This WaPo "Weapons" article, while mostly accurate, demonstrates one of the Washington Post's two favored propaganda techniques. Well, make that "Three" favorite propaganda techniques.
#1. Technique #1. of course is "say/write nothing; if we don't report it, we can pretend we didn't know!"
The ultimate example of this technique, of course, is the death camps of Hitler (and Stalin), where the "Good press in wartime" simply did NOT report, "Today, a trainload of victims from (Poland, Italy, France, etc., take your pick) arrived at camp _____; as with previous such trainloads, the victims will never be seen again." By NOT reporting, the victims simply DO_NOT_EXIST. DNE - a mathematical notation that is technique #1. in human propaganda.
OK, to get technical, we will expand our discussion of Propaganda Techniques to cover a few more categories:
#2. Technique #2., of course, would be "Accentuate the bravery and virtues of your side!"
#3. and the closely related third pillar of propaganda, Technique #3. ACCENTUATE the NEGATIVES of your opponents:
"They are evil, criminal, subhuman deviant scum! They breed like vermin, are treacherous liars, brutes, rapists, and murderers, and they will breed and devour resources and steal from good citizens, so to befoul our beloved motherland/fatherland/great nation/etc."
Which brings us up to the WASHINGTON POST's more sophisticated techniques, which are,
#4. Presents ALL issues in terms of a "He said, she said" format, or the "Horse race handicapping" that political pundits so favor over boring and tedious discussion of issues and policy.
For example, TORTURE. In the case of the Bush administration's CLEAR and UNAMBIGUOUS SUPPORT OF TORTURE, we can blend Technique #4. Straight into the more primordial step #3. "The terrorists deserved it! THE VICTIMS (of torture) ARE TO BLAME! And besides, it wasn't official policy - WATCH OUR KANGAROO COURT show-trials CONVICT little ol' female VOLUNTEER PRIVATES of 'abuse' - as their commanders GET PROMOTED for instigating the sadism and humiliation and dehumanization process in the first place!" THAT (those kangaroo court show trials - the ultimate 'he said/she said') PROVES that WE DIDN'T KNOW NUTHING 'bout TORTURE, we swear on a stack of bibles!"
Another excellent example of technique #4. would be the campaign of Al Gore vs George W. Bush in the summer of 2000, when the craven media - in complicit support of the RIGHT-WING TAX CUTS for BILLION-DOLLAR CORPORATIONS agenda, including tax rebates for media conglomerates, and further consolidation powers for those conglomerates -threw their entire editorial and 'news' weight behind that TAX CUTS agenda.
Thus instead of reporting "Texas Governor Bush SLASHED preschool, after-school, and healthcare for poor children in Texas, so to give Texas' WEALTHIEST CORPORATIONS HUGE TAX BREAKS," the WaPost instead wrote up the entire 2000 campaign as "Bush says this, Gore says that" even in cases where (for example) the Bush campaign was just making facts up, claiming progress in Texas public education (using misleading statistics to MASK the above-mentioned BUDGET CUTS) or nonexistent environmental programs, etc.
WHICH brings us up to technique #5, the technique of this WP "weapons" story.
#5. SOUND TECHNICAL, OFFICIAL, authoritative, informative - even if you might not be saying much.
In this case, "the United State AND Israel have been CAUGHT OFF GUARD... by the power and sophistication of the missiles and rockets of Hezbollah."
WELL, DUH!
Hezbollah targets have been on the RECEIVING END of US-made HELLFIRE, MAVERICK, and god-only-knows what other US missiles over the past decade, and in wartime, opponents tend to COPY each other's weaponry. In W.W.II a SINGLE technological advantage (radar, sonar, water-injection under high turbo boost; jet engines, swept wings, proximity fuses, etc.) could spell the difference between life and death. Opposing armies, navies, and airfleets WOULD COPY their enemies technology in months - W.W.II only lasted 4 years from official US involvement, so ALL of America's advance in radar, jet engines, and nuclear technology occurred in that brief time span.
Today, advanced surface-to-surface missiles are available on the open weapons market - indeed, America LOVES NOTHING MORE than trading weaponry (especially high-dollar systems) for ARAB PETRODOLLARS. (This week marks the Farnborough Air Show, where American weapons manufacturers join their European and Asian counterparts, TRYING their damnedest TO SELL THE MOST MURDEROUS weapons they can devise.)
SO, if US and Israeli analysts are "surprised" that Hezbollah has finally gotten their hands on some recent-model missiles, it is because they are living in a myopic, looking-glass dream world.
Even more to the point, in 1964 two powerful US Navy ships, operating in the "blue water" off the Vietnam coast, CLAIMED that they were attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats - and the US Navy, and America itself - used this phantom, NONEXISTENT ATTACK as an excuse to START A WAR.
Not exactly the US Navy's shinning moment of honor, the USS Lester Maddox and Turner Joy claiming "we were attacked by little ol' NVA plywood torpedo boats over the night! Really! Even if we do NOT have A SINGLE SCRATCH (much less wounded crew, much less battle damage) to point out as proof."
How did the mighty US Navy, and the even Mightier United States, use a NONEXISTENT ATTACK as an excuse to launch a war???
-ans: because the Navy truly was paranoid that NVA torpedo boats would be able to sink a US Navy destroyer, not with torpedoes, but with GUIDED MISSILES.
THAT was back in 1964.
So, today, the Washington Post is joining the Right-Wing chorus (Fox News: "All war, all the time") in trumpeting "IRAN SUPPLIES HEZBOLLAH TERRORISTS!"
We don't know exactly how much Iran supplies Hezbollah, but then again, we couldn't tell you the specific details of who supplied the Jewish Irgun terrorists who fought and bombed Arabs AND BRITISH officials to "win" Israel after WWII.
So, even a mild STEP BACK from today's events, to the long historical view, illustrates that, #1. the US blue water navy was paranoid of guided missile attacks - WAY BACK in 1964;
and, #2. IF the United State's excuse for attacking Iraq was that it had a sophisticated WMD capability in full production.... then it is pretty stupid to think that a well armed, funded, organized, and supplied militia hasn't tried to obtain 'off-the-shelf' surface-to-surface missiles.
THANKS, Washington Post, for your alarmist and oh-so UNINFORMATIVE article, that OMITS ANY HISTORICAL CONTEXT.
And all that technical gobbledygook that tells us so very little.
