Guantánamo detainees drugged and then interrogated

it's not like this is so damn surprising given what we already know about what's gone on in gitmo but what we only suspect vs. what is revealed as fact is a big difference...


jeffrey kaye and jason leopold posting at truthout...

Detainees in custody of the US military were interrogated while drugged with powerful antipsychotic and other medications that "could impair an individual's ability to provide accurate information," according to a declassified Department of Defense (DoD) inspector general's report that probed the alleged use of "mind altering drugs" during interrogations.

In addition, detainees were subjected to "chemical restraints," hydrated with intravenous (IV) fluids while they were being interrogated and, in what appears to be a form of psychological manipulation, the inspector general's probe confirmed at least one detainee - convicted "dirty bomb" plotter Jose Padilla - was the subject of a "deliberate ruse" in which his interrogator led him to believe he was given an injection of "truth serum."

Truthout obtained a copy of the report - "Investigation of Allegations of the Use of Mind-Altering Drugs to Facilitate Interrogations of Detainees" - prepared by the DoD's deputy inspector general for intelligence in September 2009, under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request we filed nearly two years ago.

[Leonard Rubenstein, a medical ethicist at Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health and Human Rights and the former president of Physicians for Human Rights] said the failure to inform prisoners what drugs they were given means "some basic principles of medical ethics were cast aside, especially those requiring a doctor to explain his or her recommendation and seek consent for it as an affirmation of the dignity and autonomy of the patient."

"Even where consent is not forthcoming and involuntary medication is allowed after voluntary medication is not accepted, it should never take place unless this process is followed," Rubenstein said.

The cumulative effects of indefinite detention, interrogations, use of drugs, and other conditions of confinement also appear to have taken a toll on the detainees' mental state and impacted the DoD watchdog's ability to conduct a thorough investigation.

Indeed, when the inspector general sought to interview the attorney representing one detainee who claimed he was given mind-altering drugs during interrogations, the attorney responded, "at this state of his incarceration, [redacted] memory is severely compromised and, unfortunately, we are skeptical that he can provide you with any further details ..."

The investigation also found instances where "chemical restraints" were used on detainees "that posed a threat to themselves or others," which Rubenstein said, "is contrary to US Bureau of Prison regulations, decisions of the US Supreme Court and to medical ethics principles that forbid subordinating the patient's medical interests to prison security."

[...]

The inspector general's yearlong probe was launched in June 2008, two months after the publication of a Washington Post report in which some detainees claimed they were forcibly drugged and coerced into making confessions.

One of the detainees at the center of The Washington Post report, Adel al-Nusairi, a former Saudi policeman who was imprisoned at Guantanamo from 2002 to 2005, is prominently featured in the inspector general's report and identified as "IG-02."

According to his attorney's notes cited in The Washington Post, al-Nusairi claimed he was injected with an unknown medication that made him extremely sleepy just before he was interrogated in 2002. When his captors awakened him, he fabricated a confession for US interrogators in hopes they would leave him alone so he could sleep.

"I was completely gone," al-Nusairi told his attorney, Anant Raut. "I said, 'Let me go. I want to go to sleep. If it takes saying I'm a member of al-Qaeda, I will.'"

and you can be sure, if it happened at guantánamo, it also took place at bagram and all the other black sites...

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Occupy is poised to wash over American society vs. If ever I saw a dead movement, it is surely Occupy

take your pick...

bill zimmerman in truthout...

The Aftermath of Occupy Will Surpass the Gains of 1960s Activism

A tsunami of citizen activism, initiated by Occupy Wall Street, is poised to wash over American society. The coming battle to correct the grotesquely unequal distribution of wealth and power in this country is likely to have an even more profound impact on our society than what occurred in the 1960s.

[...]

But the difficulty in actually achieving economic reform leaves many skeptical that a new movement can succeed. Granted, true economic reform is a greater challenge than the battles for political and human rights that we waged in the 1960s. But the other side of that coin is that such a movement can have tremendous staying power because the economic conditions provoking it are unlikely to change and the supply of ready new protesters will not diminish.

Skeptics also argue that the activists of the Occupy demonstrations and foreclosure protests are incapable of forging lasting organization, that despite their tactical creativity and their remarkable impact on the national dialogue, they lack leadership and a systematic analysis. True enough, but today's activism remains in the first blush of its growth and is still perfecting its social media organizing techniques. Political movements can mature with blistering speed.

