Diet Guantanmo! -Alex Massie
Watch this one run and run. First up is Florida Democrat Alcee Hastings:
"If we have transparency and accountability, than you can leave Gitmo just like it is," he said. "The physical plant of Guantanamo is built to hold people. And therefore I argue and will pursue the administration to give a look at legislation that I am developing that will give transparency and accountability and may satisfy our allies as well," Hastings said, noting that he would enable groups like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Red Cross to have better access to monitor the facility.
Hastings has yet to seriously discuss the proposal with the White House but asserts that it could be a viable solution given that the new Gitmo comes with a guarantee of no torture.
Hastings, a former U.S. District Court judge, cited a problematic prison he once ordered closed, renovated and eventually reopened.
"I went in-same facility-we just changed what was going on inside and therefore the perception changed," he said, when asked about President Obama's assertion Guantanamo poses a international perception problem for the nation.
Given that Obama has vowed that no torture will take place at the facility, Hastings said Obama will be able to declare that "the new Guantanamo is open."
Batting second, National Review's Andy McCarthy:
I continue to be baffled by this: If President Obama truly is the transformative, transcendent figure all the hype tells us he is, why can't he "cleanse" Gitmo of its purported terror-driving taint by his personal certification that it's now a top-notch detention center — "rule of law" compliant, consistent with "our values," and otherwise worthy of The One's very own seal of approval? Why is that straightforward, cost-free alternative not an option? After all, he's maintaining Bush policies like rendition, state-secrets, and military commmissions. We are now told we can trust that these former atrocities have been purged of their Bushie taint because Obama has personally scrutinized them and decided to keep them after an oh-so-thoughtful nip here and tuck there. Why does that rationale not work for Gitmo?
Look, as I said last week, this business about Gitmo being a blight on our reputation in the world and a driver of terror recruitment is the most uninformed gust of high-minded, reality-defying blather ever blown across a debate. But even if we concede this dreck for argument's sake, shouldn't the problem be an easy one for a messiah of Obama's stature? Obviously, nothing will satisfy the ACLU until the combatants are roaming America's streets while Pelosi waterboards Cheney, but if Obama says Gitmo is now fine, shouldn't that be enough for the Europeans?
This isn't going to work. How hard is it to understand that Guantanamo has become a poisonous symbol? Sure, there were plenty of evil-doers and terrorists before Guantanamo ever opened its doors and there will still be plenty once it's shut. But that's no reason to give people an additional reason for despising the United States when, you know, you don't have to accomodate and deepen their prejudices in this fashion. Equally, european public opinion is one thing, but it's not as important as views elsewhere in the world. Do these people really think that you can have Diet Gitmo and persuade the rest of the world that it isn't actually just the same old stuff in new packaging? Therere are good reasons explaining why Abu Ghraib, or in another place, the Maze prison in Belfast, were demolished.
This doesn't seem a difficult point to grasp. But, I dunno, maybe it is.
UPDATE: Batting third, is dear old Victor Davis Hanson:
We have seen that we can rename terrorists and the very war on terror in hopes of changing reality. Tribunals, renditions, intercepts, Iraq, wiretaps, etc. — they all continue, but with a kinder, gentler Obama facade. I think Guantánamo will follow the same Orwellian script. Readers can probably imagine the new euphemisms that prove Obama closed the facility as promised even as it will remain open under some such inspired nomenclature that suggests that it is neither a prison nor in Cuba — The Center for Man-Caused Disasters? The Victim Center of Overseas Contingency Operations? The Caribbean Institution for Conflict Resolution?
Aye,right enough, Guantanamo's a laugh a minute.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Salon.com (May 28, 2009)
In the shadow of Cheney
Obama could spring America from the dank culture of fear spread by Cheney and Bush. So what's holding him back?
By Gary Kamiya
Full article here:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2009/05/28/culture_of_fear/
Obama could spring America from the dank culture of fear spread by Cheney and Bush. So what's holding him back?
By Gary Kamiya
Full article here:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2009/05/28/culture_of_fear/
HuffingtonPost.com (May 27, 2009)
The Rush and Cheney Show Accelerates Military Desertion of the GOP
Jon Soltz
Co-Founder of VoteVets.org, served as a Captain in Operation Iraqi Freedom
Posted: May 27, 2009 12:49 PM
For decades, the conventional wisdom was that the Republican Party was the party of the military. And while no party has or ever will monopolize military support, certainly Republicans had a good amount of support from some big names - from Eisenhower to Powell.
In recent years, however, as Republicans have abandoned ideals that make our military strong - no nation building using our Armed Forces, looking for strong alliances to join us in action, operating on a moral high ground when we do use force, and commitment to a strong enough and large enough force - we've seen big names head towards supporting Democrats - from General Wesley Clark and Major General Paul Eaton to General John Shalikashvili, General Joseph Hoar, and General Hugh Shelton. Oh, and Colin Powell.
That shift towards Democrats, and especially President Obama and Hillary Clinton during the primary, is about to be fast tracked, as Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney take control of Republican messaging, ideals, practices, and policies.
Ideals that include torturing detainees, hoping for a "24-like" moment that neatly helps dismantle terrorist networks, instead of giving them their best recruiting tool. It goes against everything we learn in the Army Field Manual (which forbids torture), and what we know works on the ground. For example, when we urgently needed information about insurgents in Iraq, we didn't bring in a local leader and torture him, no matter what. Doing so would have only inflamed things and made it impossible for us to effectively operate in an area again.
Practices based on use of force first, like Newt Gingrich's odd contention that if he was President, he'd go into North Korea and bomb away to destroy their missiles, unphased by what that would actually mean.
And, policies like favoring big contracts for high-end weapons systems and air power, over a military with a strong ground component - championed by Donald Rumsfeld. Policy still backed by those who would put more money into experimental weapons systems over growing the size of our enlisted forces, which would only hamstring our ability to effectively operate.
For all I disagree on with Senator John McCain, he may have been the Republicans best hope at stemming the trend, by at least voicing opposition to torture, and standing firm on Pentagon waste and bloated contracts, worried more about practical equipment that could help our troops in the field. Now, with Senator McCain vanquished within his own party by those who weaseled their way out of service in Vietnam, no one seems to be in the way of taking the Republican Party full-tilt to the anti-military-ideals fringe.
It's hard to remember, but when General Wesley Clark retired, and was rumored to be interested in politics leading to 2004, there was some buzz wondering if he would be a Democrat or Republican. It says a lot, because even though he supported Democrats privately while serving, there still was a sliver of space for someone like General Clark in the Republican Party, making such speculation not too outlandish.
It reminds me of recent news involving another General.
Last year, those on the right loved General David Petraeus. You couldn't debate anyone on the neocon side without them trying to hide behind the General. There were even rumors swirling that Republicans would recruit him to be their nominee in 2012. Then, supporters of Governor Palin championed her nomination in four years, but they thought General Petraeus would make a fine subordinate to the Governor in a Dream Ticket to take on President Obama.
Well, don't look now, but our friend Sam Stein at reported here:
General David Petraeus said this past weekend that President Obama's decision to close down Gitmo and end harsh interrogation techniques would benefit the United States in the broader war on terror.
General Petraeus goes on to say that he believes we need to stay within the Geneva Convention, and that closing Gitmo "sends an important message to the world, as does the commitment of the United States to observe the Geneva Convention when it comes to the treatment of detainees."
Of course, this flies in the face of the Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney crowd - those who believe that we're safer when we do things that serve as great recruiting tools for al Qaeda.
There's no doubt that General Petraeus would be a powerful nominee for Republicans in 2012. One has to wonder, however, if with Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh calling the shots, the GOP is a Dream Party for him.
Jon Soltz
Co-Founder of VoteVets.org, served as a Captain in Operation Iraqi Freedom
Posted: May 27, 2009 12:49 PM
For decades, the conventional wisdom was that the Republican Party was the party of the military. And while no party has or ever will monopolize military support, certainly Republicans had a good amount of support from some big names - from Eisenhower to Powell.
In recent years, however, as Republicans have abandoned ideals that make our military strong - no nation building using our Armed Forces, looking for strong alliances to join us in action, operating on a moral high ground when we do use force, and commitment to a strong enough and large enough force - we've seen big names head towards supporting Democrats - from General Wesley Clark and Major General Paul Eaton to General John Shalikashvili, General Joseph Hoar, and General Hugh Shelton. Oh, and Colin Powell.
That shift towards Democrats, and especially President Obama and Hillary Clinton during the primary, is about to be fast tracked, as Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney take control of Republican messaging, ideals, practices, and policies.
Ideals that include torturing detainees, hoping for a "24-like" moment that neatly helps dismantle terrorist networks, instead of giving them their best recruiting tool. It goes against everything we learn in the Army Field Manual (which forbids torture), and what we know works on the ground. For example, when we urgently needed information about insurgents in Iraq, we didn't bring in a local leader and torture him, no matter what. Doing so would have only inflamed things and made it impossible for us to effectively operate in an area again.
