Month: July 2009

The Good War

by digby

With the president’s unexpected statement to Anderson Cooper that the administration is not going to simply ignore the story about the Dasht-i-Leili war crime and US cover-up, there is at least some potential good news coming out of Afghanistan. But that’s about it. Things are pretty awful over there and it’s very, very difficult to see how this ends well.

Reader Sleon wrote in with some perspective on the situation:

I found your “Best and Brightest Redux” most timely as I have been meaning to write you about Afghanistan for several days. I recently finished an account of war in Afghanistan, told from a “grunt’s-eye-view” that I found important for several reasons. It contains many of the themes we are used to finding in such stories of war at the personal level: patriotism and idealism pared down to a willingness to do anything to survive. There is love for one’s comrades and hatred of the enemy. There is a lack of preparation and equipment for the terribly difficult terrain, where weather and elevation cut sections of the country off from one another by land except in summer. There is a complete misreading of the enemy’s intentions and capability. They constantly are caught in ambushes and traps sprung by men who know every blade of grass in their region while the occupiers must rely on native guides who eventually always play them false; there are attempts at fraternization with the locals followed by honor killings and executions for helping the invaders in any way. There is the slowly dawning realization that while in the absence of an outside threat the locals would be fighting each other, they have been united by their hatred of the foreigner and will band together to eventually expel him, no matter how long it takes. And there is the blooming realization that military victory is impossible in Afghanistan – which is why your mention of McNamara is so apt.

And yet this is not a story about the American occupation, but a previous invader. Nor is it a depiction of the Soviet experience, which also should supply some salutary lessons for our military and the Obama administration, as the Russian failure there was one of the precursors of the collapse of their government. Rather it is the tale of a Macedonian soldier in Alexander the Great’s army. It’s called “The Afghan Campaign” by Steven Pressfield, a former soldier himself and an author who has given readers some terrific historical novels, including a wonderfully evocative and moving version of the battle of Thermopylae. I’ve read, in translation, most most of the ancient sources on Alexander’s conquest and Pressfield faithfully incorporates the known facts about one of the most efficient empire builders in the history of the world. And yet even Alexander was stymied by the Afghans. After a relatively easy series of victories over the conventional forces of the Persian Empire, Alexander found himself confounded by the guerrilla tactics of the Afghan insurgents as he tried to incorporate them into his new governing order. The ruthless viciousness with which the Afghans treated their European foes exacerbated the hatred of the Macedonian forces who eventually learned the bitter truth: “The only effective tactic against insurgency is massacre.” Keep that in mind the next time one of our unmanned drones accidentally blows up another wedding or funeral.

This tragic realization still has consequences today, as it has in every such conflict. The only way to reduce your own casualties against such an enemy – one who wears no uniforms, knows the terrain and can seemingly vanish back into the air at will – is to make their fear of you outweigh their hatred. Even then the effect will only be temporary, for they will never give up, never stop hating and will fight you in any way they can until you leave. In the end Alexander bribed some leaders, married the daughter of one of his most intractable opponents, declared victory and went on to conquer northern India. His hold on Afghanistan proved as ephemeral as that of of the Soviets and every invader in between. In the nearly 2,500 years since Alexander’s invasion only the destructiveness of the weapons has changed. There will be no military victory in Afghanistan whether we stay one more year or fifty. They say that Pressfield’s work is now required reading at West Point. Clearly General McChrystal needs to go back to school and someone needs to send President Obama a copy of “The Afghan Campaign” before we waste any more treasure and lives on something that will prove as fleeting as it is costly.

I was always skeptical about the facile Democratic line about Iraq being a distraction from the good war, the real war. They felt it was necessary in order to prove they weren’t pacifist wimps and I get that. But it wasn’t very smart to trap themselves into a war in the one place that wars are never won. (I would imagine that Cheney and Rumsfeld actually understood that very well, which is one reason why they transitioned to one they could “win” as soon as possible.)

This is going to be a mess, and an even worse mess than it needs to be if guys like McChrystal really are the McNamara’s of the day, entranced with theory and metrics that only pretend to measure progress and actually measure the depth of denial that some wars are simply unwinnable.

