Snapshot History
George Bush invaded Afghanistan to engage in regime change. The justification for the massive assault on Afghanistan was that the Taliban held government would not turn over Osama bin Laden. After running the Taliban out of Kabul, ultimately the oil industry's choice Karzai (former UNOCAL adviser) was installed as the President of Afghanistan. It did not take long for him to be labeled "The Mayor of Kabul."

The Present
After a contested election, Karzai still holds onto power (complete with charges of the corruptness of his government), and he is still the Mayor of Kabul. And despite eight years of U.S. military assault in Afghanistan, the Taliban still control at least 70% of the country. Yes, seventy percent. Further, it is believed that most of al Qaida are now in Pakistan - not Afghanistan, AND the Taliban influence is spreading in Pakistan as well as Afghanistan.

Meanwhile Pakistan, a nuclear armed nation, is facing its own struggles. On one hand there is unrest in the tribal regions, then there is the ongoing undermining of Pakistan's sovereignty via U.S. ground and drone attacks. Pakistan has in many ways shifted from a go-between/ally of the United States to an almost puppet state. However, it is not a happy puppet state. No sovereign nation can allow the continued aggressive military action by a foreign nation within its boundaries without it generating resistance from the populace - be that Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Iraq.

So the negotiations are on to "deal" with the Pakistan "issue," and the attempts to go after al Qaida, bin Laden, insurgents, the Taliban or whatever enemy is on the rotating menu. An added serious imbalance is the relationship between Pakistan and India. Pakistan becomes a multimodal teeter-totter sitting on a crumbling fulcrum.

Pakistan
The U.S. wants to increase its footprint in Pakistan, and neither the Pakistani government, nor the people, are open to that expansion. However, Pakistan needs money in its coffers and the U.S. is waving "aid" (in the amount of $1.5 billion a year) in front of the government's nose; however, it is aid with tight strings attached. The main stipulation being:

The secretary of State must certify to the US Congress annually that Pakistan's security forces are cutting ties to extremist organizations and that a democratically elected government "exercises effective civilian control of the military." Specifically, the State Department must report on civilian oversight of the military budget process, military involvement in civilian affairs, and even the nitty-gritty of how senior military officers are promoted.

This is a significant given the power of the military in Pakistan, and the long term practice of Pakistan's intelligence organization - the ISI - working with militant groups within both Pakistan and Afghanistan, and being the historic go between for the U.S. and the Taliban. The ISI has been a feared power broker in Pakistan, and one that will play a central role in the success of any agreement between the United States, the Pakistani government, and the Pakistani army.

This situation is only exacerbated by the Pashtun push for independence - even if they must seek the aid of the Taliban. If the Pashtun's align with the Taliban, then any effort to track down al Qaida (if that is truly the target) will be devastating for the civilian population and lead to increased militancy against the U.S. - and Pakistan military presence.

Afghanistan
In my opinion, Afghanistan is a lost cause if the Taliban are not intimately involved in stabilization. For all intents and purposes, it is the Taliban who control Afghanistan - not any "elected" government. I am not saying that the people of Afghanistan want the Taliban in power, but thus far eight years of U.S. and international militarism have not made any progress minimizing Taliban power outside of major population centers. Indeed, the current plan seems to pull U.S. forces back into the larger population centers so that they don't slip into Taliban control. At this point, there is a zero sum game in Afghanistan.

As with U.S. intervention using Afghanistan in a proxy war against the Soviet Union, U.S. (and western nations') interest in Afghanistan are not equal to the Afghans determination for their independence. If we had spent the billions we have spent on blowing up Afghanistan on real aid to improve the lives of the people, everyone would be in a much better situation. I strongly suspect, that the power of the Taliban would have eroded, and a much more peaceful region would have been the outcome. No one is hungrier for peace than the people of Afghanistan.

Hidden Casualties
The Afghan refugee situation is largely hidden from the U.S. audience. After the early reporting on refugee camps at the beginning of the invasion, there has been a virtual blackout on refugees in the U.S. media. Refugees International states:

Today more than three million registered refugees remain in exile - 2.1 million in Pakistan and 0.9 million in Iran - and hundreds of thousands more are living abroad to escape economic hardship or targeted violence. Many are now being pressured to return home despite the fact that living conditions are not always secure or humane.

The estimated population of Afghanistan is 28.396 million. An estimated three million are displaced within the region, and certainly a large number are displaced inside Afghanistan, and those who previously fled to Europe are no longer welcome.

Refugees have fled to Italy, France, and the UK. They have survived in places like the Calais "jungle" in France. However, France doesn't want the migrants anymore, and is shutting down Calais. Most of the 1500 people remaining in the crumbling Calais camp are refugees from Afghanistan and Iraq. They have sought asylum, but Europe is getting much stingier in granting it. Despite the economic and personal costs paid by these migrants, Calais will be razed. The asylum seekers will be sent back or sent on.

Other refugees are increasingly seeking haven in Tajikistan, where they struggle to learn Russian and Cyrillic while living in horrible conditions. However, despite the poverty of Tajikistan relative to its neighbors, at least they will accept refugees. So more come hoping to rebuild lives that have been destroyed behind them.

I imagine that should conditions stabilize and improve in Afghanistan, many of the refugees would go home to rebuild their lives. As the displaced within Afghanistan hope for the opportunity to do the same.

Do Afghans Want the Taliban in Power?
From what news reports (largely from the BBC and a few independent journalists) I have seen, people don't relish the idea of the Taliban ruling again. However, the Taliban militias have a great recruiting tool - they can pay. So now the Taliban forces have roughly achieved military strength. One could argue that the Taliban are virtually the only "game" in Afghanistan, which speaks to the woeful failure of the "strategy" of the U.S. (under Bush and Obama) and NATO.

It seems likely that if the Pashtuns in Pakistan are pushing for their own state, that the Pashtuns in Afghanistan will hope for the same. Rather than creating unity, the effects of failed intervention in the interests of Western nations may result in a fracturing of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Ways Forward
Given the complication and sheer destruction which has left competing powers as virtually independent operators, and people's lives in devastation, it is hard to see what will help - particularly over the short term. It seems that Obama is willing to continue a primarily military (or militaristic) path in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obama has expanded the Bush administration's practices of covert troop increases in the region using "rotations" and outsourcing to corporate mercenaries to expand military presence. We seem to be in the same situation in Afghanistan as we were in Iraq: "As Afghan military and police stand up, we will stand down." However, our presence in Iraq is not substantively decreasing (especially when one counts "contractors"), and both formal troops and "contractors" are increasing in Afghanistan. Obama has also expanded the use of drones. One could even argue that the $1.5 billion in aid to Pakistan is in effect hiring the Pakistani army as contract forces for U.S. interests. What does "aid" mean in this context?

But the people want peace, to be able to support their families, to have hope for their futures. A "grassroots" experienced U.S. President might apply some of that insight to the turbulence in the region. Assistance in developing internal and external markets in Afghanistan and Pakistan would go a long way towards giving the people options they currently do not have. Assisting community and tribal leaders in building infrastructure and security would go towards balancing the power of the Taliban and whatever al Qaida organization exists in the region.

The poppies of Afghanistan seem to be an endless source of fund raising and international heroin markets. It would seem to be a no-brainer to use those poppies in legitimate ways - namely for the medical market. Why does Tasmania Australia have 40% of the medical opium market? India allows production of medical opium poppies, and they might resist legalization in Afghanistan. Regardless, why can't Afghanistan be a legal supplier of opium for medical uses?

Afghanistan does have natural resources - particularly oil, natural gas and coal - which is part of the reason for ongoing U.S. "interest" in the area. (See also Assessment of Undiscovered Petroleum Resources of Northern Afghanistan, 2006) However, the real energy interests in Afghanistan have been the pipeline to ensure the West's oil supply. It seems that "safeguard" should be profitable for the people of Afghanistan.

Realistically, many of the people of Afghanistan may not want to join the "modern world" on the "modern world's" terms. They have local economies and ways of life that have sustained and enriched them for thousands of years. Stability would go a long way towards allowing local economies to function effectively once again.

What seems very clear is that there is not a military solution to the instability of the region. However, a military presence in that region serves a variety of purposes for the United States and the "West." Whose interest will prevail? Those of the people, or those of the the competing powers?

According to the Norway Post:

...Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts.

The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened, the Committee says.

The comments are mostly about talk: "a new climate...diplomacy...dialogue and negotiations...vision...negotiations...." all about ideas that have not happened on Obama's watch.

What you do speaks so loud, I can't hear what you say....

Those who have read my work know that I refer to this phrase somewhat frequently, when the rhetoric, apologetics, excuses, visions, and hopes in no way match the reality of what occurs in the real world.

While Obama is a wonderful orator and speaks marvellous words of people talking and negotiating and dialoguing, about a world the majority of us desire, he has accomplished nothing, nor do I believe he has laid the groundwork for future success as his actions are often compared to his words.

Domestically he has failed - or is in the process of failing - with healthcare, the environment, and the economy, three of the biggest concerns of average citizens today. Healthcare has been strangled by a Congress that is falling in line with the large pharmaceutical companies. The people he put in place for the environmental agencies are old Clinton cronies who are linked to serve the very industries that are damaging the environment. The economy has been assisted by government largesse to the large corporations who helped create the economic problems in the first place (although it really was a group effort between government, the corporations, and the military) while the people who followed the mantra/propaganda of consumer debt pay the final price.

In foreign affairs nothing has been accomplished except more talk, with the western media in particular creating wonderful scenarios about a changing world, while strong doubts already have risen after his fine rhetorical speeches in Cairo, the UN, and elsewhere. Against international law, he has unilaterally extended the "War on Terror" into Pakistan. He has pretended to do away with illegal confinement and tortures, but is careful to make sure that occurs only on U.S. territory, while it continues, against international law, in other 'alien' lands.

Nothing has been accomplished with nuclear disarmament but a lot of talk, and while a lot of talk might be necessary in order to achieve a full and equitable nuclear drawdown, the best action that would speak louder than any of his rhetoric would be a unilateral decrease in nuclear armaments without asking others to do the same (after all, why quibble, overkill is overkill and there is still enough of that to go around several times). Threatening another country with military action, or possible military action also goes against international law, while the threatened country by most accurate accounts is well within international law with their actions.

Other nuclear countries receive the double standard. India has developed nuclear weapons outside of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and now receives preferential treatment from the U.S. government. Later, Pakistan developed nuclear weapons, outside the NPT, with a wink and a nudge from the U.S., and now is suffering under increasing covert action, increasing direct action, and increasing political manipulation within the broader scope of the new AfPak war. All these actions - essentially the subversion of another county's sovereignty - could be deemed illegal under international law.

