Gitmo task force review: What we can learn (or what we already know)

The Obama administration has finally graced us with the Guantanamo Review Task Force report, a comprehensive review of all detainees held at the facility. Those reviews examined detainees' "capture information, interview reports, record searches by the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency, and Guantanamo Bay files on behavior, disciplinary infractions and mental health."

So what can be gleaned from this review? Most of this stuff isn't a surprise, but let's go over it for fun. Yes, sick, sick fun. I'll use Peter Finn's article in Saturday's Washington Post.

1. The basics: A lot of these prisoners are low-level foot soldiers and/or were captured under dubious circumstances, most likely to fill a quota or settle a score. Plus, the Obama administration didn't release this report four months ago when it was ready because it was the ethical thing to do ... er, because of politics.

The final report by the Guantanamo Review Task Force recommends that 126 of the detainees be transferred either to their homes or to a third country; that 36 be prosecuted in either federal court or a military commission; and that 48 be held indefinitely under the laws of war. A group of 30 Yemenis was approved for release if security conditions in their home country improve.

The report was completed in January but sent to select committees on Capitol Hill just this week. The administration sat on the report in the wake of the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day because there was little public or congressional appetite for further discussion of its plan to close the military detention center.

2. Congress is full cowards playing politics with Gitmo as well.

It remains unclear whether the administration can gain enough support on Capitol Hill to move forward with its plan to buy a state prison in Illinois to replace Guantanamo, where 181 detainees remain. Key House and Senate committees introduced language this month into defense bills that would bar funding for any such facility in the United States.

3. We still don't know what the hell is going on. In fact, we're making all this up as we go.

Before the review, there was no single repository of information for each detainee. The task force determined that there "were more than a thousand pieces of potentially relevant physical evidence (including electronic media) seized during raids in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks that had not yet been systematically catalogued."

4. Peter Finn, like most mainstream media journalists, continues to frame objections to indefinite detention without trial as something disconcerting for only "human rights activists." Those kooky kids. "Key parts of Obama's constituency"? I think it should be a concern for all of us, but I guess that isn't Finn's fault. He only copies what the review says, gets some anonymous officials to quip and adds in these lazy constructs of what Gitmo means to this country and the rest of the world.

The decision to hold 48 detainees without trial remains the most controversial part of the review process for key parts of Obama's constituency, including human rights activists. The task force said prosecution was not feasible for some detainees because the focus at the time of their capture was the "gathering of intelligence," not evidence. But these detainees still posed "a high level of threat."

5. This one goes in the "No kidding?" file. You've mean we've radicalized these scores of low-level or completely innocent Muslims we've kept imprisoned for years?

The report says those recommended for indefinite detention had significant roles in al-Qaeda or the Taliban and advanced training or expertise. It notes that "some detainees designated for detention have, while at Guantanamo, expressly stated or otherwise exhibited an intent to reengage in extremist activity upon release."

6. And, predictably, the administration postures on Gitmo and transparency and the rule of law ad nauseam. "Hey, as long as we stand up to House Republicans, we look pretty good." That's a low bar.

In a letter this month, seven Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee asked James L. Jones, the president's national security adviser, to recommend to Obama "an immediate prohibition on the transfer of any detainee out of Guantanamo Bay, and a halt to any action related to the closure of the facility."

Jones replied to the letter this week, saying that "Guantanamo has compromised our standing in the world, undermined our core values, and diminished our moral authority." He said that the Pentagon spends $150 million a year for detention operations at Guantanamo and that costs at a possible facility in Thomson, Ill., would be $70 million to $80 million.

I'm sure there's more to dissect, but it's not worth it to go on.

Time Life's Nazi-propaganda lampoon: Advertising at its most exploitive, fearmongering best

I don't know if dark Nazi humor was their intention, but the creators of the ad for Time Life's "The Nazi's [sic]: A Warning from History" were either trying to lampoon and/or vamp Third Reich-style propaganda or they know the animalistic perversions of Americans (WWII buffs or not) all too well.

I caught the ad on Current TV (Al Gore's station, ironically). The beginning is a bit disturbing, but so blatant, it's hard not to laugh. I'm not trying to diminish the atrocities of the Nazis, but this is quite the tone. As images of smiling Germans, set to the soft voices of singing children, appear on the screen, the baritone voiceover booms:

They laughed, sang, played ...

Then in an instant, that voice goes demonic, and gunshots ring out.

... they murdered millions! It was history's most horrible nightmare. This is what evil looks like up close.

The voiceover now bellows as some relatively graphic footage of hangings, firing squads and syncopated saluting Germans plays. It claims to be the first documentary set "from inside the Reich." They apparently unearthed "unnerving" German archive footage. $59.95! Call now and get $10 off! Call this minute, no shipping and handling! (Zoom footage to feature the whites of the Germans' eyes) "Watch as everyday people turn into killers overnight!" The BBC says, "It's bursting with new facts."

