Little Blue Racquetballs

The end of the war is not near

2009-03-23T11:09:00.005-04:00

Delivered by Ron Paul to the U.S. House of Representatives on March 4, 2009.
Transcribed by Matthew Matrisciano.
• WATCH ON YOUTUBE •

Mr. Speaker, the end of the war is not near. I might ask, are the troops coming home from Iraq as promised? Not quite. Sixteen months is too quick, so the plan now is to do it in thirty-four months. The administration claims all the troops will be out of Iraq by the end of 2011. Sure they will. We’re told that 50,000 U.S. troops will still be in Iraq in August of 2010, and we’re supposed to cheer. We’re told that they won’t be combat troops, so we’re to believe that means they won’t be exposed to any danger. If they are non-combat troops, does that mean they are bureaucrats, policemen, teachers, or soldiers without weapons?

This will hardly satisfy the Iraqis, who resent any foreign troops at all in their country. A U.S. puppet government protected by 50,000 American soldiers is not the road to peace. Would the Iranian-friendly Shiite majority not be motivated to take advantage of the instability we have created? Will the 100,000 Sunni militants we arm and subsidize continue to obey our wishes?

It sounds to me like a powder keg exists with the indecisiveness of our Iraqi policy. There is no intention to close [down] the dozens of military bases that now exist. The world’s biggest embassy will remain in Baghdad and incite continued resentment toward the American occupation. Our soldiers will remain easy targets of the rightfully angry nationalists. Our presence will serve as an incentive for al-Qaeda to grow in numbers and motivate more suicide bombers. An indefinite presence, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan, will continue to drain our financial resources, undermine our national defense, demoralize our military, and exacerbate our financial crisis. All this will be welcomed by Osama bin Laden, just as he planned it—and actually more than he had hoped for.

More likely, the outcome will be that greater than 50,000 Americans will be in Iraq in August of 2010, especially when the contractors are counted. Violence will accelerate. We will be an occupier at the end of 2011, and we will remain a pariah in the Middle East. The war in Afghanistan and Pakistan will be much bigger—unless the dollar follows the path of the dollar-based world financial system, and collapses into runaway inflation. In this case, the laws of economics and the realities of history will prove superior to the madness of maintaining a world empire financed by scraps of paper. Our military prowess, backed by a nuclear arsenal, will not suffice in overcoming the tragedy of a currency crisis. Soviet nukes did not preserve its empire or the communist economy.

This crisis demands that we quickly come to our senses and reject the foreign policy of interventionism. Neither credit coming from a Federal Reserve computer nor dollars coming from a printing press can bail us out of this mess—only the rule of law, commodity money, and liberty can do that.

Mr. Speaker, let’s consider reinstating the Constitution before it’s too late.

If it ain't broke, the government will try and break it.

2009-03-19T10:57:00.003-04:00

From the AP: "Lack of a seat belt law could cost Kansas millions."

But I thought seatbelt laws were to keep people safe, to keep them from dying! What sort of devilry is this, that a seatbelt law would simply be about state revenue?

Il denaro fuori dal nulla!

2009-01-30T11:11:00.004-05:00

In a classic example of government breaking something even more by trying to fix it comes this news from D.C.:

President Barack Obama is hailing Senate passage of legislation providing government-sponsored health care to roughly 4 million uninsured children.

You and I and everyone else all knew that this or something in the vein of it was in the works and would be passed rather quickly. Obama is all about bringing Change! to the U.S., whatever it might be. Change!, my friends, is coming, and it's oddly not all too different from what we've had for the last several years. But Change! is not the focus of my post but, rather, this golden nugget:

Obama's statement said the Senate vote is especially significant at a time when "the worsening economy causes families to lose their jobs and health insurance."

Where is the money for this coming from, might I ask? Well, since this is a government-sponsored and -run program, one can rightly assume that the money is coming from the government. Where does the government get its money from? Taxes. Whom does the government tax? The people. Upon whom does the economy depend? The people. Sounds like a winner to me, Mr. Obama!

The inauguration of Barack Obama as the forty-fourth president of the United States or: Incontra il direttore nuovo, uguale a il direttore precedente

2009-01-23T16:56:00.012-05:00

All of the excitement over Barack Obama's inauguration is, quite frankly, disgusting, sickening, and shortsighted. He's going to bring "Change!" to America, he's going to magically fix the economy, he's going to fix our foreign policy, he's going to fix the environment, he's going to do everything that everyone wants and more, and only at the low, low price of ever-increasing federal debt. Anyone who wanted actual change should have supported Ron Paul, who has consistently actually done what he's said. Sfortunatamente that ship has sailed, and I don't see a chance for a true candidate for change for a long, long time. I must deal with what we have now: an imposter of a candidate for change.

I had the pleasure of helping my class attempt to watch Obama's inauguration Tuesday. Because of a comment on a certain Slashdot article a short while back I discovered that the Senate had set up a website to stream the inauguration using Flash. When my professor ran into restrictions on every major news website she went to, I directed her to the Senate website. Of course, the webserver was painfully slow, so the speech was constantly rebuffering, and five or six minutes before class ended she said we could have left already.

So I left. I was starving, and I went to the Circle K just down the street and got myself a soda and candy bar and sat in the adjoining restaurant. Of course, it had a TV, and of course the TV was playing the inauguration. The group of people was two or three times larger than my class yet was much more muted. Perhaps out of awe, but I certainly appreciated the relative silence. For all of Obama's talk about change I really couldn't and can't see any, just a few superficial things he'll be doing differently.

And because of my inability to spot any real change in Obama's plans, I have to admit that I was surprised to read that Obama has lifted Ashcroft's restrictions on the Freedom of Information Act, and has also signed an order to close the U.S.'s prison at Guantanamo Bay within one year. These two bits of news ever-so-slightly tempered my distrust of and cynicism toward Obama, in part because I thought he might actually want to approach the Neverending War—excuse me, War on Terrorism—in a different manner, but mainly because I had stopped caring about Barack Obama in much the same way that I had stopped caring about George W. Bush when I became a minarchist in high school.

My cynicism and distrust were brought back in full force, however, when I returned from Publix this afternoon to find an altogether unsurprising article on Slashdot, bastion of nerd-intellectual news that it is: "Obama sides with Bush in spy case." The blurb handily summarizes—a first for Slashdot—the linked Threat Level article:

President Obama has publicly sided with the Bush administration on the question of whether the President should be allowed to establish warrantless wiretapping programs designed to monitor U.S. citizens. "Thursday's filing by the Obama administration marked the first time it officially lodged a court document in the lawsuit asking the courts to rule on the constitutionality of the Bush administration's warrantless-eavesdropping program."

I don't know about you, but for all his talk of transparency and openness, I don't think that Obama will live up to much or any of it. He's in charge now, his party is in charge of the executive and the legislative—and when you and your coworkers or cow-orkers or cohorts or fellow mob-men and lawyers are in control of everything, it's really hard to do away with such a convenient thing as warrantless wiretaps. Of course, the cynic in me believes that even if the stay isn't a gesture of support for Bush, and even if Obama really does do away with the warrantless-wiretapping program, that there will still be widespread warrantless wiretapping—how's that for an alliteration?—but that it simply won't be public knowledge.

And just because you can request certain information from the government doesn't mean that you'll get it, and even if you get it, you might not necessarily be getting the actual information.

I do, however, see the administration's request for a stay as its taking the Bush administration's side because Obama voted for telecom immunity:

The Obama administration is also siding with the former administration in its legal defense of July legislation that immunizes the nation's telecommunications companies from lawsuits accusing them of complicitity in Bush's eavesdropping program, according to testimony last week by incoming Attorney General Eric Holder.

That immunity legislation, which Obama voted for when he was a U.S. senator from Illinois, was included in a broader spy package that granted the government wide-ranging, warrantless eavesdropping powers on Americans' electronic communications.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Change has finally come to the United States, and it's never seemed so familiar.

2007-02-02T20:25:00.000-05:00

White House caught doctoring "Mission Accomplished" video

Apparently the Bush administration has taken the Winston Churchill quote "History is written by the victors" into the video age. The official White House website is now sporting a very different version of President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech. In this exclusive video, Inside Minnesota Politics' Mike McIntee shows how the "Mission Accomplished" banner on the USS Abraham Lincoln has apparently been crudely cropped out of the video.

Gore Vidal – “The most important election in my lifetime”

2006-11-06T22:56:00.000-05:00

Gore Vidal speaks with Truthdig’s Robert Scheer about the significance of the upcoming 2006 election.

Bush administration: Ex-CIA prisoner shouldn’t speak to attorney

2006-11-05T17:08:00.000-05:00

A suspected terrorist who spent years in a secret CIA prison should not be allowed to speak to a civilian attorney, the Bush administration argues, because he could reveal the agency’s closely guarded interrogation techniques.

Everything the government does is something that cannot and should not be discussed. In fact, I’m sure Bush thinks that the very fact that we’re talking about the CIA’s “techniques” is aiding the enemy.

Human rights groups have questioned the CIA’s methods for questioning suspects, especially following the passage of a bill last month that authorized the use of harsh—but undefined—interrogation tactics.

In recently filed court documents, the Justice Department said those methods, along with the locations of the CIA’s network of prisons, are among the nation’s most sensitive secrets. Prisoners who spent time in those prisons should not be allowed to disclose that information, even to a lawyer, the government said.

That prisoners should not be allowed to disclose “interrogation techniques” to their attorneys conveniently crushes their cases against the government, since their attorneys don’t have any testimony as to what occured in the CIA’s prisons.

“Improper disclosure of other operational details, such as interrogation methods, could also enable terrorist organizations and operatives to adapt their training to counter such methods, thereby obstructing the CIA’s ability to obtain vital intelligence that could disrupt future planned terrorist attacks,” the Justice Department wrote.

