Flag Desecration

Yesterday, the United States Senate came within one vote of authorizing a far greater diminishment and desecration of our country's flag than any burning-in-protest could ever be: They missed by one passing the flag burning amendment and sending it on to the states for ratification.

I've made this argument before, but let me lay it out again, since it's been some time. Our country is great because of its principles, and the greatest of these is arguably freedom, as codified in the Bill of Rights. And among the Bill (in fact, the very first one) is freedom of speech. There is a quote by Voltaire that should be well and truly a part of our societal ethic: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Our flag is the symbol of this country and of whatever greatness is thus implied. I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that few see the hypocrisy in making an exception to our core principles of our nation for the symbol of those freedoms at a time when our nation sees nothing wrong with our leader, first among equals, behaving as though the laws do not apply to him.

But let me be clear: To pass any regulation prohibiting burning of the flag is the very height of hypocrisy and diminishes the flag distinctly, and far worse than it is ever diminished by some disgruntled dissident setting one aflame. Indeed, how great the pride I have in this country when I see that, and know that we are a nation so great, so strong in its principles, that we will watch this distasteful spectacle and allow it to continue.

THAT is what makes our nation (and its symbol the flag) great. Take that away, and we might as well all start using the thing as kindling, because it will no longer stand for much of anything.

Liam.

Democracy Awry

My friends, democracy in this country continues to go seriously awry, and if you don't believe it, please read this story from Reuters as posted on Yahoo News.

At first glance, it perhaps seems positive, we might actually have some of the oversight that I've been begging for since I started this blog.

But let's look a little bit closer. The whole article is about how the White House is considering submitting the program for oversight. Ladies and Gentlemen, that isn't oversight. That's trying to appease the masses with slight of hand and a bit of misdirection.

The whole question involved, with both NSA wiretapping programs of which we are aware, as well as with the recently revealed financial "wiretapping" scandal and a number of others, is twofolds: A) whether the whole kit and kaboodle is Constitutionally legal, and B) whether the Administration has the power to declare it so without anyone else being able to ensure it.

The problem runs very deep, in that the attitude of everyone seems to be that it's a good thing that the White House has decided to allow oversight. Apparently most people have bitten so hard on the White House official line that they believe that it's perfectly legitimate for the overseen to decide what they will and will not deign to be overseen on.

It's absurd and insane. Congress needs to stand up to this non-stop power grab by this Administration. The time for diplomacy and politics is over, the time for negotiating between the branches is done. It is time for Congress to step up and assert it's Constitutionally mandated power, not merely sit back like some hungry pet pooch, sitting on hind legs begging the master for some scrap of food.

Right now, I don't merely want the Congress to look into what the Administration says it can, I want the Congress to tell this President that he is not a monarch, not a dictator, and not above the law. I want Presidential power reigned back in so that the Executive branch returns to being merely one of three equal branches of government. I want the Executive branch to go back to doing the only thing the Constitution gives it power to do: executing the laws.

Wake up and smell the power consolidation, folks. This Administration has been more activist than any "activist judge" could ever be in terms of legislating without Constitutional power to do so. Signing statements have to go. Circumventing the process when it doesn't suit their fancy has to go. Refusing to allow oversight of their activities has to go.

And it has to start with all of us, from the Congress and the media on down to the ordinary citizen, rejecting the implicit assumption in the article I linked to, that it's OK for the President to decide what he will and will not stand for oversight on. He's not a king, it's damn well time we remembered that.

Liam.

The High Cost of Living

If you need any more proof about how far away from Christian values this country has gone, you need only compare two stories from the last two weeks.

First, there's the news from yesterday. The Congress has once again failed to pass a bill to raise the minimum wage, setting the stage for September first being the end of 9 years since it was last raised. According to one site I found, this means that in constant dollars (purchasing power), the wage is now at the lowest rate it has been since 1950, and has fallen in purchasing power by between 15 and 20 percent since it was last raised and around 45% from it's high around 1968.

Nine years our poorest people have been without a raise in pay, while some expenses (such as medical care) have grown entirely out of pace with inflation. And keep in mind, these aren't the people who are sitting at home on their fat duffs collecting welfare checks and letting the world hand deliver them a piece of the pie. These are people who are trying to work to support themselves, but finding that task ever more difficult. There was a great episode of a TV series called "30 Days" which I've mentioned before that showed just how hard it was for a childless couple to live on two minimum wage incomes for just a month, to say nothing of month after month, year after year.

