his campaign produced under the banner headline, "Reign of Terror Seen if Bradley Wins." And if they wanted the evidence of their own eyes, there were those convertibles parading through all-white neighborhoods in the Valley, adorned with Black Power signs and Bradley-for-Mayor stickers, the back seats filled with young black men (in the pay of the Yorty campaign) clenching their fists to scare the bejesus out of white L.A.

Karl Rove cut his teeth on tactics like this, with pros like Dick and Pat as mentors:

Minor Republican rivals such as then-Rep. Pete McCloskey (R-Calif.) were also fair game in Buchanan's view. His White House papers include a Dec. 15, 1971, memo to Haldeman and Mitchell outlining "an anti-McCloskey campaign in New Hampshire." One idea, Buchanan said, would be to find a way of getting a gay rights group or the Black Panthers or the radical Students for a Democratic Society at Dartmouth "to contribute a grand or so to the McCloskey campaign" and then alert the highly conservative Manchester Union Leader about the donation.

So yeah, okay, I'll concede the point. It might be far-fetched, but it's certainly worth following up on because questions linger! Opinions differ! Some say!

---Vitelius

If Scary Brown People Didn't Exist

We would surely have had to invent them. And so, we have:

In the case of the Newburgh Four---where four men were convicted for a fake terror attack on Jewish targets in the Bronx---a confidential informant offered $250,000, a free holiday and a car to one suspect for help with the attack.

In the case of the Fort Dix Five, which involved a fake plan to attack a New Jersey military base, one informant's criminal past included attempted murder, while another admitted in court at least two of the suspects later jailed for life had not known of any plot.

Such actions have led Muslim civil rights groups to wonder if their communities are being unfairly targeted in a spying game that is rigged against them. Monteilh says that is exactly what happens. "The way the FBI conducts their operations, It is all about entrapment . . . I know the game, I know the dynamics of it. It's such a joke, a real joke. There is no real hunt. It's fixed," he said.

I'll still never be able to understand why the current administration didn't predicate its counter-terror policies on the assumption that all of the previous administration's counter-terror policies were by nature rotten and corrupted by politics because they were, well, rotten and corrupted by politics. We are all going to regret their short-sightedness one day.

---Vitelius

Your Tax Dollars at Work

Jesus:

The plans for the center show an extensive security system: an elaborate $10 million antiterrorism protection program, including a fence designed to stop a 15,000-pound vehicle traveling 50 miles per hour, closed-circuit cameras, a biometric identification system, a vehicle inspection facility, and a visitor-control center.

Inside, the facility will consist of four 25,000-square-foot halls filled with servers, complete with raised floor space for cables and storage. In addition, there will be more than 900,000 square feet for technical support and administration. The entire site will be self-sustaining, with fuel tanks large enough to power the backup generators for three days in an emergency, water storage with the capability of pumping 1.7 million gallons of liquid per day, as well as a sewage system and massive air-conditioning system to keep all those servers cool. Electricity will come from the center’s own substation built by Rocky Mountain Power to satisfy the 65-megawatt power demand. Such a mammoth amount of energy comes with a mammoth price tag—about $40 million a year, according to one estimate.

Given the facility’s scale and the fact that a terabyte of data can now be stored on a flash drive the size of a man’s pinky, the potential amount of information that could be housed in Bluffdale is truly staggering. But so is the exponential growth in the amount of intelligence data being produced every day by the eavesdropping sensors of the NSA and other intelligence agencies. As a result of this “expanding array of theater airborne and other sensor networks,” as a 2007 Department of Defense report puts it, the Pentagon is attempting to expand its worldwide communications network, known as the Global Information Grid, to handle yottabytes (1024 bytes) of data. (A yottabyte is a septillion bytes—so large that no one has yet coined a term for the next higher magnitude.) [...]

