Dick Cheney on The Huffington Post

Andy Worthington: Who Are The Four Afghans Released From Guantanamo?

2009-12-23T06:07:32Z

Over the weekend, 12 prisoners were released from Guantánamo, as the Justice Department announced in a press release on December 20. I have previously reported the stories of the two Somalis who were released -- emphasizing how nothing about their cases demonstrated that they were "the worst of the worst" -- and will soon be reporting the stories of the six Yemenis transferred to the custody of the Yemeni government. For now, however, I'd like to turn to the four Afghans transferred to the custody of the Afghan government, because, in contrast to the fearmongering of opportunistic Republicans, who continue to claim that Guantánamo is full of terrorists, the stories of these four men demonstrate instead the incompetence of senior officials in the Bush administration, revealing how, instead of detaining men who had any connection to al-Qaeda, or those responsible for the 9/11 attacks, they filled Guantánamo with what Maj. Gen. Michael Dunlavey, the commander of Guantánamo in 2002, described as "Mickey Mouse" prisoners.

Sharifullah, the U.S. ally who had guarded Hamid Karzai

The first of the four Afghans, Sharifullah, who was 22 years old at the time of his capture, was seized by U.S. forces from an Afghan military compound with another man, Amir Jan Ghorzang (identified by the Pentagon as Said Amir Jan), who was released from Guantánamo in September 2007. Both men were accused of hoarding explosives for the Taliban and being involved in various plots, but insisted that they were loyal government soldiers. In Guantánamo, Sharifullah explained that he was one of the first recruits in the new Afghan army, trained by British officers, and added that he had then spent seven months as part of a group that was responsible for guarding President Karzai. When he was unable to get a promotion, however, he returned to Jalalabad, where he had just taken up a new position as an officer when he was seized.

Amir Jan Ghorzang was the more vociferous of the two in Guantánamo, lamenting the fact that the U.S. soldiers who had seized them had been duped by traitors who were taking money from both the U.S. military and al-Qaeda, and were passing off innocent men as members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. "I'm here because somebody got paid some dollars," he explained, adding that he had been imprisoned by the Taliban for five years, because of his opposition to them, and had also worked for Haji Qadir, a commander who fought with the Americans during the battle of Tora Bora, a showdown between al-Qaeda and U.S.-backed Afghan forces in December 2001.

The cases of both men -- as with many other men who had been working for the Karzai government, but had been betrayed by rivals -- revealed how little the US authorities were concerned with establishing the truth about their allegations, as it would have been easy to track down witnesses in Afghanistan who could have verified their stories (as reporters for McClatchy Newspapers did in 2008, when they interviewed Ghorzang). Nevertheless, he was, in the end, more fortunate than Sharifullah, whose continued presence in Guantánamo for two years and three months after his release was, frankly, inexplicable. As Ghorzang explained in the following exchange in Sharifullah's tribunal, when he was called as a witness:

Sharifullah: Do you know that I was involved to work in the new government? Was I honestly working and working for the new government?
Ghorzang: You were working with the new government and he was involved with the Karzai government, in support of the Karzai government.

Mohammed Hashim: the fantasist put forward for a trial by Military Commission

The story of the second man, Mohammed Hashim, remains as bewildering now as it was when he was put forward for a trial by Military Commission at Guantánamo in May 2008, and I wrote an article entitled, "Afghan fantasist to face trial at Guantánamo," in which I stated that the decision "appear[ed] to plumb new depths of misapplied zeal." Hashim, who was about 26 years old at the time of his capture, was first seized by Afghan forces after he was found taking measurements near the home of Mullah Omar, the Taliban's reclusive leader, and asking locals about security arrangements. Subsequently released, he was then seized again and handed over (or sold) to U.S. forces.

If there was something about the circumstances of his initial capture that should have set alarm bells ringing, regarding his mental health, these were ignored when the U.S. authorities decided to charge him with "conducting reconnaissance missions against U.S. and coalition forces," and "participating in a rocket attack venture on at least one occasion against U.S. forces for al-Qaeda," and ignored the fact that, at his tribunal, his testimony revealed that he was (as I described it) "either one of the most fantastically well-connected terrorists in the very small pool of well-connected terrorists at Guantánamo, or, conversely, that he [was] a deranged fantasist. From the resounding silence that greeted his comments at his tribunal, I can only conclude that the tribunal members, like me, concluded that the latter interpretation was the more probable."

After explaining that he had spent five years with the Taliban, because he needed the money, Hashim proceeded to claim that:

he knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance, because a man that he knew, Mohammad Khan, "used to tell me all these stories and all the details about how they were going to fly airplanes into buildings. He didn't tell me the details, that it was New York, but he said they had 20 pilots and they were going to orchestrate the act." What rather detracted from the shock value of this comment was Hashim's absolutely inexplicable claim that his friend Khan, who had told him about the 9/11 plan, was with the Northern Alliance, the Taliban's opponents, who were also implacably opposed to al-Qaeda.

Hashim also claimed that he and another man had been responsible for facilitating Osama bin Laden's escape from Afghanistan, and that, afterwards, he had worked as a spy, and had heard about how the Syrian government had been sending weapons to Saddam Hussein, which had then been sent to Afghanistan via Iran. As I explained at the time, the cumulative effect of Hashim's statements was that it was "impossible not to conclude that [his] story was, if not the testimony of a fantasist, then a shrewd attempt to avoid brutal interrogations by providing his interrogators with whatever he thought they wanted to hear."

A darker truth, of course, may be that his rambling statement actually revealed the themes pursued relentlessly by the interrogators at Guantánamo: not only "what do you know about the 9/11 attacks?" and "when did you last see bin Laden?" but also, at the insistence of Vice President Dick Cheney, "what was the connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein?" As we know from the interrogations of the CIA's most famous "ghost prisoner" Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, who confessed under torture in Egypt that there were connections between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, which was later used as part of the justification for the invasion of Iraq, securing this sort of information was regarded as critical in the run-up to the invasion, even though the administration claimed that its embrace of torture (or, rather, the euphemistically named "enhanced interrogation techniques") was designed to prevent further terrorist attacks.

Abdul Hafiz: the wrong man with a satellite phone

The third man, Abdul Hafiz, who was 42 years old when he was seized in 2003 from his village near Kandahar, was accused in his tribunal of working for a Taliban militia group and of being involved in two killings in Kabul. It was also alleged that he was captured with a satellite phone linked to one of the killings, and that he "attempted to call an al-Qaeda member who is linked to the murder of an ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] worker."

In response, Hafiz, who described himself as "handicapped" and who repeatedly stated that he has problems with his memory, claimed that his name was Abdul Qawi, and that he had been confused with Abdul Hafiz, because Hafiz, for whom he had been working, had given him the phone at a checkpoint. As he stated, "He told me that he did not have any documents to have the phone with him. So he said, 'You can have my phone because you are handicapped and I don't think they will search you.'" He added that he did not even know how to use the phone.

Describing Hafiz as someone who supported the new government of Hamid Karzai and was "preaching in the village to bring the peace," he said, "I was working for him to bring peace ... He gave me the telephone in the morning and told me to keep it in my pocket. He told me to work and preach to the people not to fight. That war is not good. This is the reason that I lost my leg. Fighting is not good. War does not have good consequences."

He also explained, "I was just in my home when they captured me and brought me here. I didn't do anything," and expressed frustration at not being able to see classified documents containing evidence against him, saying, "In our culture, if someone is accused of something, they are shown the evidence." At his review in 2005, he presented the board with letters from his family -- all addressed to Abdul Qari, not Abdul Hafiz -- including one from his brother, which read, "My respectful brother, you didn't have any relationship with any political people. We were hoping that you would get released very, very soon. We do not understand why you're still detained there without a crime." He was clearly so desperate to be freed from Guantánamo and not to be "amongst these beasts and these people" (as he described his fellow prisoners at one point), that he even offered to present the board with a letter from his wife, even though "It is a big shame in our culture to read my wife's letter to you, but now I am in a very tough situation."

Mohamed Rahim: a spectacular case of mistaken identity

If the continued imprisonment of Abdul Hafiz (or Abdul Qari) appeared to be inexplicable, there was, on the surface at least, more of a case against Mohamed Rahim, the fourth prisoner released at the weekend, but this too collapses spectacularly under scrutiny. A resident of a village near Ghazni, Rahim was accused, in his tribunal, of being the chief of logistics for a company providing support directly to the Taliban government, of working for the Taliban Intelligence Office, and of controlling a large weapons cache for the Taliban. In response, he explained that he had been forced to work for the Taliban, and that, because he "was sick" and unable to fight, he was made to work in an administrative post. He denied the allegation that he worked for the Taliban Intelligence Office, calling it an "outrageous" accusation, and also denied controlling a weapons cache. "This doesn't make sense," he said. "I was captured in my house. I have no information on these weapons."

By the time of his next review, in 2005, numerous other allegations had been added, including a claim that he was "identifiable as a former companion of bin Laden during the jihad against the Russians," and another that he "was among a group protecting bin Laden at his last meeting at Tora Bora." It was also suggested that he "was entrusted by bin Laden to exfiltrate his guard forces from Afghanistan back to their countries of origin," and that "bin Laden and his companions spent the night in a house belonging to an Afghan acquaintance of the Detainee."

There was more in this vein, including a claim that he "attempted to export gems from Afghanistan to Germany in order to raise revenue to finance al-Qaeda," but what was completely overlooked by his review board -- and presumably, by those who were supposed to be capable of analyzing the intelligence relating to the Guantánamo prisoners -- is that when he stated, "I am a sick poor farmer with enemies," he was telling the truth for one particularly glaring reason, which only emerged in passing in his review, when his Designated Military Officer (a soldier assigned to him in place of a lawyer) pointed out that he was Hazara.

One of four main population groups in Afghanistan -- the others being Pashtuns, Tajiks and Uzbeks -- the Hazara, Shia Muslims who are at least partly of Mongol origin, were despised by the Sunni Taliban, who slaughtered them in their thousands. As a result, it is not only appropriate to conclude that the allegations against Rahim were invented by his enemies, but also to conclude that his enemies in Guantánamo came up with the outrageous claims that he was intimately associated with Osama bin Laden.

Release or imprisonment in Afghanistan?

With the exception of Mohamed Jawad, who was released in August after he won his habeas corpus petition, these men are the first Afghans released since January 2009, when Haji Bismullah, who worked for the government of Hamid Karzai as the chief of transportation in a region of Helmand province, was released. Of the 219 Afghans once held at Guantánamo, there are now just 21 remaining in the prison, but it is uncertain whether the four men just released will regain their freedom, or whether, in common with all the Afghan releases since August 2007 (except Jawad, whose case attracted international scrutiny), they will be imprisoned on arrival in Kabul, in a wing of the main prison, Pol-i-Charki, which was refurbished by the U.S. military, and which, although nominally under Afghan control, is reportedly overseen by Americans.

