Steve Weissman : How Should We Respond to Ahmadinejad

Posted on April 24, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Ultra-conservative Rabbi Moishe Arye Friedman, left, shakes hands with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, during international conference questioning the existence of the holocaust in Tehran, Dec. 12, 2006. Photo by AP.

Using the word ‘pretext’ to describe Jewish suffering during World War II recalled the views of Holocaust deniers like Robert Faurison, Ahmed Rami, and Frederick Töben who went to Tehran in Decemeber 2006 for Ahmadinejad’s ‘International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust.’

By Steve Weissman / The Rag Blog / April 24, 2009

In his April 20th speech to the conference on racism sponsored by the U.N. High Commission on Human Rights, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad raised many valid criticisms of Western imperialism and the war in Iraq. But what he said about the founding of Israel compacted history in some very strange ways, echoing his earlier flirtation with those who deny the Nazi holocaust. As a secular Jew who rejected Zionism over 40 years ago, I found his remarks silly, misleading, and offensive. As an activist who has consistently struggled against both racism and imperialism, I found it self-defeating for anyone to take Ahmadinejad as our spokesman.

His strangely compacted history boiled down to this: that “a number of powerful countries … resorted to military aggression” to make the Palestinian people homeless. And that they did it “on the pretext of Jewish sufferings and in misusing the Holocaust.”

Using the word “pretext” to describe Jewish suffering during World War II recalled the views of Holocaust deniers like Robert Faurison, Ahmed Rami, and Frederick Töben who went to Tehran in Decemeber 2006 for Ahmadinejad’s “International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust.” Iranian officials insisted that the conference sought “neither to deny nor prove the Holocaust … [but] to provide an appropriate scientific atmosphere for scholars to offer their opinions in freedom about a historical issue.” But that’s the same disingenuous dodge that Holocaust deniers have used ever since they started their rehabilitation of the Third Reich.

Simply stated, there is absolutely no doubt that the Nazis tried their hardest to systematically exterminate Jews — as well as gays and Gypsies. To deny this is nothing short of immoral and idiotic. It also undercuts our ability to fight against racism and for a Palestinian state. Get “pretext” and Holocaust denial out of the way and there’s no question that Zionists used the reality of Jewish suffering to win support for the State of Israel, just as we now use the reality of Palestinian suffering to build support for a Palestinian state.

Ahmadinejad’s compacted history similarly denies the historic reality of political Zionism. The powerful countries on the U.N. Security Council did not create the Zionist movement. European Jews, mostly non-religious, did, and they had to fight the Great Powers to do it. Where in Ahmadinejad’s simplistic anti-imperialist narrative is the very real nationalist movement that had to smuggle weapons and Jewish refugees into Palestine against the best efforts of the British Navy? Where are the attacks by Jewish “terrorists” against British troops? And where are all those Jewish communities that have lived continuously in Palestine for over 2500 years?

None of this, in my view, ever justified dispossessing the Palestinians, a large number of whom were themselves undoubtedly descendants of the ancient Israelites. But to deny the Jewish story in Palestine, as Ahmadinejad does, is silly. Worse, it lays the groundwork to deny the humanity of the Israelis for whom all this history remains very real.

Where Ahmadenijad is undoubtedly right is his contention that the unfairly constituted U.N. Security Council confirmed the creation of the Jewish state. But where does that leave those of us who are anti-imperialist? If we follow Ahmadinejad’s logic, as many in Hamas now do, we must fight to undo over 60 years of history, and that will be a fight to the death. The call to eliminate the State of Israel, while not explicitly a call to kill Israelis or other Jews, will sound to them as an incitement to genocide, and they will fight it without mercy. Tens of thousands of people, both Israeli and Palestinian, will die. And, in the end, who will win? I would not bet on the Palestinians. It’s certainly not fair, but the best I would hope for is a two-state solution, and that will be a difficult enough.

One final question: Should we join Ahmadinejad in calling the Israelis “racist perpetrators of genocide?” I would not. The long-standing Israeli policy of seeking “more land and fewer Arabs” is horrendous. But it is not genocide, at least not until Avigdor Lieberman has his way. And it is not essentially racial, but increasingly religious, denying people first-class citizenship because they do not share the dominant faith or identity. To me, that is every bit as pernicious as racism, whether in Israel or any number of Islamic countries.

[A veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the New Left monthly Ramparts, Steve Weissman lived for many years in London, working as a magazine writer and television producer. He now lives and works in France, where he writes regularly for The Rag Blog.]

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Bob Simmons on Austin’s Jack Jackson : History’s Cartoonist

Posted on April 24, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Jack Jackson. Painting by Scout Stormcloud / The Rag Blog.

Jackson left a large body of work behind that will assure that people will be reading and looking at his handiwork for as long as we have a world that cares about history, Native Americans, Texas, Mexico, or flights of graphic fantasy.

By Bob Simmons / The Rag Blog / April 24, 2009

See ‘Jaxon, Drawn to the Task,’ Video by Bob Simmons, Below.

Jack Jackson, aka “Jaxon,” the famous Austin underground cartoonist and historian died back in August of 2006 by his own hand. He had been diagnosed some months earlier with cancer and some other nasty conditions to go with it. As for taking his own life, he might have decided that going through a prolonged battle to preserve what would be a tedious, at best, old age wasn’t worth the trouble or expense. I would not presume to second-guess Jack on this issue. It is something each of us may have to deal with in our own good time.

The obituaries rolled in. Much tribute was paid, and more importantly, many true tears were shed. Jack had made a lot of friends over the years. If we lived in a fair and just world, then Jack should have left a valuable estate behind, for he was an enormously talented and hard-working artist, but he was never paid anything close to what he was worth. Call it the luck of the draw, combined with the fact that Jack was not one to compromise. He had a vision, and he was true to it. He worked alone in rooms, late at night, guided only by a sense of trying to honor some of history’s semi-forgotten underdogs like Juan Seguin, Quanah Parker, and the countless nameless native Americans who died in the North American holocaust, our own ethnic cleansing of the West.

One can go to many sites, starting with Wikipedia for the full bibliography of his works. [Also see Jack Jackson on the Rag Author’s Page.] Suffice to say, he left a large body of work behind that will assure that people will be reading and looking at his handiwork for as long as we have a world that cares about history, Native Americans, Texas, Mexico, or flights of graphic fantasy.

In 2008, the Texas State Historical Association held its annual meeting in Corpus Christi, TX, and I had the opportunity to speak about Jack, since we had been housemates and had both worked with Chet Helms and the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco during the hippie heyday of the 1960’s. We had also both worked together on the Texas Ranger humor magazine in the early 60’s and had walked other similar paths. I prepared a little video presentation for the gathered historians, so that they would know him better.

The room was full of academics and historians. Their interest in Jack was that he had come from such an unusual background, and was a classic autodidact or self-taught historian. My job was to show something of the ‘other’ world from which he had sprung.

Of course I couldn’t get the video projector to work, so I got to talk about Jack for the assembled group. I managed to get through the event without notes, but who knows what I said, or if it was worth anyone’s time. So, now, after a lot of messing with various YouTube and Vimeo nonsense, I have managed to get the short video I prepared up on the Net.

I want to share it with you, because everyone should know more about Jaxon, a real artist and hero of his time.

The interview footage comes from Scott Conn’s “A Dirt Road to Psychedelia” and from an interview I did with Jack shortly before he died. Most of the artwork can be found in the Jaxon Collection at the Barker Texas History Museum at The University of Texas’ Center for American History under the care of our friend John Wheat. I’ll take credit for most of the still photos, along with Bill Helmer, Burton Wilson, and a couple stills stolen off the web…call it ‘fair use’.

