Month: June 2009

It Could Happen To You

by digby

I thought I knew quite a bit about the torture regime, but I didn’t know about this:

In 2 weeks, US citizen Naji Hamdan will be tried in the United Arab Emirates
for “nonspecific charges of ‘promoting terrorism.’”Last July, Hamdan was “summoned” to the US Embassy in UAE:

He drove two hours through the desert heat from Dubai to answer questions from FBI agents who had arrived from Los Angeles, where Hamdan had gone to school, started a family, built a successful auto-parts business and become a U.S. citizen.

Six weeks later, men kidnapped and rendered him from his apartment for his imprisonment in UAE, where he was tortured in a case his lawyer claims was torture by proxy, or “at the behest” of his own government:

Hamdan was told he was a prisoner of the UAE and was held in a cell painted glossy white to reflect the lights that burned round the clock, according to a note he wrote from prison. Between interrogations, he wrote, he was confined in a frigid room overnight, strapped into “an electric chair” and punched in the head until he lost consciousness. In one session, the blindfolded prisoner recalled hearing a voice that sounded American. The voice said, “Do what they want or these people will [expletive] you up,” Hamdan wrote. The prisoner obliged, signing a confession that he later said meant only that he would do anything to make the pain stop. The case might have ended there but for Hamdan’s U.S. citizenship and his American attorney’s assertion that he was tortured “at the behest” of his own government.

The way he was tortured is similar to Bush’s torture program:

In criminal custody, Mr. Hamdan told both his family and the U.S. consular officer who visited him that he had been severely tortured: repeatedly beaten on his head, kicked on his sides, stripped and held in a freezing cold room, placed in an electric chair and made to believe that he would be electrocuted, and held down in a stress position while his captors beat the bottoms of his feet with a large stick. During this horrific process, he said whatever the agents wanted him to say, and those statements may now be used against him in a criminal trial in the U.A.E.

This is not be the first time that Americans asked foreign governments to render, arrest or imprison US citizens under a practice known as “proxy detention.” Three Americans are known to have been arrested by foreign governments at the apparent direction of U.S. authorities, each amid circumstances more suspicious than those surrounding Hamdan. In 2007, Kenyan authorities detained Amir Meshal of Tinton, N.J., and Daniel Joseph Maldonado of Houston after they were captured among Islamist fighters fleeing a U.S.-backed offensive in Somalia. And Saudi Arabian security officers provided the bulk of the evidence against Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, a Falls Church man convicted in 2005 of plotting with al-Qaeda.

I knew we rendered (“kidnapped” in plain English) but I didn’t know we rendered American citizens to foreign countries.

Is the US even a nation state anymore?

* Be sure to click the link and read all the way down. The torture news roundup at Daily Kos is an indispensable resource on this subject.

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Homegrown Time Bomb

by digby

I can’t remember when I first argued that the torture regime was logically going to lead us to questions about using it here at home, but it was a long time ago. You simply cannot argue that the danger of al Qaeda is so much more dangerous than say, drug gangs, or organized crime that it requires a total abandonment of the rule of law and you can’t argue that Islamic fundamentalist terrorism has more of a chance at success on its own terms than homegrown political terrorism. After all, the liklihood of America actually withdrawing from the world and becoming an Islamic state out of fear is vanishingly small. Homegrown anti-abortion terrorists have shown a remarkable success rate.

I have always felt that torturing American criminal suspects would probably garner at least a 50% approval rate among Americans. We are, after all, a bloodthirsty culture. And now, after five years or so of heavy discussion about the merits of torture, the necessity of keeping people safe from terrorists, protecting the American way of life etc, we have a test case:

In a jailhouse interview with the AP over the weekend, Scott Roeder, the anti-abortion zealot who’s been charged in the murder of Dr. George Tiller, revealed:

I know there are many other similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal.

Roeder declined to elaborate. That means we have a suspect in custody who has admitted to having knowledge of specific terrorist attacks planned for the future. In order to thwart those alleged plots, we need more information from Roeder — information he doesn’t seem likely to give up voluntarily. By the logic of the ticking time-bomb scenario, we should be waterboarding Roeder already — or at least banging his head against the wall. After all, terror attacks could be imminent, with an unknown cost in terms of human lives and the creation of a climate of fear. It’s a no-brainer, right? Maybe not so much. For some reason, we haven’t seen any torture advocates clamoring to see those “harsh interrogation techniques” applied to Roeder. In fact, we asked four prominent defenders of torture for their views on the issue — and all four stayed mum.

