The clearest orders I have ever received

Billmon has a must-read post on the Patriot Act, which the House today voted 257-171 to extend and to make most of it permanent.

A CIA agent has a book out in which he says that one week after 9/11, he was on a plane to Afghanistan with a team of agents and $3m in hundreds, with orders to bring back Osama bin Laden’s head – literally. The agent, Gary Schroen, claims to have responded, “Sir, those are the clearest orders I have ever received. I can certainly make pikes out in the field but I don’t know what I’ll do about dry ice to bring the head back - but we’ll manage something.” It’s that can-do spirit that made America great.

For a can of beans and a dickhead to be named later.

Stepping up

Rumsfeld, talking about the assassination of the two Sunnis: “the perspective I would give to it is the fact that these kinds of problems have occurred month after month after month, and yet, we always see more people step up to participate in the elections, more people step up to participate in the Iraqi Transitional Assembly and to run for public office, more people step up to serve in the Iraqi security forces.” So that’s his version of optimism: we haven’t run out of Iraqis yet.

Manhandling Condi’s staff

BBC headline: “US Fury as Sudan Manhandles Staff.” Sounds really gay to me, but you’ve gotta appreciate the sense of proportion. Genocide in Sudan? Sure, whatever, blah blah. But push around some staffers, and face the wrath of the Condi.

A “good” law

On C-SPAN today I saw some of Bush’s latest speech calling for renewal of every last creepy provision of the PATRIOT Act. He said this was “no time to roll back good laws”. He called the Act “good” twice, and while that may mean he simply has a diminutive vocabulary (as I just found out while trying to locate the quote, he used the word good a goodly number of times in the course of the speech), it’s not really a word you’d expect even the Act’s supporters to apply to it. It infringes on people’s freedoms and privacies, so you might argue that it’s a necessary evil, but a positive good?

So two Sunnis on the drafting committee for the Iraqi constitution were assassinated, four others have quit in protest/fear, but the head of the committee says everything is “on schedule.” Sure, if the schedule said, “Tuesday: shoot Sunnis.” Which it probably did. Given that the drafters have been quietly dismantling women’s freedoms, and threatening to do the same to Kurdish autonomy, I’m happy to see the process fail completely.

A German man lost a court case in which he demanded the state provide him a toupee, claiming discrimination since the state insurance system would provide a wig for a bald woman. The court ruled that the state need pay only “when a bald head disfigures a person so severely that they would be ostracised from public life. That is not the case with men.” Indeed.

Refusing to choose

Two of the Sunnis who were cajoled into serving on the committee drawing up the Iraqi constitution have been assassinated. Although in Iraq, that may simply be part of the constitutional process.

Except for the last couple of years, John Roberts has been a hired gun, so it’s hard to tell how many of the heinous positions he’s argued over the years coincide with his own views. Especially since, I predict, he will stonewall the Senate like it’s never been stonewalled before. Don’t bother watching the Senate hearings, nothing will be learned there.

Here’s one hint: Kevin at American Street reports that Roberts’ wife used to be a veep at something called Feminists for Life, which does not signify life-long feminism but opposition to abortion, “if you refuse to choose between women and children”, its website says, next to a deliberately misleading quote from Susan B. Anthony intended to make her sound like an anti-abortion advocate. “Women deserve better than abortion,” their site says. “We are dedicated to systematically eliminating the root causes that drive women to abortion,” they say, which is both a disempowering notion that women don’t choose but are “driven,” and it’s the Hillary et al position about reducing abortion taken very slightly further--just a couple of baby steps, if you will.

Merit

My computer is in the shop, with a perfectly good draft post sitting on it, which I will now attempt to recreate.

On the same day that Bush announces his new standard, under which Rove won't be fired unless he is actually convicted of a crime in a court of law, the WaPo has this headline: "Bush Aims to Expand System of Merit Pay." George, define "merit" for us.

Asked about it yesterday, Bush said something (only 30 minutes online in the public library, no time to look it up!) about wanting to get all the facts before acting. Too easy to make fun of. (Update: "And I think it’s best that people wait until the investigation is complete before you jump to conclusions. And I will do so, as well. I don’t know all the facts. I want to know all the facts. The best place for the facts to be done is by somebody who’s spending time investigating it.")

Speaking of knowing all the facts, Tony Blair, says the Guardian, "At last week's cabinet meeting, Mr Blair likened Islamic extremism to the Trotskyist Militant Tendency that infiltrated Labour in the 80s, and argued it was only when the party recognised the depth of the infiltration that a tough counter-strategy was implemented." Yeah, Islamic terrorists, Trotskyists, same dif, both beardies.

