Slipping on the Way to Tipping?
A great long weekend, no? At least for those of us in the Country-Ashamed-to-Have-Yet-Another-Bush-as-Supposed-President.
It was terrific to have so many family members together again - undoubtedly the best feature of a holiday - you know, games, banter, teasing, all the good stuff.
Alas, no gumbo was made here; I've learned to accept that. But turkey and all the fixin's! Hard to regret the lack of okra when you have classic dressing (to die for!), mashed potatoes, and gravy. And did we ever have gravy! Maybe the best ever. And a new brussels sprouts recipe, heavy on the pancetta. Somehow I have been anointed the maestro of b'sprouts, and daughter Mara's new recipe find was much appreciated by (almost) all.
We hardly had to - or ever did - talk politics. And not generally because of the usual intergenerational problems - there's very limited disagreement in my circle of relations. We all know that our present administration has more or less "screwed the pooch," an expression I associate with a prior lifetime of commuting to the Texas Panhandle. I was gratified today to encounter a couple mid-country editorials that reinforce the idea that real folks dislike being lied to:
Selective Intelligence, Selective Memory
Even as Vice President Dick Cheney accuses his critics of "corrupt and shameless" revisionism, he shamelessly revises the history of the Bush administration's use and misuse of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq.
In a speech last week, Mr. Cheney said it was "utterly false" that prewar intelligence was "distorted, hyped or fabricated" by President George W. Bush. Then he claimed that, "We operated on the best available intelligence gathered over a period of years....."
But Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney clearly did not operate on the best available intelligence. They ignored questions that had been raised about the intelligence, accepted information that would support war and invented connections between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.
The Los Angeles Times reported last week that the CIA ignored warnings from U.S. and foreign agents that the main source of information about Saddam's biological weapons was a "fabricator." Curveball, the aptly named informant, claimed to have seen a plant that made mobile biological weapons labs. Before the war began, U.N. weapons inspectors inspected the plant and discovered that the physical characteristics of the plant did not match Curveball's description. Hans Blix, the chief U.N. inspector, said as much to the Security Council on March 7. But that didn't stop Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney from continuing to make the claim part of the rationale for going to war.
[snip]
The most blatant example of Mr. Cheney hyping available intelligence was his repeated attempts to link Saddam to al-Qaida. Mr. Cheney claimed that Mohammed Atta, the lead 9/11 hijacker, had met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague - a claim that already had been discredited when he made it. The Times reports that Mr. Cheney and his now indicted aide, I. Lewis Libby, tried to get this claim into Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations in February, 2003. Mr. Powell refused.
[snip]
American's Shameful Shift on Torture
Americans accustomed to taking their leaders' words at face value perhaps can be forgiven, at least until now, for believing the unbelievable. But enough details have recently come to light about the Bush administration's handling of terror suspects to make anyone aware of them thoroughly repulsed and deeply ashamed.
There is no escaping that this administration has undermined the nation's highest ideals, thereby jeopardizing its moral leadership in the world. It is now clear that it also has jeopardized its ability to bring terror suspects to justice.
[snip]
The news caught up with U.S. behavior several times this fall, and as it did, the extent to which American officials' words collide with their deeds became clearer and clearer.
First was the spectacle of lobbying by CIA Director Porter Goss and Vice President Dick Cheney against an amendment to the Senate's Pentagon spending bill that outlaws U.S. personnel from engaging in "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of prisoners. They sought an exemption for the CIA -- even as Goss was asserting flatly, "This agency does not torture." Then, early this month, the Washington Post exposed a secret string of CIA prisons in Eastern Europe and Asia where treatment most would term cruel, inhuman and degrading takes place.
[snip]
Then there was the startling news, just before Thanksgiving, that the United States had decided to charge the notorious José Padilla not with plotting to set off a "dirty bomb," but rather with lesser crimes. Why? Because two detainees who might have been called to testify had been subjected to treatment that a CIA inspector general deemed "excessive," and that anyone but the administration would define as torture. U.S. officials told the New York Times that any effort to introduce testimony by the two "could have opened the way for defense lawyers to expose details about their detention and interrogation in secret jails that the Central Intelligence Agency has worked hard to keep out of public light."
Thus the Bush administration has not only damaged America's moral standing in the world but its practical ability to try terror suspects as well -- all as a result of undermining, in secret, the nation's moral principles.