Jaxon – drawn to the task from Telebob on Vimeo.

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Afghanistan’s Bagram Prison : ‘Worse than Gitmo’

Posted on April 24, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Detainees being held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan cannot use US courts to challenge their detention, the US says. Photo by Musadeq Sadeq / AP.

‘Worse than Gitmo’:
ACLU Asks for Documents on Bagram Prison, Where the US Still Holds 600 Prisoners

The Obama administration argues that the prisoners at Bagram—some who have been there 6 years—do not have habeas corpus rights. That’s not looking backwards. It is current policy.

By Jeremy Scahill / April 23, 2009

As the Obama administration faces mounting pressure to appoint an independent special prosecutor to investigate torture and other crimes ordered by senior Bush administration officials and implemented by CIA operatives and contractors, the ACLU is opening up another front in the battle for transparency. But this one is not exclusively aimed at the Bush era. Today, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking to make public records on the US-run prison at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. The group is seeking documents from the Departments of Defense, Justice and State and the CIA.

As the ACLU states, “the U.S. government is detaining more than 600 individuals at Bagram, including not only Afghan citizens captured in Afghanistan but also an unknown number of foreign nationals captured thousands of miles from Afghanistan and brought to Bagram. Some of these prisoners have been detained for as long as six years without access to counsel, and only recently have been permitted any contact with their families. At least two Bagram prisoners have died while in U.S. custody, and Army investigators concluded that the deaths were homicides.”

The Obama administration has refused to grant habeas corpus rights to prisoners at Bagram, but a federal judge recently ruled that three prisoners can challenge their detention in U.S. courts. The Obama administration, in continuing a Bush-era policy, is appealing the ruling. According to the ACLU, “The prisoners, who were captured outside of Afghanistan and are not Afghan citizens, have been held there for more than six years without charge or access to counsel:”

“The U.S. government’s detention of hundreds of prisoners at Bagram has been shrouded in complete secrecy. Bagram houses far more prisoners than Guantánamo, in reportedly worse conditions and with an even less meaningful process for challenging their detention, yet very little information about the Bagram facility or the prisoners held there has been made public,” said Melissa Goodman, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. “Without transparency, we can’t be sure that we’re doing the right thing – or even holding the right people – at Bagram.”

This is a very important case to monitor, particularly because it is an area where Obama’s administration has allied itself squarely with that of the Bush administration. This is not “looking backwards” at all, it is looking at the present and it aint Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld running this sick, unconstitutional show.

Source / RebelReports

Thanks to S.M. Wilhelm / The Rag Blog

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Democracy’s Turn : Bankers of the World, Untie!

Posted on April 24, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

“Can’t Anyone Untie Us?” by Francisco de Goya.

When we voted for change last November we weren’t talking about pennies on the dollar. Bankers of the world, untie!

By Greg Moses / The Rag Blog / April 24, 2009

It wasn’t the housing bubble exactly. It was more the way the bubble was blown.

In the official language of the International Monetary Fund report for April 2009, “the crisis was largely caused by weak risk management in large institutions at the core of the global financial system combined with failures in financial regulation and supervision.”

After “the crisis” was caused, the weak risk managers along with their failed regulators and supervisors came back to loot the national debt.

In essence, the mortgage of the American Worker has been preyed upon to inflate the wealth and power of financiers. Twice.

From the IMF point of view, more debt looting or “fiscal adjustment” will be necessary to keep the world economy from worse channels of trouble. And so long as the money makes genuine entry into the credit system at lenient rates (if not terms), then it seems like sensible advice. I believe the IMF when it claims that worse trouble is possible.

Says the IMF: “Key transmission routes [of worse trouble] include deep corrections in national housing markets, especially but not exclusively in advanced economies; corporate stress, especially but not exclusively in emerging economies; deflation risks, mainly in advanced economies; and increasing vulnerabilities in public sector balance sheets, especially but not only in emerging economies.”

Sure as sewage runs downhill, downside risks remain.

And yet, behaving like crash victims who climb from wrecks and run around for awhile, whole classes of boosters may be seen doing double flips of joy because they think they feel the world bouncing off its bottom.

There are many gloomy charts in the IMF report on the global economy, but the one that chills me most shows how each economic region of the globe is expected to contribute to the world recovery that (we hope) will begin later this year.

When it comes to the crucial turning point for that recovery, the US is the only portion of the global economy that completely disappears from the bar graph. The US will make zero contribution to global growth in the 4th quarter of 2009, then a bit of a negative contribution in the 1st quarter of 2010, before slacking to zero again in the 2nd quarter of 2010.

As for “other advanced countries,” you will find them colored in dark blue below the line of recovery, indicating that they will be worse than no help. Above the line of positive Purchasing Power Parity, all the heaving lifting at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st Century will be upon the shoulders of China and the “rest of the world.”

This, my friends, is how you win a cold war without knowing the least reason why.

Along with my favorite storm watcher these days, Larry Kudlow, I also have faith that democracy and capital will figure out how to keep each other alive through this deluge, but I disagree with his forecast model.

For the past several decades capital has taken advantage of weakened democracy in the US. It is now time for democracy to return the favor. As US capital returns from subzero on the IMF recovery scale, democracy has to insist on new parameters.

If the Chinese can lead global growth in 2010, what happens to the claim that big governments must be incapable?

Therefore, health care coverage for all people, cap and trade for all creatures, a path to citizenship for every neighbor in the neighborhood, and a genuine national youth program, all of these things will elevate the US to a place we should have been 30 years ago.

When we voted for change last November we weren’t talking about pennies on the dollar. Bankers of the world, untie!

[Greg Moses is editor of TexasWorker.Org. He can be reached at gmosesx@gmail.com.]

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Medical Professionals ‘Led the Way’ : The Psychologists of Torture

Posted on April 24, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Licensed psychologist and Army Col. Larry James was the director of Guantanamo’s “Behavioral Science Consultation Team,” which oversaw the use of harsh interrogation techniques widely condemned as torture. Photo by Army Spc. Shanita Simmons / from In These Times.

Medical professionals designed and helped to implement Bush administration interrogation practices.

‘The conclusion that these interrogation techniques cause no lasting harm is the equivalent of psychological malpractice,’ says Physicians for Human Rights’ Steven Reisner.

By Frederick Clarkson / April 23, 2009

One of the key, if underreported, findings in Tuesday’s bombshell Senate report on the Bush-era treatment of U.S. military detainees was the role of civilian and military psychologists in devising, directing and overseeing the torture of prisoners.

While the report highlights the role of senior Bush administration officials in approving “aggressive” interrogation techniques, it also exposes how medical professionals helped to transform the Pentagon’s torture resistance program into tactics used against prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and CIA “black” sites.

Understanding the role of these professionals should be a “specific focus” of an investigation into the use of these tactics, according to Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), which has condemned the tactics as illegal and medically unethical.

In a series of reports available on its Web site, PHR details the tactics, which it says include beating, sexual and cultural humiliation, forced nakedness, exposure to extreme temperatures, exploitation of phobias, sleep deprivation and sensory deprivation.

The Cambridge, Mass.-based organization, which won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1997, says psychologists “led the way” in legitimizing the Pentagon’s approval and use of the tactics. It has joined the Senate committee in calling on U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate who should be held accountable.
From Korea to Gitmo

The carefully worded U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee report reveals how the torture tactics developed directly from the military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training program, which was designed to help downed American pilots resist torture.

