Too Obvious To Mention: Obama-Era Lies Protect Bush-Era Crimes

Our new transformative president Obama's decision to fight a court order requiring the release of photos depicting the well-documented abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib -- while entirely in character for this transformative new administration -- is being widely described as shameful enough on its own, let alone for a president who portrayed himself as a champion of transparency and accountability in government.

But then again Obama was once a candidate and now he's a president. And when he was a candidate, certain people (like his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright) were portrayed as troublemakers and cast out of the national scene because they dared to point out that Obama was a politician!

Seriously! The campaign pretended the candidate was not a politician. How transparently false is that? Fortunately for Obama, he had to run against a man who was obviously certifiably insane, and a woman who was obviously even crazier. In that respect Obama's victory in the November election was more inevitable than remarkable. So what if he's part black? A green and blue guy could have won that election, if he was a half-decent politician.

And yet somehow it comes as a big surprise that the tales told by a politician when he was a candidate turn out to be false once he gets elected. Thus people are shocked and even mildly disappointed when their man, now in office, turns out to be somewhat different than he was portrayed during the campaign. When will we ever learn? I'll rephrase that: Will we ever learn?

Obama wants to suppress the photos even though their release is required by law, under the Freedom of Information Act [FOIA]. In his defense of his new position, Obama echoes Pentagon claims that the release of the photos would inflame our enemies and endanger our troops. And our old friends, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman, have gone so far as to craft legislation that specifically exempts from FOIA any photographs

taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States ...

if the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, determines that the disclosure of that photograph would endanger (A) citizens of the United States; or (B) members of the Armed Forces or employees of the United States Government deployed outside the United States.

Glenn Greenwald has been good on this topic, and so has Chris Floyd. I've read some others on the subject, not as many as perhaps I should have, but then again my eyes aren't what they once were. And they've had their fill. Nonetheless, I do report that in all my travels I have not once seen anyone make any hay via the the following obvious points:

First of all, it's the abuse that enrages and inflames people, not the photos. If we really want to avoid inflaming the rest of the world, the way to do that is to stop abusing people. And that means a lot more than the obvious facts that we have to stop smearing prisoners in excrement and dragging them around on leashes, and that we have to stop raping them or forcing them to engage in other sexual practices, and that we have to stop all the other indecent treatment. But we also have to end the despicable practice of indefinite detention without trial, without a hearing, without any evidence, and without any charges.

Aside from moral questions of right and wrong, there's also the obvious (but apparently unmentionable) fact that it's only propagandized and brainwashed Americans who don't know what's been going on at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, and who would be shocked and enraged by the release of the photos. The people in Iraq, for example, and in Afghanistan, and in far too many other countries, know all about the torture that's been happening in the American and American-friendly torture chambers of the world. So how much will they really be inflamed by the photos? And conversely, how much will they be inflamed by the attempt to keep those photos hidden?

Second, if Obama and Graham and Lieberman and their ilk really cared about the safety of "members of the Armed Forces or employees of the United States Government deployed outside the United States", they would not block the release of the photos, but instead they would vow to end the Bush-era wars immediately, and to quit attacking foreign countries that never did anything to us, never could have, and never even wanted to. But of course they will never do any such thing. They are obviously concerned about the safety of the troops, exactly to the extent that the troops further the goals of empire.

And third, if instead of destroying one country after another, based on one lie after another, the US spent its annual hundreds of billions building roads and schools and hospitals, and water treatment plants and electric generating plants, in one country after another, then "members of the Armed Forces" could go get real jobs, because "employees of the United States Government deployed outside the United States" would be viewed outside the United States as friends, not enemies.

It's all so obvious. No wonder nobody mentions it.

What's also obvious is that Obama and the Pentagon don't want to release the photos because of the impact they would have on "the home front", where we're the enemy and the ongoing battle is about control of information.

But here's the rub: what would happen if Americans knew a bit more about what went on during the Bush administration?

Not much, probably. The usual goons would celebrate a few more "Ay-rabs" "getting what they deserve", and the rest of us would hang our heads in shame. But fundamentally nothing would change, not only because most of us don't give a damn, but also because the rest of us have no means by which to change the vicious and corrupt system.

When they hand out the prizes for the most pathetic remnant of a former democracy, we'll be Number One. And that's pretty obvious too.

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Big Surprise: Human Rights Watch Says UK And Pakistani Agents Colluded In Torture

Last month the Pakistani daily Dawn reported:

A shocking new report alleges widespread complicity between British security agents and their Pakistani counterparts who have routinely engaged in the torture of suspects, a report in the Observer has revealed.

Quoting from the report, which will be published next month by the civil liberties group Human Rights Watch, the Sunday newspaper said that at least 10 Britons are identified who have been allegedly tortured in Pakistan and subsequently questioned by UK intelligence officials. It warns that more British cases may surface and that the issue of Pakistani terrorism suspects interrogated by British agents is likely to ‘run much deeper.’

Much deeper indeed.

The piece in Dawn, "Pakistani, British agents accused of torture", and the report in the Observer to which it refers, "UK agents 'colluded with torture in Pakistan'", both describe the alleged al Qaeda terrorist Rangzieb Ahmed, who claims Pakistani interrogators removed three of his fingernails with pliers, after which his left hand looked like this:


Mark Townsend in The Observer:

Ali Dayan Hasan, who led the Pakistan-based inquiry, said [...] evidence collated from Pakistan intelligence officials indicated a "systemic" modus operandi among British security services, involving a significant number of UK agents from MI5 rather than maverick elements. Different agents were deployed to interview different suspects, many of whom alleged that prior to interrogation by British officials they were tortured by Pakistani agents.

Among the 10 identified cases of British citizens and residents mentioned in the report is Rangzieb Ahmed, 33, from Rochdale, who claims he was tortured by Pakistani intelligence agents before being questioned by two MI5 officers. Ahmed was convicted of being a member of al-Qaida at Manchester crown court, yet the jury was not told that three of the fingernails of his left hand had been removed. The response from MI5 to the allegations that it had colluded in Ahmed's torture were heard in camera, however, after the press and the public were excluded from the proceedings. Ahmed's description of the cell in which he claims he was tortured closely matches that where Salahuddin Amin, 33, from Luton, says he was tortured by ISI officers between interviews with MI5 officers.

Townsend mentions a number of other cases and continues:

Hasan said that evidence indicated a considerable number of UK officers were involved in interviewing terrorism suspects after they were allegedly tortured. He told the Observer: "We don't know who the individuals [British intelligence officers] were, but when you have different personnel coming in and behaving in a similar fashion it implies some level of systemic approach to the situation, rather than one eager beaver deciding it is absolutely fine for someone to be beaten or hung upside down."

He accused British intelligence officers of turning a blind eye as UK citizens endured torture at the hands of Pakistan's intelligence agencies.

"They [the British] have met the suspect ... and have conspicuously failed to notice that someone is in a state of high physical distress, showing signs of injury. If you are a secret service agent and fail to notice that their fingernails are missing, you ought to be fired."