Controlled by the NSA, these highly secured spaces are where the agency taps into the US communications networks, a practice that came to light during the Bush years but was never acknowledged by the agency. The broad outlines of the so-called warrantless-wiretapping program have long been exposed—how the NSA secretly and illegally bypassed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which was supposed to oversee and authorize highly targeted domestic eavesdropping; how the program allowed wholesale monitoring of millions of American phone calls and email. In the wake of the program’s exposure, Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which largely made the practices legal. Telecoms that had agreed to participate in the illegal activity were granted immunity from prosecution and lawsuits. What wasn’t revealed until now, however, was the enormity of this ongoing domestic spying program.

I seem to remember a certain Midwestern Senator who was in favor of FISA oversight before he was against it. Hmmmmm:

When Barack Obama took office, Binney hoped the new administration might be open to reforming the program to address his constitutional concerns. He and another former senior NSA analyst, J. Kirk Wiebe, tried to bring the idea of an automated warrant-approval system to the attention of the Department of Justice’s inspector general. They were given the brush-off. “They said, oh, OK, we can’t comment,” Binney says.

Sitting in a restaurant not far from NSA headquarters, the place where he spent nearly 40 years of his life, Binney held his thumb and forefinger close together. “We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian state,” he says.

We may yet reach a Progressive golden era, many decades hence, when we have finally started beating our Tomahawk missiles into ploughshares, insuring our sick via single-payer health care, guaranteeing a job and a place to live to every American who needs them, and traveling from sea to shining sea on emissions-free high-speed rail. But I suspect that whichever generation of Americans achieves these things, they will look back on our time as the onset of a Dark Age that unleashed some malign and sinister forces throughout the land. I would like to think I'll be proved wrong here, but I don't see how the bipartisan acquiescence by our government to an established and permanent national surveillance garrison state within our own borders ends up producing anything other than, well, something that resembles turnkey totalitarianism.

---Vitelius

Lessons Learned

Looking back, one of the big reasons I preferred Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton was on the matter of foreign policy. Specifically, my fear was that Clinton, as our first female President, would feel the need to impress the DC old-boy policy establishment with her "toughness" on scary brown people who Hate Us For Our Freedoms by dispatching the military on all sorts of reckless adventures and ultimately embracing many of the previous administration's most regressive counter-terror policies. Obama, my reasoning went, by virtue of his cross-cultural identity would be a more likely individual to challenge the sclerotic culture of American Exceptionalism that has dominated our policy discussions since the end of the Cold War, and his experience as a professor of constitutional law would give him the cover he would need to start to unravel the ugliest extrajudicial elements of Bush counter-terror policy. In retrospect, I sure nailed that one.

---Vitelius

The New First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Except for petitioning the Government at the White House or its grounds; or the Vice President’s official residence or its grounds; a building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting; or a building or grounds so restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance. Also too, knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority to do so; or knowingly, and with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, engaging in disorderly or disruptive conduct in, or within such proximity to, any restricted building or grounds when, or so that, such conduct, in fact, impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions; or knowingly, and with the intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, obstructing or impeding ingress or egress to or from any restricted building or grounds; and knowingly engaging in any act of physical violence against any person or property in any restricted building or grounds, or attempting or conspiring to do so.

Layman's translation: There will be no #Occupy demonstrations permitted at either party nominating convention this summer, or anyplace else the government deems a "special event of national significance" going forward. Hope you enjoyed your free speech rights while they lasted.

---Vitelius

Obligatory President's Day Blog

At the Monthly today, Ed Kilgore wanders down memory lane for the holiday with reflections on the Presidents who have served in his lifetime. My first reaction upon reading his post was, Damn, I must be getting old if a quarter of our nation's chief executives have served during my lifetime. But it's true, starting at Ike and proceeding to Hussein. Anyway, to honor America, here are some random takes on each of the Executive Eleven---with at least one kudo for each of them---who have helmed the Republic for the past 55 years on our long, excruciating descent into sclerotic empire.

