I'm in this listserv, with some really great people. Most of them have invested huge amounts of time, as I have, in spiritual pursuits of one variety or another. Some have been with the same spiritual teachers as I've been, some have lived in Zen Monasteries, some are really Awake to "What Is So". Lately the threads have been positively transcendent and I'm taken aback by how unrelated to all of that, is my current mood. I've reproduced the bulk of what I wrote today to my friends, as a way to lay groundwork for more spiritual musings, possibly to come...
Hi Everybody.......
Reading these new threads has me feeling like I'm at a party and I'm either under-dressed or over-dressed or something. I'll settle on over-dressed.
Guys, I just have to tell you that, no matter than in my history I've had glimpses and satoris and all of that stuff that makes for great spiritual "oomphs", lately I am just not "there". It's like the wind has gone out of may sails, it's like I just can't ratchet myself up to wanna care about being enlightened, being awake or any of that. I feel as if I have been propelled backwards in time to a point BEFORE I was even introduced to allllllllllllll of that spiritual stuff.
It would be too easy to say "I blame (name withheld) ", it is just that ever since I became dis-illusioned with him as a guru and then gurus and spiritual groups altogether, I've back-slid into not giving a shit, really, about what I used to be passionate about. There I've said it. Is this some phase?
But I also have to say, at the same time, every once in awhile I'll get a pang, a stab in the heart when I re-member how innocent and devoted I used to be, when I recall all of a sudden, how I used to feel about Adi Da. MAN I loved him! MAN it was great to feel that what he said was Real and True and never ever doubt. I was so happy in that. As Bob once suggested to me, maybe I was looking for a Daddy. A perfect Parent.
Anybody know the story of the Velveteen Rabbit? Where the toy rabbit was so beloved to the boy, and the rabbit so served and loved the little boy that one day, the rabbit became Real? I think that was the sub-plot of my spiritual practice efforts. I thought and believed with all my heart that if I loved and served a Perfect Being I would become Real; like enter into the Magic Kingdom. Like live in a realm where all beings were kind to one another and everyone would have a Compassionate Buddha Heart and where the sun would shine brightly forever and no more night, no more death, no more hurts or pains or sicknesses, no more this world's troubles and that it would go on forever and ever because it was REAL. The ticket in was to become Real oneself.
I remember walking in my old neighborhood feeling so open and vulnerable and sensitive....and hearing out of a window an angry man yelling abuse at a little boy and the little boy trying to answer back and being shouted down and I just cried and felt intense pain. My heart was breaking and I wanted to BE in a place where that no longer happened to ANYBODY EVER again. I prayed "Please let there be some realm where there is only Peace, Kindness, tenderness, joy, please let it be true."
Was that my motive for the spiritual chase? Escape from pain? I'm thinking so. That is my best guess.
So spiritually speaking, I'm at square one again guys. I'm a spiritual boo-ba........still just toddling.....and I say one more thing, I'm in love with my own thoughts. I still am fascinated by all of the things my mind comes up with, I still am also fascinated by other people's ideas, thought-forms, expressions, it still holds interest for me. What does that mean?
Plus, I hold judgments aplenty, ie: think George Bush et al. reside in the depths of Mordor......and Dick cheney is the head Orc. I passionately WISH for a Progressive in the White House......I CARE about Global Warming and think Al Gore rocks.......I am very Earth oriented guys. I'm way less "other-worldly" than I used to be.
Yet, I know. In some part of me there is an on-going knowledge that I don't fear death, that it's all just what it IS and it is all a marvel and I'm grateful for all of the Everything. That nothing truly touches or tarnishes; that nothing ever happens to what Is Real.
But I just don't visit or hang out in that Knowing very often, whereas it used to be my passion. I think I still having a (name withheld) hangover. That's my account of it at any rate.
I just wanted to tell you all the true feelings I'm having and let you all in on it, so we can at least be real at the life level.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Kucinich / Paul 2008?
Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich would be an unlikely pairing in a third party presidential run next year. But, Kucinich’s wife apparently doesn’t rule out the possibility…
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Sex Scandal Hits Atlanta-Area Mega church
Sexy Religionists are at it again! Pastors coerce church members into sex in Atlanta mega church. Is this even news? The newsworthy story about fundamentalist Christians these days would be about a southern Bible believing church which DIDN'T have any sex scandals.
But let's not just point fingers at the Christian fundies.....cults abound where sooner (rather than later) the leader/pastor/guru turns the conversation to sex and hopes to manipulate members into either sex with each other (oooh voyeurism...what a rush) or sex with them, the worshipped and idolized leader. It's so predictable that anyone over 21 these days without a heads-up on this must be living off-planet.
The latest scandal coming out of Atlanta is about a pastor who actually fathered a kid with his own brother's wife. How Biblical is that!? The fundamentalists DO take the cake on this stuff it seems; the cognitive dissonance is so EXTREME. At least with Hindus and new age religions, sex has never been such a bugaboo. Let's face it, Hindu temples even have carved images of deities having all manner of sex, so they're not body-negative, sex-averse. But the Christians are always pounding their fists about "temptation" "sin" "the devil" "impure thoughts"....so it's perversely amusing to watch them implode with hypocrisy.
read more | digg story
But let's not just point fingers at the Christian fundies.....cults abound where sooner (rather than later) the leader/pastor/guru turns the conversation to sex and hopes to manipulate members into either sex with each other (oooh voyeurism...what a rush) or sex with them, the worshipped and idolized leader. It's so predictable that anyone over 21 these days without a heads-up on this must be living off-planet.
The latest scandal coming out of Atlanta is about a pastor who actually fathered a kid with his own brother's wife. How Biblical is that!? The fundamentalists DO take the cake on this stuff it seems; the cognitive dissonance is so EXTREME. At least with Hindus and new age religions, sex has never been such a bugaboo. Let's face it, Hindu temples even have carved images of deities having all manner of sex, so they're not body-negative, sex-averse. But the Christians are always pounding their fists about "temptation" "sin" "the devil" "impure thoughts"....so it's perversely amusing to watch them implode with hypocrisy.
read more | digg story
Friday, November 16, 2007
Keith Olbermann on Torture and Conspiracy
Because OLBERMANN is so damned GREAT and "don't you wish more people were speaking out like this" PERFECT, here is a re-dux of an earlier post from this week:
In another of his stirring commentaries, the “Countdown” host suggests that the story of Daniel Levin, who was fired from the Justice Department after he experienced waterboarding and called it torture, reveals that “the presidency of George W. Bush has now devolved into a criminal conspiracy to cover the ass of George W. Bush.”
read more | digg story
In another of his stirring commentaries, the “Countdown” host suggests that the story of Daniel Levin, who was fired from the Justice Department after he experienced waterboarding and called it torture, reveals that “the presidency of George W. Bush has now devolved into a criminal conspiracy to cover the ass of George W. Bush.”
read more | digg story
Outrage Fatigue? Get OVER it!
Got this from a friend in an email. Comes from Mark Morford over at SF Gate, an online San Francisco blog/news magazine. His points are so well taken that I will let him speak for himself rather than attempt to paraphrase. Here goes:
Outrage fatigue? Get over it
Are you sick of being sick? Suffering way too much Bush-induced nausea? Well, tough
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
I know how it is. You've had it up to here. There are only so many stories about blood and death and pain you can take, only so many times you can hear about random shootings and corporate malfeasance and how BushCo's squad of scabrous flying monkeys have, say, supported torture or endorsed wiretapping or gouged the nation for another $200 billion to pay for a failed war. Your nerves are raw and your heart is tired and the media will just not shut the hell up already about the sadness and the war and the mayhem and the Cheney and the doom doom doom.