The SERE program was based on interrogation methods used by the Chinese during the Korean War that aimed to elicit false confessions from American prisoners for propaganda purposes. Designed to enhance resistance to torture, the SERE program was reverse-engineered by psychologists working within a joint Army and CIA command to become the Bush administration’s “enhanced interrogation methods.”

Early in the Senate report, we learn that the SERE program’s adaptation began with two senior military psychologists. In December 2001, Dr. James Mitchell, the senior SERE psychologist at the Pentagon’s Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, asked his former colleague Dr. John “Bruce” Jessen to review a recently obtained al Qaeda interrogation resistance training manual.

“The two psychologists reviewed the materials and generated a paper on al Qaeda resistance capabilities and countermeasures to defeat that resistance,” according to this heavily redacted section of the Senate report. Mitchell and Jessen became CIA interrogation consultants the next year.

In April of 2002, Jessen created an “exploitation draft plan” for Guantanamo detainees. According to this plan, Jessen would direct SERE training of interrogators at the “exploitation facility,” which would be “off limits to non-essential personnel.” The Senate report makes several references to changing conditions at GTMO whenever the International Committee of the Red Cross came to visit.

Eventually, Guantanamo became known as a “Battle Lab for new interrogation techniques,” which were then applied at military prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan and at CIA detention centers.

Military and law enforcement professionals repeatedly warned against the application of SERE tactics, but the Senate report shows that their use was urged by top Bush administration figures eager to find information linking Al Qaeda and Iraq. (And it concludes that their use at Guantanamo Bay, authorized by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, led to the abuse of detainees there – as well as in Afghanistan and Iraq.)

The Senate report notes that SERE-based interrogation techniques were presented to Guantanamo personnel in September of 2002, despite the objections of instructors from Fort Bragg. In an interview with the Army’s Inspector General, Army psychiatrist Major Charles Burney said “interrogation tactics that rely on physical pressures or torture…do not tend to get you accurate information or reliable information.” According to Burney, instructors repeatedly stressed that harsh interrogations don’t work and that the information gleaned “is strongly likely to be false.”

Nonetheless, the SERE techniques came to be used by members of the newly created “Behavioral Science Consultation Teams” (BSCT), a joint operation of the Army and CIA. The first of those teams worked at Guantanamo.
The role of ‘safety officers’

The Senate report confirms the intimate involvement of health professionals in designing, supervising and implementing the Army and the CIA’s “enhanced” interrogation program. (The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel memos, released April 16, revealed that medical professionals had served as “safety officers” during waterboarding and other interrogation sessions.)

“The monitoring of vital signs and giving instructions to interrogators to start and stop are some of the most severe abuses of the Hippocratic Oath and medical ethics imaginable,” said Nathanial Raymond of PHR. “Strangely, the memos and the statements of former senior Bush Administration officials use the presence of medical professionals in contravention of their professional ethics as a defense, when it is in fact, itself, a crime.”

Tactics used by psychologists and supervised by medical personnel clearly constituted torture and a grave breach of medical and professional ethics, according to both PHR and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

In a February 2007 report made public earlier this year, the ICRC states that health professionals who participated in the interrogation process “constituted a gross breach of medical ethics” at times amounting to “participation in torture.”

Steven Reisner, PHR’s advisor on psychological ethics, believes that U.S. psychologists were busy perpetrating torture even before Justice Department lawyers wrote their opinions justifying the interrogation practices.

“These individuals must not only face prosecution for breaking the law,” Reisner says, “they must lose their licenses for shaming their profession’s ethics.”
Debate among psychologists

The role of psychologists in torture became a hot issue within the American Psychological Association in 2005, when the board of the organization of mental health professionals endorsed psychologists’ role in interrogations as consistent with APA ethics, for the purpose of making it safe, legal and effective. But a 2007 resolution of the APA membership proscribed member involvement in a number of interrogation tactics. Then, in 2008, the organization passed a further resolution against members’ presence at any facility where U.S. and international law was being violated, unless they were working for the benefit of the people held.

Prior to the 2008 APA resolution, Guantanamo’s public affairs office published an article in January 2008 describing the Behavioral Science Consultation Team as “integral” to the success of Guantanamo.

In that article, Army Colonel Larry James–a licensed psychologist and the director of Guantanamo’s Behavioral Science Consultation Team–says he feels validated by the APA’s approval (at an August 2007 convention) of psychologists working in military detention facilities.

“It’s clear given the vote at the APA convention that there is overwhelming support for psychologists who wear the uniform all around the world in defense of this nation,” James says.

“During my time here, I am proud to say that I have not seen a guard or interrogator abuse anyone in any shape or form,” he continues. The article reports that James worked with another licensed psychologist, a behavioral science specialist and leaders within the Joint Detention Group and the Joint Intelligence Group.
Push for accountability

Since 2005, however, PHR has been working to hold accountable health professionals it believes were complicit in torture. The APA “has never comprehensively addressed the troubling ethical entanglement of some members of its leadership in the intelligence apparatus,” PHR’s Sara Greenberg wrote Wednesday.

“In January 2005,” Greenberg writes,

the American Psychological Association issued its Report of the Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security, which seeks to legitimize the involvement of psychologists in interrogation; a role that is fundamentally inconsistent with ethical principles and both US and international law. In concluding that psychologists have a central role in interrogations, the Task Force gave short shrift to the ethical and human rights implications of coercive interrogation practices used by U.S. forces that relied on psychological expertise. Nor has the APA sanctioned its members responsible for designing and implementing torture.

PHR contrasts the APA’s flip-flopping with the unequivocal opposition to torture expressed by other leading organizations of health professionals, including the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association.

With the debate over how to hold Bush administration-era officials accountable for alleged torture now at a fever pitch, PHR spokespeople have fanned out in the media, calling for the psychologists who justified, designed and implemented the interrogation programs to lose their professional licenses and face criminal prosecution.

“The conclusion that these interrogation techniques cause no lasting harm is the equivalent of psychological malpractice,” Reisner recently told the Inter Press Service. “How can you compare U.S. soldiers who volunteered for SERE training, and could have stopped their interrogations at any time, with the effects on a prisoner who has been ‘disappeared,’ is in fear for his life, and believes he will never see his family again?”

[Frederick Clarkson is a Massachusetts-based independent journalist. He is the editor, most recently, of Dispatches from the Religious Left: The Future of Faith and Politics in America (Ig Publishing, 2008).]

Source / In These Times

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Newsroom Layoffs : Black Journalists Take Hardest Hits

Posted on April 24, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Controversial sports analyst Stephen A. Smith — once a rising star at ESPN radio and television — is leaving the air because he refused a pay cut.

With all the hair-pulling about the demise of the print media, and especially the reports on the massive city room layoffs, here’s a little factoid that may just be slipping through the cracks. It’s black journalists who are taking the hardest hits, by far. As if the miniscule minority presence on news staffs wasn’t already scandalous enough — now they’re the ones being laid off first.

Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / April 23, 2009

Black journalists are being slashed from newsrooms at alarming and disproportionate rate

April 23, 2009

Newsroom jobs held by Black journalists were cut by an alarming 13.5 percent in 2008, making African-Americans the single most targeted group for job losses in newsrooms across the country according to a study released by ASNE, the American Society of News Editors.

“While NABJ [National Association of Black Journalists] recognizes the current economic downturn, newspapers must stop the bloodletting of Black journalists now,” said NABJ President Barbara Ciara. “It is unconscionable that this industry is willing to jeopardize the accuracy, integrity and bottom line of its publications.”