The poster in this photo (also from Dawn) poses an interesting question: What does torture teach our children? Equally interesting: What does torture teach us?

For most of us, it seems, the answer is "Not Much".

But for the rest of us, for those with enough courage to face our common reality (at least some of the time), torture teaches us to loathe and fear our government.

And that, from all indications, is exactly what it is intended to do.

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Torturing Democracy: A Documentary That Could Put Dick Cheney Out Of Our Misery

Torturing Democracy, an expose of how and why America came to be involved in open large-scale torture of prisoners (many of whom were simply shepherds captured by mountain tribesmen and sold into captivity), is now available for viewing online.

As Scott Horton reported last month, PBS can't find a time slot for this Frontline documentary until January 21, 2009 -- the day after Bush and Cheney are scheduled to leave office.

Horton has reported more recently that this documentary could help to provide "A Ticket to The Hague for Dick Cheney". Why? Because it has the power to change the minds of influential people in denial.

Horton explains:

Gene Burns is one of the nation’s most popular talk radio hosts. For years he has dismissed accounts of torture; America, he has said, does not torture. But last night, after watching Torturing Democracy and realizing that he had not understood how important and serious an issue torture had become, Burns abruptly changed his tune. Here’s a transcript of his remarks.

I now believe that some international human rights organization ought to open an investigation of the Bush Administration, I think focused on Vice President Dick Cheney, and attempt to bring charges against Cheney in the international court of justice at The Hague, for war crimes. Based on the manner in which we have treated prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, and the manner in which we have engaged in illegal rendition–that is, surreptitiously kidnapping prisoners and flying them to foreign countries where they could be tortured by foreign agents who do not follow the same civilized standards to which we subscribe.

I’ve always said that I’ve thought that even at Guantánamo Bay the United States was careful to stay on this side of torture. In fact, you may recall that on a couple of occasions we got into a spirited debate on this program about waterboarding, and whether waterboarding was torture. And I took the position that it was not torture, that it was simulated drowning, and that if that produced information which preserved our national security, I thought it was permissible.

And then I saw Torturing Democracy.

And I’m afraid, now that I have seen what I have seen, that I was wrong about that. It looks to me, based on this documentary, as if in fact we have engaged in behavior and practices at Guantánamo Bay, and in these illegal renditions, that are violations of the international human rights code.

And I believe that Dick Cheney is responsible. I believe that he was the agent of the United States government charged with developing the methodology used at Guantánamo Bay, supervising it for the administration, and indulging in practices which are in fact violations of human rights.

A large part of the population still credits the Bush Administration’s absurd claim that it never embraced or applied torture to detainees as a matter of policy. Two recent documentaries, Alex Gibney’s Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side (for which I was both a consultant and interviewee) and Sherry Jones’s PBS feature Torturing Democracy investigate the administration’s policies and conduct. Both draw from decision-makers inside the administration and soldiers on the frontline.

The administration did its best to spike both films. Taxi was to be aired on the Discovery Channel, but with Discovery Communications then in the process of going public and facing sensitive SEC clearances, executives apparently decided not to risk provoking the anger of the White House. As I reported elsewhere, PBS also found that it had no network space for Torturing Democracy until January 20, 2009 — the day the Bush Administration decamps from Washington.

Why was the administration so concerned about these two films? The conversion of Gene Burns supplies the answer. No one who sits through these films, I believe, will be able afterwards to accept the official version of events. George Bush has good reason to be afraid of too many Americans watching these documentaries.

George Bush is not the only one who has good reason to be afraid of too many Americans watching these documentaries. And that, in my opinion, is good incentive to watch them -- and to spread the word about them!

So here are those links again:
Torturing Democracy
Taxi to the Dark Side

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Bush Tells UN To Unite Against Terrorism And Tyrrany

The twice-unelected president and smirking multi-front war criminal George W. Bush told the United Nations on Tuesday that the world must unite against terrorism and tyranny, according to the AP via MSNBC.

USA Today says Bush told the UN it must prevent terrorist attacks from happening.

Unfortunately, the world's top diplomats have already decided that Bush is a buffoon, and as usual they weren't paying any attention.

If they had been, Bush would have been led away from the podium in handcuffs, and taken straight to the guillotines.

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Seven Years of Bad Luck

Very superstitious

writings on the wall

Very superstitious
ladders 'bout to fall


Thirteen month old baby
broke the lookin' glass


Seven years of bad luck
the good things in your past


When you believe in things
that you don't understand
then you suffer


Superstition ain't the way


Very superstitious
wash your face and hands


Rid me of the problem
do all that you can


Keep me in a daydream
keep me goin' strong


You don't wanna save me
sad is my song


When you believe in things
that you don't understand
then you suffer


Superstition ain't the way


Very superstitious
nothin' more to say


Very superstitious
the devil's on his way


Thirteen month old baby
broke the lookin' glass


Seven years of bad luck
good things in your past


When you believe in things
that you don't understand


then you suffer


Superstition ain't the way
no, no, no, no, no

Stevie Wonder:

Hope This Is As Sick As It Gets, But Don't Count On It

Angela Levin for the UK's Daily Mail, with profound disgust (my emphasis):

Greetings from Guantanamo Bay ... and the sickest souvenir shop in the world

The sands are white, the sea laps gently and crowds of bronzed Americans laze in the Caribbean sunshine.

They have a cinema, a golf course and, naturally, a gift shop stocked with mugs, jaunty T-shirts and racks of postcards showing perfect sunsets and bright green iguanas.

Only the barbed wire decoration, a recurring motif, hints at anything wrong.

Welcome to "Taliban Towers" at Guantanamo Bay, the most ghoulishly distasteful tourist destination on the planet.

As these astonishing mementoes show, the US authorities are promoting the world's most notorious prison camp as a cheap hideaway for American sunseekers -- a revelation that has drawn international anger and condemnation.

Just yards from the shelves of specially branded mugs and cuddly toys, nearly 300 "enemy combatants" lie sweltering in a waking nightmare.

It is six years since foreign prisoners, many captured in Afghanistan, were first taken to this US-occupied corner of Cuba. Yet even now, no charges have been brought against them.

While the detainees lie incarcerated, visitors can windsurf, take boat trips and go fishing for grouper, tuna, red snapper and swordfish.

The United States' 1.5 million service personnel and Guantanamo's 3,000 construction workers are eligible to visit the "resort", which boasts a McDonald's, KFC and a bowling alley.

They even have a Wal-Mart supermarket.

The vacation comes at a knock-down price: just $42 (£20) per night for a suite of air-conditioned rooms, including a kitchen, bathroom, living room and bedrooms.

But it is the souvenirs that have led to the greatest criticism. One T-shirt from the gift shop is decorated with a guard tower and barbed wire. It reads: "The Taliban Towers at Guantanamo Bay, the Caribbean's Newest 5-star Resort."

