May 9, 2008, Political dividends
First, happy birthday to TD Dad.
And now... on with the opera. It seems that after the Koran desecration incidents and the forcefeeding of hunger striking detainees, the operation of GTMO was not exactly the most popular thing we were doing, in the eyes of the Pakistani public and media. Hence, the decision to post former GTMO commander Gen. Jay Hood to the embassy in Islamabad met with a great deal of derision and resistance, and, amidst that, has now been withdrawn by the U.S. government.
You will recall that after allegations of a Koran being flushed down a toilet at GTMO, riots broke out in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and around 17 people were killed in them. While those particular allegations were debunked. at least two accounts on this blog from soldiers serving there (Saar and Yee, both of whom served before Hood, btw) confirmed that the detainees' religion was certainly being disrespected at Guantanamo Bay.
In any event, our military liaison in Pakistan, home of both OBL and nuclear weapons, is kind of important. But apparently, our little project down Cuba way to show the rest of the world how tough we were was evidently more important, and hence, it seems, our government will have to chose someone without a GTMO taint to serve in Pakistan.
Just another day at the office, I suppose. Six and a half years and counting, if the office is Guantanamo Bay, and around 256 days left of the Bush Administration. Deep sighs all around.
May 8, 2008, Destroying the Village Party to Save It?
You know, I believe I have a certain familiarity with Hillary Clinton's personality insofar as she is 15 years older than I, to the day... we Scorpios are often maniacally loyal (think about why she stays with Bill) and maniacally driven (I've completed 18 marathons, despite a complete lack of physical talent, and I continue to write my blog, week in, week out, six and a half years on, despite a lack of particular literary talent or tremendous popularity among blog-readers, while Sen. Clinton continues to run for President, despite an obvious lack of political talent or popularity among voters).
There: I said it. She doesn't GET that her husband has more talent in his one little wagging finger than she has in her whole body (and Mark Penn's too). She became my fair state's junior senator solely on the strength of her famous husband. She somehow thought that being an otherwise underachieving back-bench senator and Bill's wife qualified her not only to run for President, but to win her party's nomination by acclimation. This led her to run a cynical and vapid campaign that just assumed that the nation's Democratic voters would be as forgiving and fawning over she and her famous husband's as New York voters were (in her decisive victories over political heavyweights Rick Lazio and John Spencer). Like George W. Bush, a man also in his current job because of a famous relative, Hillary actually believed that this nomination was hers, without having to earn it with actual voters. Which is why, presumably, she may well be living in a bubble where she actually believes that the battle for the Democratic nomination isn't over.
And let's talk about "35 years of experience". The thing is, Sen. Clinton's own experience is actually quite interesting, and quite unique, and in its own way, quite compelling. Something tells me there weren't many women attorneys working on the Watergate investigation committee, or at the Rose Law firm, where she was a partner for many years. The fact is, being a law partner (in the Deep South, no less) among legal and corporate barracudas is actually pretty good experience in its own right for a prospective commander in chief. And she could take credit for "participating" in the Bill Clinton Administration, though admit that not accomplishing anything on health care (other than costing her own party Congress) "was one of those humbling experiences that make me understand the system like no one else". And of course, being First Lady of a state and of the nation, and serving as a Senator from a fawning state which doesn't demand that she actually do anything. But she didn't run on her own record: she ran on Bill's (perhaps he's paying for all this).
And we might forget that, on policy, Sen. Clinton has hardly made friends among traditional Democratic primary voters. Among other things, she voted for the Iraq war, and as to legislative achievements, the only major bill her name has ever been attached to remains "Bill CLINTON".
All of this serves as my wind-up for Sen. Clinton's unbelievably blunt and downright racist statements conveyed in her USA Today interview, to wit:
"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.""There's a pattern emerging here," she said.