In all, nearly 400 Black journalists lost their jobs in 2008, representing the largest drop in all minority employment and scaling back progress toward diversity in newsrooms to 1998 census levels.

Furthermore, 458 newspapers still have no minorities in their newsrooms and only 111 out of 633 newspapers surveyed have achieved parity with the minority population in their communities.

“Newsrooms without Black journalists are unacceptable,” Ciara said. “NABJ calls on industry leaders to re-commit to making diversity a priority – even in this difficult climate.”

The decrease in minority representation in newsrooms runs counter to general population trends, which project the United States will become a “majority minority” country by mid-century.

In 1999, ASNE defined as its goal to deliver parity in newsroom representation by 2025. NABJ stands ready to work with ASNE and media companies to reach this goal and promote diversity in the nation’s newsrooms.

“As minority communities grow in number and influence, newspapers must prepare for the future by preserving the jobs of Black journalists and grooming them for the leadership positions of tomorrow,” Ciara said.

“The most innovative and profitable newspapers are those with diverse perspectives and minorities in their upper ranks.”

An advocacy group established in 1975 in Washington, D.C., NABJ is the largest organization of journalists of color in the nation, with more than 4,100 members, and provides educational, career development and support to black journalists worldwide.

Source / Washington Informer

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An FBI Official Who Was There Talks About ‘Enhanced Interrogation’

Posted on April 24, 2009 by RagBlog

I have juxtaposed a former FBI supervisor with Liz Cheney defending her father. And I lead with Helen Thomas grilling Dana Perino back in October 2008 about this subject. There are those who do not believe that murder is murder, even when there are dead people at hand to view and assess how they died. I suppose it is perfectly reasonable for Dick Cheney, his daughter, and umpteen other Bush administration officials to maintain that we did not, and do not torture.

You be the judge, but I respectfully disagree with all those who believe the United States government and numerous officials paid and instructed by the United States government and military did not torture. This nation did torture people in its custody, this nation is probably still torturing prisoners, and it is a criminal act under international law and everyone who was ever involved should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. And those who are deniers are complicit and also liable to prosecution under the Nuremburg Principles.

Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog

My Tortured Decision
By Ali Soufan / April 22, 2009

FOR seven years I have remained silent about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding. I have spoken only in closed government hearings, as these matters were classified. But the release last week of four Justice Department memos on interrogations allows me to shed light on the story, and on some of the lessons to be learned.

One of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. The first, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use harsh interrogation techniques on a high-ranking terrorist, Abu Zubaydah, on the grounds that previous methods hadn’t been working. The next three memos cite the successes of those methods as a justification for their continued use.

It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence.

We discovered, for example, that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Abu Zubaydah also told us about Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber. This experience fit what I had found throughout my counterterrorism career: traditional interrogation techniques are successful in identifying operatives, uncovering plots and saving lives.

There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics. In addition, I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions — all of which are still classified. The short sightedness behind the use of these techniques ignored the unreliability of the methods, the nature of the threat, the mentality and modus operandi of the terrorists, and due process.

Defenders of these techniques have claimed that they got Abu Zubaydah to give up information leading to the capture of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a top aide to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and Mr. Padilla. This is false. The information that led to Mr. Shibh’s capture came primarily from a different terrorist operative who was interviewed using traditional methods. As for Mr. Padilla, the dates just don’t add up: the harsh techniques were approved in the memo of August 2002, Mr. Padilla had been arrested that May.

One of the worst consequences of the use of these harsh techniques was that it reintroduced the so-called Chinese wall between the C.I.A. and F.B.I., similar to the communications obstacles that prevented us from working together to stop the 9/11 attacks. Because the bureau would not employ these problematic techniques, our agents who knew the most about the terrorists could have no part in the investigation. An F.B.I. colleague of mine who knew more about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed than anyone in the government was not allowed to speak to him.

It was the right decision to release these memos, as we need the truth to come out. This should not be a partisan matter, because it is in our national security interest to regain our position as the world’s foremost defenders of human rights. Just as important, releasing these memos enables us to begin the tricky process of finally bringing these terrorists to justice.

The debate after the release of these memos has centered on whether C.I.A. officials should be prosecuted for their role in harsh interrogation techniques. That would be a mistake. Almost all the agency officials I worked with on these issues were good people who felt as I did about the use of enhanced techniques: it is un-American, ineffective and harmful to our national security.

Fortunately for me, after I objected to the enhanced techniques, the message came through from Pat D’Amuro, an F.B.I. assistant director, that “we don’t do that,” and I was pulled out of the interrogations by the F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller (this was documented in the report released last year by the Justice Department’s inspector general).

My C.I.A. colleagues who balked at the techniques, on the other hand, were instructed to continue. (It’s worth noting that when reading between the lines of the newly released memos, it seems clear that it was contractors, not C.I.A. officers, who requested the use of these techniques.)

As we move forward, it’s important to not allow the torture issue to harm the reputation, and thus the effectiveness, of the C.I.A. The agency is essential to our national security. We must ensure that the mistakes behind the use of these techniques are never repeated. We’re making a good start: President Obama has limited interrogation techniques to the guidelines set in the Army Field Manual, and Leon Panetta, the C.I.A. director, says he has banned the use of contractors and secret overseas prisons for terrorism suspects (the so-called black sites). Just as important, we need to ensure that no new mistakes are made in the process of moving forward — a real danger right now.

[Ali Soufan was an F.B.I. supervisory special agent from 1997 to 2005.]

Source / New York Times

And then there’s this apologetic interview with Dick Cheney’s daughter, who served in the criminal BushCo administration, apparently believing that what they did was right and good:

Revised Transcript: Liz Cheney Defends Her Father on MSNBC

MSNBC sent me this by email. I couldn’t find it on the web, so I’m reprinting here – Juan R.I. Cole

NEW YORK – April 23, 2009 – Liz Cheney, former deputy assistant secretary of state during the Bush administration and the daughter of the former vice president, Dick Cheney spoke to MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell earlier today about new information that suggests her father signed off on harsh interrogation practices.

NORAH O’DONNELL, MSNBC ANCHOR: Also, there may be some new information today on who signed off on tough tactics to question terrorists. The Senate Intelligence Committee now says Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice helped direct a small group of Justice Department lawyers who wrote memos authorizing these harsh interrogation practices. Also, Rice gave the first verbal OK for the use of waterboarding in July 2002.

Liz Cheney is a former deputy assistant secretary of state during the Bush administration and the daughter of the former vice president, Dick Cheney.

Liz, good to see you. Thanks so much for joining us.

LIZ CHENEY, FORMER U.S. DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE: Thanks, Norah. Good to be here.

O’DONNELL: Did the former vice president, Dick Cheney, was he the prime mover behind directing this small group of Justice Department lawyers to come up with an authorization for these harsh tactics?

L. CHENEY: That’s actually not what the document says that you’re referring to. There’s absolutely no question that this was a program that was widely approved and supported within the administration. I think there’s no secret here that the National Security Council reviewed the program. The National Security Council ensured that it had legal approval before going forward with these techniques.

But I want to go back to one thing we heard the attorney general say, Norah, which I found troubling. He said that he had not seen the memos or any memos talking about the effectiveness of this program. And I think it’s very important for people to ask the question, had the president, before President Obama made the decision to release the tactics and the techniques, had nobody reviewed the effectiveness of the program? Had his attorney general and the president himself looked at whether in fact these programs had gained intelligence that was critical for saving — for the security of the nation?