Another praises "the proud protectors of freedom". A third displays a garish picture of an iguana and states: "Greetings from paradise GTMO resort and spa fun in the Cuban sun."

A child-sized shirt says: "Someone who loves me got me this T-shirt in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."

There are mugs inscribed with "kisses from Guantanamo" and "Honor Bound To Defend Freedom".

The Guantanamo holiday trade was exposed by Zachary Katznelson, a British-based human rights lawyer and spokesman for Reprieve, the group leading the international campaign against the camp.

"When I see the conditions the prisoners have to cope with and then think of the T-shirt slogans, I am appalled," he said. "To say I am repulsed is an understatement. Unbelievable as it may seem, the US authorities are proud of the 'souvenirs' and what they are doing."

Mr Katznelson represents 28 of the detainees and makes regular visits to the prison.

"The military keeps a tight hold on everything that is available in Guantanamo Bay and someone senior has given their approval for this disgusting nonsense," he said.

"Pretending that Guantanamo Bay is essentially a resort in the Caribbean is grossly offensive and the idea of relaxing in the sun while close by many individuals are robbed of their rights, tortured and abused is both repugnant and ridiculous."

His anger is shared by other human rights campaigners. Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said Guantanamo represents a shameful chapter in American history.

Amnesty International said: "These supposedly 'fun' souvenirs are in grotesquely bad taste and the fact that they are on sale at the camp quite frankly beggars belief."

There are currently 280 prisoners sweltering in cages in temperatures of up to 100F (38C). The camp, where 7,000 soldiers are stationed, was established in 2002 following the invasion of Afghanistan.

In 2004, photographs of cowed Guantanamo prisoners in orange jump suits shocked the world.

"The majority are kept in isolation in cells that are no bigger than a toilet," said Katznelson. "There is no sea view. Instead, if they have a window, it looks out on to a bleak corridor. The cells are lined with steel from floor to ceiling, including the toilet, sink and bed base.

"There is a popular misconception that these men have had trials and been found guilty. Nothing is further from the truth. Not one of them has.

"The tortures that the Americans use are wide-ranging and inhuman. One is to blast the cell with freezing cold air. Another is to pretend to take the prisoners to a country like Egypt where prisoners are tortured, even to the extent of taking them on a mock flight, so they can be treated in a barbaric fashion."

Katznelson continued: "Inmates are offered three meals a day, but there are eight prisoners who have been on hunger strike for over a year asking either for a trial or to be set free.

"These men are force-fed twice a day. First they are strapped down with 16 different restrictions, including one that jerks their head back. Then a tube is fed through their nose and down into their stomach.

"The guards don't always use lubrication and regularly use the same tube for several different prisoners without bothering to clean it."

Guantanamo Bay has been rented as a military base from Cuba since 1903 for an unchanged $4,499 a year.

"As it is outside American territory the US Constitution doesn't apply," said Katznelson.

This may soon change as the US Supreme Court is about to reach a verdict on whether the Guantanamo Bay area is de facto American soil.

If so, the US Constitution does apply and the men will have the right to a fair and speedy trial.

You have to wonder what sort of souvenirs will be on sale at the "trials" -- if they ever have "trials".

Chris Floyd has more: Fun in the Sun: Gitmo Gets Makeover as R&R Resort

The Pentagon has splashed out for white sand beaches, a golf course, movie theaters, a bowling alley, restaurants – even a Wal-Mart – right next to the holding pens where Terror War captives have languished in limbo for years, enduring endless isolation,"harsh interrogation techniques" and other holiday amusements.

We don't mean to imply that the serious business going on at Gitmo is ignored, however. Far from it. The gift shop features several items that make antic hay of the concentration camp's dread purpose. Barbed wire and guard towers are a prevalent motif on various cups and shirts, for example. You can sip your beachside latte in a cup that tells the world that the Bush gulag is "Honor Bound to Defend Freedom." And if you find froggies and dolphins a bit too frilly, you can always prepare your kids to take their rightful place in the Terror War imperium with a t-shirt emblazoned "Future Behavior Modification Instructor." It makes learning fun!
...

You can read more about the amenities enjoyed by the non-paying guests at Gitmo in this piece, which points you to a mass of material detailing their treatment, including the landmark series from McClatchy Newspapers.

The Torture State: Innocents Suffer; Villains Walk; Media: "Next!"

In an excellent piece posted Friday, Chris Floyd provides an overview of the week's revelations regarding the Bush administration's deliberate and illegal efforts to institutionalize torture.

It's the most despicable tale, yet I urge you to read as much of it as you can stand. We simply need to know what's being done -- to our country, to our world, to our future, and in our name -- if we are to have any hope of dealing with it properly (or at all).

Floyd provides copious links, to the recent McClatchy series on the subject and much else; as he says, it really has been a remarkable week -- yet another totally disgusting, nauseating week for those who care about truth, and justice, and what used to be called "the American way".

There's no longer any way to deny the plain fact that Bush, Cheney, and their circle of spinners deliberately concocted a false "justification" for the horrendous acts which they were determined to commit. And yet, as Floyd points out, no consequences appear to be forthcoming -- soon or ever.

Why not?

Floyd suggests the answer can be found between the lines of a piece from Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times.

Rutten has also compiled a damning account of the administration's embrace of torture, but he argues that there shouldn't be any criminal or legal responsibility attached to this gruesome record, because in America we solve problems like this through the electoral system.

In other words, according to Rutten, if you can get yourself elected, no matter what you do while in office, the worst that should happen to you is that you might lose your job.

Floyd quotes Rutten:

The Bush administration has been wretchedly mistaken in its conception of executive power, deceitful in its push for war with Iraq and appalling in its scheming to make torture an instrument of state power. But a healthy democracy punishes policy mistakes, however egregious, and seeks redress for its societal wounds, however deep, at the ballot box and not in the prisoner's dock.

And Floyd comments:

The cognitive dissonance of this conclusion was so painful and severe that I had to read it several times to fully take in that it meant exactly what it said: Rutten believes with all his heart that the official practice of deliberate, systematic torture – a clear and unambiguous war crime which he himself has just outlined in careful detail – is ultimately nothing more than a “wretched mistake,” a “policy difference” that should not be “criminalized.” And how can this be? The answer is obvious, if unspoken: because it was done by the United States government – and nothing the United States government ever does can possibly be criminal, or evil. It can only be, at most, a mistake, a conceptual error, an ill-considered policy, a botched attempt at carrying out a noble intention.

If any other country had a policy “to make torture an instrument of state power, " Rutten would undoubtedly condemn it as a vicious evil.
...

But it appears that Rutten's outrage at injustice has its limits. It does not extend to actually punishing those responsible for torture and murder – if those responsible are the leaders of the American government. They are to be allowed to finish their terms, then live out their lives in wealth, privilege, comfort and safety. To do otherwise, says Rutten – to insist that no one is above the law – "risks the stability of our own electoral politics."

