If He Only Had a Pulse...

Ah, Hypocrisy. Where Would the GOP be Without You?

Santa Meets the Cheney Doctrine

Right Winger's Guide to International Etiquette

America in Cheney's Mind

The Blackwater Problem

I have been suspicious of the move to use private contractors for government work (especially military) since the days of Reagan. It appears to be cheaper only on paper. For instance rather than have a buck private drive a truck we pay a private contractor over $100,000/year to do it. Instead of training and deploying army electricians on bases in war zones we hire KBR at outrageous rates who then electrocute our soldiers. Perhaps the most bothersome is that security for the State Department as well as the army (which confuses the crap out of me. Shouldn't soldiers be the best people to provide security?) is provided by the shadowy mercenary company Blackwater (renamed to Xe Services). We are allowing civilians to operate for profit in war zones with fully armored vehicles, automatic weapons, and apparently little or no culpability for their actions.

And now the inimitable Jeremy Scahill has dug up this frightening story:

Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder

A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."
...
...the former US marine who worked for Blackwater in Iraq alleges that he has "learned from my Blackwater colleagues and former colleagues that one or more persons who have provided information, or who were planning to provide information about Erik Prince and Blackwater have been killed in suspicious circumstances." Identified as "John Doe #1," he says he "joined Blackwater and deployed to Iraq to guard State Department and other American government personnel." It is not clear if Doe #1 is still working with the company as he states he is "scheduled to deploy in the immediate future to Iraq." Like Doe #2, he states that he fears "violence" against him for "submitting this Declaration." No further details on the alleged murder(s) are provided. The Nation

Not only are these people war profiteers and mercenaries, they're also religious crusaders and zealots. The damage that the Christian Right has managed to do to the integrity of our government and military during the rein of King George the Shrub is deep and systemic. Can we weed these people out and shut them down? They are at war with the American way of life while claiming to be protecting it. Fascism wrapped in an American flag and carrying a cross...

WWCD?

New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

So much for transparency. President Obama is fighting against FOIA requests for visitor logs for the White House citing the exact same arguments as Darth Cheney. Obama has decided that the 700 year old right to habeus corpus is outdated (why not just call it "quaint" and square that circle?) and he can throw people in jail forever without proving cause. But you really want your mind blown? An actual reason for not releasing Cheney's FBI interview is --and seriously, I can barely type this because it is so ridiculous as to sound invented-- because satirists might use it to make fun of the former Vice President:

Justice Department lawyers told the judge that future presidents and vice presidents may not cooperate with criminal investigations if they know what they say could become available to their political opponents and late-night comics who would ridicule them.

"If we become a fact-finder for political enemies, they aren't going to cooperate," Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Smith said during a 90-minute hearing. "I don't want a future vice president to say, `I'm not going to cooperate with you because I don't want to be fodder for 'The Daily Show.'" AP

I'm sorry, Mr. Obama, but that's complete and utter bullshit and you know it. Grow a pair, buddy, and back up the rhetoric that got you elected.

Logical Conclusion

Obama v Cheney in 100 Seconds

It's About Us, Not Them

We signed the Geneva Conventions. That makes the Geneva Conventions the law of this land. We signed the international treaty against torture. That makes it the law of this land. We are a nation of laws, right?

I keep hearing the argument that "if our boys had been captured by Al Qaeda they could have expected worse." That is completely beside the point. We decided that we were not going to torture. We made it the law and those that violated that law are criminals.

There is also the (mindbogglingly doubtful) idea that we somehow gained useful information by waterboarding a detainee 183 times in a month. That's not interrogation. It's not questioning. It's torture for the sake of torture.

The techniques recently revealed in the "torture memos" so far are the same as those used by the Khmer Rouge to force confessions out of prisoners. We're supposed to be getting "actionable intelligence" out of these people, not forced confessions of guilt. What kind of evil, drooling idiots order this kind of treatment?

Learning from Peru

From Harper's Magazine:

Presidential Accountability

By Scott Horton

The president ran a vigorous counter-terrorism program. With super-secret clearances, he caused terrorists and their helpers to be “disappeared” and tortured for intelligence value. Several of them died in the process. His assistants succeeded in keeping all of this under wraps for years, but then, after he left office, prosecutors began a painstaking process of establishing the facts. The penalty? Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori sentenced to twenty-five years for crimes essentially identical to those committed by George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney. Former President Bush, behold what the future may hold in store:

The former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori was today convicted of kidnapping and murder and sentenced to 25 years in what was described as a landmark ruling for human rights cases in Latin America. A three-judge panel found the 70-year-old guilty of authorising a military death squad during the state’s “dirty war” against Maoist rebels in the 1990s. The 15-month trial, held at a special forces police base just outside the capital, Lima, was the first time a democratically elected Latin American leader had been tried on home soil for human rights abuses.

“This court declares that the four charges against him have been proven beyond all reasonable doubt,” Judge Cesar San Martin told the courtroom.

Can We Save Our Soul?

Keith Olbermann makes the argument for prosecuting Bush & Co. for war crimes:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Darth Cheney Interview With Darth Limbaugh

Perhaps after January 20th we will no longer have our official White House web page besmirched by the words of the traitorous idiot known as Rush.

Former Libertarian Radio Talkshow Host Says Send Bush and Cheney to the Hague

from Harper's Magazine

Gene Burns is one of the nation’s most popular talk radio hosts. For years he has dismissed accounts of torture; America, he has said, does not torture. But last night, after watching Torturing Democracy and realizing that he had not understood how important and serious an issue torture had become, Burns abruptly changed his tune. Here’s a transcript of his remarks.

I now believe that some international human rights organization ought to open an investigation of the Bush Administration, I think focused on Vice President Dick Cheney, and attempt to bring charges against Cheney in the international court of justice at The Hague, for war crimes. Based on the manner in which we have treated prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, and the manner in which we have engaged in illegal rendition–that is, surreptitiously kidnapping prisoners and flying them to foreign countries where they could be tortured by foreign agents who do not follow the same civilized standards to which we subscribe.

more

Corruption? KBR?!? In Iraq?!?

Stealing from our troops and government?!? A company that split off from a company owned by the Vice President?!? Tell me it ain't so.

It's so.

Allegations of widespread mismanagement and corruption among private contractors in Iraq are nothing new; if anything, tales of cronyism, over-billing, and embezzlement have become so frequent that our national tolerance for them seems only to have increased as the Iraq War has drawn on. Even so, the testimony earlier this week of three whistleblowers before the Senate's Democratic Policy Committee (DPC) stands out for the sheer outrageousness of their accusations—namely that U.S. private contractors looted Iraqi palaces and ministries, stole military equipment, fenced supplies destined for U.S. troops, and even operated a prostitution ring that may have contributed to the death of fellow contractor. Yet despite its focus on such salacious matters as sex and corruption, the session earned little media attention.

Halliburton Works For Al Qaeda?

Click on the cartoon to see full scale.

A 24-year-old staff sergeant was electrocuted when he took a shower at a US Army base in Iraq.

He wasn't the first. At least 12 soldiers and marines have been electrocuted by shoddy wiring and construction at US bases built by Halliburton.

No one is that inept. Halliburton is obviously working for Al Qaeda.

The streets of Baghdad are safe. Combat has ceased. Yet our troops continue to die.

But now is no time to go wobbly. If we pull out now, all the sacrifice will have been in vain!

...and Dick Cheney's trust fund has another massive check deposited into it.