O’DONNELL: Well Liz, we’ll get to that argument in a minute, about do the means justify the ends. Whether torture justifies…

L. CHENEY: Well, it wasn’t torture, Norah, so that’s not the right way to lay out the argument.

O’DONNELL: OK.

L. CHENEY: Everything done in this program, as has been laid out and described before, are tactics that our own people go through in SEER training and that our own people have gone through for many years. So it’s really – does a fundamental disservice to those professionals who are conducting this very effective program and to those people who approved the program in order to keep this nation safe and prevent attacks through the program to call it torture.

O’DONNELL: Liz, the CIA, on its own after 2005, stopped waterboarding on its own. The U.S. prosecuted people for waterboarding after World War II.
So to suggest there’s a consensus out there that waterboarding is not torture is not in fact accurate.
Cont’d (click below or on “comments”)

L. CHENEY: No, I think it is accurate. There were three people who were waterboarded. And two of those people are people who gave us incredibly important and useful information, information that saved American lives after they were waterboarded. Both Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah.

And I would just refer your viewers to the really important op-ed piece that Mike Hayden and Attorney General Mukasey wrote laying out why this program worked, why it was effective and what damage has now been done to our national security by releasing the tactics of this program (ph).

O’DONNELL: Well, the current director of the national intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair, has said this about those particular memos, he says this, quote, “the information gained from these techniques was valuable in some instances. But there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means.”

We have a full screen of this – no, let me, I want to put this full screen up, because this is very important. Could we please get this up on the screen?

L. CHENEY: It is important, Norah, but let me comment to that.

O’DONNELL: The bottom line – the bottom line is that these techniques have hurt our image around the world.

L. CHENEY: Norah, I’m sure you know…

(CROSSTALK)

O’DONNELL: … director says that the damage that has done has far outweighed any information that was gleaned. And in fact, there is a disagreement about whether other tactics other than waterboarding could have gotten valuable information.

L. CHENEY: Norah, I’m sure you know that actually the first statement that DNI Blair put out internally acknowledged the incredible effectiveness of these programs and acknowledged that very important intelligence had been gained. And that it was only after the White House got a hold of the statement, edited the statement, censored it I would say, and put it out publicly that his language changed.

So I think this is another instance where people need to take a very close look at the fact you’ve had four former CIA directors talk about how effective this program is and why memos should not have been released, and the fact that DNI Blair changed his assessment of the program should raise some questions in people’s minds.

O’DONNELL: I want to get back again – we can debate this, but I want to get back to specifically, what role the vice president had in directing lawyers to authorize these memos. Was it from the vice president’s office, Dick Cheney, who said to those men — John Hugh (ph), Jay Bibby (ph)– we need to come up with a way to interrogate these al Qaeda suspects after 9/11? Why doesn’t he own up to the fact that he was the prime mover behind that?

L. CHENEY: Norah, there was no direction of lawyers from the vice president. That’s not how this process worked. And I think that you can look at exactly how the process worked, which is, the CIA said we have Abu Zubaydah and we think he’s got important information that further attacks are imminent and therefore, we need to know what we can do.

And the National Security Council met and discussed this. This is actually all laid out in Senator Rockefeller’s timeline, which doesn’t say what you’re alleging that it says, which makes clear that the questions laid out to OlC were, what’s possible and when. And if you’ve read the memos, in fact, that were released, you’ll see that they were very, very careful in laying out exactly what could be done and for exactly how long.

So the notion…

O’DONNELL: Well, let me put that up on the screen, because we do have that and that’s the first full screen that I was going to get to, which is the Cheney and Rice signed off on these interrogations. Very first graphic…

(CROSSTALK)

L. CHENEY: But Norah, what you’re doing is reading a headline – but Norah, you’re reading a headline from an A.P. story or McClatchy story. That’s not what the document itself says.

Now, I think it’s very important, however, to be clear…

O’DONNELL: The Senate Intelligence lays out that in those initial meetings were the vice president..

L. CHENEY: Absolutely.

O’DONNELL: … the national security adviser…

L. CHENEY: That’s absolutely right.

O’DONNELL: … Powell, and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld were not in those initial meetings. So if those were that small group of people, why won’t you say that the vice president was one of the prime movers in..

(CROSSTALK)

L. CHENEY: There’s no question that the vice president of the United States supported the program, as did the national security adviser, as did the secretary of state, as did the attorney general, as did the entire National Security Council. There is nobody who has been clearer about being out there saying this is a good program, this saved American lives than the vice president. So there’s nothing about owning up here, because this was a good program and people are very proud of what we’ve accomplished.

Now setting aside that, what you’re doing is reading headlines and talking about direction of lawyers, which is a very different thing. And there’s no assertion that that’s what went on. The lawyers’ opinions were sought in order to make sure that the program that the CIA ran stayed within the law. And the lawyers did a very responsible and professional job of laying out exactly what were the limits of how far we could go. And that is precisely what makes it so damaging that these memos have now been released.

O’DONNELL: Listen to yourself – listen to yourself, Liz, “how far we could go.”

L. CHENEY: That’s right.

O’DONNELL: How far could we go with detainees? I mean, how far could we… Torture them in order to get information?

L. CHENEY: How far – no. For how many minutes you could ask them certain kind of questions. How many…

(CROSSTALK)

L. CHENEY: I’m sorry, it’s very, very important point.

O’DONNELL: It’s a very important point.

L. CHENEY: It is a very important point.

O’DONNELL: The Geneva Convention were established…

L. CHENEY: Norah, there is nothing…

O’DONNELL: … to protect our men and women in the military. So that America would be a beacon in the world so when our men and women are captured overseas that they would not be tortured. We would never want our people to…

L. CHENEY: Norah, are you going to give me a chance to answer your question?

O’DONNELL: Let me finish my point.

L. CHENEY: I get your point, Norah, but the point is – no, Norah, wait a second…

(CROSSTALK)

O’DONNELL: … America no longer cares about torture?

L. CHENEY: That’s not what the world is hearing, Norah. First of all…

(CROSSTALK)

O’DONNELL: .. and if gets valuable information, then OK, we’re for it. Is that the message they send?

L. CHENEY: Norah, that may be what you’re saying, but that’s not what I’m saying.

O’DONNELL: OK.

L. CHENEY: What I’m saying that is there were a series of tactics, a series of techniques that had all been done to our own people. We did not torture our own people, these techniques are not torture. The memos laid out…

O’DONNELL: Did we torture other people?

L. CHENEY: No.

O’DONNELL: You just said, we did not torture our own people.

L. CHENEY: Therefore, the tactics are not torture. We did not torture. The memos laid out the extent of exactly how far we could go before it would become torture, because it was important we not cross that line into torture.

As General Hayden and Attorney General Mukasey laid out, the problem is that now we’ve said to our enemies, look, this is exactly how far we’re g going to go. So our enemies, who we know read this stuff online, will now train to be able to withstand that.

Now, setting that aside, this argument about the Geneva Conventions, in terms of the – you know, this idea that somehow al Qaeda abides by the Geneva Conventions. If al Qaeda captures an American, they cut his head off. So I think it’s very important for us to sort of take a step back from the emotion of this and say we needed to be able to get evidence about imminent attacks.
We knew these guys had information, the information that was provided saved American lives, and the techniques were not torture. And I think it’s important for the American people to be able to see the entire argument laid out.

