Andrew Sullivan calls out Dick Cheney’s admission this weekend, “I was a big supporter of waterboarding,” and correctly notes that the former Vice President has thereby admitted to being guilty of a war crime. War Crimes must be investigated and prosecuted under U. S. law and international treaty, and the principle of Universal Jurisdiction applies (meaning, Cheney could be indicted and arrested by agents of a foreign government and held to account).

Of course, the Attorney General of the United States doesn’t seem to understand his solemn obligation:

[Attorney General Eric Holder] added that he had seen documents making clear that Cheney’s office was the driving force behind the Bush Administration’s most controversial counterterrorism policies, especially those sanctioning brutal interrogations. He said of Cheney, “I think he’s worried about what history’s judgment will be of the role that he played in making decisions about everything from black sites to enhanced interrogation techniques.”

Thanks, Eric Holder. Let’s all just sit on our hands and wait for history to render a judgment. It’s not like it’s your JOB to go around enforcing the laws of the United States!

(The Holder quote comes from this excellent article by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker, which I also referenced in a prior post.)

People are screaming about Defending America From Terrorists. Their method? Abandon bedrock American values. Of course!

“Some people believe our Constitution exists to grant rights to terrorists who want to harm us. I disagree.”

Jane Mayer called out that gem from a Senator (!) Scott Brown political ad that ran last month. Her profile of this “movement” is in the current New Yorker.

And, just for the record, Senator Brown: our Constitution actually does stipulate that “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury… nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

I believe the English language included the word “citizen” back in 1789, so I’m pretty fucking sure that when the framers wrote “No person,” that’s exactly what they meant.

In fact, I’m pretty fucking sure that the whole point of guaranteeing the rights of the accused is so that “terrorists who want to harm us” are afforded due process of law. I mean, the law is good enough for serial killers, rapists, arsonists, and mass-murderers, but it crumbles before a kid with explosive underoos?

Creepy but pretty interesting, too. Via the ISO50 blog.

Since everyone in the media is all agog over the latest existential threat to our very way of life (i.e., Yemen), I thought I’d look around a little and see what I could find. Via a link Jonathan Schwarz’s A Tiny Revolution, I came across this excellent blog post by Adam Curtis, a documentary filmmaker who produced, among other gems, The Power of Nightmares (2004) and The Mayfair Set (1999).

It’s really worth reading the whole post, but one key takeaway is that

only forty years ago the British government fought a vicious secret war in the Yemen against republican revolutionaries who used terror, including bombing airliners… [T]he chaos that has engulfed the Yemen today and is breeding new terrorist threats against the west is a direct result of that conflict of forty years ago.

His blog post contains some excellent archival video from the BBC documenting British adventures there in the 1960’s. It’s worth every minute of your time.

The other key takeaway is that, apparently, British people call it “the Yemen.”

Chris Hedges nails it:

The tyranny we impose on others we finally impose on ourselves.

Bush: “Unlawful enemy combatants.”

Obama: “Alien unprivileged enemy belligerents.”

Joanne Mariner, a lawyer with Human Rights Watch, calls this a “cosmetic change” that has no serious impact. The new language is contained in the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act. Mariner points out that

the Obama administration has adopted the Bush-era position of claiming that persons who provide support to hostilities can be treated just like persons who engaged in hostilities…

Her article has all the gory details if you’d like to read them.

We must never forget that they attacked us because they hate our way of life.

I can’t decide if I like either of these…

John Caruso says it better than I possibly could. I urge you to read it as his blog, but for posterity (and convenience), I reproduce it here in its entirety:

What it takes to win a Nobel

President Obama 'orders Pakistan drone attacks'

January 23, 2009 – Missiles fired from suspected US drones killed at least 15 people inside Pakistan today, the first such strikes since Barack Obama became president and a clear sign that the controversial military policy begun by George W Bush has not changed.

Security officials said the strikes, which saw up to five missiles slam into houses in separate villages, killed seven "foreigners" – a term that usually means al-Qaeda – but locals also said that three children lost their lives.

————

US air-raid kills over 100 civilians in Farah

May 5, 2009 – Residents of the Bala Boluk district in western Farah province on Tuesday claimed more than one hundred 'innocent people' have been killed in the Monday's air offensive by the US forces. [...]

Following the militant attack, locals say, the American forces bombarded Grani village, inflecting huge casualties to non-combatants.

Dr Atiqullah, a resident of the village, told Pajhwok Afghan News the bombardment destroyed the whole village and some of the mutilated bodies were beyond recognition.

He said they had so far retrieved 123 dead bodies from beneath the debris of the destroyed homes by using tractors.

————

Obama warns Iran: 'come clean' on nukes

September 25, 2009 – Backed by other world powers, U.S. President Barack Obama declared Friday that Iran is speeding down a path to confrontation and demanded that Tehran quickly "come clean" on all nuclear efforts and open a newly revealed secret site for close international inspection. He said he would not rule out military action if the Iranians refuse. [...]

"Iran is on notice that when we meet with them on Oct 1 they are going to have to come clean and they are going to have to make a choice" between international isolation and giving up any aspirations to becoming a nuclear power, he said. If they refuse to give ground, they will stay on "a path that is going to lead to confrontation."

————

Nobel prize win 'humbles' Obama

October 9, 2009 – US President Barack Obama has said he was "surprised and deeply humbled" to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, less than 10 months into his presidency. [...]

"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the Norwegian committee said in a statement. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."

————

Obama's acceptance speech:

I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century.

Now, these challenges can't be met by any one leader or any one nation. And that's why my administration's worked to establish a new era of engagement in which all nations must take responsibility for the world we seek. We cannot tolerate a world in which nuclear weapons spread to more nations and in which the terror of a nuclear holocaust endangers more people.

No, really: Barack Obama just used his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech to reiterate his threats against Iran.

UPDATE: Best headline so far: "Some Analysts Warn Obama's Nobel Peace Prize Complicates War Efforts".

Well… I know it’s been “only” nine months since the inauguration of President Obama… and I know I’m supposed to give him the benefit of the doubt (because, after all, he only has a majority in Congress)… but really, this just takes the cake:

“Habeas rights under the United States Constitution do not extend to enemy aliens detained in the active war zone at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.”

That’s the Obama administration’s Department of Justice filing (PDF) in three court cases brought by “unlawful enemy combatants” who are challenging their detention by the United States at Bagram Airfield.

Note that these three detainees were kidnapped off the streets in places like Thailand and Tunisia, and were then flown to Bagram for detention. The OBAMA administration is arguing that the U.S. government has the right to kidnap people off the streets anywhere in the world, fly them to Afghanistan, and hold them incommunicado without charges or access to counsel for as long as they’d like, no questions asked.

As Glenn Greenwald so aptly noted, it was Obama himself who spoke these beautiful, stirring words last year:

By giving suspects a chance–even one chance–to challenge the terms of their detention in court, to have a judge confirm that the Government has detained the right person for the right suspicions, we could solve this problem without harming our efforts in the war on terror one bit. . . .

Most of us have been willing to make some sacrifices because we know that, in the end, it helps to make us safer. But restricting somebody’s right to challenge their imprisonment indefinitely is not going to make us safer. In fact, recent evidence shows it is probably making us less safe.

But, you know, they’re being held in Afghanistan, not Cuba: truly, THAT is CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN.