Glenn Greenwald on Holder's defense of targeted killing of U.S. citizens

Writing in Salon Glenn Greenwald has a long article criticising Attorney General's Eric Holder defense of the practice of targeted killing used by the Obama administration.

As Greenwald points out a citizen (or anyone else) can be targeted to be wiped out by the CIA by drones, special forces or whatever means without being charged, notified of their status, or having any opportunity to do anything in their defense. Suspects are simply condemned to death. There is no transparency in the process or judicial oversight.

Critics note that Holder's speech contained no footnotes nor legal citations. Holder says that some people argue that the president should get permission from a court before they "take action" against a U.S. citizen who is a senior operational leader of Al Qeada or associated forces. Taking action is a euphemism for targeted killing however the more exact terminology is not allowed into Holder's speech. Holder wants the background frame to be that of a war. However in Obamatalk that terminology is banned as well even though war is the legal framework from which Holder argues. Holder argues that what the U.S. constitution guarantees is due process rather than legal process. Greenwald then goes on to spell out what this due process is in fact.

The phrase someone "who is a senior operational leader of Al Qaeda or associated forces," means someone the President has accused and then decreed in secret to be a Terrorist without ever proving it with evidence.

U.S. citizens are placed on a kill or capture list by a panel of senior officials who are members of the White House National Security Council. The panel then informs the president of the names on the list. Decisions of the panel or any record of its operations are never made public. There is not even any law that establishes the panel or that sets out any rules for its operation. This is what Holder calls due process under the U.S. constitution. If a Bush official had spouted tripe such as this there would be a huge uproar.

The president makes the ultimate decision as to whether anyone on the list is killed or not killed. Greenwald gives a caustic summary of this so-called due process:"The President and his underlings are your accuser, your judge, your jury and your executioner all wrapped up in one, acting in total secrecy and without your even knowing that he's accused you and sentenced you to death, and you have no opportunity even to know about, let alone confront and address, his accusations; is that not enough due process for you? ""

This is just a sample from Greenwald's long article. Greenwald points out that if justifications such as Holder gives were presented under the Bush administration every Liberal Democrat would be up in arms and outraged at the violation of the rights of U.S. citizens. But in an election year with Obama as president few liberals are speaking out. In fact the most caustic criticism of targeted killing of Americans has come from libertarians such as Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. For more see the full article.

Why Bush visited Saudi Arabia.

This is from Straight Goods. The mainstream press of course said virtually nothing about this although business reports have mentioned that petro-dollars are flowing into bank financing in the US.

The U.S. is becoming a credit junkie that needs to go overseas constantly to continually refinance its habit.