A pattern indeed: that of a spoil-sport loser now clearly willing to destroy her own party to satisfy her own ambition. The point has been made by others of just how outrageous it is for her to ostensibly write off Blacks and college graduates (Sen. Obama, as both is presumably doubly written off), so I won't go there. I will simply repeat a point I have seen made by others: she is now asking the
working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, Democrats in West Virginia and Kentucky, states where Democrats have a shot in the fall, to get used to voting against their own nominee because he's a Black man.
And, perhaps, in the year 2008, enough Americans really do still have sufficient racism in their hearts so that they can't bring themselves to vote for a Black man, any Black man, even one with a White mother, raised by his White grandparents, who attended private schools including an Ivy League College and attained the presidency of the Harvard Law Review, to the point where that Black man can't win a Presidential election. And that may well be a sad fact of life.
But to hear that kind of sentiment from the mouth of a candidate for President from the Democratic Party (let alone the wife of "America's First Black President" and someone running to the "the first" __ president herself) is just something none of us should abide. Period. I fervently hope-- no, I demand, that the remaining super-delegates get off their duffs and take this away from this party-destroying race-baiter immediately, before Sen. Clinton achieves her goal of ultimate burning her own party's nominee with her "if I can't have it no one can" sentiment.
There. I said that too.
May 6, 2008, Good night Irene Hillary?
In today's last-big primaries left (187 pledged delegates up for grabs of the 404 remaining) day, Sen. Barack Obama scored a decisive victory (around 15 points or more) in North Carolina and Sen. Hillary Clinton holds around a 4 point lead in Indiana with around 85% of precincts in, as of 23:00 "fast time" (EDT). Insofar as North Carolina is significantly bigger than Indiana, and insofar as Sen. Obama's margin of victory there will be greater than Sen. Clinton's margin in Indiana, assuming she even wins it at all, Obama will improve on his around 150 pledged delegate (and 135 or so overall delegate) lead, with only 217 pledged delegates left for grabs, in contests in Kentucky, West Virginia and Puerto Rico (likely for Clinton), and in Montana, South Dakota and Oregon (likely for Obama)... i.e., they'll all net out or come pretty close to doing so, and Obama's lead will hold... and superdelegates will start breaking in droves... for Obama.
The game is called "delegates;" telling us that if you count Florida and Michigan, (and only count White people at that) that Hillary "actually won" the "real" popular vote... or that some poll tells us Clinton will do better against McCain in selected counties in Florida and Ohio... really tells us nothing. If Clinton supporters want to make the case that the Rev. Wright has rendered Sen. Obama unelectable, apparently, the voters in both North Carolina and Indiana don't seem to be accepting that, given the respective margins tonight, which, as noted above, will give Obama a net delegate pick-up, despite "Hillary's momentum" and wall to wall Rev. Wright coverage on broadcast media (and of course, the shameless pandering on the gasoline tax).
If we accept polls that show that raw racism is something that Democrats should respect (i.e., evidently, a significantly higher number of Clinton voters say they would not vote for Obama than vice versa, and, as their policies are pretty much indistinguishable, I think we know why they would say this), then the Democratic Party may as well start selling the furniture at DNC headquarters, because it will no longer have a reason to be, nor would it ever again be assured of its only reliable base (hint: it's neither unions, nor working class White people).
So... while this election may be too important for Democrats to lose, if it involves "winning" by elevating the candidate in distant second place in delegates, "winning" may well be a Pyrrhic victory: the end of the Democratic Party in any meaningful sense. Not that Sen. Clinton (and certainly Pres. Clinton) seem to care a jot about this. If the argument that Obama-- a man who was a state legislator just three and a half years ago, is unelectable, then the answer to that problem might well be "Al Gore" (Gore-Obama?), but it is surely not the candidate with every conceivable advantage of name recognition, organization and fund-raising prowess and a popular husband ex-President to boot who still couldn't beat the man who was a state legislator three years ago (because she ran one of the stupidest campaigns in the history of the world).