In related news, President Bush has recently urged Congress to ban sledgehammers across the nation. “Sledgehammers, once used for driving stakes into the ground for fences and scarecrows and such are increasingly being used to demolish houses and attack people. Terr’ists can easily purchase sledgehammers at local hardware stores and utilize them as weapons when attempting to hijack an airliner.” When it was pointed out that sledgehammers aren’t allowed on commercial flights, the president responded: “The very fact that we’re discussing illegal and dangerous uses of sledgehammers gives the terr’ists priceless knowledge about how to utilize them to carry out the plans.” When the reporter pointed out that it was the president himself who not only initiated sledgehammer discussion but also revealed the dangerous uses, the president responded: “How about a little dunk in the water for the reporter pesterin’ me?” The reporter was seized by two Secret Service agents and dragged out of the press room yelling.

According to documents filed on his behalf by the Center for Constitutional Rights, Khan was arrested in Pakistan in 2003. During more than three years in CIA custody, Khan was subjected to interrogation techniques that defense attorneys suggest amounted to torture.

The biggest issue I have with the Big Media and Big-Government Idiots is that they treats the government’s word as gold and dismiss any allegations. They don’t look at what is actually being said; they just assume that the government is right and the proles are wrong. “The government says rape and waterboarding aren’t torture? All right, they’re not. Former prisoner says he was raped and waterboarded and claims that he was, therefore, tortured? He wasn’t.”

There is a poll located in the column left of the article. The question it poses is this: “Should CIA interrogation tactics be a state secret?” I voted “No,” of course, and when the results window opened, I was not shocked but depressed.

The results were 51% for “No“ and 49% for “Yes”—practically a tie. I never thought I’d see the day that the people of the United States would be evenly split on whether or not the government should keep its illegal and immoral “harsh interrogation techniques” a secret.

Come to think of it, I never thought I’d see the day where the United States federal government would admit to torturing, either.

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Communication without bloggication

2006-11-04T16:34:00.000-05:00

There are several stories that make it to the news that I don’t talk about simply because there’s nothing I have to say other than a few cursewords and a sigh of depression. Back when I started Little Blue Racquetballs, I started a message board for any readers that the blog might accumulate. I don’t have too many readers (I think three), but I still want to actually make a post about the message board that’s been available since the beginning.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Racquetboard.

Army recruiters mislead students to get them to enlist

2006-11-04T12:32:00.000-05:00

ABC News and New York affiliate WABC equipped students with hidden video cameras before they visited ten Army recruitment offices in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

But isn’t that illegal? If the recruiters knew they were being videotaped, then they wouldn’t have resorted to their tactics! That’s entrapment!

“Nobody is going over to Iraq anymore?” one student asks a recruiter.

“No, we’re bringing people back,” he replies.

Someone in my church has a husband fighting in Iraq. Earlier this year he was wounded and was supposed to be sent back to Alaska for medical treatment. Instead, the army kept him in Iraq, did a quick job, and sent him back out. That’s definitely “bringing people back.”

“We’re not at war. War ended a long time ago,” another recruiter says.

Ass.

One Colorado student taped a recruiting session posing as a drug-addicted dropout.

“You mean I'm not going to get in trouble?” the student asked.

The recruiters told him no, and helped him cheat to sign up.

The army’s really desperate for recruits these days, isn’t it? That’s ok, just ban freedom of the press, and you’ll be able to get boatloads more recruits without having to lie!

“It’s hard to believe some of things they are telling prospective applicants,” Manning said. “I still believe that this is the exception more than the norm....”

The first stage is always denial.

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Britons warier of Bush than of Kim Jong Il

2006-11-03T16:20:00.000-05:00

The United States is seen as a threat to world peace by its closest neighbors and allies, with Britons saying President Bush poses a greater danger than North Korea’s Kim Jong Il, a survey found Friday.

Their apprehension is not misplaced. Our president—and every president before him back to FDR—has threatened to attack and invade any country that doesn’t agree with the United States and the United Nations.

A majority of people quizzed in three out of four countries polled also rejected the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

I wonder how many Americans reject the Iraq invasion. I know that most are ready for the U.S. to pull out of Iraq, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that most opposed the war itself.

In Britain, which alongside Israel is traditionally a close Washington ally, 69% of those questioned said they felt U.S. policy had made the world less safe since 2001.

A majority of Canadians and Mexicans agreed, with 62% of those polled in Canada and 57% in Mexico saying their neighbor’s policy had made the world more dangerous.

As for Israel, just 25% of people asked said Bush had made the world safer, while 36% felt he had upped the risk of conflict and a further 30 percent said at best he had made no difference.

Well, Mr. Bush, it looks like it’s time to invade the UK, Canada, Israel, and Mexico. After all, they don’t agree with us. They think our war is wrong. Yes, Mr. Bush, our war. And by our, I mean the U.S. and UN’s.

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Keith Olberman – Habeas Corpus

2006-10-28T12:14:00.000-04:00

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Keith Olberman breaks down the government's stripping away of the Bill of Rights and explains what the recent doing–away with Habeus Corpus means to us all.

White House: Cheney did not back simluated drowning

2006-10-27T14:27:00.000-04:00

President Bush said on Friday the United States does not condone torture after Vice President Dick Cheney agreed with a questioner this week that a “dunk in water” for terrorism suspects might be useful.

Cheney was asked on Tuesday by a conservative radio host from Fargo, North Dakota: “Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?”

“Well, it’s a no-brainer for me,” Cheney replied.

If Cheney says that “a dunk in the water is a no-brainer if it can save lives,” then how can he not support “simulated drowning,” more commonly called waterboarding?

His comment prompted complaints from human rights advocates that he was endorsing a technique called “waterboarding” that simulates drowning and is considered torture by some critics.

Now for my favorite part: quoting Wikipedia.

Waterboarding is a method of torture used in coercive interrogations or for punishment. In modern practice it simulates drowning and produces a gag reflex, making the subject believe his or her death is imminent while ideally not causing permanent physical damage.

If you’re convinced that your interrogators are intent on drowning you, and they practically are, you’re what the CIA calls “intimidated.” You’re afraid for your life. You’re not merely being questioned; you’re being tortured.

“If Iran or Syria detained an American, Cheney is saying that it would be perfectly fine for them to hold that American’s head under water until he nearly drowns, if that's what they think they need to do to save Iranian or Syrian lives,“ said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.

Perhaps neocon citizens—not the politicians—really do need the tables figuratively reversed in order to see the problem with their methods.

“This country doesn't torture. We’re not going to torture. We will interrogate people we pick up off the battlefield to determine whether or not they’ve got information that will be helpful to protect the country,” Bush said.

The United States doesn’t torture, and yet it does. Sheer brilliance: Tell the people that torture isn’t torture, and voila!—you aren’t torturing anymore.

White House spokesman Tony Snow insisted that U.S. officials do not talk publicly about interrogation techniques because they are classified.

“The vice president didn’t make any comments about waterboarding,” Snow said at a contentious morning briefing.

Come on, Mr. Snow. What else is a “dunk in the water” but waterboarding?

He shrugged off Cheney’s answer to what Snow dismissed as a “loosely worded question.”

“Loosely worded,” eh? Like I said immediately above, what else is a “dunk in the water” but waterboarding? Going for a midsummer swim with CIA agents?

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U.S. official: Britain sees one more year in Iraq

2006-10-24T15:51:00.000-04:00

The British military hopes to withdraw troops from Iraq within about 12 months, according to a U.S. defense official who said the UK government wants to focus its force on the war in Afghanistan.

What makes the UK so special? Why can’t U.S. troops be withdrawn as well?

British officials have told their U.S. counterparts the UK military was “near the breaking point” given long deployments in Iraq and weak retention of personnel, the American official said on Tuesday.

The official’s comments, made on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, come as diplomats and military leaders publicly debate strategy in Iraq.

Britain’s army chief said earlier this month troops should withdraw soon because their presence was making security worse. But the U.S. official’s comments offer the first hint Britain's military may have a timetable in mind.

“It’s about a year, give or take a few months,” the official said.

“Give or take a few months,” eh? I thought that UK troops were “near the breaking point.” If that’s true—and it probably is morale-wise—why not pull the troops out now, or three or four months from now?

Oh, right, because looking like you’re doing what the people want is much better than actually doing what the people want.

Another U.S. defense official downplayed the British discussions of troop levels as regular, internal military reviews and said the British government had not approached senior U.S. officials with adjustment plans or timetables.

Trust me, it’s much better to at least pretend to be planning to withdraw troops “soon” rather than blatantly denying that you’re doing so. Then again, very few in government actually trust the people they’re ruling.

“The Brits are very conscious of public opinion and things there are maybe worse than here,” a third U.S. official said.

It’s such a same we aren’t “very conscious” of public opinion. Actually, most Americans are, but the government isn’t—which means that it’s such a shame that American leaders are “rather opposed” to American public opinion.

Britain’s withdrawal could put more stress on U.S. forces, already facing equipment and funding shortfalls and the possibility of repeat tours in Iraq.

Of course, if we weren’t in Iraq in the first place, we wouldn’t have to worry about such things—and we wouldn’t have to mourn the death of family and friends. The same goes for any (and every) other country aiding the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

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Bush resists major course change in Iraq

2006-10-21T12:06:00.000-04:00

President Bush said on Friday he will resist election-year pressure for a major shift in strategy in Iraq, despite growing doubts among Americans and anxiety over the war among Republican lawmakers.

And why should he listen to the people? What was it he said back in April?

I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I’m the decider, and I decide what is best.

Methinks he doth not counsel the people.