Best: LBJ. Even with Vietnam, the legislative legacy is staggering.
Worst: Guess.
Most underrated: Carter.
Most overrated: He who belongs on Mt. Rushmore.
Most overvalued: JFK. Too many unanswered questions, especially on Vietnam.
Most undervalued: Eisenhower. He'd likely be a Blue Dog Democrat today.
Most forgettable: President WIN button.
Least forgettable: I am not a crook.
Most charismatic: Obama.
Least charismatic: G.H.W. Bush.
Most likable: Clinton.
Least likable: Every Republican President since Eisenhower.

Okay, those are my picks. Readers, have at them.

---Vitelius

About That Peace Prize

Some of its original owners would like it back. Can't say you can blame them.

---Vitelius

War Crimes We Can Believe In

I guess it stand to reason, in our Orwellian day and age, that it is an unpardonable offense for ex-government officials to disclose that their former employers no longer feel compelled to obey their own laws:

The Justice Department on Monday charged a former CIA officer with repeatedly leaking classified information, including the identities of agency operatives involved in the capture and interrogation of alleged terrorists.

The case against John Kiriakou, who also served as a senior Senate aide, extends the Obama administration’s crackdown on disclosures of national security secrets. Kiriakou, 47, is the sixth target of a leaks-related prosecution since President Obama took office, exceeding the total number of comparable prosecutions under all previous administrations combined, legal experts said.

Kiriakou, who was among the first to go public with details about the CIA’s use of water-boarding and other harsh interrogation measures, was charged with disclosing classified information to reporters and lying to the agency about the origin of other sensitive material he published in a book. He faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

Liberal Democratic administration, my ass. Greenwald's next column just wrote itself.

---Vitelius

Sure There's a Good Reason For This

I just can't figure out what it is, except perhaps the possibility that our leaders have decided that merely pissing off hippies and unions won't be quite sufficient to win over the Unicorn Vote Independent Voters next November, so they've decided to alienate the Netroots as well. And hey, who knows, it might even work. But be careful what you ask for---some of us have long memories.

---Vitelius

Perpetual-Motion Warfare

Glad to see our leaders have reached bipartisan consensus on the necessity of gunning down American citizens without charge or jury trial or any due process whatsoever in the name of Keeping Us Safe®. For all I know, this may be effective counterterror policy, but constitutional questions aside, it's hard to see how the eventual outcome of the policy varies much from what we've experienced using this approach up to now, i.e., more collateral damage that generates a steady stream of new Qaeda recruits ready to take up arms against the Great Satan. Which then dictates the need for more drones, more secret bases overseas, more airstrikes, rinse, repeat, spend billions and billions of taxpayer dollars. Then again, maybe that's the point.

Meanwhile, po' folks at home.

---Vitelius

If The President Says It's Legal, Then it's Legal

The Obama Corollary to the Nixon Doctrine:

Some of the most damaging behavior on Wall Street---in some cases some of the least ethical behavior on Wall Street---wasn’t illegal. That’s exactly why we had to change the laws.

Meanwhile, obeying the law:

• Despite laws against it, banks have foreclosed on active-duty U.S. soldiers who are legally eligible to have foreclosures halted. Attorneys representing service members estimate banks have foreclosed on up to 30,000 active military personnel, mostly while they were in Iraq and Afghanistan.

• There has been---literally---“tens of thousands of fraudulent documents filed in tens of thousands of cases.” Sworn affidavits have been filed containing false information. This is easily prosecuted perjury.

• The size and scope of the fraud on the U.S. court system is unprecedented in U.S. history.

• NY State court judge Arthur Schack, ruled in 2010 that pleadings by the Baum Law---who handle 40% of NY foreclosures---were “so incredible, outrageous, ludicrous and disingenuous that they should have been authorized by the late Rod Serling, creator of the famous science-fiction television series, The Twilight Zone.“ There has been no fraud prosecution to date.

• Banks have routinely filed falsified mortgage promissory notes---in some cases, six different documents have been filed, all claimed to be the original. At the least 5 must be forgeries---an easy felony to prosecute.

