Major changes coming...

Note to readers: Deep Blade Journal will be undergoing a major re-vamping over the next few weeks. Do not be surprised if the site goes down for a period of time, or serves you oddball or alternate pages. The process we will be going through includes a move from Blogger to WordPress, along with the addition of excellent new authors! This will be exciting! Stay tuned...

High seas

Excellent global warming post at The Oil Drum.

Friday Garden Blogging

Return of winter


Lilac not ready to bloom yet

After a long stretch of dry weather, a few inches of snow came today. This is a good thing because bare is bad in the winter. It's been totally bare for weeks now.

A cold snap is on the way. . .

The last veto threat: anti-torture

Veto talk gave the president more power to torture than if the ban had never even been discussed

Before the current one concerning the Dubai ports deal (see previous post), what was the one other major veto threat issued by President Bush? Back in October, what brought it on was,

The [US Senate's] 90-to-9 vote to ban ``cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment'' of anyone in U.S. government custody was one of the sharpest political rebukes in Washington of a system under which abuses occurred in Iraq and Afghanistan and at the Guantánamo naval base in Cuba.

Seems that the only time the Bush veto pen comes out is when there is some kind of challenge to the radical statist power the president wishes to reserve for himself beyond all reach of law.

Despite what was reported just before last Christmas--that the president relented on the McCain anti-torture amendment, backing the torture ban because the ``McCain proposal had veto-proof support''--Mr. Bush got his way.

Here is how Alfred McCoy described the failure of the McCain anti-torture effort in the highly-rcommended Democracy Now! interview from last Friday:

Most Americans think that it's over, that in last year, December 2005, the U.S. Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act 2005, which in the language of Senator McCain, who was the original author of that amendment to the defense appropriation, the author of that act, it bars all inhumane or cruel treatment, and most people think that's it, that it's over, okay? Actually, what has happened is the Bush administration fought that amendment tooth and nail; they fought it with loopholes. Vice President Cheney went to Senator McCain and asked for a specific exemption for the C.I.A. McCain refused. The National Security Advisor went to McCain and asked for certain kinds of exemptions for the C.I.A. He refused.

So then they started amending it. Basically what happened is, through the process, they introduced loopholes. Look, at the start of the war on terror, the Bush administration ordered torture. President Bush said right on September 11, 2001, when he addressed the nation, ``I don't care what the international lawyers say. We're going to kick some ass.''

Those were his words, and then it was up to his legal advisors in the White House and the Justice Department to translate his otherwise unlawful orders into legal directives, and they did it by crafting three very controversial legal principles. One, that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, could override laws and treaties. Two, that there was a possible defense for C.I.A. interrogators who engage in torture, and the defenses were of two kinds. First of all, they played around with the word ``severe,'' that torture is the infliction of severe pain. That's when Jay Bybee, who was Assistant Attorney General, wrote that memo in which he said, ```severe' means equivalent to organ failure,'' in other words, right up to the point of death.

The other thing was that they came up with the idea of intentionality. If a C.I.A. interrogator tortured, but the aim was information, not pain, then he could say that he was not guilty. The third principle, which was crafted by John Yoo, was Guantanamo is not part of the United States; it is exempt from the writ of U.S. courts. Now, in the process of ratifying--sorry, passing the McCain torture--the torture prohibition, McCain’s ban on inhumane treatment, the White House has cleverly twisted the legislation to re-establish these three key principles. In his signing statement on December 30, President Bush said ...

``I reserve the right, as Commander-in-Chief and as head of the unitary executive, to do what I need to do to defend America.''

Okay, that was the first thing. The next thing that happened is that McCain, as a compromise, inserted into the legislation a provision that if a C.I.A. operative engages in inhumane treatment or torture but believes that he or she was following a lawful order, then that's a defense. So they got the second principle, defense for C.I.A. torturers. The third principle was – is that the White House had Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina amend McCain’s amendment by inserting language into it, saying that for the purposes of this act, the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay is not on U.S. territory. . .

In other words, the veto threat acheived for President Bush policy that, from his point of view (desire to use torture), is better than if the McCain amendment had never been proposed.