Not surprising. Those most prone to support torture of criminal suspects and terrorists abroad are also those most prone to agree with the political aims of our homegrown terrorists. After all, the only people who’ve been murdering and blowing up buildings for political purposes in the last 40 years or so have been right wingers.

And it still doesn’t get to the nub of the problem. What is the logical distinction between some Islamic fundamentalist who wants to kill Americans because they are the infidel and some American Christian anti-abortion zealot who wants to kill Americans because they perform abortions? If both are suspected of having information about further terrorist attacks, why should one be tortured for the information and the other not?

There are, of course, illogical and arbitrary reasons, like that set forth by torture lover David Rivkin, who told TPM that the difference was that the Islamic fundamentalists were treated under the laws of war (which also ban torture, but never mind) while American criminal suspects are treated under the criminal code. That’s perhaps correct, but the effect of the threats is the same — someone is saying that further attacks are planned and refuses to tell their interrogator. In the one case, torture is prohibited and in the other it is permitted, but the logic of the ticking time bomb scenario is the same. Simply designating people into different categories doesn’t change that.

The fact is that if torture is acceptable for Islamic terrorist suspects there is no reason it shouldn’t be acceptable for domestic terrorist suspects. Indeed, as I said, there is a good case to be made that domestic terrorism has more liklihood of succeeding in intimidating the citizens of the nation into giving up its freedoms. We’ve certainly seen that to be the case in terms of the constitutional right to abortion, which is now largely unavailable in most parts of the country due to abortion zealots intimidating the population.

I am not for waterboarding Roeder, of course, any more than I would be for cutting off each of his fingers until he told the interrogators what they want to hear. I think it’s a disgusting, barbaric thing to do under any circumstances. But these torture apologists believe it is a “no brainer” to use against Islamic fundamentalists. They are the ones who are logically inconsistent and the incoherence of their position is glaring. Not that they care, of course. But it’s not exactly reassuring to know that the only thing really standing between an embrace of torture in the American justice system is the fact that the home grown terrorists of the moment happen to be right wingers in sympathy with conservative political aims.

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Green Weeds

by dday

The Treasury Department will allow ten banks to repay their TARP money, for a total of $68 billion dollars. I don’t have an enormous problem with it, especially considering that the right is whining about socialism and this is more money that the government has given Chrysler or GM combined. But I also agree with Simon Johnson:

The money allows the strongest banks to return federal aid provided at the peak of the fall financial crisis, but few banks have expressed eagerness for the government to end the other forms of support, creating concern that these programs will be habit-forming and more difficult to terminate.

As a result, independent experts warn that the government’s relationship with the industry is entering a precarious new phase. As with mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government will no longer share in the banks’ profits, but it still stands ready to absorb losses.

“It’s good from an individual investor point of view, it’s great for the banks, but from a system point of view it’s very dangerous,” said Simon Johnson, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.

Banks have been able to raise plenty of capital on the open market, but they still obviously need government support in the form of quick and easy lending and Federal Reserve programs. They want out of TARP to avoid executive compensation rules, period.

So now we have this situation where everyone makes the happy talk about the banks, but unemployment has far outstripped expectations, to the extent that the President and his team came out and repackaged the stimulus yesterday, promising to get money out this summer at a faster pace, saying that they will create or save 600,000 jobs in the next 100 days. Of course, conservatives want to forget the stimulus entirely because they think things are going so well (but NOT because of Obama, you understand… it’s a tough needle to thread).

Here on Planet Earth, what we’re starting to see is the groundwork for a jobless recovery.

Although the pace of layoffs appears to be subsiding and the overall economy is showing hints of stabilization, most forecasters expect unemployment to continue to increase in coming months and to recede only gradually as recovery takes hold. In this Economic Letter, we evaluate this projection using data on three labor market indicators: worker flows into and out of unemployment; involuntary part-time employment; and temporary layoffs. We pay particular attention to how these indicators compare with data from previous episodes of recession and recovery. Our analysis generally supports projections that labor market weakness will persist, but our findings offer a basis for even greater pessimism about the outlook for the labor market. Specifically, we suggest that the relatively low level of temporary layoffs and high level of involuntary part-time workers make a jobless recovery similar to the one experienced in 1992 a plausible scenario.

