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Wednesday, June 16, 2004 |
Atrios of Eschaton linked to a masterfully written opinion article from William Pfaff, writer for the International Herald Tribune, called "When Laws Get In the Way." Pfaff begins his article stating a quote from Karl Marx about Napolean, saying that tragedy always proceeds a farce. He compares this to American politics. The farce, Pfaff believes, was the obsession over the definition of sexual congress in light of Clinton's escapades with Lewinsky. The tragey, Pfaff believes, is Bush's war in Iraq and the continuing revelation that he and his administration have been parsing laws and rules to rid themselves of accountability for the torture of detainees and prisoners of war. Furthermore, he feels the mindset shown by this administration reminds him of Adolf Eichmann. Consider these paragraphs:
The Bush administration's civilians had been complaining about how law, international treaties and conventions, and military norms and inhibitions, were interfering with their determination to seize and hold anyone they pleased in secret prisons, declare them without legal rights even when they were American citizens, torture them whenever they wanted and keep them forever, if they liked (a totalitarian ambition, obviously). They wanted these obstructions removed.
Their complaints sounded like the complaints of Adolf Eichmann, when he described during his trial in Israel the irksome bureaucratic and legal obstacles he ran into in wartime Germany in carrying out his genocidal responsibilities.
High U.S. administration figures reportedly lingered - with delectation? - over what exactly was to be done to the unfortunate prisoners - for how long, in what position, with what pain inflicted.
(There was also - whoops! - the problem of what to do when things went wrong, and the torturers had a dead man, or woman, on their hands.)
And when all this began to come out, what did the administration have to say? The president said on May 24 that "a few American troops ... disregarded our values." Civilians in the Pentagon, speaking informally to the press, blamed the Abu Ghraib scandals on "a few hillbillies."
The American operation in Iraq, and apparently in Afghanistan before, has been haphazard, planned and run by people mostly without serious knowledge of these countries and their societies. The administration has gone in for wholesale arrests and interrogations, sweeping people up virtually at random, because it doesn't know what else to do.
This has been futile and irrational, as well as evil.
Pfaff's closing comments suggest that America has seen its worst scandal unfold before its eyes. And more sadly, nothing may come of it before the election. And regarding the election, Pfaff adds an eye-opening reminder that if Americans vote Bush back into office, we will have made "these terrible practices" our own.
All of this is a ghastly scandal, one of the worst in American history. It is evident cause for impeachment of this president, if Congress has the courage to do it, and for prosecution of cabinet figures and certain commanders. However in view of the partisan alignment in Congress, quite possibly nothing will happen before the November election.
What then? It also is quite possible that George W. Bush will be elected to a second term. In that case, the American electorate will have made these practices its own.
7:49:44 PM  | |
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I've believed from the beginning that this election isn't over until the polls are closed and the ballots and hanging chads are counted in Florida. But I have to admit that I have been very pleased to see Kerry doing so well in the polls. Does Kerry have a chance to win in November? I say most assuredly. But I don't think its going to be something that will just magically happen. I think Democrats have to get out and work to make this happen.
Having said this, let me tell you what keeps me up at night. It is comments such as this from Reason Magazine’s editor Tim Kavanaugh, who supposedly is not a conservative, that give me nightmares and that sense that I've been kicked in the crotch.
"It doesn't matter how much gas costs, how poorly things are going in Iraq, what new torture memos surface, or whether there are new terror attacks inside our borders. John Kerry hasn't got a whore's chance in a convent, Bush is going to kick his ass all over the United States, and when we see the results in November, the idea that anybody ever thought Kerry had a prayer will seem as quaint and absurd as the brief flurry of 'excitement' for Dukakis (or was it Kakdukis?) back in Old '88."
I have to give Kavanaugh credit though for the great phrase "whore's chance in a convent."
Here's to hope that Kavanaugh will be eating these words come November!
7:21:35 PM | |
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From the Center for American Progress--
On the House floor yesterday while debating the president's energy bill, senior Republicans openly admitted that the war in Iraq is about oil. Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-LA), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said the nation needed to pass massive tax cuts for oil companies "instead of constantly fighting over battlefields to defend other people's energy supplies that we depend upon." Similarly, Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) said, "When we look at this [energy] bill, we need to call upon ourselves and ask ourselves what probably is the major duty of a Member of Congress. It is probably to prevent a war. And how do you prevent wars? You prevent wars by removing the cause of wars... Lack of energy causes wars." He said, "George Bush's father sent 450,000 kids to a desert; that was a battle for energy [to] keep them from getting a bad man's, Saddam Hussein, foot, on half the known energy resources in the world."
I'd like to know what possessed them to reveal this now. What do you think?
6:35:03 PM | |
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