"If you believe we can learn from the past, this is one collection you must own!" fires the voiceover. I wonder what the aim is there. I hope we have learned from that era, but are they alluding to a present danger? I may be looking into this too much, but who is the target audience? Older Americans, I'd say. History buffs, yes, but this inflammatory style of ad strikes at a paranoid and delusional mindset that very much exists. Far too many people toss around the Hitler label, and I think this ad isn't afraid to ride that conspiratorial fear.

They're out there. This is no surprise.

I can't embed, but here's the link for the ad. (Anytime I can plug SHOPTV: Canada, I do so.)

There's even a German spoof of a Time Life documentary on Nazi leaders. I wish I could read German.


Time Life Hitler - MyVideo

The Fox News empire

It's sad when it's left to comedians to discern fact from fiction amid the money-hungry, ethically-devoid wasteland that is the mainstream media (especially cable news) in America. The New York Times documents The Daily Show's hounding of Fox News, the propagandist noise machine for the Right masquerading as a news channel.

In many of the segments, Mr. Stewart questions Fox’s journalistic practices. He noted that Fox had hired former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska to be a political analyst in a January segment he called “News of the Weird.” But he wasn’t laughing when he asserted that Fox is “functioning as her de-facto rapid response media arm, and they’re paying her for the privilege of doing it.”

In February he noted that Fox News had stopped showing President Obama’s widely praised meeting with Republican leaders while CNN and MSNBC had carried it start to finish. Mimicking a Fox anchor, Mr. Stewart said, “We’re gonna cut away because” — humorous pause — “this is against the narrative that we present.”

Fox is alternate-reality news and a living, breathing example of the merging of a party with a news outlet. What does it say when they are the number-one rated news channel in America?

All hail the death of journalism!

CNN vs. Al Jazeera coverage on Monday

Tiger Woods and iPads vs. Wikileak's video of American forces indiscriminate firing in Iraq. It speaks for itself.

Never mind killing pregnant Afghans, Tiger's back!

The International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF), led by U.S. General Stanley A. McChrystal, has admitted its own guilt in the deaths of five Afghan civilian (two were pregnant) during a night raid in Gardez in February.

That's a tragedy on its face. But NATO led a cover-up operation of this incident following a Times of London report on the inconsistencies that existed between NATO's explanation of the raid and the claims of survivors and witnesses.

A night raid carried out by US and Afghan gunmen led to the deaths of two pregnant women, a teenage girl and two local officials in an atrocity which Nato then tried to cover up, survivors have told The Times.

The operation on Friday, February 12, was a botched pre-dawn assault on a policeman’s home a few miles outside Gardez, the capital of Paktia province, eastern Afghanistan. In a statement after the raid titled “Joint force operating in Gardez makes gruesome discovery”, Nato claimed that the force had found the women’s bodies “tied up, gagged and killed” in a room.

A Times investigation suggests that Nato’s claims are either wilfully false or, at best, misleading. More than a dozen survivors, officials, police chiefs and a religious leader interviewed at and around the scene of the attack maintain that the perpetrators were US and Afghan gunmen. The identity and status of the soldiers is unknown.

This story appeared in the Times on March 13. ISAF proceeded to obfuscate further, going as far as to call out the reporter, Jerome Starkey, by name in response.

KABUL, Afghanistan (March 13) - The allegation made by Times UK reporter Jerome Starkey that NATO "covered up" an incident that was conducted outside Gardez in Paktia province is categorically false.

Additionally, Mr. Starkey incorrectly quoted Rear Adm. Greg Smith of ISAF when he did not include the word "armed" in the following sentence: "If you have got an [armed] individual stepping out of a compound, and if your assault force is there, that is often the trigger to neutralise the individual. You don't have to be fired upon to fire back."

All the while, keep in mind that McChyrstal has implemented policy (announced BEFORE Gardez) limiting night raids in Afghanistan -- ignoring Hamid Karzai's call for an outright band -- to curb civilian casualties.

Then, ISAF released this late Easter Sunday:

KABUL, Afghanistan (Apr. 4) – A thorough joint investigation into the events that occurred in the Gardez district of Paktiya Province Feb. 12, has determined that international forces were responsible for the deaths of three women who were in the same compound where two men were killed by the joint Afghan-international patrol searching for a Taliban insurgent.

The two men, who were later determined not to be insurgents, were shot and killed by the joint patrol after they showed what appeared to be hostile intent by being armed. While investigators could not conclusively determine how or when the women died, due to lack of forensic evidence, they concluded that the women were accidentally killed as a result of the joint force firing at the men.