It is outrage fatigue, and it is epidemic. It's that feeling that we are being hammered unlike any time in recent history with so many appalling and disgusting and violently un-American incidents and scandals and manipulations that our b.s.-detectors are smoking like an old V-8 engine on a hot summer's day and it's all we can do to get up every day without screaming.
What's more, it's not the mere quantity of moral insults, either. It's the bizarre absurdity of the subject matter, the things we are being forced to consider, or reconsider, that seem to make it all so horrific.
Torture? Are you kidding? Allegedly the most civilized, the most morally aware nation on the planet and we are still debating, in the highest courts and government offices in the land, about whether the United States should strap human beings to gnarled metal benches in rancid foreign bunkers and inflict such inexplicable terror and fear upon them that they confess to things they didn't even do just to get us to stop? Is this the Middle Ages? Are we regressing back to the goddamn cave?
Oh my, yes, plethoric are the reasons you should be outraged indeed, and torture just might be one of the most incendiary reasons in the past few years. If nothing else, its disgusting return to U.S. political dialogue certainly means it's no time to be laying down arms in exhaustion, no matter how tempting it might be.
Take this fine example: Keith Olbermann, as is his wont, executed another pitch-perfect bout of outrage recently on his excellent MSNBC show, taking BushCo to task on the issue of waterboarding like you never hear in major on-air media anymore.
Olbermann only barely held on to his trademark fierce hyper-articulation against the sheer disgust he/we have to endure at the idea that a sitting American president obviously thinks medieval torture is a gul-dang swell idea, no matter what psychologists, military experts, ethicists, the United Nations, the Geneva Convention and Jesus himself all say.
It was wonderful, powerful stuff, a razor-sharp, highly informed media pundit who dares to presume an unusually high level of intelligence among his viewers, speaking truth to power in a way most liberal media-haters complain never really happens anymore. And of course, his subject was one of the most deserving of our moral outrage in recent history.
But then I read some of the reaction to Olbermann's diatribe on various political blogs and on some news-aggregate sites, with many saying, gosh Keith, lighten up already, who cares, enough with all the outrage and the spittle, wow I'm so sick of all this ranting and raving and gosh I'm tired of these smarty media people telling me how to think and hey maybe torture is good let's kill us some more, haw haw haw snort.
On the one hand, it is, you can argue, generally the way of the meaner-than-thou blogosphere, with all but the most professional and intelligent and positive-minded of outposts seeming to suffer an undue percentage of reactionary chyme in their comment areas, hordes of Net-drunk twentysomethings and extremists and shut-ins who have way too much free time and merely chime in to see their sneers "published" and to prove how much more jaded and apathetic they are than the next person, while adding zero to the conversation.
But maybe it's worse than that. Because this is where it can happen, where you can get sucked into the vortex of whining and bitterness and where you might feel part of yourself wanting to wallow too, desiring to avoid doing the actual moral and spiritual work of dissecting and researching and analysing something as politically messy and morally ugly as torture for yourself, opting instead for the easy path, for closing your eyes and sticking your fingers in your ears and going, nyah nyah nyah shut up shut up SHUT UP! Hey, it sure beats thinking.
Or maybe we can flip it around. Maybe, with the right intent, the exact reverse can happen, and you see this ocean of nasty ennui, this pile of oft-misspelled, poorly punctuated reactionary effluvia as, in and of itself, something to be a bit livid about.
Maybe, in other words, you can enjoy, as one blogger put it, a big dose of "fatigue outrage," the feeling of disgust you get when faced with all those people who think mental lethargy and laziness is, like, way funny, dude.
In other words, enough with the childish, frat-boy-grade complaints about media overload and too many rants and outrage fatigue. You have to earn that sort of thing. If you never give a crap about engaging the world, if you never want to think deeply about complex issues and care about ramifications and see what truly resonates with your own informed spirit and then stand up for what you believe, this pretty much eliminates your right to sneer at others who do.
It is, for me, all about modulation. It is about remembering that outrage does not necessarily equal misery. Outrage does not mean you must wallow in fear and fatalism and yank out your hair and wake up every morning hating the world and hating yourself and hating humanity for being so stupid/numb/blind and wondering how the hell you can escape it all.
Outrage is rich with humanistic understanding. It is not some evangelical Christian parent "outraged" that her kid saw a woman's nipple on TV. It is not some right-wing Family Council "outraged" that someone put S&M outfits on Barbie, or that some art gallery is displaying Jesus as a woman, or that scientists dared to say that stem cell research does not equal abortion, or that the mayor isn't taking care of all the potholes and stray kitties. That's not outrage, that's reactionary whining.
True outrage, like Olbermann's, like (occasionally, hopefully) this column's, like what you should ideally be experiencing on a daily basis while Bush is in office, is honed and sharp and poignant. It contains a powerful sense of deeply informed decency, and therefore has a true feel for when that sense has been violated. Outrage has meat and substance and intellectual nourishment. It is actually healthy.
Smart, informed outrage engages you and fires your heart, your mind. It is fuel. It is the reason you claim you enjoy being an American, to question malevolent government actions and take a stand and demand accountability where there has, for the past seven years, been none. Bottom line: We simply cannot let them convince us, by way of an all-out assault on science, sex, love, et al, that the good fight just ain't worth fighting.
After all, the flying monkeys are far from done raiding the closet and stealing your babies and making a mockery of everything wise and calm and open-hearted people hold dear. And baby, if you ain't outraged about that, something is very wrong indeed.
Outrage fatigue? Get over it
Are you sick of being sick? Suffering way too much Bush-induced nausea? Well, tough
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
I know how it is. You've had it up to here. There are only so many stories about blood and death and pain you can take, only so many times you can hear about random shootings and corporate malfeasance and how BushCo's squad of scabrous flying monkeys have, say, supported torture or endorsed wiretapping or gouged the nation for another $200 billion to pay for a failed war. Your nerves are raw and your heart is tired and the media will just not shut the hell up already about the sadness and the war and the mayhem and the Cheney and the doom doom doom.
It is outrage fatigue, and it is epidemic. It's that feeling that we are being hammered unlike any time in recent history with so many appalling and disgusting and violently un-American incidents and scandals and manipulations that our b.s.-detectors are smoking like an old V-8 engine on a hot summer's day and it's all we can do to get up every day without screaming.
What's more, it's not the mere quantity of moral insults, either. It's the bizarre absurdity of the subject matter, the things we are being forced to consider, or reconsider, that seem to make it all so horrific.
Torture? Are you kidding? Allegedly the most civilized, the most morally aware nation on the planet and we are still debating, in the highest courts and government offices in the land, about whether the United States should strap human beings to gnarled metal benches in rancid foreign bunkers and inflict such inexplicable terror and fear upon them that they confess to things they didn't even do just to get us to stop? Is this the Middle Ages? Are we regressing back to the goddamn cave?
Oh my, yes, plethoric are the reasons you should be outraged indeed, and torture just might be one of the most incendiary reasons in the past few years. If nothing else, its disgusting return to U.S. political dialogue certainly means it's no time to be laying down arms in exhaustion, no matter how tempting it might be.