“Our goal in Iraq is clear, and it’s unchanging,” Bush told Republican loyalists, denouncing Democrats who want a course correction as supporting a “doubt-and-defeat” approach.

Mr. Bush, what is our goal in Iraq, exactly? You’ve changed it so many times—obviously it’s not “unchanging”—that I can’t remember anymore. I remember something about weapons of mass destruction, but there were none. I also remember something about Saddam’s being involved in 9/11, but there were no connections. I think the latest I’ve heard is “democracy and freedom for Iraq,” but with our own Gestapo-like prisons in Iraq, that’s definitely not the goal.

But less than three weeks before November 7 elections, pressure is growing in the U.S. Congress for a major shift in a war that has cost the lives of at least 73 Americans in October alone.

“I don’t believe we can continue based on an open-ended, unconditional presence,” Maine Republican Senator Olympia Snowe was quoted as saying in The Washington Post.

“I don't think there’s any question about that—that there will be a change” in the U.S. strategy in Iraq after the November 7 congressional elections, she added.

“Vote for us in November, and we promise we’ll change our Iraq strategy! How? We’ll never tell!”

I’m sick of all this crap about the Iraq Occupation. Get the U.S. the hell out of there—and anyone else there with us.

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Poll: approval of Republicans at record low

2006-10-19T21:03:00.000-04:00

With congressional elections less than three weeks away, the Republican Party’s approval ratings are at an all-time low, with approval of the Republican-led Congress at its lowest point in fourteen years, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on Wednesday.

Forty-seven percent of respondents said they were less in favor of keeping Republicans in control of Congress, compared to fourteen percent who were more in favor of maintaining the current congressional makeup, according to the poll.

Perhaps it’s because those who were promised “limited government!” fourteen years ago are finally realizing that the “limited government!” they’ve been given isn’t quite so limited. With approval for whatever Bush proposes; support for a president who ignores the law with “signing statements”; a record deficit; and out-of-control spending, it’s no wonder those who were promised limited government aren’t happy.

The only feasible alternative is the Democratic Party. When I say feasible, of course, I mean in terms of numbers, not in terms of politics. The Democrats are the only other major party in the U.S.—the only other party with any chance of winning anything big—but they are also just as liberal and big-government as the Republicans.

This is what happens with a two-party system: The two parties eventually become one. Their views and policies become virtually the same, and third parties are kept out of the game because supporters of either of the Big Parties are afraid that the Other Party will win the election, so even though they don’t support “their” party’s politics, they’ll vote for “their” party’s candidates simply so that the Other Party won’t win.

“We the people” indeed.

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Victory in Iraq!

2006-10-18T22:44:00.000-04:00

One man still locked up from 9/11 sweeps

2006-10-18T16:23:00.000-04:00

In a jail cell at an immigration detention center in Arizona sits a man who is not charged with a crime, not suspected of a crime, not considered a danger to society.

Constitutionally he cannot be held without being charged. Don’t believe me? Read the Fifth Amendment:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger....

Has the man been indicted? No. Has he been charged with a crime, infamous or otherwise? No.

But he has been in custody for five years.

I’m pretty sure that that’s illegal. I’m also pretty sure that it’s unconstitutional, and that since it’s unconstitutional, no one will give a damn except “extremists” like myself who give a damn about preserving our rights.

His name is Ali Partovi. And according to the Department of Homeland Security, he is the last to be held of about 1,200 Arab and Muslim men swept up by authorities in the United States after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.

If Mr. Partovi is not even suspected of a crime, then how can he still be in custody five years later? It boggles the mind.

There has been no full accounting of all of these individuals. Nor has a promised federal policy to protect against unrestricted sweeps been produced.

All very reassuring, I assure you! We don’t need silly things such as guarantees against tyranny; we’re just fine the way we are.

Just this summer, it was reported that an Algerian man, Benemar “Ben” Benatta, was the last detainee, and that his transfer to Canada had closed the book on the post-9/11 sweeps.

But now The Associated Press has learned that at least one person—Partovi—is still being held. The Department of Homeland Security insists he really is the last one in custody.

Of course Mr. Partovi is the last one in custody due to post-9/11 sweeps! After all, the DHS was so sure that Mr. Benatta was, and he turned out to be the last—oh.

“Certainly it’s not our goal as an agency to keep anyone detained indefinitely,” said DHS spokesman Dean Boyd.

Then why is Mr. Partovi still in DHS custody, Mr. Boyd?

Boyd said the department would like to remove Partovi from the United States but that he refuses to return to his homeland of Iran.

The article later says that he came in on a fake passport, so I can see why they wouldn’t free him inside the U.S. But if he doesn’t want to return to Iran, why not Britain? Why not France? Germany? Spain? Italy? I’m sure the boys at the Department of Homeland Security could make arrangements for Mr. Partovi in one of those countries.

That’s beside the point. Here legally or not, Mr. Partovi is still entitled to Constitutional protections: The Constitution is not limited to U.S. citizens; rather, it applies to anyone inside the United States. Find for me where it says otherwise and I’ll shave my head in mid-May 2007.

Boyd stressed that guidelines were set up in 2004 to make sure detainees’ rights are being protected on a case-by-case basis.

I had no idea that people had different rights than others! Thank you for enforcing what I could not see in the Constitution.

“We learned from the past,” he said. “We evaluate each situation to make sure it’s being handled fairly.”

Here’s what you “evaluate each situation” with: the text of the Constitution.

I just realized something, folks. Throughout the entirety of this post I have made the mistake of assuming that the Constitution is something to be followed; however, it is, in reality, just a damned piece of paper. I refuse to erase my words, however, so that I may look at past follies and prevent repeating them in the future.

After all, knowing the past is the key to not repeat it in the future.

It appears that that in and of itself is a folly, too. Knowing the past is not necessary; all it does is chain you down to the limitations of past generations. Ignoring the past is the key to a peaceful future. Why, if you paid any attention to the past, you might start a war over something ancestors did 300 years ago, or you might lead people to mistakenly believe that Lincoln was racist or that FDR knew that the Japanese were going to bomb Pearl Harbor.

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Bush to sign law authorizing harsh interrogation

2006-10-17T09:18:00.000-04:00

Come on, Reuters. Call it what it is. It’s not merely “harsh interrogation,” it’s torture.

President Bush, keeping his election-year focus on national security, is to sign a bill into law on Tuesday that allows tough interrogation and prosecution of terrorism suspects.

And now it’s “tough interrogation,” eh? You know, if you’d stuck with “torture,” you wouldn’t have had to change your wording.

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 sets standards for interrogating suspects, but through a complex set of rules that human rights groups say could allow harsh techniques bordering on torture, such as sleep deprivation and induced hypothermia.

With Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales looking on, Bush is to sign the bill which was negotiated in September after senior Republicans rebelled against the president's plan and forced concessions from him.

Because compromise is such a good thing for keeping everything in check.

The new law means Bush can continue a secret CIA program for interrogating terrorism suspects whom he believes have vital information that could thwart a plot against America.

No worries, then. So long as we can torture those terr’ists—and only those terr’ists—in secret prisons, we and our liberties are safe! Of course, “terrorist” is so loosely defined that anyone who opposes a government anything qualifies as a terrorist.

It establishes military tribunals that would allow some use of evidence obtained by coercion, but would give defendants access to classified evidence being used to convict them.

What good does access to evidence do you if you’re guilty in the tribunal’s eyes, anyway?

“The president will mark a historic day in which he will sign a bill that he knows will help prevent terrorist attacks,” said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

Why is it that you have to push major items through by claiming it’s to protect us from the terr’ists? Because it wouldn’t work any other way. And maybe I don’t want to be protected from terr’ism. Maybe I like my rights and liberties just the way they used to be.

Bush is expected to speak briefly at the ceremony. He is trying to help Republicans maintain control of the U.S. Congress by contending they are stronger on national security, a stance with which Democrats vehemently disagree.

There you have it, folks. This bill wasn’t really to protect us from the terr’ists and their terr’ism. It was to maintain Republican control of the Congress. Not that I want the Democrats in.

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N. Korea: Sanctions are war declaration

2006-10-17T08:56:00.000-04:00

North Korea on Tuesday blasted U.N. sanctions aimed at punishing the country for its nuclear test, saying the measures amount to a declaration of war and that the nation wouldn't cave in to such pressure now that it’s a nuclear weapons power.

Somehow I get the feeling that the United States would say the same thing if there were sanctions against it or one of its allies.

The bellicose remarks—the central government's first response to the U.N. measures imposed last weekend—came as China warned the North against stoking tensions and the American nuclear envoy arrived in South Korea for talks.

The North broke two days of silence about the U.N. resolution adopted after its October 9 nuclear test, issuing a Foreign Ministry statement on its official Korean Central News Agency.

“The resolution cannot be construed otherwise than a declaration of a war” against the North, also known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Two things:

I can imagine Bush using that exact line—“The resolution cannot be construed otherwise than a declaration of war.” I think he said something similar to Iraq in 2003: “Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict, commenced at a time of our choosing.” I love the phrase he used: “military conflict.” Why not just say “war”?
Any time you see a country that has “People’s Republic” or “of the People” or something similar in its name, you know for sure that it’s not free at all.

I’m sick of this whole thing, so I’ll leave the rest of the article for your browsing.

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(PHOTO) Moored rope

2006-10-16T23:40:00.000-04:00

I love the water. I love lakes. I love the ocean. I know it sounds “so 1700s,” but being on big bodies of water gives me a sense of freedom—from worry, from government, from all landly troubles.

Perhaps it’s not that water + boat = freedom sounds like it’s straight out of the 1700s, but rather that it’s practically hackneyed: Everyone during the past 3000 years has said something to this effect.