So what is the physical proof of the coverup? There have to be bullet holes, right? The New York Times:

A NATO official also said Sunday that an Afghan-led team of investigators had found signs of evidence tampering at the scene, including the removal of bullets from walls near where the women were killed. On Monday, however, a senior NATO official denied that any tampering had occurred.

[...]

The admission was an abrupt about-face. In a statement soon after the raid, NATO had claimed that its raiding party had stumbled upon the “bodies of three women who had been tied up, gagged and killed” and hidden in a room in the house. Military officials had also said later that the bodies showed signs of puncture and slashing wounds from a knife, and that the women appeared to have been killed several hours before the raid.

And in what could be a scandalous turn to the investigation, The Times of London reported Sunday night that Afghan investigators also determined that American forces not only killed the women but had also “dug bullets out of their victims’ bodies in the bloody aftermath” and then “washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened.”

A spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, Zemary Bashary, said that he did not have any information about the Afghan investigation, which he said remained unfinished.

In an interview, a NATO official said the Afghan-led investigation team alerted American and NATO commanders that the inquiry had found signs of evidence tampering. A briefing was given by investigators to General McChrystal and other military officials in late March.

“There was evidence of tampering at the scene, walls being washed, bullets dug out of holes in the wall,” the NATO official said, adding that investigators “couldn’t find bullets from the wounds in the body.”

The investigators, the official said, “alluded to the fact that bullets were missing but did not discuss anything specific to that. Nothing pointed conclusively to the fact that our guys were the ones who tampered with the scene.”

Digging bullets out of the victims? Denying medical treatment to buy time for cover? Of course, the investigation is (supposedly) ongoing, but the implications are quite dire here.

But, true to form for the likes of cable news, it's too bad this isn't a major story this morning. CNN and Fox are all over a Tiger Woods press conference (SEX!), scheduled today for 2 p.m. One would think this atrocity and cover-up would be front and center for any news outlet. Not so. That's a commentary on the sad state of mainstream news outlets. I credit sites like Rethink Afghanistan (not to mention Jerome Starkey, who broke this story, and the NY Times for ... at least having it) for keeping focus on this unfolding exposition. But Rethink Afghanistan is no cable news conglomerate. I sincerely hope this gets attention down the road. Without coverage, such egregious behavior in our name goes without accountability. It's time the media stand up to the Pentagon's PR machine.

Update: Glenn Greenwald expands on the American media's failure in this case, specifically that of CNN and the New York Times, as opposed to international reporting that relied on actually legwork and not official Pentagon sources.

Shepard Fairey's HOPE turns to HYPE

Did anyone notice the album cover of the latest release by Jello Biafra's new band Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine? The album, The Audacity of Hype, came out last fall, but I didn't see the cover until I heard the band would be at the Black Cat tonight. I guess it's noteworthy in that it was designed by Obama-HOPE poster artist Shepard Fairey. And, clearly, this isn't exactly quite as reverent of Mr. Obama.

For all the attention that the HOPE poster, and Fairey, received during the '08 campaign, one would think this new art that blatantly jabs at the disappointing Obama presidency (in terms of his emulation and intensification of Bush-era national security policy), coupled with Biafra's acerbic lyrics and sheer reputation, would receive at least some notoriety outside of old Dead Kennedys fans. I guess not.

Military officials defend trials while Dems still MIA

In the absence of any kind of spine or will to defend criminal trials for detainees at Gitmo and elsewhere from the Democratic Party, military officials, among others -- not including the similarly lame, "objective" mainstream media -- have spoken up against the growing call for military commissions.

From the Post's story today on "advisers" (Rahm?) to the president saying commissions are the likely result for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others:

Marine Col. Jeffrey Colwell, acting chief defense counsel at the Defense Department's Office of Military Commissions, said it would be a "sad day for the rule of law" if Obama decides not to proceed with a federal trial. "I thought the decision where to put people on trial -- whether federal court or military commissions -- was based on what was right, not what is politically advantageous," Colwell said.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Harry Soyster, a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency:

“My concern is what it looks like to our enemy. And they certainly should be delighted in what appears to be great confusion, great ambiguity and inability to address the issue, so they should feel they are making progress if in fact our initial stand is reversed. from my perspective, the president [initially] chose chose the harder right over the easier wrong when he made the stand, supported his attorney general…and he should hold firm to that.”

Time and time again, we ask: Where are the Democrats? Who is speaking up against Lindsey Graham (apparently Rahm Emanuel's puppet master, and the new authority in regard to trying suspects), McCain, Lieberman and the rest of the advocates for denying due process? Just like health care, just like Umar Farouk Abdulmatallab, just like the Patriot Act, congressional Democrats lack either the will or the basic desire to do anything about deliberate misinformation and disregard for the Constitution from the Right (and many other Democrats). I don't doubt that there are many Democrats that support civilian trials over tribunals, but I don't see anyone rushing to push against the administration.