Now, contrast that with nine days ago, when that same Congress voted itself an almost 2% cost of living raise, increasing their salaries by $3300 to $168,500. Clearly, most of us would consider this to be a large income. To put it into perspective, Congress voted themselves a pay raise that is almost 1/3 of the total yearly income of someone working 40/week for minimum wage. This is the seventh straight year that Congress has given itself a cost of living raise. Seven years while the poorest of the poor got nothing.

Starting this year, Congress members earn $168,500 per year. Minimum wage earners earn less than $11,000.

In July of 1999, Congress members earned $136,700 per year. Minimum wage earners earned less than $11,000.

In 1989, Congress members earned $89,500 per year. Minimum wage earners earned less than $7,000.

This means that in the last 7 years, Congressional salaries have risen by 23.3%, minimum wage has risen by 0% (actual change in the consumer price index was around 17.3%).

In the ten years before that, Congressional salaries rose by 52.8%, while the minimum wage rose by 53.8% (actual change in the consumer price index was around 35%).

I think those numbers are probably all you need to know about "Compassionate Conservatism".

Liam.

Culture of Corruption

One of the uses to which I put this blog is to try to counter BS when I run into it. Right now, the biggest steaming pile of the day is the Right Wing spin that somehow it is the Democrats, not the Republicans, who are mired in corruption.

Now, don't get me wrong, I believe there are corrupt individuals in both parties. But there is a vital ingredient necessary to create true corruption: Power, and this is something which is in very short supply among the Democrats right now, which sort of forces them into more ethical behavior patterns.

Nevertheless, let us compare and contrast the two cases of Democratic corruption that are being much touted in Right Wing circles with their counterparts across the aisle.

First, there's LA Representative William Jefferson, caught apparently red handed taking bribes and being entirely corrupt. No one disputes this. But it is an isolated incident, and what bears comparing is the reaction of his party vs. the reaction of the Republican party as Tom Delay became further implicated in various different corruption scandals. The Democrats have ousted Rep. Jefferson from his committee position while the investigation into his behavior is going on. The Republicans tried to change Congressional rules to allow Tom Delay to remain House Majority Leader even though he was under indictment. That is the basis of the “Culture” of corruption. It's not because one or several among your number are corrupt, you'll find that in any group of people larger than a two-table contract bridge game. It's when you try to change the rules to excuse wrong-doing, try to cover it up rather than exposing it and trying to root it out from your midst.

The second recent case is Democratic Representative Harry Reid, who stands accused of having received free tickets to a boxing match. This is held up as somehow similar to the many perks and gifts Jack Abramoff gave to many Republican leaders, but it isn't so, and in with the smaller reasons why, there's one very compelling one: Harry Reid voted against the interests of the people who provided him the tickets. He accepted the invitation to the boxing match to give those who invited him the opportunity to make their case, but in the end he voted in the way he thought best, not in some quid pro quo response to the tickets he received. By the way, Harry Reid is also elected from Nevada, so unlike a number of Senators who have cast decisive votes in favor of Native American tribes when their home states have no Native Americans to speak of, Harry Reid was dealing with an issue directly of interest to his constituency, the people he was ostensibly elected to represent.

Now, as I said at the start, I do not believe Democrats are incorruptible. One has only to look at the long years of Democratic Congresses prior to the start of President Clinton's time in office to see differently. And I don't even claim that they're lily pure right now, although as I've noted, there is definitely less opportunity for them to engage in shady behavior.

But truth needs to come out, and the truth is that right now, the Republicans, having control of the Executive and Legislative branches and making a pretty good stab at taking over the Judiciary, have got themselves an excess of power that is good neither for their own morality nor for the country, and it is one more reason why it is important to elect Democrats in November. Lessen the absolute strangle-hold on power for either party, you lessen their ability to be corrupt. A Congress with a President who might be inclined to have his Justice Department investigate the Congressional majority is going to have to walk a more careful line. A President with a Congress willing to look into his assertions of power when those assertions are in conflict with the Constitution of our nation is less likely to try to make (or at least to get away with) those country-eroding assertions.