There's a lot more from Chris Floyd and I suggest you read it all. But there's also more to the story.

Arun, musing, suggests the hidden subtext of Rutten's column may be somewhat different. In Arun's words,

it could simply be that the politicians consider themselves to be a special breed of human being to whom the laws that apply to the rest of the United States do not apply.

I don't see these observations as mutually exclusive. In my view, these are two poisonous forces working together: America can do no wrong, and elected officials are above the law.

I won't quibble with Chris Floyd regarding Tim Rutten's sincerity, or his status as a "respected" "liberal" "journalist". A less generous writer might suggest that Rutten's status, given his context, reveals something about the nature of propaganda.

Rutten's suggestion that America's troubles can be sorted out through the electoral process -- and that the most "justice" a politician can suffer is the loss of his job -- would be thoroughly worthless, as Floyd points out, even if we had a functional electoral process. But we don't.

The torturers and war criminals we're talking about here were never legitimately elected -- a fact that has magically vanished as far as the national media are concerned -- and every day that major newspapers carry on as if they were elected [twice!] constitutes nothing less than a crime against humanity.

They have no right to the offices in which they do their evil work. They longed for a crisis, then they precipitated one; they started "the long war", and then they used the war to "justify" the extraordinary powers claimed by the unelected president. Everything this administration has done has been illegitimate -- every single act of war, every single draconian bill passed, every single "extra-judicial" killing, every single act of rendition, every single act of torture.

All of it -- the stolen elections, the self-inflicted terror, the regime of torture, the wars of aggression, the secret laws -- all of it -- was quite evidently planned in advance and predicated on the notion that the national "news" media would go along with it. Which they have.

What we're looking at here is a situation in which no major newspaper will call for charges against men who are obviously -- and admittedly -- guilty of treason, war crimes, and horrendous crimes against humanity.

So let's get this straight: There is no possible punishment which could even begin to approach "justice" in this case. None.

The dogs of war -- Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gates, Rice, Powell, Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle, Grossman, Woolsey, and all the rest -- have done so much damage to the entire world that no punishment could possibly be sufficient. Nothing could even come close.

Imagine the most horrible sort of punishment being inflicted on one of these people. Picture him (or her) under the worst conditions of torture you can contemplate. See his home and belongings destroyed; listen to his children weeping. Imagine that all his descendants were doomed to inhabit a land in which every single thing was contaminated with radioactive waste. Think of all his friends and relatives scattered to foreign countries where they aren't welcome, or living among death and fear and foreign troops and foreign mercenaries and all the other debris of modern war.

Now multiply by a million.

This is what these people deserve. But no opinion columnist (liberal or otherwise) for any establishment newspaper (left coast or elsewhere) could ever get such an opinion published -- and if he wants to keep his job, he'd best not submit such a thing to an editor, either.

Justice is as justice does. Derrick Shareef is in prison, probably for the rest of his life. His crime? He fell under the influence of an FBI agent posing as a wannabe terrorist, who gave him a place to live, strung him along by the nose, and arranged an "arms deal" in which Shareef gave another undercover agent a pair of stereo speakers for four nonfunctional grenades.

Shareef's motives may have been despicable, but he never hurt anybody. He's in prison for what he agreed to do, for complying with the suggestions of an entrapment expert who was sent to get him. And he's one of many angry (or stupid) young Muslims who have been entrapped by "counter-terrorists" working for the federal or local governments.

At the other end of the spectrum we find George Bush and his criminal cronies, who openly conspired not only to break the law but to get it changed so that it would no longer constrain them, so that they could claim legal cover for acts and policies which no sane American could possibly countenance. And they're scot-free.

Meanwhile, nobody who writes for an establishment publication can call 'em like they see 'em. Not a one. Not anymore -- unless he sees 'em crooked.

Tim Rutten is playing a game we've discussed here more than once. He's connecting the dots with a false narrative. He's leaving out essential bits of context, and leaping to conclusions that are not warranted by any facts or any logical reasoning, although they may well be essential for the continued comfort of Tim Rutten and his family.

And it's one of the most important ways, in my observation, that the establishment "news" outlets protect the criminal regime they serve.

In previous situations where I've observed this game being played, I have suspected that the journalist in question was doing -- or thought he was doing -- the best he could under the circumstances. He was getting factual information into the public record, and even though it was wrapped in manure, his path to print may have seemed like a better option than the path followed by, let us say, William Glaberson.

Glaberson writes for the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune (the Eastern liberal "elite" and their European connections) and recently he's thrown all his skill and craft into a spectacular hit piece against William Kuebler. Kuebler, as we've seen, represents Omar Khadr, the young Canadian held at Gitmo, whom the Americans want to try for war crimes for something he may or may not have done when he was fourteen years old.

Kuebler has been claiming that the evidence against his client has been fabricated; the prosecution doesn't deny it. Kuebler has been saying that his client has been tortured; the prosecution doesn't deny that either. Kuebler has been saying there's no way Omar Khadr should be on trial based on the so-called evidence, and that there's no way he could get a fair trial even if there were evidence against him, because the military tribunal process is inherently flawed.

Glaberson's take on it: Kuebler is a crank. He should shut up about the process already and get on with it -- start going through the motions of pretending to offer a defense while an illegitimate and thoroughly corrupt government gets on with the ruination of the young man's life -- and that of the whole world.

Khadr is accused of throwing a hand grenade that killed an American soldier in Afghanistan in 2002.

Think about that for a second.

If we can bomb, invade and occupy a country we've been destroying by proxy for more than twenty years, all based on one false pretext after another, and anyone who opposes the invading army can be captured and incarcerated for six years and branded a terrorist and tried for war crimes...

... in a "legal" setting where where torture is OK, where confessions extracted under torture -- and under conditions no one wants to read about -- are considered sufficient, where so-called "respected liberal journalists" discuss such practices without seeking to redress them, and where other "journalists" feed their faces by ridiculing the honest people ...

... then where are we?

