83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful and 2% angry

The White House says Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s description of the Holocaust as a “myth” shows why Iran shouldn’t be allowed to have nukes. Not sure I’m following the logic. I should have said in my last post that in the interview with Fox, Bush revived the phrase “Axis of Evil” when discussing Iran, which he called (speaking of myths) a “theocracy that has little transparency.”

And someone from the Israeli foreign ministry who really must not be paying a lot of attention said, “The combination of extremist ideology, a warped understanding of reality and nuclear weapons is a combination that no one in the international community can accept.”

Enigmatic no longer: emotion recognition software says that the Mona Lisa is 83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful and 2% angry.

The chimp and the fox

Just when I thought I was out, they drag me back in: with the last of the 4 Iraq speeches, I’d hoped I was done with Dumbya until after Christthelordandyoubetternotforgetitmas. Then he went and got interviewed by Brit Hume on Fox.

Says Rumsfeld is doing “heck of a job.” Twice. Says Cheney is good because he’s secretive: “when he discusses a topic with me and he gives me his advice, I never read about it in the newspaper the next day. And that’s why our relationship is so close and his advice is so valued.” Also means no one else can correct any mistakes, give him a differing perspective; just the way Bubble Boy likes it.

Says Abramoff was “an equal money dispenser” to people in both parties. So it cancels out, I guess.

Says DeLay is innocent.

Says the number he gave, 30,000 dead Iraqis, was “speculative,” just “a number that was in the press.”

What’s important for the American people to know is that our mission in Iraq is to target the guilty and protect the innocent. That’s what you go over with precision weapons and good intelligence. The terrorists’ mission in Iraq is to target the innocent.

What is he, 6? Also, is that “good intelligence” like the intel you just cited, a speculative number that was in the press?

Denies believing that God picked him to be president.

Says “I hope to be remembered, from a personal perspective, as a fellow who had lived life to the fullest and gave it his all.” Jeez, that was your all?

Marginalized

Another day, another Bush speech on Iraq. Convinced yet? He says that democracy in Iraq will inspire a freedom caliphate “from Damascus to Tehran.” OK, he didn’t use the word caliphate.

What’s remarkable about his justifications for the invasion of Iraq is how little it’s changed in 3 years. Various elements drop out – no smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud – but the rest remains unchanged. He still says “The United States did not choose war -- the choice was Saddam Hussein’s,” who refused to “disclose and disarm,” even though there was nothing to disarm. Bush admits now that much of the intelligence was wrong, but Saddam was still “a threat,” and still at fault, presumably for failing to acquire some arms in order to disclose and disarm them, or something.

I’ve been asking what Bush means by “marginalizing” the “rejectionists.” Evidently it will happen when Sunnis vote, because that will mean the system will be all inclusive and shit. Oh, c’mon, I vote in every election and I’m pretty marginalized, and the Sunnis of Anbar province voted 97% against this constitution. Bush still thinks it’s impossible for an Iraqi to both vote and fight, in the same way that he can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. By the way, in Monday’s speech and today, he called it a “bold constitution.” As opposed to a shy constitution, I suppose.



As in every one of these speeches, he quotes the forged Zawahiri-Zarqawi letter, without being challenged by anyone for lying about intel yet again. Zawahiri is supposed to have decided that Americans are weak because of the way they left Vietnam. Maybe George Bush isn’t the person to be talking about that.

He speaks up again for the right to debate the war, unless you say something he considers “irresponsible” or “pure politics,” such as “that we act because of oil, that we act in Iraq because of Israel, or because we misled the American people.” Yeah, irresponsible, pure politics, whatever, I’ve done four of these godawful speeches and I just don’t care anymore, my brain has been marginalized.

I understand political expediency

As the Canadian election process gets underway, the American ambassador, David Wilkins, issued this little threat warning fatwa bit of helpful advice, directed especially at Prime Minister Paul Martin: “It may be smart election politics to thump your chest and constantly criticize your friend and your Number One trading partner. But it’s a slippery slope and all of us should hope it doesn’t have a long-term impact on our relationship.” “I understand political expediency,” Wilkins, the former speaker of the South Carolina House of Reps added. Diplomacy, however, he’s a little fuzzier about. Canada is so pleased to be treated to the same ham-handed electoral intervention as Nicaragua or Venezuela receive. The Toronto Star compares Wilkins to Archie Bunker telling Edith to stifle. Before he was named ambassador earlier this year, Wilkins had only been to Canada once, decades ago.

Speaking of get-out-the-vote campaigns, the decision on whether to grant the UN’s request for the United States to contribute 10 helicopters to assist in the Haitian elections will be made by... Donald Rumsfeld. The secretary of defense gets to decide the value to the US of elections in Haiti.

Condi Rice, in a speech at the Heritage Foundation, said “When America leads with principle in the world, freedom’s cause grows stronger. We saw this when Ronald Reagan spurned friendly dictators and supported freedom’s cause in Latin America.” Spurned... friendly dictators... head... hurt. She also accused unnamed countries of “boycotting” the trial of Saddam Hussein, saying participation (whatever that means) is a special obligation for those who support human rights. Asked to clarify her remarks, a State Dept official “pointed out that many nations had opposed the fact that Hussein, if found guilty, faced the death penalty”. Oh, those human rights.

Tookie taken

California has indeed executed Tookie Williams, despite his years of good work on death row educating people to the fact that Tookie was his middle name rather than a nickname. Governor Terminator’s statement about his decision suggests that he denied clemency less because of the 4 killings than for his failure to apologize for them. Very Emily Post of the governor; I’m too lazy to look up his non-apology apologies to all the women he sexually harassed or assaulted, but you get the idea. He also said that Williams’s anti-gang work, often cited as a reason he should be granted clemency, had failed to end any and all gang violence, so that was another reason to execute him. The next scheduled execution in California is of a 75-year old blind guy, recovering from a heart attack, in a wheelchair. Is the death chamber wheelchair-accessible? His last meal will also be his birthday dinner; what gifts do you get for a guy who’s going to die at 12:01 that day? And doesn’t that sound like the worst birthday party in the history of the world?

Speaking of crappy gifts, in Iraq the Victorious Army Group has extended its deadline for a website design contest to Jan. 15. The winner will receive God’s blessings and the opportunity to fire 3 long-range rockets at an American military base. Enter early and often.

But it was not a peaceful welcome

WaPo headline: “FEMA Ordered to Extend Hotel Stays.” Yeah, because telling the clerk, “By the hour? We only need it for 15 minutes” is just so tacky.

When Bush in today’s speech said that this time, unlike in the January 2005 elections, seats in the Iraqi parliament would be allocated according to population, I was wondering when a census was last carried out and if there’d been something like, say, an invasion and war that might have altered the population distribution since then. Turns out, seats will actually be allocated not on the basis of total numbers, but registration for the January elections... which the Sunnis boycotted. Also, 1/6 of the seats are based on a single-national-constituency such as that used in January.

In an interview with Bush today, NBC’s Brian Williams asked about the Newsweek story that Bush lives in a bubble – big scoop for Newsweek, that one. Bush responded: “Well, I’m talking to you. You’re a person.” He went on, “I feel very comfortable that I’m very aware of what’s going on.” And added that he never reads the news magazines – a big scoop for Brian Williams, that one. Later, after Bush expresses admiration for Abraham Lincoln, Williams noted that Lincoln could meet members of the general public right in the White House. Bush says, yeah, but he’s got Air Force One, so he can meet lots of families of dead soldiers: “I’m sure Abraham Lincoln was able to do that, but I don’t think he was able to do it in cities all around the United States which I have been able to do.” “And I try to be patient and absorb the anguish of a family that’s just mourning.” Tries to be patient. The man’s a saint, I tells ya.

Says he likes Teddy Roosevelt because “He used American influence to shape history and to lay what I call the foundations for peace.” Well, unless you count the world war that started five years after he left office.

Asked why American troops were not welcomed in Iraq as liberators: “I think we are welcomed. But it was not a peaceful welcome.”

