Civil Liberties Take Another Hit

Phillip Carter is a lawyer, a former Army Captain, a veteran of the Iraq War and a very harsh critic of the Bush administration's detention and interrogation policies. He was a vigorous supporter of Barack Obama's campaign, and in 2008, became the Obama campaign's National Veterans Director. In April of this year, he was appointed the top Pentagon official for detainee affairs, but yesterday, he suddenly "quit without explanation just days after Obama confirmed in an interview with Fox News in Beijing that his administration would miss its Jan. 22 Guantánamo closure deadline."

Carter said he was resigning due to "personal issues," and -- like Greg Craig before him -- remained loyal to Obama by refraining, at least thus far, from publicly criticizing any administration policies. I have no idea what actually motivated Carter's abrupt resignation, but here's what I do know: so many of the detention and other "War on Terror" policies Obama has explicitly adopted were the very same ones which Carter (as well as Obama) repeatedly railed against during the Bush years, in Carter's case primarily in blogs he maintained both at The Washington Post and at Slate.

[...]

Carter harshly condemned the Bush administration's decision to use a military commission to try Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, accused of the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania. Carter suggested that trying detainees for "war crimes" for pre-2001 acts violates the Constitution's ban on ex post facto punishments (since the U.S. was not at war at that time).

[...]

While the Obama administration commendably sent Ghailani to New York to be tried in a civilian court, it just announced two weeks ago that Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, whose case originated as a criminal investigation with the FBI, would now be turned over to a military commission for prosecution in connection with the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole -- raising all of the serious objections Carter voiced to the Ghailani case.

[...]

Carter had also voiced serious concerns over the Bush DOJ's use of the "state secrets" privilege as a means of evading vital constitutional and other legal questions -- only to watch the Obama DOJ do the same thing.

[...]

Carter advocated real consequences for DOJ torture-approving lawyers such as John Yoo (specifically, his firing from Berkeley), only to watch the Obama administration take multiple steps to protects such officials from any legal consequences. He applauded the Bush Pentagon's cancellation of a key appointment of Gen. Jay Hood to Pakistan on the ground that Hood had presided over Guantanamo and was thus "tained by torture," only to watch Obama appoint the highly tainted Gen. McChyrstal as his commander in Afghanistan.

[...]

[F] ollowing Greg Craig, this is now the second high-profile resignation of a relatively devoted civil libertarian in a short period of time. Combine that with the still-missing-and-unconfirmed Dawn Johnsen, and all of this leaves those who are indifferent or hostile to civil liberties values -- people like John Brennan and Rahm Emanuel -- with even fewer counter-weights than before.

  Glenn Greenwald

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

And Lest We Get Too Hopeful

Iraq’s effort to hold parliamentary elections has collapsed, raising the prospect of a political crisis ahead of the planned U.S. troop withdrawal.

  NYT

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Meanwhile in the Philippines

The Philippine president placed two southern provinces under emergency rule Tuesday as security forces unearthed more bodies, pushing the death toll to 46 in some of the deadliest election violence in the nation's history.

Police and soldiers found 22 bodies in a hillside mass grave Tuesday, adding to the 24 bullet-riddled bodies recovered near the scene of Monday's massacre in Maguindanao province, said Chief Superintendent Josefino Cataluna of the Central Mindanao region.

This southern region of the Philippines is wracked by violent political rivalries, in addition to a long-running Islamic insurgency.

  Yahoo

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

What a Surprise

The Justice Department has concluded that there is insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for allegedly misleading Congress about the Bush administration’s warrantless eavesdropping program.

  Raw Story

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....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

How Not to Use a Pie Chart

Screen capture from Fox:

Oh, wait. That's a Cow Pie Chart.

....and hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Got Tea?

House Democrats want a graduated surtax on individuals and corporations to pay for another big drain on the treasury: the Afghanistan war.

[...]

The speaker has been silent thus far, and many dismiss the idea as more rhetoric than real legislation. But with President Barack Obama due to make a final decision soon on adding more U.S. troops, the initiative testifies to the growing restlessness among Democrats over the costs of the American commitment in Afghanistan.

[...]

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), who oversees the Pentagon’s budget and supports the surtax, went so far as to send Obama last month a copy of Yale historian Paul Kennedy’s “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.”

[...]

