May

26

Entertainment Value

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It has been fairly entertaining listening to Republicans carry on about how closing Gitmo will result in terrorists roaming amongst us, living in halfway houses. What is even better is the parody this is inspiring. What is sad is the Harry Reid took the Republican’s bait.

Apr

21

Doubts Dispelled

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I went to be after posting on the release of the torture memos feeling clear about things. I have been thinking about this for a long time. I have always been clear that abandoning legal protections for prisoners and breaking from established international norms like the Geneva Convention was a mistake of biblical proportions, but I never fully resolved myself with the idea that our interrogation practices since 2002 amounted to a regime of systemic torture. I am now fully resolved with this idea.

If I had any doubts lingering, they were swept away when I went to the NY Times and was greeted with this headline:

Waterboarding Used 266 Times on 2 Suspects

Emptywheel has a great post breaking this down.

Despite all the legal justifications and euphimisms, what we have is a carefully crafted program of torture. Waterboarding is a war crime and the United States has prosecuted it as such. The architects of this program must be denounced and held to account.

Apr

21

Got To Go

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If the rule of law is to mean anything, then those that twist and contort it to the detriment of other must be removed from positions of power.

Apr

19

Torture Memos

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The Obama administration released the torture memos yesterday to considerable criticism. The administration also announced that it did not intend to pursue prosecutions against operatives who engaged the practices detailed in the memos. In my opinion they made exactly the right choices.

Releasing the memos continues to put distance between the Obama administration and the criminal actions of the Bush administration. Opting against prosecuting operatives who were acting within legally sanctioned guidelines makes it possible to keep moving forward without abandoning the possibility of legal accountability for those who authorized the torture of detainees.

There can be no mistake that we are talking about torture here. Despite all the euphemisms and qualifications, the interrogation methods authorized at the highest levels of the Bush administration were clearly beyond the bounds of accepted practice; otherwise it would not be necessary to justify them so exhaustively.

The clearest indication of our imminent decent down the slippery slope came when the it was announced the United States government held that enemy combatants captured in the so-called War on Terror were not subject the protections of the Geneva Convention. It would not be necessary to justify removing those protections if those captives weren’t in danger of needing them.

They in fact did need those protections as it turned out and the United States will be paying a large price for it choice to abandon the rule of law in favor of a specious need for expediency. There isn’t anything to be done about that now. We can only make real and honest attempts to correct our mistakes and to acknowledge the tragic consequences that been visited upon some genuinely innocent people.

Obviously there are some genuinely evil people who are in our custody and these people are to be held to account for their activities. This is not in question. But how we go about that and how we treat these people while we impose justice upon says a great deal about ourselves and nothing about them.

There was no decision this administration would make regarding these memos that would be entirely satisfying, but their release and the decision not to pursue prosecutions allows the United States to continue rehabilitating its reputation without engaging in the sort of scapegoating that accompanied the revelations of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib.

Apr

13

Green Bands

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green-bands

I have a small number of new paintings that are finished and I am in the process of photographing. It’s hard to say when exactly I will get them all up, but here is one I am particularly pleased with.

Jan

6

Lost Upon the Road to Peace

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The violence continues unabated. At least thirty people were killed by the Israeli military today, according to the New York Times.

“Despite mounting diplomatic pressure to end its offensive in Gaza, Israel’s military onslaught unfolded for an 11th day on Tuesday. Since launching its ground offensive, Israel has killed 130 Hamas fighters, Israeli officials say. Hamas has killed five Israelis by rocket fire and in combat. Palestinian medical officials on Tuesday estimated that the death toll during the 11-day war exceeded 560, and the United Nations said that about a quarter of those killed were civilians.”

The seemingly perpetual cycle of violence between the Palestinians and Israel saddens me greatly, though I am optimistic that the incoming administration really does intend to do things differently. Yet, for some reason the headline about today’s strike reminded me of “The Road to Peace” by Tom Waits.

Young Abdel Madi Shabneh was only 18 years old,
He was the youngest of nine children, never spent a night away from home.
And his mother held his photograph up in the New York Times
You see the killing has intensified along the road to peace

He was a tall, thin boy with a wispy moustache disguised as an orthodox Jew
On a crowded bus in Jerusalem, some had survived World War Two
And the thunderous explosion blew out windows 200 yards away
With more retribution and seventeen dead along the road to peace

Now at King George Ave and Jaffa Road passengers boarded bus 14a
In the aisle next to the driver Abdel Madi Shabnet
And the last thing that he said on earth is “God is great and God is good”
And he blew them all to kingdom come upon the road to peace

Now in response to this another kiss of death was visited upon
Yasser Taha, Israel says is an Hamas senior militant
And Israel sent four choppers in, flames engulfed his white Opel
And it killed his wife and his three year old child leaving only a blackened skeleton

They found his toddlers bottle and a pair of small shoes and they waved them in front of the cameras
But Israel says they did not know that his wife and child were in the car
There are roadblocks everywhere and only suffering on TV
Neither side will ever give up their smallest right along the road to peace

Israel launched its latest campaign against Hamas on Tuesday
And two days later Hamas shot back and killed five Israeli soldiers
So thousands dead and wounded on both sides most of them Middle Eastern civilians
They fill the children full of hate to fight an old man’s war and die upon the road to peace

“Now this is our land we will fight with all our force” say the Palestinians and the Jews
Each side will cut off the hand of anyone who tries to stop the resistance
If the right eye offends thee then you must pluck it out
And Mahmoud Abbas said Sharon had been lost out along the road to peace

Once Kissinger said “we have no friends, America only has interests”
Now our president wants to be seen as a hero and he’s hungry for re-election
But Bush is reluctant to risk his future in the fear of his political failure
So he plays chess at his desk and poses for the press 10,000 miles from the
road to peace

In the video that they found at the home of Abdel Madi Shabneh
He held a Kalashnikov rifle and he spoke with a voice like a boy
He was an excellent student, he studied so hard, it was as if he had a future
He told his mother that he had a test that day out along the road to peace

The fundamentalist killing on both sides is standing in the path of peace
But tell me why are we arming the Israeli army with guns and tanks and bullets?

And if God is great and God is good why can’t he change the hearts of men?
Well maybe God himself is lost and needs help
Maybe God himself he needs all of our help
Maybe God himself is lost and needs help
He’s out upon the road to peace

Well maybe God himself is lost and needs help
Maybe God himself he needs all of our help
And he’s lost upon the road to peace
And he’s lost upon the road to peace
Out upon the road to peace

In my mind, the futility of this violent cycle is made poignantly clear by Waits. I wish it were clearer to the people who could break the cycle.

Dec

10

Transition

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I am in the process of transferring the blog, so please be patient. Most everything should be moved in 24 – 48 hours.

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