Does Sen. Clinton have every right to soldier on? Yessirree, and frankly, if I were her, I might well myself, because this may well be her last opportunity to run, and certainly, she may never be this close again. Of course, it's quite possible that her campaign is broke (again). And superdelegates are now going to start committing in droves, insofar as, while there are nominally 5 or 6 more contests, they are, combined, barely more than tonight's total, which included an Indiana that had many demographic similarities to Clinton-strongholds Ohio and Pennsylvania, and yet, it might well only be Rush Limbaugh's operation chaos that pushes her over the top there.
Is primary season and the race for the Democratically nomination technically or mathematically over? Not by a long-shot. Is it over? Yes, boys and girls, I'm afraid that it's over.
Hey, who knows? If Sen. Obama can wrap this up in the next few days, he might even have time to come to our Columbia '83 class reunion in three weeks time. No... crazy talk on my part. But unless Sen. Obama is videotaped on a boat called Monkey Business, or shows up on the client list of the Emperors Club, or some other outrageous scandal that involves sex, any doubt that he will be the Democratic nominee has by and large just been removed.
Update: It's around 00 45 on 6 May, and Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice tells us that votes are still being counted in Lake County, home of Gary, IN, and turnout was so high, that Obama might pull out a win in Indiana. If this is indeed the case, then, without mincing words, it's all over tonight. Stay tuned; follow along with Joe and TMV to keep up; Joe's in San Diego, so he'll be up a bit longer than I, who end my blogging evening... right now. G'night everybody!
May 4, 2008, Shining Light on the Darkess at Caribbean Noon
America's favorite gulag in the news.
We'll start with this Nicholas Kristof op-ed in the Grey Lady, comparing and contrasting the Zimbabwean legal system with the American legal black hole down GTMO way (hint: Zimbabwe comes off better). Note that Kristof devotes several paragraphs to our friend Candace and her client, Abdul al-Ghizzawi, whose plight we are quite familiar with.
[We can best be summarize his plight as "he may be dying of chronic liver disease that the government would rather not treat because it has no idea how to treat so it's all al-Ghizzawi's fault; for fun, some members of the medical staff told al-Ghizzawi that he had AIDS, though they later denied it; the military categorically refuses to release al-Ghizzawi's medical records, and a senior military intel officer assigned to al-Ghizzawi's original Combatant Status Review Tribunal ("CSRT") found that the evidence on which al-Ghizzawi is held is 'garbage' and hence he should be released but the government decided that a do-over CSRT was required until it came up with the answer that it wanted, a situation troubling enough for the United States Supreme Court to grant an extraordinarily unusual motion for reargument in the Boumediene case." Candace has filed an historic original habeas corpus petition with the U.S. Supreme Court for al-Ghizzawi, and the decision on that petition may well come down at the same time as the long-awaited Boumediene case.]
Kristof's column also mentions newly released Sami al-Hajj. Our friend Andy tells us about Sami (in a series of posts)... in short, al-Jazeera camerman Sami al-Hajj has been transferred to Sudan from GTMO after his six year ordeal (including an attempt to participate in the hunger strike responded to with force-feeding); Sami is anything but reticent concerning his treatment, as well as our government's efforts to try to turn him into a mole against al-Jazeera, probably the most prominent independent media in the Arab world (and with whom the Bush Administration, and the President in particular, may have been obsessed) and describes his treatment as nothing short of torture.
Could we finally be seeing momentum on this issue of the United States's... problematic treatment of what should be its humanely treated prisoners of war? Maybe, but as I often say, that's probably not how you bet.
The Bush Administration has 260 days to go. That's around the number of men left at GTMO. We will not be seeing an average of one a day released; at best, this President will release no more than a few dozen more, and hand off at least 200 or so prisoners to the next President, with kangaroo-court-commissions proceeding for the so-called "worst of the worst," who notably include Salim Hamdan ("OBL's motor pool mechanic and occasional driver") and Omar Khadr (a 15 year old boy captured in a combat situation, and held in abysmal conditions ever since, including the deliberate decision not to treat his combat wounds).