Here. And now. And sinking fast.

~~~

Explore some links, if you will:

Seton Hall University: Guantanamo Reports

Tom Lasseter for McClatchy: America's prison for terrorists often held the wrong men

U.S. abuse of detainees was routine at Afghanistan bases

Militants found recruits among Guantanamo's wrongly detained

Easing of laws that led to detainee abuse hatched in secret

Taliban ambassador wielded power within Guantanamo

Documents undercut Pentagon's denial of routine abuse

Ex-detainees allege that U.S. troops abused Quran

U.S. hasn't apologized to or compensated ex-detainees

Deck stacked against detainees in legal proceedings

Warren P. Strobel for McClatchy: General who probed Abu Ghraib says Bush officials committed war crimes

Strobel quotes Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, US Army (retired), who "led the investigation into prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison":

After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes [...] The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.

More from Warren Strobel: Documents confirm U.S. hid detainees from Red Cross

Andy Worthington at AntiWar dot Com: John McCain, Torture Puppet

Juan Cole at Informed Comment: The Great Torture Scandal

Dana Milbank at the Washington Post: Abu Ghraib? Doesn't Ring a Bell.

Think Progress: Ex-State Dept. official: Hundreds of detainees died in U.S. custody, at least 25 murdered.

Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times: Torture began at the top

William Glaberson: An unlikely antagonist in the detainees' corner

Chris Floyd at Empire Burlesque: Torturegate: Truth, But No Consequences

Arun (Musing): Now I understand

Torture Subpoenas: Will Administration Officials Testify? And Will It Matter?

Like the spin on everything else the Bush administration tries to hide, the spin on torture is endless and multi-layered. And everybody's buying it, or at least some of it -- except possibly some ultra-radical terrorist-sympathizers.

Thomas Ferraro for Reuters, in "Cheney aide subpoenaed to testify to Congress", writes:

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff was subpoenaed on Wednesday to testify in a congressional probe of the administration's treatment and possible [sic] torture of enemy combatants [sic].

Not just enemy combatants, of course, but all those classified as such, many of whom were neither enemy nor combatants. But there was no classification for "in the wrong place at the wrong time".

And there's no real need for the word "possible" here. The torture is well-established, admitted, boasted even -- but only in the "right" company, in the "right" political climate.

House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, issued the subpoena to David Addington [photo] a day after it was authorized by a House panel.

John Conyers could have been a hero of American democracy but instead he decided to be a chump. This won't change anything. Just watch.

The administration contends its aides can not be forced to testify. But Addington has indicated he may do so if subpoenaed, congressional staffers said.

Megan Mitchell, spokeswoman for the vice president's office, said, "I can confirm that we have received the subpoena. We are reviewing it and will respond accordingly."

We already have a fairly good idea of what the vice president's office would consider to be a suitable response.

The subpoena orders Addington to appear on June 26 before the House Judiciary's subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, which is examining the administration's treatment of detainees.

Addington reportedly played a key role in drafting U.S. strategies to combat [sic] terrorism after [sic] the September 11 attacks [sic] on the United States.

Or maybe the strategy is to foment terrorism and maybe it was drafted well before the September 11 attacks. Or whatever they were.

Bush maintains the United States does not torture, but he has refused to discuss interrogation techniques, saying he does not want to tip off the enemy.

Bush has also refused to sign a bill passed by both houses of congress which would have banned torture. In effect the president says, "We don't torture ... but we can't stop because our national security depends on it!"

The CIA has acknowledged using a simulated [sic] drowning technique known as waterboarding on three terrorism suspects, but says it stopped using that method in 2003.

Waterboarding is not simulated drowning; it is drowning. When the victim is tied down and his lungs are filling up with water, there's nothing simulated about it.

It's stopped just before the victim dies, and it can be done again and again. But that doesn't make it any less cruel or any more justifiable.

Waterboarding has been condemned by human rights groups, foreign countries and many U.S. lawmakers as torture.

It has also been outlawed by treaties signed by and therefore binding on the United States of America. So it doesn't really matter what human rights groups, foreign countries and many U.S. lawmakers think or say; waterboarding would be illegal even if they all approved of it!

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft and John Yoo, a former deputy assistant attorney general, have agreed to testify before the Judiciary subcommittee.

That's very civil of them, but it's entirely possible that they may not have the last say in the matter.

Bush has invoked executive privilege in rejecting congressional subpoenas for a number of current and former aides, many sought in a probe of the firing in 2006 of nine federal prosecutors.

In March, the House Judiciary Committee filed suit in U.S. District Court asking it to direct White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten to produce subpoenaed documents and order former White House counsel Harriet Miers to comply with a subpoena and testify about the ousted prosecutors.

A ruling is not expected for at least several months.

... by which time all the damage these clowns have done will be permanent.

Oh wait! It already is!

The spin is global and pervasive. China's Xinhua says, "U.S. House panel subpoenas former, present gov't officials on torture":

WASHINGTON, May 6 -- A U.S. House panel subpoenaed several former and present high-ranking Bush administration officials on Tuesday to testify on the issue of alleged torture [a little better] of terror [sic] detainees.

Some of the detainees were captured and sold for ransom. The Americans were offering huge bounties for terror suspects in late 2001, and Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf wrote in his autobiography of receiving millions of dollars in exchange for detainees.

Among [the officials subpoenaed] are John Yoo, a former top Justice Department official who authored hugely controversial memos on interrogation techniques used on detainees, and Vice President Dick Cheney's chief-of-staff David Addington, who was heavily involved in preparing the memos.

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith and former Assistant Attorney General Dan Levin also agreed to testify on the issue before the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

The subcommittee said former CIA Director George Tenet is still in negotiations for testimony.

Subcommittee chairman Jerrold Nadler said torture is "un-American and yet it has been used by this government against those in our custody and control."

Torture is certainly not un-American. Americans have been training torture teams (which they call security forces") -- and death squads -- for employment in foreign countries for decades. But the torture -- and the death squads -- have been "clandestine". In other words, it's considered un-American to admit these grotesque facts, much less to obsess about them.

Xinhua continues:

"Now we know that these so-called 'enhanced' interrogation techniques were approved at the highest levels of government. Torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, besides being contrary to American values and traditions, have proven to be an ineffective means to obtaining actionable intelligence," [Nadler] added.

"Enhanced interrogation" is not about obtaining actionable intelligence. It's an instrument of oppression. But who's counting?

Malcolm Nance might be counting; he has an intimate knowledge of waterboarding and he's not afraid of saying what he knows. I doubt he would ever be asked to testify, but here's some of what he might say:

I know waterboarding is torture - because I did it myself

In the media, waterboarding is called "simulated drowning," but that's a misnomer. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning.

Unless you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word.

How much of this the victim is to endure depends on the desired result (in the form of answers to questions shouted into the victim's face) and the obstinacy of the subject. A team doctor watches the quantity of water that is ingested and for the physiological signs that show when the drowning effect goes from painful psychological experience, to horrific suffocating punishment to the final death spiral.

