Long live the military-industrial complex

Writing for Salon, Michael Lind examines the connections between America's continued Cold War militarism and its crippling trade deficits.

During and after the Korean War, the U.S. rebuilt its military and stationed troops along "tripwires" from Central Europe to East Asia. The U.S. encouraged the formation of the European Common Market (now the European Union) in part to provide the West Germans with markets. In Asia, Mao Zedong's victory in China cut off Japan's China market, so the U.S. offered the American market to Japanese exporters, which initially were not considered a threat to American businesses.

Thus began the Grand Bargain at the heart of U.S. Cold War strategy toward West Germany and Japan, the "markets-for-bases" swap. In return for giving up an independent foreign policy to their protector, the United States, the West Germans and Japanese would be granted access to American markets (and, in the case of the Germans, access to Western European markets).

[...]

For half a century America's economic establishment, turning a blind eye to Asia's crude and Germany's subtle mercantilism, pretended that American protectionism was the greatest threat to the world economy. It is gradually dawning even on former free-trade fundamentalists that you cannot have a liberal global trading system in which three of the four largest industrial capitalist countries -- China, Japan and Germany -- pursue policies that permit them to enjoy perpetual trade surpluses, which require perpetual trade deficits by the U.S. and other countries.

Meanwhile, the security half of America's global strategy is headed for a crash as well. Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. has mindlessly sought to fill every power vacuum from the Balkans to the Persian Gulf to Central Asia, while spending far less on the military than it did in the Cold War. The U.S. has gone into debt to finance the Iraq and Afghan wars. You don't have to be a grand strategist to figure out that extending territorial commitments without commensurately expanding funding and troop levels is a formula for strategic and perhaps national bankruptcy.

By declaring that the new deficit commission would not consider any cuts in military spending, only in entitlement spending, President Obama reflected the preferences of America's policy elite. Its members would gladly cut Social Security and Medicare in order to pay for bases and "nation-building" abroad. In the same way, for half a century, America's foreign-policy elite tolerated the targeted deindustrialization of America by Asian mercantilist states, as long as those countries did not challenge America's global military hegemony.

At some point, one would think the U.S. would realize that perpetual war was counterproductive. Since mass death, preserving human rights and the Geneva Conventions, maintaining international relations and upholding basic level of compassion don't seem to be deterrents, maybe basic economics could be the tool to curb the Pentagon's spending.

Unfortunately, the Cold War mentality persists, and Barack Obama, who was supposed to usher in a new generation of leadership, refuses to change course. Maybe it isn't "politically convenient" to stop the war machine right now, so we'll just have to wait for leaders with the spine to stand up to the Booz Allens and Boeings and Northrop Grummans (as well as their enablers) of the world. In the meantime, I can't wait for the 'Invade Iran in 2012' posters to spring up. Now that sounds politically convenient.

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.

Nice try, Eric Cantor

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor didn't waste much time jumping on the bullet that came through his campaign office's window in Richmond, Va., this week. Cantor held a press conference yesterday to denounce the violence. After saying voter/civilian aggression isn't a partisan issue, he accused Democrats of blaming Republicans for some deplorable actions (shouting slurs at Democrats, threats of violence, among others) by those opposing health-care reform. Democrats are only out to exploit these incidents for political gain, he said, even though he was also "directly threatened" via the bullet in Richmond.

"Any suggestion that a leader in this body would incite threats or acts against other members is akin to saying that I would endanger myself, my wife or my children," Cantor said. "It is reckless to use these incidents as media vehicles for political gain."

Then last night, this:

Richmond police say the bullet that hit a window of Republican Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor's office had been randomly fired skyward.

Amid reports of threats and vandalism against Democrats who voted Sunday for sweeping health care reforms, Cantor said at a Washington news conference Thursday that a bullet was fired into his Richmond office.

In a news release, Richmond police said that the bullet had been fired into the air early Tuesday. It hit the front window of a building that houses Cantor's campaign office as it fell to back earth at a sharp angle.

The round landed on the floor of the office a foot inside a broken window pane. No one was in the building, and police say an investigation has yielded no suspects.

Plus, the Richmond campaign office isn't even in Cantor's district, nor is it marked as part of his operation.