See also here and here.

Veto pen on behalf of Dubai

Bush willing to go to the mat for deal he claims he didn't even know about

President Bush is just daring someone to stop him. Tiny details of super-secret machinations behind the Dubai port deal are just beginning to peel away. For example, Josh Marshall today cites an apparent White House leak revealing that many standard operating procedures concerning business documents and other matters that are usually attached to foreign transactions were waved in this case.

What seems to be emerging is a story of close-knit inside dealing that has trumped the usual standards and practices for foreign ventures operating on US soil. Personally, I don't know if this Dubai firm presents any risk to national security. But I am convinced that the Bush administration sees security concerns too basically trumped by the deal.

Despite lingering questions about 911-UAE connections and other supposed Terror War issues (two 911 hijackers came from UAE, and the state was the main transshipment point for the clandestine nuclear-weapons-component supply network of Pakistani engineer AQ Kahn), no big Terror War issues seem to have been raised. According to a New York Times story today by Elisabeth Bumiller and Carl Hulse, the

deal to hand over operations at major American ports to a government-owned company in Dubai did not involve national security and so did not require a more lengthy review

What is really striking in this deal, I think, is the immediate threat of a presidential veto against any action Congress may take to block it. Yesterday, reporters David Sanger and Eric Lipton wrote Wednesday in the New York Times that Bush

said Tuesday that he would veto any legislation blocking a deal for a state-owned company in Dubai to take over the management of port terminals in New York, Miami, Baltimore and other major American cities

This from a president who, ``rarely makes veto threats, and he has not vetoed a single bill in his more than five years in office''.

Does that not seem like a strange way for the president to react to something so small that only last week, he claims not to have known anything about it?

Here is how CBS News phrased the mystery in a report including an interview by Gloria Borger with the Dark Lord himself, Richard Perle:

Yet why the president was ill-informed remains puzzling. One explanation is that Mr. Bush and his senior staff couldn't brief Congress, because they didn't know. The panel that makes the decisions, The Committee on Foreign Investments, is not run by high-level Cabinet members listed on its Web site. Instead they usually rubber-stamp decisions made by staffers, Borger reports.

``The committee almost never met, and when it deliberated it was usually at a fairly low bureaucratic level,'' Richard Perle said. Perle, who has worked for the Reagan, Clinton and both Bush administrations added, ``I think it's a bit of a joke.''

So we are to believe that the decisions by a rubber-stamp committee that almost never met has slipped through something the White House did not know about but now finds so important that a veto of any attempt to stop the deal is threatened?

How much more evidence do we need that we are under an out-of-control band of radical statists in this administration? Maybe this episode will stir up the few true conservatives left who might be able to help set some limits.

A tolerant state

Here is the full text of the statement President Bush released on November 4, 2004 on the passing of Shaykh Zayid bin Sultan Al Nahayan of the UAE:

The United States mourns the passing of a great friend of our country, Shaykh Zayid bin Sultan Al Nahayan of the United Arab Emirates. Shaykh Zayid was the founder and President of the UAE for more than 30 years, a pioneer, an elder statesman, and a close ally. He and his fellow rulers of the seven Emirates built their federation into a prosperous, tolerant, and well-governed state. I offer my condolences and those of the American people to the family of Shaykh Zayid and to the government and people of the United Arab Emirates on their great loss.

Carefully chosen word, ``tolerant''.

Dubai port deal

President Bush (November 7, 2003): ``As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export.''

Curiously, in the landmark speech on freedom and democracy cited above, President Bush omitted any mention of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In his laundry lists that day, Morocco, Bahrain, Qatar, Yemen, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, (and the Palestinians too) are all cited as Arab/Muslim governments ``beginning to see the need for change.'' But there is nothing, good nor bad, concerning UAE.