[...]

A new movement is being born. Jobless young troublemakers being thrown away by society understand that the extreme disparities in wealth and power that are the cause of their problems will not disappear on their own. Behind these young people will be millions of dissatisfied workers pursuing the American dream denied. That is why the coming era of citizen activism is likely to dwarf what my generation accomplished in the 1960s. We altered the country, culturally, socially, sexually and spiritually. The next wave of activism will change it economically.

or alexander cockburn in counterpunch...

Biggest Financial Scandal in Britain’s History, Yet Not a Single Occupy Sign; What Happened?

People have written complicated pieces trying to prove it’s not over, but if ever I saw a dead movement, it is surely Occupy.

Has it left anything worth remembering? Yes, maybe.  With Bob Diamond squirming before British MPs, and politicians jostling to apportion blame for the Barclays scandal, memories of the 99 per cent and the one per cent are surely at least warm in the coffin.

Everything leftists predicted came true, just as everything hard-eyed analysts predicted about the likely but unwelcome course of ecstatic populism in Tahrir Square also came true. ·I do think it’s incumbent on those veteran radicals who wrote hundreds of articles more or proclaiming a religious conversion to Occupyism,  to give a proper account of themselves, otherwise it will  happen all over again.

to me, zimmerman sounds like he's whistling past a graveyard and cockburn sounds like an arrogant, cranky old man...

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Gareth Porter: None of the official line on bin Laden is true

gareth porter has one of the more credible reputations in investigative journalism and in this truthout exclusive, blows the lid off the inflated and conflated mythology being dispensed as fact...

A few days after US Navy Seals killed Osama bin Laden in a raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a "senior intelligence official" briefing reporters on the materials seized from bin Laden's compound said the materials revealed that bin Laden had, "continued to direct even tactical details of the group's management." Bin Laden was, "not just a strategic thinker for the group," said the official. "He was active in operational planning and in driving tactical decisions." The official called the bin Laden compound, "an active command and control center."

The senior intelligence official triumphantly called the discovery of bin Laden's hideout, "the greatest intelligence success perhaps of a generation," and administration officials could not resist leaking to reporters that a key element in that success was that the CIA interrogators had gotten the name of bin Laden's trusted courier from al-Qaeda detainees at Guantanamo. CIA Director Leon Panetta was quite willing to leave the implication that some of the information had been obtained from detainees by "enhanced interrogation techniques."

Such was the official line at the time. But none of it was true. It is now clear that CIA officials were blatantly misrepresenting both bin Laden's role in al-Qaeda when he was killed and how the agency came to focus on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

In fact, during his six years in Abbottabad, bin Laden was not the functioning head of al-Qaeda at all, but an isolated figurehead who had become irrelevant to the actual operations of the organization. The real story, told here for the first time, is that bin Laden was in the compound in Abbottabad because he had been forced into exile by the al-Qaeda leadership.

i am not going to immediately claim that everything porter reports in this story is true - after all, how could i? - but i will go so far as to say that it's completely plausible... and, if it is true, what a glimpse it provides behind the smoke and mirrors of our government and its campaign of endless war...

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Christianity in America has gone barking-mad insane

i knew just as soon as i put up the last post, i would run across something that simply screamed to be posted... it never fails... william rivers pitt posting in truthout...

It is brutally hard to be a Christian in America these days. Some of us Christians take that bit about doing unto the least of us deeply, deeply seriously. Some of us Christians think that it is wrong, sinful, and in fact a brazen form of Apartheid to deny certain Americans the rights enjoyed by other Americans based upon who they love. Mostly, some of us think Christianity in America has gone barking-mad insane.

I am a Christian. I make no apologies for it. I'm not sure if I believe that Jesus turned that water into wine, or if He raised up Lazarus, or even if He rose from the dead. That all sounds like a lot of magic nonsense from two thousand years ago when you think about it, which is why they call it The Mystery of Faith.

But I believe that I am my brother's keeper, that I should worship without bragging about it, that the poor will God-damned-right inherit the Earth, and that what you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do unto me. I believe that the first four books of the New Testament are a wonderful blueprint for being a decent person on this planet, and that's what I live by, as best I can.

I am an American Christian, and it is a burden to bear.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to drink some new wine, hang out with a familiar whore, and listen to the dead.

