Obama Derangement Syndrome

Back in the dark days of George W. Bush's first administration right wing pundit, Charles Krauthammer coined the term "Bush Derangement Syndrome". He defined it as, "...the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency — nay — the very existence of George W. Bush". This in reaction to justified and well founded criticism of Bush leading this nation into an unjustifiable war of choice against a nation which posed no credible threat to anyone outside its own borders.

When critics of the Bush administration would mutter darkly about the failures of the Bush administration in finding the WMD's that were the justification for the invasion of Iraq, failing to capture the perpetrators of 9/11, 9/11, New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the moribund US economy...in fact, any rational, fact based criticism of the Bush administration was dismissed as the "Bush Derangement Syndrome" of said critics.

Starting from day one of his administration, we have seen the onset of acute paranoia in America's right wing political establishment, right wing punditocracy and its slavish, benighted follower in reaction "to the policies, the presidency — nay — the very existence of" Barack H. Obama. This reflexive and irrational hatred of President Obama was highlighted earlier this week when Chicago failed to get the nod for the Olympics. The airwaves, blogosphere and print media were filled with the howls of glee at the news that Obama's presence failed to secure a Chicago venue for the Olympics. It was only a short time before that that Congressman Joe Wilson astounded America by shouting "You lie!" at the President during an address to Congress, to the unbridled delight of the GOP's right wing-nut base.

And now we see the nearly fulminant outrage and ire on the right at Obama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. When any rational person would set aside their prejudices a feel a swell of pride for their country and their President, the right wing noise machine explodes in fury. With the likes of Rush Limbaugh stating that "we all agree with the Taliban and Iran about and that is he doesn't deserve the award...". Why do you hate America Rush?

We see America's right wing fully and deeply in the grip of an irrational and "acute paranoia in reaction to the policies, the presidency — nay — the very existence of" Barack H. Obama. They are caught fully and inextricably in the hall of mirrors that is Obama Derangement Syndrome.

The Scum Also Rises...When will it stop?

In March of 2003, the Bush administration thought it had a gold-mine of information on Al Qaeda with the capture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed. FBI interrogators extracted a wealth of information from him before the CIA took over and began using "enhanced interrogation techniques". Hereafter EIT will be called by its correct name...torture.

March 2003, the same month Bush invaded Iraq. The same month Khalid Sheik Mohanmmed was water-boarded 183 times. Under this duress, he admitted to everything from the kidnapping of Charles Lindgergh's baby to being the second gunman on the grassy knoll in Dallas. What he did not confess to, however, and what the Bush administration was seeking, was an operational link between Al Qaeda and Iraq.

In April 2003, former UN weapons inspector. Charles Duelfer, received a request to engage in a more aggressive manner, as in water-boarding, with an Iraqi intelligence officer, Muhammed Khudayr, former head of M-14...a branch of Saddam's Mukhabarat...whom he was helping to debrief on Saddam's WMD's. You know the ones that were never there in the first place. According to Mr. Duelfer, this request originated in Washington. This request was problematic in two aspects. First would have been the violation of the Geneva Conventions, as this Iraqi was a lawful combatant. Secondly, this Iraqi intelligence officer was freely co-operating with his interrogators. Saddam was gone and he saw US forces as allies in rebuilding Iraq. Mr. Duelfer put it thus:

“Some in Washington at very senior levels, not in the CIA, were concerned that the debriefing was too gentle. They asked if enhanced measures, such as waterboarding should be used.”

Duelfer found the request "reprehensible" and he and his fellow interrogators refused to comply with this request to commit a war crime. Never mind that the motive behind the request wasn't to acquire intelligence which could be used to stop a further attack on America. It was to obtain information on an operational link between Al Qaeda and Iraq. Never mind that as a uniformed member of Iraqi security services Khudayr WAS subject to ALL provisions of the Geneva Conventions.

According to a report by Robert Windrem, this request for the use of water-boarding Khudayr originated in then Vice-President Dick Cheney's office.