In a recommended piece from December 2004, Counterpunch writer Brian Cloughley reminds us of the actual relations President Bush has been conducting with UAE, along with a description of the state of democracy there:

The UAE is efficiently run and seems a happy enough country, providing you are not a Filipino domestic slave/servant or interested in democracy or the rights of women or other silly things. Dubai is a rich and thriving place of outstanding kitsch and vulgarity and is a popular destination for tourists who like that sort of thing...But don't let's kid ourselves that there is ever going to be freedom to vote in the UAE. The last ruler died November 2, and Bush sent this kind message: ``The United States mourns the passing of a great friend of our country, Shaykh Zayid bin Sultan Al Nahayan''. . .

Then Bush informed us that the dead autocrat was ``. . . an elder statesman, and a close ally. He and his fellow rulers built their federation into a prosperous, tolerant, and well-governed state.'' And Colin Powell echoed him: ``Sheikh Zayed ... was a friend. He stood both at home and abroad as a symbol of benevolent and wise leadership characterized by generosity, tolerance, and avid pursuit of development and modernization.''

Modernization, eh? And tolerance as well. Now that is really amazing, considering that Colin Powell's own State Department tells us the place ``has no political parties. There is talk of steps toward democratic government, but nothing concrete has emerged.'' Does Washington have a different definition of ``tolerance'' to the rest of us?

There is not a word about democracy in the UAE, but who bothers about democracy when ``US President George W Bush received here [Washington] yesterday evening Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan . . . UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs . . . President Bush hailed UAE-US relations, citing as an example the visit of Sheikh Hamdan to the US and the subsequent outcome of the meetings of the joint committees between the two countries.''

And the State Department explains all the lovey-dovey stuff by saying: ``The United States has enjoyed friendly relations with the UAE since 1971. Private commercial ties, especially in petroleum, have developed into friendly government-to-government ties which include security assistance . . . The air force is currently awaiting an expected 2005 delivery of 80 advanced US F-16 multirole fighter aircraft.''

Which they need like a hole in the head; but never mind, it's only US citizens' petroleum taxes that pay for them.

As long as it has oil for Washington and buys F-16s the UAE is keeping the world safe for democracy. It doesn't matter that democracy doesn't exist in the country itself, because it will continue to receive every bit of support from Bush no matter what it does. As it happens, I think that benevolent autocracy as it applies in the UAE is what suits the country (apart from total lack of women's rights)...

Others have been pointing out the suspected ties between Osama bin Laden and the Dubai royals. I have even posted in the past about mysterious al-Queda-linked characters and financial transactions from Dubai to the 911 terrorists, including ``a $100,000 payment wired by Saeed Sheikh from Dubai to one of hijacker Mohamed Atta's two bank accounts in Florida.''

The 911 Commission report is very hazy on these terrorist-financing issues, inconsistencies about which I posted again last year.

More information is trickling out now about inside-administration ties. US Treasury Secretary John Snow,

whose agency heads the federal panel that signed off on the $6.8 billion sale of an English company to government-owned Dubai Ports World - giving it control of Manhattan's cruise ship terminal and Newark's container port. Snow was chairman of the CSX rail firm that sold its own international port operations to DP World for $1.15 billion in 2004, the year after Snow left for President Bush's cabinet.

[An]other connection is David Sanborn, who runs DP World's European and Latin American operations and was tapped by Bush last month to head the U.S. Maritime Administration.

So, in a very rare occurance, I find myself agreeing with the likes of Senate Majority Leader Frist that this port deal may not be such a good idea.

Sick discourse on torture

Two kinds of sick: US torture theory and the ignorant media mouthpieces who support it


``You know, if you look at -- if you, really, if you look at these pictures, I mean, I don't know if it's just me, but it looks just like anything you'd see Madonna, or Britney Spears do on stage. Maybe I'm -- yeah. And get an NEA grant for something like this. I mean, this is something that you can see on stage at Lincoln Center from an NEA grant, maybe on Sex in the City -- the movie. I mean, I don't -- it's just me.'' --Rush Limbaugh, on his radio program, May 3, 2004. (SELF-INFLICTED PAIN and SENSORY DISORIENTATION: Alfred McCoy has a very different interpretation of what is going on here.)