Amen.

i too have had a great deal of difficulty making sense out of how people can call themselves christians and followers of biblical principles while at the same time crying out for violence and vengeance on all those who are perceived as evil, "evil" as defined by them, that is... the message of christ in the gospels is clearly one of love, compassion and respect for all... to me, that is true christianity...

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The rich live in a foreign country at the top of the world at heights so rarified they can't imagine life down below

bill moyers and michael winship expound on the old saw, "the rich are different from you and me"...

from truthout...

Top hedge fund managers collectively earned $14.4 billion last year." No wonder some of them are fighting to kill a provision in the recent Dodd-Frank reform law that would require disclosing the ratio of CEO pay to the median pay of their employees. One never wishes to upset the help, you know. It can lead to unrest.

That's Wall Street - the metaphorical bestiary of the financial universe. But there's nothing metaphorical about the earnings of hedge fund tigers, private equity lions and the top dogs at those big banks that were bailed out by tax dollars after they helped chase our economy off a cliff.

So, what do these big moneyed nabobs have to complain about? Why are they whining about reform? And why are they funneling cash to super PACs aimed at bringing down Barack Obama, who many of them supported four years ago?

Because, writes Alec MacGillis in The New Republic - the president wants to raise their taxes. That's right - while ordinary Americans are taxed at a top rate of 35 percent on their income, Congress allows hedge fund and private equity tycoons to pay only 15 percent of their compensation. The president wants them to pay more; still at a rate below what you might pay, and for that he's being accused of - hold onto your combat helmets - "class warfare."

[...]

To add insult to injury, average taxpayers even help subsidize the private jet travel of the rich. On the Times' DealBook blog, mergers and acquisitions expert Steven Davidoff writes, "If an outside security consultant determines that executives need a private jet and other services for their safety, the Internal Revenue Service cuts corporate chieftains a break. In such cases, the chief executive will pay a reduced tax bill or sometimes no tax at all."

Are the CEOs really in danger? No, says Davidoff, "It's a common corporate tax trick."

Talk about your friendly skies. No wonder the people with money and influence don't feel connected to the rest of the population. It's as if they live in a foreign country at the top of the world, like their own private Switzerland, at heights so rarified they can't imagine life down below.

even in my asset-free and spartan, bare-bones lifestyle, i'm well aware that i lead a relatively privileged existence compared to many in the u.s. and certainly to the vast majority of those i encounter in my travels to other countries... but, even at that, the gap between how i live and how our super-rich elites live is so vast that i can barely comprehend it... while one of these stratospheric fliers might have pieds-à-terre in the south of france, in manhattan, in pebble beach and somewhere in the caribbean, mine consist of a room in my son's house, an ever-available guest room with a friend and colleague in central america, and my "mobile apartment," a 5th wheel rv - all very low overhead... HA...!

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Dina Rasor: Self-dealing is the No. 1 problem that is preventing our government from working

self-dealing influence-peddling corruption... let's call it what it is...

dina rasor posting at truthout...

The overall self-dealing problem can hopefully begin to be reformed based on the knowledge gained from the accumulation of many examples of self-dealing in the system. The American public senses that the problem is there and hears about the deluge of corrupting money in the system, but they need individual examples to understand just how destructive this self-dealing is to our democracy.

the fix is in ... the global super-rich elites are in charge and have been for a number of years... our bought-and-paid for news media have zero interest in biting the hand that feeds them so any expectation that serious proposals for reform will see the light of day are delusional...

while i admire dina rasor's efforts to "out" the truth, i am increasingly doubtful that any such work will make a difference... the systemic nature of the problem means that any solution implemented on any part of that system will be effectively neutralized by the massive forces exerted by the rest of the system...

the hard piece of reality that none of us particularly want to face is that the whole house of cards (the corporate military industrial government complex fueled by the state religion of capitalism) must come down... unless and until it does, we can propose, discuss, reveal, protest, whistle-blow and vote for the candidates of our choice until hell freezes over and won't make a damn bit of difference...

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The NDAA - the United States of Gitmo

from rt...

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Money in politics - addiction as a metaphor for corruption

all in all, a useful metaphor...

william b. daniels in truthout...

Addiction and recovery metaphors are helpful for framing the private money crisis facing American democracy. The funders and the lobbyists are the dealers. Private money is the drug of choice. Members of Congress are the addicted consumers. Cynical and apathetic voters and the Citizens United Supreme Court justices are the codependents who enable the corruption machine to continue functioning. There can be no sobriety unless there is complete abstinence. This dynamic is what makes Congressional reform so daunting and cynicism such a facile response.

yes, and...?

