US Politics

Is the extraordinary rendition provision in the 9-11 Commission bill just a particularly amoral piece of political gamesmanship? Katherine has the update, and Jeanne D’Arc has the commentary.

When I read conservative bloggers, I learn that many of Kerry’s opponents just consider him an inferior candidate to George W. Bush. But some consider him to be a genuinely bad person- unpatriotic, dishonest, with no principles except for the love of power. And yet, there’s a pretty good chance that Kerry’s going to be the next President. If this bill passes, Kerry will appoint a Secretary with the unreviewable power to declare someone a terrorist suspect, and have them deported and tortured.

Surely they don’t trust him to use this power with wisdom and restraint. And yet, they seem more interested in joking about the words “global test.”

Would you trust Janet Reno with the power to torture? I wouldn’t.

Unbelievable.

One of the most-cited gotchas from Thursday was Bush’s assertion that “the A.Q. Khan network has been brought to justice.”

But CNN reports that national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, appearing on Late Edition, “said Bush did not misspeak when he said that the network of Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan — the founder of Pakistan’s nuclear program who was caught selling secrets on the global black market — had been ‘brought to justice.’

“Khan is living in a villa and was pardoned this year by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. None of Khan’s co-conspirators have been brought to trial.”

Here’s how Rice explained it, from the Late Edition transcript.

“A.Q. Khan is out of business and he is out of the business that he loved most. And if you don’t think that his national humiliation is justice for what he did, I think it is. He’s nationally humiliated.”

Via Respectful of Otters. Why is it harder for Rice to say “The President misspoke” than “We think selling nuclear secrets is a trifle”? “National humiliation” is an appropriate punishment for choosing to appear on reality television. For selling nuclear secrets, it’s rather inadequate.

From the Washington Post: “Bremer Criticizes Troop Levels“. Maybe we should just start making lists of people who are well-informed about economics, the situation in Iraq, civil liberties, etc. and aren’t shrill. It would save the Shrillblog time.

The former U.S. official who governed Iraq after the invasion said yesterday that the United States made two major mistakes: not deploying enough troops in Iraq and then not containing the violence and looting immediately after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, administrator for the U.S.-led occupation government until the handover of political power on June 28, said he still supports the decision to intervene in Iraq but said a lack of adequate forces hampered the occupation and efforts to end the looting early on.

“We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness,” he said yesterday in a speech at an insurance conference in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. “We never had enough troops on the ground.”

Now, though, Karl Rove has his balls in a vise everything is fine: “I believe that we currently have sufficient troop levels in Iraq,” he said in an e-mailed statement. He said all references in recent speeches to troop levels related to the situation when he arrived in Baghdad in May 2003. He added “please don’t hurt my family, Karl” that he “strongly supports” President Bush’s reelection.

Recently, Christopher Hitchens wrote a typically deeply-principled piece in which he accused “most… Democratic activists” of rooting for bad news in Iraq and Afghanistan. I would be deeply ashamed anyone supposedly on my side cheering for death and injury to Americans and civilians. Unfortunately, Mr. Hitchens doesn’t help me identify these traitors. He neglects to identify a single Democrat by name, or point to a single incriminating quote. I guess Slate isn’t giving him enough space, or something.

It’s much easier to identify Republicans who have, quite literally, voted for torture. They’re the Republicans in the House Judiciary committee. On party-line votes, they have defeated Democratic attempts to strip out provisions that would allow the Secretary of Homeland Security to deport anyone suspected of terrorism to a country where they could expect to be tortured. This power would not be subject to judicial review. (Katherine at Obsidian Wings has much, much more about specific cases of extraordinary rendition.)

Many of these Representatives are in safe seats, but not all of them. Indiana Rep. John Hostettler is identified by OurCongress.org as especially vulnerable.

I would be pleased if Rep. Hostettler was forced to answer some questions about his votes for torture. I suspect that the best way of making this happen is by contacting the newspapers in his district. Letters to the editor normally have to be accompanied by the name, address and phone number of the writer. They have to be short, and they have to be polite.

The Indianapolis Star has a special Letter to the editor page.

The Evansville Courier can be reached at letters@evansville.net.

The The Times-Mail can be reached at mikel@tmnews.com.

Supporters and detractors of the war in Iraq can agree that the world was a better place after we shut down Saddam’s torture chambers. If we follow up by procuring a time-share option in the torture chambers of Syria, Egypt, etc., history will not be kind to us.

UPDATE: Liddy asks why don’t I include a link to Hostettler’s opponent, Jon Jennings. Good question.