Arming of Hezbollah Reveals U.S. and Israeli Blind Spots
By MARK MAZZETTI and THOM SHANKER
Published: July 19, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/19/world/middleeast/19missile.html?ex=1310961600&en=f924f46388609f34&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
WASHINGTON, July 18 — The power and sophistication of the missile and rocket arsenal that Hezbollah has used in recent days has caught the United States and Israel off guard, and officials in both countries are just now learning the extent to which the militant group has succeeded in getting weapons from Iran and Syria.
While the Bush administration has stated that cracking down on weapons proliferation is one of its top priorities, the arming of Hezbollah shows the blind spots of American and other Western intelligence services in assessing the threat, officials from across those governments said.
American and Israeli officials said the successful attack last Friday on an Israeli naval vessel was the strongest evidence to date of direct support by Iran to Hezbollah. The attack was carried out with a sophisticated antiship cruise missile, the C-802, an Iranian-made variant of the Chinese Silkworm, an American intelligence official said.
At the same time, American and Israeli officials cautioned that they had found no evidence that Iranian operatives working in Lebanon launched the antiship missile themselves.
But neither Jerusalem nor Washington had any idea that Hezbollah had such a missile in its arsenal, the officials said, adding that the Israeli ship had not even activated its missile defense system because intelligence assessments had not identified a threat from such a radar-guided cruise missile.
They said they had also been surprised by the advances that Hezbollah had made in improving what had been crude rockets — for example, attaching cluster bombs as warheads, or filling an explosive shell with ball bearings that have devastating effect.
The Bush administration has long sought to focus attention on Iranian missile proliferation, and regularly discusses with journalists intelligence evidence of those activities. But American officials in Washington made clear this week that they were reluctant to detail Iran’s arming of Hezbollah in the current conflict.
The reason, according to officials across the government, was a desire by the Bush administration to contain the conflict to Israeli and Hezbollah forces, and not to enlarge the diplomatic tasks by making Iranian missile supplies, or even those of Syria, a central question for now.
Still, some officials in Washington admitted to being blindsided by the abilities of Hezbollah’s arsenal.
“You have to acknowledge the obvious — we’ve seen a new capability in striking the naval vessel and in the number of casualties that have been sustained from the Hezbollah missile attacks,” a Bush administration official said.
“In the past, we’d see three, four, maybe eight launches at any given time if Hezbollah was feeling feisty,” the official added. “Now we see them arriving in large clusters, and with a range and even certain accuracy we have not seen in the past.”
The officials interviewed agreed to discuss classified intelligence assessments about Hezbollah’s capabilities only on condition of anonymity.
While Iranian missile supplies to Hezbollah, either by sea or overland via Syria, were well known, officials said the current conflict also indicated that some of the rockets in Hezbollah’s arsenal — including a 220-millimeter rocket used in a deadly attack on a railway site in Haifa on Sunday — were built in Syria.
“The Israelis did forensics, and found several were Syrian-made,” said David Schenker, who this spring became a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy after four years working on Middle East issues at the Pentagon. “Everybody recognizes that Syria has played an important role in facilitating transshipment — but not supplying their own missiles to Hezbollah.”
Officials have since confirmed that the warhead on the Syrian rocket was filled with ball bearings — a method of destruction used frequently in suicide bombings but not in warhead technology.
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” said one Western intelligence official, speaking about the warhead.
But it was Friday’s successful launching of a C-802 cruise missile that most alarmed officials in Washington and Jerusalem.
Iran began buying dozens of those sophisticated antiship missiles from the Chinese during the 1990’s, until the United States pressured Beijing to cease the sales.
Until Friday, however, Western intelligence services did not know that Iran had managed to ship C-802 missiles to Hezbollah.
Officials said it was likely that Iran trained Hezbollah fighters on how to successfully fire and guide the missiles, and that members of Iran’s Al Quds force — the faction of the Revolutionary Guards that trains foreign forces — would not necessarily have to be on the scene to launch the C-802.
At the same time, some experts said Iran was not likely to deploy such a sophisticated weapon without also sending Revolutionary Guard crews with the expertise to fire the missile.
An administration official said intelligence reports have concluded that a small number of Iranians are currently operating in Lebanon, but the official declined to disclose their number or mission.
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Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Media Whore Howard Kurtz tries to pimp ME conflagueration as "Who is to blame? He said-she said" story...
DAMN YOU, media whore Howard Kurtz!
You are nothing but a WHORE at the WHORE WashPost. You are out there PIMPING B***S***, SLAPPING AROUND HONEST reporters (like Helen Thomas) while YOU COLLECT YOUR PAYCHECK LIKE A GOOD Nazi town official, "We have NO knowledge of that sprawling camp just outside town, the one with the smokestacks that smell of burned flesh and human soot."
In this case, Kurtz PRETENDS that the reporting on the Mideast at war is a "He said - she said story."
AS IF the TORTURE, LIES TO WAR, and QUAGMIRE in Iraq are somehow the fault of those reporters who have tried to contest the administration's voluminous lies and propaganda.
AS IF the Middle East blooming into all out war was an INEVITABLITY.
IF all-out WAR in the middle-east is SO DAMN INEVITABLE, WHY didn't Bush and Cheney run on "we promise to attack, invade, and occupy Iraq in 2003, and then EXPAND our war to the rest of the mideast in 2006" when they first ran for the White House....IN 2000?
It was then NO MYSTERY that Al Qaida wanted to ATTACK AMERICAN TARGETS - they HAD DONE SO, US embassies in Africa, Muslim extremist attacks on the NY World Trade Towers in 1993, and the US Navy destroyer USS Cole was attacked in Yemen in October of 2000... JUST as the Bush-Cheney-Rice-Powell-Rumsfeld team were finalizing their campaign strategy and plans for the November election just weeks later.
Indeed, to show how malevolent the Bush team was, October of 2000 was a PERFECT OPPORTUNITY to ATTACK the Clinton-Gore administration re the terror attack on the Cole... but this was one tactic the Bush team did not use very vocally in those final weeks of the 2000 campaign.
Why? Because Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and other members of the soon-to-be Bush administration had ALREADY SIGNED the PNAC Manifesto, calling for US military force to attack Iraq and expell the regime of Saddam Hussein from that country, and the PNACers (including Jeb Bush, the gov. of Florida and then candidate George W. Bush's brother) DID NOT WANT TO CREATE A FUSS about the "war on terror."
They wanted to WAIT until they had won (stole) the White House, and THEN they would RELENTLESSLY FIND AN EXCUSE to START A WAR AGAINST IRAQ. As a prelude to a war with Iran, leading to an eventual occupation of Afghanistan, and then, ultimately, to the very doorsteps of China and Russia, the oil-rich Central Asian "-stan" states like Uzbekistan and Kazkhstan.