But why this focus on links between Al Qaeda and Iraq? Perhaps the Bush administration, realizing it's WMD rational for the invasion of Iraq was tenuous, at best, they were seeking to back-fill their justification for what was, essentially, an illegal, ill-conceived war of choice against an enemy which was no threat to anyone beyond its borders.

The point to all of this is that the Bush administration's use of water-boarding, and other forms of torture, went beyond even the flimsy legal justifications offered up by the Yoo and Bybee memos. As we see in this memo from John Bybee

Our advice is based upon the following facts, which you have provided to us. We also understand that you do not have any facts in your possession contrary to the facts outlined here, and this opinion is limited to these facts. If these facts were to change, this advice would not necessarily apply...Specifically, he(Abu Zubaydha) is withholding information regarding terrorist networks in the United States or in Saudi Arabia and information regarding plans to conduct attacks within the United States or against our interests overseas...In 1ight of the information you believe Zubaydah has and the high level of threat you believe now exists, your wish to move the interrogations in to what you have described. as an "increased pressure phase."

The upshot is that the Bush administration exceeded even its own tenuous limits on the use of torture. As indicated above, torture was to be used only in the event of a "ticking time-bomb" scenario. The approval of the torture program by the DOJ was dependent upon the need to stop new attacks on the US and its interests. Securing evidence of an operational link between Al Qaeda and Iraq in order to justify the invasion of Iraq did not fall under even that flimsy rationale. The Bush administration tortured detainees, not to obtain intelligence aimed at preventing further attacks on the US, but to back-fill an illegal war of aggression based on a non-existent operational link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

And there you have it. The torture of detainees, not to prevent further attacks on the US...Even though not even that is justification for torture. Detainees were tortured to cover the political asses of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and the rest of the architects of the invasion and botched occupation of Iraq.

Taken as a whole, the continued reluctance of President Obama and Attorney General Holder to pursue the investigation and prosecution of war crimes against the members of the Bush administration who authorized, and those who carried out, torture continues to boggle the mind. Given the evidence that exists, it is clear that an investigation must be undertaken, and the evidence followed wherever...and to whonever...it may lead. US treaty obligations under the UN Conventions Against Torture and the Geneva Convention requires this. Failure to do so is nothing less than complicity in these crimes.

Another Brick in the Wall...

First is was the the failure of the Obama administration to begin investigations of war crimes under the Bush administration. You remember...water-boarding, stress positions, torture. Then it was the request for dismissal of Jewel v. NSA. And, now it's this...

Obama to Appeal Detainee Ruling

On April 2nd, United States District Judge John D. Bates, ruled that three prisoners at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan were entitled to the same legal rights GITMO detainees were granted last year by the US Supreme Court. On Friday, the Obama administration announced its intent to appeal this ruling.

Habeas Corpus has been a cornerstone of jurisprudence since the Magna Carta, or even earlier, by some accounts. It does not serve to determine the innocence or guilt of the defendant but rather, it serves to determine whether or not the defendant is legally imprisoned. In the cases of the men being detained at Bagram, they were captured outside of Afghanistan and have been imprisoned for some six years without charge or trial.

The Bush administration claimed the authority to suspend habeas corpus in the cases of those individuals described as "enemy combatants", including those interred at GITMO. This policy was later enshrined in the Military Commissions Act of 2006. It wasn't until 2008 that the US Supreme Court in BOUMEDIENE v. BUSH repudiated the Bush administration by stating that the denial of habeas corpus for GITMO detainees was unconstitutional and that they were entitled to hearings where they could contest their imprisonment and the charges against them. By extension, this ruling could apply to those in US custody elsewhere...such as at Bagram Airbase, and this is what Judge Bates has done. Why the Obama administration would choose to challenge what appears to be settled law is disappointing and, in this case, disturbing.

