Happy Columbus Day!

I've officially seen a Youtube comment that impressed me on this Youtube video about Reconsidering Columbus Day.

"Columbus Day! The day we celebrate the much hallowed voyage of Christopher Columbus.

Screw Columbus! You can't wander into someone's backyard and start discovering stuff. I remember as a kid, I "discovered" some apples from my neighbor's tree. They told my mom, and I discovered an ass-beating later that day.

So on October 12th, If you really want to commemorate Columbus Day in a genuine way, Make a bunch of wrong turns and give some Native Americans smallpox."

Thank you, christopherdavis777 for completely blowing my mind by posting something intelligent on Youtube.

Blog Rundown!

Stuff I've been reading.

United States "lapsing Into Paganism." I, for one, welcome our new Pagan pervert overlords.

Public opinion on US war prisoner policies: it's not what you think. Should we keep Guantanamo open? Is torture okay? Are we doing it? Should we investigate our leaders for war crimes if we decide that we're doing it?

Russia drops their missile plans because Americans aren't being idiots anymore.

US President adopted into Crow tribe. An older article, but one I just found. Very cool!

Dear White People. An essay that had me pondering for a good few hours.

Being "colour blind" is NOT a solution. Another very good one.

Pres. Obama's Executive Orders

I know that there are people on my F-list who are interested in American politics (whether they live here or not), but don't necessarily know where to look for things like this. So! Here's a rundown of what President Obama has started (at least the most thorough one I've seen, since a lot of places are still too arguing over the Chief Justice garbling the oath, and whether family planning resources help low-income families).

Executive Order Watch

Executive orders from the office of the new President are trickling in at a faster pace now. Here's the rundown so far:

• Guantanamo Bay must be closed down within a year. Nothing is clear yet about what exactly the government plans to do with the detainees, whose trials have been suspended. Along with Guantanamo, the CIA has been ordered to shut down their overseas network of covert prisons where they've kept suspects in secret custody for months or years. Another order Obama signed created a task force to figure out what to do next.
• The U.S. Army Field Manual is now the official standard for interrogation for all U.S. personnel; it prohibits waterboarding as well as threats, coercion, and physical abuse. A pretty tight restriction on anything approaching torture, but a source of the Washington Post suggests that there may be revisions to that manual in store, which would re-expand what is allowed.
• Along with requesting that military judges suspend the trials of the Guantanamo detainees, another order suspended the trial of Ali al-Marri, who is accused of being an al-Qaeda agent and is being held indefinitely as an "enemy combatant." His status and fate remains uncertain as well.
• All White House officials who makes more than $100k is getting a pay freeze.
• Executive branch employees are prohibited from taking any gifts from lobbyists. (It's hard but not impossible, sadly, to believe that this wasn't a rule before. I haven't been able to find out if it was or not.)
• Hiring, firing, and other employment practices in the executive branch must now be made based on qualifications, competence, and experience, as opposed to political connections. (This is thought by some to be a repudiation of how former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez fired a bunch of prosecutors who weren't faithfully doing everything Republicans told them to.)
• New executive branch appointees may not take part in any matter related to any employer or client that they've worked with during the last two years, or work on any issue area or in any department of government that they lobbied during the last two years. This is intended to stop "revolving door" cronyism, of course, and may affect a lot of Obama's staff. UPDATE: In fact, it looks like the administration may already have to seek a waiver from this rule for William Lynn, nominated to be Deputy Secretary of Defense, because Lynn was a vice-president and Raytheon and now would be involved in budgeting and acquisitions. DOH way to make a rule and break it, in the military-industrial complex no less.
• Similarly, executive branch employees who leave government service are now prohibited from lobbying the executive branch for two years after they leave or the rest of the Obama administration, whichever is longer.
• Other officials besides the President *cough*CHENEY*cough* can no longer claim executive privilege to keep executive-branch documents sealed. Bush gave that power to former Presidents and Vice-Presidents as well… oops, can't seal your old records any more! Now, if even the President wants to exercise that power, the act must still be reviewed for constitutionality by the Attorney General and the White House counsel.
• Obama has ordered new guidelines to be developed for government communication and the Freedom of Information Act to implement principles of openness, transparency, and participatory government.

Sounds good to me so far, although I expect the "up in the air" status of Guantanamo detainees is unlikely to make anyone happy, especially the right wing. Still, for now it means no more hidden prison networks, no more waterboarding, and slightly fewer possibilities for secrecy and cronyism. (...)