Get out there. Vote for the Democrats not because you like them, but because without checks and balances, we're done as a nation. And make sure all of the votes are counted. Ask your party (either party, if it's going on in your state) why they tamper with election results, and why they think democracy is something to be tampered with and subverted.

But let's break this Culture of Corruption (or at least dampen it) in the only way we can: Bring back the checks and balances of opposing party rule.

Liam.

American Politics and the 2006 Election

I'm going to go out on a limb here, with five months to go until the election, and I'm going to predict that the Republicans will hold on to both houses of Congress, and will in fact not even lose half as many seats in either house as would be necessary for Democratic control.

I'm watching television tonight (insomnia, my oldest and most faithful companion), specifically Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Guest host Brian Unger is discussing the election with Bob Shrum, a former senior adviser to both the Kerry and Gore campaigns. They are discussing the differences between 2006 and the previous elections. Mr. Unger has quoted recent studies which he says indicate:

1. A majority of Americans agree more with liberal values than conservative
2. 49% state a preference for a Democratic congress compared with only 38% for a Republican one
3. 54% are more likely to vote for a candidate who favors pulling out of Iraq within 12 months, 32% less likely to vote for that position

The whole discussion surrounds the tactics of Karl Rove and the fact that Mr. Rove has already indicated that he plans on attacking any Democratic candidate who advocates a troop draw down as weak on National Security and as wishy-washy.

But the thing is, we've heard it before. Going into the 2004 elections, the polling said that President Bush lost in polls when paired with virtually ANYONE (including at least one notable poll which had him losing in a race between “Bush” and “Unnamed Not Bush”). The week before the elections had John Kerry winning by a small but decisive number. The exit polling all showed the same thing, and yet when the dust settled, George Bush had won in roughly equal proportion to the amount the polls said he was going to lose by.

By election day, it will have been two years since the 2004 election, and yet very little serious attention has been paid to the massive irregularities of the last election. Outside of a couple of fringe sites like blackboxvoting.org and the Brad Blog (both of which have given a lot of attention to the issue), very few national sites have given the issue much coverage. The most widely available national version of the story was in Rolling Stone, hardly a publication known for its hard news.

And so I feel safe in calling the election now in favor of the Republicans. There are several reasons. First, both parties are in disarray right now, neither party has a consistent message any more (those on the Right who claim otherwise are mistaking a Presidential voice for a consistent message, when more and more in the President's own party are breaking away from his incessant power grab for the Executive Branch), each seeming content to run on the “At least we're not THEM” platform, which has historically shown underwhelming results at translating into actual votes, and when voters have little to differentiate by, they tend to stick with what they know, the incumbents.

Second, much ignored by the media when they talk of these polls suggesting that the country would prefer a Democratically controlled Congress is the fact that people don't vote for the make up of Congress, they vote for their local Congress members, and some of those same polls which show a preference for the overall makeup also show that many of those same people support their local guy, it's not a question of voting out OUR Republican, people just feel that OTHER Republicans ought to be voted out.

And finally, there's the fact that if the various vote tampering that went on in 2004 has not been addressed, then that machine is still more or less in place. From outright questionable results returned by voting machines to wide spread suppression of votes, the Republicans clearly were better at their fraud than the Democrats were this past election. So even if the people turn out in record numbers to throw out the Republicans and vote in the Democrats, I have little reason to believe that the final vote tallies in some states will accurately reflect the will of the people or even the votes cast after voter intimidation.

For the record, I'm in favor of a complete Democratic sweep this next time around, but not because I believe the Democrats are any better per se than the Republicans. No, I am, as I always have, following my personal belief that the country is better off when the Presidency is in the hands of one party and the Congress in the hands of another. Corrupt or not, they keep each other in check when they have similar amounts of power.

In the end, it boils down to this: I honestly believe the democratic process is broken in this country. And the most important thing we can do, bar none, is to fix it. The longer we go on pushing democracy on the world with a sham democracy at home, the more respect we will lose worldwide, and that lack of respect will ultimately be more destructive to this country than any terrorist could ever be (to say nothing of eroding any partnerships we might have in combating those same terrorists).

Liam.

