Julius Caesar did not break ancient Rome’s taboo against marching troops into the city of Rome. Lucius Cornelius Sulla did that in 82 B.C., thirty years earlier. Sulla even set what you might call a good example: he restored the Republic’s traditional balance of powers and then, setting himself apart from self-appointed dictators then and now, he retired.
Similarly, the first Weimar leader who more or less ignored his Republic’s balance of powers was Friedrich Ebert. Ebert, the first President of Weimar after WWI, felt that nobody could rebuild German society with the existing burden of checks and balances. Maybe he was right! Historians disagree. Regardless, by Hitler’s time a leader had plenty of precedent to declare an emergency and use the Constitution as a dinner napkin.
We shoudln’t punish the Addington regime because they acted like assholes or because they made America look bad. We should punish them, and we must punish them, because we cannot afford not to.
A judge will investigate claims that British intelligence agencies were complicit in the torture of terror suspects, William Hague, the foreign secretary, said tonight. The move was welcomed by civil liberties campaigners and may put pressure on the Labour leadership candidate and former foreign secretary David Miliband, who was accused by Hague, while in opposition, of having something to hide. Miliband has repeatedly rejected the accusation and broadly indicated that he or his officials may have been misled by foreign intelligence agencies about the degree of British complicity…
Hague will come under pressure to ensure the inquiry is public and comprehensive. He first called last year for an independent judicial inquiry into claims that British officials had colluded in the torture of Binyam Mohamed, the former Guantánamo detainee and a UK resident. Mohamed claimed that he was tortured by US forces in Pakistan and Morocco, and that MI5 fed the CIA questions that were used by US forces.
Isn’t it odd to see Labour utterly fail to rise to the challenge of Bush-era abuses and have the Tories stand up instead. By US wingnut standards I guess that makes the mainstream British right a bunch of terrorist-loving communazis.
For lack fo a better word, news from our side of the pond sucks ass.
[L]ast April, John Bates, the Bush-43-appointed, right-wing judge overseeing the case, rejected the Bush/Obama position and held that Boumediene applies to detainees picked up outside of Afghanistan and then shipped to Bagram. I reviewed that ruling here, in which Judge Bates explained that the Bagram detainees are “virtually identical to the detainees in Boumediene,” and that the Constitutional issue was exactly the same: namely, “the concern that the President could move detainees physically beyond the reach of the Constitution and detain them indefinitely.”But the Obama administration was undeterred by this loss. They quickly appealed Judge Bates’ ruling. As the NYT put it about that appeal: “The decision signaled that the administration was not backing down in its effort to maintain the power to imprison terrorism suspects for extended periods without judicial oversight.” Today, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals adopted the Bush/Obama position, holding that even detainees abducted outside of Afghanistan and then shipped to Bagram have no right to contest the legitimacy of their detention in a U.S. federal court, because Boumediene does not apply to prisons located within war zones (such as Afghanistan).
Maybe the British could indict ours as well.
Chuck Butcher
Yeah, but don’t try to point out to anyone that once this crap gets started it just keeps on a tickin’.
Linkmeister
I wonder if the intelligence agencies have a massive DVD which they play for incoming Presidents which convinces the newcomers that they’d better ignore all the ConLaw they once knew (and used to teach, in our current instance). Obama has done a bunch of good things, although he hasn’t achieved as many truly liberal ones as I’d like. But on civil liberties he’s been awful and is getting more so.
Viva BrisVegas
The reason that this can be done in Britain and not in the US is that the accused in Britain (Labour) will not destroy the political system rather than submit to the rule of law.
The Republicans however have no such compunctions.
DCCPA
Britain becomes the new Greece becomes the new France
robertdsc
You think that’s why Obama’s doing it? If he does anything opposite, the government goes into meltdown mode?
mcd410x
Laws are for wimps.
Coffee is for closers.
Keith G
I got nothing on the topic, just saying that it’s good to see Tim laying down a couple o’ threads today.
Jenny
since when have prisoners of war had access to judicial oversight?
Quiddity
Wasn’t Friedrich Ebert the movie critic who gave “thumbs down” to Triumph of the Will?
beltane
@Quiddity: OK, that was funny.
Citizen Alan
@robertdsc:
He has made it clear from the beginning that bipartisanship trumps every other possible concern. I have long since despaired of him changing his position on that matter, even after the Republicans have made it plain that their goal is to destroy his presidency by any means necessary.
Fern
I don’t find it odd at all – why would labour investigate things that happened while they were in power?
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
So Lucius Cornelius Sulla was what Maximus Decimus Meridius had hoped to be?
Mnemosyne
@robertdsc:
I think that’s part of it. But I also have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that all of this shit is much worse than we think. Worse even than Greenwald thinks. I think there’s stuff being kept under wraps that happened under Bush that’s 10 times worse than Abu Ghraib.
I really think the administration is desperately trying to keep the status quo going because if it came out what had really been happening in the past 8 years, the US would pretty much be unable to operate in the world, in part because we would be unable to hold any kind of war crimes trials without the Republicans (and a goodly number of hawkish Democrats, by the way) burning shit down and would lose every scrap of credibility we still had.
They’re not going to (try to) make things worse than they are. They’re just going to try to keep things as they are now and hope it doesn’t get out of control. That’s always a forlorn hope, of course, but once you get knee-deep into cover-up territory, you don’t have much choice.
Mnemosyne
@Jenny:
Always, actually. Under the Geneva Convention, prisoners of war can challenge their detention and argue that they’re not really POWs and should be freed. That’s one of the reasons why the Bush administration came up with the extra-special, extra-legal category of “enemy combatants” — to skirt around the Geneva requirement that prisoners be allowed to challenge their detention.
Delia
I think it’s hardly fair to put all the blame for the instability of the Weimar Republic onto Friedrich Ebert. He basically inherited the government in 1918 because no one else wanted it. True, he used the Army and the Freikorps to put down the Spartacist rebellion, and the Freikorps murdered Karl Kiebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. But they were threatening a Bolshevist style uprising. Then he appealed to the socialist workers’ unions to help him put down the right wing Freikorps rebellion, which the Army was only half-hearted about. But he was dealing with a chaotic situation to begin with, and a nation that had never experienced a real democracy or constitutional government. It’s not like they’d had, oh, 220 years or so of constitutional practice to get the details right before they went off the rails.