After all this time, and with such scandalous stories of ineptitude on the part of the United States, I would say that the least these men deserve is to be freed outright, and allowed to be reunited with their families.

Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press), and the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film "Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo." He maintains a blog here.

Dick Cheney 'Conservative Of The Year,' Says Human Events

2009-12-21T12:40:34Z

Dick Cheney has spent the past year participating in "happy-ending" interviews, giving himself awards, making speeches in front of his friends and basically just trying to take credit for keeping America safe after 9/11 without having to take any responsibility for the means by which said safety was achieved. So, naturally, white-mustachioed anger-sack John Bolton thinks Cheney deserves to be "conservative of the year."

What seems to most impress Bolton, writing for Human Events, is that time Cheney gave a speech at the American Enterprise Institute on the same day that President Barack Obama gave one. Sure, one guy is setting actual policy, and one guy is re-pimping his old ideas in front of a crowd of glad-handers, but we shouldn't let the fact that only one of the participants in this Makin' Speeches Duel-Off had anything at stake get in the way of Bolton working his way to climax:

So, a major Cheney speech at AEI shortly after leaving the vice presidency was neither surprising nor aimed at the new Oval Office occupant. What was surprising, unprecedented and even unpresidential, however, was the Obama Administration's reaction. Instead of leaving it to allies in Congress, Cabinet officers, or the media to debate the former Vice President, the White House scheduled a speech by the President himself on precisely the same topic. Even more amazingly, they scheduled it on exactly the same day as Cheney's AEI speech, May 21, two hours before Cheney was scheduled to start his remarks. Political commentators searched their memories and clippings files, but no one could come up with another example of a President's so directly taking on even a former President, let alone a former Vice President.

So nervous were Obama's stage managers that they did not realize until too late that they had made a serious mistake by having Obama go first, thus allowing the amused Cheney and his waiting audience at AEI to watch Obama's speech and then directly critique his arguments as soon as Obama had finished. Tellingly, Cheney didn't have to alter the text he had already prepared, because he had already correctly anticipated and written out refutations of all of Obama's central arguments. The White House politicos had tried to set a trap, but had succeeded only in trapping their own President.

Yes! It was a cunning trap that had no discernible effect on the Obama White House's policy-making decisions!

Still it's hard to argue with Bolton in that the Obama administration did do their part in making the whole affair seem like a connected debate on foreign policy. What is amusing is that Bolton simultaneously gives Cheney credit for making the most of going second that day -- which apparently afforded him the chance to do some sort of improvisatory "direct critique" of Obama's speech -- while at the same time giving Cheney credit for not having to improvise at all. That's sort of an "either/or" situation, John!

At any rate, DNC Press Secretary Hari Sevugan scoffs, "What does it say about the current crop of Republican leaders that the 'Conservative of the Year' is the face of a previous administration who regularly scored approval ratings in the 20s? No new ideas, no new direction, no new leaders -- your GOP giving new meaning to 'The Party of No' every day."

A more substantive point was made by Dave Weigel over at the Washington Independent: "...there is a strong case to be made that it's on foreign policy and civil liberties issues that the Obama administration has been most disappointing to the left and most encouraging to neoconservatives."

That's the thing: Cheney has basically spent the year pointlessly whining and carping about policy differences that have more or less failed to materialize. Naturally, I'm assuming that it was the high quality of the whining and carping that put Cheney so high in Bolton's estimation.

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Danielle Celena Belton: A Gitmo Christmas Carol: Say 'Bah Humbug' to Cheney (Video)

2009-12-18T12:41:54Z

New Security Action released this video over the holidays as part of a concerted effort to call for the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

Here are some facts about the prison at Guantanamo Bay:

Nearly 800 detainees have been held in Guantanamo, the vast majority without charge or trial

Only 3 detainees at Guantanamo have been convicted of any crime through the military commissions system

The Federal court system has convicted 195 terrorists since 2001.

Estimated annual cost of operating Guantanamo: 90 million to118 million

Thirty-two times since 2001 and four times this year alone, senior al Qaeda leadership has used the prison at Guantanamo Bay in videos, encouraging others to join effort.

This post originally appeared on New Security Action. New Security Action is a new organization dedicated to fighting for a progressive, smart national security policy. We are fighting to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

William Bradley: Copenhagen Blues: Obama's Weak Hand on Climate, and the California Option

2009-12-16T16:56:35Z

As he prepares to go to Copenhagen for the deeply troubled UN climate change summit, President Barack Obama does so with a weak hand. He has no enacted legislation to brandish, no binding agreements on big greenhouse gas cuts with some of the biggest polluters, and no big financing to aid the developing world of poorer nations.

Aside from that, it's really great.

In his first address to the United Nations as commander-in-chief this past September, President Barack Obama addressed the pressing issue of climate change.

Obama has cobbled together some impressive-looking cards. But starting from the zero point that was bequeathed him by the Bush/Cheney Administration, and with far less congressional support than many imagine, he's nowhere near ready to sign a new Copenhagen Protocol, were one to emerge, which it will not. However, having secured some movement on climate through his recent direct diplomacy with China and India, and with some action in the US, in the form of a bill that has passed the House, EPA moves cutting tailpipe emissions and declaring greenhouse gases a threat to public welfare and granting California its customary right under the Clean Air Act to regulate air pollutants, in this case greenhouse gases, he has a hand that at least consists of some respectable-looking cards.

Let's look at the cards the president does, and does not, have.

** There has been no new legislation enacted. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Obama's strongest and most effective ally, working with LA Congressman Henry Waxman, got the House to barely pass a climate change bill to cut greenhouse gas emissions through a combination of regulation and a cap and trade market.

** His pending legislation falls far short of the cuts that most experts say are needed. Pelosi could barely get a bill passed to cut greenhouse gases by 17% from 2005 levels. But the international standard is based on 1990. And by that standard, the bill is only a 4% cut.

** He doesn't have, as yet, a big financing/technology package for poor nations to aid them in transitioning to greentech and dealing with likely climate impacts. Though Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says America will be part of a big financing package if others agree. And if others agree to have their cuts verified.

** He doesn't have binding, verifiable agreements with rising powers China and India to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

U.N. climate talks deadlocked Wednesday, two days before global leaders hoped to sign an agreement. Police confronted protesters outside the Copenhagen conference venue with pepper spray and batons.

** He does have new agreements from China and India to cut "carbon intensity" in fuels and other products, secured during his supposedly unsuccessful tour of China and other Asian nations and his overlooked Washington summit last month with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. (The silly White House gatecrashers got all the attention.)

** He does have an Environmental Protection Agency decision (based on last year's Supreme Court ruling) that greenhouse gases are a threat to public health, rendering them worthy of regulation by EPA under the Clean Air Act.

** He does have new, stricter standards on vehicle fuel efficiency, based on California standards that were blocked by the Bush/Cheney Administration. (That was a 2002 law signed by then Governor Gray Davis in the face of threats by the auto industry to overturn it at the ballot box. Detroit backed down.)

** He does have a new energy policy, based on the energy efficiency/renewables path pioneered in California by Jerry Brown in the 1970s and 1980s.

** He does have the landmark California plan, enacted in 2006, to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The Bush/Cheney Administration blocked it, despite protests from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and legal action by former Governor-turned-Attorney General Brown. But the new EPA recognizes California's historic ability to take action under the Clean Air Act. And under the Clean Air Act, other states may follow California's lead, as they have done in the past. Which in this instance can create a program covering most of America, including a de facto national cap and trade market in greenhouse gas emissions.

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Copenhagen last Saturday demanding that world leaders take stronger action to fight climate change. This came at the mid-point of the United Nations Global Climate Conference.

Meanwhile, the talks in Copenhagen are in big trouble on a few fundamental points. The trouble is so big that Copenhagen looks destined to be, at best, an interim event, perhaps pointing to further negotiations next year in Mexico City.

The Copenhagen dilemma turns on a few key points.

** Industrialized nations are under pressure to cut back even more on greenhouse gases than they have offered.

** Still developing countries, including giants China and India, have to aggressively cut the growth in emissions, rather than merely reduce carbon intensity. But there is resistance.

** Developing nations need financing and technological assistance to make the leap to green tech, cut emissions, and prepare for the impacts of climate change. The rich nations are talking about a "prompt-start" plan of $10 billion a year for three years. Experts say the funding will be needed for many years, and that $10 billion is a drop in the bucket. Or, in this case, a drop in the rising seas.

And the reality is that European leaders, after much prior hoopla, have only come up with a distinctly underwhelming $3.6 billion a year -- only a third of what was originally planned by the EU -- to help poor nations reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prepare for climate change.

** America and other developed nations want technical verification of emissions actions by developing nations. But China resists that, saying it's a violation of its sovereignty.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger addressed the U.N. climate summit on Tuesday in Copenhagen, arguing that action at the subnational level can do much.

Against this wonderful backdrop, Obama, based on what Pelosi and Waxman were able to get through the House with a bare one vote majority, has offered to cut US emissions by 4% from 1990 levels by 2020. The European Union has committed to a 20% cut from 1990 levels.

It's hard to see how this works on the current track, at least in the near term. Politically speaking, there is a big bandwidth problem, especially for the Senate, which agonizes over legislation for months on end.

Despite an optimistic statement today from Senator John Kerry, it's hard to see how the Senate passes a bill in 2010, an election year, that barely passed the House this year. Remember that the Pelosi-led House passed national health care reform, with the public option, earlier this year, while the Senate is still struggling to pass national health care reform without the public option.

And most experts say that the barely passed House bill is clearly insufficient to meet the challenge of climate change.

Which leaves two options. Do it all by top-down regulation through the EPA, a less flexible cudgel perhaps best used to gain future passage of legislation. (Big moves through the EPA alone hands the Republicans a club about "unelected bureaucrats.") Or use the EPA to do some regulations and encourage other states, big and small, to follow the California plan, which is highly praised by the UN, which states have done before on other air pollution issues.

You can check things during the day on my site, New West Notes ... www.newwestnotes.com.

Marty Kaplan: Barack Obama Is a Traitor

2009-12-14T18:13:41Z

Barack Obama is a traitor.

That's what Dick Cheney said. Too bad Tiger Woods stepped on the story.

The decision to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in New York, Cheney said on the eve of Obama's speech on Afghanistan, is "likely to give encouragement -- aid and comfort -- to the enemy."

Cheney got more attention for shooting his friend in the face than for stabbing our president in the back.

Article Three, Section 3, of the Constitution defines "Treason against the United States" as consisting "only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."

Cheney knew what he was doing. The most recent vice president -- the most powerful vice president in history, perhaps even more powerful than the president he served -- was deliberately, explicitly accusing the sitting president of the United States of committing treason against his country.

Imagine Al Gore doing the same thing to George W. Bush. Imagine another two-term former vice president accusing the new president of abetting the enemy.

After all, in August 2001, the vacationing Bush was warned: "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." Bush's response to his CIA briefer: "All right. You've covered your ass, now." What if Gore had charged that Bush had given aid and comfort to Al-Qaeda?