Practices based on use of force first, like Newt Gingrich's odd contention that if he was President, he'd go into North Korea and bomb away to destroy their missiles, unphased by what that would actually mean.
And, policies like favoring big contracts for high-end weapons systems and air power, over a military with a strong ground component - championed by Donald Rumsfeld. Policy still backed by those who would put more money into experimental weapons systems over growing the size of our enlisted forces, which would only hamstring our ability to effectively operate.
For all I disagree on with Senator John McCain, he may have been the Republicans best hope at stemming the trend, by at least voicing opposition to torture, and standing firm on Pentagon waste and bloated contracts, worried more about practical equipment that could help our troops in the field. Now, with Senator McCain vanquished within his own party by those who weaseled their way out of service in Vietnam, no one seems to be in the way of taking the Republican Party full-tilt to the anti-military-ideals fringe.
It's hard to remember, but when General Wesley Clark retired, and was rumored to be interested in politics leading to 2004, there was some buzz wondering if he would be a Democrat or Republican. It says a lot, because even though he supported Democrats privately while serving, there still was a sliver of space for someone like General Clark in the Republican Party, making such speculation not too outlandish.
It reminds me of recent news involving another General.
Last year, those on the right loved General David Petraeus. You couldn't debate anyone on the neocon side without them trying to hide behind the General. There were even rumors swirling that Republicans would recruit him to be their nominee in 2012. Then, supporters of Governor Palin championed her nomination in four years, but they thought General Petraeus would make a fine subordinate to the Governor in a Dream Ticket to take on President Obama.
Well, don't look now, but our friend Sam Stein at reported here:
General David Petraeus said this past weekend that President Obama's decision to close down Gitmo and end harsh interrogation techniques would benefit the United States in the broader war on terror.
General Petraeus goes on to say that he believes we need to stay within the Geneva Convention, and that closing Gitmo "sends an important message to the world, as does the commitment of the United States to observe the Geneva Convention when it comes to the treatment of detainees."
Of course, this flies in the face of the Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney crowd - those who believe that we're safer when we do things that serve as great recruiting tools for al Qaeda.
There's no doubt that General Petraeus would be a powerful nominee for Republicans in 2012. One has to wonder, however, if with Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh calling the shots, the GOP is a Dream Party for him.
McClatchy Newspapers (May 27, 2009)
Iraq redux? Obama seeks funds for Pakistan super-embassy
Saeed Shah and Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: May 27, 2009 07:33:18 PM
ISLAMABAD — The U.S. is embarking on a $1 billion crash program to expand its diplomatic presence in Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan, another sign that the Obama administration is making a costly, long-term commitment to war-torn South Asia, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
The White House has asked Congress for — and seems likely to receive — $736 million to build a new U.S. embassy in Islamabad, along with permanent housing for U.S. government civilians and new office space in the Pakistani capital.
The scale of the projects rivals the giant U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which was completed last year after construction delays at a cost of $740 million.
Senior State Department officials said the expanded diplomatic presence is needed to replace overcrowded, dilapidated and unsafe facilities and to support a "surge" of civilian officials into Afghanistan and Pakistan ordered by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Other major projects are planned for Kabul, Afghanistan; and for the Pakistani cities of Lahore and Peshawar. In Peshawar, the U.S. government is negotiating the purchase of a five-star hotel that would house a new U.S. consulate.
Funds for the projects are included in a 2009 supplemental spending bill that the House of Representatives and the Senate have passed in slightly different forms.
Obama has repeatedly stated that stabilizing Pakistan and Afghanistan, the countries from which al Qaida and the Taliban operate, is vital to U.S. national security. He's ordered thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan and is proposing substantially increased aid to both countries.
In Pakistan, however, large parts of the population are hostile to the U.S. presence in the region — despite receiving billions of dollars in aid from Washington since 2001 — and anti-American groups and politicians are likely to seize on the expanded diplomatic presence in Islamabad as evidence of American "imperial designs."
"This is a replay of Baghdad," said Khurshid Ahmad, a member of Pakistan's upper house of parliament for Jamaat-e-Islami, one of the country's two main religious political parties. "This (Islamabad embassy) is more (space) than they should need. It's for the micro and macro management of Pakistan, and using Pakistan for pushing the American agenda in Central Asia."
In Baghdad and other dangerous locales, U.S. diplomats have sometimes found themselves cut off from the population in heavily fortified compounds surrounded by blast walls, concertina wire and armed guards.
"If you're going to have people live in a car bomb-prone place, your are driven to not have a light footprint," said Ronald Neumann, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and the president of the American Academy of Diplomacy. Neumann called the planned expansions "generally pretty justified."
In Islamabad, according to State Department budget documents, the plan calls for the rapid construction of a $111 million new office annex to accommodate 330 workers; $197 million to build 156 permanent and 80 temporary housing units; and a $405 million replacement of the main embassy building. The existing embassy, in the capital's leafy diplomatic enclave, was badly damaged in a 1979 assault by Pakistani students.
The U.S. government also plans to revamp its consular buildings in the eastern city of Lahore and in Peshawar, the regional capital of the militancy plagued North West Frontier Province. The consulate in the southern megacity of Karachi has just been relocated into a new purpose-built accommodation.
A senior State Department official confirmed that the U.S. plan for the consulate in Peshawar involves the purchase of the luxury Pearl Continental hotel. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly.
The Pearl Contintental is the city's only five-star hotel, set in its own expansive grounds, with a swimming pool. It's owned by Pakistani tycoon Sadruddin Hashwani.
Peshawar is an important station for gathering intelligence on the tribal area that surrounds the city on three sides and is a base for al Qaida and the Taliban. The area also will be a focus for expanded U.S. aid programs, and the American mission in Peshawar has already expanded from three U.S. diplomats to several dozen.
In all, the administration requested $806 million for diplomatic construction and security in Pakistan.
"For the strong commitment the U.S. is making in the country of Pakistan, we need the necessary platform to fulfill our diplomatic mission," said Jonathan Blyth of the State Department's Overseas Buildings Operations bureau. "The embassy is in need of upgrading and expansion to meet our future mission requirements."
A senior Pakistani official said the expansion has been under discussion for three years. "Pakistanis understand the need for having diplomatic missions expanding and the Americans always have had an enclave in Islamabad," said the official, who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the matter publicly. "Will some people exploit it? They will."
In Kabul, the U.S. government is negotiating an $87 million purchase of a 30- to 40-acre parcel of land to expand the embassy. The Senate version of the appropriations bill omits all but $10 million of those funds.
Saeed Shah and Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: May 27, 2009 07:33:18 PM
ISLAMABAD — The U.S. is embarking on a $1 billion crash program to expand its diplomatic presence in Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan, another sign that the Obama administration is making a costly, long-term commitment to war-torn South Asia, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
The White House has asked Congress for — and seems likely to receive — $736 million to build a new U.S. embassy in Islamabad, along with permanent housing for U.S. government civilians and new office space in the Pakistani capital.
The scale of the projects rivals the giant U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which was completed last year after construction delays at a cost of $740 million.
Senior State Department officials said the expanded diplomatic presence is needed to replace overcrowded, dilapidated and unsafe facilities and to support a "surge" of civilian officials into Afghanistan and Pakistan ordered by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Other major projects are planned for Kabul, Afghanistan; and for the Pakistani cities of Lahore and Peshawar. In Peshawar, the U.S. government is negotiating the purchase of a five-star hotel that would house a new U.S. consulate.
Funds for the projects are included in a 2009 supplemental spending bill that the House of Representatives and the Senate have passed in slightly different forms.
Obama has repeatedly stated that stabilizing Pakistan and Afghanistan, the countries from which al Qaida and the Taliban operate, is vital to U.S. national security. He's ordered thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan and is proposing substantially increased aid to both countries.
In Pakistan, however, large parts of the population are hostile to the U.S. presence in the region — despite receiving billions of dollars in aid from Washington since 2001 — and anti-American groups and politicians are likely to seize on the expanded diplomatic presence in Islamabad as evidence of American "imperial designs."
"This is a replay of Baghdad," said Khurshid Ahmad, a member of Pakistan's upper house of parliament for Jamaat-e-Islami, one of the country's two main religious political parties. "This (Islamabad embassy) is more (space) than they should need. It's for the micro and macro management of Pakistan, and using Pakistan for pushing the American agenda in Central Asia."
In Baghdad and other dangerous locales, U.S. diplomats have sometimes found themselves cut off from the population in heavily fortified compounds surrounded by blast walls, concertina wire and armed guards.
"If you're going to have people live in a car bomb-prone place, your are driven to not have a light footprint," said Ronald Neumann, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and the president of the American Academy of Diplomacy. Neumann called the planned expansions "generally pretty justified."