Israel and Palestine

Covering the smallest land area, but being at the centre of the emotional and geostrategic turmoil of the Middle East and Arab states lies Israel. It has been understood for decades that Israel has a nuclear arsenal of an estimated couple hundred nuclear weapons, deliverable by plane, missile, and sub (and who knows what other delivery units have been devised). Operating completely outside the NPT, fully avoiding the question whenever it might occur, Israel pretends that they do not exist, and the U.S. pretends that they do not know they exist. Obama is the perfect foil for continued Israeli transgressions against the Palestinian people.

Obama has done nothing about the Israeli/Palestine situation other than a lot of talk, and a considerable amount of that talk has been decidedly one-sided. His advisors are all decidedly pro-Israeli in the context of the land question and settlements. He has given in to the continuation of the settlements, deemed illegal under international law, has said nothing about the separation wall, deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice, and has said nothing about Israel's nuclear arsenal nor Israel's threats against Iran. While Obama talks, the Israelis continue to do what they have always done through negotiations and talking: talking about peace, while continuing to occupy Palestine, while continuing to build settlements, while continuing to suppress the civil society of Palestine, all actions against international law.

A greater purpose, or smoke and mirrors?

There are a number of comments about the prize being an incentive for Obama to live up to his rhetoric, to create an equitable peaceful world (although fewer than those that I could find wondering why he received it at all). That may well be true, and Obama may well believe it, but for me, it all comes back to the difference between the spoken word and the actions on the ground. Obama's rhetoric about the Middle East, about world peace and cooperation all sound mighty fine. The tools that he has used so far to try and accomplish this are the same old militaristic tools that have always been part and parcel of U.S. foreign policy. Unilateral invasions, occupations, threats of invasion, covert actions against governments, hostile actions against civilians all go against international law - more decidedly they go against common sense that violent military actions will somehow create a peaceful world.

I would be happy to have Obama live up to the expectations (hmm, but what really are the expectations of the Nobel Prize Committee?) of the prize, to realize his rhetorical grand visions of world peace and harmony. However, unless he can stand up against his own advisors, unless he can go against the grain of the established Washington perspective of the world, unless he can face down the Israeli political machine, not much will change.

A farce is a pretence or mockery. It is the dismal humour of human tragedy. The human tragedy hear is Obama's sparkling rhetoric allowing him to receive a peace prize, while providing a thin veneer over the illegal and hostile actions the U.S. promotes for its own geo-strategic purposes around the world.

Jim Miles is a Canadian educator and a regular contributor/columnist of opinion pieces and book reviews for The Palestine Chronicle. Miles' work is also presented globally through other alternative websites and news publications.

The possible outcomes of the Honduran crisis are likely to define the coming era for Latin America and the US future role in that hemisphere, and, in fact, beyond it. Indeed, the story is much more elaborate than a daring president holed up in a foreign embassy in his own country.

In her second visit to Asia as US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton declared on July 21 in Bangkok, "The US is back." The declaration was disconcerting to many Asian countries, despite Clinton's indistinct qualifications afterwards. Asian countries, exploring regional unity and economic cooperation are well aware of the subtle meaning of the term. However, it's unlikely that politically stable and economically prospering Asia countries would allow for unwarranted outside interferences, especially with the growing Chinese regional influence and the election of Yukio Hatoyama the prime minister of Japan.

But how would Latin America feel about the US interference? The outcome of the Honduran coup should sufficiently answer this question.

Since the introduction of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, the politics and economic structures of Latin American countries subsisted as a component of US foreign policies, regardless of who presided in the White House. The region's economies seemed, at times, a laboratory for economic theories hatched at various US academic institutions. Many Latin American countries existed, and a meager existence at that, between US interventions, self-seeking local oligarchy and wilderness and chaos wrought by military dictatorships. In many instances, these three components were intrinsically linked.

But US influence in that region, as in the rest of the world, began to fade. The neoconservative wars in the Middle East and South Asia were but desperate, now failed attempts at salvaging some of the dwindling influence.

The former Bush Administration left Latin America to its own devises as US military adventures elsewhere took a toll on the country, militarily, economically and politically, at home and abroad. But as Clinton promised a return to Asia, the Obama administration attempted a return to Latin America as well, a region that is significantly different from yesteryear, as a new form of popular socialism was taking hold (in Venezuela, Bolivia, and elsewhere) without wholly disturbing the economic patterns that long governed these countries. While many didn't welcome President Hugo Chavez's outspokenness, few in Latin America, except for a few remaining US allies, considered him a threat. To the contrary, the new age has promised greater cooperation among all economic sectors between Latin American countries than any other period in the past. A new Latin America was making its debut, more equitable than before, politically stable, and economically promising, if not, in some cases, prosperous.

Indeed, the US returned to a different reality, a return that, at first was welcomed, even by Chavez himself. Obama spoke a language that soothed much fears and fostered a sense of promise.

"At times we sought to dictate our terms. But I pledge to you that we seek an equal partnership. There is no senior partner and junior partner in our relations; there is simply engagement based on mutual respect and common interests and shared values," declared Obama on April 19, at the Summit of the Americas, to the pleasure and relief of his audience.

Did that mean no more coups, military interventions, economic sanctions, political intimidation and all forms of coercion that defined much of the two hemispheres' relationship of many years? Certainly, Latin American leaders, or most of them, hoped so.

But then, the democratically elected President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya was overthrown on June 28. It was a classic Latin American junta move. The popular leader was escorted in his pajamas and deported to another country. The coup leader, Roberto Micheletti lead a series of draconian measures, starting with the installation of a new government of allies and cronies - with the blessing of the local oligarchy - and ending with the declaration of emergency decree limiting civil liberties. After several attempts and many dramatic episodes, Zelaya returned to his country and was holed up in the Brazilian embassy, in Tegucigalpa, surrounded by a military that merely represent the very poor country's very rich rulers: the oligarchs and the generals.

In some way, the coup in Honduras helped highlight the new order in the continent, as displayed in the unity of many Latin American countries, the steadfastness of its regional organizations, and the growing influence of the democratically elected governments. But it also highlighted the precarious position of the US administration: condemning the coup on one hand (as did President Obama, and clearly so) and condemning Zelaya's courageous action (as did Hillary Clinton, and clearly so.) Clinton described Zelaya's action as "reckless." She was not alone, of course as the U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States, Lewis Amselem said Zelaya's return was "irresponsible and foolish." Zelaya should stop "acting as though he were starring in an old movie," he counseled. Worse, US Republicans, who see the coup leaders as trusty allies reminiscent of their allies of the past, are flocking to the Honduran capital in dangerous attempts at validating the coup leaders as legitimate statesmen.

Between Obama's anti-coup stance, and his own Department of State's anti-Zelaya rhetoric (and Republican giddiness over the prospects of their country's 'return' to Latin America), the US position lacks clarity, a dangerous notion at a time when Latin America expected a clear US divorce from the past, and "engagement based on mutual respect and common interests and shared values." President Obama may be sincere, but he must ensure that he acts upon his promises, not for Latin America's sake, but for his own country's future relationship with that part of the world. As for Latin America itself, the repercussions of the Brazilian embassy's siege, and the future of democracy in Honduras will either set a terrible precedent in an age of hope, or serve as further proof that the ghosts of the past will no longer haunt Latin America, no matter how much the reviled generals toil.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Whatever goes to President Obama for his signature will probably do very little to curb the countless excesses by the health insurance industry and, therefore, do next to nothing to curb personal and national health spending. It will almost certainly impose some new taxes that ultimately will impact a large fraction of the population, possibly by taxes on health insurance benefits or through higher insurance premiums and/or copayments and deductibles, or even worse coverage. Even if there is some type of government option, which does not now seem likely, it would likely be constructed so cleverly that few would take advantage of it.

This and more deceptive actions will result because of the huge amount of money spent by the health insurance industry and its allies on both lobbying and countless ways of funneling money to members of Congress.

This much is now obvious. Even many Democrats, especially in the Senate, have been thoroughly corrupted by health industry money. Brain dead and callous Republicans, of course, have behaved as badly as they possibly could to protect their industry friends.

So it comes down to this: Considering his lackluster behavior during the reform debate, if the long awaited but disastrous health reform law reaches the White House will President Obama have the courage to veto it? Will his thirst for health care reform and unbounded desire for accomplishing what others have failed to do overwhelm the inescapable truth that next to meaningless reform is worse than no reform? Will he be brave enough to tell not just the millions that supported him to begin with but the whole population that Congress failed to do what justice demanded? Will he have the moral determination to tell the truth that corruption of Congress by industry wrecked the democratic process and failed to give Americans what they sorely need?

At this point I am betting that Obama will not have the courage to do any of this. No, I think Obama will behave like all the other lying politicians and claim victory and find all kinds of ways to eloquently describe how the stinking congressional action moves the nation in the right direction. He will look right into the camera and tell his fellow Americans that he has not given up the fight for all necessary health care reforms, but right now this is the best and most that can be done.

If my prediction is correct, then I can only hope that many, many Americans will see the ugly, disappointing truth and become committed to not reelect Obama to a second term, especially progressives and liberals and especially those that know in their hearts that real health care reform would have produced a single payer government insurance plan open to all Americans, like Medicare for everyone.

There should be a limit to what compromises are embraced when it comes to something as deeply personal and critical as health care. Health care reform really should be seen as the ultimate test for President Obama and whether he gives us the change we have been waiting for and what millions believed he would deliver. If genuine health care reform is not produced by Congress, then it should become crystal clear to even the most distracted, devoted and dumb Americans that our democracy is definitely delusional. That's what President Obama should think about. A corporate-owned democracy is no democracy at all.

[Contact Joel S. Hirschhorn through delusionaldemocracy.com.]

One should know that public support for the war has greatly diminished, when conservative commentators like The Washington Post columnist George Will write: "US forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy. America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, air strikes and small, potent Special Forces units."

Okay, so his narrative is still ultimately violent, but the fact remains that the war mood is changing. After all, Will's 1 September article was entitled, "Time to Get Out of Afghanistan."

Dan Senor and Peter Wehner responded with a peculiar diatribe in the New York Times, accusing Will of allowing his party allegiance to influence his views on the war. The two authors, senior fellows at major US think tanks, offered a bloody rationale wrapped in deceptive wording. They argued that historically Democrats opposed Republican wars and Republicans have done the same, and that must change. It was implied that pretty much every major war in recent decades was a war that served US national security interests; therefore, "Republicans should resist the reflex that all opposition parties have, which is to oppose the stands of a president of the other party because he is a member of the other party." In other words, yes to war, whether by Democrats or Republicans.

The intellectual wrangling, of course, is not happening in a vacuum; it almost never does. Indeed, there is much politicking going on; intense deliberation in Washington, political debates in London; defensive French statements, and more. It seems that the war in Afghanistan is reaching a decisive point, militarily in Afghanistan itself, and politically in major Western capitals.

But why the sudden hoopla over Afghanistan? For after all, the bloody war has been grinding on for eight long years.