Waterboarding is slow-motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of blackout and expiration. Usually the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch. If it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia - meaning, the loss of all oxygen to the cells.

The lack of physical scarring allows the victim to recover and be threatened with its use again and again. Call it "Chinese water torture," "the barrel," or "the waterfall." It is all the same.

Speaking of "all the same", Jim Freeman isn't counting on anything changing because of this sudden rash of subpoenas:

[T]he Democrats, including (but not limited to) Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Henry Waxman, John Conyers, Hapless Harry, Chuck Schumer and [...] Patrick Leahy, are all in on this long and ugly list of impeachable offenses, some of them treasonable. They are co-conspirators.

Anybody feel like arguing with Jim Freeman on this one? The floor is yours, if you want it...

Chris Floyd: The Torture Election

I'm still hampered by injury; while I'm recovering, blogging poses several difficult questions. One of the few answers I can find goes like this:

Many of my readers are reading Chris Floyd every day already. If you're not one of them, please take the hint!

Floyd's most recent piece is brilliant, as always ... but maybe a little bit more so this time. Here it is, in full and by kind permission, with a cold comment or two along the way.

The Torture Election

As the presidential horse race grows more frenzied and absurd -- Flag pins! Bowling! Obliteration! -- it is important to keep in mind what the election is really about: torture.

Specifically, the use of torture as an openly admitted, formally recognized instrument of national policy, approved at the highest level of government. The Bush Administration has now dropped all pretense that it is not engaging in interrogation techniques and incarceration practices long recognized by both international and U.S. law as blatantly criminal. What's more, the Administration boldly asserts that the president can simply ignore laws prohibiting torture if he feels that circumstances warrant the use of "interrogation methods that might otherwise be prohibited under international law," the New York Times reported over the weekend.

(The Washington Post had a similar story -- similarly buried deep inside the paper. A brazen declaration of presidential tyranny -- in the service of torture, no less -- was considered worth mentioning somewhere in the "papers of record," but obviously not worth making a big fuss about.)

The key words here are "openly admitted" and "formally recognized". Torture as an instrument of national policy runs deep in our history. So do death squads, for that matter, and subversion of democracy. Most of that history, of course, has been hidden from American eyes; but nothing is hidden from the "locals". The "recipients" of our "generosity" always know about the "collateral damage".

Torture is at the very heart of the Bush presidency, the most quintessential manifestation of its governing philosophy: a "Commander-in-Chief" state, where presidential directives can override any law in the name of "national security." The use of torture demonstrates that not even the most heinous crimes -- including techniques used by Nazi sadists and KGB brutes -- are beyond the pale of the "unitary executive's" arbitrary will. On the basis of this authoritarian power -- established through a series of presidential orders and "legal" opinions by appointed lackeys -- many other crimes can be "justified": aggressive war; kidnapping and rendition; indefinite detention; secret prisons; warrantless surveillance; even the "extrajudicial killing" of people the president designates as terrorists or terrorist "suspects."

In keeping with the simultaneous perversion of language and culture, it's misleading to refer to systematic torture as an "interrogation technique", "enhanced" or otherwise.

Unlike what you see on "24", or what you hear when our unelected representatives discuss the "merits" and "necessity" of "enhanced interrogation", torture is not typically used to extract information. This is the conclusion drawn by the legal team at Seton Hall which has been studying unclassified DoD records, based on the finding that most of the detainees in Guantanamo were "interrogated" once a month on a regular schedule.

If you had a detainee in your custody who you thought had information that could prevent an imminent terrorist attack, and you only interrogated him once a month, you'd be derelict in your duty. And it's very unlikely that you'd remain in your position. So let's be clear about the Bush administration's use of torture: it's an instrument of dominance and control, it's a tool of humiliation and degradation, it's a source of sadistic pleasure, and if openly proclaimed it has a chilling effect on domestic dissent. But it's not a source of actionable intelligence.

Indeed, under the Bush administration, no "intelligence" is "actionable" anyway, nor is it intended as such. Each bit of "intelligence" is simply a public relations item, fixed around a previously determined policy. And torture helps to produce even more public relations items. So they have all these reasons -- in their eyes -- to do it, and no reason -- again in their eyes -- not to do it.

The "logic" is simple: unencumbered by moral and ethical questions about deliberately and needlessly inflicting pain and fear on defenseless and possibly innocent people, the torturers just ask themselves: "Can anybody stop me?"

The highest officials of the Bush Administration have gone to enormous lengths to twist, pervert and destroy legal precepts that have been in force in Anglo-American law for centuries -- precisely because they know that their policies are criminal under any reasonable understanding of the law. Bush, and the likely prime mover of the torture regime, longtime authoritarian Dick Cheney, were told at the very beginning that the policies they were instigating would leave them and their minions open to criminal charges. That's why the Administration's legal hacks have devoted so much relentless attention on subverting the Geneva Conventions, which are incorporated into and have the full force of American law.

And this is why the Bush "legal" approach is at once so brilliant and so dangerous: if an act recognized worldwide as heinous can be excused based on the proclaimed intention of the perpetrator, then all rules are off, for selected perpetrators.

Bush and his minions know that if the rule of law is ever restored -- even partially and imperfectly -- they will be rightly be subject to prosecution, imprisonment and possibly even execution.

Execution seems most certain in my cold view; it also seems pitifully inadequate, even though the number of minions who would be endangered by such a restoration of law is almost impossible to overestimate.

And this is why torture is the core issue -- perhaps the only real issue -- in the presidential campaign. Iraq is not really an issue; whoever wins, the war will go on, in one form or another. Even under the so-called withdrawal plans of the "progressive" candidates, Americans will be killing and dying in Iraq for years to come. As for the economy, by their own admission none of the presidential aspirants will do anything more than tinker around the edges of the present rapacious system -- an unholy marriage of crony capitalism and corporate socialism that has devastated America's communities, left millions with harsher, diminished lives, corrupted civic society and degraded and homogenized American culture. For the elite factions that thrive on war profits and the brutal economic structure, none of the candidates represents a serious enough threat for any action -- beyond the usual lying, sabotage, vote-rigging and media manipulation to get their favorite into power, of course.

But torture is a different matter. Consider how many very powerful people -- and hundreds of their minions -- face very serious charges if the next president decides to apply the law. Will they really allow this to happen? Or even risk allowing this to happen?

Right now, the torturers control the military and the security apparatus, including many secret forces and units that we know little or nothing about. They have already used these assets to launch a war of aggression, to instigate a system of torture, to spy without restraint on the American people, and to imprison anyone in the world they claim is a terrorist. Why should we imagine that they will draw the line at using these assets to save themselves from prison -- or the poison needle?

Several wars of aggression, now that I think about it. It has seemed to some people -- and it still seems quite possible to me -- that they might even use these assets to stage "another 9/11" in order to prevent another "democratic" election.

It would seem then that the Bush Administration has only two choices: cut a deal with the candidates on torture -- or eliminate them from the race, one way or another.

A potential third choice then would be to eliminate the election itself. But this would be a drastic step which might engender resistance. It may be difficult to imagine whence or from whom such resistance might come, but surely a smoother path to absolute tyranny must seem safer and more secure to the tyrants. So it stands to reason that they would try to hold an "election" if at all possible, under carefully controlled conditions, of course.