President Obama rode into office on a pledge of change, yet here his administration stands, defending the very policies of the Bush administration that played a key role in undermining America's reputation around the world as a beacon of hope and justice. As a former professor of constitutional law, President Obama should not need to be reminded by a layman that he cannot "...support and defend the Constitution..." by undermining the very foundations upon which it stands. Nor should he need to be reminded that using the authority of the office to cover up the crimes of his predecessor is nothing less than complicity in those crimes.

Additional Sources:

Obama and habeas corpus -- then and now

Judge Rules Some Prisoners at Bagram Have Right of Habeas Corpus

MILITARY COMMISSIONS ACT

An Open Letter...

...To President Barack Obama.

Dear Sir,

In November of 2008 you were elected to the office of President of the United States by me, and millions of other Americas, on a platform of hope and change. But recently, it seems to be more a case of "Meet the new boss...Same as the old boss".

It began with the reluctance of your administration to live up to its duties in investigating the Bush administration for its apparent violation of US and international human rights law regarding the abuse of detainees in US custody. Now your administration seems to not only be siding with the late, unlamented Bush administration, but are actively seeking to expand the authority they claimed to conduct domestic surveillance operations on US citizens without a warrant! This in response to the lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The motion submitted by your DOJ does nothing short of gutting the Fourth Amendment, and all in the name of "state secrets". As a former professor of constitutional law, Mr. President, it should not be necessary for me...a layman...to tell you that a right unenforced is no right at all. Secondly, using the doctrine of "state secrets" as a means of preventing the investigation of a crime is no better than complicity in that crime.

Make no mistake sir, you and your administration have been doing some good things. But, as we said in the Navy, "One 'Awww shit!' wipes out all of your 'Attaboy!'s". In this case you have a MAJOR "Awww shit!"

Will they stop at nothing?

It appears that the GOP is attempting to beat the Obama administration into submission on the issue of releasing Bush administration torture memos. According to Scott Horton of "The Daily Beast", the Senate GOP assmonkeys are:

...(N)ow privately threatening to derail the confirmation of key Obama administration nominees for top legal positions by linking the votes to suppressing critical torture memos from the Bush era. - Scott Horton

...Namely the confirmation of Dawn Johnsen to the head of DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel.

If, the actions sanctioned in these memos was legal as they, and former members of the Bush administration have long held, and still do, they have nothing to worry about.

The release of the memos, already cleared by Attorney General Holder, has apparently caused a rift in the Obama administration, this according to Michael Isikoff of "Newsweek". The effort to block the release of these documents is being led by John Brennan, once considered by the Obama administration to head the CIA. Brennan has apparently persuaded DCIA Panetta that it is in the national interest to block the release of these memos. It would seem that avoiding embarrassment of "...foreign intelligence services who cooperated with the CIA, either by participating in overseas "extraordinary renditions" of high-level detainees or housing them in overseas "black site" prisons..." trumps the rule of law.

Unfortunately, for the GOP and the late, unlamented Bush administration, the actions outlined in these memos are illegal under US law and treaty obligation and international law. The attempts by Senate Republicans to suppress these documents would seem, at the very least, to constitute attempts to suppress evidence of criminal activities sanctioned by the Bush administration...If not outright collusion.

Mr. Brennan's, and now DCIA Pannetta's, efforts to suppress these documents in the name of national security is equally troubling. Did we not have enough of this under the Bush administration? Using the rubric of national security to suppress the evidence of criminal activity is collusion in said activity.

The only way to put this issue to rest is to release all documents pertaining to it and appoint a special prosecutor with the mandate, the staff and the funding to follow the evidence wherever, and to whoever, it may lead.

Treason by any other name...

...Is still treason. And suborning treason is exactly what Dick Cheney is doing with his "stay behinds" in the Obama administration and various other agencies.

In an interview on "Fresh Air with Terri Gross" Seymour Hersch, veteran investigative reporter with the "New Yorker", Hirsch stated that Cheney left these "stay behinds" for his own purposes...

