Month: May 2013

Guilty until proven innocent

by David Atkins

The safe rescue of the young women involved in the horrific kidnapping case in Cleveland has brought a mixture of relief and horror to an entire nation. But it also put a small spotlight on this miscarriage of justice:

A registered sex offender who was jailed in 2006 after a tipster wrongfully accused him of murdering kidnap victim Gina DeJesus wants an apology from the city of Cleveland.

“I’m happy they’re home and safe,” Matthew Hurayt said of DeJesus, and fellow kidnap victims Michele Knight and Amanda Berry, who were rescued by a neighbor Monday after years of captivity.

But Hurayt, whose home was searched in 2006 with TV cameras and a crowd of spectators watching, said there are still injustices connected to the case that need righting. “I want justice for the men that really did it, (the tipster) locked up and the city of Cleveland to make a public apology,” he said.

Hurayt, whose criminal record includes a conviction for sexual battery of two children, told NBC News that on Sept. 21, 2006, he and roommate John McDonough were arrested after a tipster said that he had raped and killed DeJesus and buried her under his new garage.

“The police jumped on that and plastered me all over the news,” said Hurayt.

Hurayt and McDonough were held for several days in the Cleveland City Jail on suspicion of the aggravated murder of DeJesus, who vanished in 2004. As a crowd gathered, police and FBI agents searched the house for 10 hours. They dug under his garage with a backhoe and chopped the cement floor into sections, and dug under the structure. They also dug under a dog house.

Authorities said that cadaver dogs had “indicated” at several places on the property, and they removed a number of items from the house for further investigation. But they found nothing tying Hurayt to the disappearance of DeJesus or that of Amanda Berry, who got into a strange car in 2003 and never came home.

“We’re disappointed that the search wasn’t as fruitful as we hoped,” police Lt. Thomas Stacho told the Cleveland Plain Dealer at the time. “But we would have been remiss if we didn’t investigate this lead.” An FBI agent told the DeJesus family, which had already been notified of a possible break in the case, that nothing had been found, the paper said.

After Hurayt spent a weekend in jail, a judge ordered him released on Sept. 25, 2006, rejecting an assistant county prosecutor’s request to increase his bond on an unrelated assault case. Hurayt’s lawyer, Mark Marein, compared the search for remains on his client’s property to the search for Jimmy Hoffa.

Hurayt filed a claim for compensation for $20,000 in damages to Hurayt’s property with the city’s Moral Claims Commission, but it was rejected, said Marein.

Whatever one feels about the crimes of which this man was convicted, we live in a nation of laws and at least the pretense of rehabilitation. Conservative voters just last night seemed more than capable of forgiveness for transgressions by sending Mark Sanford back to Congress.

Hurayt had paid his debt to society, but found himself an outcast in the community anyway due to the sex offender registry. A tipster lied to the police, who with great fanfare, media and a crowd of onlookers proceeded to dig up and destroy parts of the man’s property while jailing him for days. When it became clear he didn’t commit the crime of which he was accused, he was denied restitution for the damage to his property and made a bigger target than before, while the lying tipster apparently suffered no repercussions.

One of the keys to ending recidivism is reintegration in the community. Legal and social discrimination of this kind and laws like Jessica’s Law that prevent offenders from living anywhere but under bridges encourage recidivism. They actively harm society and put children at risk while shifting the focus away from the home, where most sexual abuse of children actually occurs.

The law needs to decide if certain kinds of sex offenders are capable of rehabilitation and reintegration. If not, they (like the actual perpetrators of this horrific kidnapping) shouldn’t be released. But if so, they deserve a chance to pay their debt to society and become productive citizens like everyone else. Branding them with a scarlet letter of subhumanity and treating them as second-class citizens beneath the protections of the law serves neither justice nor the public interest.

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The Medicare crystal ball


by digby

I have been searching high and low for this handy chart, which I couldn’t for the life of me remeber where it came from, and voila, Mike the Mad Biologist sent it to me today:

Mike helped make it clearer for us:

And this, my friends, is why we shouldn’t be wetting our pants over projected deficits or “shortfalls” projected many years into the future, particularly when it turns out that the big driver of these projected deficits, our general health care costs,may be coming down due to recent reforms with more scheduled to kick in.

It’s a huge mistake to allow our politicians to fear-monger us on behalf of their wealthy benefactors to give up the meager benefits we know we will need many years hence. The beltway crystal ball has always been just a little bit hazy. I don’t know about you, but I think I’ll take my chances.

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The free market speaks against Limbaugh

by David Atkins

Cumulus media empire CEO Lew Dickey has been pulling out the long knife for Rush Limbaugh:

On the conference call Tuesday, when asked specifically about the network business and the impact of the talk segment, CEO Lew Dickey made a passing mention without naming names. “We’ve had a tough go of it this last year. The facts are indisputable over the last year.” In recent days, the Rush Limbaugh camp made it clear they were not happy with Dickey blaming any revenue shortfall on Rush. People close to Cumulus tell Radio Ink, “48 of the top 50 network advertisers have “exclude Rush and Hannity” orders. Every major national ad agency has same dictate.”

This didn’t just happen on its own. It was the product of the dedicated activists at StopRush and Flush Rush who have pounded advertisers over their contributions to Limbaugh’s hate speech. Limbaugh and radio station owners are now going after each other, as Limbaugh’s bosses claim he’s losing them revenue and Limbaugh himself says his bosses aren’t doing a good enough job of selling his product.

So the free market worked, right? Limbaugh became popular because of market forces, and now market forces are dragging him down. It’s even, right?

Hardly. One reason right-wing radio became such an overwhelming format on the AM dial isn’t just pure market forces: it’s also a product of ideological companies like Clear Channel driving other voices off the air for their own reasons. The power of citizen activists pales in comparison to the power of monopolistic capital. But second, the entire free market approach to problem solving relies on delayed response. Companies are supposed to operate free of regulation. Then when they do bad things, consumers are supposed to notice, take action, and cause financial problems for the perpetrators by harming their sales. Of course, that requires that consumers realize they’ve been wronged, discover which entity wronged them, organize well enough to fight back against that entity, and then have enough power in the marketplace to force changes. None of those are a given.

But beyond that, the biggest problem is the delay. How much damage will the company in the free market do before their transgressions are punished? How many people will be hurt while society waits for the market to do its work?

Sure, the market and citizen activism may be punishing Limbaugh far, far too late. Calling graduate students fighting for reproductive rights “sluts” may have been the last straw, but it wasn’t the worst of his offenses. How much damage has Limbaugh in his perch atop the monopolized AM radio world? How many decades has his brand of hate speech and all the little Limbaugh clones who have come in his wake contributed to damaging public policy and the coarsening of our political rhetoric?

Wouldn’t it have been better to have more effective regulation of the media companies who dominate the airwaves before the damage was done?

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Telling it like it is

by digby

Wow. This Irin Carmen report of the Plan B hearing today is amazing. The judge did not mince words:

“It turns out that the same policies that President Bush followed were followed by President Obama,” said District Court Judge Edward Korman on Tuesday morning, in a charged and dramatic two-hour hearing in which the Obama administration defended its arbitrary policy to limit contraceptive access.

Uh huh.

Korman was explaining why, when previously ruling on access to Plan B emergency contraception, he had initially waited for the administration to act on its own and make the drug widely available based on scientific evidence, rather than on politics. “The process had been corrupted by political influence. I remanded because I thought with a new president” things would be different, Korman said. But in 2011, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius overruled, with the president’s explicit blessing, the FDA’s recommendation to lift all age restrictions, which Korman ruled in March was a decision made in “bad faith” because of the politics around sex and contraception. He ordered the administration to lift all restrictions. Instead, it accepted a manufacturer’s petition to make Plan B available over the counter only with photo ID showing the purchaser was at least 15, and the Department of Justice is appealing.

This morning, Korman repeatedly slammed his hand down on the table for emphasis, interrupting the government counsel’s every other sentence with assertions like, “You’re just playing games here,” “You’re making an intellectually dishonest argument,” “You’re basically lying,” “This whole thing is a charade,” “I’m entitled to say this is a lot of nonsense, am I not?” and “Contrary to the baloney you were giving me …” He also accused the administration of hypocrisy for opposing voter ID laws but being engaged in the “suppression of the rights of women” with the ID requirement for the drug.