While it's true that some will resort to violence or intimidation no matter what their party or ideological leaders say, it's hard to move beyond the conclusion that this is what happens when a party capitulates to some of the most extreme wings of its faction. Republicans constantly cry, "Communism!" and "Totalitarianism!" and some take it too far. You preach extreme rhetoric about health care to an already unsettled group from the '08 campaign (Exhibit A), and what happens?

So, true to the GOP pattern of the last year-plus, don't hold your breath waiting for a Cantor retraction.

Case of CIA tapes looks to be headed for inconclusive end

The case of destroyed CIA tapes of alleged gross abuse of detainees held by the U.S. is nearing its close, according to The Washington Post.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John H. Durham, who is leading the investigation, recently bestowed immunity from prosecution on a CIA lawyer who reviewed the tapes years before they were destroyed to determine whether they diverged from written records about the interrogations, two sources familiar with the case said. That could signal that the case is reaching its final stages. Durham has been spotted at Justice Department headquarters in Washington over the past few weeks, in another signal that his work is intensifying.

The agency lawyer, John McPherson, could appear before a grand jury later this month or in April, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation continues. CIA lawyers have been essential to understanding the episode because they offered advice to agency personnel about handling the tapes, and whether they should have been included when agency records were turned over in other court cases. McPherson is not thought to be under criminal jeopardy but had previously hesitated to testify, the sources said.

Emptywheel's bmaz doesn't see much coming from this entire exercise:

If the reporting is accurate, there are several things of interest here. First off, there is little, if any, accountability in the offing. False statements against a secondary official giving closed door testimony is not going to take us rule of law adherents where we want to go. And if this official is indeed covert, the odds of charges really being pursued are not very good; not to mention that any prosecution, even if it were pursued, would be fastidiously kept narrow and constrained by CIPA procedures. I find very little hope for anything useful here.

One curious passage in the story relates to the defense agency officials are claiming for scrubbing the evidence: security (of course....).

Durham and a special team have gathered and pored over sensitive documents to determine whether destruction of the tapes constituted a crime. Agency officials say the motive was innocent: After the emergence of widely reviled images of detainee abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, CIA veterans feared that the disclosure could compromise their security. Investigators, however, have been probing whether the tapes were destroyed in anticipation of a congressional or federal investigation, which could violate obstruction of justice laws.

So if (or when) nothing is done to hold those accountable for these tapes' disappearance, is security going to be the reason? And what can't be done in the name of security now? For instance, this is the age of a litany of Bush/Obama state secrets claims, the effort to conceal detainee photos (now a Democratic team effort led by Joe Lieberman, wiretapping, torture, the list goes on. What's the line here?

The U.S. may not have a threshold for responsibility, but President Obama believes Indonesia does. Obama's accountability-free mantra is "look forward, not backward" when confronted by America's post-9/11 detainee/war policies, but not when it comes to Indonesia's human rights abuses. Per Glenn Greenwald:

In 2008, Indonesia empowered a national commission to investigate human rights abuses committed by its own government under the U.S.-backed Suharto regime "in an attempt to finally bring the perpetrators to justice," and Obama was asked in this interview: "Is your administration satisfied with the resolution of the past human rights abuses in Indonesia?" He replied:

We have to acknowledge that those past human rights abuses existed. We can't go forward without looking backwards . . . .

(Emphasis mine)

That's convenient. What is good for me is not for thee.

In Pakistan, one in three drone kills are civilians

A new study (pdf) by the New America Foundation finds some harrowing statistics regarding drone use in Pakistan. According to the report, one in three deaths from Obama's drone strikes is a civilian fatality. Not a good average.

Rethink Afghanistan compiled some of the highlights:

Our study shows that the 114 reported drone strikes in northwest Pakistan from 2004 to the present have killed between 830 and 1,210 individuals, of whom around 550 to 850 were described as militants in reliable press accounts, about two-thirds of the total on average. Thus, the true civilian fatality rate since 2004 according to our analysis is approximately 32 percent.

…[A]lthough the drone strikes have disrupted militant operations, their unpopularity with the Pakistani public and their value as a recruiting tool for extremist groups may have ultimately increased the appeal of the Taliban and al Qaeda, undermining the Pakistani state. This is more disturbing than almost anything that could happen in Afghanistan, given that Pakistan has dozens of nuclear weapons and about six times the population.