Wrestling with the profound consequences

Governor Arnold has denied clemency to Stanley Tookie Williams after “wrestling with the profound consequences.” This particular wrestling match, like so many others, was fixed. OK, I don’t really know to what extent political considerations entered into the decision, although pundits have been opining that Schwarzenegger needed to feed some raw meat, such as a dead black man, to his base after the betrayal of hiring a Democrat as his new chief of staff last week. I do know the decision he made was the path of least political resistance. I do know he waited until the last minute to make his announcement, which is pretty cruel itself. I do know that the idea of Arnold Schwarzenegger, I mean Arnold Freaking Schwarzenegger!! having the power of life and death over another human being is the height of absurdity. But then, the very belief of death-penalty supporters that they possess wisdom enough to decide whether a fellow person should live or die is evidence enough, if evidence were needed, that they don’t.

As if it meant something

Various governments continue to treat Israel as some sort of model when it comes to riot-control, a paragon to be emulated. The latest worshippers at the feet of the masters: France, which, having dealt with many days of rioting recently with a deplorably low amount of bloodshed, will be visited by the Israeli public security minister and police commissioner, who will advise them on how to do better next time.

Though Bush’s speech on Iraq today was supposed to be the 3rd in a series of 4, it contained little if any new material. Speaking in Philadelphia, he quoted someone who said in 1776, when the Liberty Bell was sounded after the Declaration of Independence was signed, “It rang as if it meant something.” Like every other Bush speech on Iraq, his words were designed to sound as if they meant something, but they didn’t. He’s still, for example, talking about “marginalizing” the “rejectionists,” and I still don’t know what, if anything, that would entail. So nothing new in the prepared speech, but this time he took questions. In response to one, he gave an estimate of 30,000 Iraqi dead. I really thought he was going to dodge the question, and I salute his bravery in actually answering. OK, with an imaginary number, but still.



Challenged directly to justify the links he insists on drawing between Al Qaeda and Iraq, he did dodge. He went on at some length about how Saddam Hussein was a threat – evidently admitting that the intel about WMDs was all wrong makes no difference to how big a threat he was. And there was this weird passage in the speech: “In a 1998 fatwa, Osama bin Laden argued that the suffering of the Iraqi people was justification for his declaration of war on America. Now bin Laden and al-Qaeda are the direct cause of the Iraqi people’s suffering.” Fuck if I know what this means.

He took another swipe at Al-Jazeera:

Look, I recognize we got an image issue, particularly when you’ve got Arabic television stations -- that are constantly just pounding America, saying ‘America is fighting Islam,’ ‘Americans can’t stand Muslims,’ ‘This is a war against a religion.’

Notice how he denies – three times – that this is a religious crusade, without addressing charges of going to war for oil, or imperialism (by the by, at one point he casually suggested that several more governments were going to have to fall in the Middle East). On the religion thing, he went on, “ours is not a nation that rejects religion. Ours is a nation that accepts people of all faiths”. Unless they don’t say “Merry Christmas” on cue, of course, in which case we will annihilate them.

Telling the US side of the story to approved targeted audiences

What the fuck sort of day is this? Today’s NYT obits page reported the death of not one but two people who wrote (very different sorts of) books I own, Roger Shattuck and Robert Sheckley, then during the day Eugene McCarthy and Richard Pryor die. How did I not know Pryor was one of the writers of Blazing Saddles?

Boy I hope no one is reading any of that for the first time here.

The Sunday Times says that the only pictures ever published in Russia of Putin’s daughters are over a decade old.

“The enemy in Anbar province is different from that in other areas of Iraq,” a Pentagon release begins intriguingly, only to crash and burn in the next sentence, when it turns out that they are all “rejectionists,” a term that made its debut in Bush’s November 30th speech, and which is remarkable for the amount of information it completely fails to convey. Is this the grand sum of 3 years of accumulated knowledge about the enemy? The Pentagon people peddling this piffle prefer to remain “on background,” as well they might; you do have to wonder about a Pentagon release in which Pentagon officials aren’t willing to be named. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of a Rejectionist Party, and I would even suggest a motto: “Whatever it is, I’m against it.” Has a ring to it, doesn’t it? But as an intellectual category, it tells you nothing about the aspirations and ideas of the people to whom you apply the category (it’s not like any Iraqis actually consider themselves to be “rejectionists”). Indeed, it denies they have any aspirations or ideas we need to pay any attention to; it’s the same dismissive taunt, “They have no ideas, they just trash ours,” the Republicans like to use about the Democrats. To call your opponents rejectionist is to stigmatize, even criminalize disagreement.

