What does it say?

Think about this.

The President and Vice-President of the US openly admit to having committed crimes under domestic and international law. They are criminals under US law and they are war criminals. They ordered wireless surveillance in violation of FISA law, openly admit to having done so, and thus are criminals. They ordered or approved of water-boarding, which is a violation of international law an which the US has previously prosecuted people for doing under torture laws, and thus are war criminals. This can't be controversial because they openly admit it. There's simply no disputing that these are the facts of the situation.

And in response to this, the political elite in the US are unified in their response: Bush and Cheney should not be held responsible for this in any way. They should not be impeached, and they should not be prosecuted. We're talking about the entire US political machinery, not just close party allies of these guys. From the idiot talking heads on TV to the idiots writing op-eds for the major papers, to Nancy "impeachment is off the table" Pelosi, to Barrack "look forward, not backward" Obama, absolutely everyone is lined up on the side of the openly criminal regime. They shall not be punished.

What does that say about the United States?

Strains on this simple observation have been circulating through the blogs I tend to read these days - Silber, Floyd, Greenwald - and if you want me to point you towards particularly well written pieces I'll be happy to do so, but what I've written here is the gist of it. Our highest elected officials are openly criminal, and nobody within the official leadership structures gives a flying fuck.

BO recently commented on Israel's war against humanity in Gaza something to the effect that if someone lobbed rockets at his family, he'd do everything in his power to respond, too. And when asked if Bush should be prosecuted for his crimes, he said we should look forward, not backwards. Can anyone spot the hypocrisy? This is supposed to be the great new progressive hope for America?

What does that say about America?

Bush and Cheney are widely despised. Their approval ratings have been abysmal, and at times polls have shown a majority of Americans in favor of impeachment. And that is without any major leadership on the impeachment issue. Can you imagine how popular a high-profile politician would become by fighting for impeachment? Anyone who did that would instantly gain hero status for huge numbers of people throughout the world. And yet nobody is willing to do this.

What does that say about America?

TomDispatch: Iran, Oil, Reality

The latest TomDispatch argues that the attack against Iran urged by the Cheney faction of the Bush Regime is looking less likely, largely due to the tremendously negative consequences of likely Iranian retaliation strategies. Notably, the price of oil would explode beyond its already stratospheric level. The piece is shaped by the idea that eventually reality catches up to people who act as if they can create their own reality, which certainly applies to Bush and Cheney.

bush, terror, saudis, mommy, etc

A popular right-wing response to various accusations against the Bush regime is that whatever "questionable" or "unpopular" (read: illegal and immoral) actions they may have taken (read:did), they were certainly doing them to Protect America From Harm. This idea is very much an article of faith among people like my family: comforting and totally wrong. That should be obvious (even Bush's own analysts concluded that the Iraq invasion increased the threat of terrorism) but reality isn't something these types are good at seeing.

Nevertheless, after noticing this little nugget, I decided to send along some information to the folks. A painfully distorted justification is the only engaged response I'm likely to receive, but I can always hope...

Here's the message:

It is well documented that the Bush family, including both Presidents (and Dick Cheney) are very close personal friends with Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia, going so far as to nickname him "Bandar Bush." Previously secret documents recently revealed in British courts show that the Bandar had threatened to make it harder for British officials to prevent terrorism unless they ended a corruption investigation into massive secret payments to Saudi royals by British aerospace company BAE, which promptly scuttled the investigation.

Recap: the President's close personal friend basically threatened to kill random civilians if the British government even thought about trying to stop the dirty money and weapons flowing to him and his associates.

This is of course just one small episode of corruption and disregard for human life from the Saudi royal family, whose deep personal and business ties to the Bush family has lasted decades. Put aside for a minute that the job of a President is to protect and defend the Constitution, not the nation. Does a man committed to doing everything he can to protect America cuddle up to a guy like Bandar Bush?