It's worth repeating: "Their value as a recruiting tool for extremist groups may have ultimately increased the appeal of the Taliban and al Qaeda, undermining the Pakistani state."

I don't see how this is a valuable tool in curbing extremism or sympathy for terror. For every one suspect killed, how much "extremism" is created? Somebody explain the upside, please, because I don't get it.

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.

Continued waste in war contracting

Now that both political parties and the establishment media have had a 'coming to Jesus' moment in the past year regarding the federal debt and waste amid government spending, it's always a wonder to me why more people outside of Sen. Claire McCaskill and a handful of others don't make a bigger example of the sieve that is war contracting.

Christine Spolar, of the Huffington Post Investigative Fund, writes this week:

An estimated 56,000 more contractors—almost double the 30,000 additional troops to be deployed this year—are expected to be working in Afghanistan by the end of 2010, according to the Congressional Research Service. The number of contractors could top 160,000, exceeding the ranks of U.S. troops fighting the Taliban.

But that’s just an estimate. A key official in the inspector general’s office established to oversee Afghan reconstruction spending said that simply “defining the universe” of contractor spending has been difficult.

“It is a frustration,” said John Brummet, chief auditor in the Office of the Special Inspector General for Reconstruction in Afghanistan. “Everyone assumes the information is there but it just is not. You’d think the [U.S. command in Kabul] could say they have 200 contractors there but…it’s just not there.”

Spending on Afghan reconstruction represents about 20 percent of the total cost of the war, which reached $230 billion by the end of 2009. About half of the reconstruction spending goes toward training Afghan security forces.

Attempts to oversee the billions of dollars flowing to the contractors have been complicated by congressional inattention, severe gaps in manpower and ineffective training for the military officers and bureaucrats shipped off to Afghanistan to monitor reconstruction work, according to agency audits and interviews with auditors.

[...]

The electronic record-keeping systems of the three biggest spenders on reconstruction—Defense, State and USAID—are incompatible, according to the inspectors general for Afghanistan and Iraq. So coordinating spending by the agencies remains beyond the capacity of the inspector general’s office and the government’s chief accountant, the Government Accountability Office.

(Emphasis mine)

Like so many other issues beyond contracting, the lessons of Iraq are lost on those running our war in Afghanistan:

On Capitol Hill, the oversight of contract spending in Afghanistan—like the war itself—was long treated as secondary to the challenges in Iraq. Only in 2008 did Congress establish a special inspector general’s office to audit Afghan nation-building.

That inspector general’s office for reconstruction has been working with far fewer staff members than the equivalent office for contract spending in Iraq, run by Stuart W. Bowen. At work since the first year of the Iraq war, Bowen has produced 164 inspections, 160 audits and one book. In his last report, Bowen found that coordination still was lacking in the war zone and recommended a single federal office to oversee reconstruction contracting.

Bowen goes into more detail on lesson transference in an accompanying video to the piece:



Granted, the amount of money pissed away here isn't exactly a sum that would solve many of the government fiscal quandaries. But if players in Washington, especially Republicans like Jim Bunning, are going to whine about profligate spending, I would think setting up a coherent system for contracts might be a priority. Unless, of course, we're all following the familiar paradigm in which questioning of war funding and the like is the last thing anyone cares about since one must be a champion of supporting wars to be considered thoughtful or serious in Washington.

Space monkey torture rack

365: Stress positions at Reagan National Airport - What do you know about the moon?!

Let's get over the 'Miracle on Ice'

I caught some of the hour-long (or so) special NBC ran Sunday about the "Miracle on Ice" hockey game from the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y., and I commented to a guy sitting next to me how lame and pathetic it was that we keep rehashing that moment, 30 years later. Well, I should've guessed this would happen in a bar with TVs everywhere, but the guy looked at me like I was Stalin himself, apparently offended on some level. That was the end of that "conversation."

I get it, American amateurs vs. the big, bad Russian pros. It's straight out of a Disney movie (in fact, it was made into a Disney-like, cheeseball, feel-good gagfest of a film). Let's move on. I mean, Al Michaels, who made the famous, "Do you believe in miracles!?" call at the end of the game, was clearly beside himself with anticipation the whole interview with three of the players -- who have clearly made a living off that game -- to tell how he graced America with such a memorable, touching phrase. Ugh.

So I completely agree with Matt Taibbi here.