This ultimately comes down to Barack Obama, though. And if Obama changes his mind on a criminal trial for KSM and others, it would be a monumental blow for the rule of law in America. I don't think that's hyperbole. Glenn Greenwald sums up the ramifications for Obama if he flips:

If, in the face of "GOP demands" that Mohamed be denied a civilian trial, he again reverses himself -- this time on the highest-profile civil liberties decision of his administration -- he will unmistakably reveal himself, even to his most enamored admirers, as someone so utterly devoid not only of principle but also of resolve: you just blow on him a little and he falls down and shatters into little pieces.

Even just as a political matter, is there any better way to ensure that Americans will view him as weak than by abandoning one key decision after the next as a result of the slightest pressure? What kind of person could possibly admire a "leader" who does this?

Update, 4:30: Via Greg Sargent, looks like Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) has come out in support of criminal trials.

“We have a great track record of successfully trying and convicting terrorists in civilian courts. The military commission system is largely untested, and these cases could easily get bogged down in years of legal challenges. The best way to bring these terrorists to justice swiftly is through our civilian courts.”

So, there's one Democrat -- and the most likely to do so at that since Feingold is probably the most committed civil libertarian in the Senate.

Washington stenography is alive and well

Building on that steaming pile of Beltway nonsense David Broder laid in the Washington Post last week on Sarah Palin's supposed brilliance, George Packer assesses the state of political journalism in Washington.

Anyone covering Washington, not excluding me, will sooner or later turn to a phrase like “refocus its image” or “a perception that the President has come to look” or “a pitch-perfect recital of the populist message,” because they come so easily, and because they make it unnecessary to say anything substantial, which means thinking hard and perhaps suffering the consequences. Still, as an exercise in accountability, political journalists should ask themselves from time to time: Would I write this about a war, or a depression?

Further up in the piece, he imagines what a typical American journalist would write about Afghan President Hamid Karzai's recent inauguration speech:

“Speaking at the presidential palace in Kabul, Mr. Karzai showed himself to be at the top of his game. He skillfully co-opted his Pashtun base while making a powerful appeal to the technocrats who have lately been disappointed in him, and at the same time he reassured the Afghan public that his patience with civilian casualties is wearing thin. A palace insider, who asked for anonymity in order to be able to speak candidly, said, ‘If Karzai can continue to signal the West that he is concerned about corruption without alienating his warlord allies, he will likely be able to defuse the perception of a weak leader and regain his image as a unifying figure who can play the role of both modernizer and nationalist.’ Still, the palace insider acknowledged, tensions remain within Mr. Karzai’s own inner circle. At one point during the swearing-in ceremony, observers noted that Mohammad Hanif Atmar, his interior minister, seemed to ignore the greeting of Amrullah Saleh, the intelligence chief. The two have been rumored to be at odds ever since last year’s controversial election. A palace spokesman, speaking on background, denied that the incident had any significance. ‘The sun was in Hanif’s eyes—that’s it,’ the spokesman said.”

Write down the quotes, type them up, run 'em through spell check and be home for dinner.

When comedians are our best defense

Why is it up to comedians to point out how much of a sham our media and political institutions are?

Stephen Colbert dissects the Right's oxymoronic tactic of simultaneously calling Obama an ineffectual milquetoast president and a great evil that is dismantling America, whatever that means.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Two-Faced
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy

And Jon Stewart points out that a president trying to appeal to Americans by treating them like adults is, well, a losing battle.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Political Shift in D.C.
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Stewart's critique of an unhinged Keith Olbermann is another relevant one to watch.

American politics is now operated through carefully-constructed PR campaigns. The government runs like a corporation. Admit no fault. Engage in reckless behavior, deny, obfuscate, move on. Our mainstream media is perfectly comfortable with this charade. In fact, it's encouraged. Our modern media apparatus has taught Americans to want theatre. Complex problems that beg for rational solutions are not sexy. They don't "play well" on cable news. Therefore in a time like the present, when this country has a lot to fix, our media and political cultures can't handle. The media won't demand accountability, so politicians are allowed to ... dither, as they say. Fiddle while Rome burns. It's a big game to our media and political classes: Who's up, who's down, and how to I stay in office? It takes comedians to point that out now.

The MSM could give a damn

Once again, the job of keeping the government in check regarding nasty things like the legality of Predator drone strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan is left to diligent groups like the ACLU while our vacuous press masturbates to the latest gossip shitbrick book about the '08 campaign.

