Archive for November, 2008

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You Cannot Pardon a Crime You Authorized

November 28, 2008

RINF.COM, Nov 28, 2008

Statement from the Steering Committee for the Prosecution for War Crimes of President Bush and His Subordinates

Never before has a president pardoned himself or his subordinates for crimes he authorized. The closest thing to this in U.S. history thus far has been Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s sentence. Bush is widely expected to follow that commutation with a pardon. Not only did Libby work for the White House, but he was convicted of obstruction of justice in an investigation that was headed to the president. Evidence introduced in the trial, including a hand-written note by the vice president, implicated Bush, and former press secretary Scott McClellan has since testified that Bush authorized the exposure of an undercover agent, that being the crime that was under investigation.

There are widespread concerns that Bush might pardon other subordinates for various other crimes that he authorized, potentially including torture, warrantless spying, a variety of war crimes, taking the nation to war on fraudulent evidence, and the abuses of the politicized Justice Department. Voices in the media advising Bush to issue such pardons include: Stuart Taylor Jr. (Newsweek 7/12/08) and Alan Dershowitz (Wall St Journal 9/12/08), while many additional voices have urged Obama to commit to not prosecuting.

The idea that the pardon power constitutionally includes such pardons ignores a thousand year tradition in which no man can sit in judgment of himself, and the fact that James Madison and George Mason argued that the reason we needed the impeachment power was that a president might some day try to pardon someone for a crime that he himself was involved in. The problem is not preemptive pardons of people not yet tried and convicted. The problem is not blanket pardons of unnamed masses of people. Both of those types of pardons have been issued in the past and have their appropriate place. The problem is the complete elimination of any semblance of the rule of law if Bush pardons his subordinates for crimes he instructed or authorized them to commit.

If Bush attempts this, here are possible responses:

1. Immediate impeachment of Bush and Cheney and various pardonees, even if they are out of office. (Here are arguments for the permissibility of such impeachments: http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/37834 )

2. Overturning of the pardons by the new president or by Congress, as Bush’s lawyers told him he could do to Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich, which was a far more minor abuse of the pardon power.

3. Legislation banning self-pardons and pardons of crimes authorized by the president.

4. A Constitutional Amendment banning self-pardons and pardons of crimes authorized by the president.

5. Refusal by the courts to honor the supposed pardons.

6. Prosecution of Bush, Cheney, and their subordinates for their crimes.

With thanks to all who have aided over the past millennia in the establishment of the rule of law.

***

Lawrence Velvel, Dean of Massachusetts Law School, chairs the Steering Committee whose members include Ben Davis, Marjorie Cohn, Chris Pyle, Elaine Scarry, Peter Weiss, David Swanson, Kristina Borjesson, Colleen Costello, Valeria Gheorghiu, and Andy Worthington.

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Pakistan condemns Mumbai attack, offers cooperation

November 28, 2008

Zeeshan Haider

Reuters North American News Service

Nov 27, 2008 12:53 EST

ISLAMABAD, Nov 27 (Reuters) – Pakistan condemned on Thursday militant attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai that killed 107 people and promised full cooperation in fighting terrorism.

Relations between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan have warmed in recent years and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has made moves to improve ties further.

But big militant attacks in India always fan suspicion of Pakistani involvement, either by Pakistan-based militants or even its security agents.

Pakistan bemoans what it sees as knee-jerk blame.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh blamed militant groups based in India’s neighbours, which usually means Pakistan, for the Mumbai attacks, raising fears of renewed tension.

Zardari and his prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, deplored the attacks in separate messages earlier on Thursday.

“President Zardari stressed the need for taking strict measures to eradicate terrorism and extremism from the region,” the state-run APP news agency said. Zardari, widower of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, came to power after February polls that restored civilian rule.

He wants to push forward a four-year peace process with India, launched after they nearly fought a fourth war in 2002.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who arrived in India on Wednesday for a four-day visit, said he was shocked and horrified by the “barbaric” attacks in Mumbai.

Noting a spate of attacks in Pakistan, including a suicide attack on one of Islamabad’s top hotels in September, Qureshi said all civilised societies had to work to fight with terrorism.

“Pakistan offers complete support and cooperation to deal with this menace,” he said.

KASHMIR DISPUTE

The use of heavily armed “fedayeen” or suicide attackers in Mumbai bears the hallmarks of Pakistan-based militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba or Jaish-e-Mohammed, blamed for a 2001 attack on India’s parliament.