THIS WAS THE HEART AND SOUL of the PNAC agenda, which Cheney, Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush, Wolfowitz, and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby HAD ALREADY SIGNED in 1997!
As we now know, their agenda of "Military strength and MORAL CLARITY" means siding with fiercely murderous rogues in the "war on terror" (Uzbekistan, etc.), IGNORING the ongoing genocide in Sudan, ENCOURAGING NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION in India (and, therefore, Pakistan), while using that problem - nuclear proliferation - as yet another excuse to talk about "PREVENTATIVE WAR," with the much-hoped for use of nuclear bunker busters against Iran.... oh yeah, and the DIEBOLDIZATION of the US voting process, a "PRIVATIZED" no receipt, NO VERIFICATION, NO RECOUNT vote system that is not only prone to hacking, BUT DESIGNED TO MAKE HACKING easy and inevitable. (In the 2004 election, EVERY SINGLE VOTING DISCREPENCY went FOR the campaign of George W. Bush.)
Mr. Howard Kurtz is GROSSLY IGNORANT, or CENSORS, ALL of the above facts and stories from his priorities list.
We, the United States of America, did NOT DECLARE WAR on the entire Mideast back in the summer of 2000, when George W. Bush was promising "A MORE HUMBLE FOREIGN POLICY."
BUT, our INTEL AGENCIES - the CIA, FBI, NSA, Hart-Rudman Commission on Terrorism, Gore Commission on Airline security... were ALL 'blinking red" about the threat of CONTINUED TERRORIST ATTACKS on American targets of opportunity.
SO.. how do we make a BEELINE from the "MORE HUMBLE FOREIGN POLICY" bush and cheney PROMISED us Americans in their 2000 campaign, to the NIGHTMARE that is unfolding today?
That's right... Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice DID NOTHING - NOT EVEN a General Traveller's Advisory - to warn American passengers, public, flight crews, or security of the "BLINKING RED LIGHTS" warning "bin Laden DETERMINED TO ATTACK IN AMERICA."
Then they COVERED UP, WHITEWASHED, STONEWALLED the ANTHRAX ATTACKS on Senator Partrick Leahy and Tom Daschle's offices. AS IF any self-respecting mass-murder-minded A-rab terrorits would target "wimpy-Tom" and *******Leahy... and INCLUDE A WARNING on the letter... when similar letters, sent to the White House, Pentagon, and more prominent targets in the Capitol, would have claimed dozens of lives.
THEN, of course, bush-cheney-rumsfeld launched their little CAKEWALK into Iraq. Remember Rumsfeld's statement, when asked how long the war would continue, he said "A few days, weeks. I don't imagine this war lasting beyond five or six weeks"??
Remember "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED"?
Remember ABU GHRAIB TORTURE PHOTOS
According to Howard Kurtz, ALL the above MUST BE THE FAULT of those who OPPOSE Mr. Bush and his two stolen elections.
<< Is it all Bush's fault?
Could the president have done something to prevent this? And why isn't he doing much now, other than using the S-word with Tony Blair in front of an open mike? (More on that in a moment.)
Our polarized political system simply doesn't allow for the idea that ancient enemies could be at war halfway around the world without the U.S. either bearing some responsibility or having the ability to shut it down. The White House must have miscalculated, not been engaged enough, screwed things up by invading Iraq. >>
Mr. Kurtz, you are a great example of a self-serving Media Whore, and furthermore your lies of ommission and commission give substance to the "anti-semitic" charge of a "JEWISH CONTROLLED MEDIA."
In case you didn't figure it out, THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ANCIENT ENEMIES ENGAGING IN A FIGHT, and the United States of America INSERTING ITSELF INTO THAT FIGHT so to steal billions of gallons of oil.
Is It All Bush's Fault?
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 18, 2006; 8:26 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100587.html
Whether or not this is "World War III," in Newt Gingrich's phrase, the violence in the Middle East is straining the abilities of the media machine--and maybe our ability to absorb bad news.
The constant escalation of the battles between Israel and both Hamas and Hezbollah, which is beginning to devastate Lebanon and now has missiles landing in Haifa, is putting the cable news channels on a war footing. Brian Williams and Charlie Gibson have gone to the Mideast, joining the likes of Anderson Cooper. But there's still a split-screen mentality on the morning shows, with segments on new Marilyn Monroe photos ("Good Morning America") and diets ("Today") competing with war coverage.
Overshadowed, for the moment, is the carnage in Iraq (Suicide Blast Kills 26 gets a short AP wire on Page A-12 of yesterday's Post); the nuclear showdown with North Korea; the nuclear showdown with Iran, and the bombing of trains in India. It does seem, to the untrained eye, that the world is falling apart as fast as the ceiling panels in Boston's Big Dig tunnel.
But as the debate rages over why the terrorists in Gaza and Lebanon precipitated this crisis by attacking Israeli soldiers, and whether Israel's military response could lead to a full-blown regional war, there is one question starting to bubble up in partisan circles in America, and one that you'll have no trouble recognizing:
Here is what some liberals are saying. Josh Marshall : "What stands out to me right now is the seeming irrelevance and marginality of the United States.
"Where is America? Whoever you believe is right or wrong in this mess, I doubt very much that the powers directly involved have the will and ability to de-escalate the situation. Some want to. Others don't . . .
"Some might say that the Bush administration's silence is acquiescence or approval of the Israeli raids into Lebanon and Gaza. But I think it's more than that. This is silence born of over-extension and policy exhaustion. Thinking back through the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s -- with key crises in each decade -- I don't think there's any example where an American administration has so thoroughly marginalized itself or shown such impotence and irrelevance."
Arianna Huffington : "Given the tragic feel of recent events, his tone couldn't have been more false.
"It's a very sinking feeling, watching this all-hat, no-cattle puppet who was put in power by the GOP elite back in a very different time, when all it thought we needed was a CEO to help manage the good times, suddenly finding himself presiding over a series of cataclysmic events.
Watching Bush meander around the world stage is like watching an amateurish production of Shakespeare. We need Olivier and all we've got is this community theater ham."
Frank Rich : "So what's the latest White House strategy to distract from the escalating mayhem? Yet another P.R. scheme, in this case drawn from the playbook of fall 2003, when the president countered news of the growing Iraq insurgency by going around the media 'filter' to speak to the people through softball interviews with regional media outlets. Thus the past two weeks have brought the spectacle of Mr. Bush yukking it up at Graceland, flattering immigrant workers at a Dunkin' Donuts, patronizing a children's lemonade stand in Raleigh, N.C., and meeting the press in such comfy settings as an outside-the-filter press conference (in Chicago) and 'Larry King Live.' The people, surely, are feeling better already about all that nasty business abroad."