Let no one - including the bush-nasty - dare underestimate the American people!
It was terrific to have so many family members together again - undoubtedly the best feature of a holiday - you know, games, banter, teasing, all the good stuff.
Alas, no gumbo was made here; I've learned to accept that. But turkey and all the fixin's! Hard to regret the lack of okra when you have classic dressing (to die for!), mashed potatoes, and gravy. And did we ever have gravy! Maybe the best ever. And a new brussels sprouts recipe, heavy on the pancetta. Somehow I have been anointed the maestro of b'sprouts, and daughter Mara's new recipe find was much appreciated by (almost) all.
We hardly had to - or ever did - talk politics. And not generally because of the usual intergenerational problems - there's very limited disagreement in my circle of relations. We all know that our present administration has more or less "screwed the pooch," an expression I associate with a prior lifetime of commuting to the Texas Panhandle. I was gratified today to encounter a couple mid-country editorials that reinforce the idea that real folks dislike being lied to:
Selective Intelligence, Selective Memory
Even as Vice President Dick Cheney accuses his critics of "corrupt and shameless" revisionism, he shamelessly revises the history of the Bush administration's use and misuse of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq.
In a speech last week, Mr. Cheney said it was "utterly false" that prewar intelligence was "distorted, hyped or fabricated" by President George W. Bush. Then he claimed that, "We operated on the best available intelligence gathered over a period of years....."
But Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney clearly did not operate on the best available intelligence. They ignored questions that had been raised about the intelligence, accepted information that would support war and invented connections between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.
The Los Angeles Times reported last week that the CIA ignored warnings from U.S. and foreign agents that the main source of information about Saddam's biological weapons was a "fabricator." Curveball, the aptly named informant, claimed to have seen a plant that made mobile biological weapons labs. Before the war began, U.N. weapons inspectors inspected the plant and discovered that the physical characteristics of the plant did not match Curveball's description. Hans Blix, the chief U.N. inspector, said as much to the Security Council on March 7. But that didn't stop Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney from continuing to make the claim part of the rationale for going to war.
[snip]
The most blatant example of Mr. Cheney hyping available intelligence was his repeated attempts to link Saddam to al-Qaida. Mr. Cheney claimed that Mohammed Atta, the lead 9/11 hijacker, had met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague - a claim that already had been discredited when he made it. The Times reports that Mr. Cheney and his now indicted aide, I. Lewis Libby, tried to get this claim into Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations in February, 2003. Mr. Powell refused.
[snip]
American's Shameful Shift on Torture
Americans accustomed to taking their leaders' words at face value perhaps can be forgiven, at least until now, for believing the unbelievable. But enough details have recently come to light about the Bush administration's handling of terror suspects to make anyone aware of them thoroughly repulsed and deeply ashamed.
There is no escaping that this administration has undermined the nation's highest ideals, thereby jeopardizing its moral leadership in the world. It is now clear that it also has jeopardized its ability to bring terror suspects to justice.
[snip]
The news caught up with U.S. behavior several times this fall, and as it did, the extent to which American officials' words collide with their deeds became clearer and clearer.
First was the spectacle of lobbying by CIA Director Porter Goss and Vice President Dick Cheney against an amendment to the Senate's Pentagon spending bill that outlaws U.S. personnel from engaging in "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of prisoners. They sought an exemption for the CIA -- even as Goss was asserting flatly, "This agency does not torture." Then, early this month, the Washington Post exposed a secret string of CIA prisons in Eastern Europe and Asia where treatment most would term cruel, inhuman and degrading takes place.
[snip]
Then there was the startling news, just before Thanksgiving, that the United States had decided to charge the notorious José Padilla not with plotting to set off a "dirty bomb," but rather with lesser crimes. Why? Because two detainees who might have been called to testify had been subjected to treatment that a CIA inspector general deemed "excessive," and that anyone but the administration would define as torture. U.S. officials told the New York Times that any effort to introduce testimony by the two "could have opened the way for defense lawyers to expose details about their detention and interrogation in secret jails that the Central Intelligence Agency has worked hard to keep out of public light."
Thus the Bush administration has not only damaged America's moral standing in the world but its practical ability to try terror suspects as well -- all as a result of undermining, in secret, the nation's moral principles.
Let no one - including the bush-nasty - dare underestimate the American people!
posted by Sir Gumbo at 10:18 PM
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