Republicans: Let's not talk about Iraq, okay?

Via the NYT:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 — Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said Friday that his party would unite to block Senate debate next week on a bipartisan resolution opposing President Bush’s troop buildup in Iraq unless the Democrats allowed votes on at least two Republican alternatives.
[...]
Senate Republicans have also been squeamish about Mr. Reid’s decision to debate the Iraq policy in the form of legislation, which would be sent to the president if passed as such. They see such a move as overly confrontational, even though Mr. Reid has said the Senate will ultimately convert the proposal to a resolution to avoid having to send it to the White House.

Okay. Once again. Which part of non-binding don't people understand here? This bit of political theater has turned into a theater of the absurd. The Decider has decided. He's made it clear that he doesn't care what any of you think and you just keep fiddling while Rome Iraq burns as if the musical accompaniment somehow makes it all better. Tell that to everyone who's being tortured, shot at, blown up and dying over there. Maybe you'd like to sing to them too?

Republicans are afraid to go on the record about how they feel about the troop escalation. Democrats are afraid to take a stand that would actually count for something. What about the Iraqis? Shouldn't they be the ones who have the right to be afraid here?

Who is Bush trying to fool?

"I welcome debate at a time of war and I hope you know that," Bush told House Democrats. "Nor do I consider a belief that if you don't happen to agree with me, you don't share the same sense of patriotism I do. You can get that thought out of your mind if that's what some believe."

link

January 14, 2007:

President Bush, facing opposition from both parties over his plan to send more troops to Iraq, said he has the authority to act no matter what Congress wants.

"I fully understand they could try to stop me from doing it. But I've made my decision. And we're going forward," Bush told CBS'"60 Minutes" in an interview to air Sunday night.

Vice President Dick Cheney asserted that lawmakers' criticism will not influence Bush's plans and he dismissed any effort to "run a war by committee."

"The president is the commander in chief. He's the one who has to make these tough decisions," Cheney said.
[...]
Any attempts to block Bush's efforts would undermine the troops, Cheney said.

On CBS's 60 Minutes, January 14, 2007:

I rely upon my National Security Council, and I expect everybody to make contributions, and I expect to hear everybody's opinions. And when I make up my mind, I expect them to salute and say, "Yes, sir, Mr. President."

And while he arrogantly expects everybody to salute him even though he is only the commander in chief to military personnel, this is where his failed policies have led:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed 135 people on Saturday in the deadliest single bombing in Iraq since the 2003 war, driving a truck laden with one ton of explosives into a market in a mainly Shi'ite area of Baghdad.
[...]
Police said 305 people were wounded. The casualties swamped the capital's hospitals. There were chaotic scenes at Ibn al- Nafis hospital in central Baghdad, where hallways overflowed with wounded on trolleys.

3 Gitmo Detainees Charged Including Canada's Khadr

Talk about a Friday nite news dump.

Via Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A military prosecutor has filed charges against an Australian, a Yemeni and a Canadian held at the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. Defense Department said on Friday.

"The Chief Prosecutor for the Office of Military Commissions has sworn charges against Guantanamo detainees David Hicks of Australia, Salim Hamdan of Yemen, and Omar Khadr of Canada," the Pentagon said in a statement.

The move was the first step toward trial under a new system of military commissions set up by the Bush administration last year.
[...]
The prosecutor filed charges against Hicks of providing material support for terrorism and attempted murder in violation of the law of war, the statement said.

The charges filed against Hamdan were conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism.

The prosecutor filed charges against Khadr of murder in violation of the law of war, attempted murder in violation of the law of war, spying, conspiracy and providing material support to terrorism, the statement said.

Our so-called "new" government has been silent about the fate of young Omar Khadr who was picked up in Afghanistan at age 15 and whose lawyers have exposed allegations of torture since he's been in Gitmo.