Seriously, can we get over ourselves about the Miracle on Ice? It was great and all, but you hear about it every five minutes in this country. I lived in Russia for 10 years and didn’t even once hear about a bunch of Soviets with hideous mustaches whipping the asses of David Robinson, Danny Manning and Mitch Richmond in basketball in Seoul in ‘88. I heard a lot about the 1972 thing, but that was only in the context of Russians being so amused by how much we whined about getting jobbed by the refs.

I mean really, whatever happened to acting like you’ve been there before? I’m trying to imagine what the citizen of someplace like Liechtenstein or Reunion Island thinks when he sees Americans keeping a 30-year boner over the image of themselves as longshot underdogs who beat the odds.

Like so many things in America, I think our incessant gloating and paranoid fragility (see: Gitmo) come down to insecurity, coupled with unhealthy nostalgia and misplaced identity. But we're not underdogs. We're America. Get over it.

Washington Monument on a gray day

365: Not sure why flags are at half mast.

'Fresh' Devo at the Olympics

Devo made an appearance at one of the Olympics' nightly Victory Ceremony events, communicating directly to the spud boys and girls that the destruction of Earth will not come from nuclear bombs, but the devolved human mind.

Lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh was interviewed by Billboard and was asked, why the Olympics? A focus group, of course. And they're too old to compete, Mothersbaugh says.

So, on Monday night, they played a new song, "Fresh":



It sounds like Freedom of Choice-era Devo, but there's certainly nothing wrong with that. For their new release this spring, the band, in their true faux-corporate, communal-minded way, is asking fans to participate in a "color study" to help determine the band's new branding color.

And a word from Devo, Inc's "COO" Greg Scholl:



A real/fake branding campaign based on the acceptance of devolution. Perfect Devo.

Rise above

A favorite quote of mine comes from Hunter S. Thompson's The Rum Diary:

Like most of the others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that my instincts were right. I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles -- a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other -- that kept me going.

And I, like most of the others, can identify with a lot of the sentiment here. Malcontent ... what a great word. The last sentence, though, communicates the push/pull that permeates so much of life, I would say. Idealism vs. dread. I believe that tension Thompson writes of is to be at battle against yourself, against the world, against an obstacle, against success, against fate, against life. Realize it or not, that conflict is only human. And to err is human. But to be human is also to rise above.

George W. Bush's required reading

For Women Veterans, Battles Go On at Home

Post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD was the reason Peacock was sent home from Iraq .She had spent her time in Baghdad driving in unarmored trucks and fearing roadside bombs.

"You don't ever know is today going to be the day," Peacock said. "A lot of us wrote letters home like, 'If I die give this to my mom.'"

Her downward spiral accelerated when she returned from Iraq She became addicted to prescription drugs. Her husband left her, making her homeless. She found it hard to readjust to life back in St Louis.

"War does something to you where it just twists everything," Peacock said. "I don't look the same, I don't act the same, I don't have the same mannerisms."

"Almost half the women who we see today that are homeless are under 35," said Peter Dougherty, director of the homeless program at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The VA says on any given night there are an estimated 6,500 homeless female vets. That's double the number a decade ago.

Angela Peacock now rents a house and has new support: GI Joe - a companion dog provided by the VA to help her cope with the PTSD when she's in public places.

"I have my days that are hard to get out of bed, and if fireworks or something goes off I'm just like done for the day," Peacock said. "But it's much better than it was. Much better."

Freedom is on the march.

Yoo and Bybee: Innocent until proven sane

Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis concludes that torture memo conspirators John Yoo and Jay Bybee may have been grossly incompetent and viciously off base, but what they authorized was not *technically* illegal.

Jack Balkin (read the whole spot-on indictment of this decision):

Margolis concludes that Yoo and Bybee exercised poor judgment and made bad legal arguments. But lawyers often make arguments that are bad or even laughably bad, and this by itself does not violate the very low standard set by rules of professional responsibility. These rules are set up by jurisdictions to weed out the worst offenders, leaving the rest of the legal profession to make entirely stupid, disingenuous and asinine arguments that normal people with functioning moral consciences would not make. That is to say, rules of professional misconduct are aimed at weeding out sociopaths and people driven to theft and egregious incompetence by serious drug and alcohol abuse problems; they do not guarantee that lawyers will do right by their clients, or, in this case, by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America. In effect, by setting the standard of conduct so low, rules of professional conduct effectively work to protect all those lawyers out there whose moral standing is just a hair's breadth above your average mass murderer. This is how the American legal profession simultaneously polices and takes care of its own.

