godammitkitty's blog

(From Hope & Onions)

On Tuesday, November 6, the US Senate Judiciary Committee voted 11-8 to recommend confirmation of Michael Mukasey (Pres. Bush's nominee for Attorney General). skdadl (POGGE) and I have been following this process very closely on the BnR message board. I've finally managed to compile our notes from Tuesday's session and 'enhance' them with several links to relevant documents and testimony at my not-so-live blogging site: Foul Deeds Will Rise

While Majority leader Sen. Harry Reid and Majority Whip, Sen. Dick Durbin are both vehemently opposed to his confirmation, there is only the slimmest of chances that he will be filibustered. Mukasey will almost certainly become the next Attorney General of the US. This, despite his unwillingness to characterize waterboarding as torture.

And yet, there is no question: waterboarding was designed to torture, as sure as any mock execution technique. The military knows this: In a bizarre feat of reverse-engineering, former Navy SEAL Malcolm Nance was tasked with studying such time tested torture techniques for his "Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape" (SERE) training program:

Once at SERE and tasked to rewrite the Navy SERE program for the first time since the Vietnam War, we incorporated interrogation and torture techniques from the Middle East, Latin America and South Asia into the curriculum. In the process, I studied hundreds of classified written reports, dozens of personal memoirs of American captives from the French-Indian Wars and the American Revolution to the Argentinean ‘Dirty War’ and Bosnia. There were endless hours of videotaped debriefings from World War Two, Korea, Vietnam and Gulf War POWs and interrogators.
[...]
Waterboarding is a torture technique. Period. There is no way to gloss over it or sugarcoat it. It has no justification outside of its limited role as a training demonstrator. Our service members have to learn that the will to survive requires them accept and understand that they may be subjected to torture, but that America is better than its enemies and it is one’s duty to trust in your nation and God, endure the hardships and return home with honor.

The full details of the hearing can be found over here, but I wanted to leave you with some important statements from the new conscience of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sheldon Whitehouse, the freshman Democratic Senator from Rhode Island (You gotta leave on an up note---even when the post is about f'g torture!):

America for centuries has been called a “shining city on a hill.” We are a lamp to other nations. A great Senator said “America is not a land, it’s a promise.”

Torture breaks that promise; extinguishes that lamp; darkens that city.

[...] There are practical concerns over whether torture actually works, whether it is sound, professional interrogation practice. I am not an expert, but experts seem to say it is not.

But the more important question is the one I asked earlier – whence cometh our strength as a nation?

Our strength comes from the fact that we stand for something.

Our strength comes from the aspirations of millions around the globe who want to be like us, who want their country to be like ours.

Our strength comes when we embody the hopes and dreams of mankind.

[...] What path will we follow? Will we continue America’s constant steady path toward the light?

Will we trust in our ideals? Will we recognize the strength that comes when men and women rise in villages and hamlets and barrios around the world and say, that is what I want my country to be like; that is the world I choose, and turn their faces toward our light.

Or, if I may borrow from Churchill, will we head down “the stairway which leads to a dark gulf. It is a fine broad stairway at the beginning, but after a bit the carpet ends. A little farther on there are only flagstones, and a little farther on still these break beneath your feet”? Will we join that gloomy historical line leading from the Inquisition, through the prisons of tyrant regimes, through gulags and dark cells, and through Saddam Hussein’s torture chambers? Will that be the path we choose?

Photo: Poster of a 1556 woodcut, "The Water Torture." The woodcut depicts "a prostrate man having his nose pinched and water poured down his throat (during the Spanish Inquisition)." The poster was displayed during a Nov. 1st Washington D.C. seminar hosted by human rights organizations called "Waterboarding and Other Forms of Torture." Credit: Melina Mara, Washington Post.

***Update: I fixed the link to the latest hearing 'not-so-live blogging'

(From Hope & Onions)

The US Senate Judiciary Committee continued its second day of confirmation proceedings for Judge Michael Mukasey, Bush's nominee for US Attorney General. After the committee had their crack at Mukasey, several witnesses dropped by to lend their thoughts and feelings about the Judge. You will find my summaries of Thursday afternoon's hearing over at this blog. This morning's hearings are available over here (yesterday's hearings here & here).

I have some more general thoughts I'd like to share with you about the substance of these hearings--stay tuned!

(From Hope & Onions)

The US Senate Judiciary Committee began Day 2 of its confirmation proceedings this morning for Judge Michael Mukasey, Bush's nominee for US Attorney General. I've 'published' my notes from this morning's proceedings over at this blog. You will find my summaries of yesterday's hearings here & here. As with yesterday's notes, I've attempted to add links wherever possible. I hope you find them useful!