Why Bush visited Saudi Arabia
USA now $3 trillion in debt to foreign lenders, mostly Saudis.
Dateline: Tuesday, January 22, 2008
by Greg Palast
Bend over, pull out your wallet and kiss your Abe 'goodbye.' The Lincolns have got to go — and so do the Hamiltons and Jacksons.
Those bills in your billfold aren't yours anymore. The landlords of our currency — Citibank, the national treasury of China and the House of Saud — are foreclosing and evicting all Americans from the US economy.
It's mornings like this, when I wake up hung-over to photos of the King of Saudi Arabia festooning our President with gold necklaces, that I reluctantly remember that I am an economist; and one with some responsibility to explain what the hell Bush is doing kissing Abdullah's camel.
Let's begin by stating why Bush is not in Saudi Arabia. Bush ain't there to promote 'Democracy' nor peace in Palestine, nor even war in Iran. And, despite what some pinhead from CNN stated, he sure as hell didn't go to Riyadh to tell the Saudis to cut the price of oil.
What's really behind Bush's hajj to Riyadh is that America is in hock up to our knickers. The sub-prime mortgage market implosion, hitting a dozen banks with over $100 billion in losses, is just the tip of the debt-berg.
Since taking office, Bush has doubled the federal debt to more than $5 trillion. And, according to US Treasury figures, on net, foreign investors have purchased close to 100 percent of that debt. That's $3 trillion borrowed from the Saudis, the Chinese, the Japanese and others.
Now, Bush, our Debt Junkie-in-Chief, needs another fix. The US Treasury, Citibank, Merrill-Lynch and other financial desperados need another hand-out from Abdullah's stash. Abdullah, in turn, gets this financial juice by pumping it out of our pockets at nearly $100 a barrel for his crude.
Bush needs the Saudis to charge us big bucks for oil. The Saudis can't lend the US Treasury and Citibank hundreds of billions of US dollars unless they first get these US dollars from the US. The high price of oil is, in effect, a tax levied by Bush but collected by the oil industry and the Gulf kingdoms to fund our multi-trillion dollar governmental and private debt-load.
The US Treasury is not alone in its frightening dependency on Arabian loot. America's private financial institutions are also begging for foreign treasure. Yesterday, King Abdullah's nephew, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, already the top individual owner of Citibank, joined the Kuwait government's Investment Authority and others to mainline a $12.5 billion injection of capital into the New York bank. Also this week, the Abu Dhabi government and the Saudi Olayan Group are taking a $6.6 billion chunk of Merrill-Lynch. It's no mere coincidence that Bush is in Abdullah's tent when the money-changers made the deal just outside it.
Bush is there to assure Abdullah that, unlike Dubai's ports purchase debacle, there will be no political impediment to the Saudi's buying up Citibank nor the isle of Manhattan....
For the whole story, please go to the related site below.
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Armed Madhouse (Penguin Paperback 2007). When Palast, an investigator of corporate fraud and racketeering, turned his skills to journalism, he was quickly recognized as, "The most important investigative reporter of our time" [Tribune Magazine] in Britain, where his first reports appeared on BBC television and in the Guardian newspaper.

Kyoto framework still best

The Canadian Prime minister, Stephen Harper, has allied himself more closely with the US on many issues than the former Liberal Government. Anderson was in the former government. Although the government signed on to Kyoto it did little and in fact emissions grew. So the former govt. took the moral high ground and then in practice made the environment worse. Stephen Harper blows hot air at very high temperatures and his idea of fairness is to not do anything as long as developing countries such as China and India do not sign on to targets even though as the article points out they certainly have quite legitimate complaints and suspicions about the US and Canada idea of fairness.

Kyoto framework is still best hope for the world

Nov 30, 2007 04:30 AM
David Anderson

The major objective of President George Bush and Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the Bali Meeting of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol that begins Monday is to replace the emission reduction Kyoto targets for the developed countries with an agreement that also includes targets for the developing countries.

Unfortunately, by abandoning the Kyoto approach of starting global reductions of greenhouse gas emissions with the developed industrial nations, Bush and Harper make the chances of getting the developing countries to accept emission reduction targets less likely, not more so.

The starting point for the developing countries is their firm and correct understanding that the increase in the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the past two centuries overwhelmingly has been caused by the use of fossil fuels in the developed countries of the world.

The global warming problem thus is a problem created by those developed countries, not by them. This belief then leads to the not unreasonable conclusion that if the atmosphere now has a dangerous level of greenhouse gases, then those responsible for those emissions should be the first to step up to the plate and do something about it.

The position of Bush and Harper, by contrast, is not based on that increase in the contamination level of the past two centuries, but rather on the emissions currently occurring. It is not a two-century buildup of the stock of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that they focus on; instead, they talk of the current rate of flow of contaminants into the atmosphere. Thus, the responsibility of the developed nations for the acute nature of the current problem is not, in their view, relevant to the current question of reducing emission levels today.

We have a dialogue of the deaf. Canada and the U.S. are talking of current flows of greenhouse gas emissions, while the developing countries are talking of accumulated stocks of greenhouse gas emissions. As long as each ignores the argument of the other, the likelihood of agreement is nil. One is talking of the contaminated pond, the other of the contaminating stream.