Take this fine example: Keith Olbermann, as is his wont, executed another pitch-perfect bout of outrage recently on his excellent MSNBC show, taking BushCo to task on the issue of waterboarding like you never hear in major on-air media anymore.
Olbermann only barely held on to his trademark fierce hyper-articulation against the sheer disgust he/we have to endure at the idea that a sitting American president obviously thinks medieval torture is a gul-dang swell idea, no matter what psychologists, military experts, ethicists, the United Nations, the Geneva Convention and Jesus himself all say.
It was wonderful, powerful stuff, a razor-sharp, highly informed media pundit who dares to presume an unusually high level of intelligence among his viewers, speaking truth to power in a way most liberal media-haters complain never really happens anymore. And of course, his subject was one of the most deserving of our moral outrage in recent history.
But then I read some of the reaction to Olbermann's diatribe on various political blogs and on some news-aggregate sites, with many saying, gosh Keith, lighten up already, who cares, enough with all the outrage and the spittle, wow I'm so sick of all this ranting and raving and gosh I'm tired of these smarty media people telling me how to think and hey maybe torture is good let's kill us some more, haw haw haw snort.
On the one hand, it is, you can argue, generally the way of the meaner-than-thou blogosphere, with all but the most professional and intelligent and positive-minded of outposts seeming to suffer an undue percentage of reactionary chyme in their comment areas, hordes of Net-drunk twentysomethings and extremists and shut-ins who have way too much free time and merely chime in to see their sneers "published" and to prove how much more jaded and apathetic they are than the next person, while adding zero to the conversation.
But maybe it's worse than that. Because this is where it can happen, where you can get sucked into the vortex of whining and bitterness and where you might feel part of yourself wanting to wallow too, desiring to avoid doing the actual moral and spiritual work of dissecting and researching and analysing something as politically messy and morally ugly as torture for yourself, opting instead for the easy path, for closing your eyes and sticking your fingers in your ears and going, nyah nyah nyah shut up shut up SHUT UP! Hey, it sure beats thinking.
Or maybe we can flip it around. Maybe, with the right intent, the exact reverse can happen, and you see this ocean of nasty ennui, this pile of oft-misspelled, poorly punctuated reactionary effluvia as, in and of itself, something to be a bit livid about.
Maybe, in other words, you can enjoy, as one blogger put it, a big dose of "fatigue outrage," the feeling of disgust you get when faced with all those people who think mental lethargy and laziness is, like, way funny, dude.
In other words, enough with the childish, frat-boy-grade complaints about media overload and too many rants and outrage fatigue. You have to earn that sort of thing. If you never give a crap about engaging the world, if you never want to think deeply about complex issues and care about ramifications and see what truly resonates with your own informed spirit and then stand up for what you believe, this pretty much eliminates your right to sneer at others who do.
It is, for me, all about modulation. It is about remembering that outrage does not necessarily equal misery. Outrage does not mean you must wallow in fear and fatalism and yank out your hair and wake up every morning hating the world and hating yourself and hating humanity for being so stupid/numb/blind and wondering how the hell you can escape it all.
Outrage is rich with humanistic understanding. It is not some evangelical Christian parent "outraged" that her kid saw a woman's nipple on TV. It is not some right-wing Family Council "outraged" that someone put S&M outfits on Barbie, or that some art gallery is displaying Jesus as a woman, or that scientists dared to say that stem cell research does not equal abortion, or that the mayor isn't taking care of all the potholes and stray kitties. That's not outrage, that's reactionary whining.
True outrage, like Olbermann's, like (occasionally, hopefully) this column's, like what you should ideally be experiencing on a daily basis while Bush is in office, is honed and sharp and poignant. It contains a powerful sense of deeply informed decency, and therefore has a true feel for when that sense has been violated. Outrage has meat and substance and intellectual nourishment. It is actually healthy.
Smart, informed outrage engages you and fires your heart, your mind. It is fuel. It is the reason you claim you enjoy being an American, to question malevolent government actions and take a stand and demand accountability where there has, for the past seven years, been none. Bottom line: We simply cannot let them convince us, by way of an all-out assault on science, sex, love, et al, that the good fight just ain't worth fighting.
After all, the flying monkeys are far from done raiding the closet and stealing your babies and making a mockery of everything wise and calm and open-hearted people hold dear. And baby, if you ain't outraged about that, something is very wrong indeed.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Dems Report: True Cost of Iraq War
I wondered when Congressional Democrats would get around to making it real to the American public just what the Iraq war is costing us. Yesterday the House Dems released a report that discusses the hidden costs, the future costs, the related costs etc.
I heard on Free Radio Santa Cruz yesterday however, an even better breakdown that brings it home to the average news consumer. The cost SO FAR of the Iraq war could have paid for:
The Education of every poor child in the WORLD for 7.5 years
The housing costs of every American for 1.5 years
Sending every child in America to Yale College for 4 years
Supplying every American home with alternative solar power (how's that for Homeland Security......we don't need your stinking oil anymore ME)
I wish I could recall all of the facts and figures of the alternate budget for those war funds but this is what I am remembering so far this morning after 1/2 cup of coffee. If I can get the actual statistics I will post them here.
But it gives you pause yes? What 3.5 TRILLION dollars can do. Oh, and by the way, we haven't paid for this war.....it's all been on credit primarily with the Chinese. We are borrowing the money to pay for our war. Better pray to Buddha or the ghost of Chairman Mao that they don't decide to call in those loans anytime soon, or US towns and cities will resemble the Shire under rule of Mordor.
At any rate, here is the News story about the Democrats "Hidden Cost" report of yesterday:
Democrats forecast $3.5 trillion in war costs
Tue Nov 13, 2007 4:47pm EST
By Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Iraq and Afghanistan wars could cost the United States $3.5 trillion through 2017 if "hidden costs" like higher oil prices, care for wounded soldiers and interest on borrowed money are counted, congressional Democrats said on Tuesday.
The estimate, in a report by Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee, is about $1 trillion higher than an October 24 analysis of war costs by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which mostly weighed direct war expenditures and borrowing costs of more than $700 billion.
The new report assumed the United States would withdraw about half of its present combat troops from Iraq by 2013 and maintain 75,000 soldiers there from 2013-2017.
The estimate was released as the House of Representatives again prepared to debate legislation setting timetables for ending U.S. military involvement in Iraq, now in its fifth year.
Anti-war Democrats with a presidential election coming up next November want to link new war funds to a call for combat troops to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2008.
"We cannot afford this war," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, told reporters, noting that 3,860 U.S. troops have been killed and 38,164 wounded in Iraq.
The senior Republicans on the Joint Economic Committee, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas and Rep. Jim Saxton of New Jersey, questioned the accuracy of the cost estimate. They added, "The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq certainly involve costs, but prematurely pulling out of these wars would also include huge costs that are ignored in the Democrats' report."
Sen. Charles Schumer, the New York Democrat who chairs the Joint Economic Committee, acknowledged his staff's analysis did not incorporate positive economic impacts.
"No. That money would've been spent on other things," Schumer replied.
Since the September 11 attacks on the United States, Congress has appropriated about $604 billion to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan and President George W. Bush has asked for nearly $200 billion more.
But the Democratic report estimated the total economic cost so far was about double that amount, at $1.6 trillion.
It said the war in Iraq had further hurt the U.S. economy by helping drive up world oil prices at a time of growing demand and declining excess production capacity.