Delia
Damn. I wrote a nice long rant and I forgot and used the sockalist word, so now it’s in moderation.
mogden
People who think this is all the Republicans’ fault are depressing. Things got a lot worse under Bush; that is for sure. But wake up, the Democrats are in charge, and NOTHING IS CHANGING. That is because this is not a partisan issue. It is a systemic rot.
We no longer have the rule of law in this country if you are an elite; that is just a fact. The Constitution is merely a sad piece of paper. The American ideals that I was raised to believe in are long gone.
Church Lady
Does this mean that Obama is a war criminal, like Bush?
Comrade Luke
@Mnemosyne:
Worse, and more systemic. As in: we’d have to replace a large, large percentage of Congress.
Not that that would be a bad thing.
Xenos
@Church Lady: Maybe. Depends if violating the various treaties that would compel him to prosecute the various criminals counts as a war crime itself. I doubt it would, but that would make an interesting research project.
someguy
@Jenny:
It’s a war crime that BushCo denied them access to our courts, and this judge is also guilty of a warcrime for ruling this way in violation of international law. Just another Bush war criminal. The Democrats in Congress could do something about it but you probably don’t want to hold your breath. This is why I’m really hoping the Administration finally signs on to the international criminal court in Rome – guys like this judge could be hauled off and tried for a ruling like this.
Corner Stone
@mogden:
This is a lie. The change is clearly that people who previously screamed their balls off about Bush doing this are now pretty ok with Obama doing it.
Corner Stone
@Xenos:
Compel him?
Martin
I’m not sure bipartisanship is the issue here. My take is that Obama deals with the political shit after the work is done. At least that’s how it’s played out so far with Wall Street and looks to be playing out wrt BP and other similar issues. There’s no rush to blame, rather they pull their case together and go at a time when they can help make sure it doesn’t devolve into the kinds of shit that happened continually under Clinton. But that doesn’t mean they don’t go.
I admit that it’s early to draw that conclusion, but that does seem to the formula. Since there’s still a shitload of Gitmo work to unravel (which is all this case involves – people already captured and detained from YEARS ago, and the court stated that it can’t be applied to any future case nor should any precedent be drawn from it) what does going after Bush malfeasance do to help solve that problem? It’ll just cause the Republicans to use those prisoners even more as political pawns, accuse Obama of all manner of things that he’ll hard pressed to defend against because the GOP will push every national security corner that they know Obama can’t present evidence again, and the problem will never get solved and the whole thing will turn into a big shitpile and go nowhere.
We’ve got foreign countries going after our CIA people for abducting their citizens, we’ve got Britain doing an investigation, those efforts will soften the earth here without the Democrats having to do jack shit, while they continue to clean up Bush’s mess, and then they can decide to go further. Britain doesn’t have any of these problem. They have nothing left to unravel.
Maybe I’m an Obot, but I’m also a good enough manager to know to not blast the people I need to fix the fuckup until the fuckup is fixed.
tc125231
The Obama administration’s behavior in this matter is unforgivable.
But didn’t you get the memo? John the Whiner has decreed that no one but him can criticize Obama –and he only gets to do it when he has one of his childish meltdowns.
I guess it’s supposed to contribute to his boyish (read juvenile) charm.
Somebody tell him what’s on TV tonight.
Martin
@mogden:
That’s bullshit. There’s been no hints of extraordinary rendition, torture, or any of that under Obama. The case today was about a number of prisoners that we’ve had detained for years. Even the people that are helping to defend the Gitmo detainees have been saying that Obama has only made things better. Not as good as they ought to be, granted, but to say that nothing is changing is bullshit.
And again, what are they to do with detainees that their home country won’t take back, that Congress won’t allow to come to the US even for trial, and that aren’t guilty of anything to stand before a military tribunal? Stick them on a raft and send them out to sea? Obama ordered that Gitmo be closed and many of the reasonable mechanisms to do that have been cut off by Congress.
JG
@Jenny:
The key issue is whether the executive branch can take prisoners from outside the theater of war, say Thailand, incarcerate them inside the theater of war and then declare that they have no right to habeas.
BHO and company have clearly come down on the side of using Bagram as a way to circumvent judicial rulings that held Gitmo prisoners are allowed judicial review. This distinction must be made clear and GG does that although I’m sure some will ignore it. Someone captured inside Afghanistan and held at Bagram is one thing but people captured far from the battlefield and then held there is different. What, we now allow the executive to declare that pretty much anyone can be a prisoner of war or enemy combatant no matter where they are picked up?
Jenny
During World War II did people complain when Nazi prisoners weren’t given judicial access?
Even during Vietnam I don’t recall anyone (even the strongest opponent of the war) call for NVA prisoners to receive attorneys.
Martin
@JG: No, I don’t think that’s what the case says because the court said that it couldn’t be applied in the future. It only applied to these individuals who have been in custody for years. It doesn’t say that anyone is free to do it in the future.
Remember, Obama wanted to bring all of these people to the US to sort out, and Congress said no. This case clearly isn’t what Obama sought to do.
dirk
It’s beyond question that the fact David Miliband is the front runner and clearly most electable Labour leadership contender is driving Tory zeal in this matter. On most of the egregious WOT aspects the Tories have been mute or completely supportive.
Mnemosyne
@Jenny:
People didn’t complain when we imprisoned American citizens of Japanese descent. The Supreme Court even decided that the government had every right to imprison American citizens who had never committed a crime because of something that a foreign country did. It took 40 years to overturn that decision.
I take it you’d like to return us to those days since you seem awfully enthusiastic about indefinitely imprisoning people on flimsy grounds.
Bob Loblaw
That’s not particularly true. The Intl. Red Cross uncovered the perpetuation of a JSOC-run “black site” at Bagram up through this year, and they haven’t been one for bullshitting during this whole ordeal.
What purpose would JSOC still need for a jail that the Red Cross isn’t allowed to visit, exactly? Face it, the “softer” forms of enhanced interrogations (sleep deprivation would be my guess) are likely still in vogue in Afghanistan, for “critical” real time intelligence gathering if not prolonged investigations.