In the end, there may well be some kind of Nuremberg-like scenario at the end of Guantanamo and the war on terror, but if there is any justice in the world (something your talking dog is at best agnostic on), it might come off a wee bit differently from how the Bush Administration envisions it. This has been... "Shining Light on the Darkness at Caribbean Noon".
May 4, 2008, Guamentum!
By 7 votes, Barack Obama has won the Guam caucuses, a crucial harbinger of popular opinion going into "Biggest of What's Left" Tuesday in North Carolina and Indiana. Both Clinton and Obama pick up two delegates each, with Obama holding on to a projected 136 or so delegate lead.
While the much vaunted "momentum" appears to have shifted away from him as a result of Sen. Clinton's win in Pennsylvania, and of course, the media's endless fascination with having an angry Black man available to show over and over again (even if he isn't Sen. Obama himself, Rev. Wright is "close enough")... if anyone actually buys the importance of primaries, caucuses and the delegates selected thereby... Obama is still ahead, and "plan A", coming into the convention with a lead, still seems a go.
Stay tuned.
May 3, 2008, Vox parvi populi
Now that the kids, tweens and teens of the world come to Daddy's talking dog blog to see pictures of the same people they see on t.v. (and there doesn't seem to be anyone at all interested in Daddy's political ravings... what else is new...) it's time, once again, to get all "controversial" and give you... the Miley Cyrus Vanity Fair photograph above, in which a 15 year old girl pretends to be a statue, and I ask... what is the big deal?
[Some of you might also be asking what I'm doing up so late on a Saturday night... well, Daddy has to get up early to run somewhere tomorrow, so carpe diem! (Daddy says that means "seize the day" or evening as the case may be; he says he's going to save a fortune on a Latin tutor, simply by having me eventually recite every Latin platitude he knows in this column.)]
Anyway, Miley Cyrus is not, as far as I know, a porcelain doll. She is, in fact, an android made out of really authentic looking flesh-like plastic and stuff, and not a porcelain doll at all. But, as Daddy says, talking about Miley means we're not talking about the Rev. Wright (whoever that is). Daddy!!!!
This has been... carpe diem e pluribus unum Brittania est parva insula VOX! PARVI! POPULI!!!!!
May 1, 2008, More Wright Stuff
Well, well... consistent with my post below, former GOP candidate Mike Huckabee makes a similar point to mine: the Rev. Jeremiah Wright needs Obama to lose, to justify his own anger (and though Huck didn't say it, I will... to justify his own existence as a street corner demagogue).
Of course, Obama's bleeding in the polls continues, as, naturally, working class White people may now have that all-important excuse not to pull the lever for a Black man (even if, as is likely, Obama loses Indiana but still wins much larger North Carolina). Well played, Senator Clinton. And Rev. Wright. Still, Obama will still pull into the convention with a significant pledged delegate lead, barring catastrophe. Obviously, it matters a great deal how significant that lead is.
We will see how this plays out; obviously, Rev. Wright has been a problem for a while, as noted in my post of January 17th, a TD friend (she knows who she is) suggested that Wright was going to become a big liability for Obama... and indeed, he certainly has. OTOH, there's still plenty of primary season to go (over a month), and Sen. Clinton may well close the pledged delegate (and raw vote) gaps, and may even "make the case" to enough super-delegates to pull this one out. Though that would be taking it away from the voters, for a change, at least, she would be playing by the same rules as everyone else.
Stay tuned.
May 1, 2008, Mission Accomplished: Fifth Anniversary
April 30, 2008, The Most Important Problem Facing America Today
Clearly, as one of the commenters to this Wonkette piece notes, that most important problem facing America today... is the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and thank God that two patriots like Hillary Clinton and Bill O'Reilly can find common ground on it.
[Despite my pretensions to the contrary, I just don't have a black-belt in that particular school of snark. We concede that we are not worthy.]