Following public releases last week of large new batches of Abu Ghraib photos and a devastating UN report calling for the closure of the Pentagon dungeon at Guantanamo Bay, the US has once again dismissed any criticism. Mealy-mouthed Scott McClellan once again was sent out to dissemble.

McClellan (Feb. 16 briefing):I think that what we are seeing is a rehash of allegations that have been made by lawyers representing some of these detainees. We know that these are dangerous terrorists that are being kept at Guantanamo Bay. They are people that are determined to harm innocent civilians, or harm innocent Americans. They were enemy combatants picked up on the battlefield in the war on terrorism. They are trained to provide false information. And al Qaeda training manuals talk about ways to disseminate false information and hope to get attention.

But the International Committee for the Red Cross has been provided full access to the detainees. The military treats detainees humanely, as directed by the President of the United States. And the United Nations should be making serious investigations across the world, and there are many instances when they do, when it comes to human rights. This was not one of them. And I think it's a discredit to the U.N. when a team like this goes about rushing to report something when they haven't even looked into the facts. All they have done is look at the allegations.

However, the stalest old news here is the notion that these are just the unfounded allegations of dangerous terrorists.

At this point, we could expect a skeptical press corps to point out to McClellan that his assertions are entirely false. A brief perusal of the UN report shows that it is based on voluminous amounts of evidence found in various documents released by the Pentagon itself, and observations recorded by US law enforcement personnel. Not only that, the UN report attacks the notion that all or even most of those persons housed at the dungeon are inhuman monsters picked up in the course of a gallant battlefield effort to stamp out terrorism. In fact, the UN says, US detention practices are arbitrary:

25. Many of the detainees held at Guantánamo Bay were captured in places where there was – at the time of their arrest – no armed conflict involving the United States. The case of the six men of Algerian origin detained in Bosnia and Herzegovina in October 2001 is a well-known and well-documented example,[24] but also numerous other detainees have been arrested under similar circumstances where international humanitarian law did not apply. The legal provision allowing the United States to hold belligerents without charges or access to counsel for the duration of hostilities can therefore not be invoked to justify their detention.

But it was way too much to expect that US media would care to look under these covers, even though the path is well worn by the ACLU and CCR.

Media Matters has an excellent analysis of an example of sickening failure of skepticism on torture by NBC correspondent Jim Miklaszewski, who ``provided McClellan's dubious defense of Guantánamo without challenge,'' despite the fact that ``McClellan's claims had previously been undermined by both the International Committee of the Red Cross and internal U.S. government emails.''

This is a superb Media Matters post that refutes fully McClellan's falsehoods.

Meanwhile, the ignorance just piles up at the news channels. An example there was MSNBC's Scarborough Country for Feb. 16. The host stood up against the tainted UN and for all the American lives being protected by US humanity-robbing torture techniques in the ``gloves off'' Terror War:

And I have just got to say to all you, friends, the reason that I don‘t understand why anybody listens to the United Nations anymore is, you just look at their track record over the past 10 years. A million people killed in Rwanda, the U.N. does nothing. Two million killed in Sudan, the U.N. does nothing. Kosovo, the U.N. stays on the sidelines.

Bosnia, U.N. stays on the sidelines. Torture in Iraq, more people killed in Iraq than any other country in the Middle East, under Saddam Hussein, the United Nations does nothing.

And these people are going to come to us and lecture us about trying to figure out what happened on 9/11 and what is happening right now with people that are trying to kill you, your families, and your neighbors in America today. They‘re trying to do it. And because we‘re trying to get information from these terror suspects in Guantanamo Bay, we are the target of attacks from a corrupt bureaucracy that shouldn't even be able to stay in New York City another day.

Sadly, this passes for a reasonable argument in America today. Well gee, they're the worst of the worst, so whatever we do to them is okay. Scarborough just dodges the very serious issues of law and basic rights to a fair trial raised by the report, and makes the issue about some unspecified general failings of the UN, rather than the inhumane policies of the UN's most-influential member.

My news for Scarborough is that there is nothing American about imprisonment without trial--the main point of the UN report. And what on Earth can guys kept in a tiny box for four years still be telling that can protect anyone?