Not to mention that both Iraq and Afghanistan are currently running US subsidized torture states themselves.
mogden
You honestly tell me you believe that no torture is occurring now, or that we will not torture at the drop of a hat the next time some Arab goes “Boo?” Why would you believe this? Because someone gave you some happy talk?
You believe that we will obey our Constitution, the law of this nation, and prosecute war criminals as is our absolute, sacred obligation under these laws and international treaties?
Without disincentives through punishment, the crimes of our government will grow ever bigger.
Calming Influence
I know it’s a completely overused metaphor, but I feel like the other frog in the pot of water on the stove saying “Srsly? you don’t feel it getting uncomfortably warm?”
Corner Stone
@Martin:
IMO, what Obama admin wanted to do was create a Gitmo inside US proper, not actually deal or “sort out” how these indefinite detainees were handled.
Jenny
@tc125231: If you don’t like his blog than why are you here? To call him childish while you actively read and post to his blog is the projection of child like behavior.
Hob
I don’t disagree with the main point of the post, and I can’t say much about it because it’s just fucking sad. So instead I’ll nitpick about the Roman history reference a little (at the risk of public humiliation cause I really don’t know so much):
Seems to me that Sulla’s retirement didn’t set all that good an example. He retired on a big pile of money, which he’d acquired by executing thousands of people on political charges and taking all their stuff. No one was about to try to prosecute or assassinate him if he bowed out (partly out of tradition & partly because he’d already killed most of the opposition), whereas if he’d stuck around he might’ve ended up like Caesar. He didn’t have to bother with seeing his reforms through, and they didn’t last. A pretty cushy landing for a thug. Am I wrong?
tc125231
@Martin:
arguingwithsignposts
Tim F.,
why you have to post this shit late on a Friday night? Can’t we have some happy time without this flame war?
Jenny
@Mnemosyne: you’re avoiding the question I posed. You probably lived through Vietnam, I don’t recall anyone saying NVA troops should be processed through a legal system and then releases after say a 2 to 3 year sentence was completed.
Martin
@Corner Stone: Where do you get that from? He broke the detainees down into categories:
1) Those that never should have been imprisoned that they would try to find a country to take
2) Those that were dangerous and should be tried
3) Those that were dangerous but probably couldn’t be tried because they were tortured, the cases were mishandled, etc. but also would never be able to find a country to take them.
They’re still unravelling 1. Congress has steadily shut down 2 other than military tribunals. Congress has given no solution to 3.
So, in the case of a prisoner that no nation will take, what’s to be done with them? What’s the solution? Tell me.
Chuck Butcher
@Hob:
If you’d like to try to gauge Roman behavior by today’s standards not many would escape the label “thug” or considerably worse. You can do that but it is not particularly meaningful.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Jenny: So if this is a war like WWII, first of all are we really admitting that we’ve waged a war for coming up on ten years, and we can’t win it?
Moreover, “enemy combatants” are generally released and returned to the home country at the end of the war. Are people detained for suspicion of acts of terrorism going to be released and returned home when the “war” is over? When will that be, exactly?
I don’t mean a date, but what would even be the criterion for that, at which point do we say “this is the end of the war” and release them?
When Osama Bin Laden lays down his sword on the deck of an aircraft carrier?
If you’re going to go down the war and enemy combatants road, you’re asking to get bogged down in an awful lot of logical mud.
Spaghetti Lee
Sort of not-OT: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_05/023815.php
Has everyone heard of this story?
Chuck Butcher
@Spaghetti Lee:
It’s been floating around for a few days now. Kinda makes you wonder who the children are?
tc125231
@Jenny:
arguingwithsignposts
@tc125231:
Jane, is that you?
Chuck Butcher
I do know that in 2010 I’m damn disappointed that this detainee mess hasn’t been sorted out. That DC is full of nerveless people is not a surprise.
Now having BushCo in orange jumpsuits and handcuffs would please me endlessly, but it ain’t gonna happen. This is the dirty end of the stick of politics, they will refuse to commit suicide. They will tell you that the damage to the country of having 20 (D) Sen & 100 (D) Rep outweighs the damage of not trying them. Take your own measure of that.
Jenny
@tc125231: If I dislike someone, and think they’re childish, and have some disdain for them, I don’t knock on their door.
Extending this logic to the blogosphere. I don’t like DailyKos because of the childish behavior, so I don’t log on to DK. Why would I want to waste my time criticizing them for their childish behavior. That in turn would be childish.
Chuck Butcher
@tc125231:
On the odd occasion that you make some point you get argued with, your usual MO is to toss some insult and act agrieved that you’re taken for an ass. If you don’t want the asshole label, then stop being an asshole and make a point.
Jenny
@Chuck Butcher:
Scooter Libby outed an undercover CIA officer in July of 2003. His trial didn’t begin until February of 2007.
Tom Delay was indicted in October 2005, he has yet to go to trial.
Since when have legal messes been sorted out quickly.
Martin
@Chuck Butcher:
Yeah, I’m really pretty pissed that Congress almost unanimously opposed bringing the Gitmo problem closer to the US rather than further away. Just to make my personal views known, if we can’t deal with these people within the legal system we ought to let them go, dangerous or not. That’s the trade-off of having a nation of laws – sometimes bad guys get away. But I’m pretty clearly in the minority in this country, and certainly would be in the minority in Congress.
I’m just not sure how far off the mainstream Obama should (or can) even go on something like this. Personally, I would go quite far, but I suspect that’d pretty much be the only thing you could accomplish because of the magnitude of the backlash. It seems to me that Congress is pretty intent on pushing the problem as far from themselves as possible, even if that means indefinite detention.
Chuck Butcher
I don’t argue with either of you, but I’m still disappointed.
I’m civil libertarian enough to be really distressed that this shit ever happened much less a bunch of time sorting it out. Lawyers and cowards will be just exactly what they are and I’m just a nail beater from NE OR.
Hob
@Chuck Butcher: Yeah, I know – but that’s why Tim’s remark about him “setting a good example” didn’t really work for me. Sulla certainly thought pretty highly of himself, but it’s not clear to me that the end of his career was so unusually principled even by the standards of his time; he’d done what he wanted to do, he wasn’t really going to get in trouble for it, now he could hang out and work on his memoirs. Actually that sounds familiar, maybe he was just ahead of his time.