The Taliban and various groups opposing the Kabul government and their Western benefactors are gaining ground, not just in the southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan. Daring Taliban attacks are now taking place in the north as well, long seen as peaceful, thus requiring little attention. On 26 August a roadside bomb hit the car of the chief of the provincial Justice Department in the northern Kunduz province, killing him, and sending shock waves through Kabul. The bloody message was meant to echo as a political one: no one is safe, nowhere is safe. Another attack was reported in the province of Laghman, in the east, where 22 people, mostly civilians were killed. Among the dead were four Afghan officials including the deputy chief of the National Directorate of Security, Abdullah Laghmani. The irony is too obvious to state.

In Washington, London and Paris politicians wish us to believe that they are not unnerved by all of this. They exaggerated the significance of the recent Afghani elections, attempting to once again underscore that the "crucial" elections placed Afghanistan on a crossroads. Crossroads? What does that even mean, in any practical terms? George Will, although selective in his logic, was honest enough to mention that President Hamid Karzai's "vice-presidential running mate is a drug trafficker." Even US officials admit that the government they've created following the war is corrupt, to say the least.

Richard Holbrooke, among other foreign envoys "responsible for Afghanistan", told reporters in Paris on 2 September that US officials have no preference among the candidates, nor are they particularly interested in runoff elections, but they wished to see a government that appoints "more efficient, less corrupt ministers". It behooves those "responsible for Afghanistan" to remember that inefficiency and corruption were the outcome of the very policies they have so eagerly adopted in the country. No sympathy for Karzai here, but it's unfair to point the finger at a feeble leader whenever a Western strategy fumbles, as it has repeatedly.

Speaking of strategies, what is the plan ahead? French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner promised that foreign troops will stay put in Afghanistan unless the country's security was ensured, reported Xinhua. In practical terms, this means never, for how could security ever visit that region as long as the strategy is hostage to two equally destructive narratives -- the Senor/Wehner troop surges vs Will's "offshore" strategy?

Hubris aside, Washington and London are facing some difficult political and military decisions ahead. Top officials in both capitals are using grim and somber language. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, responding to a call by the top US general in Afghanistan for a fresh approach to the conflict, is considering yet another troop increase as part of Obama's new Afghan strategy.

The sense of urgency was invited by the detailed report of the newly appointed General Stanley McChrystal, who maintains that "success" was still possible, but a change of strategy is needed. The report resulted in intense deliberation in Washington, highlighted by grim press conferences involving the Pentagon's heavyweights, including Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, over what to do about "Obama's war".

Speaking at the Pentagon, Gates equivocated: "I don't believe that the war is slipping through the administration's fingers. I absolutely do not think it is time to get out of Afghanistan (but there remains) limited time for us to show that this approach is working."

The details of the new Obama strategy are still not very clear, but the commitment to the war is still unquestionable, as expressed in a "major" 4 September speech by Prime Minister Gordon Brown. "When the security of our country is at stake we cannot walk away," said Brown, according to the BBC.

As Brown was solemnly speaking about British security, NATO air strikes on a pair of fuel tankers killed up to 90 people, according to Afghan authorities.

Indeed, the situation in Afghanistan requires a fresh approach, although not the one George Will had in mind.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is, "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), which is now available for pre-orders at Amazon..

Obama laid out three goals of his plan for reform:

1. "It will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance."
2. "It will provide insurance to those who don't."
3. "And it will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government."

The first two goals sound good. The final one is worrisome. As Obama noted, we already pay 1.5 times more for healthcare than any other nation. His plan will not reduce those costs.Rather, it will only slow the growth of costs. This is likely a result of the deals made with big pharma and the insurance companies.

He then goes into more detail of achieving those goals.

First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.

While this likely made some folks heave a sigh of relief, it does not eliminate the issue that has come up with some trial runs of reform plans that those who already have insurance CAN"T change to the "public option." This concern is reinforced in the speech when Obama stated (emphasis added):

But an additional step we can take to keep insurance companies honest is by making a not-for-profit public option available in the insurance exchange. Let me be clear - it would only be an option for those who don't have insurance.

Obama's plan, like several of the Congressional plans, call for the creation of an "insurance exchange." The public option would be one choice within the exchange. However, insurance company participation inclusion in the exchange is voluntary. Namely, that those insurance companies wanting to participate have to abide by certain guidelines. Now this is where things get a bit confusing. Obama identifies his guidelines thusly:

As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick. And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies ...

This sounds great, but does it apply to ALL health insurance companies, or only to those who choose to participate in the exchange?

For me, this is the crux of the lack of clarity and the mixed messages. On one hand there is purportedly changes to the existing health insurance system that removes some of the profit-making policies of companies (preexisting conditions, recission, cancellation, premium caps, etc.). On the other hand, these controls only seem to pertain to those companies who participate in the exchange. If at the same time, only those currently without insurance can participate in the exchange, and those with private or company government plans cannot, then what has actually been created - and how can it effectively reduce costs while increasing access and quality? In short, the effectiveness of an exchange and the public option seem artificially hamstrung from the beginning.

Further, what sounded like "lline in the sand" support for a public option may not have been. First, Obama cautioned (again) that the public option was only one possible mechanism. He reiterated this later by saying he had an "open door" policy for ideas - inviting Republican participation in the crafting of reform.

To my progressive friends, I would remind you that for decades, the driving idea behind reform has been to end insurance company abuses and make coverage affordable for those without it. The public option is only a means to that end - and we should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal.

Another requirement is that universal coverage is to be accomplished by mandating everyone (outside of those already in VA, Medicare and Medicaid) to acquire health insurance. While, somehow a need test would be applied to this, people would be required to purchase insurance.

That's why under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance - just as most states require you to carry auto insurance. Likewise, businesses will be required to either offer their workers health care, or chip in to help cover the cost of their workers. There will be a hardship waiver for those individuals who still cannot afford coverage, and 95% of all small businesses, because of their size and narrow profit margin, would be exempt from these requirements.

This would appear to be a big win for private insurance companies (as auto insurance is). If only those without insurance are eligible for the public option (which may not exist), and the restrictions on profit mechanisms mentioned above apply only to those companies that choose to participate in the exchange, then folks would be mandated to get coverage that has exactly the same problems of current insurance - for which they might be eligible for some government subsidation. If that scenario plays out, it would be a huge win for the insurance companies.

Obama's speech seemed to be one of certainty and laying down the firm guidelines of his plan for healthcare reform. In reality, it would seem to be much less firm than it sounds. It is my hope that over the next few days the types of issues I have raised here will be clarified by the Obama administration. Further, that the clarification reinforces the clear guidelines before they were erased by seeming inconsistencies and messages of "open for discussion."

Such an order would embrace claims by former President George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that bypassing Congress could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said.

After months of internal debate over how to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, White House officials are growing increasingly worried that reaching quick agreement with Congress on a new detention system may prove impossible. Several officials said there is concern in the White House that the administration may not be able to close the facility by the president's January 2010 deadline.

White House spokesman Ben LaBolt did not directly respond to questions about an executive order but said the administration would address the cases of Guantanamo detainees in a manner "consistent with the national security interests of the United States and the interests of justice."

One administration official suggested the White House was already trying to build support for an executive order.

"Civil liberties groups have encouraged the administration, that if a prolonged detention system were to be sought, to do it through executive order," the official said. Such an order can be rescinded and would not block later efforts to write legislation, but civil liberties groups generally oppose long-term detention, arguing that detainees should either be prosecuted or released.

The Justice Department has declined comment on the prospects for a long-term detention system while internal reviews of Guantanamo detainees are underway. The reviews are expected to be completed by July 21.

In a May speech, President Obama broached the need for a system of long-term detention and suggested that it would include congressional and judicial oversight. "We must recognize that these detention policies cannot be unbounded. They can't be based simply on what I or the Executive Branch decide alone," the president said.

Some of Obama's top legal advisers, along with a handful of influential Republican and Democratic lawmakers, have pushed for the creation of a "national security court" to supervise the incarceration of detainees deemed too dangerous to release but who cannot be charged or tried.

But the three senior government officials said the White House has turned away from that option, at least for now, because legislation establishing a special court would be both difficult to pass and likely to fracture Obama's own party. These officials, as well as others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about internal deliberations.

On the day Obama took office, 242 men were imprisoned at Guantanamo. In his May speech, the president outlined five strategies the administration would use to deal with them: criminal trials, revamped military tribunals, transfers to other countries, releases and continued detention. (Read our sidebar: "Review of Gitmo Detainees Has Been Slow and Complex.")

Since the inauguration, 11 detainees have been released or transferred, one prisoner committed suicide and one was moved to New York to face terrorism charges in federal court.

Administration officials said the cases of about half of the remaining 229 detainees have been reviewed for prosecution or release. Two officials involved in a Justice Department review of possible prosecutions said the administration is strongly considering criminal charges in federal court for Khaled Sheik Mohammed and three other detainees accused of involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

The other half, the officials said, present the greatest difficulty because these detainees cannot be prosecuted either in federal court or military commissions. In many cases, the evidence against them is classified, has been provided by foreign intelligence services, or has been tainted by the Bush administration's use of harsh interrogation techniques.

Attorney General Eric Holder agreed with an assessment offered during congressional testimony this month that fewer than 25 percent of the detainees would be charged in criminal courts and that 50 others have been approved for transfer or release. One official said the administration is still hoping that as many as 70 Yemeni citizens will be moved, in stages, into a rehabilitation program in Saudi Arabia.

Three months into the Justice Department's reviews, several officials involved said they have found themselves agreeing with conclusions reached years earlier by the Bush administration: As many as 90 detainees can not be charged or released.

The White House has spent months meeting with key congressional leaders in the hopes of reaching agreement on long-term detention, even as public support for such a plan has wavered as lawmakers have sought to prevent detainees from being transferred to their home states.

Lawyers for the administration are now in negotiations with Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., over separate legislation that would revamp military commissions. A senior Republican staff member said that senators have yet to see "a comprehensive, detailed policy" on long-term detention from the administration.

"They can do it without congressional backing, but I think there would be very strong concerns," the staff member said, adding that "Congress could cut off funding" for any detention system established in the United States.

Concerns are growing among Obama's advisers that Congress may try to assert too much control over the process. Earlier this week, Obama signed an appropriations bill that forces the administration to report to Congress before moving any detainee out of Guantanamo and prevents the White House from using available funds to move detainees onto U.S. soil.

"Legislation could kill Obama's plans," said one government official involved. The official said an executive order could be the best option for the president at this juncture.

Under one White House draft that was being discussed earlier this month, according to administration officials, detainees would be imprisoned at a military facility on U.S. soil, but their ongoing detention would be subject to annual presidential review. U.S. citizens would not be held in the system. (Last month, ProPublica explored the key issues around preventive detention.)

Such detainees -- those at Guantanamo and those who may be captured in the future -- would also have the right to legal representation during confinement and access to some of the information that is being used to keep them behind bars. Anyone detained under this order would have a right to challenge his detention before a judge.

Officials argue that the plan would give detainees more rights and allow them a better chance to one day end their indefinite incarceration than they have now at Guantanamo.