Contest

In comments, Mike Capone asks if a worse name could have been found for an organization than “Nashis.” With uncharacteristic brevity, I responded, “No.” But then I got to wondering if it was in fact possible, and while I couldn’t come up with anything, I thought I’d see if the collective perversity of my readership could do better. Responses in comments, please, and extra points if the initials are NAMBLA or something funny.

Defusing tensions

Best headline of the day, from the BBC: “China to Send Pig Sperm to Space.” Everyone has to have a hobby, I suppose.

The “Council of Sages” in Haiti wants Aristide’s party banned from elections.

Condi Rice is going to the Middle East to “defuse tensions.” Dunno, Condi doesn’t really seem like a defusing-tensions kind of person.



It’s been a while since we’ve checked in with the Putin Youth Movement, aka the “Nashis.” The Times has a story about the Nashi summer camp, at which 3,000 of Vlad’s Impalers (they use the term “commisars”) have been training to fight back the barbarian hordes.


Here’s the head of the Nashis, interviewed by Moscow News about the funding for the camp:

Everyone knows that the Kremlin supports Nashi, everyone knows that the president met with our commissars. The support of the Kremlin allows us to talk with any businessmen and to get financial support. To refuse financial support for our project would be viewed as an unpatriotic decision.

The Tom DeLay school of fundraising.

Necessary and appropriate force, and sex with horses

Because there can never be enough invocations of the Holocaust in political dialogue, Gaza settlers have taken to writing their i.d. numbers on their arms as a protest against being asked to show their i.d.’s, part of an effort to prevent the nut-jobs flooding the settlements with protesters against the pull-out. The settlers, poor sensitive lambs that they are, say they feel as if they are in ghettoes.


A panel of the Court of Appeals rules that military commissions can resume trying prisoners in Guantanamo. This is victor’s justice so naked that I’m not sure what function a court of law even plays. The court rules that the Geneva Conventions “do not create judicially enforceable rights.” American military law doesn’t apply either: although the Uniform Code of Military Justice requires that detainees be tried in the same way as American soldiers, the court says that different rules can be applied, like not showing the detainee the evidence against him. The court finds Bush’s power to disregard the rule of law in the resolution (note: not a law) passed by Congress giving Bush authority “to use all necessary and appropriate force” against those responsible for 9/11, and any other terrorist types. What the court is saying is that those words cover any sorts of arbitrary acts that Bush’s chimp-like mind can conceive.

Enough with the frivolity. This here is a blog, and as such I am bound by law and blogger standards & practices to present to you this story: a man in Seattle has died after having anal sex with a horse. Cause of death was a perforated colon, which I guess answers the question raised by the phrase “anal sex.” Bestiality is legal in Washington, which explains a lot. The man had his little... encounter ... on a farm that specializes in that sort of thing.

Oh, the horse is ok.

Acts (of Parliament) preparatory to fascism

Tony Blair will introduce a new thought crime: “indirect incitement to commit terrorist acts.” Indirect incitement could hardly be more subjective, which just makes the chilling effect that much greater. Courts will be expected to consider elements such as tone and glorification of terrorism. According to the minister introducing the measure, “It would depend on what words were used. Were they an endorsement, were they a glorification? In some cases, the tone of your endorsement might take it into glorification.” There will also be a new crime of “acts preparatory to terrorism,” such as receiving training abroad or accessing certain websites.

The Teflon Terminator tarnished

Edward Wong begins his NYT story about the continuing strength of insurgency in Fallujah with this excellent first sentence: “Transformed into a police state after last winter’s siege, this should be the safest city in all of Iraq.” He then treats the fact that Fallujah is still being run by the Americans as a police state slash prison camp as unproblematic. In fact, you get the sense that it’s the damned foreigners who keep mucking it up. The Iraqi regime, for example, has only disbursed 1/5 of the money that was supposed to go to rebuild the city, and none for the last several months. And the very last paragraph of the long article quotes a Fallujan sheik accusing the Iraqi army of killing people: “They’re killing people. They’re shooting people in the head. You’re not in the street. You don’t see what’s happening.” And neither is the NYT, which is why that charge goes completely uninvestigated.

Bush, responding to a question about whether he still planned to fire whoever leaked Valerie Plame’s name: “Yes, and that’s up to the US attorney to find the facts.” I always thought an employer had some responsibility to supervise the actions of his employees. No reporter seems to have asked Bush if he has ever asked Rove whether he did it or not.

Although Schwarzenegger’s many acts of sexual assault didn’t much damage his reputation, he does seem to be in some trouble for his little magazine deal. His handlers are having to explain that he’s still primarily focused on the people’s business, that he was really expected to do very little actual work for the $8m they were paying him. The problem, of course, is that that just makes it look more like a bribe.