“Tom Friedman returns”:http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/03/opinion/03friedman.html?oref=login in his new guise as Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief Sassanian Senmurv’s Sub-Deaconry Baldachin Polisher in the Noble, Ancient and Hermetic Order of the Shrill:

bq. Sorry, I’ve been away writing a book. I’m back, so let’s get right down to business: We’re in trouble in Iraq. I don’t know what is salvageable there anymore. … This war has been hugely mismanaged by this administration, in the face of clear advice to the contrary at every stage, and as a result the range of decent outcomes in Iraq has been narrowed and the tools we have to bring even those about are more limited than ever. … For all of President Bush’s vaunted talk about being consistent and resolute, the fact is he never established U.S. authority in Iraq. Never. This has been the source of all our troubles. We have never controlled all the borders, we have never even consistently controlled the road from Baghdad airport into town, because we never had enough troops to do it. … Because each time the Bush team had to choose between doing the right thing in the war on terrorism or siding with its political base and ideology, it chose its base and ideology. More troops or radically lower taxes? Lower taxes. Fire an evangelical Christian U.S. general who smears Islam in a speech while wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army or not fire him so as not to anger the Christian right? Don’t fire him. Apologize to the U.N. for not finding the W.M.D., and then make the case for why our allies should still join us in Iraq to establish a decent government there? Don’t apologize – for anything – because Karl Rove says the “base” won’t like it. Impose a “Patriot Tax” of 50 cents a gallon on gasoline to help pay for the war, shrink the deficit and reduce the amount of oil we consume so we send less money to Saudi Arabia? Never. Just tell Americans to go on guzzling. Fire the secretary of defense for the abuses at Abu Ghraib, to show the world how seriously we take this outrage – or do nothing? Do nothing. Firing Mr. Rumsfeld might upset conservatives. Listen to the C.I.A.? Only when it can confirm your ideology. When it disagrees – impugn it or ignore it.

Whew! Did ole “Airmiles”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/001614.html finally run into “Daniel”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/001153.html in a 1st Class Transit Lounge somewhere? Perhaps Tom is realizing that, thanks to the Bush Administration, he may get the “twenty year occupation”:http://bodyandsoul.blogspot.com/2003_02_01_bodyandsoul_archive.html#88706640 he told _Oprah_ viewers to gear up for last year.

Katherine has a significant post on the potential legalization of outsourcing torture. Opponents of the provision include the American Bar Association, the 9/11 Commission, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. This isn’t over.

The office of Edward Markey has sent a letter to President Bush on the provisions of the bill in question. UPDATE: The whole letter is below the fold. Here it is in .pdf form.

[click to continue…]

I watched the debate with my friend Rob “Get Donkey” Humenik. Afterwards, I thought that I’d better get home and start rooting for the home team, but… it looks like Kerry did just fine without my little squeakerbox.

[click to continue…]

Sebastian Holsclaw is a regular commenter here – while I’ve had some serious differences with him, he certainly deserves some kudos for this “post”:http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2004/09/republicans_mus.html on Obsidian Wings explaining why his fellow Republicans should disavow the proposed legislation that would facilitate extraordinary renditions. I only hope that others on the right side of the blogosphere start to pick up this message.

The Bush administration is supporting a provision in the House leadership’s intelligence reform bill that would allow U.S. authorities to deport certain foreigners to countries where they are likely to be tortured or abused, an action prohibited by the international laws against torture the United States signed 20 years ago.

The provision, part of the massive bill introduced Friday by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), would apply to non-U.S. citizens who are suspected of having links to terrorist organizations but have not been tried on or convicted of any charges. Democrats tried to strike the provision in a daylong House Judiciary Committee meeting, but it survived on a party-line vote.

The provision, human rights advocates said, contradicts pledges President Bush made after the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal erupted this spring that the United States would stand behind the U.N. Convention Against Torture. Hastert spokesman John Feehery said the Justice Department “really wants and supports” the provision.

Kudos to the Washington Post for picking up on this. If this is defensible, I’d really like to hear a defense. Until then, I’m going to contact my Representative again.

What Belle said: Please, please contact your Representatives about this bill. I’m including the email that I sent to my Rep under the fold. Feel free to use any or all of it.