This morning was a much tougher slog than yesterday--some of the Senators were speaking much too rapidly for my comfort (I'm lookin' at you, Sheldon!). Not that I can stay mad at Harrison Ford...er...Sen. Whitehouse, you understand ;)

These notes were first compiled on this message board, with the help of skdadl, my partner in all-things-Harrison-Ford ;)

(From Hope & Onions)

The US Senate Judiciary Committee began its confirmation proceedings this morning for Judge Michael Mukasey, Bush's nominee for US Attorney General.

Woo-doggy, was that a doozy of a hearing! I've posted my notes from this afternoon over here. I've made a modest effort to add links and annotate as much as possible.

(my notes from this morning's hearing can be found here)

(From Hope & Onions)

The US Senate Judiciary Committee began its confirmation proceedings this morning for Judge Michael Mukasey, Bush's nominee for US Attorney General. I've posted my notes from this morning's festivities (first compiled on this message board). I've added loads of links, in case anyone's interested.

I'll update the blog later tonight, with this afternoon's monkey-bizness ;)

(Mukasey photo courtesy of jurist.pitt.edu)

"Nobody shot at them and nobody attacked them. They (Blackwater) just started shooting people at random. Many people died right there. I got in my car and started driving away but they kept firing heavily at me. That's when my car flipped over. I lost consciousness then. They fired at least 24 bullets in my car, four of them hit me in the back."---Hassan Jabir, Iraqi citizen (speaking with the Real News Network following the September 16, 2007 Blackwater shootings in Baghdad; VIDEO)

"We're a private company, and there's a key word there -- private"---Erik Prince, CEO of Blackwater USA, responding to a question from Congressman Murphy (D-CT), US House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, October 2, 2007.

Yes, Blackwater USA has made the Big Time. Tuesday morning it was Lights! Camera! Hearings! for the private mercenary's security firm's 38 y/o CEO, Eric Prince.

Congressman Harry Waxman, the tireless Chairman of the US House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, presided over 3+ hours of Prince's testimony. While the committee was anxious to ask about the September 16th shootings of Iraqi civilians, they were constrained by the current US Dept. Justice investigation of same.

Make no mistake: there were plenty of other things to discuss. You see, after 6 years of constant war in Afghanistan and Iraq (and don't forget Haiti!), the US has found plenty of 'use' for a firm like Blackwater USA. In fact, the US government has found them so useful, they've all but put them on their speed-dial. "Break Glass in Case of Embarrassing Troop Shortfall"

And that's really the problem. It isn't just that the US is using Blackwater's 'security' personnel to supplant uniformed military service members. It's so much more than that, as the world's foremost (non-evil) Blackwater-expert, Jeremy Scahill discovered:

Need to guard an oil pipeline? Send Blackwater.

Are those Katrina evacuees gettin' ya down? Send Blackwater.

Too many I-leegals sneakin' into San Diego? Send Blackwater.

Oh! I almost forgot: Do you have a BS war you'd like to fight? Well, what if I told you that you could have the war of your dreams, without all those names read on the evening news?
Act now, sir, and we'll throw in what's left of Pinochet's old army and some death-squad veterans from Honduras. Yes, yes, I like to think of us as an 'Instant Coalition of the Willing.' We call this "The President's Package." Of course...

What? What's the catch?

Well...you understand, o'course, that we can't just give The President's Package away. Each of our guys is gonna run you 'bout 5x as much as one of your regular guys...

Aww, that's ok. You're Erik Prince! You're a Bush Pioneer!

Well, gee, that's great to hear, Mr. President. Now, there is one more thing...

Oh. Right...don't you worry about that. I'll hide you guys under the State Department. Nobody ever digs around over there, anywayz. And Bremer? Ya, he's m'boy! I'll make sure he's gotcha covered. Frankly, I can't see what could possi-Bly go wrong...

Yeah. Well...here we are, it's October 2007 and The Prince is before Waxman's Oversight Committee. Personally, I couldn't wait to hear what this guy had to say for himself, so I sat, and watched, and listened, and...typed for over 3 hours. By mid-afternoon I realized I had very nearly transcribed the testimony! And while I was tapping away in the BnR war thread (well, one of our war threads), my dear colleague skdadl was equally busy reporting on the Senate Judiciary hearing in our 'prosecutor purge' thread. With some gentle nudging from Alison@Creekside, I decided that it wouldn't be a bad idea to copy my rough Prince/Blackwater notes into my poor, neglected blog :)

This is NOT a true transcript. I did mah best, but tis rife wif tpyos. I have added links where I feel they're most necessary. If you're not American, don't feel left out: please make sure you read about Blackwater's role in training NATO members, like, oh...I dunno...CANADA!