In Islamabad, according to State Department budget documents, the plan calls for the rapid construction of a $111 million new office annex to accommodate 330 workers; $197 million to build 156 permanent and 80 temporary housing units; and a $405 million replacement of the main embassy building. The existing embassy, in the capital's leafy diplomatic enclave, was badly damaged in a 1979 assault by Pakistani students.
The U.S. government also plans to revamp its consular buildings in the eastern city of Lahore and in Peshawar, the regional capital of the militancy plagued North West Frontier Province. The consulate in the southern megacity of Karachi has just been relocated into a new purpose-built accommodation.
A senior State Department official confirmed that the U.S. plan for the consulate in Peshawar involves the purchase of the luxury Pearl Continental hotel. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly.
The Pearl Contintental is the city's only five-star hotel, set in its own expansive grounds, with a swimming pool. It's owned by Pakistani tycoon Sadruddin Hashwani.
Peshawar is an important station for gathering intelligence on the tribal area that surrounds the city on three sides and is a base for al Qaida and the Taliban. The area also will be a focus for expanded U.S. aid programs, and the American mission in Peshawar has already expanded from three U.S. diplomats to several dozen.
In all, the administration requested $806 million for diplomatic construction and security in Pakistan.
"For the strong commitment the U.S. is making in the country of Pakistan, we need the necessary platform to fulfill our diplomatic mission," said Jonathan Blyth of the State Department's Overseas Buildings Operations bureau. "The embassy is in need of upgrading and expansion to meet our future mission requirements."
A senior Pakistani official said the expansion has been under discussion for three years. "Pakistanis understand the need for having diplomatic missions expanding and the Americans always have had an enclave in Islamabad," said the official, who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the matter publicly. "Will some people exploit it? They will."
In Kabul, the U.S. government is negotiating an $87 million purchase of a 30- to 40-acre parcel of land to expand the embassy. The Senate version of the appropriations bill omits all but $10 million of those funds.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
CrooksandLiars.com (May 27, 2009)
Georgia Republican wants 'Year of the Bible' so we can be aware of freedoms Obama's taking away:
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/georgia-republican-wants-year-bible
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/georgia-republican-wants-year-bible
Bill Moyers & Michael Winship - Alternet.org (May 27, 2009)
Bill Moyers: How Can We Expect an Industry That Profits from Disease and Sickness to Police Itself?
By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, AlterNet
Posted on May 24, 2009, Printed on May 27, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/140226/
In 2003, a young Illinois state senator named Barack Obama told a local AFL-CIO meeting, “I am a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program.”
Single payer. Universal. That’s health coverage, like Medicare, but for everyone who wants it. Single payer eliminates insurance companies as pricey middlemen. The government pays care providers directly. It’s a system that polls consistently have shown the American people favoring by as much as two-to-one.
There was only one thing standing in the way, Obama said six years ago: “All of you know we might not get there immediately because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate and we have to take back the House.”
Fast forward six years. President Obama has everything he said was needed – Democrats in control of the executive branch and both chambers of Congress. So what’s happened to single payer?
A woman at his town hall meeting in New Mexico last week asked him exactly that. “If I were starting a system from scratch, then I think that the idea of moving towards a single-payer system could very well make sense,” the President replied. “That's the kind of system that you have in most industrialized countries around the world.
“The only problem is that we're not starting from scratch. We have historically a tradition of employer-based health care. And although there are a lot of people who are not satisfied with their health care, the truth is, is that the vast majority of people currently get health care from their employers and you've got this system that's already in place. We don't want a huge disruption as we go into health care reform where suddenly we're trying to completely reinvent one-sixth of the economy.”
So the banks were too big to fail and now, apparently, health care is too big to fix, at least the way a majority of people indicate they would like it to be fixed, with a single payer option. President Obama favors a public health plan competing with the medical cartel that he hopes will create a real market that would bring down costs. But single payer has vanished from his radar.
Nor is single payer getting much coverage in the mainstream media. Barely a mention was given to the hundreds of doctors, nurses and other health care professionals who came to Washington last week to protest the absence of official debate over single payer.
Is it the proverbial tree falling in the forest, making a noise that journalists can’t or won’t hear? Could the indifference of the press be because both the President of the United States and Congress have been avoiding single payer like, well, like the plague? As we see so often, government officials set the agenda by what they do and don’t talk about.
Instead, President Obama is looking for consensus, seeking peace among all the parties involved. Except for single payer advocates. At that big White House powwow in Washington last week, the President asked representatives of the health care business to reason together with him. “What's brought us all together today is a recognition that we can't continue down the same dangerous road we've been traveling for so many years,” he said, “ that costs are out of control; and that reform is not a luxury that can be postponed, but a necessity that cannot wait.”
They came, listened, made nice for the photo op and while they failed to participate in a hearty chorus of “Kumbaya,” they did promise to cut health care costs voluntarily over the next ten years. The press ate it up – and Mr. Obama was a happy man.
Meanwhile, some of us looking on – those of us who’ve been around a long time – were scratching our heads. Hadn’t we heard this before?
Way, way back in the 1970’s Americans were riled up over the rising costs of health care. As a presidential candidate, Jimmy Carter started talking about the government clamping down. When he got to the White House, drug makers, insurance companies, hospitals and doctors – the very people who only a decade earlier had done everything they could to strangle Medicare in the cradle – seemed uncharacteristically humble and cooperative. “You don’t have to make us cut costs,” they promised. “We’ll do it voluntarily.”
So Uncle Sam backed down, and you guessed it. Pretty soon medical costs were soaring higher than ever.
By the early ‘90s, the public was once again hurting in the pocketbook. Feeling our pain, Bill and Hillary Clinton tried again, coming up with a plan only slightly more complicated than the schematics for an F-18 fighter jet.
This time the health industry acted more like Tony Soprano than Mother Teresa. It bludgeoned the Clinton reforms with one of the most expensive and deceitful public relations and advertising campaigns ever conceived – paid for, of course, from the industry’s swollen profits.
As the drug and insurance companies, hospitals and doctors dumped the mangled carcass of reform into the Potomac, securely encased in concrete, once again they said don’t worry; they would cut costs voluntarily.
If you believed that, we’ve got a toll-free bridge to the Mayo Clinic we’d like to sell you.
So anyone with any memory left could be excused for raising their eyebrows at the health care industry’s latest promises. As if on cue, hardly had their pledge of volunteerism rung out across the land than Jay Gellert, chief executive of Health Net Inc. and chair of the lobbying group America’s Health Insurance Plans, assured his pals not to worry abut the voluntary reductions. “We believe that we can do it without undermining the viability of companies,” he said, “and in effect enhancing the payment to physicians and hospitals.” In other words, their so-called voluntary “reforms” will in no way interfere with maximizing profits.
Also last week, John Lechleiter, the chief executive of drug giant Eli Lilly, blasted universal health care in a speech before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce: “I do not believe that policymakers have yet arrived at a full and complete diagnosis of what’s wrong and what’s right with U.S. health care,” he declared. “And I am very concerned that some of the proposed policies—the treatments, to continue my metaphor—will have unintended side-effects that make our situation worse.”
So why bother with the charm offensive on Pennsylvania Avenue? Could it be, as some critics suggest, a Trojan horse, getting the health industry a place at the table so they can leap up at the right moment and again knife to death any real reform?
Wheelers and dealers from the health sector aren’t waiting for that moment. According to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, they’ve spent more than $134 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2009 alone. And some already are shelling out big bucks for a publicity blitz and ads attacking any health care reform that threatens to reduce the profits from sickness and disease.
The Washington Post’s health care reform blog reported Tuesday that Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina has hired an outside PR firm to put together a video campaign assaulting Obama’s public plan. And this month alone, the group Conservatives for Patients’ Rights is spending more than a million dollars for attack ads. They’ve hired a public relations firm called CRC – Creative Response Concepts. You remember them – the same high-minded folks who brought you the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the gang who savaged John Kerry’s service record in Vietnam.
The ads feature the chairman of Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, Rick Scott. Who’s he? As a former deputy inspector general from the Department of Health and Human Services told The New York Times, “He hopes people don’t Google his name.”
Scott’s not a doctor; he just acts like one on TV. He’s an entrepreneur who took two hospitals in Texas and built them into the largest health care chain in the world, Columbia/HCA. In 1997, he was fired by the board of directors after Columbia/HCA was caught in a scheme that ripped off the Feds and state governments for hundreds of millions of dollars in bogus Medicare and Medicaid payments, the largest such fraud in history. The company had to cough up $1.7 billion dollars to get out of the mess.
Rick Scott got off, you should excuse the expression, scot-free. Better than, in fact. According to published reports, he waltzed away with a $10 million severance deal and $300 million worth of stock. So much for voluntarily lowering overhead.
