at-Largely

Germany Declines To Copy Rice's NSC "Failure"

Posted By Cernig

How long do you think America's reputation will take to recover from the Bush administration's ineptness?

Germany's foreign minister has rejected plans by Chancellor Angela Merkel's party to set up a U.S.-style National Security Council to oversee foreign policy, saying the body proved a failure in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a speech in Berlin on Monday that the U.S. NSC, which was run by Condoleezza Rice when the United States launched its invasion of Iraq, had "suppressed all counterarguments" to the war in 2003.

"This cannot be the model for us," said Steinmeier, a member of the centre-left Social Democrats, who under former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder staunchly opposed the Iraq war.

Decades, that's how long. For as long as the U.S. is in Iraq, and a while after that, America's reputation will be that of the superpower that started a war by fixing the intelligence around the policy, just because it could.

India Snubs U.S. On Iran

Posted By Cernig

Recently, The Bush administration took it upon itself to advise India that, ahead of the Iranian President's visit, India should tell Iran to behave 'responsibly' and meet United Nations Security Council requirements with regard to its nuclear program. The Indian response was a sharp rebuke that it doesn't need 'guidance' on how to conduct its foreign relations.

The MEA effectively told the US that India's relations with Iran go way back in time, that both nations are mature enough, and capable of holding a dialogue to resolve pending issues without the need for third party guidance.

Parts of External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee's response had the feel of a direct snub. "We are advising Iran that since it is a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, it has some obligation to international treaties. We tell the US -- do not take on yourself the responsibility of whether Iran was manufacturing weapons or not. Leave it to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the designated authority".

On a wider stage, notes the Indian Rediff news-site, India has recently backed off from provisions of the proposed US/Indian nuclear deal and is also slowly becoming more hostile to U.S.-led plans for "a a confederation of democracies, consisting of the US, Japan, India and Australia, that China viewed as being directed against it.

Interestingly, the Australian government under new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has withdrawn from the concert of democracies (Japan has also shown recent signs of cold feet); it has said it will not sell uranium to India and according to unconfirmed reports, indicated that Australia will not back India at the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

So if the Bush administration can't hold together a four-member League, what chance has McCain got of creating a global one to give a fig-leaf of cover to American divinely mandated interventionism? After all, in many of those democracies being pro-U.S. can be a large setback at the polls.

Died hanging from wrists and gagged, with over 25 rib fractures

Posted by Kathy

I want to bring to your attention an important blog entry by bewart. Keep in mind the recent revelations that George W. Bush authorized the use of torture. See Larisa's post here:

This is my first of a series of diaries about prisoners murdered by US forces. It will tell the story of an Iraqi man who died hanging by his cuffed wrists from a door frame, gagged, and beaten to death by his US interrogators. As the Final Autopsy Report noted:

The remains are received clad in a white shirt, white pajama type pants, and white undershorts. Feces covers the clothing from the waist down....There is gauze dressing on the left wrist. No other evidence of medical intervention is noted.... The right chest wall has fractures of ribs three through seven anteriorly and ribs six through twelve posteriorly. The left chest wall has fractures of ribs two through nine anteriorly and ribs seven through twelve posteriorly. There are fractures of the lateral aspect of ribs nine and ten on the left side. There is a horizontal fracture through the mid-portion of the body of the sternum.

Yes, our tax dollars are paying for this. Hung up by the wrists and beaten so badly that he not only had over 25 separate rib fractures, many slicing into his lungs, he also had a fractured sternum. The thick, solid bone protecting your heart.

From the Final Autopsy Report:

Circumstances of Death: Iraqi detainee died while in U.S. custody.

Authorization for Autopsy: Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner, lAW 10 USC 1471

Identification: Identification by accompanying paperwork and wristband, both of which include his name and a detainee number, 3ACR1582

CAUSE OF DEATH: Blunt Force. Injuries and Asphyxia

MANNER OF DEATH: Homicide

FINAL AUTOPSY DIAGNOSES:
I. Multiple Blunt Force Injuries
A. Cutaneous abrasions and contusions of the scalp, torso, and extremities
B. Deep contusions of the chest wall musculature and abdominal wall
C. Multiple, bilateral, displaced and comminuted rib fractures, with lacerations of the pleura.
D. Bilateral lung contusions
E. Bilateral hemothoraces
F. Hemorrhage into the mesentery of the small and large bowel
G. Hemorrhage into the left sternohyoid muscle with associated fractures of the thyroid cartilage and hyoid bone
II. History of Asphyxia, Secondary to Occlusion of the Oral Airway
III. Pleural and Pulmonary Adhesions
IV. Hypertensive Cardiovascular Disease
A. Hypertrophy of the left ventricle of the heart (2.0-centimeters)
B. Cardiomegaly (450-grams)
V. Enlarged, Nodular Prostate Gland
VI. Toxicology is negative for ethanol, drugs of abuse, select therapeutic
medications, and cyanide

OPINION

This 47-year-old White male, , died of blunt force injuries and asphyxia. The autopsy disclosed multiple blunt force injuries,including deep contusions of the chest wall, numerous displaced rib fractures, lung contusions, and hemorrhage into the mesentery of the small and large intestine. An examination of the neck structures revealed hemorrhage into the strap muscles and fractures of the thyroid cartilage and hyoid bone. According to the investigative report provided by U.S. Army CID, the decedent was shackled to the top of a doorframe with a gag in his mouth at the time he lost consciousness and became pulseless.

