"T" is for Torture

Manliness is not all swagger and mountain climbing.
It's also tenderness.
--Tea and Sympathy (1956)

Whatever affects one directly,
affects all indirectly
--Martin Luther King

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.
--Oscar Wilde

Well, you know, God bless him [Bush], bless his heart,
the President of the United States, a total failure,
losing all credibility with the American people on
the economy, on the war, on energy, you name the subject
--Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House
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Per Pelosi's quote on Bush: In the South, it is customary to end the worst damnation with, "God bless," as in, "She sure has a lot of energy, god bless her." This is not a statement of flattery; it translates: "She's a is a royal pain in the ass, a tiresome prima donna, but her daddy is a deacon in the church." God bless her.

The title is not the latest Sue Grafton novel. It is the formula used by the George Bush administration to address the post 9-11 terror threat. And it is a formula inspired from the most formulaic of sources, the television show "24" starring Bad Boy for the American Way of Life, the fictional counterterrorism agent Jack Bauer. It is the ultimate in life imitating art. Tit for Tat; Torture for Terror. (The Fiction Behind Torture Policy.)

Both Jane Mayer's recent book, "The Dark Side," and Phillippe Sand's "Torture Team" reveal movers and shakers in administration policy who referred to the Bauer character as their inspiration. John Yoo, Justice Scalia, Michael Chertoff and staff JAG Diane Beaver all worshipped at Bauer's fictional feet:

According to British lawyer and writer Sands, Jack Bauer was an inspiration at early "brainstorming meetings" of military officials at Guantánamo in September 2002. Diane Beaver, the staff judge advocate general who gave legal approval to 18 controversial interrogation techniques including waterboarding, sexual humiliation and terrorizing prisoners with dogs, told Sands that Bauer "gave people lots of ideas." Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security chief, gushed in a panel discussion on "24" organized by the Heritage Foundation that the show "reflects real life."

Reality and fiction is blurred in the minds of our leaders. But life and movies are not the same. Bauer is the inheritor of a great cinematic legacy of men who speak softly but carry a big stick. Like in the Old West, Bauer is judge and jury out of expediency: he regularly deals with ticking time bombs; 12 times per day in the t.v. world. He is a hero; but in real real life, the ticking time bomb is a rare event.

The problem with Bauer is that he operates outside of the law. The implication is that our judiciary and legislature is so weak or clueless that the Executive needs hand over the reigns of society to a kick-ass agent like Bauer who is unafraid of doing the dirty work. He is a one-man corrective to a dissipated, pansy-ass society. Without Jack Bauer we may as well be Switzerland, f'chrissakes!

Lithwick says Bauer's heroism, "to the extent one finds torture heroic" is that he,

"accept(s) the consequences of his decisions to break the law. He makes a moral choice at odds with the prevailing system, and accepts the consequences of the system's judgment. The "heroism" of the Bush administration's torture apologists is slightly less inspiring. None of them is willing to stand up and admit, as Bauer does, that yes, they did "whatever it takes." They instead point fingers and cry "witch hunt."

Pity the torture architects didn't look at another Kiefer Sutherland character from the movie, "To End All Wars" (2001), a true story based upon the book Through the Valley of the Kwai by Capt. Earnest Gordon. It concerns his survival of Japanese brutality during World War II while being forced to build a railroad through the Burmese jungle.

Gordon comes to the awareness that killing doesn't satisfy nor amend even grotesque offenses, and maintaining one's humanity is the only course to redemption. The U.S. as a nation does need redemption, but it does need to operate from a moral position if it is to continue to be a beacon of democracy.

We saw the film locally, introduced by the minister of the local Presbyterian church who knew Gordon for 20 years in his capacity as dean of the chapel at Princeton University. Though they were friends, he never spoke of his war experience, and she only found out about the movie by happenstance, a year after his death. Though the Christian symbolism at the end is a bit heavy-handed, it was faithful to Gordon's conversion experience following his three years as a POW.