UPDATE: According to California NOW the Department of Health & Human Services has confirmed that they have yet to develop guidelines for implementing the "conscience rule" that would allow health care providers to refuse service if they didn't like it. Because Obama's team issued an order halting any implementation of last-minute Bush directives until they can be reviewed, it looks like that rule will not be going forward. I can't imagine the Obama administration would review it and let it continue.

Sources: here and here and here.

Mm! War Crimes! :3

The best comment on this particular little gem was best offered over at WashingtonMonthly.

TARGETING CIVILIANS.... When I first saw Glenn Greenwald's piece yesterday on Michael Goldfarb's latest missive, I thought there had to be some kind of mistake. Glenn made it sound like Goldfarb, the Weekly Standard writer and former John McCain aide, had endorsed deliberate military attacks against innocent civilians.

But it wasn't a mistake; that's exactly what Goldfarb argued. Under a headline that read, "Ruthless," Goldfarb commented on an Israeli airstrike that killed a Hamas leader, his wives, and his 12 children.

The fight against Islamic radicals always seems to come around to whether or not they can, in fact, be deterred, because it's not clear that they are rational, at least not like us. But to wipe out a man's entire family, it's hard to imagine that doesn't give his colleagues at least a moment's pause. Perhaps it will make the leadership of Hamas rethink the wisdom of sparking an open confrontation with Israel under the current conditions.

Noting how odd it is to see "the ethics of Osama bin Laden being explicitly adopted by the organs of mainstream conservatism," Matt Yglesias explained, "To be clear, [Goldfarb's] not saying that it's sometimes okay to kill a bad guy's innocent children as part of a military operation directed against the guy. He's saying it's better to kill his children than it would be to avoid killing them."

Cute, dude. I'm sure someone will find some way to blame this little PR nightmare on the "liberal media." Never mind that a "liberal media" would leap on this scratching and tearing, instead of leaving it to bloggers to notice and boggle at the ridiculous shit a guy can get away with saying and still retain credibility.

Putting Israel’s “Perspective” in Perspective

Putting Israel’s “Perspective” in Perspective

As we hear that the IDF is bombing universities and killing United Nations personnel in addition to the hundreds of Gazans already dead in the three days of the Israeli attack on Gaza, we will hear the inevitable cry "but Hamas has been lobbing rockets at Israelis for years from Gaza!" Juan Cole tells us about these rockets, and provides some perspective:

Israel blames Hamas for primitive homemade rocket attacks on the nearby Israeli city of Sederot. In 2001-2008, these rockets killed about 15 Israelis and injured 433, and they have damaged property. In the same period, Gazan mortar attacks on Israel have killed 8 Israelis.

Since the Second Intifada broke out in 2000, Israelis have killed nearly 5000 Palestinians, nearly a thousand of them minors. Since fall of 2007, Israel has kept the 1.5 million Gazans under a blockade, interdicting food, fuel and medical supplies to one degree or another. Wreaking collective punishment on civilian populations such as hospital patients denied needed electricity is a crime of war.

The Israelis on Saturday killed 5% of all the Palestinians they have killed since the beginning of 2001! 230 people were slaughtered in a day, over 70 of them innocent civilians. In contrast, from the ceasefire Hamas announced in June, 2008 until Saturday, no Israelis had been killed by Hamas. The infliction of this sort of death toll is known in the law of war as a disproportionate response, and it is a war crime.

But of course you won't see this on your evening news, not unless you live outside of the US. You're more likely to know about this if you live in Tel Aviv than if you live in Milwaukee.

Johann Hari backs up Cole's numbers on the rocket casualties, and offers a response to the Israelis' stand that they pulled out of Gaza in 2005 and the Gazans responded with rocket attacks:

The Israeli government did indeed withdraw from the Gaza Strip in 2005 - in order to be able to intensify control of the West Bank. Ariel Sharon's senior advisor Dov Weisglass was unequivocal about this, explaining: "The disengagement [from Gaza] is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that's necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians... Effectively, this whole package that is called the Palestinian state has been removed from our agenda indefinitely."

Ordinary Palestinians were horrified by this, and by the fetid corruption of their own Fatah leaders - so they voted for Hamas. ... It was a free and democratic election, and it was not a rejection of a two-state solution. The most detailed polling of Palestinians, by the University of Maryland, found that 72 percent want a two-state solution on the 1967 borders, while fewer than 20 percent want to reclaim the whole of historic Palestine. So, partly in response to this pressure, Hamas offered Israel a long ceasefire and a de facto acceptance of two states, if only Israel would return to its legal borders.