With medical costs rising six percent per year, that’s who’s offering himself as a spokesman for the health care industry. Speaking up for single payer is Geri Jenkins, a president of the California Nurses Association and National Nurses Organizing Committee – a registered nurse with literal hands-on experience.
“We're there around the clock,” she told our colleague Jessica Wang. “So we feel a real sense of obligation to advocate for the best interests of our patients and the public. Now, you can talk about policy but when you're staring at a human face it's a whole different story.”
Michael Winship co-wrote this article. Bill Moyers is managing editor and Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday nights on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.
By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, AlterNet
Posted on May 24, 2009, Printed on May 27, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/140226/
In 2003, a young Illinois state senator named Barack Obama told a local AFL-CIO meeting, “I am a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program.”
Single payer. Universal. That’s health coverage, like Medicare, but for everyone who wants it. Single payer eliminates insurance companies as pricey middlemen. The government pays care providers directly. It’s a system that polls consistently have shown the American people favoring by as much as two-to-one.
There was only one thing standing in the way, Obama said six years ago: “All of you know we might not get there immediately because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate and we have to take back the House.”
Fast forward six years. President Obama has everything he said was needed – Democrats in control of the executive branch and both chambers of Congress. So what’s happened to single payer?
A woman at his town hall meeting in New Mexico last week asked him exactly that. “If I were starting a system from scratch, then I think that the idea of moving towards a single-payer system could very well make sense,” the President replied. “That's the kind of system that you have in most industrialized countries around the world.
“The only problem is that we're not starting from scratch. We have historically a tradition of employer-based health care. And although there are a lot of people who are not satisfied with their health care, the truth is, is that the vast majority of people currently get health care from their employers and you've got this system that's already in place. We don't want a huge disruption as we go into health care reform where suddenly we're trying to completely reinvent one-sixth of the economy.”
So the banks were too big to fail and now, apparently, health care is too big to fix, at least the way a majority of people indicate they would like it to be fixed, with a single payer option. President Obama favors a public health plan competing with the medical cartel that he hopes will create a real market that would bring down costs. But single payer has vanished from his radar.
Nor is single payer getting much coverage in the mainstream media. Barely a mention was given to the hundreds of doctors, nurses and other health care professionals who came to Washington last week to protest the absence of official debate over single payer.
Is it the proverbial tree falling in the forest, making a noise that journalists can’t or won’t hear? Could the indifference of the press be because both the President of the United States and Congress have been avoiding single payer like, well, like the plague? As we see so often, government officials set the agenda by what they do and don’t talk about.
Instead, President Obama is looking for consensus, seeking peace among all the parties involved. Except for single payer advocates. At that big White House powwow in Washington last week, the President asked representatives of the health care business to reason together with him. “What's brought us all together today is a recognition that we can't continue down the same dangerous road we've been traveling for so many years,” he said, “ that costs are out of control; and that reform is not a luxury that can be postponed, but a necessity that cannot wait.”
They came, listened, made nice for the photo op and while they failed to participate in a hearty chorus of “Kumbaya,” they did promise to cut health care costs voluntarily over the next ten years. The press ate it up – and Mr. Obama was a happy man.
Meanwhile, some of us looking on – those of us who’ve been around a long time – were scratching our heads. Hadn’t we heard this before?
Way, way back in the 1970’s Americans were riled up over the rising costs of health care. As a presidential candidate, Jimmy Carter started talking about the government clamping down. When he got to the White House, drug makers, insurance companies, hospitals and doctors – the very people who only a decade earlier had done everything they could to strangle Medicare in the cradle – seemed uncharacteristically humble and cooperative. “You don’t have to make us cut costs,” they promised. “We’ll do it voluntarily.”
So Uncle Sam backed down, and you guessed it. Pretty soon medical costs were soaring higher than ever.
By the early ‘90s, the public was once again hurting in the pocketbook. Feeling our pain, Bill and Hillary Clinton tried again, coming up with a plan only slightly more complicated than the schematics for an F-18 fighter jet.
This time the health industry acted more like Tony Soprano than Mother Teresa. It bludgeoned the Clinton reforms with one of the most expensive and deceitful public relations and advertising campaigns ever conceived – paid for, of course, from the industry’s swollen profits.
As the drug and insurance companies, hospitals and doctors dumped the mangled carcass of reform into the Potomac, securely encased in concrete, once again they said don’t worry; they would cut costs voluntarily.
If you believed that, we’ve got a toll-free bridge to the Mayo Clinic we’d like to sell you.
So anyone with any memory left could be excused for raising their eyebrows at the health care industry’s latest promises. As if on cue, hardly had their pledge of volunteerism rung out across the land than Jay Gellert, chief executive of Health Net Inc. and chair of the lobbying group America’s Health Insurance Plans, assured his pals not to worry abut the voluntary reductions. “We believe that we can do it without undermining the viability of companies,” he said, “and in effect enhancing the payment to physicians and hospitals.” In other words, their so-called voluntary “reforms” will in no way interfere with maximizing profits.
Also last week, John Lechleiter, the chief executive of drug giant Eli Lilly, blasted universal health care in a speech before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce: “I do not believe that policymakers have yet arrived at a full and complete diagnosis of what’s wrong and what’s right with U.S. health care,” he declared. “And I am very concerned that some of the proposed policies—the treatments, to continue my metaphor—will have unintended side-effects that make our situation worse.”
So why bother with the charm offensive on Pennsylvania Avenue? Could it be, as some critics suggest, a Trojan horse, getting the health industry a place at the table so they can leap up at the right moment and again knife to death any real reform?
Wheelers and dealers from the health sector aren’t waiting for that moment. According to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, they’ve spent more than $134 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2009 alone. And some already are shelling out big bucks for a publicity blitz and ads attacking any health care reform that threatens to reduce the profits from sickness and disease.
The Washington Post’s health care reform blog reported Tuesday that Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina has hired an outside PR firm to put together a video campaign assaulting Obama’s public plan. And this month alone, the group Conservatives for Patients’ Rights is spending more than a million dollars for attack ads. They’ve hired a public relations firm called CRC – Creative Response Concepts. You remember them – the same high-minded folks who brought you the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the gang who savaged John Kerry’s service record in Vietnam.
The ads feature the chairman of Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, Rick Scott. Who’s he? As a former deputy inspector general from the Department of Health and Human Services told The New York Times, “He hopes people don’t Google his name.”
Scott’s not a doctor; he just acts like one on TV. He’s an entrepreneur who took two hospitals in Texas and built them into the largest health care chain in the world, Columbia/HCA. In 1997, he was fired by the board of directors after Columbia/HCA was caught in a scheme that ripped off the Feds and state governments for hundreds of millions of dollars in bogus Medicare and Medicaid payments, the largest such fraud in history. The company had to cough up $1.7 billion dollars to get out of the mess.
Rick Scott got off, you should excuse the expression, scot-free. Better than, in fact. According to published reports, he waltzed away with a $10 million severance deal and $300 million worth of stock. So much for voluntarily lowering overhead.
With medical costs rising six percent per year, that’s who’s offering himself as a spokesman for the health care industry. Speaking up for single payer is Geri Jenkins, a president of the California Nurses Association and National Nurses Organizing Committee – a registered nurse with literal hands-on experience.
“We're there around the clock,” she told our colleague Jessica Wang. “So we feel a real sense of obligation to advocate for the best interests of our patients and the public. Now, you can talk about policy but when you're staring at a human face it's a whole different story.”
Michael Winship co-wrote this article. Bill Moyers is managing editor and Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday nights on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.
Thomas Frank - Wall Street Journal (May 27, 2009)
The GOP's Feigned Outrage
It takes chutzpah to protest what you've created.
By THOMAS FRANK
Those who followed news coverage of the "tea party" protests last month will recall that one target of the partiers' ire was the TARP bailout of the banking system -- a policy of the Bush administration that President Obama has carried on.
And yet, in a television interview last month, we find no less a representative of the late administration than former Vice President Dick Cheney endorsing the protesters' accusations with what is, for him, considerable enthusiasm. "I thought the tea parties were great," he told Fox News's Sean Hannity. "It's basically a very healthy development."
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, one of the Republican Party's few remaining stars, has also cheered the public's willingness to "fight back against Wall Street and Washington insiders."
A Republican who wants to fight Wall Street! A Bush official who thinks protesting Bush policies is "great"! Contemplating these curiosities, we begin to realize how easy it has been for conservatives to swing back into full-throated opposition only months after their cataclysmic defeat. And also to understand why the obituaries for the GOP might be just a tad premature.
After all, there's something about conservatives' ferocious "No" that precisely fits the temper of the times. For all the past year's Democratic victories, the GOP still owns outrage, still has an enormous capacity to summon up offense, to elevate every perceived slight into an unprecedented imposition upon both the hard-working citizen and freedom itself.
What really dazzles the observer, though, is conservatives' fury over things for which they are themselves responsible.
