In an editorial in today’s New York Times, Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton (the chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the 9/11 commission) outright and openly accuse the CIA and the White House of obstruction: The commission’s mandate was sweeping and it explicitly included the intelligence agencies. But the recent revelations that the C.I.A. destroyed videotaped interrogations of … Read More
Recommended Reading
Slate’s Top Ten Bush Administration’s Dumbest Legal Arguments of the Year. It’s a doozy. Number one: 1. The United States does not torture. First there was the 2002 torture memo. That was withdrawn. Then there was the December 2004 statement that declared torture "abhorrent." But then there was the new secret 2005 torture memo. But members of Congress were fully … Read More
Squandering America’s Leadership
Today’s New York Times editorial says everything that needs to be said in these four simple paragraphs: There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country. Sunday was one of them, as we read the account in The Times of how men in some of the most trusted posts in the nation plotted to cover up … Read More
Indeed
Yglesius writes: Harold Meyerson asks the question that’s on every secular liberal’s mind: How is it that the political mobilization of Christianity in the United States seems to have gotten us so much torture, aggressive warfare, and xenophobia? Where’s the humane, universalistic ethic of the Gospels go?
Back To The Videotape
The story of the destroyed torture tapes is back in the news, and this time, the White House isn’t looking as clean. Earlier, it had been reported that the White House (specifically, Harriet Miers) had advised against destroying the tapes, which is the correct legal advice. Now, the facts are a litte fuzzier: It was previously reported that some administration … Read More
Blackwater Shoots The New York Times’ Dog
The New York Times has been reporting how the security firm, Blackwater, has been going around shooting innocent people in Baghdad for no good reason. And guess what happened last week? The U.S. embassy in Iraq is investigating another deadly shooting incident involving its Blackwater bodyguards — this time of the New York Times’s dog. Staff at the newspaper’s Baghdad … Read More
Maybe They Weren’t Terrorists?
The Miami "Seas of David" terror bust was such an important blow in the War on Terror that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales himself gave a press conference in July of 2006. Federal agents had stopped a plot to blow up the Sears Tower, he said. The group had planned to "accomplish attacks against America," the FBI’s deputy director said at … Read More
Bush Will Veto Ban On Waterboarding
Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a ban on torture. Actually, per The Gavel, the House adopted the Army’s rules prohibiting torture for other agencies. Seems the Army doesn’t want to condone a practice that could be used on our soldiers. Not Bush, though. He will veto that ban: The White House vowed to veto the measure. Limiting the … Read More
Casualties Of War
The other statistic: More than 100,000 of the 750,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have sought treatment for mental problems from the Department of Veterans Affairs, an official said during a hearing on suicides. Dr. Ira Katz, the VA’s deputy chief of patient care, told members of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee that the department’s suicide hotline has received more … Read More
Why Did “The Iraqs” Attack Us On 9/11?
This post, from a university professor, is about the most depressing thing I’ve ever read.
The White House Take On Waterboarding Is Laughable
Just take a moment to digest this press briefing with WH spokesperson Dana Perino yesterday. A reporter asked whether the questioning of Abu Zubaydah was in line with “the interrogation program approved by President Bush.” Perino responded by saying, “All have been done within the legal framework that was set out after September 11th…. The entire program has been legal….", … Read More
I, For One, Don’t
Kevin Drum: Let me get this straight. The White House had been in the loop for two years. The CIA had received letters from both the Justice Department and congressional leaders arguing that the tapes shouldn’t be destroyed. The CIA’s top lawyer had been involved for the entire time. And yet we’re supposed to believe that, in 2005, a mid-ranking … Read More
Rape Culture
As if the story of the KBR/Halliburton employee rape of an American staffer in Iraq isn’t bad enough… … it’s much worse when you take into account that KBR/Halliburton has tried to cover it up. … it’s much worse when you take into account that a law (passed by the GOP majority) makes any the KBR/Halliburton employees immune for prosecution … Read More
Halliburton Latest Venture In Iraq
Stomach-turning: A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident. Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a … Read More
Arming The Enemy
Stunning incompetence: The report details a massive failure in government procurement revealing little accountability for the billions of dollars spent purchasing military hardware for the Iraqi security forces. For example, according to the report, the military could not account for 12,712 out of 13,508 weapons, including pistols, assault rifles, rocket propelled grenade launchers and machine guns. Let’s be clear about … Read More