Obot
Yeah, but, Obama signed a watered down health reform bill, so all is forgiven. Obama ’12! Change! No, Seriously, This Time I Mean It!
tc125231
@Chuck Butcher: OK. My point is that one day Cole’s upset with Obama. The next day he posts a piece about “How has Obama Failed You Today.”
Within 24 hours, Tim F. posts a pretty thoughtful post about yet another Obama effort to prevent granting of due process, a case that had just broken.
I find Cole’s inconsistency amusing, and it provokes my derision.
You find that offensive. That’s OK. There is still, generally, freedom of speech, and anyway, I don’t crave your good opinion.
Have fun.
Yutsano
@tc125231: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Posted with no further comment.
tc125231
@Yutsano:
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
This quote is frequently misused.
Note the use of the word “foolish”.
The entire meaning of the statement rests on your interpretation of that word.
Again, you are free to make one interpretation, I another.
Yutsano
@tc125231: The meaning of the word “is” is defense. Thank you for revealing that we can no longer take you seriously.
tc125231
@Yutsano: Well, you certainly don’t have to take me seriously, although I question your use of the word “we”.
What group are you authorized to speak for?
I do not, in fact, take your application of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s aphorism seriously. Note that I do not speak as some “royal” we. I speak only for myself.
What I believe is meant by a “foolish consistency” is the attempt to maintain consistency in the face of new information, or new understanding.
I do not view a bipolar swing, on a routine basis between opposing views, with intermiitent abuse of various parties –such as Krugman –who happen to diagree with your current mood as the type of inconsistency Ralph Waldo Emerson had any intention of protecting.
Frankly, it is the type of inconsistency that any child of an alcoholic has seen thousands of times.
Nonetheless, I am entirely content with your exercising your privilege to think poorly of me –although it appears to be the privilege you wish to deny me with respect to certain of Cole’s behaviors.
I would probably question, however, your right to use the royal “we”. Are you Queen Victoria?
Chuck Butcher
@tc125231:
I will one day bitch about the Prez and the next pat him on the back – depending on circumstances. Your assholery is starting out with insult before ever bothering to make a point. Cole likes things and then he dislikes other things – you seem to want him to either like all or dislike all and that is … well, stupid.
I’ve already stated that I’m displeased as a civil libertarian with how things are and I’ll also say that despite all the short comings of legislation the record is damn impressive for the time period. I’m well left of Obama’s stated perspectives so he isn’t going to get what I want … and? In what fairy land does that happen no matter what orientation you are?
I’ve flat out bitten Cole’s head off a couple times and not gotten whacked for it – I gave him good reasons for it, not some gratuitous insult. Not your practice, you start from insult and when kicked around for it start to justify and wander back into po-po me whining.
If you want to be taken as smart and able then do that, if you just want to stir the pot then expect an ass kicking. I give a rat’s ass and I can ignore you as useless if that’s your choice.
Corner Stone
@Martin: ISTM that it is pretty clear the govt will categorize people as needed, and at their whim.
Dangerous according to whom?
The govt has a choice. Reinstate the rule of law or do not do so.
Provide asylum to those seeking it and set the rest free.
Anne Laurie
@Spaghetti Lee: Covered it last week, comrade.
Yutsano
@Chuck Butcher:
To be totally fair, you HAVE gotten whacked for it on here, and pretty much for the reason you describe. I have never seen you be insulting for its own sake (I’ve seen you cut a poorly prepared poster to ribbons) but you’ve gotten into some rather epic verbal scrapes on here. I actually appreciate that about you. That and I’ve been to where you live so I understand better than most what you’re dealing with on a daily basis. How you survive it I shall never understand.
Oh and I’m done with the other subject there. Nothing good is coming out of that keyboard at this time.
Chuck Butcher
@tc125231:
You are, in fact, reading comprehension impaired aren’t you? The Kthug thing is a satirical poke at the knee-jerk reactionaries to Krugman. It is on the odd occasion that Cole takes a poke at him. You’re managing to look less intelligent as you move along.
tc125231
@Chuck Butcher: I am proud of you. You are undoubtedly a heckuva a guy. And also the supreme arbiter of assholery!
I don’t really get why Cole, who routinely and gratuitously insults far better people than either he, you, or I can claim to be should be protected from overt derision when his behavior merits it.
But, I am willing to take your word –that, on this blog –his behavior must be treated with a reverence unrelated to its actual merits.
One should always respect local custom, or leave the locale.
Thank you for the anthropology lesson.
Corner Stone
@tc125231:
I’ve been overtly deriding him for better than 2 years.
Not sure what the issue here is.
Chuck Butcher
@Yutsano:
1232 whatever’s point was that Cole bites people and he has not done that to me and it is his blog. The rest of the commenters do what they will with me, just don’t come disarmed.
I have apologized for an insult here that should not have been made.
Hell, I love where I live and politics aside the people are great (mostly).
Chuck Butcher
@Corner Stone:
numerology got its head bitten off by Cole one day for a particulary stupid insult of no relevance whatever.
Yutsano
@Chuck Butcher: You’re right where the Rockies start reaching for the sky. It is a breathtaking area for sure. I went to Boise State for a year driving from western Washington, so I have driven that area many times. I’ll say this much: the waitresses at the truck stop restaurants were always a hoot.
tc125231
@Chuck Butcher: You know, you can call me all the names you want, and suggest that I am stupid. Have fun!
I would have dropped this whole discussion long ago, but YOU demanded an explanation. So I gave it to you.
You didn’t like it.
That’s your privilege. I am not particularly repentent, however. I like several of the other posters a great deal –but I believe Cole’s behavior frequently merits derision.
Your explanation of Cole’s comments on Krugman –which do not begin and end with K-Thug –begin to remind me of a supporter of Rand Paul explaining his comments on civil rights.
Chuck Butcher
@tc125231:
Lessee, Cole gives a reason for an insult and you don’t until kicked for it. You’re back to whining again. Work on your game or expect disrespect.
His betters? ok…
You really don’t want to read mine, then.
