Alito who? I'm kidding - but there's so many writing more and better on the hearings that I will take a pass and instead pass on to you some stuff that may get lost in the crowd of Alito-watchers.
John Yoo, one of the key Presidential legal advisers, argued during a public debate in December that no law that could prevent the President from ordering the torture of a child of a suspect in custody – including by crushing that child’s testicles.
The great danger with arguing that a national leader is above all law except that which he himself decides on is that matters then depend entirely on the character of the Leader of the moment. That character could think using dissenters as human torches to light garden parties is a good idea, for instance. Once the precedent of "I am The Law" is set then every President will use it, be they Julius, Claudius...or Caligula.
The Heretik has an incredible post, one that just gets better when you re-read it, concerning all aspects of George's drive to repeat history and turn the greatest Republic into the greatest Empire. Go read "On The Imperial Shore.
Remember the Downing Street Memos? Then you will probably recall that rightwing pundits poured scorn on the phrase "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" as being the opinions of a Brit who hadn't talked to anyone important. Not so - according to James Risen's new book "State of War" (yep, the same Risen who broke the Snoopgate story in the NY Times) the head of M.I.6 got his information from none other than CIA head George Tenet at an annual conference between CIA and M.I.6 bigwigs.
David Sirota points to an under-reported declaration by the Bush administration that they will, in future, rely on ad-hoc alliances of the moment "rather than turning to existing but unreliable institutional alliances such as Nato."
Amazing! Fifty years of diplomacy and one of the strongest stabilizing influences in the world trivialised by a dismissive phrase. I'm certain that the other members of NATO, including the UK, will remember this next time the Bush administration needs to put together a Coalition of the Misled.
Talking of the UK, staunch Bush ally for not-much-longer, a leading British Army General believes Prime Minister Tony Blair should be impeached for his role in the war in Iraq. "To go to war on what turns out to be false grounds is something that no one should be allowed to walk away from." General Sir Michael Rose is no desk-driver - he commanded the UN peacekeepers in Bosnia and the SAS in the Falklands.
Shakespeare's Sister has a post about Bush's less-than-equal view of the commonly corrupt Tom Delay and on how Bush's team of spinners are trying to erase his history with felon Jack Abramoff. They will have their work cut out for them. In President Bush's first 10 months, GOP fundraiser Jack Abramoff and his lobbying team logged nearly 200 contacts with the new administration reports USA Today.
More from The Heretik - I'm simply jealous of his ability as a writer of lyrical prose that punches hard - concerning another breach of Iraqi sovereignty (snort!). U.S. troops, warrantless, broke into the home of an Iraqi journalist investigating corruption in that country and fired shots in his bedroom as his wife and kids slept there.
Have some antidote to the current narrative for war on Iran as begun by the Bush administration and ably aided by an unquestioning media. Nuclear weapons expert Dr. Gordon Prather explaining patiently for the hard-of-thinking that Iran is still in full and complete compliance with all international treaties and with an even tougher regime of restrictions it volunteered to.
Four years from now, if/when Iran is a smoking ruin and it then emerges in the mainstream media that the Bush administration "fixed the facts around the policy", then don't say Newshog didn't warn you.
No comments:
Post a Comment