Meanwhile, the case of Australia's David Hicks has become a cause celebre in his native country and according to the newspaper The Age, US prosecutors waited until the day after Hicks' lawyers left Gitmo to announce the charges. What was the point of doing that? What a slap in the face.

Hamdan's case is, of course, now infamous. (See: Hamdan vs Rumsfeld). His Supreme Court case forced the Bush administration to back off its war crimes tribunals which eventually led to the ass backwards Detainee Bill that gave Bush powers no single person should ever have.

Besides the obvious need to go ahead with the Hicks and Hamdan trials, which have received the most publicity of all of the detainees currently held in Gitmo, the choice of Khadr is interesting especially since Bush was boasting about the supposed 14 'high-value' detainees the US government had finally moved from those overseas secret CIA prisons to Gitmo. When will they be charged and how much of their testimony will have been coerced via torture?

The prosecutors may have opened the floodgates to cries of outrage by reminding everyone that they've had a Canadian teenager imprisoned in Gitmo without charges for years now.

And what will our government do about his fate now? It's ironic that on the same day these charges were filed, some prominent Canadians including Conservatives - John Manley, Joe Clark, Lloyd Axworthy, Flora MacDonald, Bill Graham and Pierre Pettigrew, all former foreign affairs ministers - were urging Stephen Harper to speak up about Gitmo:

As former Canadian foreign ministers, we are deeply concerned by how the U.S.-run detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, flagrantly violates human rights, undermines the rule of law, and sends a signal to other governments that it is acceptable to abuse the rights of their citizens.

Many government leaders, United Nations human-rights experts and organizations such as Amnesty International, have called on U.S. President George Bush to close Guantanamo. Canada has played a key role in defending human rights, but, so far, the Canadian government has been notably silent on this matter.

We urge Prime Minister Stephen Harper to speak up. He must press the U.S. government to deal with Guantanamo detainees, and all other detainees held in the "war on terror," in a manner consistent with international human-rights standards. He should appeal to the U.S. to respect the rule of law and close Guantanamo.
[...]
Today, Guantanamo holds more than 400 detainees, including Omar Khadr, a Canadian. Mr. Khadr was a minor when he was apprehended by U.S. forces in Afghanistan more than four years ago. At Guantanamo, he reports being ill-treated and threatened with transfer to countries to be tortured. He is currently before one of the military commissions.

The U.S. government says that Guantanamo is needed to "fight terrorism" and "protect security," and that the response to "terrorist" threats cannot be bound by previously agreed international laws.

But abusing human rights in the name of "security" undermines the very values that the "war on terror" claims to defend. It also sends a signal to other countries that it is acceptable to disregard human rights — in recent years, there has been a disturbing increase in serious human-rights violations carried out in many countries under the name of "fighting terrorism."
[...]

We join Amnesty International, on the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-run detention centre, in asking Mr. Harper to press Washington to take the following minimal steps toward closing Guantanamo:

Release detainees immediately, unless they are to be charged and tried under recognized international standards of justice.

Do not send detainees to countries where they may face human-rights abuses.

Ensure that the ill-treatment and torture of detainees stop immediately.

Forbid the use of evidence obtained under torture or ill-treatment.

Permit UN and other international human-rights experts full and private access to detainees.

Bravo to all of them!

Will Harper join them?

That's unlikely:

July 2006

Harper’s determination not to ruffle U.S. feathers is evident in the case of Omar Khadr, the lone Canadian detainee being held at the American military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The U.S. Supreme Court last week ruled the Guantanamo military tribunals, where Khadr was to be tried on murder charges, are illegal and his lawyers want Canada to request his extradition.

But Harper has no plans to raise Khadr’s case with Bush, say officials in the Prime Minister’s Office, who call the terrors tribunal a matter of internal U.S. policy.

He had no qualms about ruffling the Chinese government's feathers over their human rights abuses but apparently his concern for his cozy relationship with Bush and his brush off of Khadr's fate as a "matter of internal U.S. policy" provide enough justification for his silence in this case.