As an example of this habit of mind, consider the essay that Mr. Gingrich published in Human Events last week. "The current liberal bloodlust over interrogations," he wrote, referring to the Nancy Pelosi-CIA flap, is merely "the Left's attempt to hunt down and purge its political opponents." And yet, in a different essay he published on the very same day (this one in the Washington Times), Mr. Gingrich regretted that, in all the years of Republican rule, "there was a strategic failure to root out the left and the special interests of the left."
Mr. Gingrich's side failed to "root out" and destroy their opponents; now he imagines that this is what is being done to his team.
Psychotherapists might call this "projection," and something similar pervades the essay the remarkable Mr. Gingrich published only two days later in the Washington Post. Here the former speaker can be found calling for a populist revolt in the "great tradition of political movements rising against arrogant, corrupt elites."
A healthy sentiment, to be sure, except for the fact that "elites" are exactly what decades of conservative rule gave us by unleashing the banks, smashing the unions, and funneling the economy's gains into the hands of the rich.
Then there are the "lobbyists" whom Mr. Gingrich accuses of running state governments here and there. By this he means "lobbyists for the various unions" who get their way "through bureaucracies seeking to impose the values of a militant left."
Even so, rule by lobbyists is a subject Mr. Gingrich should know well. It was while he was House speaker, for example, that his No. 3, Tom DeLay, launched the famous "K Street Strategy," which sought to make Gucci Gulch the exclusive preserve of the Republican Party.
It was Mr. Gingrich's own beloved House freshmen of 1994, the last bunch of conservative populists to come down the pike, who made the Republican Revolution into a fundraising bonanza. And it was public outrage over the conspicuous purchase of government favors by the moneyed that led to the Democratic triumphs of 2006 and 2008.
Turning to the government of New York state, Mr. Gingrich declares that it has "impoverished the Upstate region to the point where it is a vast zone of no jobs and no opportunities." Oddly, Mr. Gingrich appears to believe that deindustrialization is the direct result of governance by a political machine in Albany.
In fact, deindustrialization also occurred all across the Midwest. As it ground on through the Reagan years and the '90s, it was the investor class who called the shots, not the hirelings of organized labor.
And as our factories and steel mills were shuttered an army of politicians and management theorists assured us that the waning of industrial America was the next stage in human development, the coming of the glorious age of information. The most ecstatic and even otherworldly of these was, of course, Newt Gingrich.
In his much-discussed speech last Thursday, Mr. Cheney intoned, "We hear from some quarters nothing but feigned outrage based on a false narrative." And so we do: A form of protest that persistently misses the point, a type of populism that only empowers the elite, and a brand of idealism that cohabits comfortably with corruption.
It takes chutzpah to protest what you've created.
By THOMAS FRANK
Those who followed news coverage of the "tea party" protests last month will recall that one target of the partiers' ire was the TARP bailout of the banking system -- a policy of the Bush administration that President Obama has carried on.
And yet, in a television interview last month, we find no less a representative of the late administration than former Vice President Dick Cheney endorsing the protesters' accusations with what is, for him, considerable enthusiasm. "I thought the tea parties were great," he told Fox News's Sean Hannity. "It's basically a very healthy development."
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, one of the Republican Party's few remaining stars, has also cheered the public's willingness to "fight back against Wall Street and Washington insiders."
A Republican who wants to fight Wall Street! A Bush official who thinks protesting Bush policies is "great"! Contemplating these curiosities, we begin to realize how easy it has been for conservatives to swing back into full-throated opposition only months after their cataclysmic defeat. And also to understand why the obituaries for the GOP might be just a tad premature.
After all, there's something about conservatives' ferocious "No" that precisely fits the temper of the times. For all the past year's Democratic victories, the GOP still owns outrage, still has an enormous capacity to summon up offense, to elevate every perceived slight into an unprecedented imposition upon both the hard-working citizen and freedom itself.
What really dazzles the observer, though, is conservatives' fury over things for which they are themselves responsible.
As an example of this habit of mind, consider the essay that Mr. Gingrich published in Human Events last week. "The current liberal bloodlust over interrogations," he wrote, referring to the Nancy Pelosi-CIA flap, is merely "the Left's attempt to hunt down and purge its political opponents." And yet, in a different essay he published on the very same day (this one in the Washington Times), Mr. Gingrich regretted that, in all the years of Republican rule, "there was a strategic failure to root out the left and the special interests of the left."
Mr. Gingrich's side failed to "root out" and destroy their opponents; now he imagines that this is what is being done to his team.
Psychotherapists might call this "projection," and something similar pervades the essay the remarkable Mr. Gingrich published only two days later in the Washington Post. Here the former speaker can be found calling for a populist revolt in the "great tradition of political movements rising against arrogant, corrupt elites."
A healthy sentiment, to be sure, except for the fact that "elites" are exactly what decades of conservative rule gave us by unleashing the banks, smashing the unions, and funneling the economy's gains into the hands of the rich.
Then there are the "lobbyists" whom Mr. Gingrich accuses of running state governments here and there. By this he means "lobbyists for the various unions" who get their way "through bureaucracies seeking to impose the values of a militant left."
Even so, rule by lobbyists is a subject Mr. Gingrich should know well. It was while he was House speaker, for example, that his No. 3, Tom DeLay, launched the famous "K Street Strategy," which sought to make Gucci Gulch the exclusive preserve of the Republican Party.
It was Mr. Gingrich's own beloved House freshmen of 1994, the last bunch of conservative populists to come down the pike, who made the Republican Revolution into a fundraising bonanza. And it was public outrage over the conspicuous purchase of government favors by the moneyed that led to the Democratic triumphs of 2006 and 2008.
Turning to the government of New York state, Mr. Gingrich declares that it has "impoverished the Upstate region to the point where it is a vast zone of no jobs and no opportunities." Oddly, Mr. Gingrich appears to believe that deindustrialization is the direct result of governance by a political machine in Albany.
In fact, deindustrialization also occurred all across the Midwest. As it ground on through the Reagan years and the '90s, it was the investor class who called the shots, not the hirelings of organized labor.
And as our factories and steel mills were shuttered an army of politicians and management theorists assured us that the waning of industrial America was the next stage in human development, the coming of the glorious age of information. The most ecstatic and even otherworldly of these was, of course, Newt Gingrich.
In his much-discussed speech last Thursday, Mr. Cheney intoned, "We hear from some quarters nothing but feigned outrage based on a false narrative." And so we do: A form of protest that persistently misses the point, a type of populism that only empowers the elite, and a brand of idealism that cohabits comfortably with corruption.
Matt Taibbi - Alternet.org (May 27, 2009)
Sarah Palin's Outrageous Hypocrisy on Teen Sex
By Matt Taibbi, True/Slant
Posted on May 27, 2009, Printed on May 27, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/140263/
So step right up and buy your “I’m SEXY enough… to make you wait!” t-shirts, courtesy of the Candie’s Foundation — the pro-abstinence group whose ambassador is now America’s most famous “Oh, fuck it, it feels better without the rubber” Supermom, Bristol Palin!
So on a flight to London over the weekend I caught the Bristol Palin magazine cover and was blown away. What does it take to get discredited as a moralizing right-wing ”family values” merchant these days?
It was one thing when we found out that super-religious governor Palin was letting Bristol’s hunkface beef accessory Levi nail her daughter more or less regularly under the family roof. It was another when we found out that the governor’s sister-in-law got popped for a B&E while her little daughter was waiting outside in the car. And it was still another thing when we found out that Levi’s Mom was going to eat a bust for dealing Oxycontin (and there’s apparently a lot behind the governor’s interest in that story).
For the most part, none of this stuff is any of our business — we all have family members with issues, although mine tend to leave their kids at home when they go out to commit burglaries to support their drug habits.
But this abstinence thing with Bristol, to me, is just too much. This sort of thing always grosses me out: this country has way too many people who do stuff like this, dragging their helpless minor kids with them on national media tours or publishing lengthy parenting memoirs in which their unwitting babies play starring roles as props in Mom’s narcissistic fantasies.
But this goes even beyond that. This poor little kid is going to grow up someday and find out she’s been brand-marketed to the human species by Madison Avenue as The Great Mistake.
Bristol’s quote about how girls need to close their eyes and imagine spending the rest of their lives with a screaming baby before they have sex — her daughter is someday going to cough that line up, through sobs, in her fourth or fifth year of very expensive therapy. If this little kid isn’t hooked on black baggy clothes and cutting by age 11 I’ll be shocked.
But beyond that, Bristol’s casual statement about deciding not to get married after all, about how it would have been a disaster, I just don’t get how this works, politically. How can a Republican presidential candidate (and let’s not fool ourselves, Sarah Palin is already that) publicly endorse unwed teen mothering? Am I missing something?
Matt Taibbi is a writer for Rolling Stone.