April 29, 2008, Media priorities
Regular readers know that with the exception of many Sunday mornings when I turn over blog command to the young 'un, and post pictures of teen and tween celebrities, that this blog is completely out of touch with what actually constitutes matters of actual importance. Hence, I remain perplexed why it was such a major story (and why it was so critically necessary for) Senator Obama to express his dismay and denouncement of an egomaniacal local demagogue. Spiritual advisor to Obama perhaps, but friend, clearly not. Otherwise, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright would have done his congregant a big favor and, in blog parlance, STFU. Instead, the Rev. Wright went on the kind of media spectacle that seemed almost designed to give all street corner demagogues a bad name. Then again, that's just it isn't it. Think, for example, of Wright's fellow street corner demagogue Rev. Al Sharpton, and his denouncement of Sen. Obama, for having the audacity not to call for violence in the aftermath of the verdict in the tragic Sean Bell shooting case. [Now Andy Sullivan-- he tells us what's important.]
Those of us awake in New York are well aware that Sen. Clinton frequently courts Rev. Sharpton for political support, and perhaps even more is going on, but it seems clear that the Rev. Sharpton and the Rev. Wright and presumably the Rev. Jackson and the rest of the race-based ambulance chaser demagogue set certainly might fear that their usefulness would be drastically reduced (if not more likely eliminated) should Barack Obama be sworn in as President of the United States: an America where a man like Barack Obama can become President is just not the kind of place that many of them would like.
Hey, doesn't this seem like an important story, TD? It's not like the media is covering it quite this way, of course; much better to portray everything as part of an ongoing primary horse-race (notwithstanding that Sen. Clinton can no longer overtake Sen. Obama in pledged delegates, and must resort to some other mechanism that involves taking this away from rightful Democratic primary voters and caucus-attenders, but hey... details!) Oh-- and the media is hellbent on making sure that race-based stereotypes and visceral reactions stay with us, lest, we, you know, grow the f*** up as a country. And so, we get to see the Rev. Wright in living color[ed]. As well as, of course, hearing about the importance of flag lapel pins (even as the questioners themselves weren't wearing them!)
Because, let's face it. If we weren't paying attention to things like this, we might notice things about Sen. McCain, the man who has already told us he knows nothing about the economy (which, we would hope is an exaggeration...). We might notice things about his supposed strength in other matters... what Hillary Clinton has told us is his "crossing of the commander in chief threshold" (to the Oval Office bathroom, perhaps?): his supposed expertise and experience in foreign affairs. We might notice that Fareed Zakaria tells us that, by trying to re-create a Cold War with both Russia and China (and creating a "league of democracies"), the Senator-Who-Sold-Us-Out-On-Torture(TM) may well be bat-s*** crazy on foreign policy too.
And for that matter, why should any of us pay attention to the fact that the former Guantanamo Bay military prosecutor Col. Morris "Moe" Davis just testified for the defense, with respect to the insistence of his overlords that he rush cases to trial for their political value (rather than their prosecutorial merit). Oh, he was also "ordered" not to have any acquittals!
Hey, TD, next thing you'll be suggesting that the House Judiciary Committee might be wanting to subpoena John Ashcroft and John Yoo and David Addington over their refusal to testify on those charming torture memos and other things they wrote! To coin a phrase, "heh".
No, no, no... none of this is important... except for the Rev. Wright part (and the flag lapel pins, of course). Go back to whatever it was that's on t.v., and don't trouble yourselves with any of this. This has been... Media priorities.
Time Machine Update: The Unseen Editor suggests a look at this rather prescient NRO piece; if recent events represent Sen. Obama indeed heeding it, he will have clearly moved into the realm of Macchiavellian Grandmaster.
April 27, 2008, Doubting Thomas
What Thomas Nephew said.
April 24, 2008, TD Blog Interview with Wesley Powell
Wesley Powell is a partner in the New York City office of the law firm of Hunton & Williams, specializing in antitrust law and securities litigation. Mr. Powell represents a number of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as well as a number who have previously been released. On April 4, 2008, I had the privilege of interviewing Mr. Powell by telephone. What follow are my interview notes, corrected as appopriate by Mr. Powell.