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Who Will Tell The President?

by digby

Writing about the latest revelations of Cheney’s criminality and the reaction in the congress, McJoan says:

Hopefully there’s enough outrage with this latest revelation, this one that made Congress look even more like Cheney’s chumps, that maybe we’ll see some real investigations. Yes, they’re busy, yes, there are important initiatives that also have to be advanced, from the Sotomayor nomination to health care reform. But in the long run, the restored health of our Constitution, of our democracy, depends on Congress taking back its power. These investigations should have happened beginning in 2007, but better late than never.

And besides that, what other shoe is out there to drop? How many more Cheney administration secrets are hiding in executive branch closets? Better Congress be proactive in finding that out.

I’d say the executive himself had better be proactive in finding that out. After finding out that Panetta wasn’t told about the secret assassination squad until June, it’s clear the executive branch itself doesn’t know( what’s hiding in the executive branch closet. (Obviously, the president didn’t know about this program either or he would have told his CIA chief about it.)

It seems to me that people should be plenty worried at this point that there are other continuing Dick Cheney programs that the president doesn’t know about. After all, Cheney has been out there for the last few months acting as if he’s running a shadow government. Maybe he is.

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On Biased Umpires

by digby

The opening statements coming from the Judiciary Committee Republicans are predictably revolting, but Senator Whitehouse’s is a thing of beauty. Here’s just a short excerpt:

It is fair to inquire into a nominee’s judicial philosophy, and we will have serious and fair inquiry. But the pretense that Republican nominees embody modesty and restraint, or that Democratic nominees must be activists, runs counter to recent history. I particularly reject the analogy of a judge to an “umpire” who merely calls “balls and strikes.” If judging were that mechanical, we wouldn’t need nine Supreme Court Justices. The task of an appellate judge, particularly on a court of final appeal, is often to define the strike zone, within a matrix of Constitutional principle, legislative intent, and statutory construction.

The “umpire” analogy is belied by Chief Justice Roberts, though he cast himself as an “umpire” during his confirmation hearings. Jeffrey Toobin, a well-respected legal commentator, has recently reported that “[i]n every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff.” Some umpire. And is it a coincidence that this pattern, to continue Toobin’s quote, “has served the interests, and reflected the values of the contemporary Republican party”? Some coincidence.

For all the talk of “modesty” and “restraint,” the right wing Justices of the Court have a striking record of ignoring precedent, overturning congressional statutes, limiting constitutional protections, and discovering new constitutional rights: the infamous Ledbetter decision, for instance; the Louisville and Seattle integration cases, for example; the first limitation on Roe v. Wade that outright disregards the woman’s health and safety; and the DC Heller decision, discovering a constitutional right to own guns that the Court had not previously noticed in 220 years. Over and over, news reporting discusses “fundamental changes in the law” wrought by the Roberts Court’s right wing flank. The Roberts Court has not lived up to the promises of modesty or humility made when President Bush nominated Justices Roberts and Alito. Some “balls and strikes.”

So, Judge Sotomayor, I’d like to avoid codewords, and look for a simple pledge: that you will decide cases on the law and the facts; that you will respect the role of Congress as representatives of the American people; that you will not prejudge any case, but listen to every party that comes before you; and that you will respect precedent and limit yourself to the issues that the Court must decide; in short, that you will use the broad discretion of a Supreme Court Justice wisely and in keeping with the Constitution.

read on ….

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Si Se Puede

by digby

Huffpo:

A progressive Latino organization is set to begin airing ads on Spanish-language radio attacking members of Congress over the nomination of Judge Sonia Stomayor. In order to stay out of Presente Action‘s doghouse, a member needs to denounce statements Rush Limbaugh has made calling the Supreme Court nominee a “bigot and a racist.” Reps. Adam Putnam and John Mica, both Florida Republicans, are the first two targets. Neither, according to the group, has denounced Limbaugh, despite requests to do so. Putnam is retiring in 2010 to run for statewide office. The Putnam ad begins in Spanish …”Sonia Sotomayor is set to be the first Latina, and the first Puerto Rican, to serve on the US Supreme Court. It is a proud moment for our community. Yet Republican leaders insist on attacking her:” It then switches back to English to quote Limbaugh saying, “She doesn’t have any intellectual depth. She’s got a — she’s an angry woman, she’s a bigot. She’s a racist.” Back in Spanish, it tells listeners, … “That’s Republican leader Rush Limbaugh calling Judge Sotomayor a racist and a bigot. It’s insulting to all Latinos and Americans. We asked Republican Congressman Adam Putnam if he would denounce Limbaugh’s words. He refused to reply. Let’s put a stop to the hate. Call Congressman Putnam today at 863-534-353 and tell him to condemn this language.” The Progressive Change Campaign Committee endorsed the ad and set up a page where people can help Presente Action keep it on the air — DenunciaRush.com.

The Republicans acted like a bunch of George Wallace supporters yesterday on the Sunday shows, going on and on about her ‘ethnic background” getting in the way of her judicial judgment, as if the long parade of white males on the court have never made judgments from the perspective of their own privileged perches. They haven’t learned a thing.
Limbaugh says these vomitous things with impunity among the Republicans, who crawl over each other for the privilege of kissing his ring. If they don’t stand behind these repulsive comments, then they should say so. If they do, then their constituents need to know about it.It’s not hard. Here’s how it’s done:

(via PCCC email) Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson — also from Orlando — did take on Limbaugh, despite representing a long-time Republican district. He said, “We have an African-American President and, soon, a Puerto Rican Supreme Court Justice. I’m proud of that. You’re proud of that. And if Rush Limbaugh doesn’t like it, that’s just too bad.” Grayson is a bold progressive in Congress. He successfully prosecuted Iraq war profiteers before defeating a House Republican last year and earning a reputation for grilling Wall Street execs this year. Grayson’s outspokenness has made him a top Republican target in 2010. When you chip in to help air the radio ads, we’ve added a place where you can help Grayson’s re-election as well. Please consider it.

I love it.

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The Real Radicals

by tristero

E.J. Dionne:

“They have more or less given up on defeating [Sotomayor], so they are going to engage in a framing exercise,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, said in an interview. “They’re trying to define a Republican worldview imported into the judiciary as the judicial norm for the country.”

The goal, Whitehouse added, “is to define the political ideology” of the new conservative judiciary as “representing the mainstream and to tarnish any judges who are outside that mark.”

Then Dionne provides an example of genuinely radical judicial activism:

The justices had before them a simple case, involving a group called Citizens United, that could have been disposed of on narrow grounds. The organization had asked to be exempt from the restrictions embodied in the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law for a movie critical of Hillary Clinton that it produced during last year’s presidential campaign. Citizens United says it should not have to disclose who paid for the film.

Rather than decide the case before it, the court engaged in a remarkable exercise of judicial overreach. It postponed its decision, called for new briefs and scheduled a hearing this September on the broader question of whether corporations should be allowed to spend money to elect or defeat particular candidates.

What the court was saying was that it wanted to revisit a 19-year-old precedent that barred such corporate interference in the electoral process. That 1990 ruling upheld what has been the law of the land since 1947, when the Taft-Hartley Act banned independent expenditures by both corporations and labor unions.

To get a sense of just how extreme (and, yes, activist) such an approach would be, consider that laws restricting corporate activity in elections go all the way back to the Tillman Act of 1907, which prohibited corporations from giving directly to political campaigns.

It is truly frightening that a conservative Supreme Court is seriously considering overturning a century-old tradition at the very moment the financial crisis has brought home the terrible effects of excessive corporate influence on politics.

Yup.

Whip Appeal

by digby

Mike Lux asks the Dems a most important question: do they want to be political failures or not?

The internal debate on health care strategy for Democrats can be boiled down to this: do we choose the approach whose specifics are more popular with the public and will almost certainly work better in practice once it gets passed, or do we want to go with something that has some bipartisan support and may avoid an all out war with the insurance industry?

[…]

The first thing to understand in all this is the consequences for the Democrats for the next generation and probably longer if they pass some convoluted, complicated, unworkable compromise that doesn’t change the abusive patterns in the insurance and pharmaceutical industries and doesn’t begin to control health care costs. If they pass a compromise that doesn’t meet regular people’s needs, folks will figure it out very quickly, as most people deal with the health care system all the time. If the Democrats twist up this bill to make insurance companies and their Republican allies happy, it is end of story for this generation of Democrats — our party will not recover from screwing up health care.

Our system is designed to put the politicians’ base self interest, egos and insecurities to use to make them worry about losing their seats if they fail to deliver for their constituents. But the incentives are skewed, with many of them more concerned about their opportunities for personal wealth and protecting their fellow members of the ruling class (that last being part of the design as well.) So, Lux’s exhortation is not as straightforwardly logical as it first sounds.