You leave people behind. It’s a stay behind that you can continue to contacts with, to do sabotage, whatever you want to do. Cheney’s left a stay behind. He’s got people in a lot of agencies that still tell him what’s going on. Particularly in defense, obviously. Also in the NSA, there’s still people that talk to him. He still knows what’s going on. Can he still control policy up to a point? Probably up to a point, a minor point. But he’s still there. He’s still a presence. - Seymour Hersch

Cheney is a private citizen now, his security clearances are null and void as he no longer has a "need to know". By encouraging his moles to report back to him he is suborning treason, and if the information is classified, he...and they...are engaging in espionage. I understand the penalties for this are quite severe.

Thus far, however, the Obama administration seems content to let the worst excesses of the Bush administration go unanswered for. Perhaps that will change with this new awareness of traitors in their midst.

Imagine that...

After years of being detained at GITMO, being subjected to water-boarding and other forms of torture...er, "harsh interrogation"...it turns out that Abu Zubaida provided no actionable intelligence. What was obtained, before he was tortured, I mean "harshly interrogated", were the names of Al Qaeda members and their associates, and many of those were found on the hard drive of his laptop. And, contrary to claims by the Bush administration, Zubaida was not Al Qaeda's "...number three leader..." He was simply a go-to guy for arranging transportation for the families of Al Qaeda functionaries. No "plots" were foiled by his torture and perhaps the only ones furthered were those of the Bush administration to keep America in a constant state of fear.

Like so much else involved in the Bush administration's "war on terror", exaggeration, misinformation and outright lies were the preferred tools of the administration in maintaining a level of fear in America conducive to whatever action they chose to pursue. From illegal domestic wiretapping to the suspension of habeas corpus...from claiming the authority to suspend the constitutional rights of American citizens to invading Iraq...the Bush administration ground the Constitution under its heel, using the "war on terror" as a convenient pretext for whatever action it chose to take to secure its grasp on power. We are only now beginning to realize the true scope of the Bush legacy...memos by John Yoo and now federal Judge Jay Bybee are but the tip of the iceberg.

Even more disappointing is the failure of the Obama administration to live up to its duties under US and international law. That being to prosecute those individuals responsible for providing legal cover for the administration's torture policies or those who authorized the use of torture on prisoners in US custody. It doesn't require a congressional "truth commission"...Just a special prosecutor with the staff and funding to follow the evidence wherever, and to whoever, it may lead. The platform of change President Obama ran on are beginning to ring hollow.


Sources:

Detainee's Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots

Profile: Abu Zubaida

Secret Bush Administration Torture Memo Released Today In Response To ACLU Lawsuit

Top Interrogators Declare Torture Ineffective in Intelligence Gathering

ENOUGH ALREADY...!

In another glaring example of just how weak the shit of the right wing in this country is, they've created another steaming handful of crap to throw at President Obama to see if it sticks. They're getting as bad as a bored chimp at a zoo throwing crap at the zoo patrons. At least there's substance to what the chimp throws.

Few, if any, public speakers in large venues fail to use teleprompters. It's a modern fact of life, they're used by everyone from college professors all the way down to pond scum like Sean Hannity and Glen Beck. And the RWN's conveniently forget that every word Bush ever read, stumbled through more appropriately, off a teleprompter was written for him. Obama writes his own material.

Even more ridiculous is the main stream media like AP and CNN picking up this long debunked BS story first promulgated by the likes of FOX Noise and Politico to Townhall and the Drudge Report during the presidential campaign. As usual, the MSM is behind the curve. It seems likely that space aliens have taken over the MSM with the aim of turning people's brains to mush so they can spread them on toast like Cheez-Whiz. They can safely abandon the plan however as they have found a a seemingly endless and ready to eat source between the ears of the GOP leadership, its apologists and their slavish followers. We offer them our profound thanks for their selfless sacrifice to save the human race.

"You were created by the magicians; return to your dust..."

Such were the words of Rav Zeira to the golem sent to him by the Babylonian Talmudist Rava around 300AD. It appears that the GOP congressional leadership has similar words for Dick Cheney after his pasty face showed up on the TV last week.

