Editorial: Bully Boy's Wars

The AP reports that "bombs" in Baghdad and Kirkuk today have already claimed the lives of "more than 60 people." On the Kirkuk bombing, BBC adds this: "In addition to the 20 who died, at least 92 people were wounded in the blast."

Or how about this bit of news from Friday:

"Iraq as a political project is finished," a top government official told Reuters -- anonymously because the coalition of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki remains committed in public to a U.S.-sponsored constitution preserving Iraq's unity.

"But the Iraqis want us there!" whine the uninformed. Iraqis have wanted us out for some time -- not surprising in an occupation, illegal or otherwise -- and anyone who's bothered to follow the polling or the events would have grasped that some time ago. But could it get any more clearer than Al Jazeera's Saturday report:

US forces have committed butchery in Iraq and should leave, the speaker of the country's parliament has said.
Mahmoud al-Mashhadani was speaking on Saturday at a UN-sponsored conference on transitional justice and reconciliation in Baghdad.
"Just get your hands off Iraq and the Iraqi people and Muslim countries, and everything will be all right," he said in a speech as the conference opened.

Still supporting the tragedy of the illegal war? Check out Australia's ABC:

A new report by US pressure group Human Rights Watch says American forces in Iraq continued to torture and abuse detainees after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in 2004.
The report flies in the face of claims by the US Defence Department that abuse of detainees was the work of a few bad apples acting on their own initiative.
Human Rights Watch senior researcher John Sifton says the the findings are the result of direct testimony from three former US soldiers about prisoners in American custody in Iraq between 2003 and 2005.

Feeling good? Thinking about the second bowl of Total? Us neither.

Iraq is the Bully Boy's illegal war. People die every day. Nearly 6,000 Iraqis in May and June according to the UN. Even the US military states that attacks in Baghdad are up 40% this month -- that's while the 'security' 'crackdown' is ongoing. Hasn't done much to promote safety.
But then the illegal war hasn't done much for the average Iraqi or the average America.

Still we're there. Still Congress makes excuses. Still corporate media carries the water for the adminstration.

Yet that is only one war of the Bully Boy's.

Want to talk domestic?

Well there's Christine Nelson and Alice McCabe who, the AP reports, were arrested for the 'crimes' of wearing a Kerry-Edwards button and holding a "No More War" sign -- two teachers who thought they had a right to use the promised freedom of speech only to be handcuffed, arrested and strip searched.

Isolated incident? From the AP:

In the months before the 2004 election, dozens of people across the nation were banished from or arrested at Bush political rallies, some for heckling the president, others simply for holding signs or wearing clothing that expressed opposition to the war and administration policies.
Similar things have happened at official, taxpayer-funded, presidential visits, before and after the election. Some targeted by security have been escorted from events, while others have been arrested and charged with misdemeanors that were later dropped by local prosecutors.

It's a war on freedom of speech, a war on the rights to dissent. And it didn't pop up this year, last year or in 2004. It's something the administration has practiced and encouraged. Whether it's the Denver Three being kicked out of a public event for having a Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker on their car, or Cindy Sheehan being pulled out of a Bully Boy address despite being invited by a member of Congress, the tone was set from above.

Want to go international again? How about the Bully Boy's war on the rule of the law (and war on the American judiciary system) which allowed the disgrace that is Guantamo Bay (he wants to close it, he assures us, all those years later if he only could . . .) to continue (while Congress looked the other way and seems determined to once again sell out the law and our system of justice just to prove how 'tough' they are)?

We let Cheney and Bully Boy and Ashcroft and Gonzales say they were 'dangerous men' held there (even when they were minors) and let them get away with it. Dangerous? In the fearful, perverted eyes of the administration possibly, but to the rest of the world?

Take this from AP:

A Kuwaiti court Saturday upheld the acquittal of five returnees from Guantanomo on terror-related charges.
In May, a criminal court had cleared the men of belonging to and collecting money for the al-Qaida terror network, but the prosecution appealed the ruling.
U.S. officials freed the five men from the prison in Cuba in November. On their return to Kuwait, they were arrested and put on trial.