The newsmagazine columnists also weigh in. Time's Joe Klein :
"Last week's Middle East confrontation had Bush-folly written all over it--and not just because the Iranian government's cowboy faction might be strutting its stuff. Bush's failure to patiently broker a real Middle East settlement--mostly because he refused to speak to Yasser Arafat or demand concessions from the Israelis--helped lead to Israel's unilateral withdrawal policy in Gaza. Peace isn't made unilaterally."
Newsweek's Michael Hirsh :
"It is the calls Bush didn't--or couldn't--make that might mean the difference in containing this new Mideast conflict. As part of his policy of isolating terror-supporting groups and nations, the Bush administration has no relationship with any of the other parties at war or the states behind them. That apparently means no dialogue, even through back channels, with Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas. Senior U.S. officials also said Bush and Rice had no intention of appointing a special envoy at this time . . . As a result, the president must watch and hope while his whole Mideast legacy--his goal of transforming a region that is the primary source for Islamist terrorism--stands at risk."
The right, as you would expect, is not pleased. Power Line's Paul Mirengoff rips the Dems:
"In an obscene attempt to obtain political mileage, the Democrats are claiming that President Bush is responsible for the outbreak of war in the Middle East. Howard Dean claims that the war would not have occurred if the Democrats had been in power because the Dems would have worked the past six years to prevent it. And Sen. Dodd has made basically the same assertion. Meanwhile, Rep. Jane Harmon contends that the Bush administration is to blame for our poor to non-existent relations with Syria and Iran which, she says, prevent us from using diplomacy to end the crisis.
"Once again, the Democrats are taking partisan politics to a previously unknown low. No past opposition party has attempted to blame the outbreak of an Arab-Israeli war on the party in power. Unless I'm mistaken, the Republicans didn't blame President Johnson for the war in 1967; the Dems didn't blame President Nixon for the war in 1973; nor did they blame President Reagan for the hostilities in Lebanon that occurred on his watch. Moreover, it is especially reprehensible for the Dems to be taking such a low road now, when unlike before, the U.S. is in the middle of essentially the same war as Israel -- the war on terrorism."
Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol seems to favor a wider war:
"While Syria and Iran are enemies of Israel, they are also enemies of the United States. We have done a poor job of standing up to them and weakening them. They are now testing us more boldly than one would have thought possible a few years ago. Weakness is provocative. We have been too weak, and have allowed ourselves to be perceived as weak.
"The right response is renewed strength--in supporting the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, in standing with Israel, and in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran. For that matter, we might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions--and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement.
"But such a military strike would take a while to organize. In the meantime, perhaps President Bush can fly from the silly G8 summit in St. Petersburg--a summit that will most likely convey a message of moral confusion and political indecision--to Jerusalem, the capital of a nation that stands with us, and is willing to fight with us, against our common enemies. This is our war, too."
I await the liberal response: "From the neocons who brought you Iraq . . . "
Slate's Fred Kaplan sounds nostalgic for Henry Kissinger:
"Where's the shuttle diplomacy? In any other administration, at least since Nixon's, the secretary of state would have flown to the Middle East days ago, would already have touched down in Tel Aviv, Beirut, and Damascus--maybe more than once--to hammer out a cease-fire, a settlement, or at least some sort of compromise to keep the conflict from expanding."
Marc Lynch , a political scientist at Williams College, doesn't trust Bush on the world stage:
"American public diplomacy has been virtually invisible on all this, at a time when it is more urgently needed than ever. I can understand this -- you have to have a policy if you want to try to explain or defend it, and right now the Bush administration doesn't seem to have any policy at all beyond supporting Israel and issuing calls for 'restraint' which Israel promptly and publicly rejects. And what administration official wants to subject him or herself to tough Arab questioning on live TV right now? The idea that Palestinian-Israeli relations could be cordoned off from wider Middle East questions was always misguided. It's now become actively destructive to all of our interests in the region.
"The only reason I'm not calling more loudly for Bush to get involved and take a leadership role in the conflict is the expectation that he would probably do the wrong thing. But at this point, doing nothing is, in fact, doing something. The Bush administration right now looks weak, confused, and vaguely pathetic."
Americablog's John Aravosis also brings the debate back to W.:
"If Hezbollah missiles are killing Israelis, and Hezbollah's actions are supported by Lebanon's Shia population, doesn't Israel have the right to retaliate against the Shia in Lebanon? At the very least against their utilities and their roads? Putting aside the wisdom geo-politically of such action, morally isn't it any country's right to strike back?
"Or, if you think that the Shia in Lebanon don't share responsibility, then do you also believe that Americans who supported Bush, and who voted for him twice, and who supported the war in Iraq don't share any of the blame for the mayhem Bush has unleashed over the past six years?"
All right, how did the morning papers deal with the president's open-mike curse?
The LAT uses the S-word: "President Bush thinks some of his fellow leaders on the world stage talk too much -- way too much. In a recording of luncheon chatter captured by Russian television, the president also is ready with some very undiplomatic language when talking about the Middle East."
So does the WP : "President Bush should know that in Russia, someone is always listening. In this case, it was the rest of the world."
The New York Post puts the word in the lead .
The NYT calls it a "vulgarity": "For anyone who has ever wondered what President Bush sounds like when the microphones are off, the answer, at least at lunchtime on Monday, was blunt to the point of profane, laced with a wise-guy edge and, like anyone forced to make small talk, willing to fall back on safe topics like air travel."
USA Today goes only with an "unvarnished assessment": "President Bush got bit again Monday by the open-microphone bug."
CNN carried the word without bleeping; the other networks did not.
Says ABC's Jake Tapper: "If the president is going to curse on camera is it too much to ask that he not appoint Federal Communications Commissioners who will fine us for broadcasting it?"
Israel knows something about the new media: Blogger Roger Simon gets a podcast interview with Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon at Pajamas Media.
The following helps explain why Hillary Clinton hired a Salon columnist as her ambassador to the blogs. First there was this NYT lead:
"Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, returning to her red-state ties, chastised Democrats Saturday for taking on issues that arouse conservatives and turn out Republican voters rather than finding consensus on mainstream subjects."
Atrios , among other liberal bloggers, said the Times had misinterpreted the senator's remarks, and included part of the transcript:
"But with the Republican majority, that's not their priority. So we do other things, we do things that are controversial, we do things that try to inflame their base so that they can turn people out and vote for their candidates. I think we are wasting time, we are wasting lives, we need to get back to making America work again, in a bipartisan, nonpartisan way."