Congressional Republicans are telling Dick Cheney to go back to his undisclosed location and leave them alone to rebuild the Republican Party without his input.

Displeased with the former vice-president's recent media appearances, Republican lawmakers say he's hurting GOP efforts to reinvent itself after back-to-back electoral drubbings. - The Hill

Apparently, whenever Cheney come shambling forth from his crypt at an undisclosed location, he raises the twin specters of he and Dubbyuh running the country into the ground. This makes it all the harder for the GOP to rebrand itself for public consumption as it attempts to distance itself from the Bush administration, not that they're having a tremendous amount of success in either case.

All I can say is "Bring it on!". If he really wants to talk about the policies of the Bush administration that have done so much harm to this nation and the principles it was founded upon, let him do so under oath and before a judge.

Some perspective...please.

Let's put the issue of bonuses for AIG's, and executives at other federally bailed out financial corporations, in perspective. They are irrelevant. So these sots negotiated sweet-heart contracts. So what...? They're just doing what they've always done, look out for number one and devil take the hind-most. The populist kerfuffle over over these bonuses are a side-show and they distract from the real issues at hand.

These bonuses are irrelevant in the face of the hundreds of billions of dollars the feckless, reckless captains of the financial industry have already cost the tax-payer ...in the face of more than 4,000 dead US service men and women in Iraq...in the face of the more than 25,000 US service men and women maimed and crippled...in the face of the the nearly 100,000 documented Iraqi civilian casualties...in the face of war profiteers raking in billions in ill-gotten gains. And, in the face of the recently leaked ICRC report which documents abuses at GITMO...the outrage over executive bonuses is irrelevant. Of far greater relevance is the question that goes begging if, as President Obama has repeatedly stated, "No one is above the law...", that question being, "Why are Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and all of the others involved in the issue of authorizing the torture of "enemy combatants" in US custody still free persons?" Why are they walking around, attempting to rewrite history with every breath instead of in prison and awaiting to stand trial for their crimes?

It is past time to put these issues in perspective...Sure, you don't fuck with peoples money. But what is money in the face of crimes of such enormity and influence on our national character that to ignore them will make an utter mockery and sham of the Constitution and the rule of law. Absent these foundations, all else will fall and fail.

What the F@#*?

In a "What the f@#*?" moment on Sunday, Dick Cheney stirred from his crypt at an undisclosed location. He was seen on CNN's "State of the Union" with John King. What was the purpose behind Cheney rousing from his unnatural sleep? To bad mouth the Obama administration and urge Americans to be afraid...very afraid...of terrorists, economic disaster, cats and dogs cohabiting, alligators walking on two legs and eating babies like a bunch of stoners wolfing down Mallowmars...You get the idea.

My first reaction was "Why is anybody paying ANY attention to anything he says. After all, he's been proven so wrong on so many things during his tenure as VEEP and "Dark Lord of the Sith", that his credibility is, shall we say, non-existent. But wait, there is an upside here.

"What is that upside?", you may ask. To put it simply, it is that his putting his pasty face and rancid ideology out on the airwaves serves as a stark reminder of just why we are in our current straights. You know...coming up on eight years in Afghanistan...an unnecessary war in Iraq with the ongoing occupation...Stripping regulatory mechanism from the financial industry which would have prevented or ameliorated our current economic breakdown...The horrors of Abu Ghraib, renditions, black sites and GITMO.

Given his negative ratings before he was ushered out of the White House with his man-sized safe (crypt?), he serves the country well by reminding us all of just why the Republicans were run out of Congress and the White House on a rail. So just keep putting your ugly mug out there on the airwaves...Dick, and we'll keep remembering why we kicked your, and Dubbyuh's, sorry asses to the curb.

Phyrric Victory

This is old news, but it's been gnawing at me like a sore tooth for far too long.