"Both the direct effect of the war in reducing Iraqi oil production and the indirect effect of creating greater instability in the Middle East can act to increase oil prices," the report said.
(Additional reporting by JoAnne Allen, editing by David Alexander and David Wiessler)
© Reuters 2006.
I heard on Free Radio Santa Cruz yesterday however, an even better breakdown that brings it home to the average news consumer. The cost SO FAR of the Iraq war could have paid for:
The Education of every poor child in the WORLD for 7.5 years
The housing costs of every American for 1.5 years
Sending every child in America to Yale College for 4 years
Supplying every American home with alternative solar power (how's that for Homeland Security......we don't need your stinking oil anymore ME)
I wish I could recall all of the facts and figures of the alternate budget for those war funds but this is what I am remembering so far this morning after 1/2 cup of coffee. If I can get the actual statistics I will post them here.
But it gives you pause yes? What 3.5 TRILLION dollars can do. Oh, and by the way, we haven't paid for this war.....it's all been on credit primarily with the Chinese. We are borrowing the money to pay for our war. Better pray to Buddha or the ghost of Chairman Mao that they don't decide to call in those loans anytime soon, or US towns and cities will resemble the Shire under rule of Mordor.
At any rate, here is the News story about the Democrats "Hidden Cost" report of yesterday:
Democrats forecast $3.5 trillion in war costs
Tue Nov 13, 2007 4:47pm EST
By Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Iraq and Afghanistan wars could cost the United States $3.5 trillion through 2017 if "hidden costs" like higher oil prices, care for wounded soldiers and interest on borrowed money are counted, congressional Democrats said on Tuesday.
The estimate, in a report by Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee, is about $1 trillion higher than an October 24 analysis of war costs by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which mostly weighed direct war expenditures and borrowing costs of more than $700 billion.
The new report assumed the United States would withdraw about half of its present combat troops from Iraq by 2013 and maintain 75,000 soldiers there from 2013-2017.
The estimate was released as the House of Representatives again prepared to debate legislation setting timetables for ending U.S. military involvement in Iraq, now in its fifth year.
Anti-war Democrats with a presidential election coming up next November want to link new war funds to a call for combat troops to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2008.
"We cannot afford this war," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, told reporters, noting that 3,860 U.S. troops have been killed and 38,164 wounded in Iraq.
The senior Republicans on the Joint Economic Committee, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas and Rep. Jim Saxton of New Jersey, questioned the accuracy of the cost estimate. They added, "The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq certainly involve costs, but prematurely pulling out of these wars would also include huge costs that are ignored in the Democrats' report."
Sen. Charles Schumer, the New York Democrat who chairs the Joint Economic Committee, acknowledged his staff's analysis did not incorporate positive economic impacts.
"No. That money would've been spent on other things," Schumer replied.
Since the September 11 attacks on the United States, Congress has appropriated about $604 billion to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan and President George W. Bush has asked for nearly $200 billion more.
But the Democratic report estimated the total economic cost so far was about double that amount, at $1.6 trillion.
It said the war in Iraq had further hurt the U.S. economy by helping drive up world oil prices at a time of growing demand and declining excess production capacity.
"Both the direct effect of the war in reducing Iraqi oil production and the indirect effect of creating greater instability in the Middle East can act to increase oil prices," the report said.
(Additional reporting by JoAnne Allen, editing by David Alexander and David Wiessler)
© Reuters 2006.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
"If I Get 10,000 Handwritten Letters, I'll Put Impeachment Back on the Table" - Nancy Pelosi
Don't send your handwritten letters to Pelosi's office, send them to Cindy Sheehan's office; she'll keep a GENUINE tally. Here's a note from Sheehan:
Tell Nancy to Impeach Dick Cheney
November 12, 2007
House Resolution 333 for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney is off the House floor, and has instead been sent to the Judiciary Committee for "further study." This maneuver, organized by Pelosi and the Democratic leadership, is consistent with their mantra that impeachment is "off the table." But, we are told Nancy Pelosi is reported to have replied to the question of impeachment that if she received 10,000 hand written letters she would proceed with it. What are we waiting for?
Cindy Sheehan wrote this:
Dear Friends
Instead of sending your impeachment letters for Dick Cheney to Nancy Pelosi's office, send them to my office so we can get an official count.
Please send them to:
Cindy for Congress
RE: Impeach Dick Cheney
1260 Mission Blvd
San Francisco, Ca 94103
Please pass this around and have them sent by Friday, November 16th and we will have them delivered to her office in San Francisco before Thanksgiving.
Love
Cindy
Tell Nancy to Impeach Dick Cheney
November 12, 2007
House Resolution 333 for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney is off the House floor, and has instead been sent to the Judiciary Committee for "further study." This maneuver, organized by Pelosi and the Democratic leadership, is consistent with their mantra that impeachment is "off the table." But, we are told Nancy Pelosi is reported to have replied to the question of impeachment that if she received 10,000 hand written letters she would proceed with it. What are we waiting for?
Cindy Sheehan wrote this:
Dear Friends
Instead of sending your impeachment letters for Dick Cheney to Nancy Pelosi's office, send them to my office so we can get an official count.
Please send them to:
Cindy for Congress
RE: Impeach Dick Cheney
1260 Mission Blvd
San Francisco, Ca 94103
Please pass this around and have them sent by Friday, November 16th and we will have them delivered to her office in San Francisco before Thanksgiving.
Love
Cindy
Monday, November 12, 2007
The Coup at Home
Frank Rich of the New York Times has written a great Op-Ed piece that shouldn't be missed. My comment on "The Coup at Home" (I'm glad SOMEBODY is finally noticing and calling it by it's right name) is this:
The only way things can turn around in any significant and lasting way, is if we impeach. First Cheney, then Bush. Cheney first because if Bush is impeached, Cheney becomes President and then we have to go through another Presidential impeachment. Besides Cheney is the puppetmaster anyway. Bush is the true believer, but Cheney is his Svengali. (Rove a close second).
For those who say that impeachment in time of war is too outrageous, consider that the founding fathers believed that there was no better time to impeach THAN in time of war. To those who think that Cheney and Bush will be out of power in a little over a year anyway, that is beside the point. The point is to serve a warning to future would-be-dictators that this behavior doesn't fly in the good old US of A. That subverting the Constitution is an impeachable offense. Consider that Bill Clinton was impeached for having lied about some DNA on a blue dress! What is more important to this nation? WHO a president has sex with or our very freedoms and civil liberties?
If you can't imagine why impeachment is necessary, see Nov 9th blog entry the (top) ten reasons to impeach Cheney as written at Democrats.com.
Even if President Bush had the guts to condemn Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, there is no longer any moral high ground left for him to stand on.
read more | digg story
The only way things can turn around in any significant and lasting way, is if we impeach. First Cheney, then Bush. Cheney first because if Bush is impeached, Cheney becomes President and then we have to go through another Presidential impeachment. Besides Cheney is the puppetmaster anyway. Bush is the true believer, but Cheney is his Svengali. (Rove a close second).
For those who say that impeachment in time of war is too outrageous, consider that the founding fathers believed that there was no better time to impeach THAN in time of war. To those who think that Cheney and Bush will be out of power in a little over a year anyway, that is beside the point. The point is to serve a warning to future would-be-dictators that this behavior doesn't fly in the good old US of A. That subverting the Constitution is an impeachable offense. Consider that Bill Clinton was impeached for having lied about some DNA on a blue dress! What is more important to this nation? WHO a president has sex with or our very freedoms and civil liberties?