Blogger Susie Madrak was soon contacted by the newest member of Hillaryland:
"Peter Daou. who's Clinton's blog advisor, writes to tell me the Times story was uniquely misinterpreted by Anne Kornbluth, that this is Hillary's standard stump speech and that if you go back and read it again in context, she's speaking in the 'we' part as what the Republicans do, not the Democrats. Which does make a lot more sense."
You are nothing but a WHORE at the WHORE WashPost. You are out there PIMPING B***S***, SLAPPING AROUND HONEST reporters (like Helen Thomas) while YOU COLLECT YOUR PAYCHECK LIKE A GOOD Nazi town official, "We have NO knowledge of that sprawling camp just outside town, the one with the smokestacks that smell of burned flesh and human soot."
In this case, Kurtz PRETENDS that the reporting on the Mideast at war is a "He said - she said story."
AS IF the TORTURE, LIES TO WAR, and QUAGMIRE in Iraq are somehow the fault of those reporters who have tried to contest the administration's voluminous lies and propaganda.
AS IF the Middle East blooming into all out war was an INEVITABLITY.
IF all-out WAR in the middle-east is SO DAMN INEVITABLE, WHY didn't Bush and Cheney run on "we promise to attack, invade, and occupy Iraq in 2003, and then EXPAND our war to the rest of the mideast in 2006" when they first ran for the White House....IN 2000?
It was then NO MYSTERY that Al Qaida wanted to ATTACK AMERICAN TARGETS - they HAD DONE SO, US embassies in Africa, Muslim extremist attacks on the NY World Trade Towers in 1993, and the US Navy destroyer USS Cole was attacked in Yemen in October of 2000... JUST as the Bush-Cheney-Rice-Powell-Rumsfeld team were finalizing their campaign strategy and plans for the November election just weeks later.
Indeed, to show how malevolent the Bush team was, October of 2000 was a PERFECT OPPORTUNITY to ATTACK the Clinton-Gore administration re the terror attack on the Cole... but this was one tactic the Bush team did not use very vocally in those final weeks of the 2000 campaign.
Why? Because Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and other members of the soon-to-be Bush administration had ALREADY SIGNED the PNAC Manifesto, calling for US military force to attack Iraq and expell the regime of Saddam Hussein from that country, and the PNACers (including Jeb Bush, the gov. of Florida and then candidate George W. Bush's brother) DID NOT WANT TO CREATE A FUSS about the "war on terror."
They wanted to WAIT until they had won (stole) the White House, and THEN they would RELENTLESSLY FIND AN EXCUSE to START A WAR AGAINST IRAQ. As a prelude to a war with Iran, leading to an eventual occupation of Afghanistan, and then, ultimately, to the very doorsteps of China and Russia, the oil-rich Central Asian "-stan" states like Uzbekistan and Kazkhstan.
THIS WAS THE HEART AND SOUL of the PNAC agenda, which Cheney, Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush, Wolfowitz, and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby HAD ALREADY SIGNED in 1997!
As we now know, their agenda of "Military strength and MORAL CLARITY" means siding with fiercely murderous rogues in the "war on terror" (Uzbekistan, etc.), IGNORING the ongoing genocide in Sudan, ENCOURAGING NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION in India (and, therefore, Pakistan), while using that problem - nuclear proliferation - as yet another excuse to talk about "PREVENTATIVE WAR," with the much-hoped for use of nuclear bunker busters against Iran.... oh yeah, and the DIEBOLDIZATION of the US voting process, a "PRIVATIZED" no receipt, NO VERIFICATION, NO RECOUNT vote system that is not only prone to hacking, BUT DESIGNED TO MAKE HACKING easy and inevitable. (In the 2004 election, EVERY SINGLE VOTING DISCREPENCY went FOR the campaign of George W. Bush.)
Mr. Howard Kurtz is GROSSLY IGNORANT, or CENSORS, ALL of the above facts and stories from his priorities list.
We, the United States of America, did NOT DECLARE WAR on the entire Mideast back in the summer of 2000, when George W. Bush was promising "A MORE HUMBLE FOREIGN POLICY."
BUT, our INTEL AGENCIES - the CIA, FBI, NSA, Hart-Rudman Commission on Terrorism, Gore Commission on Airline security... were ALL 'blinking red" about the threat of CONTINUED TERRORIST ATTACKS on American targets of opportunity.
SO.. how do we make a BEELINE from the "MORE HUMBLE FOREIGN POLICY" bush and cheney PROMISED us Americans in their 2000 campaign, to the NIGHTMARE that is unfolding today?
That's right... Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice DID NOTHING - NOT EVEN a General Traveller's Advisory - to warn American passengers, public, flight crews, or security of the "BLINKING RED LIGHTS" warning "bin Laden DETERMINED TO ATTACK IN AMERICA."
Then they COVERED UP, WHITEWASHED, STONEWALLED the ANTHRAX ATTACKS on Senator Partrick Leahy and Tom Daschle's offices. AS IF any self-respecting mass-murder-minded A-rab terrorits would target "wimpy-Tom" and *******Leahy... and INCLUDE A WARNING on the letter... when similar letters, sent to the White House, Pentagon, and more prominent targets in the Capitol, would have claimed dozens of lives.
THEN, of course, bush-cheney-rumsfeld launched their little CAKEWALK into Iraq. Remember Rumsfeld's statement, when asked how long the war would continue, he said "A few days, weeks. I don't imagine this war lasting beyond five or six weeks"??
Remember "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED"?
Remember ABU GHRAIB TORTURE PHOTOS
According to Howard Kurtz, ALL the above MUST BE THE FAULT of those who OPPOSE Mr. Bush and his two stolen elections.
<< Is it all Bush's fault?
Could the president have done something to prevent this? And why isn't he doing much now, other than using the S-word with Tony Blair in front of an open mike? (More on that in a moment.)
Our polarized political system simply doesn't allow for the idea that ancient enemies could be at war halfway around the world without the U.S. either bearing some responsibility or having the ability to shut it down. The White House must have miscalculated, not been engaged enough, screwed things up by invading Iraq. >>
Mr. Kurtz, you are a great example of a self-serving Media Whore, and furthermore your lies of ommission and commission give substance to the "anti-semitic" charge of a "JEWISH CONTROLLED MEDIA."
In case you didn't figure it out, THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ANCIENT ENEMIES ENGAGING IN A FIGHT, and the United States of America INSERTING ITSELF INTO THAT FIGHT so to steal billions of gallons of oil.
