RhetIraq

Who: Kevin Tillman, ex-Army Ranger and brother of Pat Tillman
Source: Truthdig.com
Quotes: From opinion article titled, "After Pat’s Birthday"

It is Pat’s birthday on November 6, and elections are the day after. It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military. He spoke about the risks with signing the papers. How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people. How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition. How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice… until we got out.

Much has happened since we handed over our voice:

Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can’t be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.

Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few “bad apples” in the military.

Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It’s interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.

Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.

Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.

Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.

Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.

Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.

Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.

Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.

Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.

Somehow torture is tolerated.

Somehow lying is tolerated.

Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.

Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.

Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.

Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.

Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.

Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.

Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.

Somehow this is tolerated.

Somehow nobody is accountable for this.

In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don’t be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that “somehow” was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.

Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat’s birthday.

Brother and Friend of Pat Tillman,

Kevin Tillman

Source: The National Archives
Quotes: From Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution of the United States

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

Who: Thomas Jefferson
Source: Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government
Quotes:

"Why suspend the habeas corpus in insurrections and rebellions? The parties who may be arrested may be charged instantly with a well defined crime; of course, the judge will remand them. If the public safety requires that the government should have a man imprisoned on less probable testimony in those than in other emergencies, let him be taken and tried, retaken and retried, while the necessity continues, only giving him redress against the government for damages. Examine the history of England. See how few of the cases of the suspension of the habeas corpus law have been worthy of that suspension. They have been either real treasons, wherein the parties might as well have been charged at once, or sham plots, where it was shameful they should ever have been suspected. Yet for the few cases wherein the suspension of the habeas corpus has done real good, that operation is now become habitual and the minds of the nation almost prepared to live under its constant suspension." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1788.

Who: Michael Dorf, Professor of Law @ Columbia University
Source: Findlaw.com
Quotes: From opinion article titled, "Why The Military Commissions Act is No Moderate Compromise"

Americans following the news coverage of the debate about how to treat captives in the ongoing military conflicts could be forgiven for believing that the bill recently passed by Congress, the Military Commissions Act ("MCA"), was a compromise between a White House seeking far-reaching powers, and Senators seeking to restrain the Executive. After all, prior to reaching an agreement with the President, four prominent Republican Senators--Susan Collins, Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and John Warner--had drawn a line in the sand, refusing to go along with a measure that would have redefined the Geneva Conventions' references to "outrages upon personal dignity" and "humiliating and degrading treatment." No doubt many Americans believe that because these four courageous Senators stood on moral principle, the bill that emerged, and which President Bush will certainly sign, reflects a careful balance between liberty and security.

Yet if that is what Americans believe, they are sorely mistaken. On nearly every issue, the MCA gives the White House everything it sought. It immunizes government officials for past war crimes; it cuts the United States off from its obligations under the Geneva Conventions; and it all but eliminates access to civilian courts for non-citizens--including permanent residents whose children are citizens--that the government, in its nearly unreviewable discretion, determines to be unlawful enemy combatants.

[...] a cursory survey of the MCA's provisions reveals how far it departs from previously-cherished American norms. Had those norms, instead, anchored the debate, the MCA would have been clearly recognized as the extreme measure that it really is.

[...] even if one concludes that civilian courts are inappropriate for terrorism cases, it does not follow that one must rely on the sorts of special military commissions established by the MCA. As the Supreme Court explained in its June decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld trial by court martial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) would certainly comply with international law and the Constitution. Had the Bush Administration been willing to utilize courts martial, it would not even have needed to go to Congress for new legislation.

The military commissions established by the MCA differ from courts martial in a number of key respects. Most conspicuously, the military commissions will use relaxed rules concerning the admission of evidence, including some otherwise excludable hearsay and evidence obtained by coercion, and except for a limited list of procedural guarantees, the MCA requires the military commissions to comply with the rules used by courts martial only to the extent that the Secretary of Defense considers such rules to be practicable and consistent with security considerations.

These are not mere technical matters. The procedural protections of courts martial that the military commissions discard play an important role in preventing and remedying erroneous convictions of innocent people. Yet here too, proponents of military commissions have offered no persuasive justification for abandoning courts martial.

The move from courts martial to military commissions imposes serious costs on the accused while yielding marginal if any benefits for society. As Justice Kennedy noted in his concurrence in Hamdan, courts martial are fully capable of trying cases involving terrorism suspects without compromising national security: After all, they have long-established procedures for handling the use of classified information, including admitting into evidence a declassified summary of the contents of the classified report.