If you can't imagine why impeachment is necessary, see Nov 9th blog entry the (top) ten reasons to impeach Cheney as written at Democrats.com.
Even if President Bush had the guts to condemn Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, there is no longer any moral high ground left for him to stand on.
read more | digg story
Friday, November 9, 2007
Eric Alterman: Torturous Debate Over Waterboarding
I can't let go of this topic. Not enough people are seriously talking about it. It is fundamental in my view and should not be put to rest while we have an Attorney General now, who refuses to say this practice is TORTURE. This behavior as well as extraordinary rendition, has tarnished our American image around the world.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Bush: If I Were Iraqi, I'd Be Saying, 'God, I Love Freedom'
In a press conference today, Bush tried to insist that “freedom’s happening” and Iraq isn’t in a “quagmire”: "If you lived in Iraq and had lived under a tyranny, you’d be saying: God, I love freedom, because that’s what’s happened."
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Huffington Post: The Impeachment Of Dick Cheney
It was yesterday, on the one year anniversary of the collapse of Karl Rove's thousand-year Reich, when the Democrats subjected themselves to both public embarrassment and public disgrace, and each within a few hours of the other.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
KEITH OLBERMANN SPECIAL COMMENT ON WATERBOARDING NOV 5, 2007
I need make no comment on THIS brilliant and courageous journalism/editorial.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Pakistan's State of Emergency - a Blueprint for Bush/Cheney?
The latest news out of Islamabad is scary to say the least. The "State of Emergency" declared by Musharef is being described as a means to control the growing terrorist activity. Condi Rice supports the "anti-terrorist" ally Musharef, still. But people who are closely watching the drama unfold, say that this act by Musharef is just a thinly disguised attempt to make sure that the Supreme Court's upcoming decision on the legality of his election never takes place. Cracking down on terrorists? Not according to reports out of the Northwest provinces where they actually LET TERRORISTS GO. They are cracking down in the cities, and cracking down on human rights leaders.
For the real scoop, Juan Coles "Informed Comment" is a must read. The most chilling comment being:
If Bush and Cheney are ever tempted into extreme measures in the United States, Musharraf has provided a template for how it would unfold. Maintain you are moving against terrorists and extremists, but actually move against the rule of law. Rubin has accepted the suggested term of "lawfare" to describe this kind of warfare by executive order.
Labels: Pakistan
posted by Juan Cole @ 11/05/2007 06:30:00 AM 0 comments
Urdu Press Blames US for Crisis
For the real scoop, Juan Coles "Informed Comment" is a must read. The most chilling comment being:
If Bush and Cheney are ever tempted into extreme measures in the United States, Musharraf has provided a template for how it would unfold. Maintain you are moving against terrorists and extremists, but actually move against the rule of law. Rubin has accepted the suggested term of "lawfare" to describe this kind of warfare by executive order.
Labels: Pakistan
posted by Juan Cole @ 11/05/2007 06:30:00 AM 0 comments
Urdu Press Blames US for Crisis
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Ten Reasons to Impeach Bush and Cheney
From Democrats.com :
Ten Reasons to Impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney
I ask Congress to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney for the following reasons:
1. Violating the United Nations Charter by launching an illegal "War of Aggression" against Iraq without cause, using fraud to sell the war to Congress and the public, misusing government funds to begin bombing without Congressional authorization, and subjecting our military personnel to unnecessary harm, debilitating injuries, and deaths.
2. Violating U.S. and international law by authorizing the torture of thousands of captives, resulting in dozens of deaths, and keeping prisoners hidden from the International Committee of the Red Cross.
3. Violating the Constitution by arbitrarily detaining Americans, legal residents, and non-Americans, without due process, without charge, and without access to counsel.
4. Violating the Geneva Conventions by targeting civilians, journalists, hospitals, and ambulances, and using illegal weapons, including white phosphorous, depleted uranium, and a new type of napalm.
5. Violating U.S. law and the Constitution through widespread wiretapping of the phone calls and emails of Americans without a warrant.
6. Violating the Constitution by using "signing statements" to defy hundreds of laws passed by Congress.
7. Violating U.S. and state law by obstructing honest elections in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006.
8. Violating U.S. law by using paid propaganda and disinformation, selectively and misleadingly leaking classified information, and exposing the identity of a covert CIA operative working on sensitive WMD proliferation for political retribution.
9. Subverting the Constitution and abusing Presidential power by asserting a "Unitary Executive Theory" giving unlimited powers to the President, by obstructing efforts by Congress and the Courts to review and restrict Presidential actions, and by promoting and signing legislation negating the Bill of Rights and the Writ of Habeas Corpus.
10. Gross negligence in failing to assist New Orleans residents after Hurricane Katrina, in ignoring urgent warnings of an Al Qaeda attack prior to Sept. 11, 2001, and in increasing air pollution causing global warming.
Ten Reasons to Impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney
I ask Congress to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney for the following reasons:
1. Violating the United Nations Charter by launching an illegal "War of Aggression" against Iraq without cause, using fraud to sell the war to Congress and the public, misusing government funds to begin bombing without Congressional authorization, and subjecting our military personnel to unnecessary harm, debilitating injuries, and deaths.
2. Violating U.S. and international law by authorizing the torture of thousands of captives, resulting in dozens of deaths, and keeping prisoners hidden from the International Committee of the Red Cross.
3. Violating the Constitution by arbitrarily detaining Americans, legal residents, and non-Americans, without due process, without charge, and without access to counsel.
4. Violating the Geneva Conventions by targeting civilians, journalists, hospitals, and ambulances, and using illegal weapons, including white phosphorous, depleted uranium, and a new type of napalm.
5. Violating U.S. law and the Constitution through widespread wiretapping of the phone calls and emails of Americans without a warrant.
6. Violating the Constitution by using "signing statements" to defy hundreds of laws passed by Congress.
7. Violating U.S. and state law by obstructing honest elections in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006.
8. Violating U.S. law by using paid propaganda and disinformation, selectively and misleadingly leaking classified information, and exposing the identity of a covert CIA operative working on sensitive WMD proliferation for political retribution.
9. Subverting the Constitution and abusing Presidential power by asserting a "Unitary Executive Theory" giving unlimited powers to the President, by obstructing efforts by Congress and the Courts to review and restrict Presidential actions, and by promoting and signing legislation negating the Bill of Rights and the Writ of Habeas Corpus.
10. Gross negligence in failing to assist New Orleans residents after Hurricane Katrina, in ignoring urgent warnings of an Al Qaeda attack prior to Sept. 11, 2001, and in increasing air pollution causing global warming.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Obama Introduces New Legislation on Iran..
I'm starting to like Obama, more and more. Saw him interviewed last night by ABC Nightly News correspondent, Charles Gibson and he struck me as so CALM, so grounded, centered, thoughtful; all of the things Bush is not. Bush has always seemed like such an idealogue, one trick pony (although in his case, one trick horse's ass would be more appropos).
Read in Talking Points Memo today (link in favorites) that Obama is now introducing legislation on Iran, to counter-balance Kyl-Lieberman. GOOD! Here's the story from TPM:
Obama introduces Iran measure
Democrat Obama to Introduce Resolution Saying Bush Has No Authority for War With Iran
NEDRA PICKLER
AP News
Nov 01, 2007 20:36 EDT
Democrat Barack Obama introduced a Senate resolution late Thursday that says President Bush does not have authority to use military force against Iran, the latest move in a debate with presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton about how to respond to that country's nuclear ambitions.