Pre-judging

AP headline, more or less: “Rehnquist Checks Into Hospital, Just to Mess with Everybody’s Head.”

The Bushies’ response to the Rove-Plame scandal is such textbook scandal control that it’s hard to see why anyone is surprised. Bush the Elder pulled the “Gee I’d love to comment about Iran-Contra and my role in it, but I can’t as long as there’s an investigation/as long as criminal proceedings are pending/until the last possible appeal has resolved” game. When all that was over, he still wouldn’t comment, because it was all ancient history. Bush Lite needs to be asked whether the standard for government service is “not actually in prison at the present time.” While Bush yesterday asked everyone not to “pre-judge” the matter, it’s been more than two years since the events in question; there’s nothing “pre” about it. Bush also needs to be pressed to promise not to use his pardon power for Rove.

Times article on torture and murders committed by the Iraqi police.

“Wrong Way” Santorum strikes again

One of the British suicide bombers played cricket, previously thought to be the perfect antidote to That Sort of Thing. Tony Blair blames Outside Agitators, and wants to deport and exclude foreign-born imams “who may incite hatred or act contrary to the public good”. I’m sure British Muslims will be thankful for his kind assistance in helping them deal with “this evil within the Muslim community.”

Interviewed by the Banned in Boston Globe, Rick Santorum refused to retract his earlier statements blaming sexual abuse by priests on the famously permissive atmosphere of... Boston. Here’s the killer quote: “If you have a world view that I’m describing [about Boston] . . . that affirms alternative views of sexuality, that can lead to a lot of people taking it the wrong way.”

Don’t do the walrus crime if you can’t do the walrus time

A Japanese gangster chopped off the finger of a man who owed him money. A doctor oversaw the ritual and then put in a claim to the national health service. He has been arrested.

The British are quite concerned, consternated, perturbed, or whatever the hell understated thing Brits do, about the fact that the people behind the London bombings were 1) not foreigners and 2) Britain’s first-ever suicide bombers. We’re not like that! they say. You can read about that in papers that also feature stories like this: “Riots raged in north Belfast last night as nationalists turned on police with blast bombs and petrol bombs after an Orange Order parade and its loyalist supporters passed a Catholic parade of shops.”

Lovely AP headline: “Alaska Native Gets 7 Years in Walrus Crime.”

They want the free world to retreat

Bush says the terrorists “want to drive America from the world. They want the free world to retreat.” That would be one strange-looking globe.

If America is driven from the world, can we fly around the universe with like a giant dome, meeting half-naked green alien chicks and teaching them about our Earth custom, kissing, and righting wrongs and stuff?

Asked about his breakfast with senators, at which both waffles and the nomination of a Supreme Court justice were discussed, he said, “Obviously, we’re in a very interesting period here; you got the end of the session coming up, then you got an August break. So I was just trying to get a sense of their view of the calendar. And I want to thank them for being forthright.” He particularly thanked Patrick Leahy for forthrightly explaining that thirty days hath September.

Incidentally, Bush answered those questions standing next to the prime minister of Singapore, whose own justice system is most famous for featuring caning (remember Michael Fay?)

Islamist extremist terrorists

George Monbiot notes a tactical switch by the Bushies on global warming: “Instead of denying that climate change is happening, it is denying that anything difficult needs to be done to prevent it.”

Like Bush after 9/11, Blair after 7/7 is strongly resisting any inquiry into the intelligence failures that allowed four bombings to occur, rejecting the very notions that anything can be learned or that any mistake might have been made. He somehow knows that without yet knowing who the bombers were, although he reckons they were “Islamist extremist terrorists” — that’s three “ist” words in a row. “All the surveillance in the world” would not have stopped the terrorists, he says. Which is funny, because all the surveillance powers in the world is precisely what he’s demanding be given to the intelligence services.

In an amazing gesture of generosity, the United States offered Cuba assistance in dealing with the damage caused by Hurricane Dennis: $50,000.

Cuba turned it down.

Bush today, on terrorists: “When they are constantly on the run they can’t plan attacks.” No, George, it’s you who can’t walk (or ride a bike) and chew gum at the same time.

Miss Condi’s rules for talking with boys

As Bionic Octopus notes, while Condi is telling China that it should talk with the elected Taiwanese government rather than with the Taiwanese opposition, the US (indeed, Rice herself) ostentatiously engaged in dialogue with the Venezuelan opposition just last month. During that Beijing press conference, Condi gave several other insights about who a superpower should converse with. For example, she also advised China to “reach out” to the Dalai Lama, “who really is of no threat to China.” So it’s ok to talk to people who are a lot weaker than you.