The ACLU, via Spencer Ackerman:

“The American public has a right to know whether the drone program is consistent with international law, and that all efforts are made to minimize the loss of innocent lives,” said Jonathan Manes, a legal fellow with the ACLU National Security Project. “The Obama administration has reportedly expanded the drone program, but it has not explained publicly what the legal basis for the program is, what limitations it recognizes on the use of drones outside active theaters of war and what the civilian casualty toll has been thus far. We’re hopeful that the request we’ve filed today will encourage the Obama administration to disclose information about the basis, scope and implementation of the program.”

As the ACLU inquires on what is possibly the most immediate concern within our modern warfare complex, the mainstream media prefers the low-hanging fruit fed to them by fellow anonymous-source obsessed, politics-as-celebrity hacks.

NYT: Break out the weak Democrat meme

I'm guessing Helene Cooper gets paid by the article. This is a pathetic piece. That's all I'll say. Some selected spots:

The Label Factor: Is Obama a Wimp or a Warrior?

Like every Democratic president since John F. Kennedy, President Obama is battling the perception that he’s a wimp on national security.

[...]

And labels count, as a poll taken last August by the Pew Center for the People and the Press illustrates: When voters were asked which party could do a better job of dealing with terrorism, they expressed more confidence in Republicans than in Democrats, as they had consistently since 2002. The 2009 margin was 38 percent to 32 percent. But when asked which party could do a better job of making wise decisions about foreign policy, 44 percent chose the Democrats, 31 percent the Republicans.

[...]

But labels can stick, as Mr. Carter himself found out so well, and as the Republicans also know from their experience parrying the opposite stereotype — of cowboy-style recklessness, first under Ronald Reagan and later under George W. Bush (whose own father, oddly, was said to have suffered from a “wimp factor”).

[...]

Then there’s terrorism. Mr. Obama will also have to demonstrate some tangible action there, the experts say, to dispel the notion put forward by the Republicans that his plans to shut down the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, makes Americans less safe. The Christmas Day attempted plane attack over Detroit failed in many ways, but it succeeded in doing one thing: reintroducing the issue of terrorism into the American psyche. Now, Mr. Obama is under pressure to show that he considers fighting terrorism to be a priority.

The problem though, is that many of the steps he can take against terrorism — like intelligence co-operation, drone strikes and covert actions — are, by their very nature, often invisible. “He needs visible victories there, like hits on Al Qaeda leaders, so no one is able to put together a narrative that says he’s weak,” said David J. Rothkopf, a Clinton administration official and author of “Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power.”

Broder mails another one in, hopes Obama gets serious

There's no better source to find what the modern, conventional, Beltway groupthink of the day is than to read David Broder's columns in The Washington Post. Whether it's laziness, a warped worldview, stubbornness, all of the above, I don't know. But Broder's column today is pretty typical of the collective thought bouncing around Washington regarding Obama's reaction of and attitude toward the FAILED attempt to bring down an airliner on Christmas. It seems Broder simply used his columnist-version of Mad Libs to mail in another one.

Worn-out Beltway trope #1: Our modern president, aka Daddy, must protect us at all times, lest he be caught off guard, which, in Broder's mind, would be all his fault and an indicator that he isn't "serious" or worthy of official Washington's respect.

Was Christmas Day 2009 the same kind of wake-up call for Barack Obama that Sept. 11, 2001, had been for George W. Bush?

The near-miss by a passenger plotting to blow up an American airliner as it flew into Detroit seems to have shocked this president as much as the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon did the last.

Both presidents had had plenty of warnings in the form of threats and even incidents. But both were caught off guard: Bush reading to a classroom of youngsters; Obama on a family vacation in Hawaii.

It's as if the president -- to Broder, our supreme, benevolent, all-knowing commander -- must be locked away in a top secret War Room at all hours of the day personally monitoring the constant stream of incoming intelligence, domestic and international.

Beltway trope #2: Sound the war drum!

For now, we are conducting a proxy war in Yemen, but that may change. Al-Qaeda's local enablers must learn that there is a price to be paid when Uncle Sam is attacked from their bases.

Jesus. Hasn't this crotch-grabbing machismo gotten us into enough deep shit already? Is Broder completely unaware, or has he even ever contemplated the possibility, that this militant attitude is a prime, if not the preeminent, inflammatory recruiting tool for al-Qaeda, not to mention the attitudinal nexus of all that is wrong about America's view of itself and the rest of the world?

Beltway trope #3: Obama has tried to do too much and should now focus on terror -- as if he wasn't already in directing a five-front war -- as his "new priority."

--and--

Beltway trope #4: The naive, or "benign" as Broder calls it, leadership style of the president will only change when Barack Obama (and by proxy, Democrats) becomes "serious" and comfortable being a war president.

For Obama to establish a new priority would obviously be much more difficult than it appeared to be for Bush. And this new priority would be a much less comfortable fit for Obama than leading a war on terrorism was for Bush.