Is It All Bush's Fault?
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 18, 2006; 8:26 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100587.html
Whether or not this is "World War III," in Newt Gingrich's phrase, the violence in the Middle East is straining the abilities of the media machine--and maybe our ability to absorb bad news.
The constant escalation of the battles between Israel and both Hamas and Hezbollah, which is beginning to devastate Lebanon and now has missiles landing in Haifa, is putting the cable news channels on a war footing. Brian Williams and Charlie Gibson have gone to the Mideast, joining the likes of Anderson Cooper. But there's still a split-screen mentality on the morning shows, with segments on new Marilyn Monroe photos ("Good Morning America") and diets ("Today") competing with war coverage.
Overshadowed, for the moment, is the carnage in Iraq (Suicide Blast Kills 26 gets a short AP wire on Page A-12 of yesterday's Post); the nuclear showdown with North Korea; the nuclear showdown with Iran, and the bombing of trains in India. It does seem, to the untrained eye, that the world is falling apart as fast as the ceiling panels in Boston's Big Dig tunnel.
But as the debate rages over why the terrorists in Gaza and Lebanon precipitated this crisis by attacking Israeli soldiers, and whether Israel's military response could lead to a full-blown regional war, there is one question starting to bubble up in partisan circles in America, and one that you'll have no trouble recognizing:
Here is what some liberals are saying. Josh Marshall : "What stands out to me right now is the seeming irrelevance and marginality of the United States.
"Where is America? Whoever you believe is right or wrong in this mess, I doubt very much that the powers directly involved have the will and ability to de-escalate the situation. Some want to. Others don't . . .
"Some might say that the Bush administration's silence is acquiescence or approval of the Israeli raids into Lebanon and Gaza. But I think it's more than that. This is silence born of over-extension and policy exhaustion. Thinking back through the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s -- with key crises in each decade -- I don't think there's any example where an American administration has so thoroughly marginalized itself or shown such impotence and irrelevance."
Arianna Huffington : "Given the tragic feel of recent events, his tone couldn't have been more false.
"It's a very sinking feeling, watching this all-hat, no-cattle puppet who was put in power by the GOP elite back in a very different time, when all it thought we needed was a CEO to help manage the good times, suddenly finding himself presiding over a series of cataclysmic events.
Watching Bush meander around the world stage is like watching an amateurish production of Shakespeare. We need Olivier and all we've got is this community theater ham."
Frank Rich : "So what's the latest White House strategy to distract from the escalating mayhem? Yet another P.R. scheme, in this case drawn from the playbook of fall 2003, when the president countered news of the growing Iraq insurgency by going around the media 'filter' to speak to the people through softball interviews with regional media outlets. Thus the past two weeks have brought the spectacle of Mr. Bush yukking it up at Graceland, flattering immigrant workers at a Dunkin' Donuts, patronizing a children's lemonade stand in Raleigh, N.C., and meeting the press in such comfy settings as an outside-the-filter press conference (in Chicago) and 'Larry King Live.' The people, surely, are feeling better already about all that nasty business abroad."
The newsmagazine columnists also weigh in. Time's Joe Klein :
"Last week's Middle East confrontation had Bush-folly written all over it--and not just because the Iranian government's cowboy faction might be strutting its stuff. Bush's failure to patiently broker a real Middle East settlement--mostly because he refused to speak to Yasser Arafat or demand concessions from the Israelis--helped lead to Israel's unilateral withdrawal policy in Gaza. Peace isn't made unilaterally."
Newsweek's Michael Hirsh :
"It is the calls Bush didn't--or couldn't--make that might mean the difference in containing this new Mideast conflict. As part of his policy of isolating terror-supporting groups and nations, the Bush administration has no relationship with any of the other parties at war or the states behind them. That apparently means no dialogue, even through back channels, with Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas. Senior U.S. officials also said Bush and Rice had no intention of appointing a special envoy at this time . . . As a result, the president must watch and hope while his whole Mideast legacy--his goal of transforming a region that is the primary source for Islamist terrorism--stands at risk."
The right, as you would expect, is not pleased. Power Line's Paul Mirengoff rips the Dems:
"In an obscene attempt to obtain political mileage, the Democrats are claiming that President Bush is responsible for the outbreak of war in the Middle East. Howard Dean claims that the war would not have occurred if the Democrats had been in power because the Dems would have worked the past six years to prevent it. And Sen. Dodd has made basically the same assertion. Meanwhile, Rep. Jane Harmon contends that the Bush administration is to blame for our poor to non-existent relations with Syria and Iran which, she says, prevent us from using diplomacy to end the crisis.
"Once again, the Democrats are taking partisan politics to a previously unknown low. No past opposition party has attempted to blame the outbreak of an Arab-Israeli war on the party in power. Unless I'm mistaken, the Republicans didn't blame President Johnson for the war in 1967; the Dems didn't blame President Nixon for the war in 1973; nor did they blame President Reagan for the hostilities in Lebanon that occurred on his watch. Moreover, it is especially reprehensible for the Dems to be taking such a low road now, when unlike before, the U.S. is in the middle of essentially the same war as Israel -- the war on terrorism."
Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol seems to favor a wider war:
"While Syria and Iran are enemies of Israel, they are also enemies of the United States. We have done a poor job of standing up to them and weakening them. They are now testing us more boldly than one would have thought possible a few years ago. Weakness is provocative. We have been too weak, and have allowed ourselves to be perceived as weak.
"The right response is renewed strength--in supporting the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, in standing with Israel, and in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran. For that matter, we might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions--and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement.
"But such a military strike would take a while to organize. In the meantime, perhaps President Bush can fly from the silly G8 summit in St. Petersburg--a summit that will most likely convey a message of moral confusion and political indecision--to Jerusalem, the capital of a nation that stands with us, and is willing to fight with us, against our common enemies. This is our war, too."
I await the liberal response: "From the neocons who brought you Iraq . . . "
Slate's Fred Kaplan sounds nostalgic for Henry Kissinger:
"Where's the shuttle diplomacy? In any other administration, at least since Nixon's, the secretary of state would have flown to the Middle East days ago, would already have touched down in Tel Aviv, Beirut, and Damascus--maybe more than once--to hammer out a cease-fire, a settlement, or at least some sort of compromise to keep the conflict from expanding."