Friday Fun: How to Piss off the Media Hordes

h/t AlterNet

The New Iraq NIE

The newest National Intelligence Estimate's (NIE) unclassified key judgments on Iraq were released on Friday and that summary is available here (pdf file).

Beyond what we already know, one conclusion is long overdue:

The Intelligence Community judges that the term “civil war” does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict in Iraq, which includes extensive Shia-on-Shia violence, al-Qa’ida and Sunni insurgent attacks on Coalition forces, and widespread criminally motivated violence. Nonetheless, the term “civil war” accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict, including the hardening of ethno-sectarian identities, a sea change in the character of the violence, ethno-sectarian mobilization, and population displacements.

This is what put the Bush administration between a rock and a hard place. They've repeatedly said they won't have US forces in the middle of an Iraqi civil war and have refused to identify the situation in Iraq as such as a result yet, there they are. The NIE concludes then that an immediate withdrawal would be a mistake and goes on to to (predictably) warn against Iranian and Syrian influence although it doesn't extend their influence to the fearmongering levels Bushco has employed.

Iraq’s neighbors influence, and are influenced by, events within Iraq, but the involvement of these outside actors is not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospects for stability because of the self-sustaining character of Iraq’s internal sectarian dynamics. Nonetheless, Iranian lethal support for select groups of Iraqi Shia militants clearly intensifies the conflict in Iraq. Syria continues to provide safehaven for expatriate Iraqi Bathists and to take less than adequate measures to stop the flow of foreign jihadists into Iraq.

The NIE also warns about a possible sectarian partition in the country (which John Bolton and Joe Biden endorse):

Chaos Leading to Partition. With a rapid deterioration in the capacity of Iraq’s central government to function, security services and other aspects of sovereignty would collapse. Resulting widespread fighting could produce de facto partition, dividing Iraq into three mutually antagonistic parts. Collapse of this magnitude would generate fierce violence for at least several years, ranging well beyond the time frame of this Estimate, before settling into a partially stable end-state.

The NIE quite rightly describes the political divisions between the Shi'a, Sunnis and Kurds and offers some "if only" statements about what might occur if they could somehow work out their differences however it doesn't offer any real, immediate or effective options for settling those differences. The presence of coalition forces in Iraq seems to be a sidebar as it seems they're only there acting as a small bandaid on a gushing head wound.

Iraqi society’s growing polarization, the persistent weakness of the security forces and the state in general, and all sides’ ready recourse to violence are collectively driving an increase in communal and insurgent violence and political extremism. Unless efforts to reverse these conditions show measurable progress during the term of this Estimate, the coming 12 to 18 months, we assess that the overall security situation will continue to deteriorate at rates comparable to the latter part of 2006.

Bush, of course, seems to think that his troop escalation will bring about some of that 'measurable progress'. Wiser minds in congress disagree. And so they should. The result of any non-binding resolution however will be a timid slap on the president's wrist and that's not helpful to anyone.

Update: Welcome Slate readers!

Climate Change: Payoffs, Lobbyists and Denial

This is how desperate some people are to hide the truth about climate change.

Via The Guardian:

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.
[...]

The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.

The letters, sent to scientists in Britain, the US and elsewhere, attack the UN's panel as "resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work" and ask for essays that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs".

Climate scientists described the move yesterday as an attempt to cast doubt over the "overwhelming scientific evidence" on global warming. "It's a desperate attempt by an organisation who wants to distort science for their own political aims," said David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.
[...]
Ben Stewart of Greenpeace said: "The AEI is more than just a thinktank, it functions as the Bush administration's intellectual Cosa Nostra. They are White House surrogates in the last throes of their campaign of climate change denial. They lost on the science; they lost on the moral case for action. All they've got left is a suitcase full of cash."