These legal eagles who enable the interrogators to cross the line disparage the very laws and civility they are ostensibly fighting for. Ranger recently had an exchange with a retired M/SGT E-8 on the topic who said he doesn't "give a shit about the Geneva Convention." Which suggests he doesn't care about the Constitution, either.

Easy come, easy go.

--Jim and Lisa

Idealism

Keep looking below surface appearances. Don't shrink
from doing so because you might not like what you you find.
--Colin Powell

Men in general judge more from appearance than from reality.
All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.
--Niccolo Machiavelli

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear
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In the last week Ranger has been called both an "idealist" and "bitter" by different readers. My psychotherapist says these two stances are not at odds, as idealists often become bitter after disappointments. Hopefully, my patrol base lies somewhere in between.

The idealist comment was aimed at my attitude concerning the Geneva Conventions (GC), so Ranger looked deeper into the connotations.

The expectation that the U.S. should comply with the GC does not make me an idealist, but rather, a realist. As a signatory to the Conventions and a supposedly civilized nation, the U.S. should adhere to the standards contained therein.

Of course another so-called civilized nation, Nazi Germany, recognized the GC's as they applied to the French, U.S. and British POW's -- unless they were Jewish, that is. In addition, the Nazis starved and physically destroyed Polish and Russian POW's in a systematic manner.

When a nation decides they will apply protections selectively, in contravention of their laws and treaties, their right to the title of civility or morality or legality is revoked. Either all are free and protected, or none are. That is the difference between a democratic and a fascist state. That the Nazis applied GC protections sometimes and brutalized at others made of them a bestial nation.

However, the problem for the U.S. extends beyond the application of the GC to the treatment of POW's. Even if the U.S. had honored its GC commitment, the phony wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would still be illegal ventures. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Both illegal invasions and subsequent occupations were only justified by the constructed Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©), an illusion created by the master prestidigitator George Bush.

Ranger misses the point when he argues for the application of the GC when the war itself is illegal. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor after a hastily-delivered, patched together declaration of war and they were bad guys. The U.S. invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq sans the niceties of a declaration of war, so what are we?

The bitter comment was targeted at my questioning the effectiveness of current U.S. military projects in the PWOT. Since the predicate of legal military maneuvers is mistaken all else that issues from that action is necessarily incorrect.

You can't make the endeavors silk purses regardless of how correctly the detainees may be treated.

Enemies -- A Love Story

Now, now my good man,
this is no time for making enemies
--Voltaire
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A recent National Public Radio analysis explored a key difference between Presidential candidates McCain and Obama -- the question of how they would negotiate with the Forces of Evil.

Obama gave his shtick that he would negotiate with our enemies, and went on to identify Iran as one of those enemies.

This is truly disturbing. It is not disturbing that we would talk with Iran, but rather that the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is labeling Iran as the enemy. Don't we have enough enemies of our own creation without preemptively elevating Iran to the enemy level?

Why would Iran want to open discussions with the U.S. -- what would they gain? Whatever they do or say our idiot leaders will tag them as enemies.

Maybe America really does need a few good enemies in the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©). Since we are taking such a screwing from our friends in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, it will be refreshing to call someone enemy. We can not afford the friends we have, who we are moving forward as we daily lose ground.

At least we won't be beholden to float a good, old-fashioned enemy. It will help remove the ambiguity from this messy thing called democracy.

Liar, Liar Pants on Fire. . .

Go to your vacuum, open the cannister,
and pour it all over you, your bed, clothing,
and your personal effects.
Now roll in it until it's in your eyes, nose,
ears, hair, and. . . well, you get the picture
--Staff Sgt. Parker Gyokeres, letter home on Iraq,
New Yorker (6/12/06)

Once more into the breach, dear friends,
once more
--Shakespeare
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The House passed an amendment to the annual military authorization bill last week mandating investigations by both the inspector general's office of the Department of Defense and the Government Accountability Office of the Pentagon's "public affairs program," which sought to turn retired military officers into "message multipliers" spouting the Bush administration's party line about war successes ("2 Inquiries set on Pentagon Publicity Effort.")