Surely there would have been a firestorm that no state dinner crashers could have eclipsed. The Sunday shows would have been apoplectic with patriotic outrage. Trent Lott and Dick Armey would be introducing resolutions of Congressional censure. The Washington Post would be denouncing Gore's breach of historic precedent and separating him from the political herd. Rush Limbaugh would be demanding that Bill Clinton repudiate Al Gore. The Drudge Report would be flashing three-alarm sirens, and Fox News would be Photoshopping Gore's head onto Benedict Arnold's body.

But what reaction greeted Cheney's despicable accusation? Next to nada. Aside from some tough words on MSNBC and some anger in the lefty blogosphere, Cheney's charge barely registered.

Why is that?

Maybe we'd been so desensitized by the slurs against Obama that we've been hearing, ever since Sarah Palin's poisonous claim that he was "pallin' around with terrorists," that by the time Cheney got around to saying it, it just wasn't news anymore.

Or maybe we've become so accustomed to hearing him slander Obama for endangering our troops, weakening our security and making America less safe that Cheney's act has come to seem more Chicken Little than Doctor Evil.

Or maybe there's a double standard. A man who manipulated intelligence to justify a misbegotten war; who authorized torture; who ordered illegal wiretapping of Americans; who outed and endangered a covert CIA agent in order to punish a whistleblower; who directed billions in no-bid contracts to the company he ran and retains a substantial financial interest in. Maybe the media were tougher on a Democratic president who was impeached for lying about fellatio than they ever were on a de facto Republican president who should arguably have been impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Or maybe we're just so busy amusing ourselves to death with balloon boys, vampire boys, Playgirl boys, Guido boys and philandering boys that we've lost our faculty for distinguishing what's interesting from what's important, what's catnip for our attention from what's corrosive to our democracy.

Liz Cheney said that by putting terrorists on trial in New York, Obama is "going to give them a public platform where they can spew venom, where they can preach jihad, where they can reach out and recruit other terrorists... from which they can mock the victims of these attacks, and from which they can really put the U.S. government on trial."

Like her father, she seems to have forgotten what Rudy Giuliani said: The conviction in a New York federal court of Omar Abdel-Rahmanm, the mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing, demonstrated "that we can give people a fair trial, that we are exactly what we say we are.... I think he's going to be a symbol of American justice."

There are no television cameras in federal courtrooms. Federal judges can instantly quash incendiary speeches by defendants. Do the Cheneys want to preemptively accuse the judge in the Khalid Shaikh Mohammed trial of treason, too?

As respected terrorism expert Steven Simon wrote in the New York Times, "Instead of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed making his case, we will see the full measure of the horror of 9/11 outlined to the world in a way that only methodical trials can accomplish.... [T]he alternatives -- indefinite incarceration without trial, or a military tribunal closed to the public followed by execution -- are far more likely to inspire militant recruits."

The Allies didn't fear the Nazi defendants at Nuremberg. The Eichmann trial wasn't a megaphone for genocide.

But then again, Hannah Arendt didn't have to compete with Dancing with the Stars.

This is my column from The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. You can read more of my columns here, and e-mail me there if you'd like.Read more: Dick Cheney Obama Traitor, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Cheney Obama, Barack Obama, Dick Cheney, Politics News

Mike Stark: Russ Feingold, Ninja

2009-12-11T20:03:36Z

For years, we've all been clamoring for progressive leadership. At a very minimum, we wanted liberals to cast aside their self-loathing and join the battle.

For a while now, we've seen a few heroes emerge. First, Howard Dean stood up and loudly proclaimed his belief that the emperor lacked clothes. Most recently, Alan Grayson has shown the courage of our convictions, even to the point of telling Dick Cheney to STFU.

Of course, for all that time, there was Russ Feingold, voting against the PATRIOT Act, war in Iraq, confirmation of shitty judges and all the rest. And two days ago, I found out he does the little things that never show up on your TV.

I got wind of a republican/Chamber of Commerce press conference and decided to cover it for StarkReports. (aside: I had some interesting questions for the Chamber's EVP of Gov. Affair, Bruce Josten). The presser was called to ask the Senate to kill the health care reform bill that's working its way through the process. Mitch McConnel, John Cornyn, Lamar Alexander and Chuck Grassley and Mr. Josten each took a turn blasting the bill. One of their overriding criticisms was that the bill didn't do enough to contain costs.

After the presser ended, I filtered out into the lobby area with the rest of the reporters. And there was Russ Feingold, available to give the progressive side of the story.

I can't be sure this wasn't a coincidence, but honestly, when it comes to politics, I'm not a big believer in accidents. Feingold knew that if there wasn't someone there to offer the progressive point of view, only god knows how many stories would be written pushing the Chamber's distorted claptrap. To me, as a progressive, that is exactly the kind of leadership and commitment I want from my progressive Senators and Representatives. It's not always about going on TV; the little things matter too.

If the story ended there, we could all go home smiling a little bit more broadly, knowing we had someone in the Senate that had our backs. But the story doesn't end there; it gets better.

I was able to ask a question of the Senator, and I chose to give him the opportunity to rebut the Chamber's central argument concerning cost containment.

Feingold took the question and knocked it out of the park:

For those that are YouTube challenged, he basically said that the Chamber was right about the lack of cost containment, and that is exactly why he is so concerned about anything that would weaken the bill's inclusion of a robust public option. I think we can all feel pretty safe that's not what the Chamber was looking for...

William Bradley: Obama's Lincolnesque Nobel Peace Prize

2009-12-11T10:27:56Z

Who expected, two months ago when the surprise award was announced, that President Barack Obama, in accepting his Nobel Peace Prize, would deliver a speech that in many respects is about the ethics of war?

Obama has surprised many with his escalations in Afghanistan, and in winning the Nobel Peace Prize. I was surprised by his winning the Nobel. It's undeserved, as I wrote here on the Huffington Post right after it happened two months ago.

But Obama's emergence as more the liberal warrior than the reflexive dove surprises me not in the least, for I was paying close attention to what the president said and wrote before and during his campaign.

President Barack Obama accepted the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize yesterday in Oslo, Norway. Obama said that he wants to continue working on issues that are critical for building lasting peace and security in the world.

Obama doesn't deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. Not because he is not a good president -- which doesn't mean I like everything he does, or doesn't -- but because his policies are still in motion, the multiple situations they address still in flux.

Setting aside the possibility that Obama was selected because he's not George W. Bush, I think the president got the Nobel for his great speeches. Principally, his outstanding speech to the Islamic world in Cairo six months ago. It's terrific outreach and a fine repositioning of America after, well, eight years of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. As public diplomacy, it's brilliant. Yet it's very incomplete.

Obama's engagement of mainstream Islam, which so impressed the Nobel committee, is a great, and absolutely necessary, complement to Obama's engagement of extremist Islam. Which is not generally the stuff of peace prizes. Perhaps after a war, as with Woodrow Wilson, but not in the midst of a war.

A pensive Obama discussed his winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

I recall talking last year with right-wingers who had talked themselves into believing that Obama was really a dangerous peacenik radical who would disarm America and let Al Qaeda, with which he not so secretly sympathized, run rampant across the world. When I pointed out what Obama was actually saying and doing -- yes, he was against the Iraq War from the start, not because it was a war but because it was a stupid war -- they couldn't see it. That's how strong a hold the picture they'd hysterically painted for themselves had over their minds.

It was quite bizarre. For Obama always said the more important struggle against jihadism was in Afghanistan and Pakistan, not Iraq. He advocated escalation in Afghanistan and stepped-up strikes at Al Qaeda and Taliban cadre in Pakistan, using both drone air strikes and special operations forces.

So much so that the Bush/Cheney White House, not to mention Hillary Clinton, sharply criticized Obama for being too aggressive.

The Obamas arriving in Oslo, Norway.

They also sharply criticized Obama for his willingness to talk with all parties, including Syria and Iran.

This is a president who believes in soft power and hard power, and sees them both on the same continuum. It was all there in his campaign statements and in his writings, for those who actually read his best-selling books.

Lincoln is Obama's professed ideal. We remember Lincoln today from sugar-coated civics lessons and the magnificent monument in Washington, but the historical reality is that he was both soaring idealist and ruthless pragmatist. Consider this key passage from The Audacity of Hope:

"I'm left then with Lincoln, who like no man before or since understood both the deliberative function of our democracy and the limits of such deliberation. We remember him for the firmness and depth of his convictions -- his unyielding opposition to slavery and his determination that a house divided could not stand. But his presidency was guided by a practicality that would distress us today, a practicality that led him to test various bargains with the South in order to maintain the Union without war; to appoint and discard general after general, strategy after strategy, once war broke out; to stretch the Constitution to the breaking point in order to see the war through to a successful conclusion. I like to believe that for Lincoln, it was never a matter of abandoning principle for expediency. Rather, it was a matter of maintaining within himself the balance between two contradictory ideas -- that we must talk and reach for common understandings, precisely because all of us are imperfect and can never act with the certainty that God is on our side; and yet at times we must act nonetheless, as if we are certain, protected from error only by providence."

When he first learned of it in October, Obama said that he was surprised that he won the Nobel Peace Prize.

To grasp what Obama wrote is to be unsurprised by the direction of what he is doing.

Which is not to say that the specifics of what Obama is presently doing in Afghanistan are wise. I don't think we need to do all that to disrupt Al Qaeda and to deny it bases in Afghanistan. As I've written more than a few times.

Yet Lincoln tried a number of things that didn't work out before hitting on the right formula, while always focused on his North Star.

Perhaps it will be so with Obama. I certainly hope so. The difference at hand today is that Lincoln wasn't awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1862. The North had stopped the South at the Battle of Antietam, and Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, but the work was far from being successfully concluded.

You can check things during the day on my site, New West Notes ... www.newwestnotes.com.

Conan Mocks Dick Cheney's "Radical" Take On Obama (VIDEO)

2009-12-10T08:33:10Z

Dick Cheney appeared on Fox News Tuesday night and referred to President Obama as "more radical" than the traditional Democratic president. But according to the footage Conan O'Brien ran last night, Cheney had even more to say about the "evil" Obama, implicating him in the unlikeliest of crimes. John Wilkes Booth might finally be off the hook.

WATCH:

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Alan Grayson Tells Dick Cheney To 'STFU' (VIDEO)

2009-12-09T19:04:07Z

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) put his sharp tongue to use again on Hardball this evening. Chris Matthews asked Grayson about Dick Cheney's penchant for taking swipes at President Obama, specifically his most recent accusation that Obama was giving "aid and comfort to the enemy," which is the constitutional language that defines treason. Grayson replied by telling Cheney, in so many words (or in this case, letters), just what he can do:

Grayson: I don't know. You know, on the Internet there's an acronym that's used to apply to situations like this. It's called "STFU." I don't think I can say that on the air, but I think you know what that means.