Frank Amanat, arguing on behalf of the administration, said that the court had overreached by ordering a particular policy rather than remanding to the agency for further review. But he could not say, in response to repeated demands from Korman, that the result would be any different if it were returned to the agency. Nor did he specify any harm that would come from making the drug more available.

“The irony is that I would be allowing what the FDA wanted. This has got to be one of the most unusual administrative law cases I have ever seen,” Korman said, adding, “I would have thought that on the day I handed down my decision, they would be drinking champagne at the FDA.”

Korman said the administration had engaged in a “choreography”: “First the president makes a speech to Planned Parenthood and throws them a kiss. The next day you grant an application from 2012″ to make it available with ID for 15 and up, in an attempt to “sugarcoat” the appeal of Korman’s order to lift all restrictions. (The decision was actually announced a couple of days after the Planned Parenthood speech.)

The government didn’t argue the merits of requiring a photo ID or that the drug only be sold in locations with an on-site pharmacy, but Korman made clear why he found that to be an inadequate compromise: “You’re using these 11- and 12-year-olds to place an undue burden on women’s ability to access emergency contraception. If it’s an impediment to voting, it’s an impediment to get the drug.”

He cited Brennan Center statistics — which he said Eric Holder had also cited in a speech before the NAACP — showing that 25 percent of African-Americans of voting age don’t have a photo ID, and also dismissed the government’s suggestion that 15-year-olds, who usually aren’t eligible for a driver’s license, could use a birth certificate, since that’s not a photo ID. ”You’re disadvantaging young people, African-Americans, the poor — that’s the policy of the Obama administration?” read on …

Yeah. But who cares about them?

I have to say I’m enjoying seeing all these people speak truth to power today. Maybe it’s something in the air …

Seriously, this regulation is just silly. If you believe in science, you believe in science. And the science says that this is safe, effective and appropriate for all females of child bearing years. It’s ridiculous. This judge certainly thinks so.

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Follow the leader

by digby

Ed Markey shows how it’s done:

The President released a budget that would cut Social Security benefits for retired Americans by adopting something called a Chained CPI.

It’s a complicated-sounding name that boils down to this: Social Security benefits for seniors would be cut. You could think of “CPI” as meaning “Cutting Peoples’ Income.”

This is a wrong-headed move. Too many seniors — almost two-thirds, in fact — rely on Social Security for at least half of their income. Budgeting requires compromise, but we cannot compromise by cutting Social Security.

Democrats won huge victories in 2012. We reelected President Obama. We held the Senate and made gains in the House. We don’t need to roll over to the right wing when it comes to budget choices.

There’s plenty in the President’s budget I agree with. But Chained CPI is just a bad idea. Investing in clean energy, education, and infrastructure should not come with the price tag of going back on America’s promise to our seniors.

Tea Party Republicans may have pushed the President into making tough decisions. But that doesn’t mean that this budget is right or fair for the most vulnerable among us.

Here’s the thing: Markey is running in a state that re-elected president Obama by a 60% margin. If he can do this there, then any Democrat can do it. Many people may like President Obama and support him strongly, but they don’t want these cuts.  It’s important that they know that other Democrats are against these Social Security cuts and will fight against them if it comes to that.

Markey is a good guy who’s running against a Tea Partier in moderate clothing and he could use your help if you’re so inclined.

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Demogungoguery on parade

by digby

I think Jon Stewart had the best take on the NRA convention:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

I nominate Ted Cruz and the best demagogue of the group, but it’s a tough one …

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

It’s funny, for sure.  But we’d better hope that some nuts don’t decide that this is more than political theatre. I’m sure responsible gun owners know the difference.  But since we can’t even have any tepid, almost useless background checks, we won’t know if some lunatic owns a gun and wants to use it.  Fer freedom …

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Blue America chat at 11AM PDT with fighting progressive Daylin Leach

by digby

Please click over to our new site at 11:00AM PDT, 2:00PM EDT for a Blue America chat with Daylin Leach from Pennsylvania.