Yutsano
@Chuck Butcher: I have to be honest, if this keeps up I’m gonna have to make some popcorn soon.
Chuck Butcher
@tc125231:
Do your parents know you’re up this late? You’re fucking relentless with stupidity and misapprehensions.
I “didn’t like” your explanation? You were factually wrong as pointed out – like has not shit to do with that. A lot of people out grow that kind of thinking. I have no idea what’s going on with you. It’s not like some kind of opinion, it is a matter of fact that Cole highly respects Krugman in his posts.
As for your coming around; WTF, I have no say in that and really don’t care. I know this place well enough to tell you what will get you mocked by commenters. I’m just bored enough right now to not just skip over you as I generally have.
The only reason I know Cole ripped you for an insult was that I read his comment and went back to find out what set him off – egregiously stupid insults kind of beg for it.
Maybe you have a dialogue going on in your head that you’re not letting the rest of us in on and that happens but, damn, you’re really not gaining ground with what you bring here if your idea is to persuade.
Chuck Butcher
@Yutsano: Make me some.
Chuck Butcher
@Yutsano:
You get over this way you’d better let me know, my site will tell you how.
Yutsano
@Chuck Butcher: I wish I had occasion to go that far south, I don’t get back to Boise much anymore (although I have friends on my ass to pop in and visit at some point) and my job’s Nazi-style time off rules make planning any sort of vacation a virtual impossibility. I was lucky enough to get two days to have a surgery done as it is. Is it any wonder I’m hunting for a new gig?
Corner Stone
@Chuck Butcher:
I generally have several dialogues going on in my head. But that has little or nothing to do with this place.
Chuck Butcher
@Yutsano:
I expect to be up your way sometime before late fall because I intend to ride the gorge on the WA side with “who knows” as a destination. It may be Columbia Harley in Vancouver since I was real happy with the work they did on the scooter and every 5K I have it in a shop. I know it’s a long way for such a thing but hell I’ll ride 85 mi round trip to have an ice tea at a favored watering hole.
Chuck Butcher
@Corner Stone:
I suppose such a statement behind a nom de plum doesn’t merit a lot of worry about involuntary commitment…
Yutsano
@Chuck Butcher: Plymouth is just dead south of me on I-82 about forty miles, so that is certainly a doable day trip. Hell I’d even be up for hunting down this random Greek restaurant that’s supposedly just north of Goldendale in the middle of nowhere that is supposed to be nothing short of fantastic. I’ve never been there but my cousin has when he was a truck driver, so I think it still exists.
Corner Stone
@Chuck Butcher:
Nah. I mostly agree with myself as I’m the smartest person I know. And when I don’t, I work it out peacefully. Usually.
Chuck Butcher
@Corner Stone:
Even that ought to get you past, provided you’re not packin’ about then, otherwise shoot to wound…
Since you don’t know me I guess you’re safe in your estimation.
Corner Stone
@Chuck Butcher: I’m pretty comfortable in my assessment.
J. Michael Neal
@Bob Loblaw:
Eh, sort of. The IRC said that there is, indeed, a facility within Bagram that they are not allowed to visit. There are a couple of caveats that need to be mentioned before declaring that it’s just like Bush.
1) While the Red Cross isn’t admitted to the facility, they are provided the names of prisoners who are taken there. Those names are passed on to their families. So, it isn’t a black hole into which people are anonymously disappeared.
2) It’s a temporary holding facility. The rules are that no one can be held there for longer than two weeks. After that, they are transferred to the general population at Bagram, which the IRC does visit. So, there isn’t any sort of permanent disappearance at all.
Now, maybe there’s more going on that we don’t know about, but that’s what the Red Cross described. There have been allegations of abuse, but it isn’t clear when those allegations were made, and they haven’t been substantiated. The Red Cross didn’t even make an accusation; they merely said that the prisoners have done so.
In all, I think that falls well short of the Just Like Bush threshold.
Again, sort of. Yes, sleep deprivation can be used, but not for longer than 30 hours, which even a chronic insomniac like myself would describe as something a lot less than torture. I, for one, can see why the JSOC might have valid reasons for holding a valuable prisoner in such a facility for a limited period of time for interrogation. As described by the Red Cross, I am mildly concerned about this, given the potential for other things that we don’t know about, but on the list of things that keep me up at night, it doesn’t make it into circulation.
Chuck Butcher
@Yutsano:
W/o a map right at hand I think Goldendale is just barely off my fairly direct route. From my comments you may figure side trips aren’t really a big issue with me.
One day I set out across on Hwy26 to go to Salem, got side tracked to Gold Beach, OR on CA coast border. Just a tad out of the way…
Mnemosyne
@Jenny:
In the sense that I was 6 years old when Saigon fell, I suppose you could say I lived through it. I will admit I probably missed out on a lot of policy discussions at that age.
However, you seem to be missing a very important distinction here: NVA prisoners in Vietnam were POWs, prisoners of war, with all of the legal protections and status that implies. The prisoners in Guantanamo and Bagram are very explicitly not POWs. An entirely new category was created for them because they did not meet the standards for POWs like soldiers from the NVA did but we wanted to keep them in prison indefinitely anyway.
How many NVA soldiers are we still keeping in prison, by the way? How many Nazi soldiers? Heck, how many Iraqis do we still have in custody from the first Gulf War, which ended in 1991?
The answer is zero, because the whole point of giving someone POW status is that you have to set them free once hostilities are over. No trial, no screening, just sending them back to their own country. So you actually want to treat the prisoners in Guantanamo and Bagram differently than we did our POWs in Vietnam and WWII by keeping them locked up after the war is over and yet argue that if no one questioned the status of NVA POWs, we shouldn’t question the status of prisoners who are not POWs.
You’re trying to claim that the apple in your hand is really an orange. It’s not.
Uriel
@tc125231: A+ on self parodying hyperbole, the seemingly deliberate lack of comprehension, and wildly overblown sense of self aggrandizement. A B for your obstinate steadfastness.
Otherwise, over all, I give you a C-. With a D for a lack of flexibility- I mean really, you’ve been hitting this obviously misguided k-thug thing for days now. Learning to adapt your antagonistic blathering to the topic at hand is really the mark of a seasoned pro.