Both groups are banned in Pakistan. They made their name fighting Indian rule in disputed Kashmir and were closely linked in the past to the Pakistani military’s Inter Services Intelligence agency, the ISI.

Lashkar-e-Taiba denied any role in the attacks, and said it had no links with any Indian group. Instead, the little-known Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility.

A militant holed up at a Jewish centre in Mumbai phoned an Indian television channel and complained about abuses in Kashmir.

Pakistani Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar warned against a blame game with India.

“Nobody should blame anyone without any evidence and verification,” Mukhtar told Reuters. “We have nothing to do with these attacks. We condemn these attacks.”

The main dispute between Muslim Pakistan and mostly Hindu India is the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which both claim in full but rule in part.

Pakistan for years supported militants battling Indian forces in the disputed Kashmir region. It also backed the Taliban in Afghanistan.

But after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, then military ruler Pervez Musharraf broke off support for the Taliban and reined in the Kashmiri militants.

Pakistan says it offers political support for what it sees as a freedom struggle by the Muslims of Indian-controlled Kashmir, where troops have been battling an insurgency since 1989. (Writing by Robert Birsel)

Source: Reuters North American News Service

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Bush’s Follies Will Destroy Obama If He Lets Them

November 28, 2008
Truthdig, Nov 25, 2008
USAF / Staff Sgt. Samuel Rogers

By William Pfaff

One might think that if Barack Obama believes he can make a success of his new administration by largely reconstituting the Clinton administration, Hillary Clinton included, he should know better than to take on the reckless ambitions and commitments of the George W. Bush administration as well: the government that gave America the Mideast and Asian crises, blunders and humiliations of the past 6 1/2 years.

The world has witnessed a futile, destructive and illegal American invasion of Iraq, a war conducted on false pretenses, supposedly against terrorists, accompanied by worldwide actions that have made American policy in Bush’s “global war on terror” seem to many Muslims an attack on Islamic society itself.

Obama is now taking on the quasi-impossible tasks of bringing to a successful and responsible conclusion the Bush government’s wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, as well as what shows signs of becoming another military intervention of grave and unforeseeable consequences in Pakistan. He is doing so without challenging the assumptions and goals of Bush administration policy.

It has been the mindset of the Bush administration—and, unfortunately, of much of the neoconservative-influenced foreign policy establishment in Washington—that international society’s problems are reducible to wars that American armies will win. They are wrong on both counts. But some still argue that this is the way to a better and more democratic world.

Obama has no choice but to accept responsibility for these American crises. But why should he accept them on the distorted and even hysterical terms by which the Bush administration has defined world affairs since 2001?

Iraq has been a victim of the United States. Washington had no legal or moral justification for invading the country and destroying its infrastructure, killing an uncounted number of Iraqis and displacing half a million or more to ruined lives while setting off the sectarian conflicts that have wracked the country since 2003.

There is a heavy American responsibility to do no more harm, however well-intentioned. The present volatile situation in the country is for the moment a largely political shoving match between the divided and possibly ephemeral Shiite government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his rivals, who include the Shiite radicals of Muqtada al-Sadr, and the Sunni, and largely ex-Baathist, Awakening Movement, sponsored by the U.S. Army to defend Sunni tribal regions against the foreigners of the fundamentalist al-Qaida. In addition, are the two Kurdish movements that together control, and plan to make independent and permanent, a Kurdistan nation incorporating—if they have their way—the oil-rich Kirkuk region.

One can make the political—and moral—argument that as the American invasion is responsible for the Iraqi upheaval, Washington should somehow settle it. The answer is that it’s impossible for Americans to do so. The U.S. cannot do it by continued military occupation and intervention in the country’s affairs.

Only the Iraqis themselves can settle this, and doing so may entail even more religious and ethnic struggle. The neighboring Shiite great power, Iran, will play its cards in the country. The Saudis will play theirs. Israel will do everything in its power to prevent an American withdrawal. All of this will probably add still more tragedies to those of the last six years, but at least the U.S. responsibility will have become only indirect, which is bad enough.

Barack Obama started off his presidential campaign by saying that he would get American troops out of Iraq by mid-2010. That was a strong, simple position that, if resolutely carried out, would make it clear to the Iraqis what they have to do to save themselves, and how long they have in which to do it.

Since the early campaign, the president-elect has been forced to qualify his position, weaken it, blur it, say that actually many U.S. troops probably will stay on, the dates may change, American involvement will continue, and so on. He has been forced back toward the Washington consensus opinion, the centrist and “responsible” position, close to the Bush opinion.