Here’s Howie:

Pennsylvania’s 13th congressional district, Northeast Philadelphia and Montgomery County– is one of the most liberal districts in the state. Obama beat McCain 65.4-33.7% in 2008 and did even better last year– 66.2-32.9%. The current congressmember, Allyson Schwartz, is giving up the seat to run for governor. She was reelected in November with 69% of the vote. She’s always been extremely cautious to not get out ahead on any contentious issues and tends to vote very conservatively for a Democrat in a safe seat, especially on issues of economic justice. This is the perfect time to replace her with a real leader and a courageous fighting progressive. State Senator Daylin Leach fits the bill perfectly. Take a look at the video up top. You have to admire a politician who brags about an “F” from the NRA and who launches a congressional campaign talking about introducing the first same sex marriage bill in the Pennsylvania legislature.

With his record of achievement, Daylin is a natural for Blue America. He’s been taking on tough issues that most politicians are afraid to get anywhere near– from legalizing marijuana to labeling genetically engineered food. He’s been a major opponent in the state legislature of Republican efforts to privatize and voucherize public education and has been one of the leading voices against GOP efforts at voter suppression. He supports the Grayson Takano No Cuts approach to dealing with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. “At a time when corporate profits, executive compensation, the stock market and wealth disparity are at near record highs, it is obscene to even consider balancing our budget on the backs of seniors and veterans,” he told us. “I fully supported President Obama’s election, but I can’t support any drift towards corporatism to appease tea-party extremists… Republicans are, on a daily basis, showing their complete indifference to the poor, kids, the elderly and public safety as they not only perpetuate sequestration, but gloat about it. The clock ticks as America waits for some actual human beings with a soul to emerge from the Republican caucus.”

The gun lobby is very strong in Pennsylvania and the NRA is a very potent force there. That doesn’t seem to deter Daylin one iota. This is what he told us about the battle over gun safety yesterday:

Lets wrap our mind around this. Congress said that it is our national policy that we don’t want to know if someone is a violent felon before we allow them to buy a mass-killing machine. This is what it looks like when a country loses its mind.

Further, the idea that any restriction with the word “gun” in it somehow violates the 2nd Amendment is based on ignorance of how the Constitution works. No constitutional right is absolute. We have a right to free speech which is far more unambiguous than the “right to keep and bear arms.” Yet there are all kinds of speech which we can Constitutionally restrict. You can’t libel someone or lie in advertising, or yell “fire” in a crowded theater. You can say you are against the war in Iraq, but you can’t do it through a megaphone in a residential neighborhood at 3:00 AM.

Ironically, most of these restrictions are based on the state’s interest in preserving public safety. Similarly, limits on violent people, or juveniles, or spouse-beaters having guns, or the number of guns you can buy per month, or how many bullets you can have in a clip at a time are perfectly reasonable, and more to the point, Constitutional restrictions that in no way impact anyone’s 2nd Amendment rights.

State Rep. Brian Sims is the first out LGBT member to be elected to the Pennsylvania legislature. He’s from a neighboring district and he’s enthusiastically supporting Daylin’s congressional run. Sims gained a lot of notoriety when, in fighting GOP attempts to prohibit state-run insurance from covering abortions, he reminded his colleagues that “Each of us put our hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution; we did not place our hands on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.” This weekend he told us that “Daylin Leach has been a leader on LGBT civil rights in the Pennsylvania legislature for the last decade which is why I have endorsed him. This is a pivotal time in Washington for issues of equality, and we need proven leaders like Daylin who have a record of fighting for our rights. I know that Daylin will be our champion in DC.”

Daylin doesn’t mince words when it comes to protecting the civil rights of any groups of people. Speaking about his fight for LGBT equality, he reminded us that, “Martin Luther King said ‘the arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice.’ So what is it bending away from? It bends away from bigotry, and discrimination and social acceptance of the idea that its OK to treat people as lesser human beings because they are different from us. In the long run, those attitudes make history sick.”