Matthews: Well, give me the first part.

Grayson: "Shut."

Matthews: Oh! I got you. Stop talking, in crude language. Well, I don't think you're gonna get him to do that.

They moved on to Cheney's accusation that Obama had shown weakness when he bowed to the Emperor of Japan, and in doing so, opened up the country to more terrorist attacks.

It's just too bad that it's too late to impeach him," Grayson said. "That's all I can say."

WATCH Grayson on Hardball:

Grayson To Cheney: 'STFU' (VIDEO)

2009-12-09T18:00:59Z

On MSNBC's "Hardball" Wednesday night, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) had a succinct response to Dick Cheney for the former vice president's recent comments on President Obama: STFU.

"On the Internet there's an acronym that's used to apply to situations like this: STFU. I don't think I can say that on the air, but I think you know what that means."

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Cheney Refuses To Call Obama A Socialist In 'Hannity' Interview (VIDEO)

2009-12-09T09:12:11Z

Former Vice President Dick Cheney did his usual shtick on Fox News Tuesday night, telling host Sean Hannity that he found President Obama's approach to foreign policy "deeply disturbing." But he also showed a little restraint, ducking a question about whether Obama is a socialist.

"I don't want to use that kind of a label," he said when prodded by Hannity. "I think on his part he does not have the kind of commitment to the private sector that most of us have and have lived with in the past."

However, Cheney did call Obama "more radical" than the traditional Democratic president.

WATCH:

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Cheney: Trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed In NYC Could Make Him 'More Important Than Osama bin Laden'

2009-12-09T00:07:15Z

NEW YORK — Former Vice President Dick Cheney says trying suspected Sept. 11 terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (HAH'-leed shayk moh-HAH'-med) in New York City will make him "as important or more important than Osama bin Laden."

In an interview with Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity, Cheney said holding the trial in a lower Manhattan courtroom near ground zero will make Mohammed "a hero in certain circles, especially in the radical regions of Islam around the world."

Cheney said the trial will put Mohammed "on the map."

The Republican called Attorney General Eric Holder's decision in November to try Mohammed and four other 9/11 suspects in a civilian federal court near ground zero "a huge mistake."

The interview, for which Fox News provided a partial transcript, aired Tuesday.

Andy Worthington: Former Guantanamo Prosecutor Loses Job for Criticizing Military Commissions

2009-12-08T10:18:02Z

So much for the First Amendment. Morris Davis, the retired Air Force Colonel who served as the Chief Prosecutor of the Military Commissions at Guantánamo from September 2005 until his resignation in October 2007, has just lost his job at the Congressional Research Service (a branch of the Library of Congress) for writing, in his personal capacity, an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, in which he drew on his wealth of experience of the Commissions to criticize the Obama administration for its decision to prosecute some Guantánamo prisoners in federal courts, and others in Military Commissions, and a letter to the Washington Post, in which he criticized former Attorney General Michael Mukasey for scaremongering about the administration's decision to try Guantánamo prisoners in federal courts.

In a letter dated November 20, Daniel P. Mulhollan, the director of CRS, told Col. Davis that he had not shown "awareness that your poor judgment could do serious harm to the trust and confidence Congress reposes in CRS," and notified him that he would not be kept on after his one-year probationary period at CRS ends on December 21.

The ACLU immediately stepped in, sending a letter on Friday to Dr. Jim Billington, the Librarian of Congress, arguing that "CRS violated the First Amendment when it fired Davis for speaking as a private citizen about matters having nothing to do with his job there, and that CRS must reinstate Davis to his position in order to avoid litigation."

Aden Fine, staff attorney with the ACLU First Amendment Working Group, said, "The First Amendment protects Col. Davis's right to speak and write as a private citizen about issues on which he has personal knowledge. Col. Davis didn't give up his right to express his opinions and first-hand knowledge about a matter of such public importance when he left the military commissions system and went to work at CRS."

In correspondence over the weekend, Col. Davis reinforced the ACLU's views, explaining:

I am the head of the Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division at the Congressional Research Service (one of five CRS research divisions) at the Library of Congress. My division does not now nor has it ever had responsibility for providing Congress with advice on military commissions; that responsibility resides with the American Law Division ... The Library of Congress has a regulation on outside activities for staff and it "encourages" outside writing and speaking on topics outside the staff member's area of responsibility and the Congressional Research Service has a similar policy ... In short, it was clear that I was prohibited from expressing my opinions publicly on matters within my area of responsibility, but I believe I retained the same right as all citizens to express opinions on matter outside the scope of my official duties.

He added:

The First Amendment guarantees the right of free speech and the Supreme Court has long recognized that public employment does not override that right (although regulation of speech is permissible when related to an employee's official duty ... and as noted, I have absolutely no official duty connected to military commissions). It is ironic that our offices are located in the James Madison Building, which is named for the "Father of the Constitution" and the primary architect of the Bill of Rights who led the effort to secure the right of free speech. I suspect Mr. Madison would be surprised to learn that the right he cherished is denied those working in the building that bears his name.

Morris Davis and the ACLU are right, of course, and I hope that Davis is reinstated. Even aside from the fact that he should be entitled to express his personal opinions under his First Amendment rights, it is difficult to see how his published comments could possibly be construed as demonstrating "poor judgment" that "could do serious harm to the trust and confidence Congress reposes in CRS."

In his Wall Street Journal article on November 10, for example, Col. Davis stated only that the administration's decision to try some prisoners in federal court and others in Military Commissions was "a mistake." As he explained, "It will establish a dangerous legal double standard that gives some detainees superior rights and protections, and relegates others to the inferior rights and protections of military commissions. This will only perpetuate the perception that Guantánamo and justice are mutually exclusive."

And in his letter to the Washington Post, he chided former AG Mukasey for claiming that the decision to try prisoners in federal courts "comes down to a choice between protecting the American people and showcasing American justice," and also for implying that the Commissions were "essential to keep detainees from returning to terrorism." As he added, "The Geneva Conventions permit detaining the enemy during armed conflicts to prevent them from causing future harm. Criminal trials punish past misconduct. Suggesting that the choice is either criminal prosecution or freedom is false."

Ironically (given his subsequent treatment), Col. Davis's comments about the Commissions were actually rather constructive, as he pointed out that the administration "could legitimately choose to prosecute detainees in either forum -- federal courts or military commissions -- and satisfy its legal obligations," noting only that "The problem is trying to have it both ways." He also explained, "It is not as if double-standard justice is required to keep suspected terrorists off our streets. Those detainees who cannot be prosecuted can still be detained under rules the administration approves -- likely in the next several months -- for the indefinite detention of those who pose a threat to us during this ongoing armed conflict."

Jut as ironic is the fact that Davis's dismissal follows nearly a year at CRS in which he has, in fact, been the soul of discretion regarding his former role as the Chief Prosecutor of the Commissions, the politicization that drove him to resign, and the comments he made in February 2008 that led to the immediate resignation of William J. Haynes II, the Pentagon's Legal Counsel, even though countless journalists (myself included) would dearly love to talk to him about these matters.

Arguably, no one knew more -- or, at least, felt more keenly -- the politicization of the Commission process in 2007, after the system was revived by Congress in the fall of 2006 (following a Supreme Court ruling in June 2006, which found that it violated both the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice).

Detailed accounts of Davis' resignation -- and his subsequent explanations of his reasons for doing so, which strike at the heart of the Bush administration's torture regime, and its attempts to prosecute the victims of torture over Davis's objections -- can be found, in particular, in my article, "The Dark Heart of the Guantánamo Trials," but to conclude this account with a concise explanation, it is worth noting the following passages taken from that article:

[I]n a blistering op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, two months after his resignation, Col. Davis stated, "I was the chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, until Oct. 4, the day I concluded that full, fair and open trials were not possible under the current system. I resigned on that day because I felt that the system had become deeply politicized and that I could no longer do my job effectively or responsibly."

[Col. Davis] explained that the particular trigger for his decision was [a] memo ... informing him that he had been placed in a chain of command under Haynes. Stating that he resigned "a few hours after" being informed of this, he mentioned that "Haynes was a controversial nominee for a lifetime appointment to the US 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, but his nomination died in January 2007, in part because of his role in authorizing the use of the aggressive interrogation techniques some call torture." He added, "I had instructed the prosecutors in September 2005 [shortly after taking the job] that we would not offer any evidence derived by waterboarding, one of the aggressive interrogation techniques the administration has sanctioned."

In February 2008, Col. Davis told Ross Tuttle of the Nation about a conversation he had with Haynes in August 2005:

"[Haynes] said these trials will be the Nuremberg of our time," recalled Davis, referring to the Nazi tribunals in 1945, considered the model of procedural rights in the prosecution of war crimes. In response, Davis said he noted that at Nuremberg there had been some acquittals, which had lent great credibility to the proceedings.

"I said to him that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process," Davis continued. "At which point, [Haynes's] eyes got wide and he said, 'Wait a minute, we can't have acquittals. If we've been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can't have acquittals. We've got to have convictions.'"

This, I'm sure you'll agree, is far more explosive than Col. Davis's op-ed and letter regarding the Military Commissions, but even had he chosen to talk about these matters, he should have been free to do so. The fact that he has not is a loss for those of us who wish to see the Bush administration held accountable for its crimes (and who are keen to follow the chain of command from Haynes, via Susan Crawford, the Commissions' Convening Authority, to Dick Cheney and David Addington), but it also provides another demonstration that, when it came to exercising his freedom of speech whilst employed by the CRS, Col. Davis had no intention of demonstrating "poor judgment" at all.

Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press), and maintains a blog here.

Bob Cesca: Obama's Unavoidable Cure for the Afghanistan Cancer

2009-12-02T16:11:51Z

Whether you like it or not, if you voted for President Obama last year, you are partly responsible for this strategy. That's not entirely a bad thing depending on your position on the war, but it's worth repeating that the president never spoke of drawing down our forces in the Af-Pak region during the campaign, nor did he mention such a thing during his first 10 months in office.

So last night's announcement shouldn't come as a shocker.

Admittedly, during the campaign, he never specifically said that he would drop 30,000 additional soldiers into the war. And while he never specified the exact "30,000" number, he also never said anything about a July, 2011 date for beginning the withdrawal either. In other words, and unlike the Bushies, he's making adjustments to his strategy based upon what's happening on the ground rather than holding himself to a firm "smoke 'em out" meets "bring 'em on" endless and unchanging war policy. And, suffice to say, this underscores his considerably non-Bushie penchant for thought, rationality and informed deliberation.

Nevertheless, this thing is painfully confounding.

Yes, I obviously voted for President Obama. Yes, I understand how this strategy is, in fact, a vast departure from the Bush administration's conduct and strategic planning (insofar as the Bushies "planned" anything -- all gut). Yes, I understood the president's hawkish language about "the good war."