"This is a victory for the separation of powers and congressional oversight," Conyers said in a statement. "It is also a vindication of the search for truth. I am determined to have it known whether U.S. attorneys in the Department of Justice were fired for political reasons, and if so, by whom."

Now had it been me, or any other member of the hoi polloi, we would have long since been frog marched by US marshals to some dank holding cell in the Capital until we agreed to testify before Congress as a subpoena would have required us to do. And then there is the issue of criminal penalties for contempt of Congress..."not less than one month nor more than twelve months in jail and a fine of not less than $100 nor more than $1,000". But no, Karl Rove and Harriet Miers freely disregarded multiple subpoenas, thereby showing their utter contempt for Congress. Representative Conyers claims of "victory" and "vindication" in this matter are as empty as Rove's and Miers' claims of "executive privilege".

According to everyone involved in the now infamous firings of US attorneys, from then Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez to Rove, Miers and others, the President was out of the loop on the matter. Since no conversations were held with Bush on this matter, no claim of executive privilege can be allowed to stand. But in a bit of political kabuki theater, Rove and Miers will be deposed under penalty of perjury before a closed session of the House Judiciary Committee. So much for "victory" and "vindication".

In the midst of this was the Obama White House pushing for an agreement such as this. It was their hope to avoid a fight over executive privilege which would limit their, and future administration's, options in the matter. Never mind, of course, that executive privilege is not mentioned anywhere in Article 2, nor anywhere else, in the Constitution. It is worth noting that the same arguments used by the constitutional originalists on the right to deny women abortion rights can be used to deny Bush, or any other, administration claims of "executive privilege".

The Obama administrations failure to take a firm stand against this particular abuse of power on the part of his predecessor is disappointing. As a professor of constitutional law, President Obama should know better. The law must apply to all or it applies to none.

Let's Freeze Gubmint Spending

This is the "NEW" economic strategy put forth by House Minority Leader John Boehner(R-OH). Freeze government spending as America, and the world, stumble towards the abyss of economic disaster. This hearkens back to the Golden Age of the GOP during Ronald Reagan's presidency...a very different time and a very different world. Never mind that Reagonomics failed then too. Rather than invest the money siphoned to corporations and the wealthy on new infrastructure and technology, American corporations bought up their smaller competitors in an orgy of mergers, the end result being less competition in the marketplace, decreased productivity and more economic power in fewer hands. There was no "trickle down" of prosperity to anyone outside the rarified atmosphere of America's top 1%.

Desperate for ideas in the face of their growing irrelevancy, the intellectual bankruptcy of the GOP leadership reveals itself in their continued reliance on the discredited ideas. Reaganomics...tax cuts for the wealthy...continuing with the policies that have led us to our current straights...They propose to essentially do nothing in the face of an economic crisis which could dwarf the scope and magnitude of the Great Depression.

The GOP has become the party of Hoover...He did nothing after the stock market crash of 1929...history has shown us the consequences of inaction. The shanty towns that resulted from Hoover's paralysis became known as "Hoovervilles". Should Representative Boehner's plan of inaction gain a foothold, will the shanty towns that rise amidst the ruins of the nation's economy be known as "Boehnervilles"? That would be unfortunate given the phonetic pronunciation of Representative Boehner's name. As we all learned in school, "When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking."

Rush Limbaugh IS the defacto head of the GOP

First Michael Steele takes Rush Limbaugh to the woodshed...



Then kisses Limbaugh's ass...

“My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh,” Steele said in a telephone interview. “I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. … There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.” (…)

“I went back at that tape and I realized words that I said weren’t what I was thinking,” Steele said. “It was one of those things where I thinking I was saying one thing, and it came out differently. What I was trying to say was a lot of people … want to make Rush the scapegoat, the bogeyman, and he’s not.” - RNC Chairman, Michael Steele

It would appear that the lunatic fringe of the GOP has become its mainstream when the titular leader of the GOP, Michael Steele plays "Steppin' Fetchit" to the likes of Rush Limbaugh.