Monday, November 27, 2006

Dick Cheney’s Long Battle to Reinstitute Monarchy and the Divine Right of Kings (12:33 am)

Charlie Savage for the Boston Globe traces the history of Dick Cheney’s romance with Führerprinzip.

posted by Brian Zick | start the discussion

Sunday, November 26, 2006

TIME Magazine’s “list of the greatest and most influential records ever” (9:36 am)

No Pink Floyd. No Louis Armstrong. No Duke Ellington. No Crosby Stills & Nash. No Nat King Cole. No Frank Zappa. No Barbra Streisand. No Cream. No Janis Joplin. No Queen. No Roy Orbison. No Billy Holiday, No Buddy Holly. Nothing from before 1954 (No Paul Whiteman, no George Gershwin, no Cole Porter).

via Crooks and Liars

posted by Brian Zick | 1 comment

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Rumsfeld Personally Authorized Torture and Violation of Geneva Conventions In Writing (10:08 am)

Reuters reports

Former U.S. Army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski told Spain’s El Pais newspaper she had seen a letter apparently signed by Rumsfeld which allowed civilian contractors to use techniques such as sleep deprivation during interrogation.

Karpinski, who ran the prison until early 2004, said she saw a memorandum signed by Rumsfeld detailing the use of harsh interrogation methods.

“The handwritten signature was above his printed name and in the same handwriting in the margin was written: “Make sure this is accomplished”,” she told Saturday’s El Pais.

“The methods consisted of making prisoners stand for long periods, sleep deprivation … playing music at full volume, having to sit in uncomfortably … Rumsfeld authorized these specific techniques.”

The Geneva Convention says prisoners of war should suffer “no physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion” to secure information.
(…)
Rumsfeld also authorized the army to break the Geneva Conventions by not registering all prisoners, Karpinski said, explaining how she raised the case of one unregistered inmate with an aide to former U.S. commander Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez.

“We received a message from the Pentagon, from the Defense Secretary, ordering us to hold the prisoner without registering him. I now know this happened on various occasions.”

Karpinski said last week she was ready to testify against Rumsfeld, if a suit filed by civil rights groups in Germany over Abu Ghraib led to a full investigation.

That investigation in Germany would be for a war crimes prosecution.

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Chuck Hagel: Declare Iraq War Arrogance, Stupidity and Lying Was Noble and Get Out (9:50 am)

Nebraska GOP Senator Chuck Hagel wrote an op-ed in today’s WaPo.

There will be no victory or defeat for the United States in Iraq. These terms do not reflect the reality of what is going to happen there. The future of Iraq was always going to be determined by the Iraqis — not the Americans.
(…)
We have misunderstood, misread, misplanned and mismanaged our honorable intentions in Iraq with an arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam. Honorable intentions are not policies and plans. Iraq belongs to the 25 million Iraqis who live there. They will decide their fate and form of government.
(…)
The United States must begin planning for a phased troop withdrawal from Iraq. The cost of combat in Iraq in terms of American lives, dollars and world standing has been devastating. We’ve already spent more than $300 billion there to prosecute an almost four-year-old war and are still spending $8 billion per month. The United States has spent more than $500 billion on our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And our effort in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate, partly because we took our focus off the real terrorist threat, which was there, and not in Iraq.

We are destroying our force structure, which took 30 years to build. We’ve been funding this war dishonestly, mainly through supplemental appropriations, which minimizes responsible congressional oversight and allows the administration to duck tough questions in defending its policies. Congress has abdicated its oversight responsibility in the past four years.

It is not too late. The United States can still extricate itself honorably from an impending disaster in Iraq.

posted by Brian Zick | start the discussion

Friday, November 24, 2006

Iraq War 1347 Days Old On Sunday, Longer Than WWII (7:14 pm)

Edward Luce and Demetri Sevastopulo in the Financial Times report

On Sunday the Iraq war will enter its 1,347th day, thus overtaking the US’s involvement in the second world war.

Luce and Sevastopulo mark the occasion by examining the costs of the war, many of which have been intentionally kept hidden by the Bush administration.

Many argue that the true costs of Iraq remain skilfully concealed from the US public but cannot be deferred indefinitely. Unlike in Vietnam, where the draft lottery meant that members of the elite, such as John Kerry, the failed 2004 presidential candidate, served in uniform, the Iraq war has disproportionately drawn in people with few options beyond the military to improve their chances of escaping poverty.

Much of the human cost of the war has been kept out of sight, including the return of the dead given the Bush administration’s ban on the televising of bodybags.

But the extended tours of duty imposed on volunteer part-timers in the National Guard and Reserves as well as regular units has ruptured military morale, according to Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, Mr Bush’s first secretary of state.

As a result the Pentagon has been forced to dilute recruitment standards – waiving academic requirements and lifting the age limit from 35 to 40. “This is a war that is being fought by poor people while the rest of the country drives round in its SUVs barely noticing it is happening,” said Mr Wilkerson, who served in Vietnam.

Mr Campbell, a former naval officer, describes Iraq as a war that is being “funded by debt on a national credit card that is being financed by China”. America’s public debt has risen by more than a third to over $8,000bn (€6,240bn, £4,215bn) since the start of the Bush administration. China’s foreign reserves, mostly held in US treasury bonds, are close to $1,000bn.

via Steve Clemons

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Leahy Will Demand Classified Documents From Bush Administration (9:35 am)

David Johnston for the NY Times reports

Seeking information about detention of terrorism suspects, abuse of detainees and government secrecy, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are reviving dozens of demands for classified documents that until now have been rebuffed or ignored by the Justice Department and other agencies.
(…)
Mr. Leahy, who has said little about his plans for the committee, expressed hope for greater cooperation from the Bush administration, which he described as having been “obsessively secretive.” His aides have identified more than 65 requests he has made to the Justice Department or other agencies in recent years that have been rejected or permitted to languish without reply.

Now that they are about to control Congress, what he and other Democrats regard as a record of unresponsiveness has energized their renewal of longstanding requests for information about some of the administration’s most hidden and fiercely debated operations. In addition, other such requests by committee members deal with subjects like voter fraud, immigration and background inquiries on Supreme Court nominees.

posted by Brian Zick | start the discussion

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Rockefeller Plans “Cleanup” Oversight of Bush’s Warrantless Wiretapping and Secret CIA Prisons (7:51 pm)

Bob Constantini for CNN reports

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The incoming chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee says he will have a “cleanup agenda” ready when Democrats take power in January.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia said the agenda will include reviews of the Bush administration’s warrantless eavesdropping and the CIA’s secret prisons.

Rockefeller said he wants to correct what he called a “lack of oversight” by the committee that gave free rein to the Bush administration in the war on terror.

via David Kurtz at TPM

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YouTube Googlecide (10:46 am)

John Aravosis at AMERICAblog reports that YouTube has terminated his account. Because of alleged copyright infringement. As if a significant proportion of everything posted at YouTube somehow is not copyright infringed material. (John has a list of current home page highlighted favorites to underscore the point.)

Aravosis grants that infringement is a legitimate concern, but argues that the value of the exposure to the infringed may be much greater than the ordinary downside of copyright violation, and therefore negates such concern. He argues that YouTube - and infringement claimants - may collectively be cutting off their nose to spite their face.

But John neglects discussion of an enormous point in his favor, the Fair Use Exception to copyright law.

TITLE 17
§ 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in... read more