On Conspiracy

[I wrote the following as a comment on another blog in response to someone who had blogged with ridicule about conspiracy theorists. He was specifically responding to the recent article in Rolling Stone by RFK jr. that lays out evidence that the 2004 election was actively stolen. The author to which I was responding was throwing up his metaphorical hands and saying derisively "OK, I give up, everything is a plot, it's all a conspiracy..." This was my response (edited slightly to remove a few superfluous bits). --Liam]

Mr. XXX,

I actually agree with you, and I hate it about myself. However, I hate it more about this Administration.

As my wife and I have discussed often, the problem isn't that the crackpot theories are, for the most part, any less tin-foil-hat inspiring than before.

The problem is that this Administration has been caught in so many VERIFIED things that would previously have come predominantly from the paranoid set that it becomes a lot harder to dismiss out of hand the latest crackpot theory. I refer to things such as the two NSA programs that we know about, Abu Ghraib, extraordinary rendition, "Enemy Combatant" status, the outing of a CIA agent, taking the country to war on false pretenses when there was a very valid war on terror that we were deflecting resources from, and more, all of which they tried to keep secret and all of which eventually came to be proven.

Is it likely that Bush and company actually planned 9/11? No, certainly not. It requires too large a conspiracy to have remained largely unproven, and relies on too many "Well why the hell would they do it that way? What would it gain them?" arguments.

But is it possible that a few at the top knew it was coming and chose to feign ignorance and let it happen so that they could capitalize on it? It would only take a small extension on the pattern of verified behavior to believe it. Which does not prove that it is true, but does make it much harder for rational people to dismiss out of hand.

The problem with people who behave conspiratorially is that they make conspiracy theories about them believable. And the problem with conspiracy theories is that by their very nature, it can be hard to tell which are actual information that's made its way out of the inner circle and which are the paranoid delusional rantings of someone claiming to have insider knowledge when in fact they have nothing but their own fevered imagination.

Liam.

The Bush Record on Terrorism

I'm getting so sick of people pointing at President Bush and touting his success and preventing "another 9/11 style attack" and claiming that other people (particularly people from other parties) couldn't have done it.

I think it bears remembering that Bush and Clinton are the ONLY two Presidents in our history ever to FAIL with regard to domestic Muslim extremist terrorism, and of the two, President Bush's administration failed far worse than President Clinton's.

Now, as is the nature of these sorts of attacks and of human beings, any new style attack tends to catch us with our pants down. No one could really conceive of a bomb actually smuggled into the WTC before it happened in 1993. No one could really honestly conceive of someone hijacking planes and flying them into buildings before it happened in 2001. We could discuss them in theory, but in practice... not so much.

But the point is this: We had a little less than 217 years of history without a Muslim extremist attack on this country, and then we had one in 1993. Then we had another 8 and a half years before we had another one. Is it because President Clinton was so good at protecting us, and the next one happened 7 months into the term of President Bush because he let us down? Or is it, more likely, because it took the terrorists that long to work out the logistics and the resources to put their next plan into motion?

And if the second, why would you ("you" meaning those who assert some protective benefit to Bush and the Republicans) assume that less than 5 years later we would have had another attack even if we'd done NOTHING to prevent it?

The fact is, there is simply no reason to believe that President Bush is keeping us any safer than anyone else could. This is not a slam on President Bush, when there are crazy people in the world hell-bent on hitting us at home, sooner or later they're going to succeed. But don't try to tell me that because there hasn't been a SECOND attack this soon after suffering the worst attack on our soil in our history, that somehow this proves what a GOOD President "W" has been.

Oh, and one more thing: The latest reports are that we expect another attack domestically before the end of the year. If this happens, what does that do to the argument that Bush and only Bush (or another Republican) can keep us safe? Me, I'm inclined to think it's more fear mongering, like raising the silly color coded alert level any time it looked like Democrats were gaining in the polls during the last election. But if we really have another attack here, far from raising President Bush's popularity in the polls, it should be final proof that his policies regarding terrorism (much touted in right wing circles) don't work.

Just keep this in mind. If that second attack this year or next materializes, think about what that REALLY says about the nations preparedness under President Bush. (Then again, we already learned that lesson from Hurricane Katrina, and the Fox News meme still remains "Look how much more secure we are under Bush than under one of those liberals.".)

Liam.

And my fun, salacious thought for the day

Let me start up front by saying that I am reporting a rumor. I have no knowledge of the veracity of this rumor, I'm just enjoying speculating about the result, if it turns out to be true. By all means, take this rumor with a lot of grains of salt.