But some senior Democrats see long-term detention as tantamount to reestablishing the Guantanamo system on U.S. soil. "I think this could be a very big mistake, because of how such a system could be perceived throughout the world," Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., told Holder.

One administration official said future transfers to the United States for long-term detention would be rare. Al-Qaida operatives captured on the battlefield, which the official defined as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and possibly the Horn of Africa, would be held in battlefield facilities. Suspects captured elsewhere in the world could be transferred to the United States for federal prosecution, turned over to local authorities, or returned to their home country.

"Going forward, unless it's an extraordinary case, you will not see new transfers to the U.S. for indefinite detention," the official said.

Instituting long-term detention through an executive order would leave Obama vulnerable to charges that he is willing to forsake the legislative branch of government, as his predecessor often did. Bush's detention policies suffered successive defeats in the courts in part because they lacked congressional approval and tried to exclude judicial oversight.

"There is no statute prohibiting the president from doing this through executive order and so far courts have not ruled in ways that would bar him from doing so," said Matthew Waxman, who worked on detainee issues at the Defense Department during Bush's first term. But Waxman, who waged an internal battle inside the Bush administration for more congressional cooperation, said the "courts are more likely to defer to the president and legislative branch when they speak with one voice on these issues."

Walid bin Attash, who is accused of involvement in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 and who was held at a secret CIA prison, could be among those subject to long-term detention, according to one senior official.

Little information on bin Attash's case has been made public, but officials who have reviewed his file said the Justice Department has concluded that none of the three witnesses against him can be brought to testify in court. One witness, who was jailed in Yemen, escaped several years ago. A second witness remains incarcerated, but the government of Yemen will not allow him to testify.

Administration officials believe that testimony from the only witness in U.S. custody, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, may be inadmissible because he was subjected to harsh interrogation while in CIA custody.

"These issues haven't morphed simply because the administration changed," said Juan Zarate, who served as Bush's deputy national security adviser for counterterrorism and is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"The challenge for the new administration is how to solve these legal question of preventive detention in a way that is consistent with the Constitution, legitimate in the eyes of the world and doesn't create security loopholes that causes Congress to worry," Zarate said.

In the complaint (Padilla v Yoo amended complaint 23 pages pdf), Padilla is suing John Yoo for being directly responsible for his detention, the violation of his Constitutional rights, and being subjected to torture and abuse. The basis of the case was to determine if Padilla was within his rights to pursue his complain against Yoo. In most regards, Judge White states in his opinion (Opinion in Padilla v Yoo  - alternate link - 42pages pdf) that Padilla has basis to pursue his suit.

Here are a few notable excerpts from Judge White's opinion.

"Padilla also alleges that he has suffered gross physical and psychological abuse upon the orders of high-ranking government officials as part of a systematic program of abusive interrogation which mirror the abuses committed at Guantanamo Bay." p2-3

What is notable here, is the admission within the Judge's opinion that the interrogation methods experienced by Padilla in his three years and eight month detention at the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, South Carolina were the same "abuses committed at Guantánamo Bay." This is notable on two counts. First, that Padilla was subjected to these techniques (detailed on pages 4-5 of the opinion, with associated Constitutional violations on 9-10). Second, because of the specious argument that no such "techniques" were used at Guantánamo (and were therefore not "exported" to other facilities - notably Abu Ghraib).

Yoo also advocates that this Court should abstain from adjudication because the Court should leave review of his legal memoranda and the conduct which followed to the coordinate branches of government based on substantive areas of law raised by the memoranda. The Court notes the irony of this position: essentially, the allegations of the complaint are that Yoo drafted legal cover to shield review of the conduct of federal officials who allegedly deprived Padilla of his constitutional rights. Now, Yoo argues that the very drafting itself should be shielded from judicial review." p 21-22

Here, Judge White is responding to Yoo's request to place not only his direct (and self-admitted) actions regarding torture and Padilla's case in particular, but that the very work that he did, under the shield of immunity. Judge White offers his opinion that such a shield does not exist.

ii. Eighth Amended Prohibition Against Cruel and Unusual Punishment

Yoo contends that because Padilla was not convicted of a criminal offense at the time of his military detention, the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment does not apply to him." p35

I believe that the quote above is exemplary of the convoluted "logic" of both Yoo and the Bush administration. First, they create a new "category" of detainee to get around both U.S. law and international agreements. He then argues that because Padilla was not "convicted" that the guarantees against "cruel and unusual punishment" do not apply.

A lot is being written elsewhere about the opinion, and it is not my goal to repeat those pieces here. I believe that there is much to be gained by taking a half hour and reading the Judge's opinion. It not only details this specific case, but goes into the legal arguments of other cases, and pertinent memos which have been released.

Related Articles and Documents
Padilla v. Yoo - Judge denies motion to dismiss "torture memos" case. Constitutional Law Prof Blog. 6/13/2009.

Padilla v Yoo suit (1/04/2008)

Obama administration backs immunity for author of Bush torture memos. Patrick Martin. WSWS. 6/09/09.

San Francisco judge rules convicted terrorist Padilla can sue Bush aide over torture memos. Don Thompson. AP. 6/13/09.

Judge Presses Government on Torture Memo Liability. Dan Levine. Law Journal. 6/09/09.

Judge: Ex-Bush lawyer can be sued over torture. Bob Egelko. SF Chronicle. 6/13/09.

Judge rules Padilla can sue over torture memos. USA Today/AP. 6/13/09.

Judge Allows Civil Lawsuit Over Claims of Torture. John Schwartz. NY Times. 6/13/09.

These revelations should not come as a shock. Torture, official secrecy, and other sundry apparatus and accouterments of the national security state are about the only viable enterprises remaining in this declining nation. Moreover, one of the defining traits of the insecure (both among men and nations) is to stand, bristling in a paranoid posture, with feet planted in stubborn defiance of changing circumstances, snarling at invisible threats and imagined affronts, as life moves on with indifferent grace.

Recently, in the latest in a series of setbacks and self-inflicted wounds, the national identity of the United States sustained another humiliating blow when General Motors was driven into a ditch, declared totaled, and then stripped and sold for spare parts. This event throws a rod into the smoking engine block of the nation's dream machine: The automobiles manufactured in Detroit were once symbols of American power, freedom of mobility, even sexual allure. But the world has sped ahead, leaving the US wheezing dust in its wake: The era of high horsepower and American ascendancy, with its glinting chrome conceit and reenforced steel illusions of unassailable power, now sits upon concrete blocks rusting in the automobile graveyard of history.

At present, and for many years now, the American automobile culture has meant little more than feckless commuters stalled in traffic, alternatively sullen and seething in their powerlessness. Yet, this is not the time to throw a populist pity party: The people of the nation face a future circumscribed by their own lack of self-awareness and their refusal of civic engagement. Year after year, they have displayed avidity for little more than the rigged, roadside attractions of the corporate carnival; hence, traffic is heavy on this lost highway, all lanes are jammed on the superhighway to Clowntown, U.S.A.

Seemingly, the nation's hopes are only being kept flickering by caffeine, antidepressants, and the naive belief that they -- accepting, as Americans have, since birth, the narcissistic mythos of the consumer state -- are a special breed whose God-kissed destiny would forever fall outside the failures and contretemps of earthly life. Therefore, Americans cling to the core conviction that there should not be any consequences for their own oceanic apathy, child-like credulity, and small time cupidity in regard to their relationship to the elitist power brokers whose financial chicanery and political scheming determined their hapless fate.

Both prole and plutocrat set the wheel in motion, and both wait for some kind of deux ex machina, whereby Fortuna will smile once again on the hobbled nation, and restore it and all its special children to their rightful place -- up above the world of regret, reflection, and amends -- back upon their highchairs of infantile entitlement. And while the populace waits in vain for the Goddess of Luck to rise from the wreckage of their vanity, they still have a glut of junk food, guns, and porn (some of the last remaining goods produced by the nation) to act as palliatives ... miserable substitutes -- that they are -- for sustenance, feelings of empowerment, and eros.

At present, the citizens of the US moan "poor us" as they stagger through this "time of crisis." The American people seem as helpless as pitiful puppies whimpering before the multiple and multiplying perils of the present. Yet, they are not wronged innocents, made blameless victims because of their hapless but well-meaning credulity. Nonsense. US consumers have been the beneficiaries of the mad dog policies of the American corporate/national security state nexus. Greedily, they devoured the scraps dropped from the tables of the oligarchs. This PitifulPup/Mad Dog Syndrome defines the era, and is the collective mode of being of citizens of the American Empire (regardless of the public relations makeover the Obama Administration is attempting to pull off worldwide).

For meaningful change to occur, Americans must look deeper into themselves and into the collective soul of the nation. Not far beneath the bristling ego structure of the torturer (and his enablers in the general population) is a quaking pup possessed of a monstrous need for absolute control. Incongruously, the torturer is terrified by his victim. The torturer, like the empire itself, cannot control the vastness of life (he sees the world's uncontrollability as a ticking time bomb somewhere near him he cannot locate) -- but his victim, the human fragment of the world quivering before him, can be (must be!) totally dominated. Or so it seems within the fear frothing mind of the Mad Dog torturer. But this does not suffice: The absolute domination of one solitary human being cannot bridle the uncertainty inherent in life. The torturer's dread cannot be assuaged. In the same manner an alcoholic cannot dominate a bottle of booze by will power, a power drunk
nation cannot subdue its terror by practicing torture.

And what is it that invokes such fear in the people of America? Deep down, Americans are stricken with abject fear by the fact that it is impossible to continue being the dominate power on the planet and being indulged, like spoiled children, with all the benefits and privileges such a position affords. The United States tortures to maintain the global status quo. Remember: "Our way of life is non-negotiable." We'll torture or kill anyone (even ecologically, the planet) for a tank of gas and a bag of Cheetos (or any of an assortment of tasty, salt-rich snack foods).

If this preposterous way of life was a classic, Madison Avenue ad campaign, its catchphrase might be: "Bet you can't torture just one." Or: "Go for it!" Or the latest offering of glistening snake oil that has been marketed to the nation: "Yes, we can."

But, as far as investigating US governmental policies of torture and then prosecuting its architects and operatives goes, the Obama administration's mantra has degenerated from, "yes, we can," to "no, can-do." Unless President Obama reverses course, he will prove himself not to be an agent of change, but another water-board carrier for the psychopaths of the status quo.

Such a high level of denial only increases the intensity of the murderous libido that flows beneath the surface of American life -- that chthonic river of repressed rage surging within the psyches of the besieged laboring class, who, despite being burdened by debt slavery and chafed by ever diminishing prospects, still clutch the kitschy iconography of the god of the consumer state. Although that god has fallen, it will not go solemnly to the boneyard of dead myths.