Maybe I love the ocean so much because I found the Phoenicians so interesting to study in fifth grade.

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The “situation” with North Korea

2006-10-16T16:33:00.000-04:00

Before you get even more nervous over North Korea’s nuclear test—which probably hasn’t occured, or maybe it has; who knows?—take comfort in the thought of the day, week, month, or year, whichever you prefer: The United States is the only nation in history to have used nuclear weapons on another nation. In fact, we nuked Japan twice—and both times, we nuked civilians.

And now, I see from Reuters that the United States is confident that China will support sanctions against North Korea. Answer me this: Whom do sanctions affect? I’ll give you three guesses. “The government!” No. “But that’s what sanctions are for! It has to be the government!” Wrong again. One more shot, smart guy. “I’m sticking with the government. Sanctions affect the government.” Hey, since the answer was wrong the previous two times, guess what? It’s still wrong.

Sanctions affect the people. Any trade that might have benefitted them is now cut off, and they are wholly at the mercy of their government, which will still rape and pillage and plunder and destroy and—well, you get the idea.

The United States is somehow known for taking the moral high ground, but when your country has nuked civilians twice; is the only country to have used nuclear weapons; and is supporting restrictions that harm even moreso an already oppressed people, it’s hard to see how moral we really are.

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Three in four Americans support bringing troops home from Iraq

2006-10-16T09:02:00.000-04:00

From Think Progress:

A new Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll conducted October 10-11 finds that nearly three in four Americans (73 percent) agree that U.S. troops should start to come home.

I’m amazed that Faux News released a story like this—or any other Big Media Organization, for that matter.

The Fox News poll asked Americans if they agreed or disagreed with this statement: “The United States has sacrificed enough for the people of Iraq, and now it is time that they take on most of the burden of their security in their country and let U.S. troops to start to come home.”

I prefer this statement: “Iraq never posed an immediate or looming threat to the United States, and thus the United States should not have invaded Iraq.” Sadly, most people would disagree with it.

A strong majority of Americans of all ideological stripes agree with this statement—which is similar to the argument the Center for American Progress makes in the Strategic Redeployment plan released last September—that American troops have done their share, and it is time for Iraqis to take responsibility for their own affairs.

The Iraqis would only be too happy to take responsibility for their own affairs. We must hand control over to them first, however.

The Fox News poll (PDF). The question mentioned in Think Progress’s post is question #28. If you’d rather not view a PDF, take a look at the GIF version. Question #28 is on page seven.

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Former prisoners: no hope at Gitmo

2006-06-12T19:58:00.000-04:00

From the AP:

Three British youths formerly detained at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay and now the subjects of a new film about their experiences say they were driven to desperation knowing others had tried to kill themselves at the camp.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Shafiq Rasul and his two friends—Ruhal Ahmed and Asif Iqbal—describe how they were held at Guantanamo for more than two years without charge. Many of the some 460 detainees accused of links to Afghanistan’s Taliban regime or the al-Qaeda terror network have been held for more than four years without charge.

“There is no hope in Guantanamo. The only thing that goes through your mind day after day is how to get justice or how to kill yourself,” Rasul, 29, who waged a hunger strike at the camp to protest beatings, said Saturday. “It is the despair—not the thought of martyrdom—that consumes you there.”

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The problem with the pledge

2006-06-11T20:39:00.000-04:00

On September 7, 1892, the United States pledge of allegiance was penned and published by Francis Bellamy. About a month later, on October 12, 1892, the pledge was first recited in public schools. And since that day, it has been recited by millions of Americans in school, at sporting events, national ceremonies, and even churches. Reciting the pledge is regarded as a patriotic activity that all Americans should participate in.

But while the pledge might give every “patriotic” American a warm, fuzzy feeling in their hearts, what they don’t realize is what they are actually saying when they recite the pledge.

Before I delve into that, however, I would like to take a look at the pledge’s history.

Francis Bellamy was born on May 18, 1855 to a Baptist minister. Bellamy himself grew up to become a Baptist minister—and a socialist. (You might know the name Bellamy because of his brother Edward Bellamy, who wrote the sociliast-utopian novels Looking Backward and Equality.)

In 1888, family-oriented magazine Youth’s Companion began selling American flags to public schools. Three years later, the magazine hired Francis Bellamy to promote the selling of the flags by writing a pledge for their advertising campaign. The pledge “was marketed as a way to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus arriving in the Americas and was first published on the following day.”¹

The pledge was written to promote national unity in the United States.

In other words, the pledge was written to condition the people to the idea that the national government was supreme over the states. The states had little—if any—rights. The states could not secede. The nation was one.

...and to The Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

One Nation...indivisible. Do you realize what that means? The union cannot be dissolved! The union is not a loose joining of the states which they can remove themselves from at any time! The union is the states’ abdication of their rights! Because they decided to pool their resources for defense and an overseeing board, if you will, they lost their rights.

But while the indivisibility of the union is absurd, there is an even more incredible, outrageous, and downright frightening concept.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to The Republic for which it stands....

I pledge allegiance to the flag...and to The Republic for which it stands. Do you realize what you’re saying when you say that? You’re pledging your allegiance to a symbol—the flag—and to the government that brandishes said flag. You are giving your allegiance to Leviathan! Leviathan taxes you, you pay the taxes with little or no complaint. Leviathan goes to war, you support the war by speaking for it or by fighting in it. Leviathan murders an innocent, you ignore it. You cannot disobey, deny, or fight Leviathan. Leviathan owns your property, your body, your mind.

Christians have one—and only one—to whom they owe allegiance: Jesus Christ. They are not to give their allegiance to their government. While they are to obey their government, they are to obey it only when doing such is in accord with the Bible.

When you pledge allegiance to the government, you are basically saying that you will support it no matter what it does and no matter what it costs you—even if it’s your very life.

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Images are in the public domain and thus are not copyrighted.

¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance#History

U.S. court backs government broadband wiretap access

2006-06-10T17:15:00.000-04:00

A U.S. appeals court on Friday upheld the government’s authority to force high-speed internet service providers to give law enforcement authorities access for surveillance purposes.

Thank God they upheld the government’s authority: Now the Feds will be able to protect us from terrorists!

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected a petition aimed at overturning a decision by regulators requiring facilities-based broadband providers and those that offer Internet telephone service to comply with U.S. wiretap laws.

Those who submitted the petition will probably be the first to have their communications monitored.

In a split decision, two of three judges on the panel concluded that the 2005 FCC requirement was a “reasonable policy choice” even though information services are exempted from the government’s wiretapping authority.

Of course it was a “reasonable policy choice”: It expands the government’s power.

The FCC has set a May 14, 2007, deadline for compliance, and the ruling drew praise from the FCC and the Justice Department, which sought the access.

“Today’s decision will ensure that technology does not impede the capabilities of law enforcement to provide for the safety and security of our nation,” the department said in a statement.

Because the right to privacy is a barrier to keeping the country safe. Oh, wait. No, it’s not. The Justice Department is using a tactic we in the tech world like to call FUD. FUD stands for “Fear, uncertainty, doubt,” and refers to the tactics companies employ in order to keep people from buying their competitors’ products.

The Justice Department is using FUD in order to convince people that privacy is not a right, that privacy is not necessary, that privacy is a barrier to their safety.

Sadly—and to the detriment of liberty in the United States—the Justice Department’s FUD has convinced many.

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(PHOTO) The beach

2006-06-04T17:38:00.000-04:00

This photo was taken in Panama City Beach, FL in June 2005, probably between June 5 and June 9. Well, I’ll be gone again this year from June 6–9, and I won’t have internet access, so there won’t be any updates till Saturday, June 10.

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Toronto mosque vandalized after terrorism arrests

2006-06-04T17:30:00.000-04:00

Vandals smashed 30 windows of a Toronto mosque and damaged nearby cars after the arrest of seventeen suspected al-Qaeda sympathizers accused of planning bomb attacks. Canadian Muslims expressed fear on Sunday that a backlash had begun.

The vandals struck overnight at the west-end mosque, a police official said on Sunday. A second official said he had no information on any link between the incident and the arrests, which began late Friday.

“The actual weapon that was used to break [the windows] is unknown,” said secretary Ameer Ali of the International Muslims Organization of Toronto, which houses the mosque. “We believe it has to be a heavy instrument, possibly a sledgehammer or a pick ax, or it could even be a crowbar.”

That’s a shame that someone would vandalize a mosque. It’s not as if all Muslims are bad and violent. (Besides, whatever happened to freedom of religion?) Vandalizing a religious building because some of the people practicing the religion promoted there are violent makes about as much sense as assaulting a black man because another black man attacked you three months ago.

If someone vandalized a church, I would be equally upset. Yes, I am a Christian, but that isn’t the only reason why I’d be upset. The other reason is that the church is private property (the property of the people who run the church), and property should not be vandalized unless permission is given—which would be rather odd.

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Congress sets its sights on video games

2006-06-03T22:04:00.000-04:00

CNET News has an article about Congress’s video-game conviction:

The purported problem of violent and sexually explicit video games has resurfaced on politicians’ agenda as the November election draws near.

What about violent and sexually explicit films?

A U.S. House of Representatives committee on consumer protection says it will hold a hearing on the topic later this month, with a focus on “informing parents and protecting children” from the alleged dangers of those types of games.

I think the House is a tad late on “ ‘informing parents and protecting children’ from the alleged dangers of those types of games”—twelve years too late, as a matter of fact. The ESRB has been rating video games since it was established in 1994.

All else aside, it is not the job of Congress to legislate video games. Nowhere in the Constitution is Congress given the authority to regulate any form of entertainment. (Yes, people had entertainment in the 1700s: the theater, etc.) The States, however, are given such authority under the Tenth Amendment: Since Congress cannot legislate entertainment, the States—or their counties, districts, or cities—can.