And even that recovery is threatened by the next wave of foreclosures caused by mortgage rate recasts and unemployment, and while the banks have successfully blocked any reform of the system, they may live to regret that choice. Because in truth, the economy remains at the brink:

We have both spent large chunks of our lives working on Wall Street, absorbing its ethic and mores. We’re concerned that nothing has really been fixed. We’re doubly concerned that people appear to feel the worst of the storm is over — and in this, they are aided and abetted by a hugely popular and charismatic president and by the fact that the Dow has increased by 35 percent or so since Mr. Obama started to lay out his economic plans in March. […]

Six months ago, nobody believed that our banking system was well designed, functioning smoothly or properly regulated — so why then are we so desperately anxious to restore that model as the status quo? Nearly every new program emanating these days from the Treasury Department — the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, the Public Private Investment Program, the “stress tests” of major banks — appears to have been designed to either paper over or to prop up a system that has clearly failed.

Instead of hauling out the new drywall to cover up the existing studs, let’s seriously consider ripping down the entire structure, dynamiting the foundation and building a new system that rewards taking prudent risks, allocates capital where it is needed, allows all investors to get accurate and timely financial information and increases value to shareholders and creditors.

At the very least, we should rerun the stress tests with the new adverse scenario. And if banks want out from federal government restrictions on pay they need to stop using federal funds in lending programs. We cannot roll back the clock to the go-go 90s and expect everyone to pick up their roles again. That would be a disaster.

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No Way

by digby

If there’s one mealy mouthed “centrist” bucket of lukewarm spit operation in Washington that makes me crazy (and there are many to choose from) I would have to say that Third Way is the one. They fetishize bipartisanship, compromise and difference splitting to the point where there is no there there and the conservatives win simply because they have a pulse.

Yesterday McJoan at DKos published a Third Way memo which predictably comes out against the public plan option in health care reform —which indicates to me that it is probably considered by most buckets of lukewarm spit to be the bargaining chip in the debate . (And what do you know? It turns out that Third Way’s memo was written by health industry flacks.)

Adam Green immediately launched a Defund Third Way initiative, which I heartily endorse, and not just because of the health care memo, which is bad enough. But I do take some issue with his characterization of TW as a useful group on progressive messaging on social issues. In my view, there is no more pernicious inside group on women’s rights than Third Way and their partners in the “common ground” campaign.

The Come Let Us Reason Together Governing Agenda is a common ground agenda that charts a new way forward by uniting key Evangelical and progressive leaders behind specific policy recommendations on some of the most divisive culture issues of our times: abortion, gay rights, torture, and immigration reform.

Now on torture and immigration reform, they are uncontroversial from a liberal point of view. They do say that “henceforth” people will be held accoujntable for torture, but it’s hard to fault them for it since the president and the congress say the same thing.
On gay rights they ignore marriage, do little song and dance about employer discrimination and then throw this on the table: “We affirm that no legislation to protect the human dignity and rights of gay and lesbian people should threaten the religious liberty of churches and other religious organizations.” I’m sure that will make all religious conservatives back down on gay really rights.
In fact, if I were a true cynic I’d believe that they threw in torture and immigration as a smokescreen for their true “common ground” agenda which is all about abortion rights.
Here’s just a small example of the con game they are running:

IV. Avoiding Abortion Message Traps—Seeing Through the Mirage

On the surface, the message of reducing unintended pregnancies and increasing access to contraception is popular and strong. But as an abortion message, as our pollster Diane Feldman noted, “it risks people feeling like you are unwilling to articulate your position and they can conclude it is an effort to hide it.”

Once people hear that the speaker favors abortion rights, the support narrows. In addition, Democrats and Republicans each need to be aware that Americans have predisposed views that color their perceptions. They see Democrats as overly permissive about sex and tone deaf on abortion morality; they see Republicans as moral but rigid and extreme. An individual position that is unclear opens elected officials and candidates to the perception that their individual position is indistinct from the perceptions that accrue to their party.

Trap #1: Contraception is Not a Response on Abortion

We agree that contraception is a critical component to family planning, reducing unintended pregnancies and reducing abortions, but it is not an answer to the abortion question and it has its own moral complexities. Americans support increasing access to contraception, but they are keenly aware of the downside. For example, …

• 61% say we should provide contraception to sexually active teenagers, but
68% also say that reducing sexual activity among teenagers should be a
public policy goal.

• 51% worry that “easier access to contraception will increase teenage sexual
activity and promiscuity.”

• 30% are very uncomfortable with providing contraception to teenagers
without the knowledge of their parents, 34% are uncomfortable but think
it’s a necessity, and only 33% are fully comfortable with it.