He’s been a stalwart fighter against the Republicans in their crackpot war against women. “It is beyond my comprehension how anyone with a mother, wife or daughter could accept anything less than full equality for women. Equality of income, of access to health care, of opportunities to succeed, these are the basic demands that anyone who has a woman he cares about should have.” You want the best in Congress– not someone who the best you can say is that he’s better than a Republican? Daylin’s your man. We’re very proud to endorse him. Please consider contributing to his campaign on the Blue America ActBlue page.

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The end of austerity? It’s pretty to think so

by digby

As we continue to endure the effects of the ill-conceived sequester and stare into the maw of yet another series of budget showdowns and debt-ceiling standoffs over the deficit, I would suggest that everyone send this article by Brian Beutler to their congressmen and Senators.  It’s that important. He’s talking about the decline in health care spending, the great deficit boogeyman:

Now, research papers suggests the recent slowdown doesn’t just reflect temporary economic weakness, but also structural shifts in how health care is delivered and financed — possibly attributable to the Affordable Care Act — and thus might be a harbinger of a longer-term trend.

If they’re right, and the trend continues, it means workers can expect higher wages and the country’s projected medium term deficits are significantly overstated, which in turn suggests lawmakers’ continuing obsession with the current budget deficit, and deficits over the coming decade, are misguided.

The study by Harvard researchers, featured in the latest edition of Health Affairs, finds, like all studies of this nature, that the recession and weak economy contributed significantly to the spending growth slowdown. Less generous benefits, resulting in higher out-of-pocket costs, accounted for 20 percent of it. Faced with less generous coverage and less disposable income, people consumed fewer health services.

But the good news is that spending growth also slowed among those whose health benefits haven’t changed, including Medicare patients. And that suggests a more enduring trend.

“Our findings suggest cautious optimism that the slowdown in the growth of health spending may persist — a change that, if borne out, could have a major impact on US health spending projections and fiscal challenges facing the country,” the authors write.

In a related article, health care economist David Cutler attributes the majority of the slowdown to fundamental changes — including perhaps slowing technological and pharmaceutical innovation, and increased efficiency among providers. If current trends continue, he concludes, then over the next 10 years “public-sector health care spending will be as much as $770 billion less than predicted. Such lower levels of spending would have an enormous impact on the US economy and on government and household finances.”

To put it in perspective, that $770 billion is equivalent to about three-quarters of sequestration’s mandatory, indiscriminate spending cuts, which lawmakers have been unable to replace with either more targeted cuts or a mix of cuts and higher taxes. The paper implies that budget deficits will shrink by an amount similar to sequestration even if Congress were to simply rescind it.

Imagine that.

I have been agitated about the Grand Bargain agenda ever since it was announced before the administration’s first inauguration, mostly because it was predicated on the notion that there was some necessity (and possibility) of solving every long term fiscal challenge with Big Deals and Transpartisan Agreement and-then-we-would-all-live-as-one-big-happy-family Setting aside the politics of it, which always seemed to me to be a fantasy, I never understood why they were so convinced that these alleged problems were written in stone in the first place. Having watched politicians demagogue deficits and future budget shortfalls for decades, only to have them rise and fall with economy and defy the predictions time and again, I came to believe that skepticism was required for these crystal ball projections of looming Armageddon.

Still, over the past few years we’ve seen a consensus form even among those who who usually disagree about looming deficits, that there was reason for concern because of ballooning health care costs. This was, in fact, one of the primary arguments in favor of health care reform. And once Obamacare was passed, one might have assumed that we would take a breather and see if, in fact, those costs came down (or even showed signs of it) before rushing to cut vital programs that have no effect on the deficit, like Social Security. After all, it was a huge undertaking designed to completely reform the health care sector of the economy.  You would have thought that would be enough for now.

That did not happen. In fact, both parties immediately started running around like a bunch of crazed squirrels furiously trying to one-up each other’s deficit reduction plans, as if Obamacare never happened. No evidence was called for beyond some very tightly defined projections that were always subject to change. So here we are, stuck in a vortex of ever increasing cuts to vital programs despite the overwhelming evidence that austerity has hurt the economy in the short run and that the long term financial consequences of Obamacare are already looking to be positive.