The Talking Dog: I'll start with my usual first question, where were you on September 11, 2001?
Wesley Powell: I was in the very building I'm in now, New York's Met Life Building. At that time, I was in another firm (now Clifford Chance). On that morning, I was on my way into the office, but by the time I had arrived, they were stopping people from going up to the elevator-- this is not only a landmark building, but there are no other high buildings around it, so they stopped people going in.
I managed to get into offices that the law firm had in a nearby building, and I stood in amazement and watched, and then walked home. I live downtown, near 14th Street, and my phone service and water were cut off for a while, I went home, and then pretty much did what everybody else did that day.
The Talking Dog: Can you tell me the names, nationalities and current whereabouts of your Guantanamo clients?
Wesley Powell: I have four clients who are still being detained-- three Yemeni nationals and one Libyan. The Libyan is Ismael Bakush, now held in Camp 5. The one Yemeni I regularly meet is Ahmed Hussein, who is now in Camp 6. I have two clients-- this is not uncommon-- I don't know all that much about them because they have never agreed to meet me. They are the Yemenis Al-Shamrani and Al-Bahlul...
The Talking Dog: Am I correct that he [Al-Bahlul] is the man charged by the military commissions who has refused all assistance of counsel, including his military counsel (Major Tom Fleener, I believe)?
Wesley Powell: That's one and the same. Al-Bahlul has expressly made many efforts NOT to have military counsel. He made a pro se motion to fire his counsel, and he has always protested against the proceedings and refused to participate in them. I have remained his habeas counsel of record; I understand that he is back in front of the Commissions on some version of charges. I have made efforts to find out if new military counsel has been formally appointed, but I have not yet been advised of that.
None of my other clients have been charged, and none have been cleared for release either, though there has been very little correlation between the "cleared for release" list and those actually released.
My former clients are the Yemeni, Issa M Al-Jayfi, who was released in 2006 with a group of 6 men returned to Yemen. I also represented 3 French nationals, two of whom were released in 2004 before lawyers were even permited to visit Guantanamo. I did meet the third (Ridouane Khalid)... I was in the second or third group of lawyers permitted to visit GTMO. The other French cleints are Mourad Bechellali and Nizar Sassi, both of whom have written books about their detentions (with co-authors) and who were also represented by a well-known French lawyer in their criminal proceedings in France.
The Talking Dog: Can you tell me a bit about your clents that you find significant, such as your impressions of them or their particular backgrounds?
Wesley Powell: With respect to the Yemenis, I have now met with the families of the three Yemenis still at Guantanamo, in Yemen last year. Hussein is the client I have the most contact with-- I have met him around seven times. He was only 16 or 17 when captured. He had left his home in Yemen's Hadrahmout Province-- also the ancestral home of the bin Ladens. His father is a well-known businessman, and having met him, I can tell you is a very nice man. Hussein went to Pakistan to study at 15 or 16, and to do relief work. While there, he went to Afghanistan a couple of times. The second time he went there, after 9-11, he and those he was with took off back for Pakistan. They crossed the border, and ended up in a school where a whole lot of people were rounded up-- the Salafiyah Sschool, I believe. He is a very bright guy-- he has learned a lot of English, and although I use a translator for technical legal details of his case, I can now converse with him. He has not seen his parents since he was 14, 15 years old. He has lost a lot of weight-- largely beecause he doesn't like the food at GTMO (and it disagrees with him). Otherwise, he is in decent health, and maintains a good mental state. He is genuinely likeable.
Al-Jayfi -- who has been released-- is a big, heavy set, boisterous man, who I would describe even as a funny guy. He is now around 30. He was captured in Pakistan, with a different group from Hussein. Interestingly, he had left Yemen with a group of friends to get out of a conservative Islamic culture... he wanted to see the world. He was held on the thinnest of allegations, so it did not surprise me that he was among the first Yemenis to be released. I met him in Yemen; since his release, he has gotten married, and appears to be getting on with his life.