To proceed to my annotated notes and rough-transcript: I bring you my new sub-blog, "Foul deeds will rise"

Oh! And please take a moment to cast your mind back to Spring 2006...

April 10, 2006: President Bush takes a question from a student (VIDEO HERE)

Q Thank you, Mr. President. It's an honor to have you here. I'm a first-year student in South Asia studies. My question is in regards to private military contractors. Uniform Code of Military Justice does not apply to these contractors in Iraq. I asked your Secretary of Defense a couple months ago what law governs their actions.
THE PRESIDENT: I was going to ask him. Go ahead. (Laughter.) Help. (Laughter.)
Q I was hoping your answer might be a little more specific. (Laughter.) Mr. Rumsfeld answered that Iraq has its own domestic laws which he assumed applied to those private military contractors. However, Iraq is clearly not currently capable of enforcing its laws, much less against -- over our American military contractors. I would submit to you that in this case, this is one case that privatization is not a solution. And, Mr. President, how do you propose to bring private military contractors under a system of law?
THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that very much. I wasn't kidding -- (laughter.) I was going to -- I pick up the phone and say, Mr. Secretary, I've got an interesting question. (Laughter.) This is what delegation -- I don't mean to be dodging the question, although it's kind of convenient in this case, but never -- (laughter.) I really will -- I'm going to call the Secretary and say you brought up a very valid question, and what are we doing about it? That's how I work. I'm -- thanks. (Laughter.)

January 14, 2007: Bush speaking to Scott Pelley, 60 Minutes
I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude, and I believe most Iraqis express that. I mean, the people understand that we've endured great sacrifice to help them. That's the problem here in America. They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that's significant enough in Iraq.

(April 2006 video via Scruffy Dan)

(X-posted at Hope & Onions)

Note: this is an update to my Feb and March 2007 blog-posts about the Yourdkhanis
Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales have also followed their story very closely.
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This is such a tremendous relief! Kevin Yourdkhani & his family are allowed to remain in Canada! Last February, a 9 year-old Canadian boy was imprisoned with his Iranian parents in a Texas 'immigration' prison. Their story was followed with tremendous anxiety and interest in many Canadian blogs, including this one (AnnaMarie and Liberal Catnip were particular relentless, bless them!!).

The Yourdkhanis were held in what could only be described as inhumane conditions for 45 days, before receiving a temporary (6 month) permit from the Canadian Minister of Immigration and Citizenship, Diane Finley. Knowing the permit expired on Sept 20, 2007, I anxiously setup a Google Alert for 'Yourdkhani'...and waited.

Well: October 2nd rolled around and, Boy! Did my Inbox a-jingle with the 'alert' I've been waiting for...the Yourdkhanis have received "an approval in principle" for permanent residence (Unnati Gandhi, G&M):

"Approval in principle is the difficult step to meet and that normally takes two or three years," Andrew Brouwer [their lawyer] said. "The remaining step is to do the security, criminality and medical screening ... and I don't anticipate any problems with that."

Majid Yourdkhani and Masomeh Alibegi could become permanent residents as early as next month. "I'm very happy now because my mom and my dad is happy," Kevin said yesterday.

The decision marks a new beginning for the family who, just months ago, had found themselves in international limbo.

Now? Kevin is back in school, having missed 2 years. His dad and mom can now apply for an "open work permit." (Mr. Yourdkhani has been working as a temp in a pizza place since arriving in Canada)

There is a sad strain to Kevin's return to Canada after such a prolonged absence. He couldn't stay at his old school, due to the stigma of jail, but he appears to be quite happy in his new "digs:"

He says he is happy at his new school and likes his teacher.

"It's way better. Nobody knows about ... anything that happened. I can relax a little bit. I have got some new friends."

Boy, does that do my heart good. Congratulations, Kevin & family!

P.S. AnnaMarie is very happy, too. :)
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X-posted at Hope & Onions

Tonight, attendees of the Toronto Intrnational Film Festival will be treated to a very special short film by Naomi Klein. The premiere of the ~6 min film has been timed to coincide with the release of Klein's much anticipated book, "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism."