"Well that's one instance! And we acted with the best intentions and honorably!" The willingness to trust is misplaced. From the Center for Constitutional Rights:

NEW YORK, July 10, 2006 -- Today the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) published the first report citing declassified primary accounts from current detainees and their American attorneys to detail torture and inhumane treatment by U.S. officials at Guantánamo Bay prison.
The "Report on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment of Prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba" is the most comprehensive primary source account ever published of ongoing abuse at the prison, detailing systematic physical, psychological, sexual, medical and religious abuse of detainees, filling 51 pages and 279 footnotes. The report is particularly significant in light of the Supreme Court's recent Hamdan decision because it catalogues conduct by U.S. officials in violation of the Geneva Conventions, which the court applied to detainees, and analyzes the administration's attempt to create a "legal black hole" for enemy combatants in sections discussing the administration’s liability concerns regarding conduct at the base Geneva, war crimes, and the forthcoming revisions to the Army Field Manual.
"This report authoritatively documents the Bush Administration's systematic human rights abuses at Guantánamo. I think the torture and abuse detailed here will shock Congress and the American public because it reveals a lawless, immoral and ineffective detention facility and undermines the administration's increasingly desperate attempts to lie about what is happening down there," said CCR Legal Director Bill Goodman. "This report tells a story of abuse and the betrayal of our laws at the highest levels of government, which is why the Supreme Court just had to step in and order the President to treat detainees humanely and provide due process. Before Congress rushes to give the President cover with unnecessary new legislation, I hope it will review the record and provide real oversight, starting with an independent investigation of the base," he added.
The report is available at www.ccr-ny.org/torturereport, printed copies are available upon request, and selected excerpts are below. CCR represents over 200 detainees at Guantánamo and it won the 2004 Supreme Court decision establishing the detainees rights to challenge their detention.

Legal black hole. Held for how long and never charged?

"We have got to wake up in America," Dalia Hashad of Amnesty International (expressing her own opinion and not necessarily those of the organization) said on WBAI's Law and Disorder last month (Hashad is a co-host of the Monday program) and that remains one of the most truthful critiques we've heard.

What does it take for America to wake up?

The Insanity crowd dogs on Maureen Dowd for a column about a friend who thinks we're in danger of losing liberties under the Bully Boy -- a 2002 column that makes Dowd's friend appear a Cassandra of modern times.


Oh well, at least, scared chickens that we've become, we're safe right? Right? Andrew Miga reported last week:

Undercover government investigators purchased sensitive surplus military equipment such as launcher mounts for shoulder-fired missiles and guided missile radar test sets from a Defense Department contractor.

Let's repeat "from a Defense Department contractor." Safer?

We've watched as a lot of liberties have been trampled on. We don't have much to show for it and, honestly, we shouldn't. If we're so stupid as to give up our rights for some illusionary promise of 'safety' maybe we're not mature enough to have them?

Warrantless, illegal spying, circumventing the rubber stamp court that is FISA? We're okay with it if it's for 'terror' prevention say many Americans. Cowering in fear, giving up everything that was fought for this in the country. Fought not just on a military battlefield -- the way those who glorify the military today -- but in the courts, in the Congress, on the streets. After the abuses of the Watergate era, we were supposed to be smarter and wiser (like we were supposed to be smarter after the interment of the Japanese-Americans during WWII) but we aren't. Bully Boy smirks 'terror' and we go giddy with fear (in a very masochistic manner), whimpering, "Save us, Big Daddy, save us!"

From the AP via Truth Out:

A federal judge Thursday refused to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the Bush administration's domestic spying program, rejecting government claims that allowing the case to go forward could expose state secrets and jeopardize the war on terror.
U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker said the warrantless eavesdropping has been so widely reported that there appears to be no danger of spilling secrets.
Dozens of lawsuits alleging that telecommunications companies and the government are illegally intercepting Americans' communications without warrants have been filed. This is the first time a judge has ruled on the government's claim of a "state secrets privilege."
"It might appear that none of the subject matter in this litigation could be considered a secret given that the alleged surveillance programs have been so widely reported in the media," Walker said.