In the contemporary US, debt slavery, a lack of future prospects, the constant threat of bankruptcy and homelessness, and the danger of gun violence are all very real; yet, day and night, alluring media mirages beckon Americans into a blinding wasteland of false hope. Daily existence feels unreal -- a constant, hollow communion with electronic phantoms. A chasm of alienation opens between the polarity of unreal expectations and degraded real life situations. Toxic shlock syndrome sets in.

The sense of alienation is so profound that many citizens on the political right believe that President Obama cannot in reality be a citizen of this country; his name is too foreign, his skin possesses a hue too different from their own. His birth certificate must be as bogus as an IOU from Bernie Madoff. He can't be a real American; he seems no more real, nor connected with the concerns of their lives, than any other ghost in the media hologram.

But guns feel real to these troubled folks. The weapon's weight in their hands wards off an unfocused sense of dread; its heft, momentarily, mitigates feelings of being helplessly adrift ... Looking down the precise beauty of its barrel distills down hazy hatreds into identifiable targets. Within their fog-shrouded minds, the very presence of that "slick-ass usurper" in the White House causes the ground to feel less than solid beneath their feet. Ergo, guns must be stockpiled; massive amounts of ammunition stored for ballast. These treacherous days, that are so muffled by the white noise of uncertainty, must yield to something as clear and decisive as the crack of a rifle shot.

A collective tantrum rages on the right, as their ranks hold their breath and hoard bullets. In the enveloping darkness of political powerlessness, they are sleeping with their Sarah Palin night-light on, then tossing fitfully awake attempting to mollify themselves by gazing mindlessly at Fox News crib mobiles, then scanning the heavens craving a Happy Meal apocalypse.

"I won't share my toys; they're mine! I want my tax cut lolly! Now!" Their sippy cups runneth over with rage. Overweight, evincing a junk food engendered, toddler-like waddle, and blubbering in their snit fit of thwarted id, they resemble heavily armed Teletubbies in the throes of an angel dust-induced psychosis.

The nation seethes with cranky, overgrown babies who kill. How could it not come to this, when the nation tortures like little boys plucking the wings from hapless flies? But the Empire of Perpetual Id cannot be sustained. What Obama apprehends, and was the underlying theme of his Cairo stem-winder: The people of the world have grown weary of our brattiness. They wish to rouse us from our long nappytime of exceptionalism. The world has moved on, while too many Americans sit bawling in their toxic innocence.

Meanwhile, the most special children whose privileged faces were ever touched by the golden light of the sun, the elite of Wall Street, bang their silver spoons on their skyscraper highchairs, whining, "We want more bonus candy, We want to go for a ride in my Gulfstream Jet stroller, We want to go play in our Dubai sandbox -- Gimme, gimme! -- Now!"

Every four to eight years, presidential elections are held in the United States of Infantile Omnipotence in which we attempt to personify the nation with an adult face. Usually we fail: Bush with his crankiness and his tantrums of mass destruction; Clinton with his oceanic overreach and his inability to delay gratification; Reagan with his senile, regressed-to-childhood naps ... He even called his wife, "mommy."

Barrack Obama appears to be an adult. Yet, in our childish national psyche, panicked and paralyzed because its arrested development has left it bereft of the ability to navigate the complexities of a rapidly changing world, having Obama as the face of the nation is like The Portrait of Dorian Gray -- but played out in reverse -- and produced as a pop-up book.

Worse, it appears the nation's collective mode of being might proceed straight from infancy to decrepitude, only briefly stopping in puberty for a session of online porno-induced masturbation.

Phil Rockstroh, a self-described, auto-didactic, gasbag monologist, is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at: phil@philrockstroh.com Visit Phil's website Ebullient Skepticism.

The argument goes that because Judge Sotomayor is Latina, and has spoken as a Latina, that she is "biased" (with strident claims that she is "racist") and therefore that she is influenced by "identity politics." The argument then goes on to say state that justice is "blind" and "color-blind" so the personal background of a judge does not matter. This then circles back around to Sotomayor's "race" (sic meaning ethnicity) and that because she claims her Puerto Rican and Latina heritage that she engages in "identity politics." And it goes on and on, round and round like some Tommy two note.

The implication of the claims of identity politics and their inherent racism is that white males are inherently more neutral and objective. They are purportedly reasoned individuals who can interpret the law fairly. It seems a waste of time to argue the embedded racism and sexism of such a base assumption.

Also implied, is that this argument of inherent "fairness" is affirmed by the fact that 106 of 110 Supreme Court Justices have been white males. Under this argument, there is not only no reason for "diversity" to be an issue on the Supreme Court, but by extension, it is not an issue anywhere within United States. This is not a conceptual leap on my part as one of the major issues among the "conservatives" is the issue of "affirmative action." This will certainly be a line of questioning in Judge Sotomayor's confirmation hearings.

However, (at least) two current Supreme Court justices would not have been seen as "white" all that long ago. Southern and Eastern European immigrants were restricted as being "undesirable" under the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act. Not to mention, that being Catholic was long a point of fear and discrimination in the United States. Alito in particular brought up his immigrant origins and how that shapes him during his confirmation hearings. However, I heard no claims of identity politics surrounding discussions of his ability to be "fair" or administer justice "blindly."

Justices Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, Scalia, and Alito are all Catholic. Alito clearly has ties to Opus Dei, and there is strong speculation that Scalia and Thomas do as well. Yet, I do not recall questions about their religion, or ties to this conservative Catholic organization coming up in regard to their roles as justices, or potential justices, to the Supreme Court. (Breyer and Ginsburg are Jewish, Souter is Episcopalian, and Stevens is Protestant - source)

Both Roberts and Alito are strong supporters of the theory of the President of the United States as a Unitary Executive. This is a theory has vast implications for the operation of our form of government. Yet, there they sit.

So where does the line of "identity politics" get drawn, and who gets perceived as "biased?" What about the issue of ideology politics and the Court? If one embraces an ideology of "right to life," or that all political power rests within the Presidency, or that corporations naturally trump people and workers, does that count as "bias," or just a "simple difference of opinion?" Can (and do) those Justices holding deep set ideologies put these aside in their interpretation of the law and the cases that come before them?

How about just simple conflict of interest? For example Scalia's involvement with Bush/Cheney and the SCOTUS deciding to block any further challenges to Florida's vote in the 2000 election?

Ah yes, inherently fair and unbiased indeed. The issue of potential bias seems to only arise if one is not a white male. If that does not throw a flag for folks about how racism and sexism are coded into the debate, then I do not know what would.

"Blind" Justice

On to the "blindness" of justice. This is embodied, and alluded to, in the ongoing circular argument, in the statue of Lady Justice. She stands holding scales and a sword, and is blindfolded (she was also "draped" by Ashcroft because he thought the statue indecent). I have now heard numerous times that Lady Justice embodies the "western tradition of justice."

Regardless, the issue of "blindness," and therefore "fairness," is a central question for all of us. What is morphed within the "debate" across the board is how one's status impacts one's "blindness."

Blindness in this context is an interesting concept. Does it mean that one does not acknowledge the impact of differences, or that they do not exist? Does it mean that the law, and decisions of the Courts, are applied regardless of status of the litigants? Does it mean that one should ignore that the impact of legal judgements which may actually advantage some while disadvantaging others - in other words, the outcome of the legal decision is "not fair."

Should there be an acknowledgement that this society has been, and continues to be, embedded with inequality based upon a number of group statuses (sex, race, orientation, age, ethnicity, social class, ability, etc.)? Further, that these statuses are experienced by individuals, but that they are applied to the entire status group? Further, that this structuring privileges some groups while disprivileging other groups, and is often reflected in the embedded biases not just of the society, but of the laws? And even further still, that living through these various structurings actually presents individuals and the groups to which they belong with different experiences of reality?

Let me offer you a non-legal example. Pundits. and social service planners came up with the idea of replacing the foodstamp voucher-type system with a "debit card" system. It was believed that such a system would be cost effective (saving mailing costs and being able to be renewed electronically), and would remove some of the social stigma of using foodstamps. Not discussed (apparently) and one of those unspoken assumptions, was that "everyone" was familiar with debit/credit cards.

A test of the program was run in New York City. Foodstamp recipients received their new food debit cards in the mail. Very shortly, foodstamp offices were being overrun with people wanting to know where their foodstamps were. A number had discarded the cards, all who showed up had no idea how to use them. The originators of this innovation were stunned. What was up with this? They had never thought about the fact that many of the people receiving foodstamps lived within a cash-based society and did not have even bank accounts much less debit or credit cards. It never occurred to them that knowledge of ATM and checkpoint systems might not be common knowledge.

Why did they not know this? Because such experience and knowledge was such an integral part of their world that they thought it was just "common knowledge." These were not folks who were deliberately classist or racist. In fact, they were trying to address some stigma issues with their decision. However, the socially structured reality that they lived in was quite different than that of most food stamp recipients.

So what does representation from diverse groups within our organizations, communities, society, and yes - the Supreme Court of the United States mean? It does not mean that "those people" all have an agenda, or are contaminated by "identity politics." It does mean that people coming from different realms of our society bring understandings and different perspectives with them. "Different" including the dominant group(s) understandings and experiences.

The white male Justice is no more neutral or unbiased than the Justice who is not white or male. If we are to attribute agendas, then we could equally argue that the white male Justice has an agenda as well - that of blindly reinforcing the structured inequality and biases of the society in which they reside.

That last sentence likely raises the blood pressure of many reading it. So take a breath and ask if the assumption that a non-white, non-male Justice should be labeled as inherently biased is any different an assumption - or any less of an insult.

Related Resources
RNC fumbles Sotomayor talking points. The Hill. 5/26/09.
Identity Justice. George Will. Wa. Post. 5/27/09.
Lady Justice.

Note

A brief examination of Lady Justice is instructive.

The presence of Lady Justice (or Blind Justice) is ubiquitous in U.S. courts. This is actually a statue of the Greek Goddess Themis (so one would think that some folks would have a problem with this). Regardless, if we look up "Themis" in Wikipedia we find:

"Themis is an ancient Greek goddess. She is described as "of good counsel", and is the embodiment of divine order, law, and custom. Themis means "law of nature" rather than human ordinance, literally "that which is put in place", from the verb τίθημι, títhēmi, "to put". To the ancient Greeks she was originally the organizer of the "communal affairs of humans, particularly assemblies".[1] Moses Finley remarked of themis, as the word was used by Homer in the 8th century, to evoke the social order of the 10th- and 9th-century Greek Dark Ages: Themis is untranslatable. A gift of the gods and a mark of civilized existence, sometimes it means right custom, proper procedure, social order, and sometimes merely the will of the gods (as revealed by an omen, for example) with little of the idea of right.[2]" BUT "Themis occurred in Hesiod's Theogony as the first recorded appearance of Justice as a divine personage. Drawing not only on the socio-religious consciousness of his time but also on many of the earlier cult-religions, Hesiod described the forces of the universe as cosmic divinities. Hesiod portrayed temporal justice, Dike, as the daughter of Zeus and Themis (daughter of Uranus and Gaia). Dike executed the law of judgments and sentencing and, together with her mother Themis, carried out the final decisions of Moira. For Hesiod, Justice is at the center of religious and moral life, who, independently of Zeus, is the embodiment of divine will. This personification of Dike will stand in contrast to justice viewed as custom or law, and as retribution or sentence. [5]"

This is indeed interesting, because Themis ruled over traditions and mores, and Dike was actually the rule of law as we understand it. This may actually explain a lot about how some see the role of the courts and the Supreme Court in particular.