Enough already. The Shock Doctrine has left us all pretty much catatonic and we need a break. Repeal the sequester.  Be happy with the enormous, painful spending cuts that have already been enacted and move on to something else for a while.

Since that’s about as likely as peace spontaneously breaking out in the middle east, the best thing that can happen at this point is for gridlock to continue. It’s saved us so far.

Update: And here we are with the King of the VSP’s misrepresenting the position of the man who’s been right all along in his own inimitable split-the-baby fashion:

Former President Bill Clinton began his appearance at Pete Peterson’s annual fiscal summit Tuesday by approvingly invoking the name of the movement’s arch ideological enemy.

Paul Krugman, The New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist, has been the leading opponent of deficit hysteria and austerity, while Peterson has spent some $500 million since 2007 encouraging deficit reduction.

Clinton, interviewed on a keynote panel by MSNBC’s Tamron Hall, began by saying he wanted to address “one factual dispute.”

“I think everybody in this debate has an obligation to say what they believe,” said Clinton. “I think Paul Krugman’s right in the short run, and Pete Peterson and Simpson-Bowles and all those guys, everybody’s right in the long run. And the question is timing.”

By raising the specter of Krugman, the bane of the deficit-hawk movement, Clinton is sending another signal that the politics of austerity are waning. “It’s obvious that if you overdo austerity, you get Europe,” he said, noting 12 percent unemployment on the continent.

Clinton’s very appearance at the summit, however, testifies to the movement’s enduring strength. Clinton was sure to speak out Tuesday against the problem of long-term debt. He warned that if interest rates spiked unexpectedly, the resulting increase in debt costs would “make the sequester look like a Sunday afternoon walk in the park.”

The bond vigilantes are big players in Bill “the era of big government is over” Clinton’s imagination, always have been. And no amount of evidence will ever convince him or any of the rest of the Market Dems that they are on the wrong track.

I expect the fight against misplaced austerity to continue basically … forever. These people have a strong philosophical and emotional (not to mention financial) stake in ensuring that it does.

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Things are looking up for the rich as usual

by David Atkins

The official unemployment rate is still hovering over 7.5%. The real unemployment and underemployment rate is far, far higher. But no worries: the Dow Jones index just shot above 15,000 for the first time today, reaching a new record high.

And as it turns out, the economic confidence of the wealthy is soaring.

Upper-income Americans’ economic confidence in April pushed out of negative territory for the first time [in five years]. Middle- and lower-income Americans’ economic confidence remained in negative territory at -16 in April, compared with -18 in March and -14 in February.

Sure, everyone else still thinks the economy is terrible. But what do those middle-class moochers matter? The people whose homes in the Hamptons depend on a soaring stock market are doing fabulously. That’s all that counts, right?

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Word to the wise: do as little as possible

by digby

Andrew Sullivan has a good post up today examining the potential quagmire in Syria in some depth. I urge you to read the whole thing — it tracks with my understanding as well. He concludes with this:

… Syria is very much like Iraq. A dictator leaving a vacuum in a half-liberated country? Check. A sectarian war we cannot understand let alone direct? Check. A Sunni insurgency increasingly allied with Jihadist elements? Check. Nebulous accusations and counter-accusations about WMDs, without hard proof of much at all? Check. A conflict swayed by interference across the region – from the Sunni monarchies to the Shi’a powers? Check.

You can argue that this could have somehow been prevented. I doubt it. You could also argue that the United States has an interest in an outcome that is neither Assad nor the al Nusra brigades. But no one can explain to me how to get from here to there. This is their regional war, not ours’. And our only reliable ally in the region seems perfectly capable of protecting itself and its own interests, without even informing us in advance.

Please, Mr President: just say no. You were elected to end this kind of hubristic, short-sighted, if well-intentioned military intervention. We did not elect you over McCain in 2008 merely to watch you follow that unreconstructed neocon’s advice, which is always to intervene first and figure out what to do once we have.

You know better. Trust your instincts. Do as little as possible.

I’m not entirely sure what President Obama’s instincts are, but I agree that he should do as little as possible, at least for now.