Nearly everyone is against his sticking to his original policy: The Iraq factions all plan to exploit American ambiguities to strengthen their own positions and maneuver the American command to favor them. The Kurds want time to make their proto-Kurdistan even more impregnable (while encouraging their reluctance to deal with Turkish and Iranian hostility to a sovereign Kurdistan, as well as deal realistically with their fellow Iraqis).

In Washington, the Pentagon is against withdrawal on Obama’s terms. It still wants permanent bases in Iraq. It claims Obama’s timetable is logistically impossible. The Republicans will shout “treason” and “betrayal.” American oil companies and the corporations that are already part of the occupation, as well as those that have big ambitions for moving into an American-secured Iraq, will demand that the U.S. stay.

All this must be resisted if Obama is to be his own man. He has to rid himself of George Bush’s folly. He must make Iraq truly independent. If he doesn’t, it could destroy his administration.

Visit William Pfaff’s Web site at www.williampfaff.com.

© 2008 Tribune Media Services Inc.

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The truth comes out about Gulf War Illness

November 28, 2008

Elizabeth Schulte reports on a new study that contradicts the U.S. government’s long-held position that Gulf War Illness doesn’t exist.

Socialist Worker, November 21, 2008

Exposure to chemical weapons may have contributed to Gulf War IllnessExposure to chemical weapons may have contributed to Gulf War Illness

AFTER AN agonizing 17 years, the U.S. government will finally have to admit what veterans and their families have long known–Gulf War Illness is a very real and debilitating condition that has affected one-quarter of soldiers who served in the 1990-91 war.

The Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses (RAC-GWVI)–a committee of scientists and veterans appointed by Congress in 2002 to investigate the illnesses experienced by veterans of Operation Desert Storm–presented its 450-page report to Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake on November 17.

The new report, which chronicles the ailments suffered by some 175,000 Gulf War veterans–including memory and concentration problems, persistent headaches, unexplained fatigue, widespread pain, respiratory symptoms, digestive problems and skin rashes–contradicts previous reports, which denied that Gulf War Illness even existed.

Among those previous reports, a 2006 National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine, claimed that the soldiers were simply suffering from merely suffering from stress disorders typical to any combat zone.

What else to read

The Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses report is available on the Boston University School of Public Health Web site.

As the RAC-GWVI report plainly states:

Gulf War illness fundamentally differs from trauma and stress-related syndromes described after other wars. Studies consistently indicate that Gulf War illness is not the result of combat or other stressors and that Gulf War veterans have lower rates of posttraumatic stress disorder than veterans of other wars.

According to the committee’s scientific director Roberta White, veterans “have been plagued by ill health since their return 17 years ago. Although evidence for this health phenomenon is overwhelming, veterans repeatedly find that their complaints are met with cynicism and a ‘blame the victim’ mentality that attributes their health problems to mental illness or non-physical factors.”

Lea Steele, who served as RAC-GWVI scientific director, told the Washington Post, “VA docs often know nothing about it and aren’t able to help them. Sometimes, they treat them as if they are head cases or malingering.”

As Anthony Hardie, national secretary for Veterans of Modern Warfare, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, “It really closes one of the darker chapters of the legacy of the Gulf War, and that is Gulf War illness.”

Hardie, a 23-year-old sergeant during the war, now suffers from respiratory problems, fatigue and chronic pain. “The report clearly lays out that Gulf War illness was caused by unique exposures; it lays out clearly that Gulf war illness is not a stress-related or trauma condition, that it is not the same as in wars before or since. It is unique,” he said.

Continued >>

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Amy Goodman: Media silence doesn’t mean all’s well in Gaza

November 28, 2008

Amy Goodman | The Capital Times, Nov 27, 2008

As President-elect Barack Obama focuses on the meltdown of the U.S. economy, another fire is burning: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

You may not have heard much lately about the disaster in the Gaza Strip. That silence is intentional: The Israeli government has barred international journalists from entering the occupied territory. Last week, executives from the Associated Press, New York Times, Reuters, CNN, BBC and other news organizations sent a letter of protest to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert criticizing his government’s decision to bar journalists from entering Gaza.

Israel has virtually sealed off the Gaza Strip and cut off aid and fuel shipments. A spokesman for Israel’s Defense Ministry said Israel was displeased with international media coverage, which he said inflated Palestinian suffering and did not make clear that Israel’s measures were in response to Palestinian violence.

A cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, the group that won Palestinian elections nearly three years ago and controls Gaza, broke down after an Israeli raid killed six Hamas militants two weeks ago. More Israeli raids have followed, killing approximately 17 Hamas members, and Palestinian militants have fired dozens of rockets into southern Israel, injuring several people.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has criticized Israel over its blockade of the overcrowded Gaza, home to close to 1.5 million Palestinians. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency is warning that Gaza faces a humanitarian “catastrophe” if Israel continues to blockade aid from reaching the territory.

The sharply divided landscape of Israel and the occupied territories is familiar ground for South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his opposition to apartheid in South Africa. Tutu was in New York last week to receive the Global Citizens Circle award. I sat down with him at the residence of the South African vice consul.

Tutu reflected on the Israeli occupation: “Coming from South Africa … and looking at the checkpoints … when you humiliate a people to the extent that they are being — and, yes, one remembers the kind of experience we had when we were being humiliated — when you do that, you’re not contributing to your own security.”

Tutu said the embargo must be lifted. “The suffering is unacceptable. It doesn’t promote the security of Israel or any other part of that very volatile region,” he said. “There are very, very many in Israel who are opposed to what is happening.”

Tutu points to the outgoing Israeli prime minister. In September, Olmert made a stunning declaration to Yedioth Ahronoth, the largest Israeli newspaper. He said that Israel should withdraw from nearly all territory captured in the 1967 Middle East war in return for peace with the Palestinians and Syria: “I am saying what no previous Israeli leader has ever said: We should withdraw from almost all of the territories, including in East Jerusalem and in the Golan Heights.” Olmert said that traditional Israeli defense strategists had learned nothing from past experiences and that they seemed stuck in the considerations of the 1948 War of Independence. He said: “With them, it is all about tanks and land and controlling territories and controlled territories and this hilltop and that hilltop. All these things are worthless.”

Olmert appears to have come closer to his daughter’s point of view. In 2006, Dana Olmert was among 200 people who gathered outside the home of the Israeli army chief of staff and chanted “murderer” as they protested Israeli killings of Palestinians (Archbishop Tutu was blocked from entering Gaza in his U.N.- backed attempts to investigate those killings). Ehud Olmert recently resigned over corruption allegations, but remains prime minister until a new government is approved by parliament.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al- Maliki criticized Olmert for waiting until now to call for an end to the settlements: “We wish we heard this personal opinion when Olmert was prime minister, not after he resigned. I think it is a very important commitment, but it came too late. We hope this commitment will be fulfilled by the new Israeli government.”

Israel is a top recipient of U.S. military aid. Archbishop Tutu says of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, “When that is resolved, what we will find (is) that the tensions between the West and … a large part of the Muslim world … evaporates.” He said of Obama, “I pray that this new president will have the capacity to see we’ve got to do something here … for the sake of our children.”

Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 700 stations, including WYOU cable access TV and WORT-FM/89.9 radio here. You can hear her podcast at captimes.com. Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.

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THIS IS GAZA – A REPORT BY AMIRA HASS

November 27, 2008

collective-punishment.jpg
Image by David BaldingerUruknet.info, November 27, 2008This is Gaza
Amira Hass

If it`s not the power getting cut, leaving entire neighborhoods in darkness, then it`s the water not reaching the top floors or the cooking gas running out. If you have an electric generator, some small part of it is bound to be broken and unfixable, because even before the hermetic three-week siege, Israel prohibited bringing in any spare parts for cars, machines and household electric appliances.

And if you somehow manage to find the money for a generator that was smuggled through the tunnels (its price has doubled or tripled since last month), it`s at the expense of buying a heater (not electric, of course), English lessons, clothes for the children and visits to the doctor.

This is Gaza in November 2008. Just as Gaza is the emptying of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency storehouses and the farmers who sowed and watered, but cannot market, their tomatoes, guavas and strawberries out of the Gaza Strip because Israel forbids it, it is also the calmness with which people receive the sudden darkness and the jokes that there is not much food in the refrigerator to spoil anyway.

Gaza is the ability to tell jokes in any situation, and the burning insult of having no running water for three or four days. And yet, the children go clean and neat to school.

Gaza is the long Nasser Street which has been blocked to traffic for over a year. Its asphalt is torn out and it is riddled with potholes and mounds of sand. When Israel forbade bringing any construction materials and raw materials into the strip, the renovation work stopped on this thoroughfare, the main access to three hospitals, which are always in danger of equipment failure if some part breaks down.