But I'm very reluctant to support this decision, because history has proved that similar plans have too easily gone horribly awry. Be that as it may, I just don't see how the president's solution can be avoided.

The war in Afghanistan is like a terrible form of cancer. No one wants it, but I don't know how we can avoid dealing with it without facing serious consequences. I don't want an escalation. I don't want more casualties. I don't want more spending when Congress is being miserly on domestic programs. I want the thing to end. I didn't even want it to start in the first place.

Regardless, it seems as though the president's announcement is a prescription for radical chemotherapy, complete with a start date and an end date. Vomiting, pain and ugliness ensue, but with light -- and perhaps a cure -- on the horizon. I think.

The diagnosis was reiterated and clarified by the president last night.

How did the cancer metastasize? We're all too familiar with how the Bushies made a series of historic blunders over there. They let Bin Laden escape. They failed to crush the Taliban. They rushed to abandon the mission in lieu of invading and occupying Iraq. They further destabilized an already unstable region -- a region in which there are several nuclear powers, one of which being Pakistan. The Taliban and others want those nukes and they shouldn't be allowed to attain them.

The impossible conundrum is whether we, as a nation, are willing to allow eight years of mistakes and mismanagement to go unmitigated knowing the long-term risks of an immediate withdrawal, or whether we risk more lives trying to at least clean up some of the mess before we bug out. Clearly, the president has opted for the latter with an eye on the former. And while I despise this war, I can't wrap my head around any other more reasonable solution.

There are historical lessons from Vietnam (more on this presently), but, likewise, there are lessons in the story of Charlie Wilson and our intervention during and following the Soviet occupation. But the added layer of several nuclear powers in the region, including Pakistan, raise the stakes and augment the risks in leaving without some kind of reconstruction as we go.

Our failure in the 1980s to provide the civilian population with even the most rudimentary infrastructure following the Soviet withdrawal eventually helped to create al-Qaeda and this current FUBAR crisis. If we don't withdraw smartly, we risk decades of blowback -- or, I should say, additional blowback beyond that which has already been sowed. Yet if we leave behind some stability, as opposed to abandoning the region in its present state of chaos, we might actually ameliorate some of the anti-Western piss and vinegar that's been stirred up over the years. Then again, occupation is occupation -- a choice between "awful if we get out" or "awful if we stay."

And then there's Pakistan's nukes. Outside of the purview of the American national security apparatus, the rest of us probably won't know for sure how close the Taliban is to absconding off with a nuclear weapon, and we probably don't entirely know how unstable Pakistan's government is. One way or another, I can't imagine a better sales pitch for Republican slash-and-burn foreign policy than a Democratic administration summarily withdrawing and consequently allowing a hostile Islamic regime to acquire a nuclear device from a destabilized Pakistan and to use it. This doesn't seem acceptable to me, but what will it cost to prevent it? I have no idea.

Again, this is the cancer. This is a big steaming bucket of crap. It's not a Truman A-bomb choice, but it's not too far down the list.

No matter what the cable news people suggest, though, this will never be "Obama's War." However, it will be "Obama's Chore" to repair the, pardon the language, impossibly fucked. And so I reluctantly support this plan with many, many concerns and caveats.

Mainly, this has to remain a clean-up and not evolve into a reboot. If it becomes a reboot of the war, it will fail. If the situation cascades out of hand, we could very well have the Vietnam that the president seemed to dismiss last night. (I disagree with the president's "it's not Vietnam" argument. While the specifics are different, the broadstroke similarities remain: escalation is escalation, endless war is endless war. If he loses control of the plan, Vietnam is what could very well happen.)

Ultimately, this is the policy we voted for last year. We voted for a pragmatic president who would carefully deliberate the war, a president who would make decisions based upon reason and reality -- a president who has been unwavering in his determination to repair the Bushie mistakes in Afghanistan and, once this was accomplished, to withdraw. This is precisely who and what we heard last night.

Hang the chemo bag and let's get it over with. Here's to hoping the road to July, 2011 is speedy and the casualties are minimal.

BobCesca.com

Chris Matthews: Obama Made Speech At 'Enemy Camp,' Cheney Is A 'Troll' (VIDEO) UPDATED

2009-12-02T08:46:02Z

***UPDATE 5:55PM*** Matthews has apologized for referring to West Point as an "enemy camp" when talking about President Obama's speech last night:

Now I've heard too many politicians say things like, "oh that was taken out context" to explain something they wish they hadn't said let me just say to the cadets, their parents, former cadets and everyone who cares about this country and those who defend it: I used the wrong words and worse than that I said something that is just not right and for that I deeply apologize.

As those who watch me regularly probably got right away, my point was that the military up at West Point was probably a skeptical audience for President Obama given his strong position against the war in Iraq and generally more dovish image. I was wrong to make that conclusion based on the lack of applause or apparent enthusiasm in the ranks of officers and cadets last night.

---

MSNBC host Chris Matthews wishes he could have phrased his point about President Obama's speech at West Point last night a little better after he referred to the venerated military academy as an "enemy camp." Matthews was saying that Obama was not getting the warmest of receptions from the cadets in the audience, and that his decision to make this speech at West Point was "interesting" because Obama "went to maybe the enemy camp tonight."

WATCH:

The host later acknowledged that "enemy camp" was perhaps the wrong phrase, but that his point about the location remains: "Maybe earlier tonight I used the wrong phrase, 'enemy camp,' but the fact of the matter is that he went up there to a place that's obviously military."

Matthews also did not have the most flattering reaction last night to the interview Dick Cheney gave to Politico yesterday. Cheney slammed President Obama throughout the interview, accusing him of "projecting weakness" to America's enemies. Matthews said Cheney reminds him of a "troll":

Does he ever stop? He's crawled troll-like out from under his bridge to say that President Obama is projecting weakness to our enemies. [...]

But he is really tough. I compare him to the troll that comes out from under the bridge and bites the ankle of the kid crossing.

WATCH:

Will Marshall: Time for Strategic Stamina

2009-12-01T16:27:33Z

Not even Michael Moore can accuse President Obama of rushing into war. He has taken two months to make a decision that seems dictated by the inescapable logic of his assessment of Afghanistan as a "war of necessity."

To Dick Cheney, such deliberation is -- surprise -- a sign of weakness. After eight years of war, however, most Americans are probably relieved to have to a president who thinks long and hard before sending more U.S. troops into battle. That's doubtless true as well of our NATO allies, who also will be asked to commit more troops despite widespread skepticism of the war in Europe.

Had Cheney and President Bush kept their sights on Afghanistan, Obama wouldn't be in this fix. Perhaps the former vice president is carping because he doesn't care to explain this week's report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It recounts how the Bush-Cheney administration refused to commit the forces necessary to prevent Osama bin Laden and his henchmen, then bottled up in the Tora Bora mountains, from escaping across the border into Pakistan in 2001.

In any case, having thoroughly analyzed the multilayered complexities of the Af-Pak situation, President Obama now has a difficult sales job to perform. He must persuade war-weary Americans to back a second round of escalation -- 34,000 more troops on top of the 30,000 he already has dispatched to Afghanistan. In essence, his message will be: we need to get in deeper to get out sooner.

He's right. U.S. military commanders say more troops are necessary to stop Taliban advances, especially in southeastern Afghanistan. We also need more troops to accelerate the training of Afghan security forces. In his speech tonight, Obama is expected to stress that the purpose of his surge is not to defeat the Taliban, but to buy time for building up Afghan security forces so that they can take over the fight. He will emphasize the conditional nature of America's commitment -- conditioned on the Afghan government's ability to win popular backing and legitimacy by fighting corruption, offering services, and providing security.

At the same time, Obama must convey a sense of strategic stamina. He must convince our friends as well as our enemies in the region that the U.S. is not planning to walk away from the struggle against Islamist extremism.

It will take time to build up strong Afghan forces, to help the central government become more effective, to reconcile with local tribal leaders in Pashtun areas, to build roads, schools, and other basic infrastructure. So even as the U.S. hands off responsibility to Afghans and draws down its combat troops, we must signal our enduring commitment to help the country defend itself against our mutual enemies. The Taliban and their al Qaeda allies need to know they will not be able to simply wait for us to tire of the struggle and go home.

And Pakistan needs to know this, too. If it looks like the U.S. is once again abandoning Afghanistan, the Pakistani military and intelligence service will be tempted to go back to their old bad habit of using the Afghan Taliban and other radical groups as foreign policy tools. By turning up the pressure in southern Afghanistan, Washington will be in a stronger position to insist that Pakistan keep pressing the Taliban on their side of the border, and flush al Qaeda leaders out of their havens.

No one needs reminding that patience is a virtue more than the president's own party. Already, some leading Congressional Democrats are demanding what no president can responsibly offer -- clear exit strategies and precise timelines for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

America has a vital interest in ensuring that Islamist extremists don't seize power in Afghanistan -- and, even more important, in Pakistan. No one knows when this struggle will end, but the stakes for our security are such that they call for the same constancy and resolve America displayed during the Cold War.

Marshall is the president of the Progressive Policy Institute. This item is cross-posted at ProgressiveFix.com.

Obama Adviser Calls Out Cheney: You Walked Away From Afghanistan (VIDEO)

2009-12-01T15:42:32Z

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said he "basically" didn't think he or his old boss held any responsibility for the current state of affairs in Afghanistan. On MSNBC today, National Security Council Chief of Staff Denis McDonough pointed out that not only does Cheney bear some responsibility for ignoring Afghanistan for the past eight years -- he also "walked away" from the country when he was Secretary of Defense in the 1990s.

Watch:

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James Zogby: What Was He Thinking?

2009-11-30T15:31:26Z

I do not make a practice of using this space to express my disagreements with other columnists, but a piece last week by Abdul Rahman al Rashid was so off the mark that I cannot let it pass without comment.

Writing in al Sharq al Awsat, al Rashid takes US President Barack Obama to task for being indecisive and giving the impression of being weak. Where has Obama exhibited these traits? Al Rashid, not unlike former US Vice President Dick Cheney and other neo-conservative critics, identifies both the president's delay in deciding on future US troop levels in Afghanistan, and demonstrations of what he calls signs of weakness in the face of North Korean and Iranian intransigence. To be fair, unlike Cheney and company, al Rashid throws into his mix criticism of Obama's failure to stand up to Israel's settlement program.

But mention of Afghanistan and Israel appear to serve as mere punctuation marks designed to give emphasis to al Rashid's main concern and that is Obama's supposed failure to stand up to Iran's efforts to play games with demands regarding their nuclear program. Now, al Rashid is justified in finding Iran's behavior frustrating and irksome, and he can, as an expression of his irritation, criticize the US president's performance on this issue and others. That is fine by me.

What is unacceptable and wrong, and even bizarre, is for al Rashid to make the claim that Iran would not be getting away with this type of behavior if George Bush were still US president!

