Newsweek recounts the string of events that could have BushCo facing legal jeopardy for prisoner abuse curing TGWOT.

In early December, in a highly unusual move, a federal court in New York agreed to rehear a lawsuit against former Attorney General John Ashcroft brought by a Canadian citizen, Maher Arar. (Arar was a victim of the administration’s extraordinary rendition program: he was seized by U.S. officials in 2002 while in transit through Kennedy Airport and deported to Syria, where he was tortured.) Then, on Dec. 15, the Supreme Court revived a lawsuit against Donald Rumsfeld by four Guantánamo detainees alleging abuse there-a reminder that the court, unlike the White House, will extend Constitutional protections to foreigners at Gitmo. Finally, in the same week the Senate Armed Service Committee, led by Carl Levin and John McCain, released a blistering report specifically blaming key administration figures for prisoner mistreatment and interrogation techniques that broke the law. The bipartisan report reads like a brief for the prosecution-calling, for example, Rumsfeld’s behavior a “direct cause” of abuse.

With these high level charges being a first in US history and Cheney having recently admitted that he approved waterboarding, there is increasing speculation that there will be blanket pardons offered as Bush exits.

One possible scenario involved creating a panel to examine possible war crimes.

Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, says that although “we know what went on,” “knowledge and a change in practices are not sufficient: there must be acknowledgment and repudiation as well.” He favors the creation of a nonpartisan commission of inquiry with a professional staff and subpoena power, calling it “the only way to definitively repudiate this ugly chapter in U.S. history.”

Another possiblity would be international sanctions.

Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and author of “The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld,” points out that over 20 countries now have universal jurisdiction laws that would allow them to indict U.S. officials for torture if America doesn’t do it itself. A few such cases were attempted in recent years but were dropped, reportedly under U.S. pressure. Now the Obama administration may be less likely to stand in their way. This doesn’t mean it will extradite Cheney and Co. to stand trial abroad. But at the very least, the threat of such suits could soon force Bush aides to think twice before buying plane tickets. “The world is getting smaller for these guys,” says Ratner, “and they’ll have to check with their lawyers very carefully before they travel.” Jail time it isn’t—but it may be some justice nonetheless.

That’s what the Israeli Defense Minister is saying.

The three-day death toll rose to at least 315 by Monday morning, with some 1,400 wounded. The U.N. said at least 51 of the dead were civilians, and medics said eight children under the age of 17 were killed in two separate strikes overnight. Israel launched its campaign, the deadliest against Palestinians in decades, on Saturday in retaliation for rocket fire aimed at civilians in southern Israeli towns.

A Palestinian protester flashes the  V-sign during clashes with Israeli troops at a demonstration against Israel’s military operation in Gaza

Israel approved the call-up of 6500 reservists.   There is now fear that a ground war could be next.  Meanwhile the White House has issued just one-sided statements, blaming Hamas for the hostilities.

Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, told parliament Israel was not fighting the residents of Gaza. “But we have a war to the bitter end against Hamas and its branches,” he said. Barak said the goal is to deal Hamas a “severe blow” and that the operation would be “widened and deepened as needed.”

Fewer people want to sneak into the country.  The number of people caught sneaking in is at the lowest level since the 1970’s.

The Border Patrol caught 705,000 people along the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2008, which ended Sept. 30, according to new agency figures. That’s nearly 2,000 a day and the lowest number since 1976, when 675,000 people were caught entering illegally between San Diego and central Texas, the figures show. 

Border is taking credit, saying they’re being tougher on illegal immigrants.  They also say the weak US economy is discouraging migrants.  So, all those who can’t stand undocumented workers coming here, you should say a big “thank you” to our president.

When Rush Limbaugh played the parody “Barack the Magic Negro” on his show, a song by his parodist Paul Shanklin, Limbaugh was referring to an LA Times column by David Ehrenstein who wrote that whites would vote for Barack out of the guilt they felt for how African Americans were treated in America.  

[The "magic Negro" is] there to assuage white “guilt” (i.e., the minimal discomfort they feel) over the role of slavery and racial segregation in American history, while replacing stereotypes of a dangerous, highly sexualized black man with a benign figure for whom interracial sexual congress holds no interest.

It is typical talk show fare to parody this kind of thing, and well within the realm of what Limbaugh does.  I’d do the same thing on the other side, given the opportunity.  