Alfred McCoy and history of US-sponsored torture
Sickening media mouthpieces like McClellan, Limbaugh, Scarborough, and the pussy-cat reporters like Miklaszewski enable the Bush Administration to lie about US engagement in torture without challenge. Yes, you better believe it. This is torture the US is perpetrating.


Read this astonishing book and you'll understand much about the torture photos

University of Wisconsin history professor Alfred McCoy explains much about the roots of this torture in his new book, A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror. Here's the flavor of it from a striking Feb. 17 Democracy Now! interview:

McCoy: ...if you look at the most famous of photographs from Abu Ghraib, of the Iraqi standing on the box, arms extended with a hood over his head and the fake electrical wires from his arms, okay? In that photograph you can see the entire 50-year history of C.I.A. torture. It's very simple. He's hooded for sensory disorientation, and his arms are extended for self-inflicted pain. And those are the two very simple fundamental C.I.A. techniques, developed at enormous cost.

There you have it. The US-sponsored torture illustrated by the photos is clearly, most certainly not just the work of a few deranged pranksters on the night shift playing out harmless Britney Spears fantasies. Rather, it is the product of the entire history of the CIA throughout the Cold War, and now the Terror War under the orders of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld.

Also go here for additional segments with Alfred McCoy. (Look for Feb. 14 and Feb. 16 Flashpoints programs.) I implore all readers to listen to the interviews cited. McCoy describes a sickening history. It's understanding is essential for any chance for future redemption of America's soul.

Mendacity & hypocrisy in plain view

Iraq palace construction trumps reconstruction

Atrios caught my eye with one of his pithy items yesterday. Rumsfeld, apparently, has given up on reconstructing Iraq:

We're not there to do nation-building. They're going to have to build their own nation. It's going to be an Iraqi solution, ultimately.

This follows reports out over the last few weeks that the US has all but cancelled any remaining efforts at reconstruction.

Rumsfeld and company must be counting on everybody forgetting how they used to talk about the mission, as Atrios reminded us.

President Bush (May 1, 2003): We've begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated. We're helping to rebuild Iraq, where the dictator built palaces for himself, instead of hospitals and schools. And we will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as they establish a government of, by, and for the Iraqi people. [emphasis added]

Today we can look into the eye of the dictator and see that he is Bush. Here is a story posted at CorpWatch this past week:

Baghdad Embassy Bonanza
Kuwait Company’s Secret Contract & Low-Wage Labor
by David Phinney, Special to CorpWatch; February 12th, 2006
...
the massive $592-million project may be the most lasting monument to the U.S. occupation in the war-torn nation. Located on a on a 104-acre site on the Tigris river where U.S. and coalition authorities are headquartered, the high-tech palatial compound is envisioned as a totally self-sustaining cluster of 21 buildings reinforced to 2.5 times usual standards. Some walls as said to be 15 feet thick or more. Scheduled for completion by June 2007, the installation is touted as not only the largest, but the most secure diplomatic embassy in the world.

The 1,000 or more U.S. government officials calling the new compound home will have access to a gym, swimming pool, barber and beauty shops, a food court and a commissary. In addition to the main embassy buildings, there will be a large-scale Maine barracks, a school, locker rooms, a warehouse, a vehicle maintenance garage, and six apartment buildings with a total of 619 one-bedroom units. Water, electricity and sewage treatment plants will all be independent from Baghdad's city utilities. The total site will be two-thirds the area of the National Mall in Washington, DC.

The upshot of this whole story is that the dictator's palace is being built by virtual slave laborers, 900 of whom ``live and work for First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting (FKTC) on the construction site of the massive project.''

Why should I be surprised and so sickened by the mendacity and hypocrisy of the president and his ministers? I guess I just recall all of the pre-war propaganda concerning Saddam's palaces, where the bad man supposedly was storing weapons and sinking the wealth purloined from his people, instead of giving them the basic services and infrastructure they needed. Now the US is shameless in the same role.

Friday garden blogging

Scary wind


End of another false spring

What was it, the fifth or sixth false spring since Christmas? The photo was taken about an hour before sunset with the new video camera at full zoom looking down our side street toward the Penobscot River. Now after dark, a frigid reminder that it's still February is roaring in on a 50 mph wind. Hear the sound...