All in all, you have the makings of a pretty good troll- not world class, but up there. I encourage you to work on developing those skills- remember, talent is no excuse for hard work!
J. Michael Neal
@Corner Stone:
One of the things that would be perfectly legal is to declare them prisoners of war and treat them as such. They get full Geneva rights. They have limited legal recourse to challenge their detention, but it does not require a full trial to hold them.
That’s a perfectly valid thing to do under current international law. It also sounded like what the administration was trying to do with the prisoners it categorized as not-triable, but also not innocent, before their hands got tied.
Chuck Butcher
@J. Michael Neal:
The problem we’ve got now is that BushCo so badly broke our trust that everything sets off alarm bells. I’ve had a shit ton of reasons to dislike that bunch but two things made me furious and they were Iraq and the whole thing around torture/detention.
Corner Stone
@J. Michael Neal: I’m not so sure we have a choice any longer.
I agree that could have been done but ISTM we no longer have several options we could have used early on.
Retroactively declare? IMO, it’s all fruit of the tree.
ETA – and POW status? Dubious at best in my mind, given the circumstances and context.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne:
This distinction bothers me as a human being and as an American, because the definition eventually became whoever Bush decided was an enemy combatant. It relates directly to those now who want to put the Times Square and Christmas Day idiots (to call him bombers conveys on them a certain level of competence I’m not willing to grant them) into Guantanamo and torture them into near death states just because they made good Merikans wet their pants. It’s the very definition of slippery slope, and there really is only one method of rectifying it: LET. THEM. ALL. GO. Any judge under normal criminal law would have set these men free years ago with a few stern warnings to both the prosecutor and police about how stupid their investigations were. Some of these people are still sitting there because the Bush administration COULDN’T EVEN BE BOTHERED TO KEEP THE PAPERWORK!! This kind of idiocy should have ended once Obama entered office. He’s not getting the right kinds of whispers from his advisors, or he’s focusing on politics over morality.
Chuck Butcher
@Uriel:
You’re pretty generous or were you grading on a “curve”
(like exponential curve)
Yutsano
@Chuck Butcher: Goldendale would be about as far north as I am from Plymouth, so as side trips go it barely qualifies. The real trick will be finding the restaurant, because all I know is it’s on 97 and nothing else beyond that. There is a large Wal-Mart distribution center somewhere around there, and it’s not in the exact same location but somewhere near. I’m just being the consummate foodie here.
Corner Stone
@Yutsano:
And it has continued since. We get to kill lots of people all the time, mainly because we say it’s ok.
Or as brett said on one thread here: “sucks to be them”
Chuck Butcher
@Yutsano:
Oh dude, don’t go there. It is politics, morality might occur in somebody’s head at some point but the process isn’t going to have much to do with it. It isn’t going to happen, not happen, or get modified because of morality. It never does.
Yutsano
@Corner Stone: I think Obama knows, in his heart of hearts, that this whole Guantanamo/Bagram mess is nothing but a gigantic Charlie Foxtrot and if it were politically feasible for him to sign the order demanding they all be released he would do it. But the calls for his head, especially with the possibility of him losing the house in November (regardless of how elections have shaked out lately, it could still happen), and he still has a full agenda to work on. The opposition party is not acting rationally, and we all hate it, but he still has to work with them. It would be nothing but hearings and impeachment calls if he released them all. It sucks, but it’s a Hobson’s choice: keep the national sin going and keep it open, or fuck your agenda for the rest of your Presidency.
@Chuck Butcher: Hopefully this comment makes you not regard me as a naif. I know why what is happening is happening. Nothing says I have to like it or that I can’t criticize Obama for it.
@Mnemosyne: It’s worse than that, actually. Bush created the category, they just said it was fine and dandy and legal. That makes them really much worse than Bush, because there really isn’t a mechanism for holding an SC judge accountable.
Chuck Butcher
@Corner Stone:
That and it is important to use that big shiny toy or it gets all rusty and doesn’t need a regular infusion of parts and … well you know, money.
Mnemosyne
@Yutsano:
It’s one of the things I hold most against the fucktards on the Supreme Court: they created a brand-new category just so the Bush administration could play games with prisoners who should have either been (a) declared POWs and given all of the protections of that status or (b) indicted as criminals and put into the civil justice system to be tried.
But if they’d done that, then the CIA wouldn’t have been able to do all of those torture experiments on prisoners that little things like the law had previously prevented them from doing. I knew that the CIA was always jealous that the KGB got to be nastier than the CIA was allowed to be, but you’d think that the collapse of the entire Soviet system would have maybe given them a clue that the KGB approach wasn’t a very good one. Apparently not.
Chuck Butcher
@Yutsano:
This country lost its collective mind over 9/11 and I resent getting dragged along with the pants wetting brigade and even more resent the BushCo for their fear mongering that amplified it. We’re going to pay for BushCo for a very long time.
Mnemosyne
Sorry, one other thing:
@Yutsano:
I think there’s something else in the mix, too: they genuinely don’t know who’s dangerous and who just got swept up in a raid, because Bush’s people didn’t bother to keep track of silly little details like that.
Legally and morally, the only possible answer to that dilemma is to let everyone go and take our chances, but I can see where a politician would be very reluctant to do that without having at least a vague idea of who’s who. In other words, I can empathize with their reasoning even though I think they’ve made the completely wrong decision.
Corner Stone
@Yutsano: I’ll just never understand this argument, or calls to understand pragmatism here.
He’s being called un-American for saying BP should shoulder responsibility.
Other things we have detailed here at length.
I guess I need it clarified for a late night nightcap: If we can’t fight for the core of what our country is, and win, then what is left?
If we say we can’t follow rule of law because it may provide power to the party that’s the boogeyman, then what have we left to win?
Chuck Butcher
@Yutsano:
A naif, no – not at all. My moral sense is offended by it as well as my sense of rule of law. I hate expediency as a basis of law, it virtually always gets it wrong and the unintended consequence suck for so much longer and even worse than the original problem.
I don’t know that I even want morality involved in politics, it is too absolute and too variable in source. I’d like outcomes that aren’t stupid and harmful.
Corner Stone
@Corner Stone: And further, I just don’t see anyone from the Obama administration making this argument in any kind of forceful way.