Scathing.

And Dick Cheney will go on bragging about being a war criminal.

Every raw material at hand

365: Mission of Burma, Black Cat in DC

Lamberth to Congress: Do something on indefinite detentions

Unfortunately, this interview with Chief U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth by Washington Post criminal justice reporter Del Wilber didn't get much attention (Well, it was buried in Metro section crime blog, so...). But it's remarkable in the sense that a judge in the center of Guantanamo detainee cases seems highly frustrated about the definitive parameters of these detainees' situations, indefinite detentions in particular.

I understand Lamberth is of the outspoken sort, for judiciary official. But this interview is fascinating in that he seems to be almost pleading with the legislative and executive branches to act, and do it immediately.

Some highlights:

Q: Why are judges calling on Congress to take action?

Lamberth: Congress should have enacted some statutory guidance that would have been useful to us. For example -- what is the definition of enemy combatant, which we have had some difficulty with? And what types of evidence does Congress think would be appropriate for us to consider? Those are among the things that would be helpful.

But unless Congress were to enact something this spring, I think it’s too late anyway. We are on track to complete these cases and are moving ahead. ... The longer we have gone through this, we have seen how difficult the questions are that are being presented and how reasonable people can differ in response to the questions. I still would welcome action from Congress, but I don’t anticipate that.

This is not an ideal world, but to have so little guidance. … As a district judge, we are used to applying settled law. Congress enacts a statute, the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court issues an opinion. But here, nothing is settled. We are creating law as we go. It’s not something district judges are accustomed to doing.

A much better way to create law is for Congress to pass something and for the executive to participate in that legislation. That is what I’ve been trying to say.

At this stage, Congress hasn't seen fit to do that. I understand that in the prior administration, it did not want congressional action -- it wanted to do it all by executive power. I do not know why this administration has not been able to create a legislative proposal.

[...]

Q: The other day, you mentioned that you struggled with ordering a detainee held, potentially for life, under the “preponderance of evidence” standard. The judges established that standard, which means the government wins if the evidence tips just slightly in its favor, for the habeas cases. What did you mean by that?

Lamberth: When you know the petitioner is going to be held for the duration of hostilities and hostilities are not likely to end in my lifetime, if not in his own lifetime, we know there is a consequence of our decision that is quite dramatic in terms of an individual’s life.

In criminal trials, we have a standard of beyond a reasonable doubt, which means proof to a moral certainty. I have no difficulty, where I have a jury to find a person found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt to a moral certainty, with sentencing that person to life in prison without parole, if that is what statutes and guidelines call for.

When you’re doing this on a preponderance of evidence, that is a different decision for me to decide if a person should be held, perhaps for life.

He also goes into coerced confessions and a severe lack of communication from the Justice Department to judges. Read the entire interview.

Caution when wet

365: Near Pennsylvania SE

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.

Evan Bayh pretends he's above the partisan fray, Part 984

Sen. Evan Bayh announced his retirement earlier today. The golden boy of the Democratic establishment years ago has had enough of the Senate's gridlock, he said. Either Bayh has a poor sense of irony, or he's just flat dishonest about his motives.

His reasoning for retiring (the excessive partisanship of Washington) was laughable given his pride in the filibuster when it came to health reform. It was that pesky debt commission that finally broke his little back he says:

“Two weeks ago, the Senate voted down a bipartisan commission to deal with one of the greatest threats facing our nation: our exploding deficits and debt. The measure would have passed, but seven members who had endorsed the idea instead voted ‘no’ for short-term political reasons,” he said. “Just last week, a major piece of legislation to create jobs — the public’s top priority — fell apart amid complaints from both the left and right. All of this and much more has led me to believe that there are better ways to serve my fellow citizens, my beloved state and our nation than continued service in Congress.”

So he quit.

I'm also reading some conflicting views on what party he screwed over worse, the Democrats or Republicans, by his timing. He certainly leaves Democrats in general in a bind to say the least.

But maybe it's bad news for both parties. I wouldn't put it past Bayh. I guess he's "bipartisan" with his political sabotage.