The courts stand up and say the issue deserves public scrutiny and our 'brave' Congress? From the National Lawyers Guild's "THE NLG STRONGLY OPPOSES THE SPECTER-CHENEY NSA BILL" (in full, it's that important and we'll assume that's okay since it's a press release):

The National Lawyers Guild strongly opposes the new legislation offered by the Senate Intelligence Committee, a result of negotiation by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) and the White House.
The proposed bill would allow the President to unilaterally compel transfer of all pending lawsuits challenging the legality of the NSA's warrant-less surveillance program to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Challenges to the NSA Program have been filed by NLG lawyers, one in New York in conjunction with the Center for Constitutional Rights, the other in Portland, Oregon on behalf of an Islamic charity and its attorneys. Similar challenges have been brought in Detroit by the ACLU in Detroit and in San Francisco by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
"The Specter-Cheney Bill is not a compromise- the administration is not obliged to give up anything while the American people sacrifice meaningful judicial review of an illegal program" said NLG attorney Ashlee Albies.
The bill would transfer all pending challenges to the program to a secret court that only hears argument from one side--the government. It would also drastically reduce judicial and Congressional oversight of the NSA's warrant-less domestic spying, allowing the Executive Branch to eavesdrop on Americans without restraint. This program is illegal under existing laws and violates the 4th Amendment warrant and probable cause requirements.
"Congress should not reward this Administration’s violations of existing law by condoning this program and allowing it to continue" said Steven Goldberg, an NLG attorney working on the Portland case. "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales recently acknowledged the President blocked an Office of Professional Responsibility investigation of the program, and now this administration is trying to block any meaningful judicial review of the program."
The NLG urges people to take action. Please contact your senators and let them know you do not support this bill. Contact your local newspapers and express your opposition to the gutting of the 4th Amendment.

Think they'd learn, Congress, after the Supreme Court ruled against the administration (and the Graham-Levin amendment)? You'd be wrong.

And we haven't even touched on Afghanistan, on the rumblings about Iran, on the free hand Bully Boy's apparently given Israel in their armed aggression targeting civilians, the Pentagon's spying on spying on peace activists, the roundups of Arabs and Arab-Americans after 9-11, the attacks on science, on health, go down the list.

But don't forget the signing statements. From Michael Ratner's speech at the March 2006 Left Forum conference:

December 30th of last year, the president signed the McCain Amendment. I consider that the other bookend to tyranny. The McCain Amendment, as you may recall, is the one that bans cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment -- a form of torture. It's passed because Congress said finally, "We're going to pass this." It's always been prohibited under US law but Congress said "We're going to do it again." They didn't do it in a great way, which I'll talk about, but they at least, did it.
It comes up to the president and the president says, "Well I never really liked this law, I didn't want Congress to pass this law, and I'm going to, in what's called a signing statement, I'm going to say what I think about this law."
I'm just going to paraphrase it, one paragraph, but if any of you have any questions about whether or not there's been a Coup d'eta in America, read that paragraph. You can't say you didn't know.
What it says, it says first: "That as the president, I can do what I think is necessary to protect national security" paraphrasing, "even if it means torturing people." I call that the Pinochet defense. So that signing order took place, it says first that: "I can do whatever I want in the name of national security, even torture people." Secondly, it says: "I can ignore congress completely, I don't care what they do, and, third, it says: "I can ignore the courts." So that's what I consider the other bookend and, in addition, of course, we have the bookend that took place at the end of, right now, it's continuing, the national security wiretapping, and that of course is where the president belives that he has the inherent authority to electronically surveil any of us.

(Ratner is the president of Center for Constitutional Rights and co-host of WBAI's Law and Disorder.)

Dalia Hashad is correct, America needs to wake up. Today, nearly every American can truthfully sing the opening line to Jefferson Airplane's "We Can Be Together:" "We are the outlaws in the eyes of America." Or at least the in the eyes of the administration. It's past time that the Bully Boy was held accountable by Congress, that they dispensed with the scraping and worshipping and started defending the Constitution. And it's past time that we started demanding that our representatives (regardless of party) stood up to these repeated attacks on the America system of democracy. Support the troops? How about the supporting the damn Constitution?

How about putting a bumper sticker on your car for that?