In his majority opinion in Hamdan, Justice Stevens made plain that historically, military commissions were justified by necessity. Given the exigencies of war, it is not always possible to convene a civilian court or a full court martial. In the MCA, Congress has authorized military commissions without any good reason for concluding that civilian courts or courts martial could not do the job at no greater risk to national security.

Torture and Other Harsh Methods of Interrogation

Despite its title, the Military Commissions Act is not just about military commissions. It also contains provisions governing the treatment of detainees. Here the bill can only be described as an elaborate exercise in misdirection.

Section 5 of the MCA declares that no one may invoke the Geneva Conventions as a source of rights in a U.S. court case against the United States or one of its agents. Section 6 of the MCA then purports to implement the Geneva Conventions.

In principle, that is unexceptionable. The Geneva Conventions are treaties which the United States signed, and treaties frequently are not self-executing: that is, they can require implementing legislation. However, the substance of the MCA's Section 6 makes evident that it does not, in fact, implement the Geneva Conventions themselves but rather implements a watered-down version of them.

For example, while retaining criminal sanctions for "grave breaches" of common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, the MCA forbids U.S. courts from looking to any "foreign or international source of law" to determine what constitutes a grave breach. Yet even those Justices of the Supreme Court who object to the use of foreign or international law in interpreting the U.S. Constitution, readily acknowledge that foreign and international law are of course relevant in interpreting a treaty. The MCA therefore replaces the actual Geneva Conventions with a kind of special U.S. edition of them.

The MCA also lists specific acts that constitute grave breaches of Common Article 3, and thus constitute war crimes. The list includes torture and "cruel or inhuman treatment," but these come with a crucial limitation.

The MCA makes applicable to U.S. personnel accused of violating Common Article 3 between September 11, 2001 and December 30, 2005, a defense established by the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (DTA), which was enacted on the latter date. Such personnel may escape criminal conviction for waterboarding and like practices if they believed in good faith that what they were doing was lawful. The relevant provision of the DTA in turn makes reliance on memos of the sort produced by the Justice Department "an important factor" in determining knowledge and good faith.

Indeed, the Administration and many of its allies in Congress refuse even to say whether they think that the MCA prohibits future waterboarding. They argue that stating what specific practices are forbidden would give our enemies an advantage, because these enemies could then focus their training on methods of resisting only those harsh interrogation methods that are permitted; yet the Administration and its allies simultaneously argue that the MCA is needed to tell our own interrogators exactly what they can and cannot do. They do not explain how the same language of the law can somehow provide guidance to our troops and civilian interrogators, but not to the enemy.

The Constriction of the Writ of Habeas Corpus

There is, of course, an answer to that question, but it is not a pretty one: Perhaps the enemy will be kept guessing because the Administration does not actually intend to abide by the provisions of the MCA or DTA. After all, no alien can sue to enforce these provisions, and thus violations may never come to light. And that's before the President construes the MCA even more narrowly in a signing statement, as he is wont to do.

Although torture and related maltreatment remain federal crimes under the MCA, alien victims of torture who are declared by the executive to be enemy combatants have no ability to bring their claims to court. Section 7 of the MCA eliminates the right of habeas corpus and the right to bring a petition challenging "any other action [by] the United States or its agents relating to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial or conditions of confinement of" such persons.

Under the terms of the MCA, then, the government could declare a permanent resident alien--including someone who has been residing lawfully in the United States for decades--to be an enemy combatant, and lock him up, potentially forever. That alien--who could be your neighbor--would never have an opportunity to challenge his detention or treatment in a U.S. court.

To be sure, if the government provides someone declared to be an enemy combatant with a combatant status review tribunal (CSRT), then the DTA authorizes judicial review of that determination. And the MCA does amend the DTA for the better in one important respect: Whereas the DTA only authorized civilian judicial review of CSRT determinations for detainees at Guantanamo, under the MCA, a person held by the United States pursuant to a CSRT anywhere in the world can appeal the CSRT's ruling to a civilian federal court. But, there is no statutory requirement that the government ever utilize a CSRT-and absent a CSRT ruling, there is no access to civilian court.

Thus, under the terms of the DTA as amended by the MCA, there would be no access to a civilian court whatsoever, even if the detainee were held within the United States, so long as the government determined that he or she were an unlawful enemy combatant by some means other than using a CSRT. And at least to that extent, the MCA should be judged unconstitutional as a de facto suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. Article I, Section 9 permits Congress to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus "when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." Public safety may require that the writ be suspended in an active war zone where courts cannot function. But the DTA and MCA apply everywhere.