The NYT has a good long story about American semi-secret propaganda efforts in Iraq and, in the last part, Afghanistan. Says a psyops colonel, “We tell the U.S. side of the story to approved targeted audiences.” In Afghanistan, the Pentagon gives money to 30 radio stations, including one named... wait for it... Peace, and a newspaper of the same name. Without disclosing the relationship, of course. Says AID’s rep in Afghanistan, whose name is evidently also a secret, “We want to maintain the perception (if not the reality) that these radio stations are in fact fully independent.” That’s called lying. AID also funds something called Voice For Humanity, which hands out iPod-like devices (pink for women, silver for men!) in both countries with get-out-the-vote messages, which can’t be used for anything else, just like those North Korean radios that can only receive state radio.

Unless, of course, they meant stoning infidel voters

Inappropriate headline of the week, from the WaPo: “Iraq’s Mosques Rock the Vote as Election Nears.”

It’s official: according to the Patent and Trademark Office, the word “dyke” is no longer offensive. Accordingly, it has reversed an earlier decision to deny a trademark for the name “Dykes on Bikes.”

There’s some sort of lesson in this story about people with one of the most boring hobbies ever, planespotting, helped expose the secret CIA torture flights. One planespotter in Spain, who posted a picture of one plane on the web, started getting calls from reporters and... others: “One man wanted to buy up all the photos. He eventually sent me a form in which he asked for everything, including my home address. I didn’t give it to him and I never heard from him again.” Your tax dollars at work.

Simon Carr of the Indy (sub., so no link) says that David Cameron, though the 5th Tory party leader since Thatcher, still has to figure out how to “integrate Mrs Thatcher back into the Conservative story as a necessary but demented character, a creature of her time, like Joan of Arc.”

I love it when Bush scandals intersect: the key pre-war “evidence” that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and chemical weapons was provided by a single prisoner, rendered to Egypt, who lied to make the torture stop.

We’ll let the historians look back and make those judgments

Four men who stole the original manuscript of Darwin’s The Origin of Species have been sentenced to long prison terms. There’s probably a joke in there somewhere. Oh, and did I mention it was from the library of Transylvania University?

In Wednesday’s Gaggle, Scotty McClellan was asked if mistakes were committed by the US in the Iraq war. Astonishingly, he admits that there were. Less astonishingly, he says he doesn’t know what they were, and indeed, “we’ll let the historians look back and make those judgments. I don’t think you can do it in the current time.” So there you have it: the Bush admin not only doesn’t learn from its mistakes, but denies even the possibility of learning from its mistakes until decades from now, which could be a little late. On the other hand it might not be late because, due to those mistakes, we’ll probably still be fighting this war decades from now.

Speaking of lengthy contemplation, this Thai Buddhist monk is wearing the helmet because of falling rocks from the blasting at a nearby limestone quarry.


Wilkommen: Cute story in the Indy about preparations in Germany for next year’s World Cup, specifically, mega-brothels being built to accommodate the 40,000 prostitutes expected to make their way to Berlin for the event. Actually a good thing, if it cuts down on the number of prostitutes who are sex slaves. 3 million football fans are expected to make use of their services.

Speaking of remarkably accommodating and flexible Europeans, all the European officials Condi met evidently found her reassurances entirely reassuring, or say they did.

George Bush claims that all his policies come from these two. Explains so much. Now if it were two cats...

Wink winkery

In Britain, the Law Lords (the highest court) rule that evidence elicited by torture in other countries may not be used in court.