Rather than seize this opportunity and test their sincerity, the Israeli government reacted by punishing the entire civilian population. They announced they were blockading the Gaza Strip in order to "pressure" its people to reverse the democratic process. They surrounded the Strip and refused to let anyone or anything out. They let in a small trickle of food, fuel and medicine - but not enough for survival.

Dov Weisglass' comment was that the Gazans were being "put on a diet." Turns out it's a starvation diet: Oxfam says only 137 trucks of food were allowed into the Gaza Strip this November -- an average of 4.5 per day, compared to the December 2005 average of 564 per day. Gaza has nearly 1.5 million people crammed into 139 square miles -- 137 food trucks wouldn't begin to cover their needs, especially since the inhabitants aren't allowed to go outside of Gaza to seek work. The UN says poverty there has reached an "unprecedented level." Not exactly the conditions that engender feelings of brotherly love.

There might be people on reading who have a better grasp of this whole mess than I've got, but this seemed like a fairly good rundown. Is it? If I could get an opinion from someone with more knowledge in this area, that'd be awesome.

On the other hand, if all you have to say is that Palestinians are cockroaches and we need to support Israel (our allies, right or wrong!), then please don't comment. I'm looking for something that's been seriously considered, because this isn't an area I'm familiar with and I'm trying to get a more nuanced picture of it than Jews Good, Arabs Bad!

Compassion and Choice

I'm going to be charitable and assume that the pro-life stance is not just primarily about protecting children, but is solely about protecting children. Let's take away all those debates about economic and social parity between men and women. Let's take away all the questioning of heteronormative gender roles and Christonormative social norms, and the adoption system that reinforces them.

Let's talk about protecting children.

Currently in America there are 500,000 children in foster care, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

On any given night in America, over a million children are homeless. Being homeless doesn't just mean no shelter, compromised hygeine, and no guarantee of safety. It also means a staggering rate of mental illness and compromised educational opportunity, according to the National Mental Health Association.

Every day, worldwide, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes according to The Lancet.

About 20 million children are homeless and over 2 million are dead because of armed conflicts worldwide in the last decade, this according to UNICEF.

This is why, if I ever raise children, I feel a strong moral imperative to adopt. This is why, if I ever call a young person my son or daughter I do not plan for them to be of my own blood.

This is why, if I become pregnant, I will do my damndest to have an abortion. Y'know why? Because if I'm going to pour resources into a child, I can think of children who need it a lot more than the one I'd be producing.

Stop telling me I hate children. That I'm a babykiller. That I'm a destroyer of families, a reaver of responsible moral values. I intend to have an abortion to stop the introduction of more children into a world that's got enough needy children already. You want to turn every single abortion discussion into an appeal to emotion? You really want to go that low?

I can play that game, too.

I think every single person who deliberately conceives children of their own instead of taking in a child in need (and they're all around us, guys) is being self-serving and short-sighted. I do. I think these people are allowing themselves to be complicit in a system where the only children that are recognized as needing safety, food, and love are one's own, where the children we value most are still aspirin-sized parasites, while real living, breathing, thinking, feeling, suffering children are left to their plights because millions of parents who could be doing something for them are creating more and more children instead.

Every time I'm slurred as a babyhating militant women's libber out to destroy families I have bitten my tongue when it comes to this particular argument because I didn't want to come out and say it. But now I will.

You say I'm devaluing the lives of children by planning to have an abortion should I become pregnant. I say that pro-lifers are devaluing the lives of children by sanctifying a fetus above a needy child who quite simply to them matters less.

I use two forms of protection and am still considering more permanent sterilization options (that, let's face it, are expensive and invasive for women). But you can bet that if I become pregnant despite that, I will have an abortion. Without hesitation. Without guilt. Without permission.

And I'll be thinking of you. I'll remind myself how glad I am that "pro-lifers" and their lust for forced birthing don't get to force me to make the wrong choice, to make a choice that I believe will be exacerbating a global child welfare disaster that could easily be fixed if more people cared for existing children as much as they cared for a smear of cells less distinct from my own body than the normal flora in my gut.

I'll be wondering why the hell more women aren't right here with me, putting live children first.