Still, they should care about power if nothing else. That’s universal. And the idea of being out of power for a generation should scare them — it wasn’t long ago that they were living that nightmare. And I would very much doubt that being the instruments of the demise of the Democratic party will win them much favor among the insurance company titans in the long run. Masters of the Universe don’t like losers.

Lux winds up his post with this:

So face your fear, Max Baucus. Tell you health industry allies no, Jim Cooper. Work through your fear of commitment, Evan Bayh and Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln and Mary Landrieu. Let’s put together a bill that actually works and move forward sometime soon, in our lifetimes preferably. It’s time to get this done.

Some of us feel that these people need some extra nudging and the PCCC is asking for your vote on who next to send a message to:

In the last 72 hours, two senators named in our TV ad — Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Kay Hagan (D-NC) — announced support for the public option!

The big lesson? Pressure works. TV ads work. Now it’s our job to keep the momentum high. So we’ll be running versions of our hard-hitting ad in targeted states — pressuring individual Senate Democrats back home where it hurts most. We just need you to help us decide where.
Click here to cast your vote! On the voting page, you’ll see profiles of eight senators — including how much money they’ve taken from the health and insurance interests, whether they sit on important committees, and their statements on the public option. Each version of the ad will feature the names of a senator’s local constituents who “signed” our ad — representing the 76% of Americans who demand a public option. It will also display the senator’s big contributors. We know that these ads are working. Not only have our ads been featured in the New York Times and Washington Post (which said we’re rattling Democratic senators), but MoveOn and Blue America have been running ads in Sen. Hagan and Sen. Lincoln’s home states. And the result? They are coming around. Two down, eight to go.

Vote here!

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Assassination Capability

by digby

The Washington Times reports a little detail on Cheney’s secret CIA program:

The official, who asked not to be named because of the classified nature of the program, said that the decision to keep the details of the program secret in the past was made in part because the program remained “in the capability stage,” meaning it had been developed but not necessarily implemented.

“These activities lasted, if you will, for years,” this official said. “There were other conversations about whether this should be taken to Congress. The same decision was made again by senior officials at the time.”

The New York Times first reported on its Web site Saturday that the program was concealed from Congress at the direction of Mr. Cheney, who was and remains a strong proponent of harsh measures to prevent terrorist attacks. The Associated Press, quoting an unnamed source, reported that Mr. Cheney had directed the CIA not to inform Congress about the program.

An official told The Washington Times that Mr. Cheney “was one official out of a select few who was aware of the program.” Mr. Tenet was another, he said.

The exact nature of the program remains a mystery. This official hinted that the secret program involved assassinations overseas but declined to provide further details.

Another intelligence official, who also spoke on the condition that he not be named, said the classified program was known as an SAP, or special access program.

SAPs are intelligence activities that are so secret that even officers with the highest intelligence clearances do not know about them, and their access is reserved for only the most senior officials and officers directly working on the activities.

I don’t think the Washington Times is carrying water for liberal conspiracy theorists these days, so there’s no reason to believe this report isn’t accurate, at least to the extent that some officials did say these things. So the assassination squad story is actually looking like a real possibility. Even Pete Hoekstra now admits that it was something that would only have been approved in the immediate aftermath of 9/11(which reinforces the fact that we were being led at the time by a bunch of pants wetting panic artists) which only raises the question of why it was kept going, even in the planning stages, until this year.

And why did Panetta only learn of this in late June, especially if former chief Tenet was one of the few who knew about it? Are there any other super secret programs they haven’t told the CIA chief about yet? Did his immediate predecessor know?

Update: The Wall St Journal is reporting some more detail on the story. Apparently, it was assassination plots to kill al Qaeda. Bsince ut it wasn’t operational after eight years and was highly secret, I have to wonder if it wasn’t some kind of kooky plan to kill from space or some shit. Why else would Pete Hoekstra say it was something that could only be hatched in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and wouldn’t pass muster today? He and everybody else in Washington would think assassinating al Qaeda was a good idea if they came up with it this morning.

I’d be surprised if this is the whole story.

