I guess that the difference between being a
professional policy wonk and just being a voter
out here in The World, is that you can actually
manage to:

1. actually have an appetite at such a dinner.
2. not end up yelling that these people have
dragged your nation through the mud.

If I understand the standards of the International
Criminal Court, our nation is a nation run
by criminals. The United States has embarked on
a war of agression against a nation that has now
been proven to be no threat to ours. Our nation
has tortured people as a matter of policy (see the
infamous torture memos). Our nation is holding
its own citizens and the citizens of other
countries without charges, without trial and
without legal council in secret prisons.

How can you do this Steve? How can you even talk
to someone like Mr. Bellinger? What do you thing,
that this administration is, all of a sudden,
going to stop being lawless just because you
present them with sweet reason? Our only hope is
to vote in the Democrats and arm John Conyars
with the power to investigate what has been
going on. Otherwise, we're going to end up
like Argentina, denying it for decades.

Maybe you need to take a couple of months off,
Steve and visit the real world. These are not
Republicans, these are radicals.

Ian

Steve, what do you think about former senator Mike Gravel announcing he's going to run for President?

Secret prisons.....

Came accross this recent Haaretz artice that strongly suggests that we are rendering Iraqi "captives" to prisons on US soil and hiring ex-Israeli operatives to interrogate them.

"For 30 years, Captain (res.) Yossi Gino, the first of the mistarvim (undercover soldiers who are disguised as Arabs in order to participate in military missions) of the Israel Defense Forces' elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit, went behind enemy lines time after time"

snip}

"I took care of the country all these years, but the country has forgotten me. A year ago," he says, "some Americans who knew me from the IDF and from training exercises where I taught fighters suggested that I join the U.S. forces in Iraq and serve as an interpreter, for $20,000 a month. After half a year there, I was promised that I would receive an American passport and a green card, if I wanted.

"After that they suggested that I serve as an interrogator of Iraqi captives inside the United States, but believe me, I don't have the strength for that.
http://tinyurl.com/obgzn

International "law" protects monsters like Jung-il and the mullahs. It stands by as Rwandans and Sudanese are slaughtered by the millions. I don't think much of international law and I would be disappointed if we did anything to modiy our behavior to conform to such horrendous standards.

I am for holding anyone captured fighting against the US in terrorist activities as long as we need to.

So as long as the imaginary 'war' on 'terrorism' continues... which is essentially indefinitely... then the United States will continue to maintain secret prisons, secret prisoners, torture, disappearances, and violations of both the Geneva convention and the American Bill of Rights?

And you're going to have a civil conversation with these guys, Steve?

I remember writing a long post a while back, warning of just this sort of slippery slope to moral compromise.

the time article on negroponte is more interesting for what it leaves out, specifically, negroponte's relationship with porter goss, the exodus of cia senior staffers under mr. goss, negroponte's shady past in the previous bush administration, the appearance of central american style death squads in iraq during and after his tenure there, etc., etc... in short, it's just another lightweight fluff piece dressed up as serious journalism...

http://takeitpersonally.blogspot.com/

If there is justice in the world Negroponte will end up in a jail cell

Quite a week so far, huh? First, an entire underclass - millions of people - steps out of the shadows, to the deeeeeep discomfort of a whole cross-section of society that prefers to pretend they don't exist -

and then the military leadership of the country overtakes the chattering classes on the left and mounts the perhaps most effective challenge so far to Rumsfeld's grip on power.

In a country without any leadership what.so.ever, left is right and down is up, I suppose.

OT -- it looks like Lincoln Chafee is having a tough time explaining his liberal positions to his constituents. He's in a reeal pickle. That sound you hear is my heart going out to him.

Anybody remember just how far out on a limb he really went? Or what the election dynamics actually look like? Because the WashPost's credibility regarding actual facts are at rock bottom. Link below.

A Republican on the Edge
Chafee's Defections Loom Large in Senate Race

By Shailagh Murray
April 14, 2006
EXETER, R.I. -- Lincoln Chafee was cleaning a horse stall on his well-manicured farm one recent early morning, describing his latest encounter with hostile home-state Republicans.

The GOP senator had appeared the previous night before the Scituate Republican Town Committee to seek the endorsement of the small but influential group. In his halting, soft-spoken way, Chafee defended his opposition to the war in Iraq, domestic wiretapping and the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. as the principled positions of an old-school conservative.

Chafee, 53, once could count on voters in Rhode Island to tolerate his maverick ways, but this time the response was blank stares. "Nobody listened to my reasoning," Chafee recounted as he piled hay into a wheelbarrow. "They support the president on everything."

.....

The son has one of the oddest résumés in Congress. Born to one of the "five families" that originally settled Rhode Island, Chafee majored in classics at Brown University and then headed west to learn horseshoeing in Montana. He spent seven years working at racetracks in the United States and Canada and then returned to Rhode Island and worked in manufacturing. In 1986 he was elected to the Warwick City Council, and in 1992 he became mayor of that city, the state's second largest, after Providence.

In 1999, a day after his father announced he would retire from the Senate after four terms, Chafee announced he wanted to replace him. When his father died in October, Chafee was named by Gov. Lincoln Almond to complete the term. The appointment provided a critical boost. Chafee had admitted a few months earlier that he once used cocaine. He was known as an affable fellow, but some worried that he lacked his father's gravitas.
.............
Although Laffey raised taxes as Cranston mayor -- a heretical act for a conservative Republican in Washington -- he is admired for having turned around a troubled city, including by bucking powerful unions and even a platoon of highly paid school crossing guards. State and national Republican leaders strongly urged him to run for lieutenant governor, but Laffey believes his financial management skills can be put to better use in Washington. "I'm not into that," Laffey said of the intraparty pressure. "I'm an outsider. I'm running against what's going on down there."

At least some Rhode Island Republicans agree: the Scituate Republican Town Committee. The group decided to back Laffey the morning after Chafee's appearance.

...............

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/13/AR2006041301917.html

Thoughts?

Talking about getting the US back into the arena of international law and agreements.. check out this trio of articles about political support for, but (sigh) lack of leadership on climate change and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK.

- DEFRA's Climate Change Review

- the UK govt.'s Climate Change Progam

Was John Bellinger Secretary Rice's advisor when she spoke so eloquently of "mushroom clouds," and as she now flits around the world lecturing vassal countries on what they 'must and must not' do?
Mr. Negroponte is certainly not the man many people would put on their wish list of "People I'd like to meet." It would seem from his past activities that he is not squemish but that is not often number one on lists of virtues.
The 'never ending war' promises all sorts of delights which I am sure Mr Negroponte will heartily endorse.
I don't envy you this evening.

RIP

Here Lies America

Died of Being Talked to Death

1776- 200?

Nevermind that he's kinda cute.

The posting of the negroponte comment rgarding the use of secret centers for the retention of combatants during this endless war against terrorism is the clearest statement of just how little regard this crew of liars and thieves have for the rule of law. In my humble opinion, this country has never been is such serious trouble since 1776. True colors rarely show through so readily but when one believe that he or she has nothing to fear from anyone then nothing matters.
What a tragedy!
billjpa