The problem now isn’t with Limbaugh; it’s with Chip Saltsman, who is seeking the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee.  Saltsman sent out a 41-track CD to committee members called “We Hate the USA” .  The CD includes songs like “The Star Spanglish Banner”,  and “Wright place, wrong pastor”. All cutting humor, and something we on the left would do to skewer the right, given the proper material.  This is this the kind of thing that makes Limbaugh such a good talk show host.  He knows how to provoke and makes his case with humor and parody.

The problem is that being the head of the Republican Party isn’t the same thing as being a talk show host.  It’s fine for a talk show host to satirically make a point in this way, but when someone vying to be a spokesman for a party that needs to reach out to non-white Americans, this kind of caper is too easily misunderstood.  I don’t think Saltsman meant to be racially divisive, but he was clearly politically tone deaf.  Similarly, Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, also seeking the RNC chairmanship, called the reaction to Saltsman’s stunt “hypersensitivity”.  

No, what those who wish to be the new heads of a suffering American political party need to exhibit is some sensitivity to the sensibilities of those who already feel left out by what their party represents.  And this episode isn’t going to help.

James Joseph Cialella (below), a 29-year-old Philadelphia man told the family behind him to shut up so he could enjoy watching “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”   Wafford Lomax told police that Cialella was walking toward his family when he stood up and was shot.

Cialla threw popcorn at Lomax’s son and shot Lomax in the arm.   Police who arrived at the United Artists Riverview Stadium Theater in South Philly found Cialla with a .360-callibur handgun in his waistband.  A good argument for more guns?

This is true for me, if “what he’s done” is create a situation where we can elect a Democratic House, Senate and President.   Rice said Bush’s policies will “stand the test of time.”

The secretary of state brushed off reports that suggest the United States’ image is suffering abroad. She praised the administration’s ability to change the conversation in the Middle East.

Yeah, Israel is in the middle of a wonderful “conversation” right now.

But can Israel be blamed for what it deems self-defense?  Aljazeera English says the death toll is nearly 300, as Israel is calling up reservists, and the UN is urging an end to the escalation.

Juan Cole writes that it was the Israeli occupation of the Palestinians that led to 9/11 and that Egypt, which has partnered with Israel in blockading Gaza, is calling this murder.  White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe is branding those Israeli is targeting as “thugs”,  while French President Nicolas Sarkozy is asking both sides to stop and exercise self-restraint.

Israel blames Hamas for primitive homemade rocket attacks on the nearby Israeli city of Sederot. In 2001-2008, these rockets killed about 15 Israelis and injured 433, and they have damaged property. In the same period, Gazan mortar attacks on Israel have killed 8 Israelis.

Since the Second Intifada broke out in 2000, Israelis have killed nearly 5000 Palestinians, nearly a thousand of them minors. Since fall of 2007, Israel has kept the 1.5 million Gazans under a blockade, interdicting food, fuel and medical supplies to one degree or another. Wreaking collective punishment on civilian populations such as hospital patients denied needed electricity is a crime of war.

The Israelis on Saturday killed 5% of all the Palestinians they have killed since the beginning of 2001! 230 people were slaughtered in a day, over 70 of them innocent civilians. In contrast, from the ceasefire Hamas announced in June, 2008 until Saturday, no Israelis had been killed by Hamas. The infliction of this sort of death toll is known in the law of war as a disproportionate response, and it is a war crime.

In a contentious interview with Nicholas Confessore and David M. Halbfinger of the New York Times, Caroline Kennedy was either exhibiting an offbeat sense of humor or irritation.  Hard to tell by the transcript.  When asked what kind of scene it was when she told her husband she wanted to be a senator, here is the exchange:

NC: Could you, for the sake of storytelling, could you tell us a little bit about that moment, like, where you were, what you said to him about your decision, how that played out?

CK: Have you guys ever thought about writing for, like, a woman’s magazine or something? (Laughter)

DH: What do you have against women’s magazines?

CK: Nothing at all, but I thought you were the crack political team here.

And then, at the end:

NC: I think we’re done.

DH: I think so, yeah.

NC: Thank you very much for your time.

CK: Thank you.

DH: If I can just throw one more question out there -

CK: I think we’re done.

In a companion article, Confessore and Halbfinger wrote about the interview.

…Ms. Kennedy has embarked on a series of interviews. But in an extensive sit-down discussion Saturday morning with The New York Times, she still seemed less like a candidate than an idea of one: forceful but vague, largely undefined and seemingly determined to remain that way.

Kennedy declined to discuss her positions on issues, even on the one area where she claims expertise, education.

She provided only the broadest of rationales for her candidacy for the Senate, saying her experience as a mother, author and school fund-raiser, her commitment to public service and her deep political connections had prepared her for the job.

[...]

The interview underscored the aura of mystery that still surrounds Ms. Kennedy nearly a month after she told Gov. David A. Paterson that she was interested in filling Mrs. Clinton’s seat.

Britain’s Harold Pinter was considered the most influential playwright of his generation, and was an outspoken opponent of both his country’s policies and those of the US. When he won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2005 he used the platform to denounce George W. Bush and Tony Blair.

“The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law,” Pinter said in his Nobel lecture, which he recorded rather than traveling to Stockholm.

“How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand?” he asked, in a hoarse voice.

Pinter called Blair “a deluded idiot” and accused the United States of supporting “every right-wing military dictatorship in the world” after WWII.

“The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them,” he said.
The United States, he added, “also has its own bleating little lamb tagging behind it on a lead, the pathetic and supine Great Britain.”

In 1996, he wrote a piece for the Guardian displaying his contempt for US policies, “The Bigget Bully in the West.” Referring to the US being on the losing side of the UN vote condemning the American embargo of Cuba, to the Helms/Burton bill being deemed illegal by the European Union, and to a vote by 14 out of 15 securitiy council members against the US veto of Boutros Boutro-Ghali, Pinter called America “brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless.”

How can any country, in the light of such blanket condemnation of its policies and actions, not pause to take a little thought, not subject itself to even the mildest and most tentative critical scrutiny? The answer is quite simple. If you believe you still call all the shots you just don’t give a shit. You say, without beating about the bush: Yes, sure, I am biased and arrogant and in many respects ignorant, but so what? I possess the economic and military might to back me up to the hilt and I don’t care who knows it. And when I say that I also occupy the moral high ground you’d better believe it.

Pinter bemoaned that the status quo remains because our leaders reassure us that they have the best interests at heart for “the American people.”

Except of course for the 1.5 million people in prison, the 50 million living under the poverty line, the adolescents and mentally deficient about to be gassed or injected or electrocuted in the 38 out of 52 states which carry the death penalty. They don’t feel quite the same about this cushion of reassurance, but nobody listens to them anyway. As they are mostly poor and black they are essentially subversive.

[...]

Sometimes you look back into recent history and you ask: did all that really happen? Were half a million “communists” massacred in Indonesia in 1965 (the rivers clogged with corpses)? Were 200,000 people killed in East Timor in 1975 by the Indonesian invaders? Have 300,000 people died in Central America since 1960? Has the persecution of the Kurdish people in Turkey reached levels which approach genocide? Are countless lraqi children dying every month for lack of food and medicine brought about by UN sanctions? Did the military coups in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Chile result in levels of repression and depth of suffering comparable to Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia and the Khmer Rouge? And has the US to one degree or another inspired, engendered, subsidised and sustained all these states of affairs? The answer is yes. It has and it does. But you wouldn’t know it.

Pinter’s plays were much about subtext, his characters’ words belying what was seething beneath the surface. And weren’t his political points the same?  The words we hear from our leaders belie true agendas, and only when you penetrate the ostensbile do you find out what those real agendas are, if ever.

Conservatives can’t stop whining about Bill Clinton’s presidential pardons, but will they raise eyebrows about those offered by President Bush?  How about Alan Maiss, the former president of Bally Gaming, who gave money to Bush’s campaign in 2003 and 2004?  Maiss pleaded guilty in 1995 to failing to report a fellow gaming executive’s ties to organized crime.   Also pardoned was John Allen Aregood, convicted of a felony for hiring undocumented workers to harvest watermelons. A Mary Aregood, at the same Texas address, also contributed to Bush.

Bush reversed a decision to pardon Brooklyn developer Isaac Toussie after it was reported that his father gave $28,500 to the Republican Party in April. Toussie was convicted in 2003 of making false statements to HUD and of mail fraud.  

Others pardoned by Bush included a variety of drug dealers, embezzlers and forgers, bringing to 199 the number of people he has pardoned or granted clemency to during his eight-year term.