If they lost control of the conditions, the balance might tip differently. But for now, at least, it seems we ought to pay attention to the candidates.

It goes without saying that John McCain will do nothing but revel in the authoritarian powers brought into the open by Bush; certainly it is inconceivable that he would ever prosecute the instigators of the Bush torture regime. Thus the focus here falls on the winner of the Democratic nomination.

It is Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton who will have to come to terms with the Bush team on torture. (If they have not already done so, that is. Given the intimate, growing personal ties between the Bushes and the Clintons, one could plausibly surmise that Clinton at least has already signalled her benevolent intentions on this point. But perhaps not. The true relations of our ruling families remain forever obscured from the rabble. Meanwhile, Obama is clearly leaning in the "right" direction, as noted here, although he retains a little wiggle room; perhaps he's not yet sealed the deal.)

It may still be possible to imagine Barack Obama as a "stealth candidate" -- something like George W. Bush in reverse. As you may remember, Bush promised to be "a uniter, not a divider" who would run a "humble foreign policy". We now know that his intention was just the opposite. And it may be true that Bush never would have been elected if the electorate understood what he really wanted. (He was never legitimately elected anyway, but who's counting?)

For a while four years ago I entertained fantasies of John Kerry as a stealth candidate. "It's all tactical," I told myself. "He's trying to outflank Bush on the side of more war because he thinks he can win that way. Then he'll stop the war." But it was always obvious that Kerry meant what he said. He didn't want to end the war. He didn't even want to win the election. Kerry as a "stealth candidate" had been a foolish if hopeful illusion.

This time around, Barack Obama doesn't seem particularly committed to restoring the rule of law or holding the Bush administration accountable for obvious crimes against the nation and against humanity. Why is this? Is it because he really doesn't care? Or is it because he's a "stealth candidate" who knows he can't speak freely about anything this serious and remain a viable and visible presidential candidate?

But what if he wins? Will he then reveal a different agenda? In other words, is Barack Obama secretly riding in on a white horse? Chris Floyd doesn't imagine him coming to the rescue of the republic anytime soon.

In the most benign scenario for these negotiations, perhaps some small fry will be offered up as a PR sop for the victor. Just as Scooter Libby took the fall for Karl Rove (in another obvious backroom deal), we might see John Yoo or that despised putz-for-all-seasons, Doug Feith, put on trial, while Bush, Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Condi Rice and the other "principals" go free.

But it is much more likely that any acknowledgement of criminality will be unacceptable to the torturers. It would establish a principle -- or rather, re-establish a principle -- that would forever leave them open to future prosecution.

And this is precisely the point. They have gone so far to defeat the rule of law -- and to discredit the notion that the rule of law is a good thing -- that they would earnestly wish to avoid seeing it take root again in any form -- on principle and as a matter of existential necessity.

So again, we come down to a stark choice for the Democratic candidate: either agree to "move on" from "bitter partisan rancor" over "enhanced interrogation techniques" -- or else. There are of course several ways to eliminate someone from public life; the tools have been refined somewhat since the days when "lone gunmen" stalked the land, removing inconvenient figures.

Is Obama thinking like this, too? Does he imagine he could become president by slipping under the radar with secret plans to make all the criminals accountable after his inauguration? And if so, what then? With such "treasonous" ideas, how long could he stay in the Oval Office? How long could he stay alive?

Those audacious enough to harbor some hope may be working overtime by now.

But given the proven nature of the Bush team -- and the dire consequences they face from any normal, rightful application of the law -- we should assume that they will do whatever it takes to escape those consequences.

And that's why torture is the decisive issue of this campaign. But this decision will not be in the hands of the voters; it will be made -- as most of the decisions that govern our lives are made -- in the inner sanctums of elite power.

And that means, unless I am much mistaken, that the key decisions are already made.

We would never have been led down this evil road if we were meant to turn back.

Oh no. The big decisions were made years ago. All the rest has been implementation.

War!! Hypocrisy!! US Attacks Iran: Global Community Must Respond (Suggested Response Included)

The long-rumored war between the United States and Iran has begun, but not with a radioactive bang, as some had feared. That can still come later, of course. "All options are on the table," as they say -- "they" being all the so-called "serious presidential candidates" and the statement itself being thinly veiled "diplomatic code" threatening a nuclear attack against the Iranians.

Rather than an attack with "bunker-busters", the first attack of the war was made with a "bank-buster", and it came in the form of a shot across the bow of the global banking system. The hypocrisy couldn't be clearer, not that this will matter much to the Iranian victims -- unless the truth suddenly becomes as important to the world's bankers as it is to some of the world's bloggers.

The first alleged casus belli against Iran was supposed to be its purported pursuit of nuclear weapons. The Iranian leadership has renounced any desire to obtain such weapons; the international governing body, IAEA, has inspected Iran repeatedly without finding anything resembling a program designed to develop nuclear arms, and technically sound experts such as Scott Ritter scoff at the notion that Iran is even close to developing any nuclear capability.

There's irony in the American threat to use nuclear weapons against Iran, supposedly in order to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons itself. If the subject matter were any lighter; if there were not literally millions of lives at stake immediately, and many more thereafter; the irony would almost be funny.

But it's not. It is an affront to any sensibility not tainted by "American exceptionalism": the widespread American belief that the United States is uniquely blessed with democracy and liberty and therefore has the right to dictate the foreign and domestic policies of every other country on Earth -- at the point of a weapon if feasible. In other words, everyone save Americans -- and only those blinded by the propaganda barrage -- can see that this line of "reasoning" is bogus.

But that's just the beginning. Now, apparently because of the American failure to create a credible nuke-related casus belli, they've turned to a new game -- charging Iran with laundering money, supporting terrorism, and committing financial crimes detrimental to the world's financial community.

Using little-known provisions in the "USA PATRIOT Act", the exceptional Americans are cracking down on Iran for doing what comes naturally to the Bush administration: money-laundering, supporting terrorism, and endangering the global economy.

The "PATRIOT Act" itself is exceptional: it was passed by a Congress that hadn't read it and signed by a "President" who had never been legitimately elected; it strips Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms from American citizens and at the same time it purports to give the American administration control of global systems; it's an enormous piece of legislation amending hundreds of laws which was presented to the House only a month after the attacks of September 11, 2001 -- supposedly in response to those attacks and supposedly in order to prevent future attacks.

The problem, of course, is that the attacks of September 11 were never properly investigated; the sham investigation initiated by the White House didn't even get started until a year after the "PATRIOT Act" was made law; thus there was no way for the drafters of the "PATRIOT Act" to know what changes in legal and security structures would have been needed for the United States to prevent future attacks of the kind -- assuming, of course, that the United States National Security apparatus was not already fully prepared to prevent the attacks of 9/11, and for some reason chose not to do so.

The final assumption appears to be completely unjustified, but even if it were true, the "PATRIOT Act" would still be an abomination. So it's only fitting, in an Orwellian kind of way, that it would be used to start a war of aggression against a peaceful country that has never threatened the United States.