Of course, the Constitution’s text will be summarily ignored, and Congress will pass regulations on video games. Supporters of Congress’s actions will duly ignore the ignorance Congress gives movies and praise the legislation as “moral,” “good for freedom,” and “the American thing to do.”

What is the American thing to do, anyway? Judging by all the wars we’ve waged, I’d say the American thing to do would be to bomb the video game developers and publishers.

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NSA has complete access to all phone-company data

2006-06-02T17:40:00.000-04:00

The New Yorker posted a rather ominous story on May 22—a story I didn’t find out about till today over at Politipop.

Here are the first three paragraphs:

A few days before the start of the confirmation hearings for General Michael Hayden, who has been nominated by President Bush to be the head of the C.I.A., I spoke to an official of the National Security Agency who recently retired. The official joined the NSA in the mid-nineteen-seventies, soon after contentious congressional hearings that redefined the relationship between national security and the public’s right to privacy. The hearings, which revealed that, among other abuses, the NSA had illegally intercepted telegrams to and from the United States, led to the passage of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, to protect citizens from unlawful surveillance. “When I first came in, I heard from all my elders that ‘we’ll never be able to collect intelligence again,’” the former official said. “They’d whine, ‘Why do we have to report to oversight committees?’ ” But, over the next few years, he told me, the agency did find a way to operate within the law. “We built a system that protected national security and left people able to go home at night without worrying whether what they did that day was appropriate or legal.”

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, it was clear that the intelligence community needed to get more aggressive and improve its performance. The Administration, deciding on a quick fix, returned to the tactic that got intelligence agencies in trouble thirty years ago: intercepting large numbers of electronic communications made by Americans. The NSA’s carefully constructed rules were set aside.

Last December, the Times reported that the NSA was listening in on calls between people in the United States and people in other countries, and a few weeks ago USA Today reported that the agency was collecting information on millions of private domestic calls. A security consultant working with a major telecommunications carrier told me that his client set up a top-secret high-speed circuit between its main computer complex and Quantico, Virginia, the site of a government-intelligence computer center. This link provided direct access to the carrier’s network core—the critical area of its system, where all its data are stored. “What the companies are doing is worse than turning over records,” the consultant said. “They’re providing total access to all the data.”

It’s not the least bit surprising that the NSA has access to whatever information it wants whenever it wants. The day The New York Times broke the warrantless wiretapping story, I knew that the government’s surveillance stretched far beyond what we were told.

If I’m doing nothing wrong, I have nothing to fear, right? I guess so, but would you really want to be under surveillance while you and your wife are having sex? Would you want the government to listen in on your conversations—especially if the topic was politics and you weren’t exactly supporting the government?

I think not.

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Source: FBI wants internet records kept for two years

2006-06-01T23:25:00.000-04:00

The Federal Bureau of Investigation wants U.S. Internet providers to retain Web address records for up to two years to aid investigations into terrorism and pornography, a source familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

Provided that they tell me they’re doing so, I don’t care if the ISPs keep the records of their own volition and for internal—i.e., their own—purposes.

I do care when the government forces them to do such.

The request came during a May 26 meeting between U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller with top executives at companies like Google, Microsoft, and AOL.

“I think there is less of a willingness to passively go along with this type of request than there might have been a year ago,” said the source, mentioning the recent uproar over a report that telephone companies had provided call records to the National Security Agency.

I think there is more of a willingness to happily comply with this type of request than there definitely was before 9/11.

A Justice Department spokesman confirmed the meeting but was not immediately available to comment on how long law enforcement officials wanted the records retained.

What a surprise.

“This meeting was an initial discussion for the Attorney General to gather information and to solicit input from Internet service provider executives on the issues associated with data retention,” said spokesman Brian Roehrkasse.

Input that will be ignored unless it’s what Gonzales and the Feds want to hear.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Gonzales presented blurred images of child pornography and explained why he thought retaining data was important to those investigations. At issue were IP addresses.

The it’s-for-the-children card is to make those who oppose the government’s coercion appear to be child-haters or child molesters or something equally horrible.

When one industry executive questioned how long the government wanted the records kept, Mueller said for two years and that the data would also be used for anti-terrorism purposes, said the source.

Just like monitoring Americans’ phone calls is “for anti-terrorism purposes.” One day, I suppose, video surveillance of the interior of every American’s house will be “for anti-terrorism purposes” as well.

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New CIA director Hayden plans massive expansion of spying on Americans

2006-05-31T12:52:00.000-04:00

Now that he is officially sworn in as the new head of the Central Intelligence Agency, General Michael Hayden plans to build a vast domestic spying network that will pry into the lives of most Americans around the clock.

President George W. Bush told Hayden to “take whatever steps necessary” to monitor Americans 24/7 by listening in on their phone calls, bugging their homes and offices, probing their private lives, snooping into their financial records, and watching their travel habits.

Can I prove this in a court of law? No. Do I know it is happening? Yes, without a doubt. Enough sources within the CIA, FBI, NSA, and Pentagon have come forward in recent days to warn about Hayden’s plans for an expanded, consolidated spy network aimed at Americans—not terrorists—and violating numerous laws that prohibit such activities against citizens of this country.

“What Hayden plans to do is not only illegal, it is immoral,” says a longtime CIA operative who may retire early rather than participate in what he sees as an illegal extension of the spy agency’s activities.

Hayden, who oversaw the National Security Agency’s questionable monitoring of phone calls and emails of Americas, plans to consolidate much of the country’s domestic spying into a new desk at the CIA, calling it a “domestic terrorism prevention” operation.

The desk will oversee not only the NSA’s increased monitoring of electronic communications by Americans but also the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s “terrorist information awareness” program that monitors travel and financial activities by Americans by gathering real-time data from banks, airlines, travel agencies, and credit-card companies.

The CIA operation will also coordinate with the Pentagon’s domestic spying program that monitors activities of anti-war groups, organizations critical of the Bush administrations, and others tagged as enemies of the state.

FBI agents will step up monitoring of journalists to identify leaks of stories embarrassing to the government. The bureau is already monitoring reporters’ phone calls and emails on a routine basis and has increased surveillance of writers for major news organizations and monitoring of travel and financial records using the DARPA computers.

“This is not ‘total information awareness’ but ‘total information control’ aimed at watching Americans fulltime and ignoring the protections that are supposed to be guaranteed by the Constitution,” says an FBI agent familiar with the programs. “I didn’t sign on for this, and I’m getting the hell out.”

In fact, resignations at major U.S. spy agencies are at an all-time high. Exact numbers are classified but sources say field agents, data analysts, and others are leaving in droves rather than joining the frenzy to spy on Americans.

Hayden sailed through the Senate confirmation process defending his domestic spying program at NSA, claiming it was legal. Privacy experts and constitutional law professors say otherwise, but the Senate rubberstamped Bush’s choice anyway, choosing to ignore the threats to freedom.

Hayden will have little problem concealing the operation from the public and Congress. Many of the CIA’s programs are classified and the agency has, in the past, concealed programs even from the intelligence committees in both the House and Senate. The DARPA project and the Pentagon domestic spying programs are “black bag” operations that do not require Congressional approval or oversight.

Likewise, many of the details of the NSA domestic spying program were withheld from Congress and escaped public notice until media reports unearthed them. The Bush administration now threatens to jail the reporters who broke the story.

I wish I could prove this. I wish one—just one—source on the inside was willing to come forward and allow his or her name to be used. But to those who might be tempted: See what happened to Mary McCarthy, the CIA employee fired and under threat of prosecution for leaking information about CIA torture camps in Europe.

But I know it is happening. People I’ve known for years and trust tell me that it is happening, and that the past record of spying, lies, and deceit by the Bush administration point to just such an operation.

This nation is under attack. We, the people, are under attack. And the enemy in this case is not an Islamic radical hiding in a cave in Afghanistan but a cabal of truly evil men and women at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and on Capitol Hill aided by carefully-picked, law-ignoring appointees at the Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Avenue; a black glass-walled building at Fort Meade, MD; and a complex in Langley, Virginia.

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Twelve-year-old girl describes Iraq atrocity

2006-05-30T21:08:00.000-04:00

This is absolutely horrible:

After a small group of Marines stormed the Younis family home in Haditha last November, everybody inside was killed—except one person.

ABC News has obtained an interview with the sole survivor, twelve-year-old Safa Younis. The interview was done by a local Iraqi journalism student about one week after the killings on November 19, 2005.

The U.S. military continues to investigate what happened in Haditha, where a total of 24 civilians died. But one congressman—Rep. John Murtha (D-PA)—said today that he’s convinced the incident was mass murder and that it was covered up.

“There has to have been a cover-up,” Murtha told ABC News’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. “There’s no question about it.”

Why, how dare ABC publish such a story! Doesn’t ABC know that stories like this will only further convince the people that our war is wrong?

Did I just write that? I meant, uh—and now it’s time for a commercial break!

UPDATE, 10:19PM: My friend tells me that a bomb went off that killed one of the Marines that shot the family. He also tells me that the girl and her entire town knew where it was and wanted the Marines to die. I’m not sure if he’s right.

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SCOTUS rules: no whistle-blower free-speech right

2006-05-30T18:36:00.000-04:00

Sheer insanity.

A closely divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that government whistle-blowers are not protected by free-speech rights when they face employer retaliation for trying to expose possible misconduct at work.

By a 5–4 vote, the high court ruled against a California prosecutor who said he was demoted, denied a promotion and transferred for trying to expose a lie by a county sheriff's deputy in a search-warrant affidavit.

Adopting the position of the Los Angeles prosecutor’s office and the U.S. Justice Department, the high court ruled that a public employee has no First Amendment right in speech expressed as part of performing job-required duties.