Nonetheless, events have their own logic. The Christmas plot appears to have shaken Obama like nothing else that happened in his first year. When he allowed the White House to quote his warning to his Cabinet colleagues that another "screw-up" like that could not be tolerated, he seemed to signal that his benign leadership style had reached its limits.

Many have been looking for a similar shift of tone in his dealings with the dictators in Iran and North Korea and even in his tolerance for the politics-as-usual maneuverings of many Republicans and some Democrats in Congress.

It's as if the DC media establishmentarians like Broder, boosted by the ratings trolls within the cable news industrial complex, refuse to do or allow any critical thought of the ramifications of America's policies in the Middle East and beyond, as well as the effects of what they write or say.

My issue here isn't that he's criticizing Obama, but rather, the criticism is lame, predictable and largely void of any value. Unfortunately, this is all too common from the DC media stars.

After eight years of incompetent, chest-beating leadership from the Bush administration that brought an endless stream embarrassment, failure, death and global chaos, Broder seemingly wants more. And the tragic irony is that Obama's policies aren't all that much different than Bush's. But the Broders of the world have no interest in critical thought. Arrogance and narrow-mindedness are not only valued but also rewarded. It's the Washington way.

The downward-spiral effect of America's terror policies

In the aftermath of President Obama's statement today on the "potentially disastrous" failure to stop Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from boarding an airliner in an apparent bombing plot, Spencer Ackerman points out a distinction that should be highlighted when discussing what has been called a breakdown in connecting the dots by the intelligence community. Obama said the intel was available, but he then repeated the line about professionals within the intelligence apparatus missing the connections.

Ackerman:

But it’s not true that there was sufficient information “that would have placed the suspect on the no-fly list.” As a U.S. intelligence official told me last week, there is a standard for moving someone from a person-of-interest list run by the National Counterterrorism Center to the FBI-maintained Terrorist Screening Database. That standard is “specific derogatory information leading to reasonable suspicion.” And that FBI-maintained database still has another procedural and evidentiary step to go through before placing someone on the no-fly list.

In essence, if Obama wants to change the standards of how one lands on a no-fly list, he should do it. But to blame officials for not "connecting dots" isn't really accurate. As the official told Ackerman, there are certain standards to follow; simple suspicion has to take that extra step. Ackerman once more:

Obama can say that common sense dictates that Abdulmutallab ought to have been on the no-fly list. But that’s reasoning backward from the conclusion. It’s appropriate after a failure occurs. But it’s not appropriate as an explanation for how that failure occurred. The standard for placing someone on the no-fly list is simply not met by the aggregated intelligence that Obama cited (and he didn’t unveil any new information).

For the president to hawk this as a connecting-the-dots failure seems to be either disingenuous political theatre to put on a show for our feeble minds, or just a misunderstanding of the issue.

Speaking of political theatrics, the administration announced that several Yemenis kept at Guantanamo Bay for years, then found innocent of any crimes, must stay incarcerated due to the "deteriorating security situation" in Yemen, all so Americans can know that their Daddy president is protecting them from the evil terrorists.

Reuters:

President Barack Obama bowed to political pressure from Democratic and Republican lawmakers not to send any more prisoners to Yemen as a result of revelations that a would-be bomber on a Detroit-bound plane had received al Qaeda training in Yemen.

"It was always our intent to transfer detainees to other countries only under conditions that provide assurances that our security is being protected," Obama said.

"Given the unsettled situation, I've spoken to the attorney general (Eric Holder) and we've agreed that we will not be transferring additional detainees back to Yemen at this time," Obama said.

As Andy Worthington has pointed out in his dogged coverage of Guantanamo Bay, this rationale is bad policy at best (in that it only threatens to radicalize more than it protects anyone's safety) and against the rule of law at worst.

“only at Guantánamo can fear trump justice to such an alarming degree” that, “if [the officials’] rationale for not releasing any of the Yemenis from Guantánamo was extended to the US prison system, it would mean that no prisoner would ever be released at the end of their sentence, because prison ‘might have radicalized’ them, and also, of course, that it would lead to no prisoner ever being released from Guantánamo.”

Our monarchical structure says we can indefinitely detain anyone we deem a threat. From Bush to Obama, this is set American policy. Can anyone claim with a straight face that any president in the near future will reverse these policies based on A) today's support torture by (at least) one political party and an alarming number of Americans who have been instilled with fear at every turn, B) our spineless, constantly-posturing political class and C) an irresponsible, for-profit mainstream media that will exploit TERROR! and FEAR! and DANGER! to cull ratings.

So at this point, we're left with what could be called Terrorball, the unwinnable game of fear and paranoia brought to you by Washington's ruling and chattering classes.