The Kyoto process bridged this gap by introducing a staged approach to emission reductions. The developed countries that ratified (essentially the European Union countries, Japan and Canada under the Chrétien government) agreed that the developed nations of the world should be the first to implement serious reductions. Then, after their good faith in dealing with a problem that they were responsible for had been demonstrated through significant reductions in emissions, discussions would take place on emission reduction programs for developing countries as well.

The key was overcoming the suspicion of developing countries that international greenhouse gas emission reduction programs would be used to hamper the development of their economies and their efforts to provide a better life for their citizens.

An important component of the developing countries' argument was the issue of international fairness. The atmosphere surrounding our world is equally necessary to the survival of each and every one of us. Therefore, fairness dictates that we each have an equal share of this common resource. Why then, they ask, are the per capita emissions of the developed countries so flagrantly in excess of the global averages and why are the developed countries not reducing their per capita emissions to that global average?

The question of equal share of the common global resource was sidelined by the agreement of the developed countries in the Kyoto Protocol to reduce emissions, as the reduction targets they accepted implicitly recognized the validity of the fairness claim of the developing countries.

Without Kyoto, this fairness or moral question will come once more to the fore. Indeed, the failure to achieve the Kyoto emission reduction targets that we in the developed world committed ourselves to 10 years ago will increase the suspicion of the developing countries that emission targets are not in their interests, and make this issue even more difficult to handle than ever.

The Kyoto Protocol was the result of extremely difficult negotiations, took a very long time, was a compromise, and is by no means perfect. Unfortunately, it was and still is the best the international community, working together, has been able to come up with.

The central problem with Harper's and Bush's proposed changes for a system with emission targets for all countries is that if they return to that starting point and ignore the difficult factors that Kyoto took into account through so many painstaking compromises, they will likely achieve far less in Bali than was achieved at Kyoto. The Kyoto approach, imperfect though it may be, is still the world's best hope.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Anderson is director of the Guelph Institute of the Environment at the University of Guelph. He served from 1999 to 2004 as the federal minister responsible for the climate change file, and during that time represented Canada at the international meetings on climate change.

Paul Krugman: Same Old Party

Krugman shows that there are at least a lot of similarities between Bush's policies and other conservative Republicans such as Reagan. This is from the New York Times.

Same Old Party


By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: October 8, 2007
There have been a number of articles recently that portray President Bush as someone who strayed from the path of true conservatism. Republicans, these articles say, need to return to their roots.

Paul Krugman.
Well, I don’t know what true conservatism is, but while doing research for my forthcoming book I spent a lot of time studying the history of the American political movement that calls itself conservatism — and Mr. Bush hasn’t strayed from the path at all. On the contrary, he’s the very model of a modern movement conservative.

For example, people claim to be shocked that Mr. Bush cut taxes while waging an expensive war. But Ronald Reagan also cut taxes while embarking on a huge military buildup.

People claim to be shocked by Mr. Bush’s general fiscal irresponsibility. But conservative intellectuals, by their own account, abandoned fiscal responsibility 30 years ago. Here’s how Irving Kristol, then the editor of The Public Interest, explained his embrace of supply-side economics in the 1970s: He had a “rather cavalier attitude toward the budget deficit and other monetary or fiscal problems” because “the task, as I saw it, was to create a new majority, which evidently would mean a conservative majority, which came to mean, in turn, a Republican majority — so political effectiveness was the priority, not the accounting deficiencies of government.”

People claim to be shocked by the way the Bush administration outsourced key government functions to private contractors yet refused to exert effective oversight over these contractors, a process exemplified by the failed reconstruction of Iraq and the Blackwater affair.