Jane Hamsher says it's Indiana progressives since there won't be a primary:

Why would Evan Bayh file to run for the Senate, and then pull out 24 hours before the deadline for signatures to be filed?

Well, because the Indiana Democratic Party gets to choose Bayh’s replacement on the ticket. And that means unless you can pull a candidate out and line up 500 signatures in each district to be filed by noon tomorrow, you’re a write-in.

How does the sound of Senator Hill or Senator Ellsworth sound?

Well, Rahm was in town doing a fundraiser for Hill recently. This has, no doubt, been in the works for a while.

Rahm! Should've known.

Jed Lewis says it's the GOP:

Unlike Democrats, Republicans already have candidates vying for their party's nomination, including former Rep. John Hostetler and Senator-turned-lobbyist Dan Coats. Because the signature deadline is tomorrow, that pretty much sets the GOP field. Unless both Hostetler and Coats were to withdraw, Republicans won't be in a position to choose a nominee as will Democrats. The implication of that: Bayh's timing appears to make it nearly impossible for candidates like Rep. Mike Pence (who says he will not run despite Bayh's retirement) or Gov. Mitch Daniels to get on the ballot.

So while Bayh was a sure thing versus Coats and Hostetler, given his retirement, Bayh's timing here may actually give Democrats the best chance at holding onto the seat.

Good riddance. His sole reason for being in the Senate was to plaster a shit-eating grin on his face when people perceived him as a sensible centrist.

The suspect case against Omar Khadr

WaPo's Peter Finn sketches out the case of Omar Khadr, the Canadian Gitmo detainee picked up in Afghanistan when he was 12 for allegedly throwing a grenade at American soldiers. His military tribunal is set to begin soon. It will likely be the first such military commission trial under the Obama administration. His age at the time of the incident has been the focus of controversy, as well as the sketchy evidence behind the case, and whether he could've even been capable of throwing the grenade at the time.

The final portion of the piece focuses on that suspect evidence, as well as the unlawful legal system set in place by the Obama administration:

Defense lawyers said Holder's assignment of the Khadr case to the military illustrates the Obama administration's acceptance of a two-tier system of justice in which flawed evidence that would be disallowed in federal court can be admitted in a tribunal.

The government defends its decision.

"The forum decision in the Khadr case was made after a careful assessment of all the factors identified" in a protocol developed by the Justice and Defense departments, said Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman. "Although we cannot discuss how all the protocol factors were applied to the Khadr case or other specific cases, we note that this case involves a grenade attack on U.S. soldiers in a war zone, that the defendant was apprehended in a war zone in the context of active hostilities, and that the case was initially investigated and evidence gathered by military personnel."

Flowers, Khadr's attorney, said government lawyers indicated at a meeting in early November that they would introduce statements in a military commission that they would not use if the case went to federal court. A Pentagon spokeswoman declined to discuss any meeting with the defense.

Khadr's attorneys said the government's case is riddled with problems.

They said that their client was tortured in military custody and that all statements, even if given later and seemingly voluntarily to FBI agents, are contaminated by the alleged earlier abuse, which, they said, included threats of rape, stress positions and the use of snarling dogs.

Flowers also challenged the government's contention that Khadr threw the grenade that killed Speer. "The evidence," he said, "is extremely problematic."

But soldiers involved in the firefight that led to Speer's death and Khadr's capture have no such doubts. Morris, the blinded Special Forces soldier, who lives in Utah, said Khadr should remain in U.S. custody.

"Mr. Khadr is where he needs to be, and he needs to stay there for a long time," Morris said.

As far as Holder's concerned, this New Yorker piece masterfully outlines the KSM controversy and the political point-scoring done by Republicans on the issue of terrorism in the Obama era. But with the Khadr case in mind, the administration's two-tiered legal system is especially a tough pill to swallow when Holder says stuff like this:

“The quest for justice, despite what your contemporaries might think, that’s toughness. The ability to subject yourself to the kind of criticism I’m getting now, for something I think is right? That’s tough.” He paused, and added, “This is something that can get a rise out of me, the notion that somehow Eric Holder and Barack Obama, this Administration, is not tough. We have the welfare of the American people in our minds all the time. We’ll fight our enemies, and we’ll do that which is necessary, and we won’t turn our backs on the values and traditions that have made this country great. That is what is tough.”