“We’re not trying to insult anybody. We’re just trying to keep in the forefront what the financial costs are,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.) told POLITICO. “We felt conscience bound to speak up”

  Politico

That’s rich. Politicians claiming conscience. Anyway, this is one area that distinguishes Dems from Republicans: they don’t form a concrete block behind their party’s president.

Dubbed the “Share the Sacrifice Act,” the six-page bill exempts anyone who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan since the 2001 terrorist attacks as well as families who have lost an immediate relative in the fighting. But middle-class households earning between $30,000 and $150,000 would be asked to pay 1% on top of their tax liability today — a more sweeping approach than many Democrats have been willing to embrace.

If I’m not mistaken, we’ve already been paying taxes to support these wars. Nevertheless, that would be a good way to put an end to them. The “Tea Parties” would bring the country to a standstill. So I say, “Full speed ahead, gentlemen.”

There’s a breakdown of the expected costs and taxes in the article, should you choose to read it.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Al Gore Rhythm

This will put you into an alternative reality. Al Gore reading comedy. We're mellllllllting!

Separated at Birth

The Piper Is Playing Our Tune

Treasury officials now face a trifecta of headaches: a mountain of new debt, a balloon of short-term borrowings that come due in the months ahead, and interest rates that are sure to climb back to normal as soon as the Federal Reserve decides that the emergency has passed.

  NYT

But the Fed can decide whatever it wants whenever it wants, so is that really an issue?

With the national debt now topping $12 trillion, the White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically. Other forecasters say the figure could be much higher.

That’s some pretty heavy interest.

Americans now have to climb out of two deep holes: as debt-loaded consumers, whose personal wealth sank along with housing and stock prices; and as taxpayers, whose government debt has almost doubled in the last two years alone, just as costs tied to benefits for retiring baby boomers are set to explode.

  

Funny how we get stuck with the debt when we never approved the borrowing.

“What a good country or a good squirrel should be doing is stashing away nuts for the winter,” said William H. Gross, managing director of the Pimco Group, the giant bond-management firm. “The United States is not only not saving nuts, it’s eating the ones left over from the last winter.”

I know a few nuts that should have been stashed away for the remainder of time. Or eaten.

The White House estimates that the government will have to borrow about $3.5 trillion more over the next three years.

Hey, I have an idea that will save us trillions. Get out of the Middle East.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Army Suicides: Fort Hood

Several years of repeated war-zone deployments are taking their toll, as Army personnel are experiencing record rates of PTSD, depression, other mental health problems, alcohol and drug abuse, and suicides.

[...]

According to the Army Suicide Event Report, a total of 99 soldiers killed themselves in 2006, the highest rate of military suicides in the 26 years the military has been keeping statistics on suicides. More than a quarter of them were by troops in combat postings in Iraq and Afghanistan. The figure does not include post-discharge suicides by military personnel.

In 2007, at least 115 suicides were reported by the Army, another record. Last year set another record, with at least 133 reported suicides, in addition to there being a record number of suicides in the Marine Corps that year.

[...]

Thus far, 2009 is on pace to set another record for the number of suicides in the Army.

[...]

According to official military statistics, Fort Hood already suffers the highest number of suicides among Army installations since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. While Luther believes the number is far higher, Army officials at Fort Hood admit to at least 10 suicides on the base from January to July of this year, and at least 75 “confirmed” suicides since 2003.

  Dahr Jamail

And Don't Forget Pakistan

Two bombs rocked the northern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Thursday.

  Juan Cole

Meanwhile, In Afghanistan

UNICEF draws attention to the wretched living conditions of Afghans, calling it the world's worst place for a child to be born. The Guardian writes, "Afghanistan has the highest infant mortality rate in the world - 257 deaths per 1,000 live births, while 70 percent of the population lacks access to clean water." [...]The life expectancy in Afghanistan at birth is 44. The adult literacy rate is 28%, which I suspect means that the female adult literacy rate is on the order of 6%.

Where is NATO going to get 400,000 well trained police and troops in a country with a 28% literacy rate?

  Juan Cole

This makes me curious. I wonder what the literacy rate of the US Army is. If honestly assessed, I bet it would not be encouraging.

USA Today undermines the entire master narrative of US/NATO military operations in Afghanistan, writing: "The U.S. military says the vast majority of the 700 detainees at its biggest prison in Afghanistan could eventually be released because they're fighting more for money than ideology."

So, without us being there to fight…

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.