During the past month, we were all forced to endure a flood of press commentary claiming to evaluate Obama's performance at yet another supposed milestone -- this being the one year anniversary since his election. Words like "disappointing" and "fading star" were all too often used to describe the first 10 months of the new president's term. In commentaries of this type that appeared across the Arab World there was growing, and some justifiable concern, that the "change" Arabs had hoped for and that Obama's Cairo speech seemed to promise, might not be in the offing any time soon.

But with the exception of Dick Cheney and Co., and now Abdul Rahman al Rashid, no one with a straight face has dared make the comment that anything might be better if George Bush were still in office.

It is more than fair to offer criticisms of President Obama's handling of a range of foreign policy issues. But the criticism should, at least, make an effort to be sober and reality-based.

To begin with, it is important to acknowledge that when Obama won the election last November and took the oath of office 10 weeks later he was not handed a magic wand. Instead, he was handed the shovel his predecessor had used all too vigorously to dig deep holes in many parts of the world. George W. Bush's neglect of some critical issues and the reckless adventurism displayed in his approach to others, created the world Obama inherited.

What the new US president has to contend with is a world where precisely because of the rigid ideologically-based policies pursued by Bush in the Middle East and beyond we face:

-two ongoing wars that have taken thousands of lives and drained over one trillion dollars from the US treasury. And despite being unfinished, there a growing sense among analysts and the public, alike, that at least one of these wars (Afghanistan) may be unfinishable;

-an emboldened Iran whose tentacles now reach into Iraq and more deeply than before into Lebanon, Palestine and even, it appears, Yemen;

-an equally emboldened and increasingly hard-line Israel which feels entitled to obstruct US efforts at peace-making and feels confident that it had sufficient support in the US Congress to withstand the pressures of any US President;

-the bitter fruits of a reckless "victor/vanquished" approach to resolving rivalries between our allies and their foes, wherein our allies came out defeated and/or weakened; and

-a US more isolated in the world and facing a resentful Europe, an ascendant China, a resurgent Russia, and a veritable revolt across the Americas.

And so I think it is only too appropriate to ask what exactly is it that George Bush would do to confront the damage he has done, other than to dig a deeper hole?

Would he launch another war, in a region where we have our hands full with two, and the US military leadership is warning that they are hard pressed to find sufficient troops to fight the wars we are in? Would he attempt to mobilize the international community to support pressure leading, if necessary, to sanctions -- and would he be any more successful at this than Obama, who is working to earn the support needed to make this happen? Or would he merely talk tough, make threats, and then pursue policies that only embolden Iran's hardliners and inflame anti-American passions?

What Obama has done is to eschew hollow tough talk and chart, instead, a different course. But changing direction takes time: time to assess the damage done and plot a new strategy; time to rebuild trust and mend frayed relationships with needed allies; and time to break the back of adversaries' bad behavior.

When he became president, Iran, Hizbullah and Hamas didn't surrender their hard line views, nor did Benjamin Netanyahu. The Taliban didn't put down their arms nor did the US public fall in love with a war they want to end. The economic crisis continues to grow as do federal deficits, putting constraints on new spending.

The point, in other words, is that Obama inherited a mess that was largely the creation of George Bush. What on earth could possess anyone to suggest that they would want him back?

Taylor Marsh: Jon Meacham Turns Newsweek Into the Onion

2009-11-30T13:48:00Z

As Obama turns to Afghanistan, it seems so fitting that Jon Meacham and Newsweek turn towards Dick Cheney. Ironic that Meacham's cheerleading for Chency has a backdrop of the country Bush-Cheney forgot, giving us all this mess in the first place. Somebody tell Mr. Meacham, because he evidently thinks how Cheney handled Afghanistan actually makes him a perfect candidate for president.

In the quest to sell magazines, evidently Mr. Meacham thinks train wreck journalism is the way to go. But he's inadvertently turned Newsweek into the Onion, with no offense intended to the far superior latter named, whose mission is actually purposefully on point. Meacham's title tells all: "Why Dick Cheney Should Run in 2012."

But I think we should be taking the possibility of a Dick Cheney bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 more seriously, for a run would be good for the Republicans and good for the country. (The sound you just heard in the background was liberal readers spitting out their lattes.)

Why? Because Cheney is a man of conviction, has a record on which he can be judged, and whatever the result, there could be no ambiguity about the will of the people. The best way to settle arguments is by having what we used to call full and frank exchanges about the issues, and then voting. A contest between Dick Cheney and Barack Obama would offer us a bracing referendum on competing visions. One of the problems with governance since the election of Bill Clinton has been the resolute refusal of the opposition party (the GOP from 1993 to 2001, the Democrats from 2001 to 2009, and now the GOP again in the Obama years) to concede that the president, by virtue of his victory, has a mandate to take the country in a given direction. A Cheney victory would mean that America preferred a vigorous unilateralism to President Obama's unapologetic multilateralism, and vice versa.

Where to begin?

How about "bracing referendum on competing visions," with Meacham forgetting all about the 2008 race. Oh right, John McCain isn't a conservative, so there was never a real fight about "competing visions," right?

And never mind Dick's denials, starting in 2005, which aren't enough for Meacham, who after his mind blowing Sarah Palin sexpot cover is certainly on a roll... straight down hill.

Now, when Mr. Cheney's daughter Liz first floated that her dad was her candidate, it was an unremarkable moment that was only worth ignoring. Not because it couldn't happen or that Dick Cheney denies it, but that this stuff is just so predictable. Just like David Broder's whining.

In Meacham's mind, Barack Obama losing to Dick Cheney would prove something that Obama seemingly didn't prove to these people by beating McCain-Palin; running a campaign that was basically the anti-Bush platform, promising the opposite of everything his administration and Dick Cheney stood for and represented. To Meacham, these milestones only count when it's the conservative doing it. You know, someone from The Establishment, never mind the never ending resume of mistakes dragged along.

Liz is more likely to run than her dad (which I've already written). But Meacham's misogyny won't allow him to think about that horror.

Let's also not forget that this isn't the era of J.F.K. and multitudinous ailments hidden in plain sight, with Dick Cheney... Oh no you didn't. Now I'm even arguing in the negative, taking on this preposterous notion offered from a man who would be fired for his incompetence or laughed out of the business if he wore a bra.

A campaign would also give us an occasion that history denied us in 2008: an opportunity to adjudicate the George W. Bush years in a direct way.

Denied us, really? Meacham is hopeless.

Besides, that's the job of Congress, unfortunately Democrats don't have the spine.

Here's some advice: skip Newsweek's next issue. Read this instead. It's about Afghanistan and Tora Bora, one of the biggest mistakes of the Bush-Cheney era. Something Meacham ignores in cherry picking his case for Cheney.

Taylor Marsh, with podcasts available on iTunes.

Jon Meacham's Cheney 2012 Proposal: Pretending To Care About 'Adjudicating' The Bush Years

2009-11-30T11:13:17Z

Wow. So while I was out and about enjoying life outside the Beltway for Thanksgiving, the entire world was captivated by Tiger Woods, a pair of reality-show fameball wannabes who made it into the White House's schmancy dinner and a Jon Meacham column touting former Vice President Dick Cheney as the GOP nominee for 2012. I'm deeply resolved to not writing a blessed word on the first two topics, so let's dispense with Meacham's new modest proposal, which is a stupid idea dressed up as something clever.

I suppose that I should purchase and attempt to drink my first-ever latte, for the sake of viscerally experiencing Meacham's vision. He says that his argument that a Cheney run "would be good for the Republicans and good for the country" will force me to endure some heavy-duty expectoration. But really, most of the spittle on my laptop screen comes courtesy of Newsweek. Meacham's argument basically boils down to this:

1. Cheney is a "man of conviction."
2. "Conviction" seems to mean being a tidy amalgam of "Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, and Haley Barbour."
3. "A campaign would also give us an occasion that history denied us in 2008: an opportunity to adjudicate the George W. Bush years in a direct way."

And... I'm going to stop Jon Meacham right there. Regardless of whether a Cheney run "would be good for the Republicans and good for the country," it's pretty clear that a Cheney run would not be good for Dick Cheney.

If you've watched Cheney in retirement, it's pretty clear that he likes being in his current position: he gets to stand in as the avatar of one side of a "great debate" in foreign policy, without having to be accountable for his suggestions, as President Obama does. Cheney's basic post-election campaign has been to seek as much credit for "keeping America safe" without having to accept any responsibility for the means by which he sought to do so.

And, much to its discredit, the Obama administration has resolved to do as little "adjudicating" of "the George W. Bush years" as it possibly can. But if the two men end up locked in electoral battle, that will change. If Cheney wants to get a faceful of political buckshot, cast out of the remains of the Bush administration, then he should definitely run for president.

Of course, the rivetingly dumb thing about this whole proposal is Meacham telling the world that he'll be lying in wait for Cheney a few years from now, to call him out on matters that will be almost a decade old by the time we're geared up for another presidential election season. If "history" truly "denied... an opportunity to adjudicate the George W. Bush years in a direct way," then why is Meacham waiting until 2011 to get cracking with that adjudication? Last time I checked, he was the editor of a widely-read news magazine, in charge of a stable of reporters and researchers. He could get started on that direct adjudication right now! Or is there some sort of statute of limitations that has to run out before Meacham feels like he's in the clear to finally get tough with Dick Cheney?

And really, what sort of Cheney critic is Meacham likely to be? Let's cast our minds back to January of this year, and peep this terrifyingly brave take on "the George W. Bush years":

That said, to rehash the case against Cheney at this late hour in the life of the Bush administration would be the rough equivalent of pornography--briefly engaging, perhaps, but utterly predictable and finally repetitive. As Stuart Taylor Jr. and Evan Thomas explore in this week's cover, the urgent question now is whether President Obama will hew to that dogma or whether, confronted with the realities of office, he will begin to see virtue in the antiterror apparatus Cheney helped Bush create.

This looks to me like a guy who's got very little interest in prosecuting the Bush/Cheney White House for diddly. And it's been demonstrated that Obama has, with a few glancing exceptions, seen the virtue of "the antiterror apparatus Cheney helped Bush create." So, I'm sort of wondering how Meacham arrived at the conclusion that a Cheney-Obama election matchup would result in "a bracing referendum on competing visions."

At any rate, all the people who correctly called this Meacham editorial a sad and desperate grab for page views and attention from ol' Matt Drudge have it precisely correct. I certainly wouldn't read this column as the honest evocation of a desire to cast a critical eye at the previous administration. To borrow a phrase, you can write off Meacham's passing fancy as something that's briefly engaging, perhaps, but utterly predictable and finally repetitive.

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Linda Milazzo: Teflon Dick: How Cheney Uses Media For Protection

2009-11-30T04:52:15Z

On January 29, 2001, just nine days after taking office, Dick Cheney created The National Energy Policy Development Group, commonly known as the Cheney Energy Task Force. The task force was charged with the critically important task of designing America's national energy policy. Although the group's efforts would directly impact the entire nation, the new Vice President refused to divulge the names of its members or their specific activities, claiming the Executive Branch's right to confidentiality.