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Funny

by digby

Amato catches McCain trying desperately to explain Palin:

Gregory: You must have been shocked to see Sarah Palin resign as Governor? McCain: Well, I wasn’t shocked. Obviously I was a bit surprised, but I wasn’t shocked. I understand where Sarah Palin made the decision to where she would be most effective for Alaska and for the country… Gregory: But you say you were surprised a little bit, why? McCain: She had not called me and we discussed it since and I better understand the reasons for her decision… Gregory: What were they? McCain: Well, how could she best serve? How could she most effectively serve Alaska and the country and that was her Gregory: But Senator, you have a reputation of personal and professional toughness and sticktoitiveness. You sought the highest role in the land as President of the US. You never quit. McCain: No, I don’t think she quit. I think she changed.,… Gregory: She made a promise to the voters to serve out her term, didn’t he? McCain: I don’t know if there was a quote “promise,” but I do know that she will be an effective player on the national stage. And I will say… …she’s popular republican of her own party, she ignited our base, she did a great job as my running mate even under the most sustained personal attacks in certainly recent American political… Gregory: Sen. McCain, you have faced torture, personal attacks, political attacks, investigations, you have never resigned from anything. Is it consistent with your qualities of leadership to resign an elected post like that? McCain: Oh, sure. Gregory: It is consistent? McCain: If you can be, the question is how can serve most effectively…

Here’s some really good news.

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From The Back Of The Bus

by digby

I’ve been meaning to give a shout out to Eric Boehlert’s book Bloggers on the Bus: How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press for quite some time, but for a variety of reasons, have been remiss. I enjoyed the book, but also felt tremendous reticence about writing anything because I’m featured in the book and I really hate any kind of attention to my personal life. (I’m also not crazy about how I sound in interviews — I need to work on that.)

The book is an interesting, insider view of the blogs and how they impacted the last presidential campaign. I would guess that one reason it hasn’t gotten more attention is because most of the left blogosphere is still healing from the Democratic primary and so is not particularly excited about re-opening those wounds. (There are some bloggers who created entire communities around that fight, however, so the book has been welcomed with open arms in some quarters.)

The book hits some particularly emblematic moments and events during the long presidential campaign that changed the blogosphere, some of which even I was unaware, like the battle over who owned the Obama MySpace page. I’m still not convinced that the blogosphere itself impacted the campaigns much, except to the extent that the campaigns took the blogosphere for granted or went around it altogether. The book sheds some light on how that happened, but I’m not sure we have the whole picture. One thing is obvious: the blogs became campaign partisans rather than movement players and that’s probably the reason the campaigns didn’t bother with us. We demanded nothing and we got nothing.

Among the remaining Clinton supporters in the blogosphere today, my own role seems to have been reduced to one sentence in which I characterized myself as a chickenshit for failing to post about the MSNBC hosts’ RFK assassination accusations, which I believed at the time to be way over the top and truly outrageous. I was tired and just didn’t have it in me to wage that fight at that point. This has been construed among the die hard Clinton people as some sort of grand mea culpa for failing to support Clinton generally, which was not the intention of my comment at all. To be perfectly clear I didn’t, and still don’t, believe that I was wrong for refusing to take a side in that online wrestling match and I openly declared my reasons from the very beginning:

A lot of criticism has come my way recently because I won’t “endorse” anyone and this has led to people making assumptions about my position. But the truth really is that I am not invested in any of the candidates. They are nearly identical in terms of policy, all have political gifts and bring something to the table and I find none of the various electability arguments particularly persuasive. Indeed, I believe that the fact they are so similar in all the important ways is one of the reasons everyone is at each other’s throats on this — since there’s no daylight on policy everyone is having to argue their case based on their own emotional connection to the candidate or what the candidate symbolizes, which often devolves into ugly invective. It really does become personal under those circumstances. You can see the result of this in the candidates’ own debate last night. They weren’t really fighting over anything important because they don’t actually disagree about anything important. But they had to fight. It’s an election. Somebody’s got to win.

Unlike many of you, all things being equal in the policy and electability department, I don’t actually believe that Edwards’ “fighting working man spirit” or Obama’s “post-partisan vision” or Clinton’s “hard knuckled experience” are going to be the determining factor in the success of progressive politics. I think change is going to come from the ground up not the top down, from a progressive movement that has positioned itself to leverage ANY candidate.

I agree with Robert Borosage, who wrote this piece, It Takes A Movement:

The lesson of the King years isn’t a choice between rhetoric and reality, or between experience and change. The lesson of the King years is the vital necessity of an independent progressive movement to demand change against the resistance of both entrenched interests and cautious reformers.