I just noticed that I used the words "scuttle" and "cuddle," which kind of rhyme. So I got that going for me.

votes, terrorists, criminals

Today I'd like to offer you three links of essential reading. All three issues are straightforward examinations and interpretations of incontestable reality, and yet all would likely be immediately dismissed as extremist hysterics by most everyone I know. People who genuinely prioritize truth and morality are rare.

1.) At Harper's, Scott Horton has Six Questions for Mark Crispin Miller. The discussion is about how election fraud, and the media's failure to report on it except derisively is an ongoing scandal that undermines our (already thin claim to) democracy. I'd note that while Republicans are overwhelmingly the perpetrators and direct beneficiaries of these dirty tricks, Democrats have done very little to oppose them. For me the most shocking example of Donkle capitulation is Al Gore's blocking the attempts of few Democrats from the House of Representatives to contest the 2000 Presidential election, and every single Senate Democrat siding with Gore.

2.) Chris Floyd discusses the bloody doings of "the most dangerous terrorist organization at work in the world since the Second World War," the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Your tax dollars pay for an unaccountable Presidential army that has "overthrown governments, sponsored wars, carried out assassinations and terrorist attacks, organized and financed death squads, kidnapped and tortured, trafficked in drugs, bribed and blackmailed, even worked with the Mafia." If America was even the least bit serious about fighting world terrorism, it would take Chalmers Johnson's advice and abolish the CIA.

3.) Winter Patriot makes the point that needs to be made every single day. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz, Ari Fleischer, and Scott McClellan "by any civilized standard... are obviously guilty of mass murder, war crimes, and crimes against humanity." I don't share his hope that they all be tortured to death in front of a worldwide audience of billions (life in prison in the strictest sentence my conscience can allow to even the most vile criminal, a category to which all of them clearly belong), but I do share the outrage behind the sentiment. And I also share his frustration that nothing will ever happen about it.

could Dick Cheney have brain damage?

I imagine many of you have seen the old clip of Cheney from 1994:



The video above attributes Cheney's inconsistency to financial interests. Maybe.

I just started reading Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq which in passing raises another possibility. After discussing how Cheney, before the run-up to the Iraq invasion in 2003, had always seemed like "a realist" who "demanded the hard facts" and was "very practical," Ricks writes "Cheney had changed... perhaps because of his heart ailments, which can alter a person's personality."

This immediately made me think of Phineas Gage, whose personality drastically changed after a railroad spike accidentally was driven through his frontal lobe. He became obstinate, abusive, and profane. Since then science has come to understand that region of the brain to be important for judgment and impulse control.

I wonder if heart attacks could cause minor frontal lobe damage? Could Dick Cheney literally have brain damage? Not to the extent of Gage's obviously, but enough to make him more aggressive, less reasonable, and more profane? This is the guy who told Senator Leahy "go fuck yourself."

This is obviously pure speculation on my part, but it struck me as odd that I'd never seen this idea anywhere else.

Bush, Cheney: terrorist leaders

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and their cohorts have made the deliberate, conscious decision to engage in state terrorism in order to advance foreign policy and energy objectives they held long before 9/11 "changed the world."

That is the true context, and content, of the war. Anyone who supports its continuation -- under any auspices, in any form, for any amount of time longer than it takes to remove all the troops quickly and safely -- is advocating the perpetuation of state terror in the name of the American people.

Yup.

Projection

Walt says:

I love [Cheney's] last paragraph. I'm not sure which side he's talking about.

"The terrorists know what they want and they will stop at nothing to get it. By force and intimidation, they seek to impose a dictatorship of fear, under which every man, woman, and child lives in total obedience to their ideology. Their ultimate goal is to establish a totalitarian empire, a caliphate, with Baghdad as its capital. They view the world as a battlefield and they yearn to hit us again. And now they have chosen to make Iraq the central front in their war against civilization.

Cheney also criticized the Geneva Convention.

Cheney is from Iran

clearly