This afternoon the Mount Washington Observatory recorded sustained wind velocity of 120 mph with gusts up to 137 mph!

February 15, 2003: International day of protest

In the mass of 500 marchers at Bangor, Maine; -20°C:


As right today as it was three years ago today

More photos and links here.

Friday garden blogging

Frozen bare


Naked frigid with little snow and a stiff N breeze


Water and some ice chunks rushing over the Veazie dam

Last week, the small amount of snow we had was washed away by 2 more inches of rain. The temperature soared up to +11°C. It was about our fourth false spring since Christmas. Now a big dome of arctic air has driven the daytime temperature down to about –11°C.

Dirigo Health press action and hearing

New bill in Maine legislature would improve DirigoChoice plan


Feb. 7 MPA press action: Do you see the Anthem fox in the Dirigo henhouse?

Yesterday I attended a press event and legislative hearing in Augusta concerning the fledging DirigoChoice health insurance program. We are enrolled in this program and consider it vital not only to our own continued health, but to that of the entire state.

Yesterday, the Maine People's Alliance, a pro-Dirigo grassroots organization in which I am a member, held the press event for the purpose of releasing the results of a small experiential study concerning how the private contractor--the insurance giant Anthem, now responsible for marketing and servicing Dirigo for the state of Maine--is meeting its responsibilities for Dirigo. It's a checkered report. The situation as described by MPA and supporters is that Anthem is the ``fox in the henhouse'' where Dirigo is concerned. READ THE MPA REPORT HERE.

The event coincided with a hearing on a piece of new legislation (LD 1845) designed to give the Dirigo program more options and more flexibility in deciding who will provide the services necessary to run the program.

Press has been great on this event. The Bangor Daily News ran the story as its no. 1 lead this morning. Excellent.

The Portland Press Herald (new reg. system, grrrrrr) also led with the story, and the Boston Globe carried it today!

I have prepared a podcast of the press event available at peacecast.us, where you can also read my own statement and testimony I gave before the Maine Legislature's Joint Standing Committee on Insurance and Financial Services.

The following is a Fact Sheet on the Anthem study and LD 1845 supplied by the Maine People's Alliance:

Call on Legislators to Support Dirigo Health and Universal Health Care for All Mainers!

Please call your Maine Legislators and ask them to support LD 1845: ``An Act to Increase Access to Health Insurance Products''

What does LD 1845 do?
· Allows the Dirigo Health Agency to cancel or not renew their contract with Anthem as the provider of DirigoChoice insurance, which would allow the state to create a nonprofit insurer or some other solution. An amendment to the bill would also permit other insurance producers to sell DirigoChoice.

Why is it important?
· DirgoChoice is an insurance product offered under the Dirigo Health Reform Act in the State of Maine and is an affordable, comprehensive option for individuals and small businesses in Maine. Over 8,000 people have enrolled in the plan. But while Dirigo Health has provided affordable, comprehensive insurance for over 8,000 Mainers and saved over $43 million, many in the state are still uninsured.

· Throughout it’s implementation, Anthem has not been fully supportive of Dirigo Health. With other insurers, they are currently suing the state over the Savings Offset Payment, a recapturing of Dirigo’s savings that would enable more low-income people to enroll in the DirigoChoice program.

· There is reason to believe that Anthem has not been selling the DirigoChoice insurance product as aggressively as they could be, which may have prevented more Mainers from enrolling.

Why might a Maine-based solution be better?
· Anthem and parent company Wellpoint are based in Indiana. Anthem continually raises rates and reports record profits while Mainers are under-insured and uninsured. Anthem’s CEO, Larry Glasscock, received a salary of $1 million and a bonus of over $42.5 million in 2004. Out-of-state, for-profit insurers place their own financial interests above the health of the Maine people. Because Anthem has a financial interest in the structure of Maine’s healthcare system, they may not be fully supportive of all of Dirigo Health’s goals.