Clinton's campaign accused Obama of playing politics instead of taking a leadership role from the outset.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton said the Illinois senator drafted the measure in an effort to "nullify the vote the Senate took to give the president the benefit of the doubt on Iran."
Burton was referring to an amendment sponsored by Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, that passed 76-22 on Sept. 26 and designates Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.
Clinton was the only Senate Democrat running for president to support the measure, and her rivals have argued that Bush could use it to justify war with Iran. Clinton insists her vote would not support military strikes and instead was a vote for stepped-up diplomacy.
Last week, the Bush administration declared the Revolutionary Guard a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction and announced new sanctions meant to isolate Iran. The Iranian government contends its nuclear program is aimed only toward providing nuclear power.
Clinton and 29 other senators wrote to Bush Thursday to tell him he has no congressional authority for war with Iran.
The four Democratic senators running for the White House split over whether to sign the letter. Chris Dodd of Connecticut added his support, while Obama and Joe Biden of Delaware declined.
The letter accuses Bush of "provocative statements and actions stemming from your administration with respect to possible U.S. military action in Iran."
"We wish to emphasize that no congressional authority exists for unilateral military action against Iran," it says. That includes the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, the letter says.
Obama missed the vote on the amendment because he was campaigning. Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said if Obama was so concerned about the amendment, he should have been there to vote against it. Singer said Obama also should have signed Webb's letter and co-sponsored two other pieces of legislation that reaffirm the president cannot use force against Iran without congressional approval.
"It's unfortunate that (Senator) Obama is abandoning the politics of hope in favor of the kind of political games he is so critical of in his book," Singer said. He pointed to a passage in "The Audacity of Hope" where Obama is critical of the tendency to "exaggerate or demonize, oversimplify or overstate our case."
Said Obama spokesman Bill Burton: "With her vote for the war in Iraq and her vote for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, Hillary Clinton has now given George Bush the benefit of the doubt not once, but twice. While she's trying her best to change her position on yet another critical issue facing our country, Senator Obama knows that it takes legislation, not letters, to undo the vote that she cast."
His resolution says any offensive military action against Iran must be explicitly authorized by Congress, and seeks to clarify that nothing approved so far provides that authority.
Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander said Biden believes the amendment could be used to justify military action.
"He has also made clear many times his view that the president lacks the authority to use force against Iran absent authorization from Congress," she said. "He didn't need to clarify that position. He's been clear from the start."
Even though Dodd shares that view, he signed the letter because "we felt that it was necessary to make it clear that this administration cannot take military action against Iran without the express authorization of Congress," said Dodd spokesman Hari Sevugan.
Source: AP News
Read in Talking Points Memo today (link in favorites) that Obama is now introducing legislation on Iran, to counter-balance Kyl-Lieberman. GOOD! Here's the story from TPM:
Obama introduces Iran measure
Democrat Obama to Introduce Resolution Saying Bush Has No Authority for War With Iran
NEDRA PICKLER
AP News
Nov 01, 2007 20:36 EDT
Democrat Barack Obama introduced a Senate resolution late Thursday that says President Bush does not have authority to use military force against Iran, the latest move in a debate with presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton about how to respond to that country's nuclear ambitions.
Clinton's campaign accused Obama of playing politics instead of taking a leadership role from the outset.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton said the Illinois senator drafted the measure in an effort to "nullify the vote the Senate took to give the president the benefit of the doubt on Iran."
Burton was referring to an amendment sponsored by Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, that passed 76-22 on Sept. 26 and designates Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.
Clinton was the only Senate Democrat running for president to support the measure, and her rivals have argued that Bush could use it to justify war with Iran. Clinton insists her vote would not support military strikes and instead was a vote for stepped-up diplomacy.
Last week, the Bush administration declared the Revolutionary Guard a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction and announced new sanctions meant to isolate Iran. The Iranian government contends its nuclear program is aimed only toward providing nuclear power.
Clinton and 29 other senators wrote to Bush Thursday to tell him he has no congressional authority for war with Iran.
The four Democratic senators running for the White House split over whether to sign the letter. Chris Dodd of Connecticut added his support, while Obama and Joe Biden of Delaware declined.
The letter accuses Bush of "provocative statements and actions stemming from your administration with respect to possible U.S. military action in Iran."
"We wish to emphasize that no congressional authority exists for unilateral military action against Iran," it says. That includes the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, the letter says.
Obama missed the vote on the amendment because he was campaigning. Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said if Obama was so concerned about the amendment, he should have been there to vote against it. Singer said Obama also should have signed Webb's letter and co-sponsored two other pieces of legislation that reaffirm the president cannot use force against Iran without congressional approval.
"It's unfortunate that (Senator) Obama is abandoning the politics of hope in favor of the kind of political games he is so critical of in his book," Singer said. He pointed to a passage in "The Audacity of Hope" where Obama is critical of the tendency to "exaggerate or demonize, oversimplify or overstate our case."
Said Obama spokesman Bill Burton: "With her vote for the war in Iraq and her vote for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, Hillary Clinton has now given George Bush the benefit of the doubt not once, but twice. While she's trying her best to change her position on yet another critical issue facing our country, Senator Obama knows that it takes legislation, not letters, to undo the vote that she cast."
His resolution says any offensive military action against Iran must be explicitly authorized by Congress, and seeks to clarify that nothing approved so far provides that authority.
Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander said Biden believes the amendment could be used to justify military action.
"He has also made clear many times his view that the president lacks the authority to use force against Iran absent authorization from Congress," she said. "He didn't need to clarify that position. He's been clear from the start."
Even though Dodd shares that view, he signed the letter because "we felt that it was necessary to make it clear that this administration cannot take military action against Iran without the express authorization of Congress," said Dodd spokesman Hari Sevugan.
Source: AP News
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Is Waterboarding torture? Have it done to you, THEN decide...
I listened to Democracy Now the other day with interest when a Human Rights organization representative talked about filing a lawsuit against Donald Rumsfeld with French authorities, while Rumsfeld was visiting France. Their hope was that the French authorities would arrest Rumsfeld as a war criminal for authorizing torture while he was Secretary of Defense.
I later read that he had to be whisked away into an adjacent US Embassy building by US Embassy officials and spirited away to Germany, where they have dropped a proposal by human rights activists to charge Rumsfeld as a war criminal. You know, Germany understands.......those pesky human rights sometimes get in the way of a nation state's larger purpose.
Today's lead story in the NY Times is how this scenario could be played out in the future with much different consequences for Rummy and even George W. Bush, should the nominee for Attorney General, come out and clearly define waterboarding as torture. That is why he is torturing the definition......of torture......it's so this cabal of neocon goosesteppers won't get into legal hot water when there is a change of Administration.
But to the question "Is waterboarding torture?" Any child could tell you that it is. Any person who has experienced it, would tell you that it is. If some lunatic serial killer like the BTK killer for example, used this ritual as part of his reportoire after kidnapping and binding people, do you think the prosecuting D.A. in a case like that would say "Naw, we don't want to include torture as one of the charges, that was just, you know, applying pressure, but it was no big deal." ? Oh HELL no. You KNOW that D.A. would indict the maniac on torture for that act, and nobody would blink an eye and I'd like to see a defense attorney fight that one. Maybe that is what needs to happen. For criminal attorneys and district attorneys and judges to say that if the government can do these things with impunity then so can criminal maniacs.