If you found this short-film upsetting to watch, you are in excellent company: Klein herself found it "disturbing." Yes, despite years of dogged research for The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein has not inured herself to the subject matter. And who can blame her? Let's take a quick look at some of the ground covered by the book (from Random House of Canada; emphasis added):

From Chile to China to Iraq, torture has been a silent partner in the global free market crusade. But torture is more than a tool used to enforce unwanted policies on rebellious peoples; it is also a metaphor of the shock doctrine’s underlying logic. Torture, or in CIA language "coercive interrogation," is a set of techniques designed to put prisoners into a state of deep disorientation and shock in order to force them to make concessions against their will. ...The shock doctrine mimics this process precisely, attempting to achieve on a mass scale what torture does one on one in the interrogation cell. ...The original disaster – the coup, the terrorist attack, the market meltdown, the war, the tsunami, the hurricane – puts the entire population into a state of collective shock. The falling bombs, the bursts of terror, the pounding winds serve to soften up whole societies much as the blaring music and blows in the torture cells soften up prisoners. Like the terrorized prisoner who gives up the names of comrades and renounces his faith, shocked societies often give up things they would otherwise fiercely protect.
—from Shock Doctrine

Torture. Bombs. Coups. Disasters. As a journalist, Naomi Klein has written about all of these things, in her work as a reporter. What is almost unique about Klein is that, while many other journalists have enriched our understanding of such events in our recent history, Klein provides us with the back story. The context. The history. The motives.

When post-invasion Iraq erupted in "looting" and chaos, Klein saw another, more insidious type of robbery at play. In "Baghdad Year Zero," Klein reached into the black, ugly heart of the matter, visiting Iraq to document the so-called reconstruction. And she found that nothing of the kind was happening. The Wolfowitz/American Enterprise Institute's free-market utopia was turning into a nightmare. The bombed-out Tabula Rosa (blank slate) that was post-Saddam Iraq was supposed to be the perfect venue in which to test their neocon/neolib fantasies. A kind of "economic shock-therapy" where the citizens would be too dazed, too confused and too desperate to object to their experiments.

When the first images of tortured Abu Ghraib prisoners appeared in the New Yorker and on 60 minutes, the American media exploded in an indignant chorus of "Never Before." Naomi Klein was there to remind us of The School of the Americas and The Phoenix Program. In Shock Doctrine, Klein promises to build on the important research unearthed by Dr. Alfred McCoy, including a treatment of the sinister McGill/CIA research performed in the 1950s.

When the South Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina resulted in devastating losses of life and livelihoods, Klein was there to document the unseen secondary disasters. After the December 2004 tsunami, Klein observed that the world's loan sharks (the World Bank and the IMF) were using the 'opportunity' presented by the disaster to "push through its cookie-cutter policies" and essentially impose privatization of State services on the disoriented survivors. After Katrina? Klein spoke with Jordan Flaherty, a New Orleans-based labour organizer, who told her, "Now the developers have their big chance to disperse the obstacle to gentrification--poor people." In Shock Doctrine, Klein further connects the exploitation of natural disasters by the Blackwaters and Bechtels and Halliburtons.

Naomi Klein has proved that she has the scholarly patience and rigour to make these important connections. Where others see only 'news,' Klein sees a multi-act play--often with many hidden actors.

And she sees hope. In her speech to the American Sociological Association, Klein concluded that--despite everything--another world is possible:

We who say we believe in this other world need to know that we are not losers. We did not lose the battle of ideas. We were not outsmarted, and we were not out-argued. We lost because we were crushed. Sometimes we were crushed by army tanks, and sometimes we were crushed by think tanks. And by think tanks, I mean the people who are paid to think by the makers of tanks. Now, most effective we have seen is when the army tanks and the think tanks team up. The quest to impose a single world market has casualties now in the millions, from Chile then to Iraq today. These blueprints for another world were crushed and disappeared because they are popular and because, when tried, they work. They're popular because they have the power to give millions of people lives with dignity, with the basics guaranteed. They are dangerous because they put real limits on the rich, who respond accordingly. Understanding this history, understanding that we never lost the battle of ideas, that we only lost a series of dirty wars, is key to building the confidence that we lack, to igniting the passionate intensity that we need.

I am very much looking forward to reading The Shock Doctrine. I could really use some more hope with my onions, lately!

-=-=-=-=-=-=-
About the video: Film Description and Director Biography
In the short The Shock Doctrine, author Naomi Klein and filmmakers Alfonso and Jonás Cuarón team up for an elegant illustration of a powerful idea: massive political change follows massive crisis, and it is never by accident. (Cameron Bailey)

Jonás Cuarón has directed the feature Año Uña (07) and the shorts Un Disparejo (Ro-Sham-Bo) (03) and The Shock Doctrine (co-director, 07).

Alfonso Cuarón was born in Mexico City and has directed several internationally acclaimed films, including Y Tu Mamá También (01), Children of Men (06) and The Shock Doctrine (co-director, 07).

Naomi Klein was born in Montreal. She wrote the documentary feature The Take (04). The Shock Doctrine (07) is a film by Klein and Alfonso and Jonás Cuarón.