So don't rail at me about protecting children like it's never occurred to me that they need it. I am a thinking, discerning, moral human being, and thinking, discerning, moral human beings are able and obligated to decide for themselves how best to serve the world in their time here. We are able and obligated to choose. I choose contraception and abortion, as many times as I want them. I choose adoption, every time I want a child.

That's my choice. Why should you get a veto? Why should the moral choice of this woman be worth so little, and dismissed so easily? I'm pro-choice, and we believe in morality, too.

If given a choice (and I will demand one), there is a direct moral conflict for me between bearing a child of my own blood and caring for suffering children who are already here. When in conflict (and I've stated that it always will be), my obligation will be to these living children first. Why are all these living children less important to "pro-lifers" than the children I may abort? Why do they want women like me to be forced to bear children, when I know in my heart that children worldwide are better served if I avoid breeding at all costs?

Call it the Bob Barker school of child welfare. Spay and neuter yourselves. Adopt a child in need.

To clarify: I'm not demanding that all people have enforced abortions until there are no more needy children. I can understand people choosing personally that, when they get pregnant, they're not comfortable getting an abortion. Oopsie babies happen, and I know not everyone can be as cavalier about it as I am.

What I can't excuse morally even if I understand it emotionally is deliberately creating more children when you know that there are already kids out there who need you. Resources are limited, and you can't take care of every kid. But I believe it is wrong to deliberately create a new child instead of adopting. Not everyone has to make that choice, but it is a moral choice I have made, and not mere selfishness as it gets portrayed by anti-choicers.

If all we're going to talk about is compassion for children, I think it shows a lack of compassion for children to deliberately breed more instead of caring for the ones who need care.

Damn, Dana.

Dana Hunter, one of my favorite bloggers, has decided to write up what might be the best take-down of John McCain's insistence that his experience as a POW exempts him from all criticism.

It's here, and I think that by quoting it only in part I'm doing it a disservice, but I know that most of you won't read it if you don't at least see a sample bit.

Being a rape survivor does not make me an unimpeachable expert on rape, the combatting thereof, and all things remotely related to it. Being a POW does not make John McCain an expert on war, the fighting thereof, and all things remotely related to it. It apparently doesn't even make him an expert on torture, because if it had, he wouldn't have worked so hard to allow America to engage in it. (Imagine me redefining my rape as somehow "not rape" so that sexual violence could be legally perpetrated against women. Morally repugnant? I think so. But that's essentially what McCain has done.)

(snip)

Being a rape survivor does not mean I get to claim that I'm a better person than my opponents because I survived rape and they didn't. McCain is no better than the people he smears - in fact, he's far less of a good man than they are. If we're going to be claiming higher ground by virtue of our travails, we'd better be fucking standing on it.

I can't use my status as a rape survivor to disclaim responsibility for the actions I take, the things I say, the people I hurt, and all my many failures. It infuriates me that McCain thinks this status as a POW allows him to do all of that and so much more.

Get it? Go read.

Dear Veterans: Stay Home in November. Love, the VA.

Help Our Veterans Vote

WHAT is the secretary of Veterans Affairs thinking? On May 5, the department led by James B. Peake issued a directive that bans nonpartisan voter registration drives at federally financed nursing homes, rehabilitation centers and shelters for homeless veterans. As a result, too many of our most patriotic American citizens — our injured and ill military veterans — may not be able to vote this November.

I have witnessed the enforcement of this policy. On June 30, I visited the Veterans Affairs Hospital in West Haven, Conn., to distribute information on the state’s new voting machines and to register veterans to vote. I was not allowed inside the hospital.

Outside on the sidewalk, I met Martin O’Nieal, a 92-year-old man who lost a leg while fighting the Nazis in the mountains of Northern Italy during the harsh winter of 1944. Mr. O’Nieal has been a resident of the hospital since 2007. He wanted to vote last year, but he told me that there was no information about how to register to vote at the hospital and the nurses could not answer his questions about how or where to cast a ballot.

I carry around hundreds of blank voter registration cards in the trunk of my car for just such occasions, so I was able to register Mr. O’Nieal in November. I also registered a few more veterans — whoever I could find outside on the hospital’s sidewalk.

There are thousands of veterans of wars in Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf and the current campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan who are isolated behind the walls of V.A. hospitals and nursing homes across the country. We have an obligation to make sure that every veteran has the opportunity to make his or her voice heard at the ballot box.