O’DONNELL: OK. Liz Cheney, stay with us, because we’re going to have much more not only about these particular harsh interrogation memos that some people are calling torture memos, whether the vice president will participate, will testify before a truth commission, and the future of the Republican Party. We’ve got a lot more coming up right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The world outside there, both our friends and our foes, will be quick to take advantage of a situation if they think they’re dealing with a weak president or one who’s not going to stand up and aggressively defend America’s interests.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O’DONNELL: Back with us is Liz Cheney, she, of course, the former deputy assistant secretary of state during the Bush administration and the daughter of the former vice president, Dick Cheney.

All right, Liz, did the vice president just call the president a weak president?

L. CHENEY: I think that he is concerned that some of the things that we’ve seen President Obama do, particularly on his overseas trip, in terms of not taking the opportunity to stand up and defend America when Daniel Ortega delivers a 50-minute screed against the United States…

O’DONNELL: Is that really appropriate, though, to call the current sitting president weak?

L. CHENEY: I think what he said is you begin to look weak and there’s a danger if our enemies think we are weak. I think it’s important to be very precise about what he said.

But I there’s a real concern. I mean the message that we saw coming out of the last few foreign trips, you know, set aside republican and democrat, as an American, it concerns me when I’ve got a president who doesn’t stand up and say, wait a minute. You know, I’m going to defend the United States of America because we are the beacon of hope for people all around the world.

O’DONNELL: He didn’t said he wasn’t going to defend America.

L. CHENEY: He didn’t do it though, Norah. He didn’t do it. He stood up after Ortega attacked the nation, attacked our policies for the last 40 years, and President Obama said, well, look I was only three months old.

Now, you know, that’s not the kind of strong defense of the nation that I’d like to see.

O’DONNELL: Let me read to you what the former president, George W.
Bush, said on March 17th in Calgary. He said, quote, “I’m not going to spend my time criticizing him,” talking about President Obama. “There are plenty of critics in the arena. He deserves my silence.”

So Liz, what are you doing here? What’s the vice president doing?

L. CHENEY: Well, the vice president thinks it’s very important when you see the country begin to go down paths that are concerning and dangerous, and when you see the current administration making decisions that really do have the potential to make us less safe, in those circumstances, I would say the vice president doesn’t’ think that there’s an obligation to be silent. In fact, I think he believes the opposite, which is that there’s an obligation to stand up and say, wait a second. You know, there are important reasons why we put policies in place. They clearly kept us safe for seven years.

And it’s very important as this administration now begins to dismantle some of those things, that the public, you know, understand and have the ability to have a debate about what direction we’re going to go in.

O’DONNELL: The latest former vice president’s approval ratings, Cheney, favorable, 21 percent, unfavorable 58 percent.

Is it possible that the American people have already made a judgment about whose right on this issue? They voted for change, they don’t agree with your point of view, with your father’s point of view?

L. CHENEY: You know, I think – obviously, they voted for change. I think there are lot of reasons why the republicans lost this election. I do think that the Republican Party needs to do some rebuilding.

But I think that all of that is domestic politics and poll numbers.
And I think that we are at a crossroads as a nation. We’re at a moment where we can either remember that we’re at war and remember that there are people out there who really would like to do us great damage and great harm and keep those policies in place that have kept us safe, or we go back to treating this like a law enforcement matter.

And I think when you’re dealing with issues that are of that grave importance, spending a lot of time looking at poll numbers is irresponsible.

O’DONNELL: Well, the former vice president is now calling the sitting vice president essentially a weak president. That he’s concerned he’s going — he said essentially said he’s worried that he’s no longer going to ask terrorists tough questions, which I’m sure our men and women are going to ask terrorists tough questions.

L. CHENEY: The question is, Norah….

(CROSSTALK)

O’DONNELL: … answer the questions, I think that’s the question.

(CROSSTALK)

O’DONNELL: … did Vice President Cheney get permission from President Bush to speak out like this?

L. CHENEY: He doesn’t need permission. But we were just watching…

O’DONNELL: Do they talk regularly?

L. CHENEY: They do.

But let me say one thing. We were just watching Attorney General Holder, and he made a very important point. He talked about the task forces that have been set up to review interrogation techniques. And this is one of the things that’s so concerning about the release of these legal memos and it’s another thing General Hayden points out.

President Obama said to his National Security Council, you tell me whether or not the tactics in the Army Field Manual are sufficient and you report back to me about whether those are sufficient to protection the nation.

And they haven’t reported back yet. That is underway. That review is underway. And in the meantime, we have released the information about what other tactics are.

So it’s really a situation where there’s, you know, the president has not only tied his own hands, but he’s tied potentially the hands of all future presidents by putting this material out before he himself even knew whether his task force was going to tell him, yes, you need those tactics.

O’DONNELL: Well, the Senate Armed Services Committee came out with a report yesterday. And the chairman of that committee, Carl Levin, said essentially, there’s a direct link between what happened in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. That these types of interrogation practices led to what we saw at Abu Ghraib. And I think there’s been a pretty general agreement across the world that what happened at Abu Ghraib was despicable.

L. CHENEY: Absolutely what happened at Abu Ghraib is despicable. What Senator Levin is saying and the report that you’ve mentioned, clearly you’ve heard republican members of Congress and republican senators on TV all day today pointing out that that was a partisan report.

So, Abu Ghraib was despicable, the people that did those things are being prosecuted and have been prosecuted and punished. That is not the CIA interrogation program. That was a situation in which people were doing things that were clearly against the law and they shouldn’t have been doing. And it’s a very convenient thing for, you know, democrats in Congress and people who are trying to sort of make partisan attacks here to point Abu Ghraib. I think we all should be able to say we agree that was a crime and that was despicable.
And that’s not part of this current debate.

O’DONNELL: Well, the question is whether that led – some of those — opening the door to those harsh interrogation tactics led to a misunderstanding that happened at Abu Ghraib.

We’re going to have much more with Liz Cheney…

L. CHENEY: But I don’t think there’s any evidence that it did, by the way.

O’DONNELL: All right, when we come back, more with Liz Cheney, including what Megan McCain had to say to day about the former vice president.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O’DONNELL: And we are back with Liz Cheney.

And Liz, I want to play for you something that Megan McCain, who of course is the daughter of John McCain, was co-hosting on “The View” this morning and she had some tough words for your father, the former vice president.

Let’s listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MEGAN MCCAIN, THE VIEW: The DNC just did an ad. And it has Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney as the new faces of the Republican Party…

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my God, how scary.

MCCAIN: Well, I mean, it’s hard people like me that really want new energy and new blood when they – it’s very unprecedented for someone like Karl Rove or Dick Cheney to be criticizing the president. It’s very unprecedented a former vice president, you know, obviously Karl Rove – and I just – you know, my big criticism is just, you had your eight years, go away.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O’DONNELL: You have a reaction to that?

L. CHENEY: Look I disagree with her. But I think it’s great to have young people actively engaged in politics. And I think that one of the things that we’re seeing that’s, I think, is fascinating, in the early months of this administration, something that I thought would take longer, frankly. And I think you’re seeing people around the country, young people in particular, look at those tea parties we had a couple of weeks ago, people coming out just saying, wait a second here. There are a lot of things that we love about this nation and we don’t want to see those things take away.

So I think that, you know, it’s terrific to have people engaged in the process. I would encourage more people to get engaged and I think it’s a good thing for the party.

O’DONNELL: Do you think Sarah Palin is the future of the Republican Party?

L. CHENEY: I think that Sarah Palin’s terrific. I think that there are a lot of young, you know, leaders out there that we see, people in Congress. I’m a big fan of Adam Putnam, who I hope will one day run for governor of Florida. People like Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan. You know, we’ve got a lot of very smart, very talented, young members of Congress, some governors out there as well, who I really do think represent, you know, where the party will go in the future.