Since I have no dog in this primary fight (although I will join the fray in earnest once the nominees are chosen — beating Republicans is job one) I’m staying out of the daily back and forth between the candidates on the campaign trail (and in the blogosphere.) But I am challenging media storylines and destructive village behavior and trying to influence progressive rhetoric and strategy.

I’ve been closely following the sexist treatment of Hillary Clinton in the press — I always monitor the media narratives and this one was indisputably powerful and instructive. (Eric Boehlert has a column up about The Tweety Effect today.) And I’ve also been critical of some of Obama’s post-partisan rhetoric because I just disagree with it as a matter of strategic principle, even as I understand why he is doing it. Those two things seem to have led readers to believe that I am a biased, possibly paid, closet Clinton shill, which is what turned the comment section into a war zone.

As I said, I’m invested in none of these candidates, I’m invested in progressive politics, which none of them are speaking to very directly. But then we are only beginning to develop the language and themes for them to use to do that. (I do have some hope that whoever is elected will hear us, however.) And I’ll keep watching the village and the media and pointing out their arcane mores and rituals because that’s … what I do.

The irony, of course, is that at the time I was being beseiged by angry Obama supporters who were convinced that I was agitating for Clinton while today I remain the object of many delightful insults from the Clinton true believers for failing to do just that. One would hope that at least a few people took me at my word, but I honestly don’t know.

That decision became a sort of Rorshach test among hyper partisans on both sides and I came to understand that within these inter-tribal battles, it’s less about who you take sides with than who you take sides against. Hating the same people, not likeing the same people, is the point.

As I wrote in that post, I understood why people came to identify so closely with the candidate of their choice and why it became so personal. I simply don’t feel that way about politicians. Somewhere along the line, I developed a skepticism about all of them that makes it impossible for me to fall in love with any of them. When a campaign depends upon developing a personal attachment, as this one did, I’m just not on the same wavelength.

I suppose most people will always see that race through the lens of their own decision. I know I will. And I honestly have zero regrets. The blogospheric hysteria notwithstanding, the race was not particularly dirty by historical standards and it ended up essentially in a tie, and for good reason — the two candidates were veritable twins separated only by the symbolism of their historic candidacies and the personal identification of their followers. And that’s what ended up being interesting — and maddening — about the race.

Boehlert’s book hints at all that, and certainly covers the primary war during the heat of the battle. But the book ends with a sort of impression that it was all over, and yet among certain corners of the blogposphere, it still rages as brightly as if it were the spring of 2008. Maybe if he does a paperback version, he could add a post script about that.

I feel a bit sorry for Eric, who surely wrote this book believing that the blogosphere would be interested in reading all about themselves and instead found that we were still too shell shocked to want to revisit the period. If I were the publisher, I’d look to reissue it before the next campaign, when I suspect that it would find a larger audience. It’s one of the first histories written of this little blogospheric project of ours and it will surely be one that people will use in the future to chart the rise of the progressive movement.

The 2008 campaign showed us to be politically immature and easily subject to the bad habits of horserace coverage and petty tabloid proclivities of the mainstream media when the conditions are right. But I also think it was mostly a matter of growing pains and that much was learned from the experience. I know I learned a lot and will undoubtedly use Boehlert’s book as a reminder when I start to forget those lessons.

*All of my posts are there in the archives for anyone who wants to see what I actually wrote during the primaries. Not that I expect that a re-reading of them will settle anything. Most people have long since settled into their position and I don’t expect it to change at this point. But there might be a few stragglers who have only recently become convinced of my cowardice who would be surprised at what they see.

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Even In War

by digby

Anderson Cooper interviewed the president in Ghana and made some news about the Dasht-e-Leili massacre. When asked if he inteded to follow up with a war crimes investigation, Obama said that he hadn’t head about it until recently and had ordered his staff to look into it. He said that he thought nations had responsibilities “even in war” and if it turns out that the US was involved that we need to know about it.

I’m surprised, frankly. I thought the administration was pretty definitive about not following up on this and Obama at least opened the door. Still, considering how they justified keeping the Iraq photos secret, I would be very surprised if they don’t use the rationale that an investigation of Afghanistan war crimes would endanger the troops. We’ll see.

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