I’ll skip the commentary on this one.

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(PHOTO) My only friends are the weeds

2006-05-29T23:24:00.000-04:00

Nothing wrong with posting a photo, is there?

I had a good Memorial Day. It’s not that I like the idea of celebrating D.C.’s wars. I prefer to remember the lives lost and other sacrifices made while fighting the government’s wars, and how it’s sad that people should be honored to fight and die for the state’s corrupt purposes.

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Action urged as civil liberties board convenes

2006-05-28T19:20:00.000-04:00

The White House’s new civil liberties board is just getting to work more than a year after it was ordered by Congress, dogged by criticism that it must act more quickly and forcefully to protect Americans’ rights in the war against terrorism.

Why so long? Oh, right. Because the government doesn’t want to leave the people’s rights alone.

The nascent Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, whose members were picked by President George W. Bush a year ago, has held four formal meetings since being sworn in on March 14 and has met top officials and prominent privacy and civil liberties advocates over the past two months.
“Right now, there’s a lot of consultation, coordination, outreach, and taking stock of issues and trying to figure out how to be as useful as possible,” said the board’s vice chairman, Alan Raul, a lawyer specializing in privacy issues.

Washington wants the PCLOB to examine the government’s actions and say, “Yeah, it’s good. Don’t worry, American people, warrantless wiretapping, surveillance, and arrests are perfectly legal and constitutional, just as President Bush has been saying since 9/11. And the fact that we’re an indepedent government-created government-investigation board that’s approving Bush’s bold and constitutional actions proves that his actions are legal and constitutional!”

The White House Web site says the five-member board's office space is under construction and it is hiring staff.

“Well, uh, we decided to have a say before we were created.”

Some critics and rights advocates say progress has been unsatisfactory considering the need for oversight of post-September 11 government policies, such as eavesdropping on U.S. citizens' international telephone calls and e-mails.

They—or the Western media, at least—call it “unsatisfactory.” I call it inexcusable, totalitarian, and unconstitutional—but then again, “unsatisfactory” means that in Western media doublespeak.

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Gonzales pressures ISPs on data retention

2006-05-27T10:27:00.000-04:00

CNET posted an interesting bit of news yesterday:

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller on Friday urged telecommunications officials to record their customers’ Internet activities, CNET News.com has learned.

They already do that. How else would the ISPs be able to comply with the RIAA’s subpoenas?

In a private meeting with industry representatives, Gonzales, Mueller and other senior members of the Justice Department said Internet service providers should retain subscriber information and network data for two years, according to two sources familiar with the discussion who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Oh. I’m pretty sure they don’t do that. And I’m pretty sure it’s a horrible idea.

The closed-door meeting at the Justice Department—which Gonzales had requested, according to the sources—comes as the idea of legally mandated data retention has become popular on Capitol Hill and inside the Bush administration. Supporters of the idea say it will help prosecutions of child pornography because in many cases, logs are deleted during the routine course of business.

Scratch that. I know it’s a horrible idea. Almost any law that’s “for the children” means a rise in the government’s power, and that’s definitely not a good thing.

Once ISP data retention becomes Federal law, Washington will have at its disposal the largest database of citizen information it’s ever had. People will be afraid to say anything against those in power or go anywhere that speaks against those in power because they’ll be terrified of Washington’s trumping up charges against them and throwing them in jail—or worse, Gitmo—for the rest of their lives.

“I will reach out personally to the CEOs of the leading service providers and to other industry leaders,” Gonzales said. “Record retention by Internet service providers consistent with the legitimate privacy rights of Americans is an issue that must be addressed.”

And in other news, murderers have declared that murder consistent with the life rights of Americans is an issue that they will soon address. More at 11.

Until Gonzales’ speech, the Bush administration had generally opposed laws requiring data retention, saying it had “serious reservations” about them. But after the European Parliament last December approved such a requirement for Internet, telephone, and VoIP providers, top administration officials began talking about the practice more favorably.

The administration has taken to the bandwagon approach to prove that data retention is a good thing. “Hey, look! Europe mandates it, so we should, too!” And it’s extremely unlikely that the administration ever had “serious reservations” about mandating data retention. They warmed up to the idea rather quickly, didn’t they?

Any government that sees an opportunity to grow its power will seize that opportunity.

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Official: Iraq civilian deaths unjustified

2006-05-26T22:16:00.000-04:00

Military investigators probing the deaths last November of about two dozen Iraqi civilians have evidence that points toward unprovoked murders by Marines, a senior defense official said Friday.

Ah, so they’re finally admitting to what we already knew.

The Marine Corps initially reported 15 deaths and said they were caused by a roadside bomb and an ensuing firefight with insurgents. A separate investigation is aimed at determining if Marines lied to cover up the events, which included the deaths of women and children.

Why wouldn’t they lie? For some reason, they needed to cover their butts, so they lied. I don’t know why they would actually need to lie to protect themselves, though, since the U.S. already approves torture.

If confirmed as unjustified killings, the episode could be the most serious case of criminal misconduct by U.S. troops during three years of combat in Iraq. Until now the most infamous occurrence was the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse involving Army soldiers, which came to light in April 2004 and which President Bush said Thursday he considered to be the worst U.S. mistake of the entire war.

I think this “episode” and the Abu Ghraib prisoner torture scandal are on-par with each other. Have I mentioned how much I love it when Western media uses doublespeak to convey in a soft sense something horrible? If I haven’t before, I have now.

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Senate confirms Hayden as CIA director

2006-05-26T22:10:00.000-04:00

Not surprising, but still depressing and enraging:

General Michael Hayden won confirmation to be the 20th CIA director Friday in a lopsided Senate vote, placing a career Air Force officer in charge of the civilian spy agency that is grappling with intelligence reform at home as well as al Qaeda and other international threats.

I’m guessing that by “intelligence reform,” they mean “making sure that no one ever finds out about illegal spying on citizens.”

The Senate approved Hayden in under three weeks by a vote of 78–15. He is expected to be sworn in next week.

The sooner, the worse.

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Bush to talk incentives if Iran halts nuclear moves

2006-05-25T21:14:00.000-04:00

President George W. Bush said on Thursday he would consider providing incentives to Iran if it agreed to resume a suspension on nuclear enrichment activities that the United States believes is aimed at producing a nuclear bomb.

Washington can believe whatever it wants to believe, but that doesn’t make it true; that is, unless Washington makes it true, if you catch my drift.

Bush, at a White House news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, said the two leaders spent a lot of time discussing strategy on how to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis.

The two B’s sure do like to waste time. They’re creating a strategy to solve a problem they’ve created in their own minds and in the minds of the British and American people.

I’ve got a solution. It’s a bit radical, but stick with me.

United States, do nothing. Britain, do nothing.

Iran says it has a right to a nuclear program, and denies U.S. accusations it is trying to create an atomic bomb. It says it only wants to enrich uranium to a level suitable for use in atomic power reactors.

“Iran must be lying! You know why? Because we say they are! That’s why! And as you know, we’re never wrong. It’s really just too bad that the WMDs never showed up. But believe us—we were right then, and we’re right now!”

Bush said one of his goals with Blair has been “to convince others in the world that Iran with a nuclear weapon would be very dangerous.”

The United States and Britain, both with their own armies, are very dangerous.

“And this fundamental question is how do you achieve that goal, obviously? We want to do it diplomatically,” he added.

So you want to use diplomacy in order to scare people into believing that Iran will get nuclear weapons? I think you’ll just further convince everyone that you and your armies and your preemptive wars are dangerous.

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Witness: harsher Abu Ghraib methods condoned

2006-05-25T20:50:00.000-04:00

Senior U.S. officials silently condoned harsher methods at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison and one general urged guards to use dogs to the “maximum extent possible” to control detainees, witnesses said on Thursday.

That sure is a surprise. Who knew that the government wouldn’t report the full extent of horrible acts it committed?

The testimony came on the fourth day of the military trial of Army dog handler Sgt. Santos Cardona, 32, who is accused of taking part in abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib that the U.S. government blames on rogue low-ranking soldiers.

Defense attorneys are trying to show that Cardona—who faces 16 years in prison if convicted on all charges—and other soldiers were acting on orders from their superiors.

As we all know, you can never trust the defendant. Ever.

Prosecutors say he and an already convicted colleague were “corrupt cops” who used dogs to terrify detainees into urinating and defecating on themselves.

They were ordered to. If they hadn’t, they would have been “disciplined.”

Steven Pescatore, a former Air Force officer who worked as a civilian interrogator at Abu Ghraib, said in written testimony that silence from superiors on the treatment of prisoners was widely seen as meaning consent.

“We still had to submit a memo requesting the harsher techniques, but we could go under the assumption that a technique was approved unless we heard back otherwise,” he said.

Don’t ask, don’t tell, eh?

“There was a lot of pressure and stress among the interrogators; we were constantly being told that we needed to get more information from the detainees.”

Information gathered from torture is 100% accurate and would not ever be fabricated in order for the torture to stop. Thus, torture works.

Despite evidence of pressure from above to extract more information from prisoners, there are few signs that senior Army leaders or administration officials will be charged with condoning the abuse.

Of course not. The seniors have so many connections that there’s no way anyone would ever consider thinking about potentially seeking advice on whether or not he should file charges.

The U.S. government, which often justifies its foreign policy on the grounds of improving human rights, was severely embarrassed when photographs showing prisoners being abused and sexually humiliated were leaked in 2004.

“Severely embarrassed”? Severely embarrassed because it tortured prisoners? It’s such a shame that photos proving U.S. government torture would ever get leaked, because they shatter our squeaky-clean we’re-the-good-guys mentality that the government’s given itself over the past half-century!