O’DONNELL: And given that 90 percent of John McCain’s voters were white in this past election, do you acknowledge your party has a long way to go when it comes to minorities and reaching out to younger people, too?

L. CHENEY: I do think we have a lot to do. And I think that the Obama campaign was a masterful campaign. And I think the new techniques that they set out and that they implemented are ones that we need to be studying closely and learning from and stealing the next time around.

O’DONNELL: All right, Liz Cheney, thank you so much for joining us
here on MNSBC.

L. CHENEY: Thanks, Norah. Great to be here.

Source / Informed Comment

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Obama : Beyond Savior or Trickster

Posted on April 23, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Photo from Links.com

We can’t build a vibrant progressive movement — or strengthen a base capable of moving the country in progressive directions for the long haul — by winking and nodding at Democratic policies that would have drawn our sharp criticism if they were being implemented by a Republican administration.

By Norman Solomon / April 23, 2009

As President Obama enters his fourth month in office, two tendencies among progressive-minded Americans seem most hazardous to the political health of the country. The gist of one approach is that Obama can’t do anything seriously wrong; the other is that he can’t do anything seriously right.

Among the tendencies, the first is more widespread and more dangerous. All kinds of atrocious policies — from Lyndon Johnson’s war on Vietnam to Jimmy Carter’s midterm swerve rightward to Bill Clinton’s neoliberal measures such as NAFTA, “welfare reform” and Wall Street deregulation — were calamities facilitated by acquiescence or mild dissent from many left-leaning Democrats.

Some historical analogies are acutely relevant, and the LBJ/Vietnam Obama/Afghanistan comparison is one of them. During the first couple of years after Johnson’s inauguration in January 1965, with few exceptions, liberal members of Congress and leaders of liberal-oriented groups routinely voiced support for the war escalation; others mumbled their misgivings as the president ordered more troops and firepower to Vietnam. Today, similar mumbling about Afghanistan attests to the repetition compulsion disorder of the US warfare state.

Whatever can be said for avoidance of ruffling feathers in the new administration is greatly outweighed by the dire long-term effects. We can’t build a vibrant progressive movement — or strengthen a base capable of moving the country in progressive directions for the long haul — by winking and nodding at Democratic policies that would have drawn our sharp criticism if they were being implemented by a Republican administration.

Another destructive dynamic: A corporatized Democratic administration helps Republicans put on populist costumes and pose as opponents of corporate elites. For instance, when Democratic officials and progressive allies act as though the massive federal giveaways to banks are no cause for outrage, demobilization of the party’s progressive base is predictable.

With the November midterm elections now 18 months away, the specter of the post-NAFTA 1994 election that gave control of Congress to Republicans is an ominous poltergeist that’s already haunting Capitol Hill. Rather than serving, yet again, as enablers for a Democratic administration to pursue a corporate-friendly course, progressives should be pushing hard in the opposite direction.

Among the Democratic base, the widespread eagerness to put Obama on a very high pedestal is emblematic of a depoliticized culture. Fixating on his impressive personal qualities is a way of turning the overall political picture into a fuzzy background.

Oft-cited, yet still worth recalling, is the spot in his book, “The Audacity of Hope,” where Obama wrote: “I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.” At least as important, Obama is a master of speaking and acting in ways that move to the center of political gravity.

We should be hard at work at the grassroots to move that center of political gravity in progressive directions, which requires speaking truth about power – a far different endeavor than reflexively defending or vilifying Obama.

It should be axiomatic — for commentators who refuse to be partisan hacks, for activists with progressive commitments, for anyone determined to elude Orwellian doublethink — that presidential actions and policies should be assessed and supported or opposed on their merits.

Rejecting Obama iconography and demonology is necessary for a healthy progressive movement. We won’t get far by trying to leapfrog the actual political conditions of the country. Our task is to change them.

Obama’s corporate and military policies are reflections of anti-democratic imbalances of power that are part of the political economy. We shouldn’t let him off the hook any more than we should refuse to acknowledge his positive actions, such as progressive aspects of his proposed budget.

The possibilities for progressive solutions will be bound up in propelling change from the grassroots — the methodical, often-tedious and essential tasks of talking and listening and organizing in communities across the country. When President Obama takes a progressive step, it has been made possible by progressive activism. When President Obama takes an anti-progressive step, it has been facilitated by progressives muting their criticism. The antidote to political poisons is to intelligently raise our voices.

[Norman Solomon is on the advisory board of Progressive Democrats of America and a national co-chair of the Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign. His books include War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death, which has been made into a documentary film of the same name. For information, go to: normansolomon.com.]

Source / truthout

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Rabbi Arthur Waskow : Healing Earth and Blessing Sun

Posted on April 23, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Global scorching. Photo from examiner.com.

The ancient insight embodied in two Hebrew words — that ‘adam,’ humanity, and ‘adamah,’ the earth, come from the same root and are inextricably intertwined — has been forcing itself higher and higher into our awareness.

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow / The Rag Blog / April 23, 2009

Many many of us agree that the threat of climate disaster is the most important danger facing the human race and the web of life upon our planet. Many of us have noticed that in the great and archetypal story of the Exodus, Pharaoh’s arrogance does as much damage to the earth itself — “the Plagues” — as to his own society.

But many of us feel blown away by other crises that seem more urgent:

The world-wide economic collapse and our own loss of jobs and savings; worsening bloodshed between Israel and its neighbors; the danger of a bloody quagmire in Afghanistan; the AIDS epidemic in Africa and elsewhere; failures in health care and education in the US; bitter struggles over immigration; rising rates of gun violence; denial of full human rights to gays and lesbians ….

So far, “global scorching” has affected only the margins of American space — so it is easy to say, “Big problem” — and focus on something else. But droughts in Georgia and California; rising danger of hurricane fury, extreme weather come often instead of seldom; widespread die-offs of honey-bee colonies that are crucial to our food chain; the asthma epidemic — all these are hints of what’s already on the way.

The ancient insight embodied in two Hebrew words — that “adam,” humanity, and “adamah,” the earth, come from the same root and are inextricably intertwined — has been forcing itself higher and higher into our awareness.

So at last, our Congress seems ready to address the need for limiting CO2 and methane emissions and moving swiftly toward green energy and green jobs. But under intense pressure from the entrenched drug lords of Big Coal and Big Oil, the legislation intended to accomplish this may turn out to be only an empty shell unless we, the American people, make it real.

The Shalom Center is committing itself to focus on this issue, while not ignoring the others we have mentioned above.

To make a difference, laws intended to “green” not just our buildings or our vehicles but American society as a whole will have to take into account the best scientific wisdom as well as the deepest spiritual understanding.

That means knowing the goals we have to reach if our planet is not to suffer irreparable loss. For the rest of this letter, I am drawing on an analysis set out on a website called 350.org.

Why the name? 350 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere is what many scientists, climate experts, and progressive national governments are now saying is the safe upper limit. Our current level is 387 ppm.

Accelerating arctic warming and other early climate impacts have led scientists to conclude that we are already above the safe zone at our current 387 ppm, and that unless we are able to rapidly return to 350 ppm this century, we risk reaching tipping points and irreversible impacts such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet and major methane releases from increased permafrost melt.

During the past six months, The Shalom Center has been deeply involved in creating the New Freedom Seder for the Earth and in pointing both the Seder and observance of the 28-year event of Blessing the Sun toward making changes in public policy. We will begin now to focus on the bills before Congress and how to address them from our deepest spiritual, religious, and ethical wisdom.