Our national government and almost all of the establishment media have decided to play a similar game, which could be called Terrorball. The first two rules of Terrorball are:

(1) The game lasts until there are no longer any terrorists, and;
(2) If terrorists manage to ever kill or injure or seriously frighten any Americans, they win.

Read the entire post at Lawyers, Guns and Money. He shares statistics detailing the number of deaths in America unrelated to terrorism, but caused but things we have accepted as normal, as in starvation, homicide and lack of health care.

Ladies and gentlemen, your America in 2010.

Matthews recognized Politico's charade

As much as Chris Matthews is a useless gasbag, he can occasionally stick it to someone -- or Politico in this case.

Matthews was with Politico's Jonathan Martin, who, to be fair didn't have any of these Cheney "exclusives" they come up with that give Cheney an open, uncontested platform to say whatever he wants. I think it's mostly Mike Allen who is the scorned former VP's stenographer. But still, pretty funny.

MATTHEWS: I mean, he’s got his own news conduit.

MARTIN: You know, we aggressively report on both sides.

MATTHEWS: It’s not reporting. He feeds you this stuff. … I do like Politico. He’s feeding you guys this crap. [...]

What’s he call up and say? “I got a hot one for you, Jon. Can you take — what’s your email address?” Is that what he does?

It's official Politico. Everyone gets the schtick. Get clicks, news value and integrity be damned.

Chickenhawks: President must over-dramatically scold and condemn from home (not Hawaii) to be serious on terror

Glenn Greenwald says Obama's calm is what he likes about him. This is in response to media drumbeaters straight from the mainstream media and/or neocon butcher shops attacking Obama for his so-called lack of a hysterical, over-dramatic return to "defend" us from terrorism and say "bring it on" in from the White House (or heroic as this fearful wing of the Right characterize it) after the failed attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253. I like that aspect of Obama too. Sometimes his glib aloofness is both a gift and a curse, but in this case, it serves him well.

Greenwald on the struggle to spin Obama's treatment of Flight 253 and our addiction to terror melodramas:

That's because Obama reacted as though this is exactly what it actually is: a lame, failed attempt to kill people by a fractured band of criminals. It's not the Cuban Missile Crisis or the attack on Pearl Harbor, as disappointing and unfulfilling as it is to accept that. It merits analysis, investigation and possibly policy changes by the responsible government agencies -- not a bright-red-alert, bell-ringing, siren-sounding government-wide emergency that venerates Al Qaeda into a threat so profound that the President can't even be away from Washington lest they get us all. As always, Al Qaeda's greatest allies are the ones in the U.S. who tremble with the most fear at the very mention of their name and who quite obviously crave a return of that stimulating, all-consuming, elevating 9/12 glory.

We are so afraid. Why? It's as if we possess only a hairline-sensitive ability -- or disability -- to not lose our minds when an event like Flight 253 happens. The sole interest for cable networks and the rest of the mainstream media is to whip up lame tripes about his bonafides, safe, safe, are you safe, what's Obama doing? Why is he "soft" on terror, which is ridiculously ironic since he's near a 5-front war on Musliim countries right now, with Iran looming in the background. That old right-wing state of fury and vengeance is really drilled into Americans' heads. I fear some did not learn lessons of the Iraq War run-up.

We're desperate, get used to it

While the world chippers about a couple of starfucking attention whores getting into the White House, our president is about to add 30,000 troops into a sinkhole of a war. But that's tomorrow, when the Salahi's will probably get a TV show on Bravo. What about today? Today's ignored national affront goes to the noble Supreme Court further -- and maybe permanently -- suppressing torture photos.

NYT:

The justices sent the case back to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Manhattan, which ruled in 2008 that the pictures should be released to the public. But at the request of the Obama administration, the Second Circuit later postponed its own order, setting the stage for the administration to take the case to the Supreme Court.

On Monday, the justices told the Second Circuit to give “further consideration” to the issue in light of a Congressional action authorizing the Defense Department to keep the pictures from the public. With the issue on its way back to the Second Circuit, a final decision will probably not be made for months.

In light of tomorrow, that is downright a tragedy masterpiece. This is the week to remember Obama's first year by.

I hope Black Francis gives the White House the finger tomorrow night.

Those pesky detainee photos....

Elmer Fudd Lieberman's horrendous bow-to-executive-power amendment passed the House last Thursday. The Senate will take it up soon, almost definitely this week (and almost definitely pass it). The amendment, tacked onto a Homeland Security appropriations bill (Joe Lieberman is the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee) would give the Defense secretary (Robert Gates presently) final authority to classify or conceal photos or other kind of media that proved America tortured and killed men held for dubious reasons in jails all over the world. It takes away oversight power of the Congress and basically hands it to the president. I mean, the secretary of Defense is a Cabinet member of the president. Of course what his commander-in-chief wants is a concealment of "further embarrassments to the tune of Abu Ghraib. These presidents, these parties are complicit in it now. Just maintain the status quo.

Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU on a large collection of detainee abuse photos, some additional Abu Ghraib images and the rest from Bagram in Afghanistan, being shut from public eye, in the Los Angeles Times today:

Their release would allow the public to understand better what took place in the military's detention centers, and why. They might show patterns that have until now gone unnoticed, and they would surely convey, better than mere text ever could, the cruelty of such practices as stress positions, hooding and mock executions. And disclosure of the photos might also spur calls for a more thorough investigation into prisoner abuse than has been conducted thus far.

The fear that the country's enemies will use the photos as propaganda is not baseless, but it is a mistake to give violent extremists a veto over the FOIA. The argument that the government has made in court -- and that animates the proposed legislation -- would give the greatest protection from disclosure to records that relate to the worst governmental misconduct, because it is those records that are most likely to be inflammatory. Suppressing such records might deprive the country's enemies of propaganda, but it would also deprive the American public of information that is crucial to the democratic process.

I think our credibility hangs in the balance here. But it's not a hot topic....

Why is no one in the Washington media picking up on this? It's too 'been there, done that' for them? "Oh, those messy detainee photos ... ah, gee, I don't know if I wanna cover that one boss," say those celebri-anchors and lazy correspondents that litter our nation's press. Not sexy enough. And they're tired of dragging the Cheneys on their air to defend torture. Maybe.

And no offense to the LA Times, but why were they the ones to run this? Why wouldn't the NY Times snatch this one (assuming the ACLU offered)? And why wouldn't the Washington Post hop at the chance to stack Jaffer's common sense alongside the likes of one of their Opinion pieces today by AHIP execu-lobbyist Karen Ignagni to plead for the sparing of the poor insurance companies?

Oh yeah, with them it's NO soft-on-terror drivel about detainee photos and shielding the poor little public from our wise executive and commander in chief. Bush or Obama.

Our mainstream media is failing us. Stuff like the refusal to cover this monumental issue -- the proof of sheer depravity and sinister behavior sanctioned by our leaders -- is shameful. It won't "put enough eyes on the tube" for them.

So then the ACLU is left alone to challenge these detentions and work their butt off to uphold the rule of law in this country. That shouldn't be on the ACLU to do. That's the press corps's job. When was the last time Chip Reid or Chuck Todd told you anything you needed to know?

NFL Genius or Incoherent Schizophrenia?

I can't decide if the CBS football halftime show, or NFL Today, is brilliance in modern sports marketing/infotainment? Or is the biggest load of forced-emotion, just-regular-guys-bullshitting drivel in the world?

Update: It gets worse: First Pearl Jam song (the laughable new single, The Fixer) on an NFL broadcast that I've ever seen/heard. Shit.

Another update: I love when the CBS (or any other group of) announcers all act like a game (Chiefs vs. Redskins) is the most sad, pathetic putrid joke of professional football (they being all former pretty good pros) imaginable. And the one non-former player announcer ends the "highlight" reel with a, "Ohhhhh, not pretty" send-off. That's when you know the teams (Chiefs vs. Redskins) are pretty bleak.

Another another update: Todd Collins is in! The Washington Savior! The cagey, wily veteran! And a field goal! Coronate him! Sorry Jason Campbell. Barring a Todd Collins ACL sever, you're on the bench. You have to hang out with Colt Brennan.

We're Still at War in Iraq....

Check out these numbers on the dead in Iraq from '04 to '08. Al Jazeera:

At least 85,000 people have been killed in Iraq by bombs, murders and fighting from 2004 until 2008, Iraq's human rights ministry says.

The government released the figures on Tuesday in a draft report based on death certificates issued by the health ministry.

It said 147,195 people had been wounded in the same four years, but the number of undocumented injuries and deaths could be far higher.

"These figures draw a picture about the impact of terrorism and the violation of natural life in Iraq," the rights ministry said.

And as Duncan Black says:

And most of its advocates feel no remorse whatsoever.

That 'whatsoever' being the New York Times's glib article on these statistics. The NYT that did its fair share in selling this war and giving the Bush administration an out.

Be Afraid

Modern-day propaganda from NBC Nightly News:

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

What paranoia, and over EIGHT years after 9/11. I know there was a spate of terror busts recently, one in Denver where the "anti-terror" video NBC features is running. But this blatant fearmongering, especially from the media, is deplorable. The NBC reporter explicitly insists the threat of terrorism in America has not receded since 9/11. How appropriate, as the 8th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan is tomorrow.

(Bonus forehead slap: John Elway is one of their pitchmen. Tell us John, how did you feel after 9/11? Okay, thanks, now don't you have golf tournament to attend.)