Can we afford to be cynical? Do we give up on electoral politics and accept that our democracy is a corrupt, private-money machine? Or do we stop being codependent? Do we intervene and take steps to stop the new bosses in 2012? Do we confront the elephant in the room and show the addicts, the dealers and the codependents that we, the people, are the higher power of the Constitution?

We have all the tools. We can register voters and counter voter suppression laws. We can cultivate and support local and state candidates committed to the public interest. We can contribute. We can seek out every eligible voter who believes in the public interest and persuade them to vote. We can vote and participate in get-out-the-vote drives in our own communities.

[...]

Every time a hit piece attacks a candidate committed to public-interest policies, we strike back with the truth and the facts. We explain the manipulation to our friends and acquaintances. When we see an ad promoting an evidence-free ideological candidate, we expose it as the machine talking. When we see candidates thriving without a campaign organization, we check for their boss connections. By striking back in these and similar ways, we will help to knock out the candidates the new bosses purchased with private money.

So power up, cynics. We are America’s higher power. We need your help to change our dysfunctional republic and restore the American social contract.

mr. daniels has considerably more faith in our profoundly and - dare i say - terminally broken system than i do... i have been belaboring what to do for a number of years and have come to the conclusion that incremental fixes simply ain't gonna cut it... i believe the only thing that can save us now is a constitutional convention and what's the likelihood we're going to see one of those any time soon...? the other option is a deus ex machina which i give about the same odds of happening...

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Robert Jensen on Occupy: We demand that you stop demanding a list of demands

robert jensen takes the systemic view which is precisely my own bias... we have a huge systemic problem, not only in the united states but across the world... systemic problems are not amenable to incremental fixes...

The demand for demands is an attempt to shoehorn the Occupy gatherings into conventional politics, to force the energy of these gatherings into a form that people in power recognize, so that they can roll out strategies to divert, co-opt, buy off, or - if those tactics fail - squash any challenge to business as usual.

Rather than listing demands, we critics of concentrated wealth and power in the United States can dig in and deepen our analysis of the systems that produce that unjust distribution of wealth and power. This is a time for action, but there also is a need for analysis. Rallying around a common concern about economic injustice is a beginning; understanding the structures and institutions of illegitimate authority is the next step. We need to recognize that the crises we face are not the result simply of greedy corporate executives or corrupt politicians, but rather of failed systems. The problem is not the specific people who control most of the wealth of the country, or those in government who serve them, but the systems that create those roles. If we could get rid of the current gang of thieves and thugs, but leave the systems in place, we will find that the new boss is going to be the same as the old boss.

[...]

The economic system underlying empire building today has a name: capitalism. Or, more precisely, a predatory corporate capitalism that is inconsistent with basic human values. This description sounds odd in the United States, where so many assume that capitalism is not simply the best among competing economic systems, but the only sane and rational way to organize an economy in the contemporary world. Although the financial crisis that began in 2008 has scared many people, it has not always led to questioning the nature of the system.

That means the first task is to define capitalism: that economic system in which (1) property, including capital assets, is owned and controlled by private persons; (2) most people must rent their labor power for money wages to survive; and (3) the prices of most goods and services are allocated by markets.

[...]

The theory behind contemporary capitalism explains that because we are greedy, self-interested animals, a viable economic system must reward greedy, self-interested behavior.

[...]

Why is it that we must accept an economic system that undermines the most decent aspects of our nature and strengthens the cruelest? Because, we're told, that's just the way people are.

[...]

The people who run this world are eager to contain the Occupy energy not because they believe the critics of concentrated wealth and power are wrong, but because somewhere deep down in their souls (or what is left of a soul), the powerful know we are right. People in power are insulated by wealth and privilege, but they can see the systems falling apart.

[...]

The Occupy gatherings do not yet constitute a coherent movement with demands, but they are wellsprings of reasonable illusions. Rejecting the political babble around us in election campaigns and on mass media, these gatherings are an experiment in a different kind of public dialogue about our common life, one that can reject the forces of terror deployed by concentrated wealth and power.