The article also says:

On Monday, another Exxon-funded organisation based in Canada will launch a review in London which casts doubt on the IPCC report. Among its authors are Tad Murty, a former scientist who believes human activity makes no contribution to global warming. Confirmed VIPs attending include Nigel Lawson and David Bellamy, who believes there is no link between burning fossil fuels and global warming.

Why is ExxonMobil running scared? Could it be because they just realized an obscene amount of profit?

HOUSTON ---- Oil giant Exxon Mobil topped its own record for the biggest annual profit by a U.S. company last year, racking up earnings that amounted to $4.5 million an hour for the world's largest publicly traded oil company.

I guess putting a dent in that $4.5 million an hour just scares the pants off their corporate execs. I mean, really. How could any company possibly survive on less than that?? Next thing you know they'll be standing in line at the food bank.

It's certainly not surprising that the neocon AEI would be trying to pay off scientists and economists.

AEI rents office space to the Project for the New American Century, one of the leading voices that pushed the Bush administration's plan for "regime change" through war in Iraq. AEI reps have also aggressively denied that the war has anything to do with oil.

Right. And I'm the tooth fairy.

And who is Canada's Tad Murty? He's an active member of the group called the Friends of Science. And who are the Friends of Science? And what relationship do they with the current Conservative government?

...the chief architect of the Friends of Science is Dr. Barry Cooper, Calgary University Professor and long-time confidante of Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper.

Dr. Cooper is a very well-known member of the so-called “Calgary School,” a group of U of C professors attributed with the rise of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the ruling Conservative Party of Canada.

Cooper is also Stephen Harper’s fishing buddy**. With Harper and his Conservatives scrapping climate change programs and moving away from the Kyoto Accord, the Friends of Science seem to be a well-timed, well-aligned third-party endorser that can create the public doubt Harper needs. And it's all orchestrated by one of Harper's closest allies.

As the air thickens, so does the plot...

Is anyone out there still wondering why Harper used the phrase "so-called greenhouse gases"?

Suddenly, recycling my pop cans just seems so futile.

** a must read

Related: Mr. Cool - Nurturing doubt about climate change is big business

Update: The IPCC report has been released and you can find it on their site here.

During his press conference on Friday, Harper accused the opposition of not having any plans to deal with climate change. On Thursday however, the Liberals released this statement:

Mr. Dion also dispelled the Conservative misinformation about the Liberal record on climate change and the environment. He pointed out that despite the obstinate opposition of the Conservatives, and the Canadian Alliance before them, the previous Liberal government took many steps to improve the environment and reduce GHG emissions, culminating in the 2005 Budget and Project Green, which the Sierra Club of Canada called “probably the most innovative approach anywhere in the world for a government to actually reduce emissions.”

“Thanks to the previous Liberal government, Mr. Harper had the legal framework to take action; he had a full set of programs already in operation; and by sheer coincidence, his environment minister had the chairmanship of the UN Conference on Climate Change – the perfect vehicle for Canada to play a positive role in the world,” said Mr. Dion.

“But Mr. Harper squandered this opportunity, cutting $5.6 billion from climate change programs, depriving Canadians of information by removing every trace of Project Green from government web-sites, and actively and deliberately undermining the Kyoto Accord.”

Leahy is Briefed on Arar's Case

In January, Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy tore a strip out of Alberto Gonzales over the case of Maher Arar. Gonzales promised to supply the committee with a report on the matter.

On Thursday, justice department officials met with Leahy and Arlen Specter:

WASHINGTON: The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Thursday the Justice Department has not convinced him that U.S. officials acted properly in deporting a Syrian-born Canadian to Syria rather than to his home in Canada.

Maher Arar was detained at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport in 2002 as he arrived to change planes heading home from a vacation. After a week's detention, Arar was deported by private jet to Syria, where he — and a Canadian commission that investigated his case — said he was tortured.
[...]
"I still have concerns," the Judiciary chairman, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, told reporters after an hour and 40 minutes in a private briefing by Justice Department officials.