The severe blunt force injuries, the hanging position, and the obstruction of the oral cavity with a gag contributed to this individual's death. The manner of death is homicide."

##
Much more at the ACLU

Your Legacy Mr. President - Chapter One: War Crimes

Bush has said continuously that it is not us who should judge him, but history.

"The true history of my administration will be written 50 years from now, and you and I will not be around to see it."

Neither Bush or anyone else has to wait for the judgment of tomorrow.  One of the most notorious chapters of the Bush reign, if not THE  most notorious, is the order given by Bush and carried out by his loyalists to torment, torture, and nearly kill prisoners of war in violation of Geneva conventions, international law and domestic law.

The crimes committed on his order, in our name, have already been judged in the past, when other, morally bankrupt leaders engaged in extreme human rights abuses.

What this president and his cabal have done will haunt this nation until the end of history. Bush need not, however,  point to some future historian as deciding the legacy of his administration, because we already know now what his legacy will be and what it already is. We now know without doubt the following:

Cheney, Hamas, and Iran Contra 3.0...

Dick Cheney said today that Hamas was responsible for the peace talks failures between Palestine and Israel:

"ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Vice President Dick Cheney, concluding two days of talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, said Monday that Hamas militants and their backers in Iran and Syria are playing the role of spoiler in Mideast peace talks.

"It is clearly a difficult situation, in part, because I think it's true, there's evidence, that Hamas is supported by Iran and Syria and that they're doing everything they can to torpedo the peace process," Cheney told reporters before heading to Turkey, the final stop on his 10-day trip to the Mideast."

I am no Hamas fan, not by a long shot, but Cheney is lying. How do we know he is lying? Because of the excellent article by David Rose in Vanity Fair this month.

"After failing to anticipate Hamas’s victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, David Rose reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.

<snip>

Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. The plan was for forces led by Dahlan, and armed with new weapons supplied at America’s behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power. (The State Department declined to comment.)"

Even Cheney's very own neo-con insider, David Wurmser, comes out against his old boss:

"But the secret plan backfired, resulting in a further setback for American foreign policy under Bush. Instead of driving its enemies out of power, the U.S.-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of Gaza.

Some sources call the scheme “Iran-contra 2.0,” recalling that Abrams was convicted (and later pardoned) for withholding information from Congress during the original Iran-contra scandal under President Reagan. There are echoes of other past misadventures as well: the C.I.A.’s 1953 ouster of an elected prime minister in Iran, which set the stage for the 1979 Islamic revolution there; the aborted 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, which gave Fidel Castro an excuse to solidify his hold on Cuba; and the contemporary tragedy in Iraq.

Within the Bush administration, the Palestinian policy set off a furious debate. One of its critics is David Wurmser, the avowed neoconservative, who resigned as Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief Middle East adviser in July 2007, a month after the Gaza coup.

Wurmser accuses the Bush administration of “engaging in a dirty war in an effort to provide a corrupt dictatorship [led by Abbas] with victory.” He believes that Hamas had no intention of taking Gaza until Fatah forced its hand. “It looks to me that what happened wasn’t so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted before it could happen,” Wurmser says."

I think we can safely say that Mr. Cheney has lied, is lying now, and will likely lie in the future. But the problem I see here is that we appear to lack a Congress. Was this operation authorized? Who was briefed on Cheney's plans to move weapons and cash to Abbas?

David Rose's piece is excellent and I urge everyone to read it.

Report On Saddam - Al Qaeda Non-Connection Buried

Posted By Cernig

Over at Newshoggers, my co-blogger Fester mentioned just yesterday a new Pentagon report that, after a review of 600,000 pages of documents, concluded there was no meaningful connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda - contradicting the statements of Bush, Cheney, Rummie, Colin Powell and others?

Well, it's been buried.

This morning, the Pentagon cancelled plans to send out a press release announcing the report's release and will no longer make the report available online.

The report was to be posted on the Joint Forces Command website this afternoon, followed by a background briefing with the authors. No more. The report will be made available only to those who ask for it, and it will be sent via U.S. mail from Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia.

It won't be emailed to reporters and it won't be posted online.

Asked why the report would not be posted online and could not be emailed, the spokesman for Joint Forces Command said: "We're making the report available to anyone who wishes to have it, and we'll send it out via CD in the mail."

Another Pentagon official said initial press reports on the study made it "too politically sensitive."

As long as this report isn't widely available, wingnuts can console themselves with their fevered dreams of Al Qaeda conspiring with Saddam, just as they keep recycling delusional fantasies about Saddam's WMDs being spirited away to Syria.

Steve Benen adds:

And if asked, I’m certain Dana Perino would insist, with a mostly straight face, that the White House never contacted the Pentagon about this, and it was solely the decision of military officials, who, for whatever reason, preferred to hide its own report.

And no one will believe her.

Except Bush and the loyal base, who have so much psychologically invested in believing all this claptrap that their world view might collapse like a house of cards if they ever looked outside their echo chamber.

Khalilzad Goes Of The Reservation

Posted By Cernig

I'm deriving a lot of amusement this morning from rightwinger outrage on US ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad's entering into a dialogue with Iranian officials at the Davos forum.

An appearance by America's U.N. ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, on a World Economic Forum discussion panel — alongside two Iranian officials, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, and a close aide to President Ahmadinejad, Samare Hashemi — was unauthorized by the State Department and angered Secretary of State Rice, Washington sources said yesterday. The panel, titled "Understanding Iran's Foreign Policy," took place in Davos, Switzerland, and dealt mostly with Iran's nuclear policy, just as Security Council diplomats — including America's U.N. mission headed by Mr. Khalilzad — began to forge a new resolution that would impose new punitive measures on Iran for its refusal to suspend its uranium enrichment program, as demanded by the council. ...

The Bush administration policy, however, calls on all American officials to seek an authorization from the State Department before conducting dialogue with Iranian officials. The only person exempted from that restriction is the American ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, who can discuss Iraq-related issues with Iranian officials on a regular basis, according to a State Department official in Washington who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Mr. Khalilzad's participation on the Davos panel was "not authorized," the official told The New York Sun yesterday, after a videotaping of the event was posted on the Web site YouTube and made the rounds among diplomats at the United Nations.

Just maybe, Khalilzad thought that being sent to the Davos meet in the first place, where panels like this are what's supposed to occur, was authorisation enough. If so, he misjudged the Bush adminsitration's fetish for micromanagement. You'd think he knew better after all these years.

But what's really hilarious is that the wingnuts have practically declared Zalmay a traitor to his adopted nation (he's Afghani born) not for disobeying Rice but for letting a jibe at Old Walrus Face slide. Over to Captain Ed.

Khalilzad not only defied American policy, but let slide an opening comment that insulted his predecessor, John Bolton. The moderator noted in his effusive introduction of Khalilzad that among his outstanding qualities was "the further, really formidable advantage of having a name that is not John Bolton." Regardless of whether Khalilzad had prior authorization, allowing the insult to Bolton to stand unchallenged represents an insult to the United States and a lack of testicular fortitude on the part of his replacement.

I dunno, I think the moderator got that bang on. In fact, wasn't that the main reason Kalilzad got confirmation in the first place? But Ed thinks pointing out the obvious is an insult to the "American government" despite Bolton no longer being part of said government.

Poor Zalmay. He's been a loyal neocon for years and they lauded him for his work in Afghanistan and Iraq when he was up for the UN post. Back in 2006, Captain Ed himself described him as a "tough-minded fighter" just like Bolton. But let a slur on the Almighty Moustache slide and he's neocon toast. Ed now writes that Zalmay can forget ever being SecState in a future Republican administration and may not deserve his UN post. And he didn't even say the words!

The Iran Narrative, Continued…

Posted by Jeff Huber

In the last episode of the Bush administration's Iran opera, U.S. intelligence revealed that Iran does not, as previously believed, have a nuclear weapons program.  Our spies couched this information in terms that strongly infer Iran had a nuclear weapons program at one time, but one has to wonder how much that was influenced by the gang in Dick Cheney's Iranian Directorate. 

Some skeptics, including this one, noted that if Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in fall of 2003, and the Russians only began building Iran's first nuclear reactor in fall of 2002, Iran's nuclear weapons program, if they had one at all, must have been the sort of thing Spanky and Alfalfa could have slapped together in Darla's back yard one afternoon and torn down the next morning.

Keystone Kondi's Kurdish Kaper

Posted by Jeff Huber

Condoleezza Rice, Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science and 66th United States Secretary of State, arrived unannounced in the oil rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Tuesday, just after Turkey's attacks on Kurdish targets in northern Iraq, to do what she does best: step into a bad situation and make it worse. 

Bush's Persian Ploy

Posted by Jeff Huber

I made the sound of one jaw dropping Monday when National Security Adviser Steven Hadley said that the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iran "suggests that the President has the right strategy."

On Tuesday, Mr. Bush himself further confounded me when he said the NIE indicated the need to further intensify the harsh sanctions against Iran and, apparently, nixed any notion that his administration would accept any new diplomatic initiative from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.