Back here in torture central, various sources explain how every word spoken by Condi about torture this week has been exquisitely polished by State Dept lawyers to mean either nothing or the exact opposite of what it’s meant to sound like. Eric Umansky in Today’s Papers points out that her statement

As a matter of U.S. policy, the United States obligations under the [Convention Against Torture], which prohibits, of course, cruel and inhumane and degrading treatment, those obligations extend to U.S. personnel wherever they are, whether they are in the United States or outside of the United States

is undercut by the Bush legal position that there are in fact no legal obligations not to torture foreigners unless they are held in the US. So they would abide by their obligations, but claim there are no obligations.

Also (and forgive the lack of links; I had assumed someone would collect all the Condi-parsings in one place, but no one has), the NYT yesterday noted that when she said the US doesn’t send prisoners to countries where they “will be tortured,” that only excludes rendition when we absolutely, positively know that they will be tortured, not that they may be, or probably will be. I believe in lawyer’s parlance, that’s called a “wink wink.” A couple of days ago, she said that the US didn’t transport prisoners “for the purpose” of torture, more wink winkery. (I just made that up. I like it.) And of course without a working definition of “torture,” no statement rejecting the practice of torture has any real-world meaning.

And someone in the Guardian, um, or the Independent, sorry again, focused on her use of the word “policy” – for example, her statement above began with the phrase “As a matter of U.S. policy...” – which is another loophole, since policies have exceptions and are a matter of presidential will (that is, they can be changed at any time); “policy” is not an iron-clad promise: she wouldn’t have used the phrase if it were. To the extent that gullible news media, and gullible congresscritters like Carl Levin, believe that some sort of change has taken place, her oh so carefully chosen words have done what they were intended to do, get critics off the Bushies’ backs. If she had really intended to rule out the use of torture, her words would not have needed to be carefully chosen.

There is perhaps a limit to gullibility among those who characterize Rice’s words as a “reversal of policy”: I’ve heard no one say that they believe that any of the practices – kidnappings in foreign countries, secret prisons, extraordinary renditions, torture by American interrogators, torture by foreign interrogators – will actually be altered, that a decision was made this week by the Bush admin to stop doing any of the things it’s been doing.

If you’re wondering about the statement by UN high commissioner for human rights Louise Arbour which provoked John Bolton to object “I think it is inappropriate and illegitimate for an international civil servant to second-guess the conduct that we’re engaged in in the war on terror, with nothing more as evidence than what she reads in the newspapers,” here it is. Oddly, she doesn’t mention the US specifically. Wonder how he knew she meant us?

Militias and armed gangs are exerting more influence than they should in a free society

Some snippets from Bush’s latest Iraq speech:

“Over the course of this war, we have learned that winning the battle for Iraqi cities is only the first step. ... We found that after we left, the terrorists would re-enter the city, intimidate local leaders and police, and eventually retake control.” Boy , live and learn, huh? You’d think no one had ever fought a war before.

On Najaf: “An Iraqi battalion has consumed [sic] control of the former American military base” but “There are still kidnappings, and militias and armed gangs are exerting more influence than they should in a free society.” As opposed to exerting just the right amount of influence.

Says there’s some corruption in the Iraqi government at the local and national levels, so “[w]e’ve helped the Iraqi people establish institutions like a Commission on Public Integrity and a stronger Supreme Board of Audit to improve oversight of the rebuilding process.” I’m guessing the contracts to set up the Commission on Public Integrity and the Supreme Board of Audit went to Haliburton.

As is now requisite, Bush quoted Holy Joe Lieberman approvingly. Joementum went to Iraq and wrote that he could see the signs of progress: “There are many more cars on the streets... and literally millions more cell phones in Iraq hands than before.” Of course the cell phones are being used to detonate the cars...

*

Hanukkah at the White House, or as George calls it, Jewy Christmas

California right-wingers are so upset with Der Arnold that they’re looking around for an alternative.

In Germany, Condi Rice said that she wouldn’t comment on the American kidnapping, and five-month detention and torture of German national Khaled al-Masri, all because he had a “suspicious name,” because he’s suing, and she certainly can’t talk about an issue that might be before the courts. I am getting so sick of that line. Angela Merkel came out of their meeting saying Rice had admitted a mistake in that case, but the State Dept says that Rice did no such thing and they don’t understand how Merkel could ever have gotten such an idea. Rice said something about “if” little errors occur, the US will rectify them, although she didn’t say how dumping al-Masri on a mountain road and then pressuring Germany not to talk publicly about the case fit with that.