"Publicity Effort"? Brad and Angelina have publicists. Governments have public affairs officers who parse the news for the press and public. They do not hire Joseph Goebbels types to give a beer garden effect to the wars.

However, in this program retired officers posed as independent analysts on news programs when in fact they had been prepped by the Pentagon to serve as administration "surrogates" (= "shills.) Further, many of these ostensible free agents had undisclosed ties to military contractors. This cookie-cutter screed was being foisted on the American public as hard analysis.

Like tribbles, "they were wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior government officials." The agencies will be looking into the possible illegal use of government money to propagandize the Bush administration's war policies to U.S. audiences.

Though there is a clear demarcation among the terms "publicity," "psychological operations," and "propaganda," they have a shared intent: they are subjective vs. objective. The so-called analysts were dabbling in one or more of these arenas, while passing their shtick off as objective analysis.

Joe Biden (D-DE), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, recently had an excellent Op-Ed piece in the WSJ on the foolishness of optional wars ("Republicans and Our Enemies.") "Are" could have easily replaced "and" in the title. Still, a democratic Congress continues to authorize "emergency funding" to keep the wars going. Somebody needs to tell the truth. In the interim, these investigations may help to staunch the lies

Not all are pleased by the hard look at the bobble heads.

"Representative Duncan Hunter (R-CA), the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, objected to the amendment, arguing that retired officers working as military analysts were a 'great asset' for the country."

Of course he meant, "for the Bush administration." (And why is it only Republicans have reversible names like "Duncan Hunter," vaguely hinting of the kind of robust manliness gotten from behind the sight of a rifle in a deer blind, while Hunter/Duncan is smartly decked out in Orvis woodland garb?)

Spoken like a true Georgian, Representative Paul C. Broun (R-GA) brilliantly said: “Of course Americans engage in propaganda. It’s a vital part of the mission of the United States to promote democracy and protect our country from harm.”

The basis of propaganda is lies. Psychological operations are generally based upon skewed truths and presented to sway an enemy's opinions and affect his will to fight. Psychological ops and propaganda are aimed at enemy personnel -- not the citizens of the U.S.

Ergo Congress's ban on funding domestic propaganda. Not only is it not based in truth, but the American citizen is not the enemy. At least, not the declared enemy. Not yet.

We the taxpayers foot the bill for everything done by the U.S. government. As the supposed bosses, we should not be bombarded with lies from our civil servants.

If, as Rep Broun argues, the goal of the U.S. is "to promote democracy and protect our country from harm," then the government better stop disseminating lies and tell the truth.

--Jim and Lisa

CIA or CYA?

But that I am forbid/To tell the secrets of my
prison house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine.
--Hamlet (I, v), William Shakespeare

Where secrecy or mystery begins,
vice or roguery is not far off
--Samuel Johnson
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The Justice Department announced last week that it has opened a formal criminal investigation into the CIA's destruction of interrogation tapes, appointing a career prosecutor "to examine whether intelligence officials broke the law by destroying videos of exceptionally harsh questioning [a.k.a. "torture"] of terrorism suspects" (Criminal probe on CIA Tapes Opened.)

The question is, did intelligence officials break the law by torturing suspects? Whether justice will be served revolves around the handling of the facts: is the questioning of suspects a criminal matter to be adjudicated in a legally constituted court, OR, will the intelligence remain secret by dint of its, uh, secretness, and the suspects shipped off to gulags?

Once a prisoner is tortured, the testimony is fruit of a poisoned tree, and would be inadmissible in a court of law. It is not possible to Miranda someone before you start torturing them, remembering that the CIA is not a police agency nor a prison administration.