If I continue any further, I’ll lose it. And then I’ll be committed.

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Bush and Blair acknowledge Iraq “setbacks”

2006-05-25T20:46:00.000-04:00

President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair acknowledged difficult times in the Iraq war they launched together in 2003, but both vowed to keep troops there until the new Iraqi government takes control.

This is indeed great news, as we who opposed the war simply have to wait till the Iraqi government can take control. (Well, maybe it’s not such great news, since it appears that the new government won’t be ready for anything until Bush and Blair say so.)

“Despite setbacks and missteps, I strongly believe we did and are doing the right thing,” Bush said Thursday evening in a White House news conference with Blair.

Back when I was a neocon, I listened to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. They both said that Democrats and liberals don’t care about the outcome of their social programs; as long as those who instituted the programs had good intentions and believed they were doing “the right thing,” they were successes—whether they failed or not. Limbaugh and Hannity, of course, felt that it was stupid to count failures as success, and I did and still do agree with that.

However, good intentions and the-right-thing feelings are meaningless when they come from Republicans, too. And why shouldn’t they be meaningless? Saying you’re doing the right thing because you think it’s the right thing is like saying that telling your wife that you thought about getting her a present for her birthday is just as good as actually getting her the present.

(And didn’t BTK think he was doing the right thing?)

For his part, Blair declared that after a meeting earlier this week with Iraq’s new prime minister, “I came away thinking the challenge is still immense, but I also came away thinking more certain than ever that we should rise to it.”

Of course, because it really wouldn’t be a success unless we were there to see it through.

Bush declined to discuss news reports that the Pentagon hoped that the U.S. force, now at 131,000 troops, could be reduced to about 100,000 by year’s end.

He called that “speculation in the press.” He said he has not discussed troop levels with commanders on the ground. “We’ll keep the force level there necessary to win,” Bush said.

I thought we won the war shortly after we started it? That sign behind the president said “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED,” did it not? Of course, the definition of victory keeps on shifting at the coercion of the coalition so as to prolong our stay over there in order to convince citizens of the countries in the coalition that their governments are “doing the right thing.”

There’s much “more” to the article, but I don’t have the stomach to comment on all of it.

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BellSouth: NSA story is bogus

2006-05-24T22:18:00.000-04:00

According to CNN.com, BellSouth is demanding that USA Today retract its call-log story:

[BellSouth] sent a letter to USA Today on Thursday asking it to retract last week’s story that BellSouth and two other companies helped the NSA compile a massive database of records on domestic phone calls.

It’s disgusting that USA Today would dare publish a story that’s actually true! We can’t have that: The people might actually get upset! (Though they haven’t yet.)

BellSouth faxed the letter to the attention of Craig Moon, the newspaper’s president and publisher, and its general counsel, BellSouth spokesman Jeff Battcher said. The letter calls for the paper to retract the “false and unsubstantiated statements the paper made regarding BellSouth.”

Everything that harms a company in bed with the government and said government is “false and unsubstantiated.” We can’t allow either to be portrayed accurately: The people might actually stop supporting them! (The world would end were that to happen.)

“We did receive the letter this afternoon. We’re reviewing it, and will be responding,” said USA Today spokesman Steve Anderson.

Earlier this week, USA Today said it stands by its story, but that it would investigate the denials issued by BellSouth and Verizon.

USA Today, don’t you dare drop the call-logging story down the memory hole, or there will be a backlash like you never imagined!

AT&T, the third company named in the article, has not denied the story outright, but said it would not provide such information without legal authorization.

Either AT&T did or didn’t pony up the information to Washington; there’s no middle ground on the issue. (And what did they mean by “legal authorization”?)

USA Today reported that the NSA doesn’t record or listen to conversations. Rather, the article said, the agency uses the data—including phone numbers, times and locations—to look for patterns that might suggest terrorist activity.

If I’m doing nothing wrong, the government has no cause to watch me.

The Bush administration has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of such a program.

Silence can be a rather strong admission of guilt.

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Rights group requests wiretapping probe

2006-05-24T22:03:00.000-04:00

Reuters posted a nice bit of news today regarding the NSA’s wiretapping and call-logging:

The American Civil Liberties Union launched a 20-state campaign on Wednesday to stop warrantless eavesdropping by the National Security Agency and prevent telecoms firms from providing it with phone records.

Good. I, for one, am not comfortable with what the NSA does. Aside from the fact that it’s illegal—do you see anything permitting domestic surveillance in the Constitution?—it smacks of Soviet-government practices.

Under a secret program set up under President George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks, the NSA was authorized to monitor the international phone calls and emails of U.S. citizens without first obtaining warrants, while pursuing al Qaeda suspects.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that the government really was trying to catch al Qaeda suspects. That automatically makes warrantless wiretapping and call-logging a good idea in the minds of your average American. He believes the government is protecting him from terrorists. What he doesn’t realize, however, is that the Fourth Amendment prevents such acts:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

But who reads that damned piece of paper anymore anyway?

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The president and his cut-in commanders

2006-05-23T22:55:00.000-04:00

The above picture is from a Reuters article entitled “Bush seeks diplomacy to resolve Iran nuclear issue.”

Its caption is as follows:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (front row C) sits with commanders from the Basij Militia in Tehran May 7, 2006. The United States aims to resolve the Iran nuclear stand-off peacefully and diplomatically, President George W. Bush said on Tuesday.

There’s a problem, however: The image appears to be photoshopped. (The flatness of everyone is not necessarily evidence, for objects in a photo can be made to appear flat by manipulating the image’s depth of field.)

If you’ll take a look at the man with the white turban—farthest to the right on the row immediately behind Ahmadinejad—you will notice that his face “hangs” in front of the turban, which is off-center.

Now, let’s take a gander at the man at 10:00 from Ahmadinejad. Now look at the man behind him. The man behind Mr. Ten O’Clock looks like he’s standing outside with the sun in front of or above him. The edges of his head are rather lightly lit.

For my final bit, I would like to direct your attention to the turbaned man in the fourth—possibly fifth or sixth—row from the top of the image. Look at his face. It’s not there; it’s merely a black rectangle.

Whoever made this image did a poor job making it look convincing, and I’m not entirely sure why one would need to fake it.

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Horrific killing in Hamburg

2006-05-23T17:52:00.000-04:00

Looney Green Fascists—excuse me, Little Green Footballs—is my favorite neocon blog. LGF is the epitome of what’s wrong with “conservatism” today: They hate people, especially Muslims.

In Hamburg, a 40-year-old man beheaded his wife. Afterwards, he ran, his wife’s head in his hand, to a nearby gas station and turned himself in to police. At the time of the brutal murder, both daughters (6 and 13) were in the apartment of the married couple.

Drops of blood led from a gas station in Hamburg’s district Harburg to an apartment complex 100 metres away. The drops of blood ended in front of an apartment on the 2nd floor. This is where the crime took place Sunday night. Fatma S. was killed by multiple stabs, prior to her head being cut off by her husband with a kitchen knife. Then, the man took the head and walked to the nearby gas station. “The employee had just been outside at the gas pumps,” says a police officer.” He knew Atilla. At first, he did not notice what the man was carrying. “As soon as he realized the situation, he ran to the office and called the police. Atilla dropped the head off in the snow and waited for the police to arrest him.

In his apartment, police officers not only discovered the woman’s torso. In the children’s room, they found both daughters of the couple. “We do not know what the girls might have noticed,” says a female police officer. The girls, unharmed, were found in their beds.
Hamburg homicide investigators are utterly baffled by the crime.
Investigators now try to figure out the motive for this unbelievable homicide. The situation escalated without any reason, according to homicide detectives. Atilla S., who had been living in this apartment for 10 years together with his wife, has not been registered for any criminal offense.
I know it’s a crazy idea, but maybe there’s a clue in this statement from a relative?
“We were not very close to him and his family,” says a relative. “He is very conservative and attended the mosque on a regular basis. The rest of the family has a very Western lifestyle.” This created a gap between husband and wife.
Nah. Couldn’t have anything to do with that.

Yes, it is a horrible crime. But just because a Muslim committed this crime does not mean that all Muslims are like this. Islam is not necessarily a religion of peace, but many—if not most—Muslims are peaceful.

And keep in mind that it’s not just Muslims who murder and behead people. Whites and blacks are perfectly capable of it, as are white and black Christians. (BTK, anyone?)

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White House plays down troop withdrawal

2006-05-23T17:25:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately, it looks as if Washington is not open to withdrawing troops from Iraq:

The White House on Tuesday played down prospects of major troop withdrawals from Iraq in the near future. “We’re not going to sort of look at our watches and say, ‘Oop, time to go,’ ” said spokesman Tony Snow.

The establishment of a unity government in Baghdad has stirred talk of troop reductions by the United States and Britain, the two major players in terms of soldiers in Iraq. But with violence still widespread, both the White House and Pentagon indicated it may be too soon to make decisions on troop cuts.

“The conditions on the ground tell us that our job’s not done,” Snow said.

At the Pentagon, Brigadier General Carter Ham told reporters that he is unaware of any numerical target for troop cuts this year, and he cautioned against expecting major reductions before Iraqi troops show they can handle the insurgents.

“We want to do it as soon as we can but you can’t do it too fast,” said Ham, who is deputy operations chief for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He cautioned against “rushing to failure.”

I wonder if the Feds realize that empire expansion will require infinitely more soldiers—and that, even with a draft, we will be greatly cutting into the citizenry to fund the flesh for the war. I’m sure they do. After all, it will weaken the United States further, giving our leaders an excuse to make North America more than the continent it is.

