Friday Cartoon Fun: Flight Suit Edition

Tuesday Cartoon Fun: Canceled Trip Edition

Thursday Cartoon Fun: Derision Points Edition

Sentence Of The Day

Obama praised W's love and support of the troops in his recent speech.   Rick Hertzberg responds:

That was kind—and not untrue, as far as it went: there is no reason to doubt that the personal motivations of the second President Bush in launching the invasion and occupation of Iraq included the fine sentiments that his successor now attributes to him, even if these were mixed with others less fine, such as a desire to avenge his father and outdo him in a single bold stroke of Oedipal filial piety.

Do You Know This Kid XXII? Updated

This kid was born in 1946. He is, and apparently was, a sports nut. Some think he is a genius, others think he is a moron. He is famous to some, infamous to others. He is related to famous and powerful people.

He is a douchebag.

Update: Dave Mandell got it, and got it fast.  This is George W. Bush.  He ruined America.

Red Cross: America Tortured (They Are The Last Word, Too)

Jonathan Turley makes the case for war crimes trials. Again.

International Red Cross Defines Bush Interrogations As Torture

The International Committee of the Red Cross added its considerable authority and voice to those who have called the Bush interrogation policies torture under international law. Now, Bush officials, bar groups, countless experts, and leading international organizations have all agreed that Bush ran a torture program prohibited under a variety of treaties. Those treaties require the United States to investigate and prosecute such acts as war crimes. Yet, President Barack Obama continues to block any such investigation in flagrant violation of international law.

The International Red Cross is viewed as a definitive voice on such matters [emphasis mine] and issued a secret report that informed the Bush Administration that what it was doing was torture under international law.

The IRC was given access to 14 of the CIA’s “high-value” detainees after they were transferred in 2006 to Guantanamo Bay. One such detainee was Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian man who ran Al Qaeda recruitment. Zubaydah said in the weeks after he was captured, he was shackled naked while listening to consistent music or static. He also says he had limited nourishment and was not allowed to sleep.

President Obama has insisted that “no one is above the law” but has refused to allow an investigation into a clear and knowing war crime by his predecessor. Under international law, such obstruction is itself a serious violation. Various senators and Bush officials have stated that, while Obama was pledging to guarantee that no one is above the law in such matters, he and Holder were assuring people privately that there would be no investigations into war crimes, here and here.

There is an obvious belief in the Administration that an investigation of President Bush and his aides would endanger the Democratic hold in Congress and the president reelection. The problem has been the relatively passive role of the mainstream media on the story. There is a clear obligation of the Obama Administration to investigate and prosecute these crimes. Yet, the media has treated this as largely a political story and have rarely raised it with the President or pushed him on how he can say that “no one is above the law” while preventing high-ranking officials from being criminally investigated, let alone prosecuted.

For the full story, click here.

Prosecute Torture, Mr. President

Mark Danner has a story in the NYT about torture. I do not want to be associated with what I read. I assume most Americans would rather not be associated with these horrors. Here is just a snippet:

Tales From Torture’s Dark World

He was stripped and put in a small cell. “I was kept for one month in the cell in a standing position with my hands cuffed and shackled above my head and my feet cuffed and shackled to a point in the floor,” he told the Red Cross.

“Of course during this month I fell asleep on some occasions while still being held in this position. This resulted in all my weight being applied to the handcuffs around my wrist, resulting in open and bleeding wounds. [Scars consistent with this allegation were visible on both wrists as well as on both ankles.] Both my feet became very swollen after one month of almost continual standing.”

For interrogation, Mr. Mohammed was taken to a different room. The sessions lasted for as long as eight hours and as short as four.

“If I was perceived not to be cooperating I would be put against a wall and punched and slapped in the body, head and face. A thick flexible plastic collar would also be placed around my neck so that it could then be held at the two ends by a guard who would use it to slam me repeatedly against the wall. The beatings were combined with the use of cold water, which was poured over me using a hose-pipe.”

As with Abu Zubaydah, the harshest sessions involved the “alternative set of procedures” used in sequence and in combination, one technique intensifying the effects of the others:

“The beatings became worse and I had cold water directed at me from a hose-pipe by guards while I was still in my cell. The worst day was when I was beaten for about half an hour by one of the interrogators. My head was banged against the wall so hard that it started to bleed. Cold water was poured over my head. This was then repeated with other interrogators. Finally I was taken for a session of water boarding. The torture on that day was finally stopped by the intervention of the doctor.”