But back in 1993, Jonathan Cohn, writing in The American Prospect, explained that “under Reagan and Bush, the ranks of public officials necessary to supervise contractors have been so thinned that the putative gains of contracting out have evaporated. Agencies have been left with the worst of both worlds — demoralized and disorganized public officials and unaccountable private contractors.”

People claim to be shocked by the Bush administration’s general incompetence. But disinterest in good government has long been a principle of modern conservatism. In “The Conscience of a Conservative,” published in 1960, Barry Goldwater wrote that “I have little interest in streamlining government or making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size.”

People claim to be shocked that the Bush Justice Department, making a mockery of the Constitution, issued a secret opinion authorizing torture despite instructions by Congress and the courts that the practice should stop. But remember Iran-Contra? The Reagan administration secretly sold weapons to Iran, violating a legal embargo, and used the proceeds to support the Nicaraguan contras, defying an explicit Congressional ban on such support.

Oh, and if you think Iran-Contra was a rogue operation, rather than something done with the full knowledge and approval of people at the top — who were then protected by a careful cover-up, including convenient presidential pardons — I’ve got a letter from Niger you might want to buy.

People claim to be shocked at the Bush administration’s efforts to disenfranchise minority groups, under the pretense of combating voting fraud. But Reagan opposed the Voting Rights Act, and as late as 1980 he described it as “humiliating to the South.”

People claim to be shocked at the Bush administration’s attempts — which, for a time, were all too successful — to intimidate the press. But this administration’s media tactics, and to a large extent the people implementing those tactics, come straight out of the Nixon administration. Dick Cheney wanted to search Seymour Hersh’s apartment, not last week, but in 1975. Roger Ailes, the president of Fox News, was Nixon’s media adviser.

People claim to be shocked at the Bush administration’s attempts to equate dissent with treason. But Goldwater — who, like Reagan, has been reinvented as an icon of conservative purity but was a much less attractive figure in real life — staunchly supported Joseph McCarthy, and was one of only 22 senators who voted against a motion censuring the demagogue.

Above all, people claim to be shocked by the Bush administration’s authoritarianism, its disdain for the rule of law. But a full half-century has passed since The National Review proclaimed that “the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail,” and dismissed as irrelevant objections that might be raised after “consulting a catalogue of the rights of American citizens, born Equal” — presumably a reference to the document known as the Constitution of the United States.

Now, as they survey the wreckage of their cause, conservatives may ask themselves: “Well, how did we get here?” They may tell themselves: “This is not my beautiful Right.” They may ask themselves: “My God, what have we done?”

But their movement is the same as it ever was. And Mr. Bush is movement conservatism’s true, loyal heir.

Bush and Harper on Missile Defence in Eastern Europe

This article is by James Laxer
I wonder if anyone really believes that this defence system is directed against Iran and North Korea! Does Bush really think of the consequences of his actions ever! He really doesn't seem to care if he restarts a global arms race. I guess he thinks that the US must win!

Dumb and Dumber: Bush and Harper on Missile Defence in Eastern Europe

Why has the Bush administration decided to provoke Russia by announcing that the United States will install a part of its anti-ballistic missile system in the Czech Republic and Poland?

One could imagine that such a strategically important move was the outgrowth of penetrating thinking in the White House and the Pentagon. But, it is no such thing. It’s just plain dumb.

First, some background on anti-ballistic missiles.

To many, the idea of an anti-ballistic missile system may sound benign. After all, it’s a defensive weapon, whose only capability is to intercept incoming missiles.