• Only 25% believe that providing contraception to low-income women and
teenagers will have a large impact on reducing unintended pregnancies and
abortion (35% medium impact, 24% small impact, and 11% no impact).

• Americans are about evenly split on whether the morning after pill is “a
good thing because it will reduce unintended pregnancies and abortions,”
or “a bad thing because it will lead to more irresponsible and promiscuous
sexual activity.”

• And Americans are just as supportive of abstinence education as
contraception access with 60% saying abstinence education is “a worthy
goal,” compared to the 34% who say it is “a waste of time and resources.”

This is not to warn progressives off of contraception, but rather to be aware that Americans see both sides of the coin and that an abortion message based on contraception has real limitations and dangers unless it is linked to a larger message and vision.

Trap #2: …And Neither is Reducing Unintended Pregnancies

Simply put, Americans wholeheartedly support the goal of reducing unintended pregnancies, but they know when this is an attempt to duck the abortion question. Our recommendation is that rather than being the message, reducing unintended pregnancies must serve the message of reducing the need for abortions in America. For example, . .
.
• While 82% support elected leaders who say “we must reduce unintended
pregnancies in America,” 57% say that it does not clearly answer where a
politician stands on abortion.

• And 60% say “it is important to reduce both the number of unintended
pregnancies and the number of abortions,” compared to 23% who
responded “it is more important to reduce the number of unintended
pregnancies than the number of abortions.
Trap #3: The Party Preconception Lens
For Democrats, in particular, an abortion message that is based on contraception and reducing unintended pregnancies plays into negative perceptions that Americans hold about them regarding sexual ethics.

They insist that the public favors a position that recognizes the “moral complexity” but when you unpack all their cherry picked data, what you see is a program that capitulates to the public’s misconceptions (if the data is even true) rather than even attempt to educate the public about the principles involved. The “larger vision” they support is one which abstinence education and “abortion reduction” are emphasized, while we soft pedal birth control and a woman’s right to choose. because, after all, the big “problem” is that Americans allegedly believe that Democrats don’t believe sex is shameful. That is the great insight Third Way brings to progressive rhetoric and issue positioning — half baked social conservatism dressed up in a concern troll burka and a chastity belt.s
Click here for the numbers to politely call and ask them not to lobby against the public plan option or use Harry and Louise ( seriously — &^%^&$$!!) in their literature to undermine the reform message. Oy.

*And if they give you any trouble, you could also politely ask them why,when they care so much about abstinence and sexual morality, they are performing like two dollar whores for the health insurance industry.
Update: Here’s more on why Third Way is the wrong way. The conclusion reads:

The question for progressives is not whether we want to influence the Democrats — of course we do. The question is do we want to invest precious time and resources on inside-the-Beltway cautiousness, bad policy analysis that makes no waves, takes no chances and doesn’t differentiate itself from the conservatives, or do we work to build something more real, vital, honest and progressive — based on better policy — ideas that change America because they change the terms of debate, not simply pander ineffectively to a mythological, out-dated concept of the “center.” If we don’t, if we think that type of ideological myopia is counterproductive, we better keep watch on Third Way.

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Good God

by digby

Says the undisputed leader of the Republican Party:

“It is offensive to the sensibilities of millions of people to hear a member of the state-run media refer to a half-black, half-white human being with no experience running anything of substance referred to as a god. He may be president of the United States, but he’s not a god.”

I’m pretty sure it’s the “half black” part that Rush find so offensive.
He’s just letting it all hang out now, isn’t he?
h/t to df

Refusing To Pander

by digby

I had to read this twice this morning because I simply couldn’t believe it the first time. Stuart Rothenberg has had it. he won’t appear on Chris Matthews anymore.

But it’s not what you think:

America’s cable “news” networks have concluded – on the basis of considerable research and evidence, I’m sure – that most viewers don’t want straight news and analysis as much as they want to hear what they already think or to watch predictable partisan attacks.

The three big cable “news” networks don’t exist to provide a public service, after all. They have corporate officers and stockholders to answer to, which means they need more and more eyeballs to generate more advertising dollars.

Their answer: talk radio on TV. Forget about the serious implications and political fallout that follow an event or policy, and instead attack your opponents repeatedly using half-truths, glittering generalities and inapplicable analogies. Given the high ratings of Fox News Channel and MSNBC, the cable gurus probably are right. Advocacy has won out over neutrality.