The Republican attacks were bogus. A 2008 McClatchy investigation revealed that the overwhelming majority of Guantánamo detainees taken into custody in 2001 and 2002 in Afghanistan and Pakistan were innocent of wrongdoing or bit players with little intelligence value. A substantial number of those prisoners were literally sold to U.S. officials in exchange for bounty payments offered by the U.S. military. A Seton Hall Law Center report has debunked Pentagon claims that many released detainees have "returned to the fight." And no one has ever escaped from one of the U.S. super-max prisons, which house hundreds of people convicted of terrorist offenses.

The Republicans have continued to oppose the effort to close Guantánamo. In an attempt to burnish his image and forestall war crimes charges, Dick Cheney now leads the charge, making ubiquitous attacks on Obama. Keeping Guantánamo open is "important," Cheney declares. He claims that closing Guantánamo would endanger Americans, and warns that if detainees are brought to the United States , they would "acquire all kinds of legal rights." Obama is also taking heat from the intelligence community. Those officials, like Cheney, seek to justify what they did under the Bush regime.

And now even the Democrats are piling on the bandwagon. Reacting defensively to the Republican attack campaign, the Senate voted 90 to 6 to deny Obama funds to close Guantánamo until he comes up with a "plan" for relocating the detainees there. "We spent hundreds of millions of dollars building an appropriate facility with all security precautions on Guantánamo to try these cases," said Democratic Senator Jim Webb on ABC News. "I do not believe they should be tried in the United States ," he added.

The pressure has caused Obama to buckle. Timed to coincide with a Cheney speech to the right-wing American Enterprise Institute, Obama announced an appeasement plan to deal with the 240 remaining Guantánamo detainees. Parts of his plan would threaten the very foundation of our legal system - that no one should be held in custody if he has committed no crime. These are Obama's five categories for disposition of detainees once Guantánamo is closed:

1) Those who violated the laws of war will be tried in military commissions.
Obama's plan would backtrack on an early promise to shut down the military commissions. Obama now claims that such commissions can be fair because they will no longer permit the use of evidence obtained by cruel, inhuman or degrading interrogation methods. He fails to mention, however, that the Pentagon is using "clean teams" to re-interrogate people who were previously interrogated using the prohibited methods. When they once again give the same information, it miraculously becomes untainted. Obama also fails to acknowledge that those tried in the military commissions are forbidden from seeing all the evidence against them, a violation of the bedrock principle that the accused must have an opportunity to confront his accusers.

Even the U.S. Supreme Court has disagreed with this part of Obama's proposed plan of action. In Ex parte Milligan, the Supreme Court declared military trials of civilians to be unconstitutional if civil courts are available.

Prisoners falling in this category should be tried in the courts of the United States , because the laws of war are actually part of U.S. law. The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution says that treaties shall be the supreme law of the land. The Geneva Conventions and the Hague Convention, which the United States has ratified, contain the laws of war.

2) Those who have been ordered released from Guantánamo will remain in custody.
Seventeen Uighurs from China were ordered released after they were found not to be enemy combatants. But they continue to languish in custody because they would be imperiled if returned to China , which considers them enemies of the state. Suggestions that they be brought to the United States have been met with paranoid NIMBY (not in my backyard!) protestations. So, under Obama's plan they will remain incarcerated in a state of legal limbo.

3) Those who cannot be prosecuted yet "pose a clear danger to the American people" will remain in custody with no right to legal process of any kind.
These are people who have never been charged with a crime. Obama did not say why they cannot be prosecuted. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates claims as many as 100 people may fall into this category. Included in this group are those who have "expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden." They will suffer "prolonged detention."

Obama's plan for "prolonged detention" is nothing more than a newly-coined phrase for "preventive detention," a policy that harks back to the bad old days of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and the internment of people of Japanese extraction in the 1940's. If Obama succeeds in convincing Congress to legalize "prolonged detention," the United States will continue to be a pariah state among justice-loving nations. The U.S. Congress, still rendered catatonic by post-9/11 rhetoric, will probably capitulate along with Obama.

Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, noted that Obama's new system of preventive detention will just "move Guantánamo to a new location and give it a new name."

4) Those who can be safely transferred to other countries will be transferred.
Obama noted that 50 men fall into this category. It is unclear what will happen to them when they reach their destinations.

5) Those who violated U.S. criminal laws will be tried in federal courts.
Obama cited the examples of Ramzi Yousef, who tried to blow up the World Trade Center, and Zacarias Moussaoui, who was identified as the 20th 9/11 hijacker. Both were tried and convicted in U.S. courts and both are serving life sentences.

This is the only clearly acceptable part of Obama's plan. All detainees slated to remain in custody should be placed into this category. The federal courts provide due process as required by the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which does not limit due process rights to U.S. citizens: "No person ... shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law."

The federal courts are well suited to deal with accused terrorists. Indeed, federal judges who have presided over such cases say that the Classified Information Procedures Act can effectively protect classified intelligence in federal court trials.

If Mr. Obama proceeds with the plan he announced this week he will empower those who point to U.S. hypocrisy on human rights as a justification to do us harm. Obama's capitulation to the intelligence gurus and the right-wing attack dogs will not only imperil the rule of law; it will actually make us more vulnerable to future acts of terrorism.

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and president of the National Lawyers Guild. She is the author of " Cowboy Republic : Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the War" and co-author of the new book, "Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent." Her articles are archived at Collapse

On a collective basis, we as a nation are living through such a time. At present, we are witnessing the descending spiral of Icarusian Capitalism; our sacred delusion of the perpetual ascendancy of a god-like market place lies broken in the dust. Malls and Mcmansions stand abandoned, desolate as the edifices of forgotten gods, as the come-ons of the salesmen of deregulated capitalism are churned to spittle amid a cacophony of collapsing market platitudes.

And not an uptick in public optimism, nor a surge of euphoria on Wall Street, nor the "invisible hand of the marketplace" sprinkling pixie dust will bring back the Olympian days of 2005, when the wise men of Washington and Wall Street knew the force of gravity was just a myth believed in by those embittered prophets of doom whose only joy in life is fantasizing the fall of their wealthy betters. It does not matter a damn how many dollars our present day believers of neoliberal tall tales, President Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner, pour into the hole in the ground where the crash occurred, a bean stalk, twining skyward towards a golden, debt-negating goose, will not flower forth.

Fortunately, when false convictions fall, it is possible for a leveling of sanity to prevail. But there can be no more hubristic flights borne on waxen wings. No more multibillion dollar confidence scams from Wall Street. No more smash and grab imperial wars. No more tea parties for the dim and deranged. There is the banality of evil, and then there is the evil of banality. Both, the present era has produced in abundance. From about the late nineteen-seventies to the present, The United States all but ceased manufacturing products and went into the business of manufacturing marketplace hype, baseless fears, and illusionary enemies. Due to this economic and cultural derangement, a dark tower of self-imprisoning delusions has circumscribed our nation's fate. Is it any wonder the quintessential dark lord of the darkest tower, Dick Cheney, will not exit the scene?

And what will foster real change? Not pleasing sound bites and rousing oratory from President Obama, then a continuance of many of the pernicious policies of his criminal predecessors. Conversely, the iron gates of Hell must crash closed behind us. The absence of light must grow so unbearable to us that we're willing to ask how is it we arrived in this place and become willing to challenge our most cherished concepts about ourselves and our place in the scheme of things. That is the sort of "indefinite detention" the nation could use. What is needed is the audacity of hopelessness.

President Obama and the Democratic Congress could have ridden a wave of public discontent towards meaningful reform, but instead they have hugged the shore. And they seem to be surveying the property, scouting locations to build beach house retreats for their elitist benefactors and the militarist fantasists whose tsunami-sized arrogance wrought the present destruction in the first place.

Meanwhile, right-wing radio haters, like penned dogs, bark into the empty air of their meaningless day. Daily, we negotiate our way through the encompassing banalities and casual brutalities of soft oligarchy, as beneath it all churns the nebulous rage of the powerless that creates an audience for the likes of Beck, Hannity, and Limbaugh.

It is high season for those virtuosos of displaced anger, because not only the nation's treasure, but its élan vital, has been squandered inflating the bubble-borne vanities of the ultra-wealthy up to the point of economic immolation. The elite have perpetrated an act of catastrophic clownishness so massive that it has left the rest of us stunned, and left to pick amid the debris of our exploded hopes. Bur hopes do not die pretty. Once dead, they do not rise like the redeemer gods of myth; instead, they stagger about, rotting and snarling like B-movie mummies. They leave us with our mouths tasting of ash. Our hearts choked by dry thistle.

Yet the buffoons of Wall Street and the killer clowns of our militarized Disneyland strut and swagger past the smoking ruins they left behind after their high-end looting spree. In their plundering, the only thing they didn't steal for themselves was any sense of self-awareness. Or is self-awareness necessary when you're obscenely rewarded for your narcissistic follies? What motivation would a high-chair tyrant have to modify his self-centeredness when he is shielded from the consequences of his bratty machinations? Why become an honest actor in the realm of human events when one can strut through life with a con artist's inexplicable sense of entitlement?

And what about the rest of us? The financial elite, by means of their bagman in the Executive Branch and Congress, continue to plunder our hopes for a meaningful future byway of that legal larceny popularly known as the bailout, i.e., the latest transfer of wealth from the bottom upward. This is why the buffoonish tea-bagger types hoard their resentments. All they've been left with is a heap of fragmented hatreds. Those toxic baubles they shore against reality.

Tragically, when not addressed, fear and resentment will increase in intensity and can become an exponentially growing feedback loop of paranoid rage. At present, such a process has created that haunted forest of the airwaves known as right-wing talk radio. It is the voice of anger feeding off of itself, and it seems dangerously close to reaching the point of hypertrophic breakdown. It is the audio analog of a belief system in exponential decay ... The more the rot increases in the system the more Glen Beck babbles and weeps. It is physically manifested in the cataclysmic ecosystem of Rush Limbaugh's repulsive bulk ... his corpulent carcass is the morbid bloat of unregulated capitalism.

Heracles and the Lernean hydra
image from flickr.com by Eva the Weaver

Right-wing hatred is a many headed hydra that feeds on fear and desperation. It cannot be fought by attacking its spindling heads, each of its hissing mouths dripping with black poison. Instead, one must make thrusts at the noxious heart of the raging beast. But one cannot know where the heart of an external monster beats without suffering the agonies of one's own. Accordingly, one must allow one's heart to be broken. And don't look to Barack Obama's bland charm to mend it. Because the honest grief of the heart provides a point of reference, a foundation of knowledge, as to why the monster is inconsolable in its wounded fury; hence, this provides a strategic starting point as to how to fight it.