Chief among them, Leahy said, is why U.S. officials deported Arar thousands of miles (kilomters) to Syria, where he could have been expected to be tortured, rather than the short distance to Canada.

The committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter, also at the briefing, said, "This matter is under very intensive congressional oversight."

The senators said they could not discuss the classified material they had seen and declined even to say whether they agree with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that Arar's name should remain on the U.S. terrorist watch list.

Leahy also wants the GAO (Government Accountability Office) to look into why Arar is still on the no-fly list.

This is far from being over.

The US Government HAS Been Talking to Iran

The Bush administration continually asserts that it absolutely refuses to speak to the Iranian government until it stops the development of its nuclear program.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. A question about the Iraq Study Group Report. One of the things that it recommends is greater dialogue, direct talks with Syria and Iran. James Baker himself, Secretary of State under your father, says that it's a lot like it was during the Cold War when we talked to the Soviet Union. He says it's important to talk to your adversaries. Is he wrong?

THE PRESIDENT: Let me start with Iran. We made it perfectly clear to them what it takes to come to the table, and that is a suspension of their enrichment program. If they verifiably suspend -- that they've stopped enrichment, we will come to the table with our EU3 partners and Russia, and discuss a way forward for them.
- Press Conference, December 2006

We now discover - tucked away in an Australian newspaper story - that the US government has been speaking to them after all:

"We warned Iran privately on a number of occasions over the last year and a half and the Iranians, of course, did not appear to listen to that, so now we've begun to detain those Iranian officials [in Iraq]," [US Undersecretary of State] Burns said.

This echoes the denials the Bush administration has made about talking to Syria and North Korea, while actually doing so.

Smells Like Pre-Iraq War Intel

So...what was it I was writing about just the other day? Oh yes - how this aggressiveness towards Iran coming out of the White House smells just like 2003.

Last week, the Bush administration announced that it would reveal its so-called "dossier" that would provide proof of Iran's meddling in Iraq. The release of that report has now been delayed:

U.S. officials promised last week to provide evidence of Iranian activities that led President Bush to announce Jan. 10 that U.S. forces would begin taking the offensive against Iranian agents who threatened Americans.

But some officials in Washington are concerned that some of the material may be inconclusive and that other data cannot be released without jeopardizing intelligence sources and methods. They want to avoid repeating the embarrassment that followed the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, when it became clear that information the administration cited to justify the war was incorrect, said the officials, who described the internal discussions on condition of anonymity.

Forget the part about "jeopardizing intelligence sources and methods". That's just a smokescreen. They're pushing too hard - playing fast and loose - just like they did in 2002/2003, and they know it.

The current debate pits some U.S. diplomatic and military officials in Iraq, who are seeking to compile an aggressive case on Iran, against other officials in Washington, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who are urging greater caution, according to the officials, who spoke in the last several days.

And if you believe that, I have some swampland to sell you. Rice is Bush's puppet. She'll go along with whatever her husband The Decider decides. As for those who may actually be trying to speak truth to power, it would be nice if they'd actually stop hiding behind their anonymity. They should know by now that the public admires that rare thing called "truth" and that their open dissent would be welcome. However, since the Bush administration is so quick to fire people who oppose the annointed one's divine plans, I suppose they'd like to keep their jobs for a while longer.

Related:
Cruise Missile Diplomacy; Bush Targets Iran
Report: US Plans Strike Against Iran

Quote du Jour: It's only fun til someone gets run over...

Bush looked out the tractor's window and laughed, steering the massive machine into the spot where most of the press corps had been positioned. The episode lasted about a minute, and Bush was still laughing when he pulled to a stop. He gave reporters a thumbs-up. "If you've never driven a D-10, it's the coolest experience," Bush said afterward. Yeah, almost as much fun as seeing your life flash before your eyes.

Read about the entire hair-raising, near-reporter-flattening experience here.