Torture-monger John Yoo's new book, 'Crisis and Command' is on Amazon now, and merry prankster General JC Christian and his supporters have managed to make his subversive review of the book the "most helpful" one among the reader reviews, and therefore the first one people read.
Here's a taste:
Cheney knew what had to be done. Saddam had to be tied to Al Qaeda. As a serious man, he understood that if evidence of such a tie was unavailable, it had to be created. Detainees would need to be coerced into making false confessions. It would require torture, an act that was considered unconstitutional at the time. Cheney turned to another serious man, Yoo--a man who would later tell Congress that the President can legally order a suspect to be burned alive or that his children be tortured--to write a justification for ignoring the Fifth and Eighth Amendments.
Yoo served the Dark Lord well by not only justifying torture but by destroying the Fourth Amendment to allow domestic spying as well.
I'm giving this book five stars--not because it is well argued or well written (it isn't) but because, like Yoo, I want to help shape our nation according to Lord Cheney's righteously Stalinesque vision.
Be sure to visit Amazon and give JC's review a 'very helpful' vote.
A professor at UC Berkeley has written a letter to the chancellor asking him to fire "torture memo" author John Yoo for professional misconduct and for violating professional ethics for writing the aforementioned document.
Professor J Bradford Delong makes an incontrovertible case, well worth a read. Nice to see someone defending principles and values (both in the law and the academy) for a change instead of flouting them.
There's a move afoot now to find something during the last eight years that was not a total failure, and some on the right (and the neocon left) are landing on the 'surge.'
Peter Beinart, editor of the New Republic, is one of those supposed lefties. He wrote a column recently in the Washington Post demanding that everyone admit that the surge worked. Publius at Obsidian Wings responds:
At first glance, Beinart's request seems reasonable. Democrats - particularly younger ones - should admit that the surge was correct and that it represented Bush's "finest hour." Well, I don't.
Here's what's really going on underneath Beinart's reasonable sounding column. Beinart has been - and remains - committed to the idea that the use of force to solve problems is a good manly thing that Democrats should embrace. The problem, of course, is that Exhibit A of his argument - Iraq - didn't turn out so well. (To his credit, he openly admits this point).
He still, though, wants to salvage his larger argument that force is good. In that sense, his surge cheerleading is sort of like grabbing the ball after the game is over and saying, "See, I win. Force can be good."
On the merits, I think Marc Lynch sarcastically asks the right question: "[P]erhaps we could have another round of arguments as to whether the surge brigades arriving in the spring of 2007 caused the Sunni turn against al-Qaeda in the fall of 2006?"
But there is a serious point here. As bad as the Iraq War was, Beinart's general worldview is arguably more dangerous. That's because if the public accepts the Beinart worldview that force is usually the answer, then we're destined to keep fighting new wars that solve no problems, but make people feel temporarily hairy-chested. One would hope we had learned more from Iraq.
In a conversation that stretched to 75 minutes - and which Rice seemed reluctant to end - the secretary of state said she was counting the hours until Jan. 20. But she yielded little ground in defense of her record or the administration's performance over the past eight years. After being peppered with questions about regrets, she joked, "Aren't you going to say, 'Aren't you thrilled that . . .?' " [...]
Arguing that Iraq shows signs of becoming an inclusive state - it even "declared Christmas a national holiday" - Rice said that if the country eventually emerges as a democratic, multiethnic state that has friendly ties with the United States, "that will be more important than what anybody thought in 2002 or 2003."
Amanda Terkel at Think Progress notes, "For the record, the United States has declared only Christian holidays as national holidays."
President Bush could pardon officials involved in brutal interrogations -- but he may also face a sweeping investigation under the new president.
Nov. 13, 2008 | WASHINGTON -- With growing talk in Washington that President Bush may be considering an unprecedented "blanket pardon" for people involved in his administration's brutal interrogation policies, advisors to Barack Obama are pressing ahead with plans for a nonpartisan commission to investigate alleged abuses under Bush.
The Obama plan, first revealed by Salon in August, would emphasize fact-finding investigation over prosecution. It is gaining currency in Washington as Obama advisors begin to coordinate with Democrats in Congress on the proposal. The plan would not rule out future prosecutions, but would delay a decision on that matter until all essential facts can be unearthed. Between the time necessary for the investigative process and the daunting array of policy problems Obama will face upon taking office, any decision on prosecutions probably would not come until a second Obama presidential term, should there be one.
The proposed commission -- similar in thrust to a Democratic investigation proposal first uncovered by Salon in July -- would examine a broad scope of activities, including detention, torture and extraordinary rendition, the practice of snatching suspected terrorists off the street and whisking them off to a third country for abusive interrogations. The commission might also pry into the claims by the White House -- widely rejected by experienced interrogators -- that abusive interrogations are an effective and necessary intelligence tool.
Russia is against new U.N. Security Council measures targeting Iran, the foreign ministry said in a statement Saturday after the White House warned of a new round of sanctions.
The comments came after talks between majors powers over a fourth round of U.N. sanctions against Iran ended with no firm commitment on Friday.
At a meeting with senior diplomats from the United States, China, Britain, France and Germany on Friday, Russia said "it was against the development at this stage of additional measures in the U.N. Security Council," the statement said.
The foreign ministry statement, which comes as relations between Moscow and Washington are severely strained over Georgia, said that for now Moscow prefers dialogue with Tehran,
"On the Russian side, we underlined the necessity of continuing efforts to include Tehran in a constructive dialogue aimed at launching a process of talks," the ministry said.
"In this context we spoke against the development of extra measures by the U.N. Security Council at this stage."
The United States, Britain, France and Germany are pushing for harsher measures over Tehran's defiance of U.N. demands for full disclosure and a halt to uranium enrichment, which can have both civilian and military purposes.