And that is why we must release the photographs of torture. Moreover, we must bring public ignominy upon the respectable psychopaths in high places who mandated these policies, plus bring a leveling of shame upon the high-flying, highchair tyrants of high finance who exploded the global economy. Our ugliness must be public like a frog. The nasty secrets must be revealed; the mortifying pictures gazed upon. Our stomachs should seize up in revulsion. The ordeal must exact such a degree of revulsion within us that we will never again allow these despicable practices to transpire on our watch.

There is a stench of putrefaction rising from beneath our feet. We must uncover the corpses laid under by empire. Being placated by Barrack Obama's bland charm -- in the same manner we were cowed by George W. Bush's infantile petulance, amused by Bill Clinton's brilliant, bad boy seductions, and drugged by Ronald Reagan's stupefying 1940's Hollywood bromides -- will only defer the reckoning and render us ignorant stooges in the impersonal sweep of history. As a people, we have a choice: We can be strengthened by embracing uncomfortable truths, or we can grow enervated and enfeebled by pushing them away.

But sadly, Obama is attempting the tried and tested political trick -- used effectively by Washington hacks from Watergate ("Our long national nightmare is over") to Iran-Contra ("We cannot have another failed presidency") -- of inducing the uniquely American trait of Instant Amnesia that has, in the past, allowed the empire to stagger on, repeatedly committing variations of the same crimes, then coddling and protecting the same variety of corrupt elitists responsible, and thereby, reducing the Constitution to tatters and rendering the rule of law rubble.

But this time, the rot is too deep, the pathology too systemic. Obama's placebo presidency will not stem the hypertrophic decay. Granted, it was good to evict the previous, psychotic tenants from the property (Although Dick Cheney seems to be stalking the place with his obsessive, media drive-bys.) but that does nothing to repair the collapsing foundation of the structure, its core eaten away by an infestation of anti-democratic termites. Rather than addressing the core issue, the deterioration of the rights and liberties granted by the U.S. Constitution, President Obama is wallpapering over the rot wrought by the national security state's termite hive mind of authoritarian appetites, that has been, silently, and hidden by darkness, gnawing the house of state to sawdust.

Again our choice: Either open up the decay within the system to the light of day and start the process of rebuilding and renewal, or allow the republic-ravening pestilence to continue unchallenged, hence unabated, and let the nation go bughouse crazy as the house comes down around us to the strains of the insect-brain stridulations of Beck, Hannity, and Limbaugh.

Phil Rockstroh, a self-described, auto-didactic, gasbag monologist, is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at: philangie2000 @ yahoo.com or visit his site at http://www.philrockstroh.com

In the 100 days press conference (April 30, 2009), President Obama responded to Jake Tapper's question "Torture is a violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions. Do you believe that the previous administration sanctioned torture?" was a follows (transcript courtesy of The Huffington Post) :

What I've said -- and I will repeat -- is that waterboarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it is torture. I don't think that's just my opinion; that's the opinion of many who've examined the topic. And that's why I put an end to these practices.

I am absolutely convinced it was the right thing to do, not because there might not have been information that was yielded by these various detainees who were subjected to this treatment, but because we could have gotten this information in other ways, in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are.

I was struck by an article that I was reading the other day talking about the fact that the British during World War II, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees. And Churchill said, "We don't torture," when the entire British -- all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat.

And then the reason was that Churchill understood, you start taking short-cuts, over time, that corrodes what's -- what's best in a people. It corrodes the character of a country.

And -- and so I strongly believed that the steps that we've taken to prevent these kinds of enhanced interrogation techniques will make us stronger over the long term and make us safer over the long term because it will put us in a -- in a position where we can still get information.

In some cases, it may be harder, but part of what makes us, I think, still a beacon to the world is that we are willing to hold true to our ideals even when it's hard, not just when it's easy.

At the same time, it takes away a critical recruitment tool that Al Qaida and other terrorist organizations have used to try to demonize the United States and justify the killing of civilians.

And it makes us -- it puts us in a much stronger position to work with our allies in the kind of international, coordinated intelligence activity that can shut down these networks.

So this is a decision that I'm very comfortable with. And I think the American people over time will recognize that it is better for us to stick to who we are, even when we're taking on an unscrupulous enemy.

I would agree with President Obama that the use of torture and the abuse of prisoners "erodes our character." However, I strongly disagree with his seemingly tacit acceptance of the framing that torture is an efficient way of getting information. In using the word "shortcuts" in relationship to torture, he is essentially saying: "There are two ways of getting necessary information from a prisoner. There are legal interrogation methods, and there is torture. Torture will get to the information quicker, but we are too good a people to use it." In other words, there are times when torture may be used.

This perception is reinforced by Obama's repeated response to the Bush administration use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" as a "mistake." In other words, "There is a place and a time for torture, they just made a poor choice."

In the press conference analysis by Olbermann and Maddow, Maddow captures some key points of concern by stating:

I thought his (Obama's) framing of the issue was surprising. He was sort of accepting (I thought) of the sort of Jack Bauer (of the Fox show 24) Dick Cheney framing of the issue in a way that I think liberals will be very disappointed in.

The video clip below is a shortened version from the YouTube video at Olbermann & Maddow Disagree With Obama On Torture! First 100 Days Press Conference.

The questions, the discussion, to this point in time, have focused around the policies and practices of the Bush administration in relationship to torture. In that regard, Obama has consistently reiterated his preference (and one assumes the pressure being applied) is to "move forward" and not address the past. While such an approach essentially leaves future permission for the acceptability of a President ordering torture if he/she feels it necessary, it does not address a newly emerging issue. Namely that the abuse and torture of prisoners within the care of the United States is still going on.

According to a new report by Jeremy Scahill - "Little Known Military Thug Squad Still Brutalizing Prisoners at Gitmo Under Obama" from 5/15/09, Immediate Reaction Force (IRF) or Emergency Reaction Force (ERF) teams are still being employed at Guantánamo. Known as "Extreme Repression Force" inside the Guantánamo facility, these units and methods are still operating under the Obama administration.

"The IRF team is intended to be used primarily as a forced-extraction team, specializing in the extraction of a detainee who is combative, resistive, or if the possibility of a weapon is in the cell at the time of the extraction," according to a declassified copy of the Standard Operating Procedures for Camp Delta at Guantánamo.

The characterization of IRF team action by "human rights lawyers, former prisoners and former IRF team members" is chilling:

"They are the Black Shirts of Guantánamo," says Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has represented the most Guantánamo prisoners. "IRFs can't be separated from torture. They are a part of the brutalization of humans treated as less than human."

Clive Stafford Smith, who has represented 50 Guantánamo prisoners, including 31 still imprisoned there, has seen the IRF teams up close. "They're goons," he says. "They've played a huge role."

Under the section of Scahill's article "IRF-ing Continues Under Obama" he states that the Center for Constitutional Rights has found a continuing use of these teams under Obama. In fact, there seems to be an escalation in the use of such teams.

But one month later, the Center for Constitutional Rights released a report titled "Conditions of Confinement at Guantánamo: Still In Violation of the Law," which found that abuses continued. In fact, one Guantánamo lawyer, Ahmed Ghappour, said that his clients were reporting "a ramping up in abuse" since Obama was elected, including "beatings, the dislocation of limbs, spraying of pepper spray into closed cells, applying pepper spray to toilet paper and over-force feeding detainees who are on hunger strike," according to Reuters.

"Certainly in my experience there have been many, many more reported incidents of abuse since the inauguration," Ghappour said.

While the dominant media coverage of the U.S. torture apparatus has portrayed these tactics as part of a "Bush era" system that Obama has now ended, when it comes to the IRF teams, that is simply not true. "[D]etainees live in constant fear of physical violence. Frequent attacks by IRF teams heighten this anxiety and reinforce that violence can be inflicted by the guards at any moment for any perceived infraction, or sometimes without provocation or explanation," according to CCR.

In early February 2009, at least 16 men were on hunger strike at Guantánamo's Camp 6 and refused to leave their cells for "force feeding." IRF teams violently extracted them from their cells with the "men being dragged, beaten and stepped on, and their arms and fingers twisted painfully." Tubes were then forced down their noses, which one prisoner described as "torture, torture, torture."

In April, Mohammad al-Qurani, a 21-year-old Guantánamo prisoner from Chad managed to call Al-Jazeera and described a recent beating: "This treatment started about 20 days before Obama came into power, and since then I've been subjected to it almost every day," he said. "Since Obama took charge, he has not shown us that anything will change."

We cannot allow President Obama to continue to soft pedal the issue of torture. For all kinds of reasons, it is not acceptable to just "move forward." The conditions at Guantánamo (and given the systematized nature of abuse and torture that has been employed "in the past") likely continue elsewhere. The investigation of past policy and practice must be addressed, or current and future Presidents will use this precedent. Ongoing practices under the Obama administration are a continuation of those "mistakes" Obama points to.

I supported Obama. I voted for Obama. With all my heart I hope for a substantive change from Obama. However, I cannot give him - or any other politician - a free pass. People say, "Well, he's only been in office less than four months." Indeed this is true. However, every day of those four months, as Obama pursues a reframed "war on terror," people are being terrorized, traumatized, and killed IN OUR NAME. No politician, no matter how loved or hated, can get a free pass. As Howard Zinn urges in his article "Changing Obama's Mindset," it is we who must stand up. The citizens of a nation, any nation, are ultimately the ones who must "keep them honest." We are the one's who must lead, and we are the one's who must demand accountability.

Other people in other nations seem to know this, and to practice it. Whether it is the people of Burma living under essentially military totalitarianism, or the workers of France in the streets, other peoples know that they must stand up to the abuses and actions of their governments. We need to do the same. We need to speak out and shout out. We need to let our elected representatives know that we are watching them even more closely that they are watching us.

We were told over and over again by the Bush administration that we needed "boots on the ground" and to "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here." Well, we need "boots on the ground" by the citizens of the United States to reclaim and protect this nation. For if we do not fight for democracy and justice here, then any fighting anywhere else is nothing but imperialism.

More Information
Contact the President

Center for Constitutional Rights

Report: Current Conditions of Confinement at Guantánamo Still in Violation of the Law

The meeting at the White House on 6 May was fashioned to give the impression that the new US administration is both "serious" and "committed" about resolving the crises plaguing Afghanistan and Pakistan, which are imprudently reduced to that of a Taliban resurgence in the former, and a Taliban- inspired militant encroachment in the latter. Obama declared the meeting "extraordinarily productive" as the three nations, he said, are joined by the common goal to "defeat Al-Qaeda and its extremist allies in Pakistan and Afghanistan".