By Matt Taibbi, True/Slant
Posted on May 27, 2009, Printed on May 27, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/140263/
So step right up and buy your “I’m SEXY enough… to make you wait!” t-shirts, courtesy of the Candie’s Foundation — the pro-abstinence group whose ambassador is now America’s most famous “Oh, fuck it, it feels better without the rubber” Supermom, Bristol Palin!
So on a flight to London over the weekend I caught the Bristol Palin magazine cover and was blown away. What does it take to get discredited as a moralizing right-wing ”family values” merchant these days?
It was one thing when we found out that super-religious governor Palin was letting Bristol’s hunkface beef accessory Levi nail her daughter more or less regularly under the family roof. It was another when we found out that the governor’s sister-in-law got popped for a B&E while her little daughter was waiting outside in the car. And it was still another thing when we found out that Levi’s Mom was going to eat a bust for dealing Oxycontin (and there’s apparently a lot behind the governor’s interest in that story).
For the most part, none of this stuff is any of our business — we all have family members with issues, although mine tend to leave their kids at home when they go out to commit burglaries to support their drug habits.
But this abstinence thing with Bristol, to me, is just too much. This sort of thing always grosses me out: this country has way too many people who do stuff like this, dragging their helpless minor kids with them on national media tours or publishing lengthy parenting memoirs in which their unwitting babies play starring roles as props in Mom’s narcissistic fantasies.
But this goes even beyond that. This poor little kid is going to grow up someday and find out she’s been brand-marketed to the human species by Madison Avenue as The Great Mistake.
Bristol’s quote about how girls need to close their eyes and imagine spending the rest of their lives with a screaming baby before they have sex — her daughter is someday going to cough that line up, through sobs, in her fourth or fifth year of very expensive therapy. If this little kid isn’t hooked on black baggy clothes and cutting by age 11 I’ll be shocked.
But beyond that, Bristol’s casual statement about deciding not to get married after all, about how it would have been a disaster, I just don’t get how this works, politically. How can a Republican presidential candidate (and let’s not fool ourselves, Sarah Palin is already that) publicly endorse unwed teen mothering? Am I missing something?
Matt Taibbi is a writer for Rolling Stone.
Scott Horton - Harpers.org (May 26, 2009)
War Games with the Press
Recently, Iranians arrested and tried a young North Dakota-reared journalist named Roxana Saberi. She was accused of espionage and held under harsh conditions. The Obama administration cried foul, and newspapers around the United States raged against the Iranians and their abuse of the denizens of the Fourth Estate. The objections were well taken and had commendable effect, as Saberi’s sentence was reduced, and she was freed and allowed to return to the States. But there’s another country whose treatment of journalists might put even Iran to shame: the United States. The U.S. has detained dozens of journalists in Iraq. Most of these were fleeting, and the journalists were allowed to return home after their identity was confirmed. A number of journalists, however, weren’t so lucky.
Consider Abdul Ameer Younis Hussein, a cameraman for CBS news, and Bilal Hussein, a photographer for the Associated Press. Abdul Ameer was held for a year and accused of being a terrorist before he was able to get to a court and find complete vindication. The Pentagon claimed it had convincing evidence that showed he was present at a series of bombing incidents. The claims, which ran for two days on cable news networks quoting unnamed Pentagon sources, turned out to be a lie, probably concocted to embarrass CBS. Bilal Hussein was held for two years. His offense? He belonged to a team of photographers who won the Pulitzer Prize for their war photography—a fact that sent Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld into a rage and led directly to his arrest, imprisonment, and torture. Ultimately, a panel of Iraqi judges also directed his release, finding the accusations that the Americans raised against him to be utterly without merit. I am deeply familiar with Abdul Ameer’s case and that of Bilal Hussein—I served as counsel to each of them. In the course of their representation, I quickly became convinced not only that they were completely innocent of the charges brought against them but also that the American officers who were holding them fully understood they were innocent from the outset. Several of them went out of the way to tell me that, in fact. Which makes the Pentagon’s decision to have them held and mistreated very puzzling. And yes, in both cases, the decisions were made in the Pentagon, not in the field in Iraq.
And now we have another case. Liz Sly of the Los Angeles Times reports:
The soldiers came at 1:30 a.m, rousing family members who were sleeping on the roof to escape the late-summer heat. They broke down the front door. Accompanied by dogs, American and Iraqi troops burst into the Jassam family home in the town of Mahmoudiya south of Baghdad. “Where is the journalist Ibrahim?” one of the Iraqi soldiers barked at the grandparents, children and grandchildren as they staggered blearily down the stairs.
Ibrahim Jassam, a cameraman and photographer for the Reuters news agency, stepped forward, one of this brothers recalled. “Take me if you want me, but please leave my brothers.” The soldiers rifled through the house, confiscating his computer hard drive and cameras. And then they led him away, handcuffed and blindfolded. That was Sept. 2. Jassam, 31, has been in U.S. custody ever since.
I have no personal knowledge of the facts of Jassam’s case, but it sure sounds familiar to me, down to the fact that an Iraqi court found there was no evidence justifying his detention by the U.S. forces, but they refused to let him go. That would make the legal tenor of his current detention a kidnapping, not a lawful detention—not that his American captors would care, of course.
In an address two years ago to the Naval Academy, Secretary Robert Gates told the midshipmen that the press was not “the enemy.” It’s taking some time for this message to sink in. But maybe the Obama Administration’s new crew looking into detainee affairs will see they have a problem with journalists that will take little to fix. Just respecting the law.
Recently, Iranians arrested and tried a young North Dakota-reared journalist named Roxana Saberi. She was accused of espionage and held under harsh conditions. The Obama administration cried foul, and newspapers around the United States raged against the Iranians and their abuse of the denizens of the Fourth Estate. The objections were well taken and had commendable effect, as Saberi’s sentence was reduced, and she was freed and allowed to return to the States. But there’s another country whose treatment of journalists might put even Iran to shame: the United States. The U.S. has detained dozens of journalists in Iraq. Most of these were fleeting, and the journalists were allowed to return home after their identity was confirmed. A number of journalists, however, weren’t so lucky.
Consider Abdul Ameer Younis Hussein, a cameraman for CBS news, and Bilal Hussein, a photographer for the Associated Press. Abdul Ameer was held for a year and accused of being a terrorist before he was able to get to a court and find complete vindication. The Pentagon claimed it had convincing evidence that showed he was present at a series of bombing incidents. The claims, which ran for two days on cable news networks quoting unnamed Pentagon sources, turned out to be a lie, probably concocted to embarrass CBS. Bilal Hussein was held for two years. His offense? He belonged to a team of photographers who won the Pulitzer Prize for their war photography—a fact that sent Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld into a rage and led directly to his arrest, imprisonment, and torture. Ultimately, a panel of Iraqi judges also directed his release, finding the accusations that the Americans raised against him to be utterly without merit. I am deeply familiar with Abdul Ameer’s case and that of Bilal Hussein—I served as counsel to each of them. In the course of their representation, I quickly became convinced not only that they were completely innocent of the charges brought against them but also that the American officers who were holding them fully understood they were innocent from the outset. Several of them went out of the way to tell me that, in fact. Which makes the Pentagon’s decision to have them held and mistreated very puzzling. And yes, in both cases, the decisions were made in the Pentagon, not in the field in Iraq.
And now we have another case. Liz Sly of the Los Angeles Times reports:
The soldiers came at 1:30 a.m, rousing family members who were sleeping on the roof to escape the late-summer heat. They broke down the front door. Accompanied by dogs, American and Iraqi troops burst into the Jassam family home in the town of Mahmoudiya south of Baghdad. “Where is the journalist Ibrahim?” one of the Iraqi soldiers barked at the grandparents, children and grandchildren as they staggered blearily down the stairs.
Ibrahim Jassam, a cameraman and photographer for the Reuters news agency, stepped forward, one of this brothers recalled. “Take me if you want me, but please leave my brothers.” The soldiers rifled through the house, confiscating his computer hard drive and cameras. And then they led him away, handcuffed and blindfolded. That was Sept. 2. Jassam, 31, has been in U.S. custody ever since.
I have no personal knowledge of the facts of Jassam’s case, but it sure sounds familiar to me, down to the fact that an Iraqi court found there was no evidence justifying his detention by the U.S. forces, but they refused to let him go. That would make the legal tenor of his current detention a kidnapping, not a lawful detention—not that his American captors would care, of course.
In an address two years ago to the Naval Academy, Secretary Robert Gates told the midshipmen that the press was not “the enemy.” It’s taking some time for this message to sink in. But maybe the Obama Administration’s new crew looking into detainee affairs will see they have a problem with journalists that will take little to fix. Just respecting the law.
New Republic (May 25, 2009)
Where the Right Is
by Damon Linker
Where the Right Is
Roughly four months into Barack Obama's presidency, it's possible to make a few observations about the factions forming on the intellectual right as it adjusts to life in the political wilderness.