Sullivan mentions, more or less in passing, the fact that the UN is disputing the allegation that the Syrian government used sarin gas and instead believes that it was one of the rebel factions. Obviously, I don’t know one way or the other although the UN investigator is one who prosecuted Milosevic and has a sterling reputation as a straight shooter. Anyway, Jonathan Schwarz offers up a little useful history:

And this is from March 1988, about Saddam Hussein’s notorious gassing of the Iraqi city of Halabja back when Saddam was our ally:

The U.S. State Department said both Iran and Iraq had used poison gas in the fighting around Halabja and called on both nations to desist immediately.

“This incident appears to be a particularly grave violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol banning chemical weapons. There are indications that Iran may also have used chemical artillery shells in this fighting,” department spokesman Charles Redman said in Washington.

He declined, however, to say what evidence the United States had to implicate the Iranians.

Seventeen years later, investigative reporter Joost Hiltermann wrote about declassified State Department cables instructing U.S. diplomats to muddy the waters by claiming that both Iraq and Iran had used chemical weapons around Halabja and “to dodge the ‘What’s the evidence’ question with the stock ‘Sorry, but that’s classified information’ response…In the final analysis, the only evidence for the convenient claim that Iran used chemical weapons during the war is that the US government said so.”

You have to love this:

More recently, a senior U.S. official explained the general principle about this kind of thing: “The countries that cooperate with us get at least a free pass. Whereas other countries that don’t cooperate, we ream them as best we can.”

That was my impression too which makes me extremely skeptical when I read liberals insisting that the “chemical weapons ban” has been held to be so sacred that it requires us to act regardless of the possible outcome. My impression is that this only holds when it can be used to back up something the US has already decided to do.

Update: Also too, propaganda. I couldn’t help but be reminded of this as well:

Sunday, November 20, 2005

 
The War Marketeer

by digby

A lot of people are linking to this fascinating Rolling Stone article on John Rendon, king of wartime propaganda. I’ve written extensively about the Office of Global Communications and the WHIG, but I didn’t know that Rendon was involved. I should have. It’s exactly his kind of gig.

I became aware of Rendon after Gulf War I, when it was revealed that he had had a big hand in “shaping the debate.” But it shouldn’t be assumed that he was the only PR firm involved in such things. Many of you will remember that none other PR giant Hill and Knowlton orchestrated one of the most amazing examples of prowar flackeryever documented:

… nothing quite compared to H&K’s now infamous “baby atrocities” campaign. After convening a number of focus groups to try to figure out which buttons to press to make the public respond, H&K determined that presentations involving the mistreatment of infants, a tactic drawn straight from W.R. Hearst’s playbook of the Spanish-American War, got the best reaction. So on October 10, 1990, the Congressional Human Rights Caucus held a hearing on Capitol Hill at which H&K, in coordination with California Democrat Tom Lantos and Illinois Republican John Porter, introduced a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl named Nayirah. (Purportedly to safeguard against Iraqi reprisals, Nayirah’s full name was not disclosed.) Weeping and shaking, the girl described a horrifying scene in Kuwait City. “I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital,” she testified. “While I was there I saw the Iraqi soldiers coming into the hospital with guns and going into the room where 15 babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die.” Allegedly, 312 infants were removed.

The tale got wide circulation, even winding up on the floor of the United Nations Security Council. Before Congress gave the green light to go to war, seven of the main pro-war senators brought up the baby-incubator allegations as a major component of their argument for passing the resolution to unleash the bombers. Ultimately, the motion for war passed by a narrow five-vote margin.

Only later was it discovered that the testimony was untrue. H&K had failed to reveal that Nayirah was not only a member of the Kuwaiti royal family, but also that her father, Saud Nasir al-Sabah, was Kuwait’s ambassador to the U.S. H&K had prepped Nayirah in her presentation, according to Harper’s publisher John R. MacArthur’s book Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War. Of the seven other witnesses who stepped up to the podium that day, five had been prepped by H&K and had used false names. When human rights organizations investigated later, they could not find that Nayirah had any connection to the hospital. Amnesty International, among those originally duped, eventually issued an embarrassing retraction.