With that understanding, the central task is to keep the experiment going, to remember the latent power in people who do not accept the legitimacy of a system.

i extracted the parts of the article that most closely resonated with me... imho, jensen is way too pessimistic and dark in his view of the near-term future... however, his systemic view is, again imho, the right view... the only way we're going to work our way out of this mess is by approaching things systemically... as jensen says...

If we could get rid of the current gang of thieves and thugs, but leave the systems in place, we will find that the new boss is going to be the same as the old boss.

yep, yep and yep...

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Elites are immunized for egregious crimes while ordinary Americans are subjected to merciless punishment for trivial transgressions

as police forces across the country continue to attempt to choke off the occupy protestors, it's very timely to have glenn's new book at hand...

from an interview today with glenn in truthout...

What we see with the protests [Occupy Wall Street] demonstrates exactly how ... law has ... become ... a tool used by the politically and financially powerful to entrench their own power and control the society. The police force - the instrument of law enforcement - is being used to protect powerful criminals who have suffered no consequences for their crimes. It is simultaneously used to coerce and punish the powerless: those who are protesting and who have done nothing wrong, yet are subjected to an array of punishment ranging from arrest to pepper spray and other forms of abuse.

That's what the two-tiered justice system is: elites are immunized for egregious crimes while ordinary Americans are subjected to merciless punishment for trivial transgressions.

when are the cops going to snap to the fact that they're in the same boat with the rest of us...?

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Yes, it's more than "merely" torture, it's full-bore exploitation

a special report from truthout reveals the full extent of the CIA/DoD torture program...

retired air force capt. michael kearns was party to the hiring of dr. john bruce jessen, the psychologist who was under contract to the CIA and credited as being one of the architects of the government's top-secret torture program... kearns is interviewed in this truthout investigative report...

The CIA/DoD torture program appears to have the same goals as the terrorist organizations or enemy governments for which SV-91 and other SERE courses were created to defend against: the full exploitation of the prisoner in his intelligence, propaganda, or other needs held by the detaining power, such as the recruitment of informers and double agents. Those aspects of the US detainee program have not generally been discussed as part of the torture story in the American press.

jessen describes his techniques...

"From the moment you are detained (if some kind of exploitation is your Detainer's goal) everything your Detainer does will be contrived to bring about these factors: CONTROL, DEPENDENCY, COMPLIANCE AND COOPERATION," Jessen wrote. "Your detainer will work to take away your sense of control. This will be done mostly by removing external control (i.e., sleep, food, communication, personal routines etc. )…Your detainer wants you to feel 'EVERYTHING' is dependent on him, from the smallest detail, (food, sleep, human interaction), to your release or your very life … Your detainer wants you to comply with everything he wishes. He will attempt to make everything from personal comfort to your release unavoidably connected to compliance in your mind."

Jessen wrote that cooperation is the "end goal" of the detainer, who wants the detainee "to see that [the detainer] has 'total' control of you because you are completely dependent on him, and thus you must comply with his wishes. Therefore, it is absolutely inevitable that you must cooperate with him in some way (propaganda, special favors, confession, etc.)."

Jessen described the kinds of pressures that would be exerted on the prisoner to achieve this goal, including "fear of the unknown, loss of control, dehumanization, isolation," and use of sensory deprivation and sensory "flooding." He also included "physical" deprivations in his list of detainer "pressures."

"Unlike everyday experiences, however, as a detainee we could be subjected to stressors/coercive pressures which we cannot completely control," he wrote. "If these stressors are manipulated and increased against us, the cumulative effect can push us out of the optimum range of functioning. This is what the detainer wants, to get us 'off balance.'"

"The Detainer wants us to experience a loss of composure in hopes we can be manipulated into some kind of collaboration..." Jessen wrote. "This is where you are most vulnerable to exploitation. This is where you are most likely to make mistakes, show emotions, act impulsively, become discouraged, etc. You are still close enough to being intact that you would appear convincing and your behavior would appear 'uncoerced.'"

kearns calls this horrific, tyrannical and wrong... how can we not agree...? it's enough to make me vomit as kearns said he did upon full realization of what took place here...

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Henry Giroux, among others, characterizes what's happening as an outpouring of student protest

yes, but that's not all it is...

Left Behind? American Youth and the Global Fight for Democracy

Within the last few months, we have seen an outpouring of student protests from all over the globe.

[...]