The skewed reading of reality didn't cease there. "I am pleased that these two men, elected leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan, fully appreciate the seriousness of the threat that we face and have reaffirmed their commitment to confronting it," Obama said. Both leaders listened solemnly as to reflect the level of their "seriousness".

For a fleeting moment one did in fact hope that Obama would bring with him more than a new language; rather, an entirely new take on US foreign policy. That hope is already in tatters.

"Obama conveyed the right message last week by hosting Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari. The meeting at the White House reflected the close link between Pakistan and the anti-Taliban struggle in Afghanistan. Indeed, nests of Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and other extremists sheltering on the Pakistani side of the border have become a grave threat to Pakistan itself," opined a Boston Globe editorial. But the Globe also counselled: "As recent events suggest, US military strikes against militants in both countries inevitably provoke anger and indignation among civilians."

This is as much as most US media -- and of course, the US administration -- are willing to concede as far as US responsibility in lethal wars, civil strife and militancy in both countries is concerned. In fact, if one is to delineate a major difference in the Bush and Obama administrations regarding Afghanistan, it's the fact that Obama apologises when the number of innocent civilians killed by US air strikes is too harrowing to ignore. Another notable difference is that he has committed 17,000 additional troops to the already war-devastated country, promising more bloodshed.

"I wish to express my personal regret and certainly the sympathy of our administration on the loss of civilian life in Afghanistan," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in her public apology to the killing of over 100 civilians in two Afghan villages 4 May. The apology, however, was obliquely qualified by the US military in comments made by Tech Sergeant Chuck Marsh on 9 May: "Reports also indicate that Taliban fighters deliberately forced villagers into houses from which they then attacked ANSF [Afghan National Security Forces] and Coalition forces," he said.

So, somehow, the US is still not responsible.

Now the war is flaring up in Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands of Pakistani families have fled the area, and the main town of Migora has been virtually emptied of its inhabitants. Reuters reported that, "Pakistani forces attacked Taliban fighters in the Swat Valley with artillery and helicopters after the United States called on the government to show its commitment to fighting militancy." One has to wonder who is giving the orders in this foolish war, anyway? Moreover, does Obama genuinely think that the Pakistani "Taliban" can be defeated using the exact approach that failed against the Taliban of Afghanistan?

The escalation in Pakistan is not entirely surprising, however, as US officials and media pundits have been adamant in advising the new administration that it was not Afghanistan that posed the greater threat to US interests, but Pakistan. It was similar to the attitude of neoconservatives in the Bush administration after its failure in Iraq. It was not Iraq that the US should have attacked, but Iran, they tirelessly parroted, hoping to generate yet another war.

What we are not told, however, is that unremitting US bombings of the utterly poor and neglected northern provinces of Pakistan have garnered untold animosity towards the US and its central government allies. It provoked, in some areas, total chaos and lawlessness, which in turn gave rise to the Pakistani "Taliban". History is repeating itself, but the US administration is taking no notice of the obvious pattern.

A Pakistan writer, Abd Al-Ghafar Aziz, wrote for Al-Jazeera's Arabic website: "Since the US attack on Afghanistan, the province [of Balochistan] has been accused of supporting terrorism and harbouring the leaders of Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Since then, US planes, especially drones, have been striking what it calls 'precious targets', resulting in the death of over 15,000 people." Aziz described the people of that region "like orphans without shelter, and without protection." Naturally, tribe leaders, militant groups and others moved to fill the gap.

If there is one outstanding similarity between the Afghanistan and Pakistan cases it is the fact the US is using the same flawed logic that responds to most delicate conflicts with bullets, whether those of its own or its allies. If the new administration is keenly interested in reversing the misfortunes of that region, it has to understand the uniqueness of every country and appreciate the untold harm inflicted on civilians by the US and other militaries. Only dialogue and truly respecting the sovereignty of Afghanistan and Pakistan can begin to stabilise the fractious situation.

There are an estimated one million Pakistanis already on the run in the northern and eastern parts of the country. They are threatened by fighting, hunger and all sorts of predators, including US drones circling overhead.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle" (Pluto Press, London).

The attacks on villages, and the (protested) attacks inside Pakistan, reflect that Obama is going to continue the disastrous policy of George Bush. Namely, that "collateral damage" is acceptable in the pursuit of "terrorists," and that the U.S. will engage in preemptive strikes inside another nation - even if that nation is reputedly an ally.

The result is that non-combatants are dead, and that this blood stains Obama's hands. It also signals to the world that Obama seems more than willing to continue the policies of U.S. military imperialism in pursuit of its goals.

It makes no difference to the families of the dead that Obama is an icon of "change" and "hope."

It makes no difference to a teetering Pakistani government when a new President is as cavalier about acknowledging its sovereignty than the old President. It sends the same message.

In both views it serves the interests of those opposed to U.S. policies and intervention, and will certainly recruit even more to the cause of those labeled as "terrorists" and "Taliban."

It further undermines the hold of the government of Pakistan, and it does so at a time that the threat of conflict (including nuclear conflict) is high between Pakistan and India.

But perhaps most importantly, and of long term impact, is that our shiny new President now has the blood of innocents on his hands. Of note, is that little has been made of this in the corporate press. Nothing has come out of the Administration regarding these attacks, the policies, or the issue of the deaths of innocents.

Maybe there is a "progressive" and an American resistance to "tarnishing" Obama. Well, he has done this himself. Regardless of what other good, what other positive steps he takes, he has the direct responsibility for the deaths he orders.

The situation we see in Gaza today is one that was escalated by Israel and particularly the decision-makers in government. We have a very short-term memory when it comes to daily reports of rocket attacks so we often forget important events in sequence that brought us to this point.

Israel and Hamas were at their most peaceful state in the history of their coexistence for five months this year. During the Egyptian-brokered truce, aggressive attacks plummeted and for the first time in years, the alarm sirens indicating incoming rocket attacks had largely fallen silent.

All of this changed, however, on Nov. 4. While the world was in awe at an American election, Israel launched an aerial strike killing four people in Gaza it claimed were digging a tunnel to smuggle weapons. Yet this, the largest violation of the truce, was swept under the rug by a tsunami of U.S. election coverage. Hamas responded with rockets, and then Israel quickly reapplied a tight blockade, bringing us back to the cycle of violence.

While the world was busy with Barack Obama's historic victory, those in charge in Israel were laying the foundation of a pre-election opportunity to flex their muscles before their electorate. This is not new in Israel; in fact, it is standard practice in a country where security is such an important concern. We may remember Ariel Sharon's visit to the sacred Temple Mount, in a swarm of armed guards, right before the election in 2001. The intifada, or Palestinian uprising, which ensued, led the Israeli electorate to choose a right-wing hard-liner like Sharon over Ehud Barak.

Hanging in the balance of this election strategy are the lives of 1.5 million people in Gaza, already desperate for a normal life, and thousands more on the Israeli side who are tired of rocket attacks.

Though few are talking about it, this may be the most significant series of events in the history of the conflict. The two-state solution is on the line in the next several years because of ever-changing realities on the ground.

If President-elect Barack Obama does not take quick control of mediating the peace process after he assumes office, peace will not come during his administration and the two-state solution may effectively be dead.

Now, in this critical point in transition the players involved must align in favor of reaching an agreement and this can only happen with a unified Palestinian partner.

If peace talks fail to get off the ground during an Obama administration, we will look back at this point in time, and this important sequence of events, and realize how things could have been different. There has never been a more important time than now for American intervention in this conflict.

There is no doubt Israelis should have the right to security, just as Palestinians should have the right to security, but the current situation is leading to a lack of security for both peoples long into the future.

What Israel learned from the 33-day war with Hezbollah in 2006 was that the quickest and most efficient way to end rocket fire was armistice. Israel had that with a cease-fire with Hamas, and this can be achieved again but it will take quick and direct American involvement.

The recipe to cease-fire is simple: All cross-border attacks must cease and all blockades must end. Perhaps several months ago the Egyptians had the leverage to broker an agreement, but the situation has escalated beyond that now. It's time for the United States to step in because the long-term stakes are much greater than the short-term goals of politicians in Israel or Hamas.

Obama's selection of Warren is a slap in the face to those who support equality for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people, and recognition of same-sex relationships.

Warren, who has made it a practice not to endorse candidates or political parties, wrote in October that the issue of gay marriage is not a political issue, but instead "a moral issue that God has spoken clearly about."

"For 5,000 years, every culture and every religion -- not just Christianity -- has defined marriage as a contract between men and women," Warren wrote in a newsletter to his congregation. "There is no reason to change the universal, historical definition of marriage to appease 2 percent of our population." (Mooney, CNN, 12/18/08)

While I would challenge Warren's claim that only 2% of the population is not heterosexual, that shouldn't matter when it comes to the rights of our population. Nor do I see extending equal rights to all of our citizens "appeasing" a minority population. One might argue that the political embrace of evangelical Christianity is also "appeasing," but we wouldn't want to go there would we?

In a June 2008 CounterPunch article, Jeff Sharlet says this of Rick Warren:

And yet, Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, and the business-friendly fundamentalism of the post-Christian Right era don't set off liberal alarms the way the pulpit pounders such as John Hagee, Pat Robertson, and James Dobson do. The irony is that the agenda of this new lifestyle evangelicalism is more far-reaching than that of the traditional Christian Right: the Christian Right wanted a seat at the table; lifestyle evangelicalism wants to build the table. It wants to set the very terms in which we imagine what's possible, and to that end it dispenses with terms that might scare off liberals. It's big tent fundamentalism - everybody in.

But the ultimate goals remain the same. True, Osteen steers clear of abortion for the most part, and Warren, every bit as opposed to homosexuality as Jerry Falwell was, prefers to talk about AIDS relief. But both men -- and the new evangelicalism as a movement -- continue to preach the merger of Christianity and capitalism pioneered three quarters of a century ago. On the surface, it's self-help; scratch, and it's revealed as a profoundly conservative ideology that conflates church and state, scripture and currency, faith and finance. There's a sense in which Buchman's vision of "God-controlled supernationalism" thrives today more surely than it ever did in the 1930s, a period of radical economic upheaval. Only, today we call it globalism.

After having eight years of evangelical power mongers in the Bush White House, are we now to expect more of the same with Obama? Are we being informed that the Obama presidency will continue the goals of the Christian Right in its domestic and international policy? There has been a lot of concern among so-called "progressives" about Obama's choices for leadership positions, but the tapping of Warren is perhaps the most disturbing decision so far.

Articles of Interest
12/05/2003. Chip Berlet & Nikhil Aziz. Right Web. Culture, Religion, Apocalypse, and Middle East Foreign Policy

10/11/2005. Brian MacQuarrie. Boston.com. Pastor rivets many without politics

By Rowan Wolf and published at Uncommon Thought Journal

12/23/2003. Apocalyptic belief and foreign policy

5/19/2005. Merging "Rights" In A Time of Fear.

11/04/2006. Haggard, Bush, and the Unholy Alliance