In reality, defensive weapons have offensive implications. The distinction between them is a phony one. That is because the deployment of a defensive weapon that negates a potential foe’s offensive weapons, upsets the military balance and can trigger an arms race. What the Bush administration has in mind with missile defence is precisely to change the military balance in its favour.The Bush administration believes that if the United States is successful in developing and deploying a system that can reliably shoot down approaching enemy missiles, it will protect the U.S. from attack. But it will do much more than that. A workable missile shield would liberate the United States to do what no power has been willing to do since the last days of the Second World War---use nuclear weapons as a viable policy in certain extreme circumstances.In March 2002, the details of a secret Pentagon report were revealed on the front page of the New York Times. In its Nuclear Posture Review, the Pentagon pointed to the need to produce new nuclear weapons with a lower yield than strategic nuclear weapons, weapons that would produce less radioactive fallout. The Review spelled out the possible use of nuclear weapons by the United States against non-nuclear powers, such as Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya, all of them signatories to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. What made this so shocking is that the Review countenanced an explicit violation of the treaty, which was signed by 182 countries, including Canada.In 1978, to give nations an incentive to sign the non-proliferation treaty, the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain formally pledged never to launch a nuclear attack on signatories to the treaty, except in a case where a non-nuclear state attacked a nuclear state in tandem with another nuclear state. Again in 1995, France and China joined these three states (with Russia in place of the Soviet Union) in reiterating this pledge. As former U.S. Defence Secretary Robert McNamara and Thomas Graham Jr. wrote in a newspaper column "the Pentagon plan undermines the credibility of that pledge, which underpins the Nonproliferation Treaty. To strike directly at this pledge of nonuse is to strike at the treaty itself." "If another country were planning to develop a new nuclear weapon," said the New York Times in an editorial "and contemplating preemptive strikes against a list of non-nuclear powers, Washington would rightly label that nation a dangerous rogue state."To develop new nuclear weapons that can be used with impunity behind the protection of the missile shield is the reason the Bush administration opposes the U.S. signing on to the nuclear test ban treaty. Make no mistake about it----the deployment of a missile defence system is being done largely for offensive, not defensive, reasons.

Flash forward to the U.S. plan to deploy anti-ballistic missiles in the Czech Republic and Poland. (Mind you these anti-missile missiles don't even work yet.)

Such a move can only be interpreted as an aggressive act against Russia. To set up weapon systems on Russia’s doorstep whose only conceivable use is to degrade the value of the Russian nuclear capability as against that of the U.S. is the kind of act that would prompt a rebuke from any Russian government. Now we have Putin saying he will deploy Russian missiles to target European cities. Technically, that doesn’t mean much since they can target European cities already, but the political signal to Europeans is not one they want from a nuclear power on whom they depend for so much of their oil and natural gas.

What makes this even weirder is that Bush claims these anti-missile missiles are meant to protect against Iranian and Korean nukes. That you would put a missile shield in eastern Europe to protect against Pyonyang’s nukes doesn’t even pass the laugh test. And to use Iran as your rationale is just as peculiar. Everyone agrees that Teheran is at least a few years away from having a nuclear bomb let alone one it can mount on a missile. To prevent Iran from proceding to develop nuclear weapons, the U.S. needs the cooperation and collaboration of Russia. An angry Kremlin is highly unlikely to put pressure on Iran to help the Bush administration out of a jam in the Middle East.

I can only conclude that having overstretched its interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan and perhaps on the verge of attacking Iran, the U.S. has decided to pick an entirely unnecessary fight with the Russians. How would Bush like it if some nuclear power set up a missile shield somewhere in Latin America, in Venezuela for instance?

And then there’s Stephen Harper.

This guy goes to Paris and makes a comment siding with Bush on the anti-missile deployment in the Czech Republic and Poland. I used to think Harper had brains. But here he’s playing “dumber” to Bush’s “dumb”. As the leader of a middle power, the prime minister of Canada is not required to support Washington on this kind of thing. What Harper did will not even be reported by the U.S. media. But it will make the Putin government mad at Canada. Surely, our role ought to be to encourage the nuclear powers to cool their behaviour and their rhetoric, not to further enflame the situation.

I guess Harper’s reflexive pro-Americanism kicks in before his cortex even gets hold of what’s at stake.

George Washington on George Bush and the Iraq war

The Onion often has good satirical pieces. I just hope it doesn't turn out 50 percent of the US people think that this is for real!