Counterpublic spheres and modes of resistance that we once did not think young people could mount have erupted in a rush of emotional and political expressions and scattered demonstrations. Mass demonstrations have been organized through the emergent screen cultures of a generation well versed in new technologically assisted forms of social networking and political exchange.

[...]

Signaling a generational crisis that is global in scope, young people have sent a message to the world that they refuse to live any longer under repressive political regimes sustained by a morally bankrupt neoliberal world.

while there's a tremendous number of youth involved in the protests (which is very welcome and long overdue), i think there's also a significant number of my own baby-boomer generation who are equally energized, and many of us have either taken to the streets right along with the young - or would if we weren't tied up in other circumstances... being on a work assignment in southern africa at the moment doesn't offer much of an opportunity to get involved but, believe me, this is one thing i would put my body on the street for in a heartbeat...

i was speaking with my daughter in the twin cities last evening and she's been considering making the trip to madison and, if she does, my heart will be with her... i've been waiting for this kind of tectonic shift all of my life and i won't be relegated to the dustbin of the "elders"...

as a case in point, here's a 60-something who isn't sitting there watching "law and order" re-runs...

Anna Becker looks tired. Becker is leaning against the brick wall beside the entrance to Bank of America's Pearl District branch in Portland, Oregon, where one of over 50 nationwide protests by US Uncut has been underway for nearly two hours.

But Becker, a retired teacher, is just as energized as the protesters at the front of the crowd of about 60, who spill into the street and draw long, loud honks from the stream of cars driving toward the Willamette River.

"I have been waiting for 20 years for something like this to happen in America," says Becker. The words she has spoken in private for years are now plastered onto the canary yellow poster board she holds up like a shield: "B of A is al-Qaeda: financial terrorists."

Bank of America (BofA) is the first corporation to be targeted by US Uncut, the transatlantic offspring of the United Kingdom-based anti-austerity group UK Uncut, which held its first demonstration to protest corporate tax evasion in late 2010.

As a voice at the megaphone of the Portland protest said, "The United States does not have a deficit problem. The United States has a revenue problem." According to a 2008 report by the Government Accountability Office, 25 percent of the biggest corporations pay no federal income tax. BofA, the recipient of $45 billion in bailout funds, shuttles its would-be tax dollars into 115 offshore tax havens. Meanwhile, budget deficits are cited as justification for pay freezes for public workers and cuts to heating assistance programs, Social Security, and other social safety nets.

good stuff, people... keep on wakin' up...!

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from truthout...

"Austerity" Comes to America

Richard Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and currently a Visiting Professor at the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University in New York. He has a PhD in Economics from Yale University as well as degrees from Harvard University (history BA) and Stanford University (economics MA). Wolff has authored or co-authored 10 books and over 50 scholarly articles and 75 popular articles. His recent work has concentrated on analyzing the causes and alternative solutions to the current global economic crisis.

His documentary film on that crisis, Capitalism Hits the Fan, can be previewed at www.capitalismhitsthefan.com. He also published a book of essays on the current crisis in 2010 entitled Capitalism Hits the Fan: the Global Economic meltdown and What to Do About it. Detailed information on and copies of his many writings, audios and videos of his media interviews, lectures, and classes, and his speaking schedule are all available at his website: www.rdwolff.com.

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Say goodbye to a ridiculous buffoon...

paul waldman in the american prospect...

After eight years of President Bush, we almost don't know how to function without him - almost. But before we move on, we should pause to remember just what we're leaving behind. Goodbye, we can say at last, to the most powerful man in the world being such a ridiculous buffoon, incapable of stringing together two coherent sentences. Goodbye to cringing with dread every time our president steps onto the world stage, sure he'll say or do something to embarrass us all. Goodbye to being represented by a man who embodies everything our enemies want the people of the world to believe about America - that we are ignorant, cruel, and only care about foreign countries when we decide to stomp on them.

sigh... how true...

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Scott Ritter calls for "repudiation", not impeachment

scott ritter, posting in truthout...

Any effort to impeach Bush and any of his administration found to be engaged in activities classifiable as "high crimes and misdemeanors" would fail to rein in the unitary executive core of any successor. One only has to listen to the rhetoric of the Democratic candidates for president to understand that this trend is as deeply rooted among them as it is with President Bush. Americans today look for leaders without recognizing the absolute necessity of electing team players. The Founding Fathers deliberately designed the executive branch to be strong and independent, but also made sure, through an elaborate system of checks and balances, that it operated merely as one of three separate but equal branches of government.