Marc Lynch , a political scientist at Williams College, doesn't trust Bush on the world stage:
"American public diplomacy has been virtually invisible on all this, at a time when it is more urgently needed than ever. I can understand this -- you have to have a policy if you want to try to explain or defend it, and right now the Bush administration doesn't seem to have any policy at all beyond supporting Israel and issuing calls for 'restraint' which Israel promptly and publicly rejects. And what administration official wants to subject him or herself to tough Arab questioning on live TV right now? The idea that Palestinian-Israeli relations could be cordoned off from wider Middle East questions was always misguided. It's now become actively destructive to all of our interests in the region.
"The only reason I'm not calling more loudly for Bush to get involved and take a leadership role in the conflict is the expectation that he would probably do the wrong thing. But at this point, doing nothing is, in fact, doing something. The Bush administration right now looks weak, confused, and vaguely pathetic."
Americablog's John Aravosis also brings the debate back to W.:
"If Hezbollah missiles are killing Israelis, and Hezbollah's actions are supported by Lebanon's Shia population, doesn't Israel have the right to retaliate against the Shia in Lebanon? At the very least against their utilities and their roads? Putting aside the wisdom geo-politically of such action, morally isn't it any country's right to strike back?
"Or, if you think that the Shia in Lebanon don't share responsibility, then do you also believe that Americans who supported Bush, and who voted for him twice, and who supported the war in Iraq don't share any of the blame for the mayhem Bush has unleashed over the past six years?"
All right, how did the morning papers deal with the president's open-mike curse?
The LAT uses the S-word: "President Bush thinks some of his fellow leaders on the world stage talk too much -- way too much. In a recording of luncheon chatter captured by Russian television, the president also is ready with some very undiplomatic language when talking about the Middle East."
So does the WP : "President Bush should know that in Russia, someone is always listening. In this case, it was the rest of the world."
The New York Post puts the word in the lead .
The NYT calls it a "vulgarity": "For anyone who has ever wondered what President Bush sounds like when the microphones are off, the answer, at least at lunchtime on Monday, was blunt to the point of profane, laced with a wise-guy edge and, like anyone forced to make small talk, willing to fall back on safe topics like air travel."
USA Today goes only with an "unvarnished assessment": "President Bush got bit again Monday by the open-microphone bug."
CNN carried the word without bleeping; the other networks did not.
Says ABC's Jake Tapper: "If the president is going to curse on camera is it too much to ask that he not appoint Federal Communications Commissioners who will fine us for broadcasting it?"
Israel knows something about the new media: Blogger Roger Simon gets a podcast interview with Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon at Pajamas Media.
The following helps explain why Hillary Clinton hired a Salon columnist as her ambassador to the blogs. First there was this NYT lead:
"Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, returning to her red-state ties, chastised Democrats Saturday for taking on issues that arouse conservatives and turn out Republican voters rather than finding consensus on mainstream subjects."
Atrios , among other liberal bloggers, said the Times had misinterpreted the senator's remarks, and included part of the transcript:
"But with the Republican majority, that's not their priority. So we do other things, we do things that are controversial, we do things that try to inflame their base so that they can turn people out and vote for their candidates. I think we are wasting time, we are wasting lives, we need to get back to making America work again, in a bipartisan, nonpartisan way."
Blogger Susie Madrak was soon contacted by the newest member of Hillaryland:
"Peter Daou. who's Clinton's blog advisor, writes to tell me the Times story was uniquely misinterpreted by Anne Kornbluth, that this is Hillary's standard stump speech and that if you go back and read it again in context, she's speaking in the 'we' part as what the Republicans do, not the Democrats. Which does make a lot more sense."
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Charles Krathammer, Washington Post neo-nazi in residence, sneers at USSC for upholding Geneva Conventions...
Ignorant, pseudo-intellectual Charles Kruathammer, Washington Post's neo-Nazi in residence, sneers at the US Supreme Court for upholding LIMITS on presidential conduct. Krauthammer's ENTIRE RANT is that "IN TIME OF WAR" a president must be able to do as he pleases - WITH NO ACCOUNTABILITY TO ANYONE. IF the president decides to declare all of Vietnam a "free fire zone," Mr. Krauthammer would approve of that. IF the president decides to IGNORE the GENOCIDE and mass-enslavement of Southern Sudan, Mr. Krauthammer doesn't mind. And if the President wants to ethnically cleanse Iraq (of ALL Muslims, Sunni or Shia) Mr. Krauthammer would undoubtably like to see that, too. As Molly Ivins has written, Mr. Krauthammer, your rantings "sounds better in the original German".
(For those who actually want to know how bombings, tank-raids and combat-patrols by foreigners who don't speak the local lingo affect Aghan (or any other nation's) local sentiments, check the HBO movie "the Beast", about a Russian tank enaged in punitive attacks and long-range shellling of Afghan mountain villages.)
(http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005AVZU/imdbca-20/702-5417398-1631212)
While the plot of "The Beast" might be a tad fanciful, remember that all those casualties of Afghans killed by US bombs and bullets - "collateral damage" - are not mere statistics, but cause for pain, resentment, and worse on the part of a victim's survivors."
Emergency Over, Saith the Court
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, July 7, 2006; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/06/AR2006070601552.html
1861. 1941. 2001. Our big wars -- and the war on terrorism ranks with the big ones -- have a way of starting in the first year of a decade. Supreme Courts, which historically have been loath to intervene against presidential war powers in the midst of conflict, have tended to give the president until mid-decade to do what he wishes to the Constitution in order to win the war.
During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus -- trashing the Bill of Rights or exercising necessary emergency executive power, depending on your point of view. But he got the whole troublesome business done by 1865, and the Supreme Court stayed away.
Emergency Over, Saith the Court
» Charles Krauthammer |
All rise: The Supreme Court has decreed a return to normality. A lovely idea, except that al-Qaeda has other ideas.
During World War II, Franklin Roosevelt interned Japanese Americans. He, too, was left unmolested by the court. But Roosevelt also got his war wrapped up by 1945. Had the current war on terrorism followed course and ended in 2005, the sensational, just-decided Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case concerning military tribunals for Guantanamo Bay prisoners would have either been rendered moot or drawn a yawn.
But, of course, the war on terrorism is different. The enemy is shadowy, scattered and therefore more likely to survive and keep the war going for years. What the Supreme Court essentially did in Hamdan was to say to the president: Time's up. We gave you the customary half-decade of emergency powers, but that's as far as we go. From now on the emergency is over, at least judicially, and you're going to have to operate by peacetime rules.
Or, as Justice Anthony Kennedy, the new Sandra Day O'Connor, put it, Guantanamo (and by extension, war-on-terrorism) jurisprudence must henceforth be governed by "the customary operation of the Executive and Legislative Branches." This case may be "of extraordinary importance," but it is to be "resolved by ordinary rules."