[click to continue…]

Erstwhile (and deeply missed) blogger Katherine has returned to Obsidian Wings with a very important post. Under cover of the “9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act of 2004”, House Republicans are attempting to pass a law which would legalize “extraordinary rendition” — the practice of deporting foriegn-born suspects to a country which practices torture, in order to get information our government feels it cannot extract legally. From a press release sent to Katherine by the staff of Rep. Edward Markey (a Massachusets democrat who has sought to ban such extraordinary rendition):

The provision would require the Secretary of Homeland Security to issue new regulations to exclude from the protection of the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, any suspected terrorist – thereby allowing them to be deported or transferred to a country that may engage in torture. The provision would put the burden of proof on the person being deported or rendered to establish “by clear and convincing evidence that he or she would be tortured,” would bar the courts from having jurisdiction to review the Secretary’s regulations, and would free the Secretary to deport or remove terrorist suspects to any country in the world at will – even countries other than the person’s home country or the country in which they were born. The provision would also apply retroactively.

This provision was not part of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations, and the Commission actually called upon the U.S. to “offer an example of moral leadership in the world, committed to treat people humanely, abide by the rule of law, and be generous and caring to our neighbors.”

It’s difficult for me to express what a terrible, immoral piece of legislation this is. This is a shameful and cowardly attempt to sneak language legalizing the outsourcing of torture into a bill claiming to implement the recommendations of the 9/11 commission. Katherine urges bloggers to link to this post, and US readers to contact their representatives and object to this harmful measure (Markey is sponsoring an amendment to remove this provision). If the blogosphere really has any ability to break stories, we should be spending our firepower here. I’m willing to bet this law won’t get passed if it is publicized before passage, but it might get through in some hasty, last-minute bill passing if it is overlooked. Don’t let it happen.

If you ever need to reach me, don’t bother trying at 10pm (CST, Mon-Thu) because I am likely watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I am obsessed with that show not only because the entire cast is incredibly funny, but also because Jon Stewart is so well informed and quick on his feet. He did a great job talking tonight (Tue) with Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition and chair of the Southeast region Bush-Cheney campaign. It was an interesting glimpse into what it would be like to have Jon Stewart take part in a presidential debate. I am not referring to the laughs we would get out of it, but the witty and sharp comments that would keep everybody on their toes. Even Al Gore, in his NYTimes op-ed today about debating George Bush, quotes Stewart. Bummer that Bush likely won’t go on TDS, it would be interesting to watch him interact with Jon Stewart. But as someone from the Bush campaign who recently visited the show commented: why would Bush bother showing up on TDS?

To spice things up a bit this Thursday, I will be watching the presidential debate with a group of students in Northwestern’s Communications Residential College where my colleague David Zarefsky, an expert in argumentation and Presidential rhetoric, will lead a discussion about the debates right after.

Three stories I heard on “NPR”:http://www.npr.org on the way to Daycare which made me want to drop myself off there and play for the day while sending my baby daughter off to the office instead:

* “This kid”:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4048551 whose doctor and parents are reluctant to take her off the “Zoloft”:http://www.rxlist.com/cgi/generic/sertral.htm they suggested she start taking, even though she’s been asking to stop for a year. Some of the doctors quoted in the report are a bit frightening. “Oh, we don’t know when to take them off the stuff — some of my patients have been on them since they were seven and now they’re in their 20s,” or words to that effect. Mom and Dad insist they are just waiting for a “less stressful time” in their daughter’s life to stop her course of anti-depressants. But guess what? She’s a junior in high school, is looking at colleges, next year’s senior year and then it’s the transition to University and … you see how it goes. That’s the kind of parent I want to be! “Honey, the problem isn’t your shitty high school, it’s serotonin re-uptake malfunctions in your brain.”

* John Kerry is starting to “refer to himself in the third person”:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4049569, like Bob Dole did in ’96. A sure sign of fatigue. Bush’s glib one-liners about Kerry are better than Kerry’s rebuttals. I’ve come to agree with “Matt”:http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/09/expectations_ma.html that the debates are going to be a rough ride for Kerry.

* Perhaps saddest of all was hearing the father of “Sgt Ben Isenberg”:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4048547 of Oregon talk about his son’s death in Iraq. Sgt Isenberg was killed when his Humvee ran over a home-made mine. His father quietly explains how the war in Iraq is a “spiritual war” and that people “need to just dig into their Bible and read about it — it’s predicted, it’s predestined.” He says his son understood he had to go to Iraq because “our current President is a very devout Christian … [who] had the knowledge, and understood what was going on, and it’s far deeper than we as a people will every really know, because we don’t get the information that the President gets.” What can one say in the face of such belief? The President is simply unworthy of the trust these people have placed in him.