[...]

The impeachment of President Bush would not in and of itself terminate executive unilateralism. It would only limit its implementation on the most visible periphery, driving its destructive designs back into the shadows of government, away from the public eye, and as such, public accountability. Impeach President Bush, yes, if in fact he can be charged with the commission of acts which meet the constitutional standard for impeachment (and I believe he could, if Congress only had the will to do its job). But to truly heal America, we must repudiate everything President Bush stands for, in terms of not only public and foreign policy, but also in terms of his style of governance, since the former is derived from the latter.

Repudiation is a strong term, defined as "rejecting as having no authority or binding force," to "cast off or disown," or to "reject with disapproval or condemnation." In my opinion, the complete repudiation of the presidency of George W. Bush is the only recourse we have collectively as a people to not only seek redress for the wrongs committed by the Bush administration, but also to purge society of this cancer that threatens to consume and destroy us as a whole, and which would continue to manifest itself in our system of governance even after any impeachment proceedings.

[...]

I fear not the bloody rebellion of an outraged citizenry, but rather the passive submission of a shameful mass which betrays the cause of liberty and freedom through the abandonment of the Constitution, and the obligations of citizenship derived thereof, in favor of the narcotic of consumerism. Such a mass, foreswearing blind obedience to those who profess how to best construct a cocoon that immerses the occupant in transitory comfort, is the most pressing problem facing America today. In a nation whose defining document begins, "We the People," I find that it is we the people who constitute the greatest threat to the future of America. It is not through the force of our actions, but rather the vacuum created by our inaction and apathy, a vacuum all too readily filled by those who would have us exchange our hard-fought freedoms for a gilded cage of market-driven consumerism.

This is the main reason why I am not a proponent of the 'impeach now' mentality so prevalent in political circles that oppose George W. Bush. The expediency of impeachment simply replaces one source of tyranny (President Bush) with another (whomever replaces him). It is not the failures of an individual that have gotten us to where we are today, but rather the failure of the collective.

[...]

Today one only needs to observe the corruption of our rulers and the carelessness of our people to understand the significance of the Constitution when it comes to preserving these United States of America. The nefarious nature of the Bush cancer is that, in its infection of the American system, it seeks to draw legitimacy for its tyrannical actions by citing the very same Constitution it seeks to destroy.

ok, scott, i buy all that... so, what do we DO...?

• Repudiate the notion of a "unitary executive."
• Repudiate presidential signing statements.
• Repudiate executive violation of Article 6 of the Constitution, which binds municipal law in America with binding treaty obligations incurred when the Senate ratifies a treaty or agreement by a two-thirds majority or better.
• Repudiate "faith-based initiatives" pushed by any branch of government.
• Repudiate a weak Congress.
• Repudiate weak senators or representatives, especially those with a track record of abrogating their constitutional mandate.
• Repudiate ignorance, especially that of the American citizen who knows little or nothing about the Constitution which empowers him or her.
• Repudiate consumerism, especially the virulent form it takes in the selfish framework of American-centric capitalism.
• Repudiate pre-emptive wars of aggression.
• Repudiate American Empire.

and then...?

Instead, embrace the empowerment of education. Embrace active citizenship. Embrace the rule of law, as set forth by the Constitution. Do all of this and, in the end, if conditions and circumstance warrant, impeach President Bush and any of those in his administration so deserving.

while i certainly don't disagree with ritter on anything he has to say, i'd like to know what the hell "repudiation" looks like and how it would be binding on anybody... saying "i repudiate" while all the measures that bushco has put in place (signing statements, executive orders, secret detention, warrantless domestic wiretapping, etc., etc.) are still alive and kicking, would only be a gesture of good faith, but would carry no mandate or consequences if not followed...

real "repudiation", imho, MUST be accompanied by an offical, legal, formal striking of the suspect signing statements, passing of legislation forbidding certain types of actions, other legislation repealing the frankenstein laws passed under bushco, and, most importantly, the application of real consequences, consequences with teeth, to the perpetrators of war crimes and constitutional breaches... repudiation in and of itself, while i certainly would like to hear it, particularly since it's something we're NOT hearing much of from anybody at the moment, is great, but unless that repudiation is built into the structure itself, backed up with the force of law and with serious consequences for failure to abide, it is only empty verbiage...

(thanks to luke at wot is it good 4...)

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