Here is the text of today's NY Times story on the matter. Warning: It's sickening to watch the waffling, especially by the moderate Dems. Ugh. But read on:
November 1, 2007
Nominee’s Stand May Avoid Tangle of Torture Cases
By SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 — In adamantly refusing to declare waterboarding illegal, Michael B. Mukasey, the nominee for attorney general, is steering clear of a potential legal quagmire for the Bush administration: criminal prosecution or lawsuits against Central Intelligence Agency officers who used the harsh interrogation practice and those who authorized it, legal experts said Wednesday.
On Wednesday, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, scheduled a confirmation vote for Tuesday amid deep uncertainty about the outcome at the committee level. If Mr. Mukasey’s nomination reaches the Senate floor, moderate Democrats appear likely to join Republicans to produce a majority for confirmation. But a party-line vote in the Judiciary Committee, which seemed a possibility, could block the nomination from reaching the floor.
The biggest problem for Mr. Mukasey remains his refusal to take a clear legal position on the interrogation technique. Fear of opening the door to criminal or civil liability for torture or abuse, whether in an American court or in courts overseas, appeared to loom large in Mr. Mukasey’s calculations as he parried questions from the committee this week. Some legal experts suggested that liability could go all the way to President Bush if he explicitly authorized waterboarding.
Waterboarding is a centuries-old interrogation method in which a prisoner’s face is covered with cloth and then doused with water to create a feeling of suffocation. It was used in 2002 and 2003 by C.I.A. officers questioning at least three high-level terrorism suspects, government officials say.
Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the committee’s top Republican, said at a hearing Wednesday that any statement by Mr. Mukasey that waterboarding is torture could fuel criminal charges or lawsuits against those responsible for waterboarding.
“The facts are that an expression of an opinion by Judge Mukasey prior to becoming attorney general would put a lot of people at risk for what has happened,” Mr. Specter said.
Mr. Specter, who said he was briefed on the interrogation issue this week by the C.I.A. director, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, noted that human rights groups had filed a criminal complaint on torture against Donald H. Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary, while he was visiting France this month. Such cases, based on the legal concept of “universal jurisdiction” for torture and certain other crimes, have proliferated in recent years, though they have often posed more of an aggravation than a serious threat.
Jack L. Goldsmith, who served in the Justice Department in 2003 and 2004, wrote in his recent memoir, “The Terror Presidency,” that the possibility of future prosecution for aggressive actions against terrorism was a constant worry inside the Bush administration.
“I witnessed top officials and bureaucrats in the White House and throughout the administration openly worrying that investigators, acting with the benefit of hindsight in a different political environment, would impose criminal penalties on heat-of-battle judgment calls,” Mr. Goldsmith wrote.
Scott L. Silliman, an expert on national security law at Duke University School of Law, said any statement by Mr. Mukasey that waterboarding was illegal torture “would open up Pandora’s box,” even in the United States. Such a statement from an attorney general would override existing Justice Department legal opinions and create intense pressure from human rights groups to open a criminal investigation of interrogation practices, Mr. Silliman said.
“You would ask not just who carried it out, but who specifically approved it,” said Mr. Silliman, director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke. “Theoretically, it could go all the way up to the president of the United States; that’s why he’ll never say it’s torture,” Mr. Silliman said of Mr. Mukasey.
Robert M. Chesney, of Wake Forest University School of Law, said Mr. Mukasey’s statements could influence the climate in which prosecution decisions are made.
“There is a culture of concern about where Monday-morning quarterbacking could lead to,” Mr. Chesney said. If Mr. Mukasey declared waterboarding illegal, “it would make it politically more possible to go after interrogators in the future,” he said. “Whether it would change the legal equities is far less clear.”
Mr. Chesney and other specialists emphasized that prosecution in the United States, even under a future administration, would face huge hurdles because Congress since 2005 has adopted laws offering legal protections to interrogators for actions taken with government authorization. Justice Department legal opinions are believed to have approved waterboarding, among other harsh methods.
Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch, said Mr. Mukasey “is hedging in the interest of protecting current and former administration officials from possible prosecution,” either in other countries or by a future American administration. “What he should be doing is providing a straightforward interpretation of the law,” she said.
Mr. Mukasey, 66, a retired federal judge from New York, referred to the criminal liability issue several times in nearly 180 pages of written answers delivered to the Senate on Tuesday. He said that while he personally found waterboarding and similar interrogation methods “repugnant,” he could not call them illegal. One reason, he said, was to avoid any implication that intelligence officers and their bosses had broken the law.
“I would not want any uninformed statement of mine made during a confirmation process to present our own professional interrogators in the field, who must perform their duty under the most stressful conditions, or those charged with reviewing their conduct,” Mr. Mukasey wrote, “with a perceived threat that any conduct of theirs, past or present, that was based on authorizations supported by the Department of Justice could place them in personal legal jeopardy.”
If the judiciary committee were to split along party lines, the deciding vote could go to Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who first suggested Mr. Mukasey to succeed Alberto R. Gonzales.
That would leave Mr. Schumer, ordinarily an enthusiastic partisan combatant, with a difficult decision: whether to break with his fellow Democrats and save Mr. Mukasey’s nomination or to vote to kill the nomination of a man he has highly praised.
On Wednesday, Mr. Schumer was uncharacteristically reluctant to discuss his views. He avoided television crews waiting outside an unrelated press conference and refused to answer questions about the judge’s letter on waterboarding.
“I’m not going to comment on Judge Mukasey here,” he said. “I’m reading the letter, I’m going over it.”
Dana M. Perino, the White House press secretary, said Democrats were “playing politics” with the waterboarding issue, noting that Mr. Mukasey had not been briefed on classified interrogation methods. “I can’t imagine the Democrats would want to hold back his nomination just because he is a thoughtful, careful thinker who looks at all the facts before he makes a judgment,” Ms. Perino said.
Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, offered a fierce defense of Mr. Mukasey, who he said had spent “40 days in the partisan wilderness,” on the Senate floor. “What kind of crazy, topsy-turvy confirmation process is this?” Mr. Hatch asked.
But Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, declared on the floor that he would vote against confirming Mr. Mukasey, whom he called a good man and a brilliant lawyer, because of the torture question. “I don’t think anyone intended this nomination to turn on this issue,” Mr. Whitehouse said.
Three Republicans who have denounced waterboarding wrote to Mr. Mukasey on Wednesday, suggesting that they would support him but urging him to declare waterboarding illegal after he is confirmed.
The senators, John McCain of Arizona, John W. Warner of Virginia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said anyone who engaged in waterboarding “puts himself at risk of prosecution, including under the War Crimes Act, and opens himself to civil liability as well.”
Carl Hulse and Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting.
I later read that he had to be whisked away into an adjacent US Embassy building by US Embassy officials and spirited away to Germany, where they have dropped a proposal by human rights activists to charge Rumsfeld as a war criminal. You know, Germany understands.......those pesky human rights sometimes get in the way of a nation state's larger purpose.
Today's lead story in the NY Times is how this scenario could be played out in the future with much different consequences for Rummy and even George W. Bush, should the nominee for Attorney General, come out and clearly define waterboarding as torture. That is why he is torturing the definition......of torture......it's so this cabal of neocon goosesteppers won't get into legal hot water when there is a change of Administration.