But Gaza is also parents leaving their children alone at home, without fear, or letting them go to a playground far from home, or go by themselves to their grandmother in the Jabaliya refugee camp (in the streets parallel to Nasser Street).

Gaza is reports of policemen attacking Fatah supporters at a university, or the police closing a restaurant for one night because its owners didn`t report in advance about a symposium that was held in the restaurant`s hall, in which Hamas speakers participated and was organized by a research center associated with Ramallah authorities.

Gaza is the teacher who forces school girls to cover their heads, although senior officials assert that this is not the education ministry`s policy. It is exaggerations and false rumors, and it is also the Fatah detainees` report that cameras were installed in the interrogation room to ensure that the interrogators act within the boundaries of the law. It is the surprise when `Hamas` police restore stolen property, even before it has been reported stolen.

Gaza is the feeling among Fatah supporters that the power has been stolen from them, and their fear of the security apparatus, as it is Hamas` self confidence. It is the comparisons made with the intimidation methods in Yasser Arafat`s era and exchanging information about the suppression of Hamas activity in the West Bank.

Gaza is the anger of the entire public, including Fatah members, for what appears to be Ramallah`s deliberate neglect and indifference toward the strip and its residents` fate.

Gaza is those dreaming to leave it, and those who left years ago for school and work and miss it. Gaza is the people who cannot return to their families here, because even if they could find a crack and enter through the border crossings blocked by Israel, they would remain imprisoned here, and would have to renounce their freedom of movement and choice completely.

Everything is so intense here.

`We measure our lives in minutes, not in days or weeks,` a Fatah man said. His life has been turned upside down since June 2007, and is turned upside down every day due to the political rupture. He was referring to Fatah men like himself, convinced that Hamas people in the West Bank also `measure their lives in minutes.`

But his description suits everyone. The changes are so sudden, violent, swift and frequent that the individual has no control over them – whether it is high politics or laundry times.

Gaza is people`s constant attempt to cling to a normal life, although Israel foists on them abnormal terms of imprisonment, isolation from the rest of the world and deterioration to a state of humiliating dependence on international charity programs.

Source

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Karzai Wishes He Could Shoot Down US Planes

November 27, 2008

Antiwar.com,  November 26, 2008

Afghan President Hamid Karzai used a visit yesterday by a United Nations delegation to hit out at the international forces over their conduct in the war, expressing disbelief that after seven years “a little force like the Taliban” is continuing to flourish.

But today the Afghan President took his complaints to a new level, publicly lamenting that he was unable to shoot down the US planes which have been bombarding Afghan villages. Karzai added that if he had a rock attached to a piece of string, he’d use it to try to down the planes, “but that’s not in my hands.”

Hitting out at the war on terror as “unclear,” Karzai criticized “a war which is unclear what it is for, and what we are doing.” Addressing the media after today’s meeting with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer he called for a firm timeline for withdrawal, insisting “this war cannot be endless and forever and the Afghan nation cannot burn in a war of which the end is not clear,” and adding “we did not welcome the international community in Afghanistan so that our lives get worse.”

Karzai warned that if a timeline is not set, he feels Afghanistan has “the right to find another solution for peace and security, which is negotiations.” He also accused international troops of having set up a parallel government.

Related Stories

compiled by Jason Ditz [email the author]

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Obama’s Foreign Policy Team

November 27, 2008

Robert Dreyfuss | The Nation, Nov 23, 2008

I hate to say I told you so, but here it goes.

In late September, in this column, I criticized Barack Obama for what I called a “pathetic” debate with John McCain, in which Obama got nearly everything about foreign policy wrong:

“He checked all the boxes. Barack (“Senator McCain is right”) Obama couldn’t find anything to disagree with the militarist Arizonan about. Support for NATO expansion? Check. Absurd anti-Russian diatribes? Check. Dramatic escalation of the war in Afghanistan? Check. I’m ready to attack Pakistan? Check. (Actually, on this one, McCain was the moderate!) Painful sanctions against Iran, backed up by the threat of force? Check. Blathering about the great threat from Al Qaeda? Check. It went on and on.”

I pointed out that Obama went out of his way to say things like: “I believe the Republican Guard of Iran is a terrorist organization.” And: “A resurgent and very aggressive Russia is a threat to the peace and stability of the region.”