The accusations against Iran may be true, in part. It appears that Iranian banks have altered records to obscure some transactions. And Iranians have been accused of funding terrorism in the Middle East and of providing weapons for use against the Americans in Iraq. No credible evidence has ever been presented to support the weapons charge, but for the sake of the current analysis let's pretend it's a valid allegation. Let's just add up the charges, put them in context, and see what we've got.

A couple of Iranian banks were caught pulling a couple of shifty stunts. Does anything like that ever happen with American banks? Tell the truth, now.

The American intelligence services operate with black budgets in the multi-billion dollar-a-year range; they ship and sell weapons and drugs all over the world to generate even more billions (not to mention assisting the twin scourges of murder and drug addiction); Americans shipped pallets of hundred-dollar bills to Iraq which then simply disappeared; the list of money-laundering crimes goes on and on, and the financial crime not only tolerated but in fact perpetrated by official US government agencies runs in the hundred-billion dollar-a-year range; and the US has the gall to accuse the Iranians of laundering money. Nice.

Did Iranians send weapons to Iraq to be used against the Americans? Have Americans ever sent weapons to Iraq to be used against the Iraqis? Tell the truth again. Have they sent men to fire those weapons? Let's tell the whole truth: They're using radioactive ammunition, too.

The Americans have openly spent hundreds of billions of dollars every year for the past five years to fund their attack on a defenseless nation which had not threatened them. They have shipped more than a million men and women to fight there, at least 4,000 of whom have died in Iraq. Countless others have been wounded, physically or mentally or both. And that's just the American side of the damage sheet. On the Iraqi side it's much worse -- as usual when American troops destroy a foreign country. Tell the truth; it's good for all of us.

How many countries has the United States done this to? Count invasion and occupation; count bombing and inciting terrorism; count starting civil wars and setting up death squads; count covert subversion and overt sabotage of democratic processes; count Vietnam and Guatemala and Chile and Somalia and Grenada and Haiti and Iran and ... oops! did I just mention Iran? Strike that. Trust me: it's the Iranians who are to be feared for inciting terrorism. Just ask George Bush.

Are the Iranian banks to be feared for jeopardizing the global financial system? Again you can ask the Americans, but don't mention Enron or BCCI or (fill in the blank here _____) or any of the other tips of corrupt American financial icebergs that have been floating around sinking unsuspecting voyagers on the rough waters of national and international finance. Why? Just because, that's why!!

Because is the key word in all this; because the Americans claim to control the global financial system; because the Americans accuse the Iranians of certain crimes against that system; because Americans are exceptional and can never be held to account for obvious and egregious crimes against humanity; because of all these factors the allegations against a few Iranian banks have been spun into a threat against all Iranian banks -- and all banks which deal with Iranian banks!

The threat goes like this: the allegedly offending Iranian banks are to be isolated; all banks which do business in Iran are to be treated likewise; all banks which do business with any Iranian bank likewise as well. It's an international quarantine on Iranian banking interests, based on allegedly anti-terrorism provisions of the "PATRIOT Act". The inevitable result will be widespread poverty in Iran. The obvious intent is provoke the Iranian government into doing something that could be used as a casus belli -- a "case for war".

Two drippingly ironic facts are hidden in all this maneuvering.

First, the United States has no international legal right to quarantine Iran as it is doing -- with heavy-handed blackmail and threats of "cooperate with us or you'll be next". No nation or national bank wants to be seen as cooperating with terrorism -- and yet, in their efforts to eschew "terrorists" and cooperate with the Americans -- this is exactly what they're doing.

Secondly, by invoking these financial threats -- threats which could lead to genocidal economic blockade -- the Americans have provided the Iranians with a casus belli of their own, to be used against the United States. But Iran doesn't want war; so it doesn't need a casus belli. What it needs -- what is always needed when a schoolyard bully starts picking on a little kid -- is strength in numbers among the potential victims.

The "schoolyard bully" analogy may not be particularly apt in the context of international relations; but then again in this case it might be just perfect.

To everybody except the exceptional Americans, there appears to be one rogue state in the world. Its dubious public pronouncements are willingly swallowed by an increasingly centralized "news" media and broadcast to gullible idiots everywhere; the result is death and destruction on a scale and of a type heretofore unknown in the history of human conflict.

The residue of depleted uranium munitions will render a large chunk of the Middle East unfit for human habitation forever -- and the radioactive debris is spreading, slowly and inexorably, to the rest of the world.

But Iran is a threat! Iran must suffer sanctions! Iran must be isolated and punished! It's unbelievable -- or not -- depending on how low you think the Bush administration will stoop. (Here's a helpful hint: there's no limit!)

If the depleted uranium alone isn't enough to make the nations of the world band together against the schoolyard bully; if the Bush doctrine -- preemptive war, anywhere, anytime, based on the flimsiest lies -- is not enough; if the countries of the world are not drawn together by the enshrinement of torture and indefinite confinement as national norms in a country known (rightly or not) as a world leader for human rights; perhaps this overt act of war against Iran can provide the impetus. After all, the "justifications" used by the Americans also apply -- in every case and with overwhelming force -- to crimes committed by the Americans themselves.

Therefore, in my view, it is time for an alliance of all the life-affirming countries of the world -- an Axis Against Evil that could be based on a document as simple as the following:

WHEREAS the American use of radioactive ammunition in Iraq and Afghanistan poses an existential risk to humanity and all other forms of life all over the world,

WHEREAS the United States has nuclear weapons, has used them, and has threatened to use them again, while Iran has no nuclear weapons and no plans to develop any such weapons,

WHEREAS the United States of America has a long history of terrorism and fomenting terrorism,

WHEREAS covert agencies of the United States government regularly launder billions of dollars a year,

WHEREAS American banks are currently -- as always -- a grave threat to the global financial system,

WHEREAS America is currently and obviously guilty of all the crimes of which Iran is accused, and many more, on an unimaginably greater scale,

WHEREAS the American administration is now threatening Iran with economic destruction, allegedly to further the prevention of terrorism,

WHEREAS the blackmail tactics used by the United States in attempting to isolate Iran are reprehensible and typical, and constitute a form of terrorism in and of themselves,

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that from this day forward and until all said issues are resolved to our satisfaction, we shall do NO BUSINESS with any American Business and NO BANKING with any American Bank, nor shall we enter into any transaction with any Bank or Business doing Business with any American Business or Banking at any American Bank; and we will do our coercive best to make sure that all Banks and Businesses within our jurisdiction do the very same.

[Signed]

[your name]

___________________________

[your country]

___________________________

[your position; circle one]

(King) (Queen)
(President) (Prime Minister)
(Prince) (Princess)
(Grand Poobah) (Petite Poobah)

It sounds like a crazy idea, but if we get two or three dozen of the right signatures, the American imperial project is finished.

Otherwise we are.

~~~

NOTES: My main computer has been down for the past several hours; I wrote this post on a machine that is not much more than a typewriter. It's a lovely discipline, for sure, but the piece is not as well-annotated as usual, nor does it quote any sources. Therefore:

[1] If you didn't click the links above, please do so now:

John McGlynn: The March 20, 2008 US Declaration of War on Iran

Chris Floyd: Worried Just a Bit? Bush Launches Economic 'Shock and Awe' on Iran

[2] If you are a world leader, you are invited to sign the declaration above. Otherwise, please bring it to the attention of your leader(s).