For further details on the science behind the “350 ppm” target and for the sources of this scientific analysis, please see the lead article on the home page of The Shalom Center website.

With blessings that we actually begin to heal the rift between “adam” and “adamah” —

Arthur

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Ahmadinejad : Iran Hands Israel a Gift

Posted on April 23, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during press conference at the European headquarters of the UN in Geneva, Switzerland. Photo by Laurent Gillieronv / EPA.

I hope in time to respond in detail to Nima Shirazi’s discussion of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s provocative speech at Durbin II. But, for now, here is a very different take from Terraviva Europe, the European Edition of the IPS Daily Journal. As the article shows, those of us who oppose Israeli policies and rightwing Zionist ideology would do well to avoid the kind of hateful rhetoric that Ahmadinejad employs.

Steve Weissman / The Rag Blog / April 23, 3009

‘The attack by the Iranian President, who had previously called for the destruction of Israel, was inauspiciously timed — just as Israelis Monday evening began marking one of the most solemn days on their national calendar — Holocaust Memorial Day.’

By Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler / April 23, 2009

JERUSALEM — Just when it seemed that the international community was gearing itself up to put pressure on the new Israel government to engage the Arab world and the Palestinian Authority seriously on peace, Iran’s president hijacked the moment. But, in again lashing out against Israel, he handed the Israeli prime minister a whip of his own with which to question the merit of dialogue with Iran which the Obama Administration has been promoting.

Only last week, in his latest round of talks with Israeli and Arab leaders, special U.S. presidential envoy Senator George Mitchell had suggested a linkage between solving the issue of Iran’s nuclear quest and the need for Israel to remain committed to a two-state solution with the Palestinians. To which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had responded with a linkage of his own – a negative linkage: that renewal of negotiations with the Palestinians be conditional on removal of the Iranian nuclear threat.

Enter Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad into the prestigious halls of the UN Conference on Racism in Geneva armed with his denunciation of the West and an accusation that Europe and the U.S. had dispossessed the Palestinians. “They resorted to making an entire nation homeless on the pretext of Jewish suffering…in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive, racist regime in Palestine.”

That attack by the Iranian President, who had previously called for the destruction of Israel, was inauspiciously timed — just as Israelis Monday evening began marking one of the most solemn days on their national calendar — Holocaust Memorial Day.

That handed Netanyahu a comfortable platform on which to launch a counter broadside. “Only a few decades after the Holocaust, new forces have arisen, declaring their intention to wipe the Jewish state off the face of the earth,” declared the Israeli leader. “Holocaust deniers cannot commit another holocaust. This is the State of Israel’s supreme obligation. This is my supreme obligation as prime minister.”

Ten days ago the Tel Aviv daily Maariv reported that Netanyahu had been briefed on the Israeli military’s planning with regard to the Iranian question, the paper reporting the prime minister “happy” with what he had heard. Then over the weekend, the London Times claimed that the Israeli Air Force was “training for an attack on Iran on very short notice.” According to Amos Harel, a leading Israeli strategic affairs analyst, “the timing of these reports is not coincidental – Israel is trying to make clear that, even though the U.S. plans to begin a diplomatic dialogue with Iran, Israel holds a realistic military option.”

Timing is all – especially poor timing. The Ahmadinejad rhetoric is enabling the hard line Israeli leader to mould a national consensus not only around policy directions towards Iran, but in his policy directions towards the Palestinians. When he came up against Senator Mitchell’s insistence that he commit publicly to the two-state principle, Netanyahu’s response was resolute: before we can admit to the creation of a Palestinian state, first let the Palestinians recognise Israel as a Jewish state. That too resonates with the Israeli public.

Mitchell, however, was not impressed. Since his meeting last Thursday with Netanyahu, U.S. State Department officials have repeatedly made plain that, in the U.S. view, talks between Israelis and Palestinians should resume as soon as possible “and, with no pre-conditions.” In his Friday meeting with the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah, Mitchell intimated strongly that he means to leave Netanyahu no room for manoeuvre: “the two-state solution is the only solution,” he said adamantly. “Comprehensive peace in the region is,” he added “in the national interest of the United States” as well as in the Palestinian and Israeli interests.

President Ahmadinejad’s bluntness could now prove the saving grace for a recalcitrant Netanyahu and a real blow for the Obama strategy-in-the- making. In fact, he seems to have put the U.S. President initiative in a double-barrelled bind: the State Department had to condemn the Ahmadinejad statements in Geneva at the very time it was reaffirming the U.S. commitment for dialogue with Iran.

More pointedly, Mitchell’s attempt to link forceful progress towards resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as the overall Israeli- Arab conflict, with a firm policy that will curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions could well be seriously hamstrung. The Iranian President may even have given renewed life to the counter Israeli insistence that before the world should expect Israel to move on Palestine, it must first deal convincingly with Iran.

Source / IPS / Terraviva Europe

The Rag Blog

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Matthis Chiroux: War Resister Scores a Big Win

Posted on April 23, 2009 by RagBlog


War Resister Successfully Challenges ‘Misconduct’ Charge
By Stephen Dohnberg / April 21, 2009

War resister Sgt Chiroux successfully challenged his misconduct hearing, facing down the U.S. Army and offering a potential “green light” for other soldiers challenging the legality of U.S. action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

War resister Sgt. Matthis Chiroux, who refused to deploy to Iraq under the Individual Ready Reserve, today successfully challenged his misconduct hearing and was granted a ‘General Discharge Under Honorable Conditions’.

Chiroux’s hearing in St. Louis, MO, could have seen the veteran, who previously received an honorable discharge after five years of active service in Afghanistan, Philippines, Germany, and Japan, potentially lose his GI benefits.

Sgt Matthis Chiroux – member, IVAW. Photo: Bill Parry.

He refused to redeploy during a statement on Father’s Day, 2008, and it wasn’t until three days after Chiroux’s participation in the Protest at the final Oct. 15 presidential debate at Hofstra University, Long Island, NY, that Chiroux received the threat of a ‘Misconduct’ charge.

Chrioux, who requested the hearing and planned to challenge the U.S. Army’s decision said he was doing on on the basis that the war was “an illegal and immoral occupation.”

Matthis Chiroux address Pentagon Marchers. Photo: Stephen Dohnberg.

Chiroux declared in a recent press release “My resistance as a non commissioned officer to this abhorrent occupation is just as legitimate now as it was last year.”

“Soldiers have a duty to adhere to the international laws of war described as supreme in Article 6, Paragraph 2 of the U.S. Constitution, which we swear to abide by before the orders of any superior, including our former or current president.”

Veterans for Peace flag at Pentagon March. Photo: Stephen Dohnberg.

In a brief text message from Chiroux moments after the completed hearing from St, Louis, he exclaimed “Victory!” and said “Resistance has a green light!”, meaning that this could be a potential landmark and precedent setting case for war resisters who believe the U.S. action in Iraq and Afghanistan in illegal and contravenes military conventions and the Constitution.

It could also mean new avenues of challenge for AWOL war resistors currently residing in Canada.

Source / Digital Journal

Thanks to Jeffrey Segal / The Rag Blog

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California’s Harvest of Shame

Posted on April 23, 2009 by RagBlog

Documentary featuring Fabian Núñez, past speaker of the California State Assembly.

California’s Harvest of Shame from California Assembly Access on Vimeo.

This is a short film showing the realities of life in the fields in 2008. It is narrated by Fabian Núñez and features a prologue and epilogue by Martin Sheen.

Source / Vimeo

Thanks to Jeffrey Segal / The Rag Blog

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