Last July, in a major feature piece for The Nation on Obama’s foreign policy, I wrote:

“But in many respects, Obama seems likely to preside over a restoration of the bipartisan consensus that governed foreign policy during the cold war and the 1990s, updated for a post-9/11 world. … Even as he pledges to end the war in Iraq, Obama promises to increase Pentagon spending, boost the size of the Army and Marines, bolster the Special Forces, expand intelligence agencies and maintain the hundreds of US military bases that dot the globe. He supports a muscular multilateralism that includes NATO expansion, and according to the Times of London, his advisers are pushing him to ask Defense Secretary Robert Gates to stay on in an Obama administration. Though he is against the idea of the United States imposing democracy abroad, Obama does propose a sweeping nation-building and democracy-promotion program, including strengthening the controversial National Endowment for Democracy and constructing a civil-military apparatus that would deploy to rescue and rebuild failed and failing states in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.”

So are we surprised that now, as president-elect, Obama is selecting people whose views are coherent with Obama’s frequently stated views? Are we surprised that the views of Obama’s conservative and centrist advisers are, in fact, coherent with Obama’s own? And are we surprised that his choices for his foreign policy and national security appointments are drawn exclusively from conservative, centrist, and pro-military circles without even a single — yes, not one! — chosen to represent the antiwar wing of the Democratic party? No, we are not.

What does it mean, then? Do we still believe that Obama was pretending to be conservative and cautious on foreign policy during the campaign, in order to get himself elected? Or is the truth, like Occam’s razor, far simpler? Perhaps what Obama (and his advisers) said during the campaign reflects what they really believe.

We could all make lists of people that we might have chosen for secretary of state, defense, attorney general, homeland security, intelligence, and national security adviser. (True, not all of Obama’s appointments are certain, yet, but the writing is on the wall.) It’s now likely that not one of those posts will be filled with someone who either voted against the war in Iraq as a member of Congress or who, from outside Congress, vocally opposed the war. Not one.

What about Russ Feingold, Barbara Boxer, Chris Dodd, Sherrod Brown, and Jim Webb from the Senate? Where is John Kerry? What about Gary Hart and Al Gore? What about any one of a dozen or more prominent members of the antiwar and progressive caucuses in the House of Representatives, such as Lynn Woolsey, Jim McDermott, or Jim McGovern? What about the generals who, unlike General James E. Jones, didn’t campaign with McCain and who spoke out against the war? What about the many prominent experts on disarmament and nonproliferation, like Lt. General Robert Gard, Gen. Joseph P. Hoar, and Peter Galbraith, all of whom serve on the board of directors of the Center for Arms Control? Or Joseph Cirincione of the Ploughshares Fund, a leading arms control expert? Well, you get the idea.

Here’s the likely lineup so far: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and National Security Adviser James E. Jones. For director of national intelligence, Dennis C. Blair, a retired admiral tangled up in the military-industrial complex? Key Obama advisers such as Richard Danzig, a former secretary of the Navy; Tony Lake, a former national security adviser; Susan Rice, an Africa specialist and former State Department official; and Mark Lippert, Obama’s top Senate foreign policy aide are likely to get important deputy-level jobs, though Danzig — who is on record supporting Gates for the job — may yet get the top Pentagon post.

As I pointed out in my July piece for The Nation, Rice and Lake — along with outside advisers Samantha Power and Sarah Sewell — are on record supporting tough military action overseas in case of humanitarian crisis. Rice and Lake have said explicitly that they favor war against Sudan. Two years ago, they wrote in the Washington Post:

“The United States, preferably with NATO involvement and African political support, would strike Sudanese airfields, aircraft and other military assets. It could blockade Port Sudan, through which Sudan’s oil exports flow. Then U.N. troops would deploy — by force, if necessary, with U.S. and NATO backing.”If the United States fails to gain U.N. support, we should act without it. Impossible? No.”

Clinton, who now seems to be a lock for the State Department, would be likely to hire a passel of hardliners for her own aides, including people like Richard Holbrooke, Dennis Ross, and Leslie Gelb, all three of who serve on the advisory board of the ultra-hawkish group, United Against Nuclear Iran. She’d also draw on relatively conservative officials from the Center for a New American Security, the Brookings Institution, and other Washington thinktanks who are in tune with her own hawkish views on Israel, Iran, and projecting U.S. muscle abroad.

And then there is General Jones.

Out of the blue, in the third presidential debate, Obama cited Jones as someone he trusts on national security. He is an advocate for stepped-up defense spending. And, notes CNN, it’s all one big, happy family:

“One person close to the transition noted Jones is a bipartisan figure who has warm relationships with both current Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who may stay on the job for at least a brief period, as well as Sen. Hillary Clinton, who is now on track to be nominated as Secretary of State after Thanksgiving.”