All rise: The Supreme Court has decreed a return to normality. A lovely idea, except that al-Qaeda has other ideas. The war does go on. One can sympathize with the court's desire for a Harding-like restoration to normalcy. But the robed eminences are premature. And even if they weren't, they really didn't have to issue a ruling this bad.
They declared illegal President Bush's military tribunals for the likes of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's driver and bodyguard. First, because they were not established in accordance with congressional authority. And, second, because they violated the Geneva Conventions.
The first rationale is an odd but fixable misreading of congressional intent. The second is a grotesque and unfixable misreading of the Geneva Conventions.
The court feels that the president slighted Congress by unilaterally establishing military commissions. What is odd about this solicitousness for the powers of the legislature is that Congress, which is populated entirely by adults, had explicitly told the judiciary just six months ago that when it comes to Guantanamo prisoners, the judiciary should bug off.
The Detainee Treatment Act in December 2005 not only implicitly endorsed what the administration was doing with prisoners, it explicitly told the judiciary to leave the issue to Congress and the president to resolve, as they have historically.
The court's wanton overriding of Congress and the president is another in a long string of breathtaking acts of judicial arrogance. But it is fixable. The Republican leadership of the Senate responded to the court's highhandedness by immediately embarking on writing legislation to establish military tribunals.
The unfixable part of the Hamdan ruling, however, is the court's reading of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Conventions, which were designed to protect civilian populations and those combatants who respect them, were never intended to apply to unlawful combatants, terrorists of the al-Qaeda kind. The court tortures the reading of Common Article 3 to confer upon Hamdan -- and by extension the man for whom he rode shotgun, bin Laden -- the kind of elaborate legal protections that one expects from "civilized peoples."
This infinitely elastic concept will allow courts to usurp from Congress and the president the authority to fashion the procedures for military tribunals -- an arrogation that mocks the court's previously expressed solicitousness for congressional authority.
But no matter. Logic has little place here. The court has decreed: There is no war -- or we will pretend so -- and henceforth it shall be conducted by the court. God save the United States. (This honorable court can fend for itself.)
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
(For those who actually want to know how bombings, tank-raids and combat-patrols by foreigners who don't speak the local lingo affect Aghan (or any other nation's) local sentiments, check the HBO movie "the Beast", about a Russian tank enaged in punitive attacks and long-range shellling of Afghan mountain villages.)
(http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005AVZU/imdbca-20/702-5417398-1631212)
While the plot of "The Beast" might be a tad fanciful, remember that all those casualties of Afghans killed by US bombs and bullets - "collateral damage" - are not mere statistics, but cause for pain, resentment, and worse on the part of a victim's survivors."
Emergency Over, Saith the Court
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, July 7, 2006; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/06/AR2006070601552.html
1861. 1941. 2001. Our big wars -- and the war on terrorism ranks with the big ones -- have a way of starting in the first year of a decade. Supreme Courts, which historically have been loath to intervene against presidential war powers in the midst of conflict, have tended to give the president until mid-decade to do what he wishes to the Constitution in order to win the war.
During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus -- trashing the Bill of Rights or exercising necessary emergency executive power, depending on your point of view. But he got the whole troublesome business done by 1865, and the Supreme Court stayed away.
Emergency Over, Saith the Court
» Charles Krauthammer |
All rise: The Supreme Court has decreed a return to normality. A lovely idea, except that al-Qaeda has other ideas.
During World War II, Franklin Roosevelt interned Japanese Americans. He, too, was left unmolested by the court. But Roosevelt also got his war wrapped up by 1945. Had the current war on terrorism followed course and ended in 2005, the sensational, just-decided Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case concerning military tribunals for Guantanamo Bay prisoners would have either been rendered moot or drawn a yawn.
But, of course, the war on terrorism is different. The enemy is shadowy, scattered and therefore more likely to survive and keep the war going for years. What the Supreme Court essentially did in Hamdan was to say to the president: Time's up. We gave you the customary half-decade of emergency powers, but that's as far as we go. From now on the emergency is over, at least judicially, and you're going to have to operate by peacetime rules.
Or, as Justice Anthony Kennedy, the new Sandra Day O'Connor, put it, Guantanamo (and by extension, war-on-terrorism) jurisprudence must henceforth be governed by "the customary operation of the Executive and Legislative Branches." This case may be "of extraordinary importance," but it is to be "resolved by ordinary rules."
All rise: The Supreme Court has decreed a return to normality. A lovely idea, except that al-Qaeda has other ideas. The war does go on. One can sympathize with the court's desire for a Harding-like restoration to normalcy. But the robed eminences are premature. And even if they weren't, they really didn't have to issue a ruling this bad.
They declared illegal President Bush's military tribunals for the likes of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's driver and bodyguard. First, because they were not established in accordance with congressional authority. And, second, because they violated the Geneva Conventions.
The first rationale is an odd but fixable misreading of congressional intent. The second is a grotesque and unfixable misreading of the Geneva Conventions.
The court feels that the president slighted Congress by unilaterally establishing military commissions. What is odd about this solicitousness for the powers of the legislature is that Congress, which is populated entirely by adults, had explicitly told the judiciary just six months ago that when it comes to Guantanamo prisoners, the judiciary should bug off.
The Detainee Treatment Act in December 2005 not only implicitly endorsed what the administration was doing with prisoners, it explicitly told the judiciary to leave the issue to Congress and the president to resolve, as they have historically.
The court's wanton overriding of Congress and the president is another in a long string of breathtaking acts of judicial arrogance. But it is fixable. The Republican leadership of the Senate responded to the court's highhandedness by immediately embarking on writing legislation to establish military tribunals.
The unfixable part of the Hamdan ruling, however, is the court's reading of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Conventions, which were designed to protect civilian populations and those combatants who respect them, were never intended to apply to unlawful combatants, terrorists of the al-Qaeda kind. The court tortures the reading of Common Article 3 to confer upon Hamdan -- and by extension the man for whom he rode shotgun, bin Laden -- the kind of elaborate legal protections that one expects from "civilized peoples."
This infinitely elastic concept will allow courts to usurp from Congress and the president the authority to fashion the procedures for military tribunals -- an arrogation that mocks the court's previously expressed solicitousness for congressional authority.
But no matter. Logic has little place here. The court has decreed: There is no war -- or we will pretend so -- and henceforth it shall be conducted by the court. God save the United States. (This honorable court can fend for itself.)
letters@charleskrauthammer.com
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