Accordingly, should the Administration hold aliens within the United States, the courts would likely find that they are entitled to habeas corpus, notwithstanding the terms of the DTA and MCA. Whether there is a right of aliens held outside the United States to habeas corpus is not entirely clear. That question may be resolved by a recent lawsuit filed on behalf of prisoners in Afghanistan.

Misleading Claims Regarding Reciprocity

In the public debate surrounding the treatment of detainees, and in the email I receive from time to time from incensed readers, proponents of the Administration's position frequently question the application of norms of due process to terrorists who themselves engage in barbaric acts. Humane treatment for people who deliberately behead and blow up innocent civilians will not, they argue, lead to better treatment of our own personnel.

There is something to this argument but it ultimately misses three important points. First, we observe norms of humane treatment in part because of who we are. Just as we do not permit cruel and unusual punishment of domestic prisoners--even those who have committed sadistic crimes--so we should not commit similar acts against people from foreign lands.

Second, the reciprocity argument conceives our national interest far too narrowly. The reason to abide by the Geneva Conventions with respect to al Qaeda captives is not because we believe that al Qaeda will therefore reciprocate by treating our personnel well. The reason is that people who are not now our active enemies will be more likely to take up the jihadi cause against us if we confirm their view that the United States aims to persecute Muslims. Even where there is no hope for reciprocal treatment of Americans, disregard of international standards for treatment of detainees undermines our security by losing hearts and minds throughout the world. As the government's own recently declassified National Intelligence Estimate confirms, this is a very real phenomenon.

Third, due process rights are not rights for terrorists but for people accused of being terrorists. Despite Administration claims that Guantanamo detainees are "the worst of the worst," the government has already admitted that numerous people it formerly held in fact posed no great danger. Some of these--like Yaser Hamdi, the subject of the Supreme Court case Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, or the Tipton Three, the subject of the docudrama "The Road to Guantanamo"--have simply been sent back to their home countries, or other places abroad.

In the fog of war, mistakes are inevitable. But once the dust settles, the least we can do is utilize procedures designed to correct those mistakes. Unfortunately, the MCA would only exacerbate them.

Who: Ted Rall, Syndicated Editorial Cartoonist & Columnist
Source: Uexpress.com
Quotes: From opinion article titled, "The End of the U.S. as a Civilized Nation"

[...] the recently passed Military Commissions Act removes the United States from the ranks of civilized nations. It codifies racial and political discrimination, legalizes kidnapping and torture of those the government deems its political enemies, and eliminates habeas corpus--the ancient precept that prevents the police from arresting and holding you without cause--a basic protection common to all (other) modern legal systems, and one that dates to the Magna Carta.

Between 2001 and 2006, George W. Bush worked tirelessly to eliminate freedoms and liberties Americans have long taken for granted. The Bush Administration's CIA, mercenary and military state terrorists kidnapped thousands of innocent people and held them at secret prisons around the world for months and years at a time. These people were never charged with a crime. (There was good reason for that. As the government itself admitted, fewer than ten had actually done anything wrong.) Yet hundreds, maybe even thousands, were tortured.

Under American law these despicable acts were illegal. They were, by definition, un-American. Although it didn't help the dozens of Bush torture victims who died from beatings and drowning, the pre-Bush American judicial system worked. The Republican-controlled U.S. Supreme Court handed down one decision after another ordering the White House to give its "detainees" trials or let them go. For a brief, shining moment, it looked like there was hope for the U.S. to find its way back to the light.

Now, thanks to a gullible passel of Republican senators and an unhinged leader who is banking that Americans are just as passive as the Germans of the mid-1930s, we have our own Nuremberg Laws.

Under the terrifying terms of the radical new Military Commissions Act, Bush can declare anyone--including you--an "unlawful enemy combatant," a term that doesn't exist in U.S. or international law. All he has to do is sign a piece of paper claiming that you "purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States." The law's language is brilliantly vague, allowing the president to imprison--for the rest of his or her life--anyone, including a U.S. citizen, from someone who makes a contribution to a group he disapproves of to a journalist who criticizes the government.

Although Bush and his top officials ordered and endorsed torture, the courts had found that it was illegal under U.S. law and treaty obligations. Now torture is, for the first time, legal.