To challenge Cheney's claims of privacy and acquire the names and activities of the task force members, the Sierra Club and Judicial Watch filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits, but the courts denied their initial requests and subsequent appeals. On July 18, 2007, the Washington Post revealed the names of members of the task force, which included executives of major conglomerates Enron, Exxon, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, the National Mining Association, and more.

Cheney's refusal to divulge the identities of the members of his task force was the earliest indication of the absolute power America's 46th Vice President presumed. His refusal demonstrated the covert nature of his Vice Presidency and his belief that transparency was not a requirement of the Executive Branch. The policies and practices predicated upon Cheney's presumption of confidentiality remained constant for the full eight years of his Vice Presidency. They ushered in the era of the Bush/Cheney Imperial Presidency that exercised sweeping authority, bypassed established law, and caused widespread concern amongst scholars and average citizens for the future of our democracy.

On August 27, 2004, future Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman wrote the following criticism of Mr. Cheney's pursuit of privacy and power:

"Mr. Cheney's determination to keep his secrets probably reflects more than an effort to avoid bad publicity. It's also a matter of principle, based on the administration's deep belief that it has the right to act as it pleases, and that the public has no right to know what it's doing.

As Linda Greenhouse recently pointed out in The New York Times, the legal arguments the administration is making for the secrecy of the energy task force are "strikingly similar" to those it makes for its right to detain, without trial, anyone it deems an enemy combatant. In both cases, as Ms. Greenhouse puts it, the administration has put forward "a vision of presidential power . . . as far-reaching as any the court has seen."

From January of 2001 right through today, Dick Cheney has committed unconstrained, and as yet unprosecuted offenses, that include circumventing the Constitution, sanctioning unlawful torture, contributing to the outing of a CIA agent, concealing information from Congress, and lying the nation into war. The tragedy of Cheney's unrestrained lawlessness is further compounded by his unprecedented authority to preside over economic and foreign policies so calamitous that they drove this nation financially, militarily and morally into the ground. Despite his constant international and domestic catastrophes, for his first six years in office Cheney's crimes were supported by an ideological Republican legislative majority and a weak Democratic minority, both of whom succumbed to Bush and Cheney's Unitary Executive.

After the 2006 election, when Democrats took control of both Houses, Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to abide by her Constitutional duty to investigate Bush and Cheney's crimes. Irrespective of public clamor for backbone and accountability, the Democratic majority rolled over for Bush and Cheney. They financed their plunder and allowed America to decay from within. Structural chasms in bridges, roadways, pipelines, and schools were matched by ideological chasms over religion, economics, politics and war. As Americans battled each other, Bush and Cheney bombed and tortured on, comforted by knowing there would be no repercussion. For a full eight years, they wreaked havoc on America and the world, and today, post administration, both men remain free.

Bush and Cheney understand that they're vulnerable to prosecution. Bush, for the most part, has stayed out of the limelight, though he's recently become more visible, perhaps inspired by Cheney's success at using THE BIG TOOL - the media - for protection. Since the beginning of the Obama presidency, Cheney has used the media full on. He's commandeered its major outlets, newspapers, cable and network TV, and the most caustic outlet of all, talk radio, to attack the very sources he knows could bring him down - the President and Attorney General. Cheney's best defense is his mass media offense and he knows exactly how to use it.

Dick Cheney has used the complicit American media, his most powerful anti-prosecution tool, to near Machiavellian perfection. He understands implicitly that American media employs no ethical standards that would prevent it from promoting him despite the atrocities he has caused. Regardless of his catastrophic failures, the shameless complicit media freely provides Cheney the platform to attack the President and Attorney General and advance his standing as their fiercest political critic. Because of this granted visibility to pummel Obama and Holder, Cheney is more able to establish himself as a victim of partisanship should Obama and Holder try to charge him for his crimes. Through widely broadcast speeches, like the one below of Cheney bashing Obama on Afghanistan, the complicit media is helping to immunize Cheney - and it's doing so knowingly.

It's baiting for ratings and justice be damned!

Cheney's transparent media offensive places him squarely, frequently and loudly in the public eye attacking Obama and Holder, and setting the stage for an adversarial relationship from which he can claim that he's their target. He's banking on the theory of American exceptionalism to keep his contrived "adversaries" from taking him down. American exceptionalism implies that America as a nation is superior to the rest of the world. In lesser nations, political rivals are targeted and imprisoned. Exceptionalism presumes that superior America, with its highly evolved democracy, would never do the same. Exceptionalism presumes that political targeting only happens in undeveloped and undemocratic nations led by unsavory leaders; Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Museveni of Uganda, Nkrumah of Ghana, Putin of Russia, have all imprisoned their opponents. Cheney's calculus has determined that American exceptionalism would prevent America's leaders from publicly engaging in tactics they condemn - like imprisoning political opponents.

Last week, Cheney's Machiavellian strategy reached a whole new level when his daughter Liz raised his status from political adversary to political opponent by floating the prospect of candidate Cheney in 2012. Brilliant! Behold Dick's calculating progeny doing his bidding on Fox TV:

What better protection from legal worries than planting the notion of a presidential run, elevating Cheney from harsh critic to political rival. It's the epitome of legal immunity in exceptionalist USA. Of course, there's little probability that Cheney would actually run. His approval ratings are dismal and he battles for breath whenever he speaks. But this is media manipulation - not political reality. Truth rarely imposes itself on TV.

Then there's the blogosphere, and the Keep America Safe website, created by scions Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol to propagandize for Cheney. The Cheney cabal is in full media combat when it comes to protecting Dick Cheney.

Notice the front page attack on Attorney General Holder - though Cheney's attacked Holder for a while.

On August 30th on Fox News, Cheney characterized AG Holder's decision to conduct a review of CIA interrogations as 'politically motivated,' laying the groundwork for Cheney's future claim of partisan targeting should the AG investigate him. Recognizing that Cheney and his "BFF" Donald Rumsfeld are thought to have instigated and sanctioned the interrogations, there is strong indication that CIA investigations would lead the AG directly to Dick Cheney. Here's Cheney's politicization of Holder's decision, broadcast on Fox TV:

Could the Cheney media strategy be any more obvious than it is in this video?

The saddest and perhaps most despicable irony in this symbiotic relationship between Cheney and the all encompassing media is the manner in which the media permits itself to be the tool to thwart justice. I recognize that in this article I've reproduced the messages Dick Cheney wants to send. But I've done so in the context of revealing Cheney's manipulations. It's my sincere hope that all media stop providing Cheney the wherewithal to immunize himself from prosecution. But sadly that won't happen. American media thrives on the point-counterpoint model, and Cheney has fashioned his offense perfectly to fit it.

William Bradley: Tony Blair's Cautionary Tale For Obama

2009-11-24T11:58:47Z

Tony Blair's recent travails, last week over his bid to become the first president of the European Union and today with the start of Britain's Iraq War inquiry, stand as something of a cautionary tale for President Barack Obama. Blair was long the favorite to become the first president of the European Union. But in the end, pilloried on the left for his leading role in the Iraq War and still not supported by the right, he was supplanted by a little-known Belgian bureaucrat.

Just as America had Obamamania in 2008, Britain had Blairmania in 1997. "Things Can Only Get Better" blared, as it were, the ubiquitous Blair campaign song.

Tony Blair's farewell speech.

"Everybody voted for him. He wasn't a politician; he was a craze." That's how the title character puts it in the deliciously vicious roman a clef novel by former Blair friend Robert Harris, The Ghost (as in ghostwriter of the ex-prime minister's memoirs), which was was being made into a movie by Roman Polanski when he was arrested in Switzerland.

Blair ushered in an era of "Cool Britannia," which many critics say morphed into Cruel Britannia as he swapped his famous friendship with Bill Clinton for an infamous friendship with George W. Bush.

As Britain's Opposition Leader in 1994, Blair, along with Clinton, swiftly emerged as a chief advocate of the the global "Third Way," between the sclerotic sort of socialism which made Labour a consistent loser in Britain and a hyper-capitalism which hollowed out communities. With Blair, Labour became New Labour, a remade force able to take on the reigning Conservatives. Well, more than able to take on the Tories. Able to shatter them, actually, which Blair proceeded to do.

"Things Can Only Get Better," the ubiquitous campaign song of Tony Blair and New Labour.

Blair reinvented a moribund political party, won three national elections (the only Labour politician to do so) beginning with his landslide win in 1997 -- the largest in 165 years -- and quickly became a very major world figure.

Under Blair, Britain "modernised" as "Cool Britannia," and indicators on the economy, the environment, and crime improved for his decade-plus as British prime minister. He made Britain a more inclusive society. And he settled the bloody, decades long conflict in Northern Ireland. Blair and Clinton formed a strong working partnership as Blair became a global player.

Fatefully, Blair became quite the interventionist abroad. He took Britain to war, in one form or another, five times. First when he and Clinton decided to conduct an air war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq when the Iraqi dictator proved intransigent on weapons inspections and other matters. Next when, at Blair's determined instigation, NATO launched an air war to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and bring down the Serbian dictatorship of Slobodan Milosevic. Then Blair intervened in the African nation of Sierra Leone, with British forces landing to end a brutal civil war.

Then came 9/11, and Blair, who had formed an unlikely friendship with George W. Bush, was quick to spring to America's side. British resources, notably intelligence, and forces, including its crack special ops forces, were instrumental in helping America overthrow the Taliban's theocratic dictatorship in Afghanistan and rout Al Qaeda from its redoubt.

Bush and Blair address the people of Iraq as the invasion begins.

Then came Iraq. The war far too far, to borrow a phrase and change it a bit. By 2002, it was apparent that Tony Blair had developed a taste for intervention and for turning out dictators, as well as a commitment to his alliance with the US in the 9/11-derived war on terror. Iraq was next on the agenda of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the coterie of neoconservative theorists around them, as it had been all along. Initially skeptical about an Iraq invasion, Blair was caught up in the move. Blair and his people believed that he had major influence over Bush, having banked a great deal of credit with the Afghanistan operation, intel/special ops moves around the world, and world diplomacy in the UN and elsewhere. It turned out that, despite all that and their personal friendship, he did not.

Saddam Hussein was unpopular in much of the Arab world and was a largely secular dictator who was actually oppressing much of his population, especially the Shia. But the Bush/Cheney team, as we've seen, closely associated with various charlatans in the Iraqi exile community and elsewhere, had a totally unrealistic view of how Iraq might be secured and governed in the aftermath of victory in a conventional war. Blair wanted a strong UN role in the governance of Iraq, but Cheney and his allies worked assiduously to undermine Blair's influence with Bush on that and other matters. Such as engagement with Iran and Syria, which Blair has always advocated. To the hardline neoconservatives, Blair, actually a man of the center-left, was a socialist who did not share their view of a civilizational war, and that was that.

A BBC retrospective on Blair.