Oh, and also, it’s ok if they’re like really super-legitimate: asked when the US would get the hell out of Afghanistan, she replied,

The one country that said that the United States should stay in Afghanistan was Afghanistan, which I think, since Afghanistan is sovereign, since Afghanistan, in fact, has an elected president who was elected freely and fairly, then the relationship that we have with Afghanistan is with that government.

Also, “it is our understanding that the people of Afghanistan want and need the help of U.S. armed forces.” There’s something about that phrase “it is our understanding” that I find very amusing.

It’s ok to meet up with the poor, ugly, kind of smelly kid, like North Korea, just so long as you go along with your friends so he doesn’t think it’s a date or anything. The young people today evidently call this “engaging in six-party talks.” S-I-X, with an i.

Lastly, before talking with someone, you should draw up a list of pros and cons. Of Chinese-American relations, she said, “there are many extremely positive elements. I still think that this relationship has great momentum. It still has more positives than negatives.” Phew, imagine China’s relief. It thought it was getting the “just good friends” talk.

I can't think of a title for this post

The man in charge of French intelligence at the time admits what we all knew, that the 1985 bombing of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbor (in which a photographer was killed) was personally authorized by François Mitterrand. He denied this at the time, but then put tremendous (and illegal) economic pressure on New Zealand to have it release the agents responsible for it from prison. France promised to keep them under house arrest, but didn’t. Then it promoted them and gave them medals. So the fact that they weren’t the rogue agents France claimed they were at the time isn’t a huge surprise.

Really, it was a big deal at the time. It would still seem a big deal if GeeDubya hadn’t raised the bar for state-sponsored evil so high.

The UN is at long last going in for some nation-building in Kosovo, with plans under way to transfer the police and judicial system to local (i.e., not Serbian) institutions, bolstering Kosovo’s de facto independence.

Speaking of places that we’ve all forgotten about, there were presidential elections in Kyrgyzstan this weekend. To recap: after blatantly fraudulent parliamentary elections in March, a popular uprising forced dictator Akayev to flee, whereupon opposition leaders did a backroom deal putting Kurmanbek Bakiev in power and retaining the fraudulently elected parliament. Now, Bakiev has been confirmed as president in an election in which he was virtually unopposed, because he bought off his chief rival. Whether he’s actually any good or not as a leader, I have no idea.

Bush caught in a riptide

So Karl Rove did not leak the name “Valerie Plame” to the press, he leaked “Joseph Wilson’s wife” to the press. That makes it all ok, I’m sure. I know Rove will never be sent to prison to learn a whole knew meaning for the word “wife,” but I can’t wait for Bush to explain why Rove still has a job.

LA Times headline: “Bush Caught in GOP Riptide Over High Court.” OK, let’s everybody take a moment and feel Bush’s pain as he tries to satisfy all the brands of right-wing crazies and evil corporate types who number themselves among his supporters.

Although everybody should take a moment to lean back and imagine Bush caught in a literal riptide.

I know I feel refreshed.

LAT on the return to government of Robert Earl, part of the Iran-Contra coverup, as chief of staff to Paul Wolfowitz’s replacement Gordon England. Iran-Contra may seem small potatoes compared to the greater evils and the larger lies perpetrated by the Bushies, but it did involve deals with terrorists, an attempt to overthrow a foreign government, and an out-of-control, unaccountable executive branch lying to Congress. To forgive the crimes committed by the likes of Elliott Abrams and Robert Earl is to display a contempt for American democracy. Pentagon spokesmodel Bryan Whitman dismisses Earl’s transgressions thus: “This was nearly two decades ago.” How time flies when you’re shredding the constitution.

Also from the LAT is this story, just one example (and by no means the most egregious one, just the one in front of me) of a contemptible genre I’ve seen too many times this week, which suggests that London’s acceptance of diversity and its tolerance for refugees, for radical political speech by Islamic clerics, and for wogs in general, are responsible for this week’s bombings. The message of these articles: London is a slut, and had it coming.

No vision and no clear policy

According to Iyad “Comical” Allawi, “the Americans have no vision and no clear policy on how to go about in Iraq.” Oh sure, now he tells us. Evidently Iraq is near civil war because Americans haven’t been building Iraqi national unity. How one country builds the national unity of another country, he doesn’t say (although almost all Iraqis are united in wanting Americans the hell out, so good job, us). As always for Allawi, national unity means building a strong military and secret police, stocked with “former” Baathists.

Capt. Leslie McCoy, commandant of Guantanamo, has been relieved of duty, and the Pentagon is eager to assure us that it’s because of “inappropriate personnel and administrative practices,” whatever those might be, and certainly not for the, you know, torture and shit. Someday I’d like to find out what administrative practices the military considers to be more egregious than presiding over torture.