"Over all," reports The New York Times, "the legislation reallocates power among the three branches of government, taking authority away from the judiciary and handing it to the president." Bruce Ackerman, professor of law and political science at Yale, notes that the MCA trashes the centuries-old right of a prisoner to petition to the courts: "If Congress can strip courts of jurisdiction over cases because it fears their outcome, judicial independence is threatened."

How did we get here? Good Germans--and many of them were decent, moral people--asked themselves the same thing. The answer is incrementalism, the tendency of radical change to manifest itself in bits and pieces. People who should have known better--journalists, Democrats, and Republicans who are more loyal to their country than their party--allowed Bush and his neofascist gangsters to hijack our republic and its values. They weren't as bad as Bush. They just couldn't see the big picture.

Just as no single rollback led marked the transition from the Weimar Republic to the Third Reich, no event is individually responsible for America's shocking five-year transformation from beacon of freedom to autocratic torture state. It wasn't just letting Bush get away with his 2000 coup d'état. It wasn't just us standing by as he deliberately allowed his family friend Osama bin Laden to escape, or as he invaded Afghanistan, or as he built the concentration camps at Guantánamo and elsewhere, or even Iraq. It was all of those things collectively.

The Military Commissions Act signals that our traditional system of beliefs and government has irrevocably devolved into moral bankruptcy. Memo to Senator McCain: You don't negotiate with terrorists, and you don't compromise with torturers.

It doesn't matter how much food aid we ship to the victims of the next global natural disaster, or how diplomatic our next president is, or whether we come to regret what we have done in the name of law and order. Our laws permit kidnapping, torture and murder. Our laws deny access to the courts. The United States has ceded the moral high ground to its enemies.

We are done.

Source: The New York Sun
Quotes: From article titled, "Baker's Panel Rules Out Iraq Victory"

A commission formed to assess the Iraq war and recommend a new course has ruled out the prospect of victory for America, according to draft policy options shared with The New York Sun by commission officials.

Currently, the 10-member commission — headed by a secretary of state for President George H.W. Bush, James Baker — is considering two option papers, "Stability First" and "Redeploy and Contain," both of which rule out any prospect of making Iraq a stable democracy in the near term.

More telling, however, is the ruling out of two options last month. One advocated minor fixes to the current war plan but kept intact the long-term vision of democracy in Iraq with regular elections. The second proposed that coalition forces focus their attacks only on Al Qaeda and not the wider insurgency.

Instead, the commission is headed toward presenting President Bush with two clear policy choices that contradict his rhetoric of establishing democracy in Iraq. The more palatable of the two choices for the White House, "Stability First," argues that the military should focus on stabilizing Baghdad while the American Embassy should work toward political accommodation with insurgents. The goal of nurturing a democracy in Iraq is dropped.

The "Redeploy and Contain" option calls for the phased withdrawal of American soldiers from Iraq, though the working groups have yet to say when and where those troops will go. The document, read over the telephone to the Sun, says America should "make clear to allies and others that U.S. redeployment does not reduce determination to attack terrorists wherever they are." It also says America's top priority should be minimizing American casualties in Iraq.

[The president's] strategic goal in Iraq is to build "a country which can defend itself, sustain itself, and govern itself."

But the president's strategic goal is at odds with the opinion of Mr. Baker's expert working groups, which dismiss the notion of victory in Iraq. The "Stability First" paper says, "The United States should aim for stability particularly in Baghdad and political accommodation in Iraq rather than victory."

Mr. Baker in recent days has subtly been sounding out this theme with interviewers. On PBS's "Charlie Rose Show," Mr. Baker was careful to say he believed the jury was still out on whether Iraq was a success or a failure. But he also hastened to distinguish between a Middle East that was "democratic" and one that was merely "representative."

That distinction is crucial, according to one member of the expert working groups. "Baker wants to believe that Sunni dictators in Sunni majority states are representative," the group member, who requested anonymity, said.

Both option papers would compel America to open dialogue with Syria and Iran, two rogue states that Iraqi leaders and American military commanders say are providing arms and funds to Iraq's insurgents. "Stabilizing Iraq will be impossible without greater cooperation from Iran and Syria," the "Stability First" paper says.

The option also calls on America to solicit aid and support from the European Union and the United Nations, though both bodies in the past have spurned requests for significant aid for Iraq.

Mr. Baker has said he will likely present the panel's findings in December.