The other big problem was how to sell an Iraq war. Saddam Hussein was a terrible dictator, but that hardly made him unique in the world. His links with Al Qaeda were slight, and there was no serious evidence linking him to the 9/11 attacks on Washington and New York, despite what Dick Cheney and the neocons said. You couldn't actually say that we were invading Iraq for its oil. Which, of course, never did pay for the occupation, a later claim of Donald Rumsfeld's. That left WMD (weapons of mass destruction).

Which Saddam Hussein, for all his understandable bluster, didn't really have. He maintained the facade of having them -- consistently blocking weapons inspections -- to maintain fear and order within and to seem more powerful to other countries. Incidentally, merely because an irritating country says it can do things doesn't mean it should be taken seriously. Otherwise, we would believe that North Korea was about to take over the world. It's the job of intelligence services and their decision-making masters in government to determine what is bullshit and act accordingly.

But Bush and Cheney pushed the myth of Iraqi WMD, and its supposedly imminent threat. Because it served their nitwit purpose to do so. Blair lent his credibility to this nonsense and took Britain to war. A war which, as we saw at the Azores Summit prior to the invasion, Blair was far better at explaining and selling than was the falteringly inarticulate Bush.

A war which played right into Al Qaeda's hands, which wanted the West tied down in military operations in the middle of the Islamic world, both to drain America's resources and to inflame a new generation of jihadists. A war which provided Iran with the opening to become the great power of the region, an ambition which has not yet come to fruition.

A war which hamstrung Tony Blair, festooning his once glittering reputation with streamers of screaming charges of "B.Liar," that he not only used his very considerable powers of persuasion to help sell an unsellable war but also facilitated the torture of British citizens at the hands of CIA and Pakistani interrogators.

The Ghost teaser trailer.

Could something like this happen to Barack Obama? Could he pin America down in another faraway quagmire, going far beyond what is needed to ensure that Afghanistan does not again become the base for "The Base," Al Qaeda? Could he see his shining stand against torture slide into a de facto policy of torture?

Blair, who never officially announced his candidacy for the European presidency, made several late moves to try to find his way through the complex thicket of European politics, with calls to various leaders and a speech in Switzerland where he appealed to the continent's dominant center-right faction by warning against too much governmental intervention to overcome the global recession.

But it didn't work. Blair was too big a figure for some of the smaller countries and for some leaders of the larger countries with global aspirations of their own; too controversial for the left and too left for the right. And so the old political dictum that you can't beat somebody with nobody was proved wrong, at least in this instance.

He continues as special Mideast envoy of the Quartet (America, Britain, Russia, and the European Union). But the question of Israel and Palestine continues to be largely intractable. His supposed ally Secretary of State Condi Rice imagined she would negotiate a peace -- at which she clearly failed -- and pushed Blair off to the building up of the Palestinian Authority. Which is only a fraction of the equation. A friend who visited the region last week said that the Israeli and Palestinian leaders she saw barely mentioned Tony Blair.

You can check things during the day on my site, New West Notes ... www.newwestnotes.com.

Julie Farby: Liz Cheney's Solution To Bow-Gate: Choose Dick In 2012!

2009-11-23T11:00:18Z

Dick Cheney's golden-haired spawn Liz Cheney is full of great
ideas. Like how if Obama really wanted to do the honorable thing, he'd
take his farce of a peace prize
and shove it right down the stupid Nobel committee members' throats. Or
send the mother of a fallen American soldier to accept the prize just
to remind those Nobel ingrates who exactly keeps them safe and snug
every night.

Unlike NObama, Liz also knows the best way to keep America safe
isn't through silly diplomacy or cultivating strong international
allies or anything pussy like that. I mean who are we, France or
something??

Like anyone's gonna take us seriously if we stop randomly invading
sovereign nations, start adhering to international law, and suddenly
stop pissing the whole world off just because it's fun.

Perhaps that's fine for "community organizers" in Chicago, but out in the real world, Barry's way just ain't gonna cut it. The O-man is in for a big surprise!

Take his recent trip to Asia for instance, where Comrade Barry made
the unforgivable mistake of greeting Japanese Emperor Akihito with the
traditional custom of bowing respectfully while shaking hands as a sign
of honor. Gasp!

How dare he? Start with a bow and the next thing you know Obama's
thanking them for Pearl Harbor and apologizing for that whole A-bomb
thing. I mean, the past is the past people!

Liz, for one, would never endanger America by treating an important
world leader and key global ally with respect and deference. And you
know who else wouldn't? Dick, that's who!

In fact, when Dick met the emperor back in 2007, not only did
Akihito not get a bow, the little man's lucky he didn't get a swift
kick in the balls to go with it. Let alone dither around with any of this "bowgate" crap.

"You could also look at the comparison and think, Cheney 2012," Liz chimed in during a roundtable discussion on Fox News Sunday.

Which made the rest of the panelists hoot with delight!

Barely managing to contain his hysterical laughter at such sheer
brilliance (and wit!), Bill Kristol quipped that, "Sarah Palin would
never bow to the emperor of Japan. She wouldn't even curtsy to him."

Don't be silly, Bill. She doesn't even know what a curtsy is.
Besides everyone knows Japan isn't a real country. It's just a faraway
fantasy island they used for that giant gorilla movie. Donkey Kong or
whatever.

Mary Cheney Daughter Born, Her Second Child

2009-11-19T09:57:42Z

Mary Cheney, former Vice President Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter, had her second child this morning at Sibley Hospital in Washington, DC.

Sarah Lynne Cheney was born at 8:17 a.m., weighing 6lbs., 14 oz. Her parents are Mary and her partner of 18 years, Heather Poe. The couple's first child, Samuel David Cheney, was born in May 2007.

Josh Nelson: Will the GOP Nominate a Climate Change Denier in 2012?

2009-11-18T14:55:33Z

In the early stages of the race for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2012, eight names are mentioned most frequently: Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich, Haley Barbour, Bobby Jindal and Dick Cheney.

Of these eight early contenders, five outright deny or question climate science, while the remaining three are opposed to all meaningful action.

If Gingrich, Jindal or Barbour wish to claim they are not opposed to all meaningful action, they'll have to present plans that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the extent scientists say is necessary, which is on the order of an 80+ percent reduction from 1990 levels by 2050. An 'All of the Above' strategy of increased domestic oil and gas development and incentives for nuclear plants that will never be built does not even come close.

Candidate	Position
Mitt Romney	Climate Science Denier
Mike Huckabee	Climate Science Denier
Dick Cheney	Climate Science Denier
Sarah Palin	Climate Science Denier
Tim Pawlenty	Climate Science Denier
Newt Gingrich	Opposed to Meaningful Action
Bobby Jindal	Opposed to Meaningful Action
Haley Barbour	Opposed to Meaningful Action

Mitt Romney, as part of the unveiling of the Massachusetts Climate Action Plan, wrote:

"If climate change is happening, the actions we take will help," Romney wrote. "If climate change is largely caused by human action, this will really help. If we learn decades from now that climate change isn't happening, these actions will still help our economy, our quality of life, and the quality of our environment."

Mike Huckabee, speaking with Katie Couric of CBS News:

Katie Couric: "Do you think the risks of climate change are at all overblown?"

Mike Huckabee: I don't know. I mean, the honest answer for me, scientifically, is I don't know.

Dick Cheney, speaking to ABC news in 2007, said:

"We're going to see a big debate on it going forward," Cheney told ABC News, about "the extent to which it is part of a normal cycle versus the extent to which it's caused by man." What we know today, he added, is "not enough to just sort of run out and try to slap together some policy that's going to 'solve' the problem."

Sarah Palin, talking to GOP boss Rush Limbaugh yesterday:

RUSH: What's our biggest energy challenge as a country? Do you believe at all or some or a lot in the modern-day go-green movement of solar and wind and all of these nefarious things that really don't produce anything yet?

GOV. PALIN: I think there's a lot of snake oil science involved in that and somebody's making a whole lot of money off people's fears that the world is... It's kind of tough to figure out with the shady science right now, what are we supposed to be doing right now with our climate. Are we warming or are we cooling? I don't think Americans are even told anymore if it's global warming or just climate change. And I don't attribute all the changes to man's activities. I think that this is, in a lot of respects, cyclical and the earth does cool and it warms.

Brad Johnson has more on this, including audio, here.

Tim Pawlenty, who was once an advocate of clean energy solutions to the climate crisis, has steadily moved in the wrong direction as his national ambitions have grown. Think Progress recently documented his regression as follows:

Dec. 2006: Pawlenty lays out an ambitious clean energy program for Minnesotans to reduce their use of fossil fuels 15 percent by 2015. Cutting greenhouse gases, Pawlenty said, would "be good for the environment, good for rural economies, good for national security and good for consumers." He also calls for a regional cap and trade program.May 2007: Pawlenty signs the Next Generation Energy Act of 2007, requiring the state to reduce its emissions 15 percent by 2015 and 80 percent in 2050. At the signing ceremony, Pawlenty said Minnesota was "kicking-starting the future" by "tackling greenhouse gas emissions."

Oct. 2007: Pawlenty declares that the climate change issue is "one of the most important of our time." He also brushes off "some flak" from right-wingers who doubt climate change science.

Sept. 2008: During the election, Pawlenty backs away from his own cap and trade program, says such a system would "wreck the economy." He then tells hate radio personality Glenn Beck (a climate change denier) that human activity only contributes "half a percent" to climate change.

Nov. 2009: Pawlenty backs away from acknowledging that any human activity is the cause of climate change.

While Newt Gingrich does not openly deny climate science, he is vehemently opposed to any meaningful legislation or regulation to address it. In testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in April (PDF), he said:

This is the wrong bill for our national security.

This is the wrong bill for our economy.

This is the wrong bill for government of, by, and for the people.

He went on to cite widely discredited cost estimates and tout the wonders of coal and oil shale, two of the most polluting energy sources on the planet. This is not an all of the above strategy as Gingrich would like to claim. The emphasis is drill here, drill now, more of the same.

Bobby Jindal's press secretary released the following statement in September 2009:

"Governor Jindal has made it clear he believes that the House passed cap and trade bill punishes the American energy industry and that's the last thing we need to do when we are trying to become more energy independent. The legislation will make it harder to create new manufacturing jobs in the US, and the Governor opposes it."

In a March 2001 memo to Vice President Dick Cheney (PDF, page 17), then energy industry lobbyist Haley Barbour urged the Bush administration not to let environmental initiatives trump sound energy policy. Specifically, he wrote:

A moment of truth is arriving in the form of a decision whether this Administration's policy will be to regulate and/or tax CO2 as a pollutant. The question is whether environmental policy still prevails over energy policy with Bush-Cheney, as it did with Clinton-Gore. Demurring on the issue of whether the CO2 idea is eco-extremism, we must ask, do environmental initiatives, which would greatly exacerbate the energy problems, trump good energy policy, which the country has lacked for eight years?Most Americans thought Bush-Cheney would mean more energy and more affordable energy.