Why would this craziness be happening? Why in the world would our government not want veterans voting? Particularly when they supposedly tend to go Republican, right? Shouldn't this administration be clambering all over themselves to see as many military folks voting as possible?

Nope. Because this year military organizations are not favoring the Republican candidate, and active duty personnel aren't donating too much to him either.

This one is particularly interesting. The article from The Carpetbagger Report cites this, but I thought it deserved a mention in its own right here.

According to an analysis of campaign contributions by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Democrat Barack Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than has Republican John McCain.

(snip)

Individuals in the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps have all leaned Republican this cycle, but the only branch in which that ideology has carried over to the presidential race is the Marine Corps, where McCain leads Obama by about $4,000. In each of the other branches -- including the Navy, in which McCain served when he was taken prisoner during the Vietnam War -- Obama leads by significant margins.

"That's shocking. The academic debate is between some who say that junior enlisted ranks lean slightly Republican and some who say it's about equal, but no one would point to six-to-one" in Democrats' favor, said Aaron Belkin, a professor of political science at the University of California who studies the military. "That represents a tremendous shift from 2000, when the military vote almost certainly was decisive in Florida and elsewhere, and leaned heavily towards the Republicans."

In 2000, Republican George W. Bush outraised Democrat Al Gore among military personnel almost 2 to 1. In 2004, with the Iraq war underway, John Kerry closed the gap with President Bush, but Bush still raised $1.50 from the military for every $1 his Democratic opponent collected.

For Republicans, who generally seem to rely heavily on the support of troops, this is a scary scary thing. Of course, it's to be expected. Our troops are starting to realize that Republicans don't care about them.

Maybe now they'll start voting with their own interests. And maybe that's what has this administration so damned scared they'll vote at all.

So Dear Veterans:

Stay home in November. 

Love, the VA.

By all rights this should be the endgame.

But it won't be. Because people are stupid.

Remember how the Iraqi Prime Minister endorsed Obama's Iraq plan? And remember how this Carpetbagger Report article snidely commented, "I can’t wait for a) McCain to explain why Maliki’s opinion about events in his own country don’t matter; and b) the media to explain to me why this is good news for McCain."

Well! McCain explained why Maliki's opinion doesn't matter. An insightful and entertaining account is here, and they include his Today Show appearance.

McCain answered, “I have been there too many times. I’ve met too many times with him, and I know what they want.”

Y'know. More than Maliki. Who is an Iraqi. And their democratically-elected Prime Minister, to hear talk of him. And more than Iraq's government spokesman, who also endorsed Obama's timeline. Mind you, this is the same guy who--after pressure from the US--claimed that the remarks were misinterpreted and inaccurate. Seems he subsequently grew a pair and is hopping on with the PM. Damn uppity towelheads, demanding the national sovereignty we promised them. What'll they think of next? *eyeroll*

Contrast this with the statement he made in 2004 that if the Iraqis really wanted us out, we'd have to go.

"I think it's obvious that we would have to leave because -- if it was an elected government of Iraq, and we've been asked to leave other places in the world. If it were an extremist government then I think we would have other challenges, but I don't see how we could stay when our whole emphasis and policy has been based on turning the Iraqi government over to the Iraqi people."

Enough, Senator McCain. Just cut it the fuck out. Admit you've lost the foreign policy battle, and that it's the only one you were fighting in the first place. It's done.

As Spencer Ackerman commented, "There's nowhere left for McCain to go here. Either he endorses a timetable for withdrawal, which he has consistently said would be a disaster, and cedes his only big issue to Obama -- and more importantly, concedes that Obama's judgment is sound -- or he deliberately ignores the concerted, expressed wishes of the Iraqi government in order to prolong an unpopular war."

I swear there was a time when people respected us.

US tells lies about torture, say MPs

Britain can no longer believe what Americans tell us about torture, an MPs' report to be published today claims. They also call for an immediate investigation into allegations that the UK government has itself 'outsourced' the torture of its own nationals to Pakistan.

In a damning criticism of US integrity, the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said ministers should no longer take at face value statements from senior politicians, including George Bush, that America does not resort to torture in the light of the CIA admitting it used 'waterboarding'. The interrogation technique was unreservedly condemned by Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who said it amounted to torture.

A change in approach would have implications for extradition of prisoners to the US, especially in terror or security cases, as the UK has signed the UN convention which bars sending individuals to nations where they are at risk of being tortured.