The rumor is that President Bush and Condoleeza Rice have been having an affair. As is always the case with these things, the rumor is attributed to unnamed people who should be in a position to know, supposedly corroborated by other unnamed people who should be in a position to know.

Nevertheless, the part of this story I rather enjoy is to consider the results if such rumors turn out to have a factual basis.

There are a LOT of people on record as having made a lot of very negative statements about President Clinton for having an extramarital affair with a subordinate while in office. Part of me hopes that this rumor will gain some legs (even if it eventually turns out not to be true) just to watch the extreme logical gymnastics of Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and a host of others as they try to come up with a way to excuse the same behavior in their guy that they previously considered high crimes worthy of impeachment when it was the other guy in office.

As with President Clinton, I really don't care who President Bush is having sex with, so long as it is consentual. I kind of agree with the idea that being President is stressful, and whatever it takes to take the edge off for the person holding the nuclear launch codes is probably, in the grand scheme of things, not a bad thing. (I'm not saying cheating on your spouse is ever a good thing, it's just that I think it's really only the business of George, Laura and Condi if it's true, just like it was really only the business of Bill, Hillary and Monica.)

Nevertheless, the President first came into power on a promise to restore honor and dignity to the White House (something he's pretty much failed to do, in my opinion, but which he could up until this point still claim a modicum of success at if "honor and dignity" is narrowed down specifically to the Clinton-Lewinsky affair). I know there'd be mental gymnastics, but I still think it'd be fun to watch Ann Coulter twisting herself into logical pretzels in her attempt to find ways to find honor and merit in President Bush's affair while still considering President Clinton's to be evidence of the utter moral bankruptcy of the Democratic party and all of its members.

Ah well, enough rumor mongering. Most likely, it's all false anyway. But it's fun to think about.

Liam.

Thought on Gay Marriage

(Heard this morning on the Stephanie Miller radio program, but I think it's a really good idea.)

The main argument for the anti gay marriage amendment seems to be that gay marriage demeans the sanctity of the institution of marriage. Indeed, the name "The Defense of Marriage Act" all but proves this.

And lots of people (myself included) have said that a 50% divorce rate does far more to demean marriage than whether people of the same gender can form a committed relationship with each other and be called a couple in the eyes of the nation.

So I propose that we amend the amendment. While we're making gay marriage illegal, let's also make divorce illegal. If we really think marriage is such a sacred thing, something which needs to be treated with utter respect and reverance, then let's make it so.

I'm pretty sure a lot of the very vocal proponents of this "Defense of Marriage" amendment would balk. People like Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich, who have each been divorced more than once.

And truth be told, I've been divorced as well, I certainly don't advocate that the bill PASS with this change. I'm simply saying if the defense of marriage is truly your goal, then let's get to it. Put your money where your mouth is and do something that REALLY defends the sanctity of the marriage vow.

And then see just how many people stand up and salute.

Liam.

So long, Geneva

The LA Times is reporting that the Pentagon's proposed new Army manual on soldier's conduct has removed a key portion of the Geneva Convention explicitly banning "humiliating and degrading treatment."

I mention this for a few reasons. First, because I think it points up the hypocrisy of an Administration that pushes such "moral" issues as a ban on homosexual marriage while ignoring basic human rights, even those basic human rights agreed upon by a preponderance of nations (including this one).

Second, though, I think it's a big mistake for the Administration. There have been, since the start of the Iraq war, those who have likened some of the behavior of this Administration to war criminals. There are those in other countries who believe our conduct in Iraq rises to the level of war crimes. To be perfectly honest, looked at without the filter of patriotism, some of the actions of the Administration do seem pretty anti-American in terms of disregard for human rights. Abu Ghraib. Guantanamo Bay. Extraordinary rendition. Torture.

It is true that we are the big kid on the block just now, and so it is unlikely anyone will ever hold our leaders' feet to the fire over their behavior. Nevertheless, should that ever come to pass, should Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest ever be tried in The Hague, will they really want this as one more piece of evidence that they've disregarded the Geneva Convention?

And to what end? So that while we talk about the treatment at Abu Ghraib, we can at the same time stop telling our troops that behavior like that isn't proper?

Our President loves imagery out of old western movies. Good guys vs bad guys. Black and white distinctions. So how about we behave like the good guys? Stop asking why we expect more from ourselves, our leaders and our military than we expect out of our enemies. The reason is BECAUSE we're supposed to be the good guys.