Who: Army Col. Sean B. MacFarland, Commander of 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division
Source: Associated Press
Quotes: From article titled, "U.S. Commander Says Insurgency In Iraq Unlikely To Be Defeated Until U.S. Forces Leave"

The insurgency in Iraq's volatile western Anbar province can be beaten but probably not until after U.S. troops leave the country, the commander of forces in the provincial capital said Friday.

"An insurgency is a very difficult thing to defeat in a finite period of time. It takes a lot of persistence -- perseverance is the actual term that we like to use," Army Col. Sean B. MacFarland, commander of 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division, said in a video-teleconference with reporters at the Pentagon.

"Who knows how long this is going to actually last?" he added. "But if we get the level of violence down to a point where the Iraqi security forces are more than capable of dealing with it, the insurgency's days will eventually come to an end. And they will come to an end at the hands of the Iraqis, who, by definition, will always be perceived as more legitimate than an external force like our own."

MacFarland's brigade is fighting in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, where the insurgency has become so entrenched and feared by residents that the city has no Iraqi mayor. Recently, however, the tide has begun to turn against al-Qaida in Iraq, which has become the dominant anti-government force, the colonel said.

"It's a situation that's beginning to spiral in our favor," he said.

MacFarland painted a largely upbeat picture of the battle for Ramadi. He said attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces have dropped from about 20 per day to about 15 per day, and the attacks have become less effective.

Also, recruiting for the Iraqi security forces has "soared 10-fold," local Sunni tribal leaders have begun cooperating more against the insurgents, and the U.S.-equipped Iraqi police are becoming more effective, he said.

Who: Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA)
Source: World Public Opinion.org
Quotes: From summary titled, "Most Iraqis Want US Troops Out Within a Year"


A new WPO poll of the Iraqi public finds that seven in ten Iraqis want US-led forces to commit to withdraw within a year. An overwhelming majority believes that the US military presence in Iraq is provoking more conflict than it is preventing and there is growing confidence in the Iraqi army. If the US made a commitment to withdraw, a majority believes that this would strengthen the Iraqi government. Support for attacks on US-led forces has grown to a majority position—now six in ten. Support appears to be related to a widespread perception, held by all ethnic groups, that the US government plans to have permanent military bases in Iraq.

As compared to January 2006 there has been, overall, a growing sense of urgency for withdrawal of US-led forces.

Large numbers say that the US military presence is “provoking more conflict than it is preventing.” This view is held by 78 percent overall, and by 82 percent of Shias and a near-unanimous 97 percent of Sunnis. The Kurds diverge, with 56 percent taking the opposing view that the US military presence is “a stabilizing force.”

More broadly, 79 percent of Iraqis say that the US is having a negative influence on the situation in Iraq, with just 14 percent saying that it is having a positive influence.

Confidence in the US military is quite low. Eighty-four percent say they have little (22%) or no (62%) confidence in the US military.

Asked “If the US made a commitment to withdraw from Iraq according to a timetable, do you think this would strengthen the Iraqi government, weaken it, or have no effect either way?” 53 percent said that it would strengthen the government, while just 24 percent said it would weaken the government. Twenty-three percent believed that it would have no effect either way.

Asked to assess the readiness of Iraqi security forces to stand on their own in six months, 53 percent say that they “will be strong enough to deal with the security challenges Iraq will face” while 46 percent say they “will still need the help of military forces from other countries.”

This level of confidence is up from January, when only 39 percent thought Iraqi forces would be strong enough in six months and 59 percent said they would still need foreign help.

Support for attacks against US-led forces has increased sharply to 61 percent (27% strongly, 34% somewhat). This represents a 14-point increase from January 2006, when only 47 percent of Iraqis supported attacks.

Who: General Peter Schoomaker, Chief of Staff for US Army
Source: Guardian UK
Quotes: From article titled, "Not enough cash for war"

George Bush received a serious rebuke about his wartime leadership this week when his army chief said he did not have enough money to fight the war in Iraq.

Six weeks before midterm elections in which the war is a crucial issue, the protest from the army head, General Peter Schoomaker, exposes concerns within the US military about the strain of the war on Iraq, and growing tensions between uniformed personnel and the secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld.

The general refused to submit a budget plan for 2008 to Mr Rumsfeld, arguing that the military could not continue operations in Iraq and its other missions without additional funds, the Los Angeles Times reported. The seriousness of the protest was underlined by Gen Schoomaker's reputation as an ally of the Pentagon chief. The general came out of retirement at Mr Rumsfeld's request to take up the post.