Torture is Useless

Dear Friend,

Did you see the news? Yesterday a military judge overseeing the first war crimes trials at Guantanamo refused to consider evidence obtained in "highly coercive environments and conditions." So now not only is information acquired through torture unreliable, un-American and immoral, it's also useless.

Now, TrueMajority is working with Catholics United and School of the Americas Watch to bring you the voices of torture survivors and military interrogators who are asking Sen. McCain to regain his moral footing and ban torture.

Watch the video and sign their petition demanding an end to torture.

The (Our) Iraqi Prime Minister Expresses an Opinion!

McCain? Those were your balls.

Iraqi PM backs Obama troop exit plan - magazine

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told a German magazine he supported prospective U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's proposal that U.S. troops should leave Iraq within 16 months.

In an interview with Der Spiegel released on Saturday, Maliki said he wanted U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible.

"U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."

(snip)

"The Americans have found it difficult to agree on a concrete timetable for the exit because it seems like an admission of defeat to them. But it isn't," Maliki told Der Spiegel.

As the Carpetbagger Report mentioned in Maliki endorses Obama’s Iraq strategy — by name, "I can’t wait for a) McCain to explain why Maliki’s opinion about events in his own country don’t matter; and b) the media to explain to me why this is good news for McCain."

War Crimes. Get it?

I know people who can't imagine the United States committing war crimes. Some of them just don't want to know, so they stay away from any venue that might bring up evidence. Others are more resilient, viewing evidence and ignoring it.

In one conversation, I had someone demand that a major news network have covered it, because after all you can't trust anything you read online. You want CNN? You've got it. 

But suddenly news networks couldn't be trusted. After all, they're secretly controlled by the liberal Jewish Illuminati, so we'd better ask soldiers who're actually on the ground. They'll know. Often the discussion stops after this link, because then we have to believe that American soldiers are just like any other soldiers. Decent humans sometimes do terrible things they wouldn't do in peacetime. We know this. It's just hard for some people to apply that to our own soldiers, to treat them like humans in addition to heroes.

But sometimes they can get past that, and then you'll hear, "Well, it wasn't ordered by the government. They wouldn't do that. It's unethical and illegal." And then you link them a few more things. 

How about the fact that the US camps hid detainees (can we call them POWs yet?) from the Red Cross.

CIA's Counterterrorism Center, disclosed that detainees were moved routinely to avoid the scrutiny of the ICRC, which keeps tabs on prisoners in conflicts around the world.

"In the past when the ICRC has made a big deal about certain detainees, the DOD (Defense Department) has 'moved' them away from the attention of the ICRC," Fredman said, according to the minutes.

(snip)

The administration overrode or ignored objections from all four military services and from criminal investigators, who warned that the practices would imperil their ability to prosecute the suspects. In one prophetic e-mail on Oct. 28, 2002, Mark Fallon, then the deputy commander of the Pentagon's Criminal Investigation Task Force, wrote a colleague: "This looks like the kind of stuff Congressional hearings are made of. ... Someone needs to be considering how history will look back at this." The objections from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines prompted Navy Capt. Jane Dalton, legal adviser to the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, to begin a review of the proposed techniques.

But Dalton, who's now retired, told the hearing Tuesday that the review was aborted quickly. Myers, she said, took her aside and told her that then-Defense Department general counsel William Haynes "does not want this ... to proceed."

(snip)

Regarding the ICRC, the United States long has complained that other countries such as China or the old Soviet Union prevented independent access to prisoners or made their conditions look better when outsiders were inspecting.

Whoops. Do I even have to say it. I probably do. What the hell were they hiding?

Your answer is here. Retired General: Bush Administration Committed War Crimes.

A new report put out by Physicians for Human Rights documents multiple instances of torture and abuse of prisoners by American personnel at Guantanamo Bay, in Iraq and in other prisons on military bases around the world. Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who led the Pentagon's investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib, minces no words in the introduction to the report:

After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.

Once again, this is not coming from someone that can be dismissed by Bush apologists as some wild-eyed liberal ACLU type. This is the man that the Pentagon picked to investigate a major incident of abuse. And there is more, both in Taguba's introduction to the report and in the report itself.

Uh oh! Looks like they're in trouble now. Believe what you want, but these war criminals know that trouble's coming. Wonder what they're gonna do to save their asses... Oh, I know!

US asks to rewrite evidence against Guantanamo detainees ahead of court review.

The government has stood behind the evidence for years. Military review boards relied on it to justify holding hundreds of prisoners indefinitely without charge. Justice Department attorneys said it was thoroughly and fairly reviewed.