This isn't a 1950s movie. Bad behavior on the part of the good guys isn't justified because of their noble goals. If we want to be the good guys, we need to act like it. And if we're not going to be the good guys, then we've lost any moral justification we may have had that (in the end) seems to be all we have to fall back on for why we're in Iraq in the first place.

Liam.

Important Issues of the Day

UPDATE: After posting this, I went reading the news and found this article (second article on the page) on MSNBC.com that covers pretty much the same topic. Just thought I'd share it. --Liam.

It's time for me to once again decry the use of weeks of our legislators time on frivolous trash designed solely to energy their respective bases of voters for the upcoming election.

Look, I don't care which side of any of these issues you come down on. We have a war on terrorism going on (as the Administration keeps telling us). We have an eroding situation in Afghanistan and still have troops there. We have a quasi-civil war going on in Iraq. At home, we have a hurricane season starting up with New Orleans not yet back to even the level of readiness they were last year, and a forecast for another at-record-level year of storm activity.

In short, we have important things to be worried about. Heck, we've even got some immigration issues which are pretty important to figure out. Odd how it was a crisis and an emergency when there were unfavorable news items to be eclipsed (such as Jack Abramof and the Libby trial), but suddenly it's less so when there's summer vacation to be considered. Congress is talking about choosing the members of the resolution committee (the committee that resolves differences in House and Senate versions of bills) sometime in September. So much for important crises.

So what's on the agenda in Congress for the next several weeks? Gay marriage, flag burning and the estate tax. Really? In the grand scheme of things, these are the most important things you can be talking about? In the words of comedian Lewis Black, on the list of impact on this nation, these issues are on page 27, just after “are we eating too much fiber as a people”.

I would like to propose a new Amendment. This Amendment would make it illegal to discuss such trivialities at any time that the budget is in deficit spending, the national debt is over a trillion dollars and any time the country is at war.

Do we honestly care more (and risk more as a nation) about whether two men or two women are able to call each other spouse than whether U.S. Marines, in the uniform of our country, murdered innocent civilians in cold blood? Are we really at greater personal risk because someone might burn a flag than of another terrorist attack on one of our cities? Does the difference between families of deceased with estates over $5 million getting 60% vs 100% of the amount over that threshold really matter more than lobbying reform?

And the kicker is, with the possible exception of the estate tax bill, even proponents of the issues on the table do not expect them to pass. So not only is our Congress wasting time on less important issues, it's wasting time on less important issues that have no chance what so ever of passing. For example, the amendment to ban gay marriage is expected to receive at most 52 votes in the Senate. It requires a 2/3 majority, or 67 votes, to pass the Senate. Even with the most wildly optimistic projections, it hasn't a chance of passing the Senate.

Solve all of our other problems. Bring the budget under control. Do something about global warming (or come up with some scientifically valid proof that it isn't the problem virtually all existing science says it is). Bring the balance of power between the three branches of government back in line. Reform lobbying. Put as much effort into guaranteeing free and fair elections here as we put into ensuring them elsewhere. Figure out how to protect the nation from terrorism. Build FEMA back to the capable disaster recovery agency it reportedly once was.

And when you've done all of that, if you want to spend some time debating whether a gay man worth $10million should be allowed to burn a flag, marry his partner, and leave behind his estate entirely un-taxed, feel free.

But not while there's real work to be done.

Liam.

State Secrets

Here's another one of those issues I want some help trying to sort out, because I can clearly see both sides of the issue.

There is an article in the New York Times which says that the Administration is increasingly using claims of "State Secrets" to shut down lawsuits against it. According to this article, the most times it has ever been used by an Administration is 19 (over the 8 years of the Reagan Administration) and President Bush has now tied that record in less than 6 years.

At issue is the balancing act between truly keeping secret things which must remain so for national security vs. allowing someone to sweep their own possible wrong-doings under the rug.

According to the article, here are a few of the cases which have been dismissed or are in the process of review by the courts because of the Administration's use of the "state secrets" clause:

• A suit by a German man, abducted and taken to Afghanistan for five months, where he was “beaten and injected with drugs” before being released.
• A Syrian-born Canadian, abducted at a New York airport and taken to Syria, held in a small cell and beaten with electrical cables.
• Three recent challenges to the two NSA spying programs which have been the subject of such debate since November.