Some here say that’s reality, that’s what must needs be done because of our environment.
But there is simply no one making a counter argument of any sort I can detect. It seems the default position is to accept the view that it’s political death to do the right thing.
And that’s fine as a political argument. But since no one will present the contra view, how will we ever know?
Corner Stone
@Corner Stone: And don’t give me some BS about how the Obama admin tried but Congress wouldn’t pass the spending needed.
Fuck that. That’s not reality.
The reality of that is those people would be transferred to Gitmo, Indiana or Gitmo, Illinois or wherever. They just wanted to bring the same problems stateside, not rectify the situations.
Yutsano
@Corner Stone: I can actually answer this with three little words that my brother told me and get me through work all the time: people is dumb. Or a K expanded on this thought in Men in Black, “A person is smart. People are dumb panicky animals and you know it.” On an individual level, we might all be okay with this, but when we get into the dynamics of the pack where shows of perceived strength matter, suddenly what becomes moral starts to warp. Expectations of keeping others from harm, regardless of how extreme or stupid, warp senses of right and wrong. Or as Chuck put it:
but instead of picking ourselves up and dusting ourselves off we went looking for a fight and we had the exact leadership just itching for that goal. Once the fight was on, to Bush, EVERYTHING else was secondary.
How do we win? By just stopping. The way you make your head stop hurting after hitting it into the wall over and over is by just stopping. We’re a better country than this, we show it all the damn time by the amounts of international aid we give. How’s about we just stop and think about what the fuck we’re doing for a second and actually, you know, READ our Constitution and go from there?
(I’m starting to figure out how aimai gives such long eloquent responses. When your thoughts are ready to gush out they just flow. I have a new-found respect for her.)
Chuck Butcher
@Corner Stone:
But isn’t that always the crux of power? Did LBJ do Civil Rights because it was the right thing to do at a political cost or was it done to keep the system from going completely off the rails and smashing badly enough that the power structure was wrecked? TR certainly did his thing at tremendous political cost, but the alternative was watching the place go up in smoke. Here you’re looking at a lot less immediate wreckage.
You’re right but what you’re asking…
Yutsano
@Chuck Butcher: They paid the prices for doing the right thing as well. TR lost his nomination and tried to run as a third party candidate and still lost. LBJ didn’t even try to go for re-election (though that was also couple with the Charlie Foxtrot that was Viet Nam), so in both situations they made the right choices and paid the political price. Obama I don’t think is in the position where he wants to give up everything just yet to make such an unpopular decision. I’m not saying I agree with him that he should just let this go. We need to resolve this issue sooner rather than later. I can see his side of it, however. It’s possible this may take political agitation to get a proper resolution. Obama is not resolving this correctly because the political consequences for a proper just resolution aren’t high enough yet.
Wow. I guess I blog better when I’m drugged up. I’m gonna get some sleep now though, if for no other reason than I have tasks to complete on the morrow. Oyasumi nasai.
Chuck Butcher
@Yutsano:
I’m not sure I was clear, the looming catastrophe was bigger than a political loss. I haven’t wracked my mind over it but I can’t remember a political smash-up decision that didn’t involve a larger crack up of the basic system. Losing political power to keep the system running is different than losing it over principle. (principle might coincide)
Whatever MLK was about, the Jim Crow south was done for either politically/legally or through flames. A political wreck was better than burning the house down. I know what the meme is about “right thing at the right time,” and it sounds real nice. Bet me.
Chris Johnson
I still think it’s the ‘Measure Of A Man’ scenario (yes, Star Trek)…
The opposing counsel have to defeat the Presidency in spite of Obama’s BEST EFFORTS to truly make good case law against the BushCo stuff. That’s strictly from a separation-of-powers perspective, where the most important thing is restoring our system of government that was supposed to prevent these abuses.
It’s a legitimate question whether restoring our system of government is really more important than international war crimes law… I think you can make an argument that it is not, and this is playing games with abstractions when the bottom line needs to be heeded.
I’m guessing there’s also an element of, “See that Congress? they ALL signed off on this stuff. 90%, 95% of them were briefed and went right along with it. If you’re talking war crimes, let’s just say you’re not going to meet quorum anytime soon…”
I guess we try to stay aware of this our recent history. As for Obama, fate has assigned him to the defense, not the prosecution. Our tough luck that he’s good at it. I think he understands that you can’t issue a decree saying the issuing of illegal decrees is illegal… limiting the power of his office is NOT. HIS. JOB.
Taylor
A little bit of a correction: Rome was in danger of progressive change, and Sulla came in and re-established the orthodoxy of the elite in government.
See Kubrick’s Spartacus, where Olivier’s portrayal of Crassus is very definitely channeling Sulla. Charles Laughton’s Gracchus, taken out of time, represented the progressive strain in Roman politics that the Patricians literally killed off. And the “witch hunt” at the end, modeled as it was on the McCarthy witch hunts, was probably a pretty accurate depiction of the aftermath of Sulla’s entry to Rome.
History tells us that the refusal to allow any kind of progressive change channels that populist rage to less desirable outlets, to be exploited by a strongman such as Julius Caesar or (learning from the former’s mistakes) Octavian. For a modern version, see Putin’s rise to power in Russia.
Chas
Just to pick nits, Marius and Cinna marched troops against Rome in 87 BC. And to say that Sulla restored the Republic’s traditional balance of power is inaccurate. The Sullan constitution eviscerated the power of the Tribunes of the Plebs which had been in place for hundreds of years, and expanded the power of the Senate beyond what it traditionally had.
aimai
What a great, thought provoking, series of comments on this thread. I just wanted to say what a pleasure it was reading through the last part of the discussion between Chuck Butcher and everyone else.