We must be vocal and press for trials against those that perpetrated these awful crimes. Obama must be held to an exceptionally high standard; the standard I thought I voted for!

What's With The Brits Being All, For Lack Of A Better Word, Right?

From Newshoggers, more British getting things righter than us!

Destructive Criticism Is Warranted For Torture Cover-up

By Steve Hynd

The Guardian's frontpage headliner article on Britain's complicity in US detainee programs has a lede that doesn't pull any punches:

UK hid illegal acts and breached basic human rights of detainees in US rendition programme, report finds.

Britain has been condemned in a highly critical United Nations report for breaching basic human rights and "trying to conceal illegal acts" in the fight against terrorism.

The article continues:

The report accuses British intelligence officers of interviewing detainees held incommunicado in Pakistan in "so-called safe houses where they were being tortured".

It adds that Britain, with a number of countries, has sent interrogators to Guantánamo Bay in a further example of what it says "can be reasonably understood as implicitly condoning" torture and ill-treatment, adding that the US was able to create its system for moving terror suspects around foreign jails only with the support of its allies.

Some individuals faced "prolonged and secret detention" and practices that breached bans on torture and other forms of ill-treatment, the report says.

...It adds: "Grave human rights violations by States such as torture, enforced disappearances or arbitrary detention should therefore place serious constraints on policies of cooperation by States, including by their intelligence agencies, with States that are known to violate human rights. The prohibition against torture is an absolute and peremptory norm of international law".

It continues: "The active or passive participation by States in the interrogation of persons held by another State constitutes an internationally wrongful act if the State knew or ought to have known that the person was facing a real risk of torture or other prohibited treatment, including arbitrary detention."

Illegal acts that breached basic human rights. That's how the world sees it, because that's how it is.

In the UK, the independent reviewer of terror laws Lord Carlisle has called for a judicial inquiry into British government and intelligence complicity in American programs, which could easily lead to prosecutions from highest to lowest. Lawmakers have become increasingly vocal, on a bipartisan basis, in calling for full accountability. People are shocked and angry that their nation was involved, even at a slight remove, in such wholesale breaking of some of the most valued international laws.

Yet here in America we've a situation where the guy who ran for the highest office on a platform that included ending those illegal acts has:

- Used a blanket state secrets defense to stiffle legal accountability for internationally wrongful acts and keep lawsuits out of the courts.

- Said via his officials that he's not going to prosecute those who actually tortured or perpetrated other abuses of human rights..

- Defended even the lawyers who criminally gave justifications for these illegal acts.

- Shown no inclination to indict those who have publicly admitted ordering these grave human rights violations.

Today on CNN, Markos Moulitsas said that progressives' challenge was to tread "that line from destructive criticism to constructive criticism".

I've no problem whatsoever with saying that if the Obama administration lets the orderers, justifiers and perpetrators of these crimes against humanity walk away from justice then the criticism should be destructive. No matter what else they might accomplish, they will not deserve our support if there's not enough change on this issue. It's just that big of a deal.

Sunday Cartoon Fun: A Son Visits His Family Edition

Bush Is A Rapist

From Scott Horton:

Third, the Nelly account shows that health professionals are right in the thick of the torture and abuse of the prisoners—suggesting a systematic collapse of professional ethics driven by the Pentagon itself. He describes body searches undertaken for no legitimate security purpose, simply to sexually invade and humiliate the prisoners. This was a standardized Bush Administration tactic–the importance of which became apparent to me when I participated in some Capitol Hill negotiations with White House representatives relating to legislation creating criminal law accountability for contractors. The Bush White House vehemently objected to provisions of the law dealing with rape by instrumentality. When House negotiators pressed to know why, they were met first with silence and then an embarrassed acknowledgment that a key part of the Bush program included invasion of the bodies of prisoners in a way that might be deemed rape by instrumentality under existing federal and state criminal statutes. While these techniques have long been known, the role of health care professionals in implementing them is shocking.

Neely’s account demonstrates once more how much the Bush team kept secret and how little we still know about their comprehensive program of official cruelty and torture. [emphasis mine]

Just disgusting. Can we prosecute these bastards, please?

24 Years Worth!

All the living Presidents in a row. Jimmy and Bill hate each other. It's still an awesome picture. Notice the colors of the ties. Hmmm.