“The aging Vito Corleone, emblematic of cold-war American power, is struck down suddenly and violently by forces he did not expect and does not understand, much as America was on September 11. Even more intriguingly, each of his three ‘heirs’ embraces a very different vision of how the family should move forward following this wrenching moment. Tom Hagen, Sonny and Michael approximate the three American foreign-policy schools of thought—liberal institutionalism, neoconservatism and realism—vying for control in today’s disarranged world order.” In The National Interest, John C. Hulsman and A. Wess Mitchell compare America’s post-9/11 foreign policy to The Godfather. What they neglect to mention is that Dubya diplomacy in practice has been Sonny by way of Fredo.
Category: War on Terror
Yoo must be joking. | SSDAG.
“Our previous opinions make clear that customary international law is not federal law and that the president is free to override it at his discretion,” said the memo written by John Yoo, who was then deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel.” (Nor, apparently, does the Fourth Amendment apply.) An unsettling memorandum by Dubya stooge John Yoo which advocates both dictatorial rule and the legality of torture is released to the public, five years later. “‘The whole point of the memo is obviously to nullify every possible legal restraint on the president’s wartime authority,’ Jaffer said. ‘The memo was meant to allow torture, and that’s exactly what it did.‘”
More than anything, I’m reminded of Lincoln’s remarks to the Indiana fourteenth: “‘Whenever I hear anyone arguing over slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.’“
And, just in case anyone was under the impression that this sort of thing only happened in the dark days of 2003, witness Attorney General Mukasey last week getting publicly verklempt and making up 9/11 tales as he goes along, all to help preserve the NSA’s warrantless wiretaps. At this point, Chuck Schumer has a lot to answer for.
Five Years Later: The Desert Quagmire.
“Five years have gone by since that fateful decision. This war has now lasted longer than World War I, World War II, or the Civil War. Nearly four thousand Americans have given their lives. Thousands more have been wounded. Even under the best case scenarios, this war will cost American taxpayers well over a trillion dollars. And where are we for all of this sacrifice? We are less safe and less able to shape events abroad. We are divided at home, and our alliances around the world have been strained. The threats of a new century have roiled the waters of peace and stability, and yet America remains anchored in Iraq.“
— Sen. Barack Obama, 3/19/08. (Photo by Sgt. Luis R. Agostini, via here.)
When they came for my rogue, I said nothing.
“The cultural and behavioral norms of virtual worlds and gaming are generally unstudied. Therefore, Reynard will seek to identify the emerging social, behavioral and cultural norms in virtual worlds and gaming environments. The project would then apply the lessons learned to determine the feasibility of automatically detecting suspicious behavior and actions in the virtual world.” The Director of National Intelligence announces a project to uncover terrorists in World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs. It seems the US government has finally awakened to the catastrophic dangers posed by Bin Laden’s vast army of h4x0rs and ninjas. (Via Yglesias, where the game-savvy commenters are already having a good deal of fun with it.)
Senate: No More Water Torture. McCain: Well…
The Senate bans waterboarding by a vote of 51-45 and, surprisingly enough, straight-talker John McCain votes against the bill. “McCain sided with the Bush administration yesterday on the waterboarding ban passed by the Senate, saying in a statement that the measure goes too far by applying military standards to intelligence agencies. He also said current laws already forbid waterboarding, and he urged the administration to declare it illegal.” God forbid we take too strong a stance against torture, eh, Senator? For shame.
RAND report? What RAND report?