It seems odd to say that the point Chuck raises, the Obama is in essentially the same position as LBJ, hadn’t occured to me with as much force as it does now. I posted this elsewhere but my oldest daughter, in eighth grade, just participated in one of those “facing history and ourselves” based curriculum units. The focus of the unit was people who, with or without knowing it, were heroes, or villains, in a historical moment–when people went from being bystanders to actors, resisting or giving in to the larger historical forces. When they had to choose, or refuse to choose, to act. Specifically the kids ended up looking at individual historical actors during the Holocaust, South Africa’s Apartheid, and the Civil Rights Struggle.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that Chuck and others have laid out Obama’s choices, and in a sense our country’s choices, in a very stark way. The Republicans want “Rule or Ruin?” Well, someone like Obama is faced with deciding whether his entire presidency, and perhaps the next six years of potential for major and minor change on every front must be sacrificed to do one great, big, right, thing. And a price will be paid for doing it–we will all pay the price. If Obama pulls out of Afghanistan and Iraq, rectifies the legal standing of our illegal prisoners, and throws in the towel on the major abuses of the Bush regime then he loses the house? and then the presidency?
Its not hypothetical to say that at this point in Republican lunacy any move back towards Republicans in power means turning the country over to the biggest pack of lunatics, sexual hypocrites, corporate stooges, war criminals and care-for-nobodies ever seen since Caligula put his horse in the Senate. LBJ gave up his seat and we got Nixon. Whatever comes after Obama, if it isn’t 2016 and some newly minted dem, is going to be far worse.
I guess that’s a risk I don’t want him to take, even though I want him to bring a short, sharp, end to all the Bush era abuses.
aimai
WereBear
That’s where I am, and I have given it a good deal of thought.
The oil spill is an example of how the rot is still lurking, ready to destroy vast chunks of things we take for granted because psychopaths would rather pile up money. It wasn’t just Bush; this kind of behavior has been going on for decades.
And, harsh though it is, we won’t get reliable voter behavior to stop it until the brainwashed die off.
Svensker
@Jenny:
During previous wars we adhered to the Geneva Conventions (at least officially) and treated captured “enemy” as POWS. Bush invented this new “enemy combatant” garbage to circumvent Geneva. This has caused all the legal difficulties because we are no longer operating under the law.
Corner Stone
I’ve seen people say doing the right thing now is “unpopular”, or even “deeply unpopular”. My issue is that I believe that’s largely because we just don’t know any better. And that’s not to say we are dumb, which we can be in the aggregate, but it’s my position that no one has said why it’s vital to restore the rule of law. So people have hardened around a position shaped by fearmongering.
And the assumption that we’re trading away some future possible good, and actually exchanging that for our silence now – I just fundamentally disagree with that position.
joe from Lowell
What is this “abducted” nonsense? A word chosen to steal bases, to make the situation sound comparable to a toddler being pulled into a van by Pedobear. It’s similar to the use of the term “assassination” to refer to the military or CIA launching a missile into a training camp.
Greenwald’s analysis ignores an important factor in the case, one which the SCOTUS specifically addressed in their decision: these were NOT people captured outside of the war zone and transfered to avoid given them habeas rights which they’d retain if they were brought to Gitmo. These were people brought to Gitmo before Boudemiene, and the Holder Justice Department made a point of emphasizing this distinction. The majority made a point of stating that they were not ruling on such a case, and that such transfers during the post-Boudemiene era would raise other constitutional questions which might well result in a different ruling. In other words, the Obama administration and the SCOTUS both signaled that they were not looking to authorize the authority Greenwald asserts.
This case is about what to do with the mess left from the Bush era, not about what to do going forward.
joe from Lowell
@Svensker,
More specifically, Bush invented this “enemy combatant” designation in order to authorize the treatment of people detained under the POW power as criminals – that is, without the protections for POWs mandated under Geneva – without first trying them in front of the “regularly constituted tribunal” that Geneva requires before a POW can be treated as a criminal or war criminal.
Jenny asks about German POWs in WW2. German POWs in WW2 were given all of the Geneva Convention’s protections, including the right to receive care packages and send and receive letters from back home. Is that how Jenny believes captured al Qaeda members should be treated? As POWs? Name, rank, and serial number, baby, and no loss of privileges for not providing more information. THAT’S what we’re allowed to do with people taken prisoner and held by the military if we don’t put them on trial.
tc125231
@Uriel: Pretty good write up. I particularly like the D on flexibility.
My only real comment is that, having “set out to prick the beast” I can hardly complain bcause the “beast” reacted.
I am not entirely sure I agree with you on the K-Thug thing. Read the attached reference to a Brad DeLong post on a Krugman post about inflation, particularly the comments. And ask yourself if anything comparable gets done here.
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/05/they-want-their-deficit-crisis-and-they-want-it-now.html
Don’t get me wrong –this blog has its moments. I am, personally, particularly fond of Tim F. and mistermix.
But the fundamental problem this country faces is our inability to actually solve problems. IMHO, this is largely driven by two derivative trends:
–the confusion of emotional opinions with fact
–the inability to embrace the actual facts, and think logically about them
Both Krugman and DeLong are absolute masters, much of the time, of the techniques required to actually solve problems. We shuld be striving to acquire the same skills, not engaging in whatever it is that occurs over here with regard to Krugman.
Perhaps you don’t agree. That’s fine. There is no reason why you need to.
Chuck Butcher
@aimai:
I suppose this is blogwhoring, but Aimee points to something I’ve tried to touch on.
Batocchio
Them being assholes isn’t incidental to their abuse of power and violence to the rule of law, but yes, exactly, absolutely. One of the most common defenses of the Bush-Cheney gang is that upholding the rule of law is somehow a partisan witch hunt. It’s a bullshit argument for the most part, and also avoids that not upholding the rule of law sets a far more dangerous precedent. (Or adds to dangerous precedent – see Watergate, Ford’s pardon of Nixon, Iran-Contra, which features some of the same culprits or their successors.)
Addington well may be more evil than Dick Cheney. Substitute “fascist,” “authoritarian,” “totalitarian” or some other term as you prefer. However, the man has utter contempt for democracy, holds radical, counterfactual views about founding principles of America (he and Yoo both cherry-picked The Federalist papers), often bullied his way into meetings he wasn’t invited to, bullied his supposed allies in meetings he was invited to, had no compunctions about misleading or outright lying to Congress when he and the Cheney gang told them anything at all (ignoring statutes requiring briefings) and would often write “laws” himself. Addington is as radical, fanatical and ruthless as Cheney, maybe more so, but without Cheney’s subtlety and, um, “charm.”
Jane Mayer’s work (linked above) is great, and The Dark Side and Gellman’s Angler really should be required reading.