Not once, but twice he was asked by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to be her deputy secretary of state. Adds the London Times, in an analytical story on Jones:

“Last year he conducted an investigation on behalf of Congress on the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan.”‘Make no mistake, Nato is not winning in Afghanistan,’ he said. He also said that the war in Iraq had caused the US to ‘take its eye off the ball’ in Afghanistan, and gave warning that the consequences of failure there were just as serious as defeat in Iraq – views publicly expressed by Mr Obama.

“Before Mr Obama travelled to Afghanistan during the presidential campaign he was briefed by General Jones, who in 2007 was appointed by Dr Rice as a special envoy for Middle East Security.”

National Review Online calls the idea of Jones at the NSC “a pretty good sign for hawks, a pretty bad sign for doves,” which just about sums it up.

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No Amnesty for Cheney, et al, Say Torture Opponents

November 27, 2008


Ali Gharib | Inter Press Service

WASHINGTON, 25 Nov (IPS) – Judging by the rare leaks from President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team, investigations and prosecutions of high-level George W. Bush administration officials for torture and war crimes are a distant prospect. But likely or not, that won’t stop pundits from debating the question of whether those officials responsible should be held accountable.

Irrespective of whether Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld or others are dragged before juries, one glaring change seems absolutely certain: Obama stands unequivocally against torture, and the practice is likely to come to an end under his administration.

‘Even though I’ve been disappointed in other presidents in the past, I do listen and I do believe Obama when he says we won’t torture. I think that’s crucial,’ said Michael Ratner, the president of the Centre for Constitutional Rights.

But foreswearing controversial and harsh interrogation methods may not be enough to permanently reestablish the moral high ground that the Obama administration has promised to bring back to the U.S.’s interactions with the rest of the world.

If Obama doesn’t take on torture that occurred, as opposed to simply discontinuing the practice, the door may be left open for future administrations to resurrect the harshest of interrogation techniques, said Ratner at a recent forum at Georgetown University Law School.

‘If Obama really wants to make sure we don’t torture, he has to launch a criminal investigation,’ said Ratner, the author of ‘The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld: A Prosecution in Book.’

He said that the targets of such an investigation would be the easily identifiable ‘key players’ and ‘principals’ in the Bush administration who hatched plans to allow and legally justify harsh interrogation methods that critics allege are torture, including the controversial ‘waterboarding’ simulated drowning technique.

Those pursued, said Ratner, would include high-ranking administration officials such as Cheney, Rumsfeld, and former Central Intelligence Agency chief George Tenet, as well as the legal team that drummed up what is now regarded as a sloppy legal justification for torture.

Key Bush administration lawyers involved in providing legal cover to harsh practices, including the roundly criticised ‘torture memo’ from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), include former attorney general and earlier White House counsel Alberto Gonzales; Cheney’s chief of staff and former legal counsel to the vice president’s office David Addington; and the University of California, Berkeley law professor and former OLC lawyer John Yoo.

If the characters behind the questionable techniques are not held accountable for violating U.S. and international laws, said Ratner, presidents after Obama may simply say, ‘well, in the name of national security I can just redo what Obama just put in place. I can go torture again.’

Ratner also spoke to the concern that, from the view of the rest of the world, ‘to not do an investigation and prosecution gives the impression of impunity.’

But opposing Ratner on the dais, Stewart Taylor, Jr. argued that an investigation and prosecution were not appropriate.

‘The people who are called ‘war criminals by [Ratner] and others do not think they acted with impunity,’ said Taylor, a Brookings Institution fellow and frequent contributor to Newsweek and the National Journal.

In the Jul. 21 edition of Newsweek, Taylor called for Bush to preemptively pardon any administration official who could be held to account for torture or war crimes. Taylor’s rationale was that without fear of prosecution, a full and true account of what he called ‘dark deeds’ could never come to light.

Furthermore, at the Georgetown Law event Taylor said investigation and eventual prosecution would ‘tear the country apart’.

That may be the thinking of Obama, who, in addition to hints he wouldn’t investigate Bush administration malfeasance, declared his intention to govern as a political reconciliation president in his election victory speech.

In Grant Park in Chicago on Nov. 4, Obama rehashed a quote from slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., but instead of rhetorically bending the ‘arc of history’ towards ‘justice’, as King did, Obama called for it to be bent ‘toward the hope of a better day.’

But Ratner said that the country was already divided, and that divide is exactly what a future administration could politically exploit to reinstate torture. He said that Obama must close the divide and doing so is not rehashing the past.