But to the question "Is waterboarding torture?" Any child could tell you that it is. Any person who has experienced it, would tell you that it is. If some lunatic serial killer like the BTK killer for example, used this ritual as part of his reportoire after kidnapping and binding people, do you think the prosecuting D.A. in a case like that would say "Naw, we don't want to include torture as one of the charges, that was just, you know, applying pressure, but it was no big deal." ? Oh HELL no. You KNOW that D.A. would indict the maniac on torture for that act, and nobody would blink an eye and I'd like to see a defense attorney fight that one. Maybe that is what needs to happen. For criminal attorneys and district attorneys and judges to say that if the government can do these things with impunity then so can criminal maniacs.
Here is the text of today's NY Times story on the matter. Warning: It's sickening to watch the waffling, especially by the moderate Dems. Ugh. But read on:
November 1, 2007
Nominee’s Stand May Avoid Tangle of Torture Cases
By SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 — In adamantly refusing to declare waterboarding illegal, Michael B. Mukasey, the nominee for attorney general, is steering clear of a potential legal quagmire for the Bush administration: criminal prosecution or lawsuits against Central Intelligence Agency officers who used the harsh interrogation practice and those who authorized it, legal experts said Wednesday.
On Wednesday, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, scheduled a confirmation vote for Tuesday amid deep uncertainty about the outcome at the committee level. If Mr. Mukasey’s nomination reaches the Senate floor, moderate Democrats appear likely to join Republicans to produce a majority for confirmation. But a party-line vote in the Judiciary Committee, which seemed a possibility, could block the nomination from reaching the floor.
The biggest problem for Mr. Mukasey remains his refusal to take a clear legal position on the interrogation technique. Fear of opening the door to criminal or civil liability for torture or abuse, whether in an American court or in courts overseas, appeared to loom large in Mr. Mukasey’s calculations as he parried questions from the committee this week. Some legal experts suggested that liability could go all the way to President Bush if he explicitly authorized waterboarding.
Waterboarding is a centuries-old interrogation method in which a prisoner’s face is covered with cloth and then doused with water to create a feeling of suffocation. It was used in 2002 and 2003 by C.I.A. officers questioning at least three high-level terrorism suspects, government officials say.
Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the committee’s top Republican, said at a hearing Wednesday that any statement by Mr. Mukasey that waterboarding is torture could fuel criminal charges or lawsuits against those responsible for waterboarding.
“The facts are that an expression of an opinion by Judge Mukasey prior to becoming attorney general would put a lot of people at risk for what has happened,” Mr. Specter said.
Mr. Specter, who said he was briefed on the interrogation issue this week by the C.I.A. director, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, noted that human rights groups had filed a criminal complaint on torture against Donald H. Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary, while he was visiting France this month. Such cases, based on the legal concept of “universal jurisdiction” for torture and certain other crimes, have proliferated in recent years, though they have often posed more of an aggravation than a serious threat.
Jack L. Goldsmith, who served in the Justice Department in 2003 and 2004, wrote in his recent memoir, “The Terror Presidency,” that the possibility of future prosecution for aggressive actions against terrorism was a constant worry inside the Bush administration.
“I witnessed top officials and bureaucrats in the White House and throughout the administration openly worrying that investigators, acting with the benefit of hindsight in a different political environment, would impose criminal penalties on heat-of-battle judgment calls,” Mr. Goldsmith wrote.
Scott L. Silliman, an expert on national security law at Duke University School of Law, said any statement by Mr. Mukasey that waterboarding was illegal torture “would open up Pandora’s box,” even in the United States. Such a statement from an attorney general would override existing Justice Department legal opinions and create intense pressure from human rights groups to open a criminal investigation of interrogation practices, Mr. Silliman said.
“You would ask not just who carried it out, but who specifically approved it,” said Mr. Silliman, director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke. “Theoretically, it could go all the way up to the president of the United States; that’s why he’ll never say it’s torture,” Mr. Silliman said of Mr. Mukasey.
Robert M. Chesney, of Wake Forest University School of Law, said Mr. Mukasey’s statements could influence the climate in which prosecution decisions are made.
“There is a culture of concern about where Monday-morning quarterbacking could lead to,” Mr. Chesney said. If Mr. Mukasey declared waterboarding illegal, “it would make it politically more possible to go after interrogators in the future,” he said. “Whether it would change the legal equities is far less clear.”
Mr. Chesney and other specialists emphasized that prosecution in the United States, even under a future administration, would face huge hurdles because Congress since 2005 has adopted laws offering legal protections to interrogators for actions taken with government authorization. Justice Department legal opinions are believed to have approved waterboarding, among other harsh methods.
Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch, said Mr. Mukasey “is hedging in the interest of protecting current and former administration officials from possible prosecution,” either in other countries or by a future American administration. “What he should be doing is providing a straightforward interpretation of the law,” she said.
Mr. Mukasey, 66, a retired federal judge from New York, referred to the criminal liability issue several times in nearly 180 pages of written answers delivered to the Senate on Tuesday. He said that while he personally found waterboarding and similar interrogation methods “repugnant,” he could not call them illegal. One reason, he said, was to avoid any implication that intelligence officers and their bosses had broken the law.
“I would not want any uninformed statement of mine made during a confirmation process to present our own professional interrogators in the field, who must perform their duty under the most stressful conditions, or those charged with reviewing their conduct,” Mr. Mukasey wrote, “with a perceived threat that any conduct of theirs, past or present, that was based on authorizations supported by the Department of Justice could place them in personal legal jeopardy.”
If the judiciary committee were to split along party lines, the deciding vote could go to Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who first suggested Mr. Mukasey to succeed Alberto R. Gonzales.
That would leave Mr. Schumer, ordinarily an enthusiastic partisan combatant, with a difficult decision: whether to break with his fellow Democrats and save Mr. Mukasey’s nomination or to vote to kill the nomination of a man he has highly praised.
On Wednesday, Mr. Schumer was uncharacteristically reluctant to discuss his views. He avoided television crews waiting outside an unrelated press conference and refused to answer questions about the judge’s letter on waterboarding.
“I’m not going to comment on Judge Mukasey here,” he said. “I’m reading the letter, I’m going over it.”
Dana M. Perino, the White House press secretary, said Democrats were “playing politics” with the waterboarding issue, noting that Mr. Mukasey had not been briefed on classified interrogation methods. “I can’t imagine the Democrats would want to hold back his nomination just because he is a thoughtful, careful thinker who looks at all the facts before he makes a judgment,” Ms. Perino said.
Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, offered a fierce defense of Mr. Mukasey, who he said had spent “40 days in the partisan wilderness,” on the Senate floor. “What kind of crazy, topsy-turvy confirmation process is this?” Mr. Hatch asked.
But Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, declared on the floor that he would vote against confirming Mr. Mukasey, whom he called a good man and a brilliant lawyer, because of the torture question. “I don’t think anyone intended this nomination to turn on this issue,” Mr. Whitehouse said.
Three Republicans who have denounced waterboarding wrote to Mr. Mukasey on Wednesday, suggesting that they would support him but urging him to declare waterboarding illegal after he is confirmed.
The senators, John McCain of Arizona, John W. Warner of Virginia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said anyone who engaged in waterboarding “puts himself at risk of prosecution, including under the War Crimes Act, and opens himself to civil liability as well.”
Carl Hulse and Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting.
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