Retired Gen. George Washington Criticizes Bush's Handling Of Iraq War

June 6, 2007 | The ONION Issue 43•23

WASHINGTON, DC—Breaking a 211-year media silence, retired Army Gen.
George Washington appeared on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday to speak out
against many aspects of the way the Iraq war has been waged.

Washington likens Vice President Cheney to controversial British
Chancellor of the Exchequer and Stamp Act architect George Greenville.

Washington, whose appearance marked the first time the military leader
and statesman had spoken publicly since his 1796 farewell address in
Philadelphia, is the latest in a string of retired generals stepping
forward to criticize the Iraq war.

"This entire military venture has been foolhardy and of ill design,"
said Washington, dressed in his customary breeches and frilly cravat.
"The manifold mistakes committed by this president in Iraq carry grave
consequences, and he who holds the position of commander in chief has
the responsibility to right those wrongs."

Washington noted that while Saddam Hussein was an indefensible tyrant,
that alone did not justify a "conflict that seems without design or
end."

"The Iraqi people did suffer greatly under unjust rule," Washington
said. "But in truth, it is the duty of any people that wishes to be
free to fight for its own independence. Had France meddled in our
revolution beyond the guidance and material assistance they provided,
I should think similar unrest would have darkened our nation's
earliest hours."

Washington made the cable news rounds, telling Wolf Blitzer that the
war was a "tragic mistake for our nation."

The Virginia-born Revolutionary War veteran and national-capital
namesake also expressed his worry over the state of the American
militia, the unchecked powers of the executive branch, and the lack of
a congressional declaration of war.

"The very genius of the American presidency is that it is an office
held by an elected representative of the people, not by a monarch who
can rule by fiat and enact policy at will," Washington said.

The retired general asserted that many of the current problems in Iraq
could easily have been predicted by wiser civilian leadership.

"I can say from personal experience that even a malnourished force
with feet clad in rags should not be underestimated, even by a far
superior power," added Washington, who has disavowed further
comparison between the Iraqi insurgency and the American colonists.
"There is nothing a committed fighting force cannot accomplish if
bolstered by the strength of its convictions."

Washington's critical comments echo those of other retired generals,
including Maj. Gen. John Batiste and former NATO Supreme Allied
Commander Wesley Clark, who attacked Bush's Iraq policy in a series of
television ads run by political action committee VoteVets.org during
the 2006 midterm elections.

"We're very happy that someone of General Washington's stature is
speaking out," said Jon Soltz, cofounder and chairman of VoteVets.org.
"He has impeccable conservative credentials, extensive foreign policy
experience, is a true citizen-soldier with a proven commitment to his
country, and, if that's not enough to get Bush to listen, he's the
face on the dollar bill."

However, White House response to the former general's criticism was
swift and sharp. Spokesman Tony Fratto dismissed Washington as
"increasingly irrelevant" and "a relic" who "made some embarrassing
gaffes" during his own military career, such as the Continental Army's
near destruction in the Battle of Long Island in 1776.

"The general's reckless and irresponsible comments show that he
clearly does not understand the realities of 21st-century warfare,"
Fratto said.

Conservative pundits moved quickly to discredit the decorated general.

"I don't care who you are—or if you cannot tell a lie—it's
un-American
to question the president in a time of war," Sean Hannity said on his
radio program Monday. "Plus, I find it very interesting that a man who
owned slaves and sold hemp thinks he's entitled to give our Commander
in Chief lessons on how to run a war."

Toward the end of his Meet the Press interview, Washington expressed
fears for the future of Iraq, Middle East policy, and America itself.

"These convoluted foreign adventures were not what I envisaged for my
young nation," Washington said. "Certainly the citizens of the
republic deserve better than this. Had I but known this was the fated
course of my country, I might not have found the strength to liberate
Her from the mantle of King George."
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