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Analysis: Senate acts wisely on Hayden

2006-05-23T10:28:00.000-04:00

The U.S. Senate has given the Bush administration an extended blank check on domestic electronic phone surveillance.

Quoth Will Ferrell: “Fantastic!”

As we predicted in these columns last week, the U.S. Senate confirmation hearings on General Michael Hayden focused on data mining from U.S. domestic phone records during his tenure as head of the National Security Agency. But at no point did senators make any serious suggestion about imposing any new legal or congressional oversight procedures on the vastly extended surveillance programs that Hayden oversaw during his time running the super-secret NSA.

It doesn’t matter whether they did or did not do anything to restrain the NSA’s surveillance. It’s still a malevolent beast—and it’s illegal.

The senators, as we predicted, focused narrowly on Hayden’s record, and his performance before them defused, at least in the short term, many of the concerns that had been expressed on Capitol Hill about the long-term implications and dangers of the data-mining program.

This proves that they never had any intent on restricting the NSA, and they have no intent to ever do such.

The course of these hearings reveals several significant findings about current U.S. popular attitudes, as interpreted by the nation’s elected representatives, on national security issues.

First, despite President George W. Bush’s tumbling approval ratings over the economy, national security and the war in Iraq, domestic surveillance powers remain the third rail of American politics. No one in the Republican or Democratic Party mainstreams wants to risk touching them for fear of getting electrocuted.

In other words: “Neither major party is talking about it, so why should you—the bourgeoisie—talk about it?”

In the short term, this has spared Bush yet more embarrassments. USA Today’s report exposing the previously unsuspected extent of the NSA’s data mining program on national phone records was discussed throughout the media and led to much initial criticism of the administration from Republican as well as Democratic senators. But it did not translate into any serious effort to insist that the programs be curtailed, or even that they should have congressional oversight procedures imposed upon them to prevent their abuse.

A petrifying mindset has taken hold in the United States over the last few years: “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” This belief, however, would not be held were it not for indoctrination. Over the last 50 years, the government has conditioned the people to trust it via public schooling, welfare, etc. The people have bought into the lie that the government is this benevolent giant whose only interest is the safety of the little people scurrying about his feet. Due to the fuzzy feeling in their hearts, the people don’t question the giant when it asks to monitor one aspect of their lives, and then another, and another.

For as we noted in these columns last week, major figures in neither party want to take the risk of exposing themselves to future criticism for reining in security surveillance programs in case they may be blamed at some point in the future for blocking the programs that could have prevented future mega-terrorist attacks as bad as, or worse than, those of September 11, 2001. In this very basic sense, therefore, the traumas of September 11, 2001, continue to be the driving force of American politics.

Hitler firebombed the Reichstag.

Second, the revelations about the NSA data mining do not seem to have significantly further damaged Bush’s opinion poll ratings, although since they were already in the low 30 percent range, they were already in the dog house. However much his credibility on Iraq has been destroyed, the American public still approves the general principle of empowering the U.S. domestic security services and intelligence agencies against potential terrorist threats.

The pollsters must be searching harder and harder for good patriotic Americans who have absolute trust, love, and loyalty for the Federal government. Perhaps people are waking up, or perhaps the neocons are angry that Bush hasn’t been aggressive enough in growing the government.

Third—this is not particularly good news for Bush, however—because recent polling data suggests that key centrist areas of American public opinion have already crossed the crucial barrier of trusting Bush to protect them against domestic and other national security threats better than anyone else. The public still wants any president to have those powers. But a clear majority of it no longer requires Bush above other political figures to exercise them.

This polling data UPI speaks of, is it that one poll of 500 Americans? After all, we know that 500 hand-picked Americans accurately depict how the entire country feels.

The American public continues to support giving the U.S. intelligence community wide-ranging powers of domestic surveillance to prevent another mega-terrorist attack like those of September 11, 2001. And they also believe—almost certainly with good reason—that the exercise of these powers has significantly protected them since those earlier attacks. But they also believe that these additional surveillance powers can and will be exercised by future presidents, either Democratic or Republican, at least as well as, if not better than, has been done by Bush.

As I stated above, the American people have bought into the notion of a benevolent government when it is, in reality, a malevolent leviathan. Because they believe the government has only the people’s best interests at heart, they also believe that surveillance is for their good and will protect them.

I hereby coin a new exclamation: “Reichstag!”

Fourth, the senators tacitly expressed their continuing confidence in Gen. Hayden by not using their cross-examination of him about the surveillance powers as a reason to block his nomination to be the next director of the CIA.

Yes, because we wouldn’t want the nominee for CIA director to be denied the position because he did anything illegal.

In an ideal world, the Senate would have approved Gen. Hayden’s nomination, agreed that the increased surveillance powers were necessary to combat the threats the United States still faced and also approved new oversight programs to make sure those surveillance powers were not abused. Two out of three wasn’t a bad start.

In an ideal world, the Senate would have rejected Hayden’s nomination; agreed that the increased surveillance powers were illegal and unnecessary; and made it clear that any attempts of the Executive to create new surveillance programs would be met with inquiries, investigations, and impeachment. Zero out of three isn’t a bad start for the neocons.

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Bolton: Iran regime can stay if it ends arms pursuit

2006-05-22T19:37:00.000-04:00

Bolton, addressing a meeting of B’nai B’rith International, a Jewish humanitarian organization, cited Washington's move last week to normalize relations with Libya after that country gave up its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and said Iran's leaders faced a similar “clear choice.”

“This is a sign to the rulers in Tehran that if they give up their long-standing support for terrorism and they give up their pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, that their regime can stay in place and that they can have a different relationship with the United States and the rest of the world,” he said.
Asked by reporters afterward about those comments, he said he did not mean to imply the United States would seek a change in the Iranian regime if Tehran refused to suspend its enrichment of uranium, as the U.N. Security Council has demanded.

How could he not have threatened Iran with regime change? He said that the leaders could remain in power if they stopped pursuing nuclear arms. If Bolton did not mean that the leaders would be removed should they fail to comply, what did he mean? Certainly his words weren't empty; otherwise, they wouldn't merit being said. The only thing he could have meant is what he denied saying—that the leaders would be removed if they did not end their pursuit of nuclear arms.

Iran insists it wants only to produce energy for civilian use, but Western powers led by the United States, Britain, France, and Germany argue it is using a civilian nuclear program as a cover for producing the highly enriched uranium needed for atomic bombs.

Of course the “Western powers” are saying that. They argued back in 2003 that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and that, since Hussein was not complying with UN inspectors, we had to take military action against Iraq.

The powers are saying that they don’t want war with Iran, but that’s exactly what they said in 2002, when they were getting uneasy with Iraq. The rest, as they say, is history.

Even if Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, the United States has no business disarming them: Iran has not attacked us. Preemptive war is a nasty thing. Attacking a country that we suspect might attack us is about as intelligent as shooting a random person on the street because you thought he might shoot you.

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Wired publishes AT&T documents

2006-05-22T11:56:00.000-04:00

Looks like Wired News hasn’t adopted Rick Blaine’s motto:

A file detailing aspects of AT&T’s alleged participation in the National Security Agency’s warrantless domestic wiretap operation is sitting in a San Francisco courthouse. But the public cannot see it because, at AT&T’s insistence, it remains under seal in court records.

The judge in the case has so far denied requests from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or EFF, and several news organizations to unseal the documents and make them public.
AT&T claims information in the file is proprietary and that it would suffer severe harm if it were released.

Based on what we’ve seen, Wired News disagrees. In addition, we believe the public’s right to know the full facts in this case outweighs AT&T’s claims to secrecy.

As a result, we are publishing the complete text of a set of documents from the EFF’s primary witness in the case, former AT&T employee and whistle-blower Mark Klein—information obtained by investigative reporter Ryan Singel through an anonymous source close to the litigation. The documents, available on Wired News as of Monday, consist of 30 pages, with an affidavit attributed to Klein, eight pages of AT&T documents marked “proprietary,” and several pages of news clippings and other public information related to government-surveillance issues.

The AT&T documents appear to be excerpted from material that was later filed in the lawsuit under seal. But we can’t be entirely sure, because the protective order prevents us from comparing the two sets of documents.

The AT&T documents can be viewed here. I, for one, congratulate our online tech news overlords in their efforts to inform the public.

I wonder if LGF will disparage Wired for this. Considering the fact that LGF is a bunch of neocon statists, they will.

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Air marshals shoot man on plane

2006-05-22T10:01:00.001-04:00

Federal air marshals shot and killed a man who said he had a bomb aboard an American Airlines plane at Miami International Airport, CNN said.

The man, who allegedly was acting in a threatening manner, reportedly ran down the aisle of the plane shouting that he had an explosive in his carry-on backpack, CBS Radio reported.

CBS said the gunfire occurred just outside the aircraft door on the Jetway ramp leading from the plane to the Terminal D concourse, when the man was challenged by air marshals who ordered him to lay on the ground.

There was no evidence the man had a bomb, CNN reported. CBS said a woman who claimed to be the man’s wife said he suffered from a bi-polar mental condition and had not taken his medication.

Clearly this man was rightfully shot. He should've taken his meds—otherwise this wouldn't have happened; after all, it's his fault he's bipolar! He shouldn't have screamed that he had a bomb while reaching into his bag!

Remember, too, that this incident does not mean that airport security needs to be reworked or dismantled; in fact, it proves that it's working! How would we know it's working unless the Federal air marshals shot someone every once in a while, eh? And while I'm proving my case so well, I propose that the two marshals be given medals to honor their bravery for shooting an unarmed bipolar man!

Don't give in to the Kooky Kool-Aid Kommies! If you really love America, you'll praise the actions of the Federal air marshals and continue to support this program that works so well!

No, I don’t actually believe a word up there in my “analysis” of the article and situation.

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