DISCLOSURE: I have promised to review The Shock Doctrine, which I will do in the coming days. In return for this, and for posting the video, Random House has offered to send me a free copy of the book.

X-posted at Hope & Onions

It just occurred to me tonight that Janeane was correct all along. You'll see what I mean ;)
(X-posted at Hope & Onions)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

I get it now. I have unravelled one of the great, lingering mysteries of our times. A great weight has lifted. The clouds have parted.

Be patient. I promise you it'll be worth it.

I have finally figured out WTF Condi Rice was talkin' about, that fine spring day in 2004, when she finally deigned to testify before the 911 commission.

You will recall that her appearance was no small beer, and came only after months of relentless shaming. You will also recall that famous--no doubt inadvertent--confession regarding the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing (more on that in my "911 Bookends" post, if you're so inclined). But there was something else amiss at that day's testimony: apart from her attempts to persuade the commissioners that Bush & friends had done their due diligence pre-911, there was something else that brought strange new wrinkles to my nose and brow.* (from her opening statement; emphasis added):

We also moved to develop a new and comprehensive strategy to try and eliminate the al-Qaida network. President Bush understood the threat, and he understood its importance. He made clear to us that he did not want to respond to al-Qaida one attack at a time. He told me he was tired of swatting flies.

Flies, you say? Commissioner Lee Hamilton was also curious: what exactly did Bush and Rice do to protect the US from the gathering threat. Hamilton noted, for example:

Your public statements focused largely on China and Russia and missile defence. You did make comments on terrorism, but they were connected _ the link between terrorism and the rogue regimes, like North Korea and Iran and Iraq.

And by our count here, there were some 100 meetings by the national security principals before the first meeting was held on terrorism, September 4th. And General Shelton, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said that terrorism had been pushed farther to the back burner.

So what did she do exactly? Rice responded with a meandering statement, testifying that Bush really wanted to do something about bin Laden, but his gosh-dern cab'net wasn't giving him any plans. She concluded:

All that I can tell you is that what the president wanted was a plan to eliminate al-Qaida so he could stop swatting at flies.

And so it continued, with the commissioners taking their respective turns with the witness. And then came Commissioner and Fmr. Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Nebraska):

KERREY: You've used the phrase a number of times, and I'm hoping with my question to disabuse you of using it in the future. You said the president was tired of swatting flies. Can you tell me one example where the president swatted a fly when it came to Al Qaida prior to 9/11?

RICE: I think what the president was speaking to was...

KERREY: No, no. What fly had he swatted?

RICE: Well, the disruptions abroad was what he was really focusing on...

KERREY: No, no...

RICE: ... when the CIA would go after Abu Zubaydah...[**]

KERREY: He hadn't swatted...

RICE: ... or go after this guy...

KERREY: Dr. Rice, we didn't...

RICE: That was what was meant.

KERREY: We only swatted a fly once on the 20th of August 1998. We didn't swat any flies afterwards. How the hell could he be tired?

RICE: We swatted at _ I think he felt that what the agency was doing was going after individual terrorists here and there, and that's what he meant by swatting flies. It was simply a figure of speech.

Fly, flies, swatting...gah! I admit it: I was distracted by the image of Bush being distracted by swarms of flies. My brain's like that, unfortunately.

And then, three years hence, we meet Robert Draper, Bush biographer.

Now, I should hasten to add that I have not read 'Dead Certain.' Like many of you, I have read several excerpts and summaries, since the embargo was lifted on the weekend: how Bush put the shiv in Jerry Bremer's back, or how Bush likes to cry his evil l'il eyes out, just for two examples. Very interesting...very interesting indeed.

But then...then there was this little nugget:

Sitting in an anteroom of the Oval Office, [Bush] eschewed the more formal White House menu for comfort food — a low-fat hotdog and ice cream — and bitingly told an aide who peeked in on the session that his time with Mr. Draper was “worthless anyway.”

But as Mr. Draper described it, and as the transcripts show, Mr. Bush warmed up considerably over the intervening interviews, chewing on an unlit cigar, jubilantly swatting at flies between making solemn points, propping his feet up on a table or stopping him at points to say emphatically, “I want you to get this” or “I want this damn book to be right.”

And then the penny, she dropped. Just like that. Bush has been literally swatting at flies.

Not bin Laden. Not al Zawahiri.

Flies. Like, for 6 1/2 years...and counting.

You see? I promised you that it would all make sense. And, alas, it does.

*I would come to practise this particular wrinkling pattern with much regularity in the intervening years of the Bush dynasty.

**GDK note: you mean one of the guys you tortured half to death?