Now that federal judges are about to review the evidence, however, the government says it needs to make changes.

The decision follows last week's Supreme Court ruling, which held that detainees have the right to challenge their detention in civilian court, not just before secret military panels.

Accountability is a bitch, innit? Wouldn't it just be awful if the government had to demonstrate their actual reasons for doing any of these things? I remain convinced that if the United States is forced to comply with its own human rights standards and pay some modicum of respect to international law... well, the terrorists will win. Right?

Right?

War crimes.

Get it?

Are we going to war with Iran? Seriously?

I would really like my American friends to read this. Because this does affect you. I shit you not, this does matter, and you will regret it if you pretend this isn't happening.

Entry from En Tequila Es Verdad (good blog if you're like me and prefer your news with a little wisecracking to make it go down easier):

Really fucking unhappy right now. Not only did Congress flush the Fourth Amendment down the loo, they seem hell-bent on shitting away what fragments of sanity they have left:

Just when you thought a Congress could not debase itself any further, having just approved massive funding for the Iraq war and given the corporate criminal accomplices of Bush's attack on the Bill of Rights a free pass... along comes the mother of all insane resolutions of our time. This is even worse than the notorious Iraq War Resolution. and is likely to pass Congress like a glassful of laxatives.

Resolution 362 in the House (not officially named the "Iran War Resolution", but nonetheless amounting to nothing less than that)will effectively demand the US to impose a naval blockade of Iran, an act of war.

Please take action this weekend.

Yes, please do. The last fucking thing we need is another fucking unilateral war. This country's military back is broken as it is, not to mention the ethical, moral, and diplomatic concerns involved. We shouldn't be provoking a war with Iran to begin with, but to do so when we have two fucking unfinished wars on our plates - that's beyond insane. I don't think we even have a word for how batshit crazy that is.

After all, even Bush's chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff favors diplomacy:

In an interview with National Journal published today, Mullen speaks favorably of directly engaging with Iran, even though he says Iran has not always shown a “propensity” for it:

NJ: Given Iran’s role as a spoiler in the region, and with so much now at stake for the United States, doesn’t it make sense to directly engage with Iran to discern its motives and explore potential accommodations?

MULLEN: I would like to have a healthy dialogue with Iran, but many different administrations over a period of decades have been unable to achieve that. But I do think engagement would offer an opportunity, certainly, to understand each other better. That said, the Iranians have to want to talk too. It can’t just be a desire on our part. And the Iranians haven’t shown much propensity for dialogue.

Mullen isn’t the only administration official who has eschewed Bush’s absolutist rhetoric in favor of a more diplomatic approach.

I'm not entirely hopeful that the voices of reason can drown out the war drums, but it's past time to try. We have a disaster on our hands now - what we'd have with a third war is catastrophe.

As for Iran not showing much of a propensity for talking with us, who the fuck can blame them? Look at who they'd be talking to. George W. "I'll see your crazy and raise you a batshit insane" Bush.

Remember a few things in the run-up to this new war. Bush lied to get us in to the last one. He used fear and patriotism to shut down dissent. And too many of us, myself included, simply threw up our hands and didn't do a goddamned thing.

Not this time. Not another war. Listen:

We need to stop House Resolution 362 in its tracks. Right now.

And to stop or substantially slow the push for war AIPAC needs to disgraced and here's how you can help.

The key talking point : anti-Jewish attitudes have been on the rise over the past decade, both in the US and worldwide. Sure. And Pastor John Hagee, alleged friend of Jews and Israel and key AIPAC ally, AIPAC's 2007 star speaker, has helped drive that increase in anti-Jewish hatred.

Is Israel's well being the point ? Maybe. But good faith efforts towards Mideast Peace clearly are not:

IN 2003, according to this American Prospect story, the Bush Administration chose to spurn an Iranian peace offer that would have given EVERY concession the US and AIPAC now demands from Iran.

Thus, the alleged reasons for the push for a US war with Iran are probably lies. Iran was willing to concede everything - it's nuclear program, its support for Hamas and Hezzbollah...

Hear that? That's a call to arms, that is. Don't believe the lies. Don't accept another useless war pushed on you by warloving hatemongers. It's time to stop these sick fucks dead in their tracks.

We couldn't stop FISA, but we are fucking well not going to bend over and take this.

Let Congress know you won't tolerate it.

Because I should post something about Iran!