· A non-profit insurer would not have a CEO making multi-million dollar bonuses while raising rates for average Mainers. It would have the interest of Maine citizens at heart.

· The state needs the assurance that the agency selling DirigoChoice truly stands behind the program. Thousands more Mainers could benefit from the DirigoChoice program, and they deserve the chance to enroll. The state needs the freedom to ensure that the DirigoChoice product is being offered to anyone who needs it.

Call your State Legislators and ask them to support LD 1845 for Health Care for All!
· The phone line to leave a message for your State Representative is 1-800-423-2900 and the line for your State Senator is 1-800-423-6900...

Knew he was dangerous...

Gonzales's does today what some of us thought he would be good at doing


Legal theorist shows the way for the republic to become an empire

When I wrote about The ``Enabling Act'' for the Bush dictatorship back in December, I commented that ``Congress and the American people are getting what we asked for in the days following September 11, 2001''. Boy, is this ever coming home to roost.

US Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez explained with a rhetorical question the inherent authorization for the NSA wiretapping program embodied by the Congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) resolution of September 14, 2001 and later by the decision of the US Supreme Court in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (decided June 28, 2004):

Gonzalez: If the detention of an American citizen who fought with Al-Qaida is authorized by the force resolution as an incident of waging war, how can it be that merely listening to Al-Qaida phone calls into and out of the country in order to disrupt their plots is not?

Indeed, the Supreme Court ruled in the Hamdi case that the AUMF did authorize detention when the president declares a citizen an enemy combatant. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote for the Court in June 2004,

The threshold question before us is whether the Executive has the authority to detain citizens who qualify as ``enemy combatants.'' There is some debate as to the proper scope of this term, and the Government has never provided any court with the full criteria that it uses in classifying individuals as such. It has made clear, however, that, for purposes of this case, the ``enemy combatant'' that it is seeking to detain is an individual who, it alleges, was "`part of or supporting forces hostile to the United States or coalition partners'" in Afghanistan and who "`engaged in an armed conflict against the United States'" there. Brief for Respondents 3. We therefore answer only the narrow question before us: whether the detention of citizens falling within that definition is authorized.

The Government maintains that no explicit congressional authorization is required, because the Executive possesses plenary authority to detain pursuant to Article II of the Constitution. We do not reach the question whether Article II provides such authority, however, because we agree with the Government’s alternative position, that Congress has in fact authorized Hamdi’s detention, through the AUMF. [emphasis added]

Wow. According to Gonzales, the ``battlefield'' where ``enemy combatants'' fight and the Supreme Court has authorized ``detention'' now extends to the phone conversations of citizens on domestic soil. This is an expanding authority, not an encompassing authority as Gonzales would have us believe.

Even though the decision does not, contrary to what some rightwing commentators say, settle questions about the president's powers residing in Article II, this type of authority conferred by the Court in Hamdi clearly is now the more important aspect of the decision, rather than those rights Hamdi acquired--the right to a lawyer and a ``meaningful'' right to ``challenge'' to his detention. (The government has indeed attempted to render that latter aspect moot by transferring Hamdi to the criminal justice system.)

Very few in the civil liberties community recognized the weight of these rights awarded to the president. Elaine Cassel, writing in Counterpunch on June 29, 2004 was a notable exception:

On first glance, which is all the nightly news gave you, the Hamdi case looks like a win for lovers of freedom. Even Hamdi's public defender, Frank Dunham, said that they "won big." I disagree. And amazingly to this writer, so did Scalia, who was joined in his dissent by Justice Stevens. The majority opinion was written by Justice O'Connor, and we all know what that means-a tortured crafting of facts cobbled to law that tries to give everybody something. A little here, a little there. He is what we got: The Congress gave the President the authority to detain anyone involved with fighting with al Qaeda or the Taliban when it voted for war in Afghanistan. Hamdi was supposedly captured in Afghanistan. As long as the U.S. is fighting in Afghanistan (I guess that will be forever, don't you think?), Hamdi can be held WITHOUT BEING CHARGED WITH A CRIME. But, he gets a lawyer (a lawyer subject so special instructions by Ashcroft and Rumsfeld, an lawyer whose conversation with his client will be monitored and limited as Rumsfeld and Ashcroft see fit) and he can file a petition for writ of habeas corpus, challenging his detention. Ah, but the government gets the benefit of the doubt in such a hearing. It puts forth is conclusory affidavit, like the one cranky Judge Doumar in Richmond did not like one bit, and Hamdi gets to try-just try, if he can-to prove them wrong. Yes, the burden will be on Hamdi to prove the government's allegations against him to be wrong. Now that will be kind of difficult, won't it, since Hamdi has been incarcerated for going on three years, has no contact with anyone in the outside world, and will have a hell of a time coming up with the witnesses to refute the conclusion of the government that he was indeed fighting with the Taliban or al Qaeda against the U.S. Let's see, even if he knew people to subpoena to support an alibi-if he has one-federal marshals don't serve subpoenas in Afghanistan.

Scalia and Stevens joined in the call to either charge him with a crime-Scalia suggested treason-or have Congress suspend the writ of habeas corpus (Scalia contends that only Congress, not the President, can properly do this). But don't create some mechanism that allows the President to weasel out the result that the majority wanted-that is, to give Hamdi a lawyer, let him file his papers, but give him the burden of proving his "innocence." An insurmountable burden of proof.

These developments constitute the slow-motion redefinition of what it means to be an American citizen. Gonzales's arguments in favor of extensive warrantless wiretapping and who-knows-what future policies of spying and detention will be difficult to resist. The Republicans are all for it. If they use the Terror-War language of ``we do it to protect the American people'', the public seems to buy it. And the minority Democrats are practically useless. Some have made a few squeaks about the need for swearing in the slippery Attorney General and the undesirability of permanent war.

But no one--apart from a very brief mention by Senator Leahy about spying on Quakers--sees fit so far to put this in terms of the very real administration spying activity seemingly aimed at squashing of dissent within the empire. Oh, just now Senator Feinstein is making some good points about how ``no one knows'' on what basis the executive and NSA decides who is a target. (Indeed, Justice O'Connor wrote in the decision Gonzales cites as the president's authority that ``never provided any court with the full criteria that it uses in classifying individuals as [enemy combatants]''.)

Therein lies the crux of the matter. The president has taken 911, the September 14, 2001 AUMF resolution, and later the Hamdi decision to seize the right to declare anyone he sees fit to be a legitimate Terror-War target against whom anything goes--including warrantless wiretapping, secret evidence, warrantless extra-judicial detention, and indefinite imprisonment of non-citizens and citizens alike. He claims its all legal and the Republicans agree. Outvoted, meek, and ineffective at explaining or unwilling to explain the dangers in the face of seeming public approval, the Democrats are made to look like a bunch of terrorist-sympathizers despite protestations to the contrary. End of story?

We'll see. Will the outlandish legal theories promoted by Gonzales soon extend the ``battlefield'' to bloggers, like me, who see America slipping away and write about it in opposition to the president? Hell, I note from my referrer logs that visitors to websites in Arabic sometimes click on links to this site. Does that mean, as the president says, ``Al-Qaida is calling'' me and I'm a target for surveillance? Or worse? For the record, I declare my disgust for acts of terror whether committed by Al-Qaida, US client states, or the US itself.

Friday garden blogging

February soaker


Moss green under downspout


Wet to the bone

Pouring rain, 4°C, gusty winds this afternoon. They're calling for 2.5 cm. It's kinda dark gray out there and those trees are spooky. This weather should be happening in late March or even later. It's not natural.

Dementia

Rumsfeld on ``The Long War'':

The United States is engaged in what could be a generational conflict akin to the Cold War, the kind of struggle that might last decades as allies work to root out terrorists across the globe and battle extremists who want to rule the world.

So ruling the world is bad unless they're the ones doing it. And the US ruling class & corporate media partners are upset when the Palestinians vote in their War Party!

In related news, the administration has tabled requests totalling $120 billion for its wars. It's good to know the Pentagon system of war-based corporate finance and theft will have a permanent organizing principle.