The problem is: where is the oversight? There are many who believe the NSA programs are illegal and unconstitutional. There are others who assert that it is not. Who decides? It shouldn't be the people running the program, that's like asking the driver to determine whether he was exceeding the reasonable speed on the road. But the Administration is basically saying that no one has the right to look closely enough at the program to determine whether it violates any laws. "Just trust us" doesn't cut it.

Oh, and the icing on the cake is in the article's final paragraphs... The "State Secrets" privilege comes out of a 1953 Supreme Court precedent, United States v. Reynolds. An accident report (a key piece of evidence in the case) was withheld by the Air Force because they claimed it contained key technical details which were state secret. However, in recent years, those documents have been declassified (how much state secret technology could we still be using from a 50 year old plane?), and it turns out the Air Force was lying, there were no such details in the report, nothing what so ever to justify withholding it.

So I'm inclined to wonder whether the whole privilege is too sweeping, when the very first time it was used (indeed, when it was initially defined) it was misused in order to short circuit a valid and justified case against the government.

Is there a better way to protect state secrets without handing the government a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card which it can use at its discretion, and without any independent party being able to verify the veracity of the claim?

Liam.

Haditha

[Note: This post represents my knowledge of the facts as of today. The investigation is still on-going and the facts are still dribbling out. It is very possible that in the coming days or weeks we may learn something which changes my opinion. I'm okay with that, far from being a "flip flopper", I like the fact that I'm open minded enough to change my opinion when I learn new facts. -- Liam]

OK, it's finally time for me to stop putting it off and discuss the issue of Haditha. By now, we've probably all seen the news about Haditha, and the fact that it's pretty conclusive that a batch of marines, angered at the death of one of their own, executed up to 24 civilian Iraqi bystanders in retaliation.

And this is a horrid, horrid thing, please do not take anything I say herein to mean otherwise. I feel nothing but sorrow for the slain innocents and their families. I am angered that American troops would behave this way, wearing a uniform that identifies them as someone acting in my name.

But...

I think most people are missing the point in their outrage towards the Administration and the leaders of the Iraq war.

This is not an Abu Ghraib situation, where a few low level lackeys are going to take a fall for what seems pretty clear was a policy of “softening” detainees that came down from on high. Although Abu Ghraib is the only one of which we have footage, there are certainly stories of similar situations elsewhere that seem to show a pattern of detainee treatment that could not have been a mere coincidence. No, the current situation is most likely is a case of one batch of war-weary marines, exhausted, shell shocked, and finally unable to take it any more. It is probably also a case of some people so angry and so tired that they didn't fully realize the extent of their atrocity, perhaps even convincing themselves as they did these things that the people they were shooting were complicit in the death of their comrade.

I have heard a number of people find fault with the superior officers who didn't closely examine the initial report claiming that the civilians had died in an IED explosion, but I can't find that fault. We are talking about war time, and we're talking about people who receive these sorts of reports on a regular basis. In hindsight, it's easy to say “This should have raised lots of red flags”, but it seems to me as though in that situation, one report in among many might not cause much notice.

The cover up is the other aspect that I keep hearing about, but to be honest, although I don't like it, I can understand it. If the military had taken care of the problem, but quietly and while covering up the situation, I could understand that as well. From a military standpoint, there was little to be gained by publicizing this horrid event. It would only serve to increase the will of the opposition forces. From the Administration's standpoint, it stood to lose them even more support and popularity over something that, honestly, was out of their control.

Let's face it, there are many thousands of our troops in Iraq (150,000, if I remember correctly). These are predominantly young men and women, trained to fight and kill, and hopped up on patriotism (because how else can you risk your life for your country, without believing it to be great and worth dying for?). In among any group that large, there are bound to be some who are not sane, or whose grip on sanity is more tenuous than is immediately obvious, who may snap under the pressure. As much as it pains me to say this (because I know someone is going to say that I'm excusing it, which I absolutely am not), in any conflict this size or larger, with this many troops involved and this much death and violence, instances like this are bound to happen.