I can certainly appreciate the well-intentioned civility our President displayed a couple of years ago when he offered to stand between the banks and the pitchforks wielded by an unruly mob. Now, however, for his sake and ours, he needs to step aside.

---Vitelius

War Crimes We Can Believe In

American exceptionalism: The freedom our government reserves for itself to take exception to any attempts by aggrieved parties to render it accountable for illegal acts:

Troops, traumatized by the rising violence and feeling constantly under siege, grew increasingly twitchy, killing more and more civilians in accidental encounters. Others became so desensitized and inured to the killing that they fired on Iraqi civilians deliberately while their fellow soldiers snapped pictures, and were court-martialed. The bodies piled up at a time when the war had gone horribly wrong.

Charges were dropped against six of the accused Marines in the Haditha episode, one was acquitted and the last remaining case against one Marine is scheduled to go to trial next year.

That sense of American impunity ultimately poisoned any chance for American forces to remain in Iraq, because the Iraqis would not let them stay without being subject to Iraqi laws and courts, a condition the White House could not accept.

Told about the documents that had been found, Col. Barry Johnson, a spokesman for the United States military in Iraq, said that many of the documents remain classified and should have been destroyed. “Despite the way in which they were improperly discarded and came into your possession, we are not at liberty to discuss classified information,” he said.

He added: “We take any breech of classified information as an extremely serious matter. In this case, the documents are being reviewed to determine whether an investigation is warranted.”

Unauthorized leaks: Extremely serious matter. Dead civilians: Not so much.

If we're to forgo war crimes prosecutions, we still need at very least a Truth & Reconciliation Commission to probe and expose the serial criminality of the US government in virtually all policy spheres circa 2001-2009. Otherwise, this shit is simply going to happen again. And when it does, the current occupant of the White House will bear a great share of responsibility for it, even if none of the atrocities actually happened on his watch. There are some forms of behavior---like mass slaughter and torture---that are so repugnant, a civil society can never give them a pass without betraying the moral argument for its existence as a nation. Put another way: absent a sea change in the selective way we choose to observe accepted norms of international law, we are hence and forevermore a rogue state, now cloaked in the mantle of bipartisanship. I'm sure glad I voted for this three years ago.

Also too, free-market solutions.

---Vitelius

Lyndon Baines Obama

He seeks no wider war.

But hey, as long as you're channeling your inner LBJ, how about proposing some Great Society programs for people who could use some poverty relief, some affordable health care, a college education that won't bankrupt their parents, and oh yeah, some jobs.

---Vitelius

The Legacy of 9/11

Part 4: Because we can never get enough of putting a boot in some poor people's ass.

One thing I do know: If 9/11 had happened in any other Western democracy, this wretched and insulting anniversary scene would never have taken place. Because the attacks of 9/11 would have spurred any other parliamentary body to demand immediate investigations, and when it became clear that the chief executive and his minions had been asleep at their posts and then lied about the attacks in much the same way the Bush people did, they would have been subjected to a no-confidence vote, forced to call new elections, and driven from office by outraged voters. Don't believe me? It's already happened.

Maybe this is bad form to express today---you tell me---but shame on Obama for allowing himself to be seen in the same area code as that murderous son of a bitch, let alone at the site of his single greatest policy fuckup. The man belongs in prison for war crimes, not on a podium where 3,000 people died needlessly so he and his neocon buddies could squander the nation's blood and treasure on a trillion-dollar experiment in global social engineering that cost 100,000 lives. Short of incarceration, the man deserves to be heckled and hounded for the rest of his days, and treated with the same flippant arrogance he treated the nation for the first six years of his Presidency. It will be decades, if ever, before we can wash the toxic stain of Bushism completely out of our political fabric, and making bipartisan gestures of recognition towards a man who elevated the scapegoating and demonization of his political opponents into an art form only delays the collective healing that needs to take place---and hasn't even really begun yet---before we can truly learn the lessons of the awful day and start to construct policy solutions that ensure it never happens again.

---Vitelius