George Bush loves him the Hanukkah. Possibly because it’s all about the oil. So he got a 19-day jump start on it.


Is the White House’s fire insurance premium paid up?

That’s the West Point Jewish Cadet Choir. Let me repeat that: the West Point Jewish Cadet Choir.

We are not tents people

Earlier this year, Robert Mugabe destroyed the houses of hundreds of thousands of people in the subtly named “Operation Drive Out Rubbish.” Now, his government has rejected an offer from the UN to provide tents because “we are not tents people.”

A Bush exchange with AP reporter Nedra Pickler today:

Q Thank you, Mr. President. Insurgents in Iraq claim that they have taken a U.S. citizen hostage. We also have a U.S. peace activist who is being held. Is there anything you can do to get them back?

THE PRESIDENT: We, of course, don’t pay ransom for any hostages. What we will do, of course, is use our intelligence gathering to see if we can’t help locate them. The best way to make sure that Iraq is a peaceful society is to continue to spread democracy. And, clearly, there are some there who want to stop the spread of democracy. There are terrorists there who will kill innocent people and behead people and kill children; terrorists who have got desires to hurt the American people. And it should be -- the more violent they get, the clearer the cause ought to be, that we’re going to achieve victory in Iraq, and that we’ll bring these people to justice. We will hunt them down, along with our Iraqi friends, and at the same time, spread democracy.

Notice how quickly he slides from the individual hostages to his terrorists-are-bad talking points, never making a human connection or saying a word to the families of the hostages. The rest of us just aren’t real to him. Indeed, there’s nothing in his answer that demonstrates that he knows the hostages’ names or is following this story at all. Also, saying we don’t pay ransom is fine, but the thing about using intel to track them down just increases the chances they’ll be killed.

On Iraq, he says the troops “need to hear... that we have a strategy that will win. ... And so our strategy is two-fold” (killing people, spreading democracy). Only, the thing is, in last Wednesday’s so-called major speech, he said, “Our strategy in Iraq has three elements.” He can’t even remember how many folds/elements his strategy has. Or possibly he just can’t count that high.

About secret prisons and torture, he seems to have gotten the memo about stressing how everything we do follows American laws without mentioning the Bush admin position that American laws don’t actually apply to these detainees. Note the McClellanesque use of mindless repetition:

I can tell you two things: one, that we abide by the law of the United States; we do not torture. And two, we will try to do everything we can to protect us within the law. We’re facing an enemy that would like to hit America again, and the American people expect us to, within our laws, do everything we can to protect them.

To be responsible, one needs to stop defining success in Iraq as the absence of terrorist attacks

The State Dept’s position on the Venezuelan elections, the Miami Herald notes, “was clearly closer to the opposition line” than to the government’s. Funny, that. State spokesmodel Adam Ereli says the low turnout, caused by the opposition boycott (and not even that low compared to other Venezuelan mid-term elections, Left I points out), is a sign of distrust in the electoral system, showing a magical ability to read the minds of the Venezuelan non-voters. (Response of one reporter at the press conference: Isn’t that a bit of a reach? Fifty percent of the people in this country don’t vote. You just don’t like Venezuela very much.) The Herald quotes an opposition leader saying, or possibly miming, “Silence united Venezuelans.” A little silence from the State Dept would also be nice.

Rummy Rumsfeld, criticizing the media’s peculiar habit of focusing on the negative: “To be responsible, one needs to stop defining success in Iraq as the absence of terrorist attacks.” That’s one of the best Rummyisms yet. And he asked, after citing a survey showing pessimism about Iraq among American journalists, academics, think tanks, etc, “Which view of Iraq is more accurate, the pessimistic view of the so-called elites in our country, or the more optimistic view expressed by millions of Iraqis and by some 155,000 U.S. troops on the ground?” Oo, oo, I know this one, oh, I’m gonna have to go with “the so-called elites in our country.”