It's fitting that National Review -- the intellectual incubator of the conservative movement that rose to power with Ronald Reagan -- seems poised to go down with the ship. In the magazine and more recently on its lively website National Review Online (NRO), National Review has always mirrored the mood on the political right: unpredictable and feisty in the 60s and 70s; exuding confidence in the 80s and 90s; overdosing on militaristic American exceptionalism under George W. Bush; and now spiraling down into the dumps with the post-Bush Republican Party. Today NRO's group blog The Corner is angry, sarcastic, cranky, irritable, grossly populist -- miles away from the serene high-mindedness cultivated by founder William F. Buckley, Jr. Contributors compete with one another over who can offer the most obsequious encomium for Rush Limbaugh and turn instantly against anyone who dares utter a criticism of him. Like the vulgar talk-show hosts with whom they've firmly aligned themselves, the editors and writers around National Review occasionally criticize the Bush administration, but they rarely do so in the name of new ideas. Instead, they treat Reagan as the Platonic ideal of the conservative politician, the standard from which all present and future Republicans diverge at their peril. Call it a cocoon or call it a casket -- either way, it's hard to imagine National Review in its current configuration contributing very much to the revival of the right either politically or intellectually.
The Weekly Standard and Commentary -- the two magazines most closely associated with neoconservatism -- overlap quite a lot these days with National Review in both content and contributors. (Jennifer Rubin's endless string of lengthy posts on Commentary's Contentions blog, which mechanically praise nearly every Republican utterance while monotonously denouncing the Democrats for everything they do, would fit in quite well at The Corner.) Yet there is an important difference in emphasis. Whereas National Review promotes Reagan worship, the Weekly Standard and Commentary have chosen to rally around Dick Cheney, proud champion of "enhanced interrogation" and thoroughly unrepentant advocate of the invasion of Iraq. There's something admirable in this position, I suppose, since it can't possibly flow from a belief that an embrace of the wildly unpopular and increasingly grouchy Cheney will improve the political fortunes of the Republican Party, at least in the short term. No, William Kristol and John Podhoretz appear to be standing tall with Cheney out of principle. If you doubt it, take a look at this revealing blog post from Podhoretz, written shortly after Obama's national security speech last Wednesday, in which he bristles at the president's suggestion that the Bush administration sometimes "made decisions based upon fear rather than foresight.” To which Podhoretz responds with a heartfelt defense of conducting foreign policy in a state of acute fear, while also praising the former president's "brilliant efforts to thwart mass killings." Neoconservatism, 2009 reduced to a slogan: "Be Afraid! Be Very Afraid!" It's hard to imagine such a message succeeding politically, at least short of a genuine crisis (as opposed to a spurious one). Count that as one more reason to hope our luck holds out.
And that's about it for the right's flagship opinion journals. Oh sure, there are bright spots at all three magazines/websites: Jim Manzi's libertarian-minded commentary on economics and finance for NRO; Max Boot's historically informed posts on foreign affairs and military issues for Contentions; and best of all, Christopher Caldwell's carefully reported essays on various political and cultural topics for the Weekly Standard. But that's pretty much it for intellectual conservatism these day, at least in the places it used to thrive.
Which isn't to say that interesting things aren't going on in other places, just that those efforts have yet to gel into a coherent alternative to the old wares being peddled by the movement elders. In the pragmatic center, David Frum has brought together a group of journalists and policy intellectuals (many of them with ties to Rudy Giuliani's disastrous presidential campaign) to think their way to a new vision for the Republican Party -- one less beholden to the religious right and more attuned to the economic challenges facing the middle class. Frum's website (NewMajority.com) is fun and often surprising, and his own scrappy posts challenging various GOP pieties are refreshing. What does it add up to? Not much yet. But the hour is early -- stay tuned.
Offering slight variations on Frum's approach are David Brooks and Ross Douthat, both of them New York Times op-ed columnists. Back in the late 1990s, Brooks championed "national greatness conservatism" in the pages of the Weekly Standard. These days his nationalist enthusiasms have mellowed into a defense of what might be called Hamiltonian communitarianism. That is, Brooks believes the federal government has an important role to play in fostering the institutions (families, neighborhoods, churches) on which a liberal society depends for its health and vitality. If this reminds you of the "compassionate conservatism" of George W. Bush's 2000 campaign, it's because that's exactly what it sounds like. Does Brooks really think that doubling back to the start of Bush's disastrous presidency is a sensible strategy for the GOP? We'll no doubt find out as Brooks refines his position over the coming months and years.
Douthat takes a similar approach and faces a similar challenge -- namely, how to differentiate his ideas from the ones that got the GOP into its current mess in the first place -- but he has the added burden of being a pro-lifer firmly committed to the agenda of the religious right. Douthat has written an interesting book (with Reihan Salam) that's filled with innovative policy proposals, many of which would help the Republican Party increase its appeal to middle-class voters. But as long as those proposals are wedded to social policies increasingly viewed as a sop to the culturally alienated religious extremists who form the base of the party, I suspect the GOP will remain stuck in the doldrums. I just can't see "Bush Plus Competence!" inspiring much excitement in either the party or the nation as a whole.
And that leaves a final group of conservative writers--most of them younger and more intellectually interesting and eclectic, and for that reason much less politically consequential, than anyone listed above. I'm thinking of people like Conor Friedersdorf, John Schwenkler, Peter Suderman, Daniel Larison, Patrick Deneen, Jeremy Beer, my friends Russell Arben Fox and Noah Millman, and my old sparring-partner on same-sex marriage, "Crunchy Con" journalist Rod Dreher. Some of these writers (all of them primarily bloggers) can be found at The American Scene, while others contribute essays to Front Porch Republic and blog for the website of the American Conservative. The more moderate ones (Friedersdorf, Schwenkler, Suderman, Millman) are similar in temperament and outlook to Frum, Brooks, and Douthat, though they tend to be more philosophical and less policy-oriented in approach. Meanwhile, the more radical ones (Larison, Deneen) are downright anti-modern in outlook. Delighted by Christopher Lasch's indictment of the free market, enamored of Wendell Berry's poetic agrarianism, romantically drawn toward "localism," titillated by Alasdair MacIntyre's praise of monasticism as an option for those seeking refuge from the moral impurities of modernity, open to radical environmentalism, hostile toward an idealistic foreign policy, disgusted at the overall tone of life in America since sexual revolution--these writers are interesting in the way all reactionaries are interesting: as a provocation to deep thinking, and as a warning about the (political and intellectual) dangers of indeterminate negation.
Will any of these writers contribute to the emergence of a new right to take the place of the one that left such a profound mark on the nation over the past three decades? It's much too soon to know, of course, but reading their essays and blog posts, one at least senses them thinking for its own sake, following their ideas wherever they lead, without regard for whether or not their conclusions will contribute to the short-term advantage of a political party. That, at least, is a step in the right direction, as none other than William F. Buckley realized fifty years ago.
by Damon Linker
Where the Right Is
Roughly four months into Barack Obama's presidency, it's possible to make a few observations about the factions forming on the intellectual right as it adjusts to life in the political wilderness.
It's fitting that National Review -- the intellectual incubator of the conservative movement that rose to power with Ronald Reagan -- seems poised to go down with the ship. In the magazine and more recently on its lively website National Review Online (NRO), National Review has always mirrored the mood on the political right: unpredictable and feisty in the 60s and 70s; exuding confidence in the 80s and 90s; overdosing on militaristic American exceptionalism under George W. Bush; and now spiraling down into the dumps with the post-Bush Republican Party. Today NRO's group blog The Corner is angry, sarcastic, cranky, irritable, grossly populist -- miles away from the serene high-mindedness cultivated by founder William F. Buckley, Jr. Contributors compete with one another over who can offer the most obsequious encomium for Rush Limbaugh and turn instantly against anyone who dares utter a criticism of him. Like the vulgar talk-show hosts with whom they've firmly aligned themselves, the editors and writers around National Review occasionally criticize the Bush administration, but they rarely do so in the name of new ideas. Instead, they treat Reagan as the Platonic ideal of the conservative politician, the standard from which all present and future Republicans diverge at their peril. Call it a cocoon or call it a casket -- either way, it's hard to imagine National Review in its current configuration contributing very much to the revival of the right either politically or intellectually.