“One serious problem the study described was the Bush administration’s assumption that the reconstruction requirements would be minimal. There was also little incentive to challenge that assumption, the report said…Another problem described was a general lack of coordination. ‘There was never an attempt to develop a single national plan that integrated humanitarian assistance, reconstruction, governance, infrastructure development and postwar security,’ the study said…The poor planning had ‘the inadvertent effort of strengthening the insurgency,’ as Iraqis experienced a lack of security and essential services and focused on ‘negative effects of the U.S. security presence.’“
The NYT reports that the Dubya Pentagon has systematically worked to bury an unclassified 2005 study critical of the Iraq war’s conduct by the RAND corporation (the former employer of my ex-wife during my DC days, RAND also receives a memorable shout-out in Dr. Strangelove.) “The report was submitted at a time when the Bush administration was trying to rebut building criticism of the war in Iraq by stressing the progress Mr. Bush said was being made. The approach culminated in his announcement in November 2005 of his “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.” Update: Slate‘s Tim Noah wonders: “Isn’t this the story line of the Pentagon Papers?“
Obama’s Constitutional Experience.
“Katyal, who has been called in by both senators, described what sounded like a typical establishment vs. insurgency split between the two. Clinton ‘comes at it a bit more from a top-down perspective,’ he said, ‘as in, “elites are likely to know what the right answer is.” She’ll likely talk to the Nobel Prize winner, but maybe not be as likely to talk to the people on the ground affected by the policies./ Obama, on the other hand, talked to Katyal for two hours when the Military Commissions Act, which sought to limit the Guantanamo detainees’ right to bring appeals in federal court, was being debated in the Senate. He wanted to know how the proposed law would play out directly for the detainees, and Katyal was representing Salim Ahmed Hamdan before the Supreme Court.“
Slate‘s Emily Bazelon examines how Obama’s years as a con law professor influence his judicial thinking. “Obama’s immersion makes the law professors in his inner circle giddy. In addition to the sweet relief of a candidate who has promised not to keep marching to the drummer of executive power, and who wants to protect rather than diminish the right to privacy, the Obama lawyer team loves their man because he goes toe to toe with them. As Harvard law professor Martha Minow puts it, ‘He has at his fingertips the whole historical context of the moments in which our Constitution has been stretched, or has been in jeopardy, and when presidents have tried to bring it back. This isn’t an afterthought for him: “Oh, I’ll go consult my lawyers.”‘” This probably goes a way toward explaining why Obama has the backing of so many anti-Gitmo lawyers.
Mukasey Unleashed.
“I think what I said was that we could not investigate or prosecute somebody for acting in reliance on a Justice Department opinion.” The honeymoon is way over. In congressional testimony yesterday, Attorney General and theoretical straight-shooter Michael Mukasey announces he won’t look into waterboarding, won’t look into the warrantless wiretaps, and won’t enforce the persecuted prosecutor contempt citations. His rationale for all this? If the Justice Department says it’s ok, it’s not illegal. “That would mean that the same department that authorized the program would now consider prosecuting somebody who followed that advice.” Sigh…it’s enough to make one miss Alberto Gonzales. Ok, not really.
U.S.: We Waterboarded.
“Hayden said Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Abu Zubayda and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri were waterboarded in 2002 and 2003. Hayden banned the technique in 2006, but National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell told senators during the same hearing Tuesday that waterboarding remains in the CIA arsenal — so long as it as the specific consent of the president and legal approval of the attorney general.“
Not to be lost in the Super Tuesday shuffle (as intended): CIA Director Michael Hayden admits that we’ve waterboarded at least three high-level detainees. “Human Rights Watch, which has been calling on the government to outlaw waterboarding as a form of illegal torture, called Hayden’s testimony ‘an explicit admission of criminal activity.’”
Siljander: Al Qaeda’s Clay Davis?
Republican ex-Congressman and lobbyist Tom Siljander is indicted for money laundering, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy, based on his ties with the allegedly terrorist-connected Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA). “According to the indictment, the money was stolen from the U.S. Agency for International Development, and Siljander lied to federal agents about his role.” He is apparently pleading not-guilty. “Siljander, a favorite of religious conservatives, declared war on abortion, pornography, the Equal Rights Amendment and school busing. But he lost his 1986 reelection bid after urging clergy members to support him in order to ‘break the back of Satan.’”