There are a lot of knuckleheads here that need to die

Excellent: it was time for another Neil Bush scandal. Now he’s hanging around with Sun Myung Moon.

Israel – ostensibly in response to 3 rockets, but any excuse would have done – has announced plans to a) resume assassinations in Gaza, b) fire into built-up regions, after giving the residents what I’m sure will be ample time to get out of the way.

George Monbiot on why biodiesel sucks.

Quote of the day, from Marine Col. Stephen W. Davis, about military operations in Anbar province: “This is not a hearts and minds battle. ... There are a lot of knuckleheads here that need to die. You’re just crunching heads.”

There are two kinds of people in the world: those the (London Times) headline “Saddam Trial Hears of ‘Human Flesh Grinder’” makes want to read the article, and those it makes want not to read the article.

Caption contest: Bush (circled, on the right) attends a production of The Nutcracker.

Condi the Rock Star sez: Some governments choose to cooperate with the United States

The NYT has an article on “The Man Behind the Secretary of State’s Rock Star Image.” That aide insists that all of his work in promoting her alleged rock star image is not for domestic consumption – in a story about Condi’s rock star image (no, it doesn’t get less silly with repetition, does it?) printed coincidentally on the same day she’s facing questions in Europe about secret prisons and torture.

Rockin’?
Condi the rock star tried today to implicate European countries in America’s torture flights and secret prisons (whose existence she refused to confirm or deny): “Some governments choose to cooperate with the United States. That cooperation is a two-way street. We share intelligence that has helped protect European countries from attack, saving European lives.” So if a country doesn’t “cooperate,” we don’t share any intelligence we have that it might be attacked by terrorists? She won’t say which European countries cooperate, because that would put them at risk of reprisal. Not saying, instead, puts all of them at risk, or at least the ones rumored to be involved. She defended, nay praised, the extra-judicial detention of prisoners, while at the same time refusing to acknowledge the existence of the prisons in which those prisoners are held, because to do so “would be compromising intelligence information, and I’m not going to do that”. That statement is designed to elicit the Pavlovian mouth-shutting that is the response of most of the media to claims that intel is endangered, but in fact makes no sense whatsoever. Compromised how?

Oh, and if you read Condi the rock star’s comment about respecting the sovereignty of European states too quickly, you may have missed what she was actually saying: she totally respects their right to lie about there being secret prisons on their territory.

Unprecedented democratic conditions

NYT: “The American commanders say their soldiers have largely halted combat missions and now play a training and backup role for the Iraqi forces”. Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.

Let’s see if we can spot a pattern. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, asked by Chris Wallace about secret overseas prisons today, said, “We respect the sovereignty of the countries with which we deal and we do not move people around the world so that they can be tortured.” Bush, last Tuesday, in non-response to a question about secret overseas prisons: “The United States of America does not torture.” McClellan, Friday, when asked about secret overseas prisons: “The President has made it very clear that we do not torture.” And we’ll see what Condi says in Europe this week. (Update: yup.) The pattern is that you ask them about secret prisons and they immediately turn the subject to torture. Which is a term none of them have ever been willing to define.

Hadley said Rice won’t comment on the CIA operations, presumably even to the people who run the countries where they take place, because “the information would help the enemy.” John McCain? The ACLU?

Hey, I just figured something out. The secret prisons are only in a couple of countries, as far as we know, Poland and Romania we think, but the flights that took prisoners there went through a lot of countries – Britain, Ireland, Germany, Italy, etc etc. I think the CIA deliberately spread them around to implicate as many countries as possible to keep them quiet.

AP headline: “US Missile, al-Qaida Death May Be Linked.” Ya think? The first story they tried to put out was that he’d been blown up accidentally by one of his own bombs. If that’s your cover story, you might use missiles without model numbers and the words “guided missile” and “US” on them.

Not surprisingly, Kazakhstan’s dictator Nazarbayev is “re-elected” for another 7-year term with 91% of the vote, in what Nazarbayev calls “unprecedented democratic conditions,” but which were, of course, undemocratic and very precedented.