The Weekly Standard and Commentary -- the two magazines most closely associated with neoconservatism -- overlap quite a lot these days with National Review in both content and contributors. (Jennifer Rubin's endless string of lengthy posts on Commentary's Contentions blog, which mechanically praise nearly every Republican utterance while monotonously denouncing the Democrats for everything they do, would fit in quite well at The Corner.) Yet there is an important difference in emphasis. Whereas National Review promotes Reagan worship, the Weekly Standard and Commentary have chosen to rally around Dick Cheney, proud champion of "enhanced interrogation" and thoroughly unrepentant advocate of the invasion of Iraq. There's something admirable in this position, I suppose, since it can't possibly flow from a belief that an embrace of the wildly unpopular and increasingly grouchy Cheney will improve the political fortunes of the Republican Party, at least in the short term. No, William Kristol and John Podhoretz appear to be standing tall with Cheney out of principle. If you doubt it, take a look at this revealing blog post from Podhoretz, written shortly after Obama's national security speech last Wednesday, in which he bristles at the president's suggestion that the Bush administration sometimes "made decisions based upon fear rather than foresight.” To which Podhoretz responds with a heartfelt defense of conducting foreign policy in a state of acute fear, while also praising the former president's "brilliant efforts to thwart mass killings." Neoconservatism, 2009 reduced to a slogan: "Be Afraid! Be Very Afraid!" It's hard to imagine such a message succeeding politically, at least short of a genuine crisis (as opposed to a spurious one). Count that as one more reason to hope our luck holds out.
And that's about it for the right's flagship opinion journals. Oh sure, there are bright spots at all three magazines/websites: Jim Manzi's libertarian-minded commentary on economics and finance for NRO; Max Boot's historically informed posts on foreign affairs and military issues for Contentions; and best of all, Christopher Caldwell's carefully reported essays on various political and cultural topics for the Weekly Standard. But that's pretty much it for intellectual conservatism these day, at least in the places it used to thrive.
Which isn't to say that interesting things aren't going on in other places, just that those efforts have yet to gel into a coherent alternative to the old wares being peddled by the movement elders. In the pragmatic center, David Frum has brought together a group of journalists and policy intellectuals (many of them with ties to Rudy Giuliani's disastrous presidential campaign) to think their way to a new vision for the Republican Party -- one less beholden to the religious right and more attuned to the economic challenges facing the middle class. Frum's website (NewMajority.com) is fun and often surprising, and his own scrappy posts challenging various GOP pieties are refreshing. What does it add up to? Not much yet. But the hour is early -- stay tuned.
Offering slight variations on Frum's approach are David Brooks and Ross Douthat, both of them New York Times op-ed columnists. Back in the late 1990s, Brooks championed "national greatness conservatism" in the pages of the Weekly Standard. These days his nationalist enthusiasms have mellowed into a defense of what might be called Hamiltonian communitarianism. That is, Brooks believes the federal government has an important role to play in fostering the institutions (families, neighborhoods, churches) on which a liberal society depends for its health and vitality. If this reminds you of the "compassionate conservatism" of George W. Bush's 2000 campaign, it's because that's exactly what it sounds like. Does Brooks really think that doubling back to the start of Bush's disastrous presidency is a sensible strategy for the GOP? We'll no doubt find out as Brooks refines his position over the coming months and years.
Douthat takes a similar approach and faces a similar challenge -- namely, how to differentiate his ideas from the ones that got the GOP into its current mess in the first place -- but he has the added burden of being a pro-lifer firmly committed to the agenda of the religious right. Douthat has written an interesting book (with Reihan Salam) that's filled with innovative policy proposals, many of which would help the Republican Party increase its appeal to middle-class voters. But as long as those proposals are wedded to social policies increasingly viewed as a sop to the culturally alienated religious extremists who form the base of the party, I suspect the GOP will remain stuck in the doldrums. I just can't see "Bush Plus Competence!" inspiring much excitement in either the party or the nation as a whole.
And that leaves a final group of conservative writers--most of them younger and more intellectually interesting and eclectic, and for that reason much less politically consequential, than anyone listed above. I'm thinking of people like Conor Friedersdorf, John Schwenkler, Peter Suderman, Daniel Larison, Patrick Deneen, Jeremy Beer, my friends Russell Arben Fox and Noah Millman, and my old sparring-partner on same-sex marriage, "Crunchy Con" journalist Rod Dreher. Some of these writers (all of them primarily bloggers) can be found at The American Scene, while others contribute essays to Front Porch Republic and blog for the website of the American Conservative. The more moderate ones (Friedersdorf, Schwenkler, Suderman, Millman) are similar in temperament and outlook to Frum, Brooks, and Douthat, though they tend to be more philosophical and less policy-oriented in approach. Meanwhile, the more radical ones (Larison, Deneen) are downright anti-modern in outlook. Delighted by Christopher Lasch's indictment of the free market, enamored of Wendell Berry's poetic agrarianism, romantically drawn toward "localism," titillated by Alasdair MacIntyre's praise of monasticism as an option for those seeking refuge from the moral impurities of modernity, open to radical environmentalism, hostile toward an idealistic foreign policy, disgusted at the overall tone of life in America since sexual revolution--these writers are interesting in the way all reactionaries are interesting: as a provocation to deep thinking, and as a warning about the (political and intellectual) dangers of indeterminate negation.
Will any of these writers contribute to the emergence of a new right to take the place of the one that left such a profound mark on the nation over the past three decades? It's much too soon to know, of course, but reading their essays and blog posts, one at least senses them thinking for its own sake, following their ideas wherever they lead, without regard for whether or not their conclusions will contribute to the short-term advantage of a political party. That, at least, is a step in the right direction, as none other than William F. Buckley realized fifty years ago.
AndrewSullivan.com (May 26, 2009)
Cheney's Core Contradiction
Perhaps the most remarkable passage in his speech to AEI last week was the following:
In public discussion of these matters, there has been a strange and sometimes willful attempt to conflate what happened at Abu Ghraib prison with the top secret program of enhanced interrogations. At Abu Ghraib, a few sadistic prison guards abused inmates in violation of American law, military regulations, and simple decency. For the harm they did, to Iraqi prisoners and to America's cause, they deserved and received Army justice. And it takes a deeply unfair cast of mind to equate the disgraces of Abu Ghraib with the lawful, skillful, and entirely honorable work of CIA personnel trained to deal with a few malevolent men.
There are two options in trying to understand this passage: a) It reveals a profound and disturbing level of denial about his own record; or b) It is one of the Biggest of Big Lies ever told by a vice-president of the United States. Perhaps the easiest way to show this is to cite the final and definitive "Conclusion 19" of the Senate Armed Services Committee Report:
The abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own. Interrogation techniques such as stripping detainees of their clothes, placing them in stress positions, and using military working dogs to intimidate them appeared in Iraq only after they had been approved for use in Afghanistan and at GTMO. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s December 2, 2002 authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques and subsequent interrogation policies and plans approved by senior military and civilian officials conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in U.S. military custody. What followed was an erosion in standards dictating that detainees be treated humanely.
There is no factual dispute as to the real origin of what Cheney calls the "disgraces" of Abu Ghraib: Dick Cheney via Don Rumsfeld. Cheney himself has boasted of the most dramatic of the torture and abuse techniques, waterboarding. He also pioneered and now defends a program in the CIA and at Gitmo that, in what it does to human beings suspected of being terrorists, is identical to the photos of Abu Ghraib. Look at the photos again.
Forced nudity: approved by Cheney. Hooding: approved by Cheney. Stress positions: approved by Cheney. Use of dogs: approved by Cheney. It is not just me arguing that Abu Ghraib was a function of a Capt5 policy dictated and approved at the highest levels. It's the entire Republican Senate leadership of the Armed Services Committee. It's every objective journalist's conclusion. It's in several Pentagon reports. It's demonstrable in the photos themselves. So who are you going to believe: Cheney or your lying eyes?
It was obviously not meant to be photographed and displayed as happened at Abu Ghraib. Some of the sexual excesses were clearly not authorized (but at Gitmo, recall, we know that lesser sexual abuse was authorized). It was meant to be conducted by more professional personnel than at Abu Ghraib. It was not supposed to murder anyone - as happened at Abu Ghraib and many other torture sites in the Cheney war. But the methods were exactly the same. We know where they came from. Call them what you will. There they are. Cheney knew them all, pushed for them all, and yet cannot own them when they are in front of his eyes. In fact, he has to push them into a corner called "disgraces." That's a strong word for a policy you created and enforced, against much of the military and intelligence and diplomatic agencies in government.
So why does Cheney tell such a big lie? Why does he do what he specifically says he would never do - blame a few underlings for policies he devised, pushed through against the law, and still champions as "honorable"? The only salient defense of the techniques of the CIA program as kosher and the Abu Ghraib photos as horrific is that these identical techniques are okay when used by some in the CIA but not okay when used by a low-ranking grunt on the night shift following orders. This is the core contradiction. You can't scapegoat Lynndie England while championing the methods she was told to use.
If Cheney wants to defend his program of torture and abuse then he owes it to us to own it as well. You either support what we saw at Abu Ghraib as the policy of the United States or you don't. So which is it, Mr Cheney? A disgrace? Or an achievement? On that there is no middle ground, as someone might say.
Olbermann Interviews Mancow About Being Waterboarded
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