"The decision opens the door to fresh scrutiny of the CIA's activities by the FBI, which clashed repeatedly with CIA field officers over the use of the harsh interrogation techniques and ultimately withdrew its own agents from interrogations to avoid entanglement in activities that senior FBI officials considered improper."

"Improper" is a Miss Manners words. White shoes after Labor day is "improper;" using a dessert fork at dinner is improper. Torture is illegal.

"The CIA issued a statement promising to 'cooperate fully with this investigation,' which senior officials had expected." Ranger will believe this when it is conclusively shown that the White House cooperated in the Libby investigation. When white rabbits run 'round with pocket watches.

The entire investigation is a distracting farce to take the Congress away from pressing issues. The core issue is that the White House issued illegal directives to the CIA and contract personnel authorizing the use of torture. Even if CIA personnel are found guilty of torture, it is a lesser fact than that of the operating order which approved the action.

It is disgusting that any organ of the U.S. government would torture people. More disgusting yet that the leaders giving these orders were never willing to put their asses on the line, and have suffered nothing more onerous personally than poor quality cocaine or booze. If there is a god, there will be hell to pay.

If charges are brought and a trial ensues, the administration will claim state secrets as a defense. Failing that, George W. Bush will commute or pardon. Ranger prognostication: broad Presidential pardons for CIA personnel before this duck leaves office (Libby will get his, too.) The entire process is a charade that besmirches the integrity of the U.S. legal system.

"Although the tapes in question were not provided to any court or to the members of the government-appointed 9/11 Commission, they were evidently seen by CIA Inspector General John L. Helgerson, who disclosed in a statement yesterday that he plans to recuse himself from the criminal inquiry to avoid a conflict of interest."

Imagine the gall of this guy, recusing himself now. His actions, like those of the CIA directors who allowed the tapes' destruction, should be a focus of a criminal investigation. Administration attorneys are co-conspirators and should be viewed as such.

It is an impossible beast -- a CIA interrogation linked with the concept of prosecution and conviction. It can only be a show-trial. Is this song-and-dance what suffices as justice today?

Just War, All the Time

if a man die for the true faith, or to save his country,
or in defense of Christians, God will give him a heavenly reward.
--Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas
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Replace "Muslims" for "Christians" in the above, and you get the idea. Wars are based upon myths and downright lies. Just whose "just war" are we talking about?

The genesis of this approach was founded by St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica, which asked and sought justification for the big questions, like whether it is lawful for clerics to fight, and whether you can go about warring on holy days.

He found reconciliation with his Just War theories, hence, killing Saracens and Protestants got the papal Good Housekeeping, warfighting seal of approval. This opened the god-sponsored floodgates, allowing the Papally-supported and divinely guided monarchs to pursue military ventures pretty much with reckless abandon. Those who did so were thenceforward dubbed Holy Warriors by the Pope.

Many who think they are fighting today for St. George Bush, are actually on the side of Pope Innocent, hailing as they do from a long tradition of legal and theological contortionists seeking Jus Ad Bellem.

The Vietnam war was based on the lie that all of Southeast Asia would fall to communism if South Vietnam succumbed to that ideology. Countries-as-shaky-squares-of-dotted-wood theory. History has disproved the myth, and in the meantime, 58,000 American soldiers are still dead.

In fact, not only are they still dead, the Vietnamese Communists have become major trade partners with the U.S., enjoying the fruits of capitalism, too. Why just this holiday season were a plethora of Vietnamese New Year - Tet cards being hawked online, wishing "Chuc mung nam moi."

We wanted to print one to share with you but unfortunately these were not like the thousands of free and open-sourced holiday graphics -- these babies were protected, and you had to shell out the money for them before you could grab the graphic. Which by the way, were nothing special other than a series of cards with the above text printed on them. But definitely, they were not being shared in a true communistic spirit. So the achievement of that odd communistic / capitalistic gryphon is why they died?

The myths that led the U.S. into the Vietnam war were understandable from an historical perspective. However, the current crop of lies that support the Iraq War are blatantly false and unforgivable.