Chris Matthews is a smart, politically astute observer of politics, but my last appearance convinced me that “Hardball” has evolved from a straight political news program with quality guests to one that has more in common with its network’s prime-time slant. Like most of the evening programming on MSNBC and the Fox News Channel, “Hardball” has become a partisan, heavily ideological sledgehammer clearly intended to beat up one party and one point of view.

During the show on which I appeared, Matthews referred more than once to Republicans as “Luddites” and took every opportunity imaginable to portray them as crackpots. The show’s topics inevitably pander to the most liberal Democratic viewers and present Republicans and conservatives in the least flattering of terms.

I don’t mean to single out Matthews for criticism because he actually understands politics and I believe that he would prefer to do a serious political show.

Yes, that’s right.Rothenberg believes that Chris Matthews prefers to do a serious political show but these days he has no choice but to pander to liberal Democratic viewers and that’s just wrong. Jamison Foser asks:

Uh, when, exactly, was Chris Matthews’s Hardball a “straight political news program”? When has anything about Matthews ever been “straight”? When he was insisting that “everybody” likes George W. Bush, except “the real whack jobs”? (Bush’s approval ratings at the time were in the 30s.) When he was comparing Bush to Atticus Finch? When he said Bush “glimmers” with “sunny nobility”? Or when he gushed over Bush’s “mission accomplished” stunt, revealing what could only be described as a crush on the president? When he derided Democratic critics of Bush’s handling of Iraq as “carpers and complainers”? Or when he ridiculed Barack Obama for ordering orange juice in a diner and said Obama’s bowling was insufficiently “macho”? When he called Obama an elitist who had trouble connecting with “regular people” — by which he meant “white people”? Or when he called Hillary Clinton a “She Devil” and said she was “witchy”? Or when he said of Clinton “I hate her. I hate her. All that she stands for”? Or when he spent two years absolutely trashing Al Gore, helping to hand the presidency to George W. Bush? Or when he turned over his airwaves to Gennifer Flowers, allowing her to accuse President Clinton of murder?

But that was when he was just speaking to “regular” people, telling it like it is. Now that he’s trashing Republicans he’s being a partisan. And Stu Rothenberg wants no part of such unseemly pandering.Can these Villagers possibly be more obtuse?
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Making Joe Lieberman Cry

by dday

Jane Hamsher reports that the Lieberman-Graham detainee photo suppression amendment has been dropped from the war funding supplemental, owing to pressure from liberal Democrats, who refused to vote for a bill that would undermine the Freedom of Information Act and increase executive power. They only got into that position because conservatives in the House refused to vote for a war supplemental that included increased funding for the IMF. But progressives took full advantage of the opportunity and struck the first blow against agglomerated executive power that I can remember in a long, long time.

The underlying bill doesn’t much send a thrill up my leg either. But progressive Democrats saw a leverage point, picked it, and attacked until the forces supporting increased executive power had to give up. And that’s a good thing. Hopefully they’ll keep using this muscle.

…Here’s how Huckleberry and Holy Joe will respond to this loss – with the equivalent of a temper tantrum:

“We strongly believe that the first responsibilities of government are the nation’s security and the protection of those brave Americans who go into harm’s way to defend it.

“The President has said that the release of the photos of detainees in US custody would ‘put our troops and civilians serving our nation abroad in greater danger.’ We agree with the Commander in Chief.

“We will employ all the legislative means available to us including opposing the supplemental war spending bill and attaching this amendment, which was unanimously adopted by the Senate, to every piece of legislation the Senate considers, to be sure the President has the authority he needs not to release these photos and any others that would jeopardize the safety and security of our troops.

“The release of the photos will serve as propaganda and recruiting tool for terrorists who seek to attack American citizens at home and abroad. We should strive to have as open a government as possible, but the behavior depicted in the photos has been prohibited and is being investigated. The photos do not depict anything that is not already known. Transparency, and in this case needless transparency, should not be paid for with the lives of American citizens, let alone the lives of our men and women in uniform fighting on our behalf in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

“Let it clearly be understood that without this legislation the photos in question are likely to be released. Such a release would be tantamount to a death sentence to some who are serving our nation in the most dangerous and difficult spots like Iraq and Afghanistan. It is this certain knowledge of these consequences of having the photos released that will cause us to vote against the supplemental and continue our push to turn our important amendment into law.”

I didn’t know you could actually hear crying in press release form.

I wouldn’t slam Graham and Lieberman by the way. It certainly seems to me that they’re running interference for the President. Direct the inquiries to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

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