‘You’re making sure that in the future, we don’t torture again,’ Ratner said. ‘This is not looking backwards.’

Another potential problem with investigation and prosecution, says Taylor, is that the Bush administration officials ostensibly had sought to find out whether the methods they were about to approve were justified, and, indeed, they were told they were in the legal clear.

‘There is no that high ranking officials acted with criminal intent,’ he said. ‘They were relying in good faith on the advice of legal counsel.’

Taylor said that since the legal advice originated from the Department of Justice, it would be wrong for the same Justice Department to ‘turn around’ and prosecute people for actions that its previous incarnation had explicitly told were legal.

But Taylor’s point misses two issues: that the crimes were allegedly given a legal green light because of collusion with the White House, and that Ratner proposes to investigate those selfsame Justice officials who were involved in giving approval.

Despite referring to John Yoo as a ‘gonzo executive imperialist’, Taylor said that ‘those officials, like them or not, were honourably motivated’ because they were ‘desperately afraid’ of another terrorist attack.

Ratner insists that the officials, part of a ‘group, cabal or conspiracy’, may be culpable because they were ‘aiders and abetters’.

‘[OLC] was not giving independent counsel,’ insisted Ratner. ‘They were shaping memos to fit a policy that had already been determined.’

And while Taylor was quick to point out that many U.S. administrations had been accused of war crimes by various sources, Ratner replied that it was the first time that any administration had actually ‘assaulted the prohibition on torture’.

That could be one reason why, if the U.S. does not take care of its own house, Bush administration officials will likely be pursued on charges in Europe and elsewhere.

In international courts, said Ratner, those officials will not be able to hide behind the legal shields of internal government memos or executive decrees.

‘They have no defence in international law,’ he said. ‘They’re finished.’

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Mumbai attacks: the media reaction

November 27, 2008

Haroon Siddique | Guardian, Nov 27, 2008

At least 101 people have been killed and more than 250 injured in Mumbai in one of the worst terrorist attacks on Indian soil. At time or writing the situation remains grave with some of the perpetrators reportedly holed up in two luxury hotels, the Taj and Oberoi Trident, and exchanging gunfire with security forces.

The Times of India reports: “In one of the most violent terror attacks on Indian soil, Mumbai came under an unprecedented night attack as terrorists used heavy machine guns including AK-47s and grenades to strike at the city’s most high-profile targets – the hyper-busy CST (formerly VT) rail terminus; the landmark Taj Hotel at the Gateway and the luxury Oberoi Trident at Nariman Point; the domestic airport at Santa Cruz; the Cama and GT hospitals near CST; the Metro Adlabs multiplex and Mazgaon Dockyard – killing at least 101 and sending hundreds of injured to hospital.”

The paper says six foreigners have been killed along with the chief of the city’s anti-terror squad. “Anyone with British or American passports they wanted to know,” British citizen Rakesh Patel told Sky News in an apparent confirmation that the attackers were targeting tourists.

The Times of India reports that a previously unknown outfit, Deccan Mujahideen, has claimed responsibility. A militant told a local news channel that there were seven attackers holding hostages inside the Oberai, while the Deccan Herald, which describes it as “India’s most audacious terrorist attack”, reports the army as saying there are 40 to 50 hostages remaining in the Taj. According to the BBC, four of the attackers have been killed and nine arrested. It reports that seven UK citizens are known to be among the injured and an Israeli family are feared captured by gunmen.

In the Times of London, Jeremy England writes: “Last night’s attacks also appear to fit into a new campaign to hit busy urban targets, popular with foreigners and wealthy Indians, to cause maximum damage to India’s economy and international reputation.”

He suggests Deccan Mujahideen could be an offshoot of the Indian Mujahideen, an Islamist group unknown until it said it was behind multiple bomb attacks on Indian cities in the past year.

Vinu has posted a series of photos of the aftermath of the attack on Flickr.

On the India Uncut blog, Amit Varma details his escape from the attacks after leaving a hotel.

“We stepped out again, and as we did so we heard gunshots and saw people running towards us from the left side. One of the hotel employees rushed out and told us to get back in. ‘There must have been an encounter,’ he said. ‘Get back in, you’ll be safe inside.’

“We followed him in. We waited in the lounge bar upstairs for a while. The big screen there was showing cricket. India won. Then someone changed the channel. That’s when we realised that this was much more than a random police encounter or a couple of gunshots.”

Based on an extract from the Wrap, guardian.co.uk’s roundup of the day’s news

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