The fact is, I can understand the cover up of this in the same way that I don't particularly fault President Clinton for trying to cover up his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Some (like my wife) find it abhorrent that the former President would look directly at us (through the camera) and lie, but I see it as a case where there was no good option. I don't think most of us can say with any certainty that, put in a situation where our boss is asking us questions about our personal life that don't affect our job, but which might make him fire us, we wouldn't lie. Particularly if it felt like the person leveling the charge was just out to get us, come hell or high water.

Neither that nor this current cover up was a lie that hurt anyone. It was a lie, to be sure, and it was a self-serving one, but no one else died because of either one (indeed, if the incident had never come to light, it might ultimately have saved lives, since publicity only serves to put fuel on the fire).

No, the part of all of this that really sets my blood to boiling (again, beyond the fact that it happened, which makes me want to throw up) is that in with the cover up, it appears as though the guilty were not punished, that nothing was done to prevent that same group from going back out and doing it again. That's the main thing in all of this that I can fault the military and the Administration for. According to Rep. Jack Murtha, it's been a pretty open secret for months that this cover up was happening. Which means that while it may honestly not have been brought to the President's attention (at least, the deniability is plausible), Donald Rumsfeld almost certainly knew about it. And yet nothing was apparently done to rectify the situation, identify the guilty, punish appropriately, and change the training procedures to prevent it from happening again.

That's the part that makes an otherwise singularly horrible event into a scandal of large proportions. Today there are more reports of additional similar situations. Eleven gunned down in March in a town whose name I can't spell. A pregnant woman on her way to the hospital gunned down earlier this week. And on and on.

To finish with an analogy, I don't (necessarily) find fault with the parents of the two mad teens at Columbine for that tragic day. And I wouldn't have blamed them if (were it possible) they had tried to cover up the facts, knowing that some would not be so charitable. But if it had turned out that their children had previously shot up another school, and they kept it quiet AND did nothing to prevent it from happening again, that's the point at which the parents would have become criminal. (For reference, I don't recall the details of the Columbine gunmen, so it's possible that they had abusive childhoods and their parents then do carry some of the blame. For the purposes of this analogy, let's assume that is not so, just like for the purposes of this argument, I'm willing to believe that the massacre of innocent civilians is not top-down military policy.)

So, to sum up. The event is horrible. It is tragic. It is disgusting. And since I never supported this war nor believed it was the right thing to do (especially with the unfinished and much more supportable business in Afghanistan still going on), it's easy to point to this as one more reason to believe I was right and the Administration was wrong. But as to the specific case, clean up the mess, learn the facts, punish the guilty, and I, for one, am willing to forgive the cover up.

Liam.

The Jefferson Search: The Other Side

OK, someone finally explained to me the other side of the issue regarding the reaction of most Congressmen to the FBI search of Rep. William Jefferson, and it makes some sense, so in the interest of parity, I'll present it here.

The complaints are not, or at least not completely (as I'd originally believed) outrage at the audacity of searching a Congress member. It is specifically about searching the Congress member's office. The search of Rep. Jefferson's home (the search that netted the foil-wrapped loot in the freezer, apparently) isn't in question.

The issue, regarding searches of Congressmen's offices, is that it could become politically motivated, which would violate separation of powers. The FBI is under the jurisdiction of the President. The President also appoints many of the Judges. As a result, although it doesn't seem to be the case here, false allegations could be made to "justify" a bogus search of Congressional offices to allow the President and/or his party to gain all sorts of information that run contrary to the separation of powers. And since may judges get their jobs at the pleasure of the President, it shouldn't be hard for any President to find a sympathetic one willing to grant a bogus warrant.

A couple of examples.

1. Searching the office of a leader of the opposition party to try to find advance information about their tactics in future races.
2. Searching the offices of opposing Congressmen on a bill the President supports, in order to gain unfair advantage at the negotiating table.

The problem, of course, is how to effectively police the Congress. No one in our country can be allowed to exempt themselves from oversight. Not the President, not the NSA (I'm sorry, you can't investigate us because we won't grant you security clearance which would allow you access to the things you'd be investigating), and not Congress.

I still think it's pretty hypocritical of the Congress that's turned such a blind eye towards the steady erosion of privacy of American citizens to suddenly start crying foul when their own privacy begins to erode. But I do understand the separation of powers, and have in fact argued strongly for it with regard to the so-called "Judicial Activism" issue.

Where do you stand on this issue? I'd love to hear some more discussion on the topic.

Liam.