Shamrani has four children. I met them, as well as his father and brother... they came and met us for a press conference in Yemen. Al-Shamrani has been a long term hunger striker. I have kept on eye out on his condition, to the extent that is possible (as he does not wish to meet me).
Al-Bahlul also has children; I have met his father and cousin. I generally don't know much more about al-Bahlul, as, again, he does not wish to meet me (and has been most emphatic about trying to represent himiself).
The Libyan, Ismael is in his late 30's... around my age. He fled Libya, fearing persecution from Qaddafi. His brother was back in Libya, and he fears that Qaddafi has killed his brother. He certainly doesn't want to return to Libya, and I've been working on trying to get him asylum, as well as to ensure that our government does not return him to Libya.
With respect to my French clients, I have spoken to both Khalid and his wife. He is around 40 now. At the time of his capture, he had just married his wife. She went to visit her family in Algeria, and he went with friends to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He found it intolerable to be a devout Muslim in Paris (constantly seeing, for example, billboards of scantily clad people) and he wanted to go to a more religious place. He was in Afghanistann right after 9-11, and he fled to Pakistan with his friends and was captured. I have talked to him. I don't know if he has any children. He was convicted in France under their anti-terrorism laws using evidence provided by the United States military, but I don't know the status of that proceeding. I can tell you that having seen both the classified and unclassified record, I don't see on what basis he could have been arrested or charged. He may end up with "time served in Guantanamo" as his sentence. I will have to check with his French lawyer as to his status. France has been just about the most aggressive Western country with respect to its anti-terrorism activities, and has a very powerful examining magistrate devoted full time to terrorism prosecutions.
The Talking Dog: We're a little more than a year or so after the unfortunate remarks made by former Defense Dept. official Cully Stimson. Can you tell me if the Government's periodic ostracism of pro bono habeas counsel has effected your legal practice in any way, and how your Guantanamo representations have effected your overall legal practice?
Wesley Powell: Cully Stimson, if anything, proved ultimately beneficial to habeas counsel. My firm was among those listed in the Wall Street Journal editorial and then on the radio show on which Stimson spoke. The management of my own firm went out of their way to commend me for my representations, and were very offended that this guy would try to intimidate firms into dropping these clients. There are a number of prominent Republicans in my firm and the team I work in, and they have all been very supportive and offended by this as well. So, Stimson's remarks, if anything, caused a rallying around of the habeas counsel, at least as far as I am aware. No one has had a negative word to me; my corporate clients have been very supportive and think it is cool that I am doing this work. Other than taking time that might otherwise be spent for more business development and more billable hours, this has not effected the remainder of my practice. It's one of those things-- we all make personal sacrifices to be in this profession to begin with-- taking on this kind of representation just means more of them.
The Talking Dog: You have recently been part of a group of lawyers that signed a statement on behalf of Yemeni detainees suggesting that they will not be tortured should they be returned to Yemen; can you comment on that?
Wesley Powell: This comes out of a longstanding issue with the Yemeni government that needs to be resolved in order to get the diplomatic motion necessary to return our Yemeni clients home. Around a month or so ago, a number of us went to the Yemeni embassy and met with the Yemeni ambassador to the United States. Yemen's concern is that previously, when efforts were made to return detainees to Yemen, the American government would assert that "the lawyers have said their clients fear torture." These were assertions made a long time ago in some cases, and to a good degree, mischaracterize the actual assertions made... The bottom line is that we conveyed to the Yemenis that at this point, all of our Yemeni detainee clients want nothing more than to go home to Yemen, period.
The Talking Dog: I understand that you were also recently part of a group of Guantanamo habeas lawyers who signed a statement suggesting that of the three remaining candidates for President (my college classmate) Sen. Barack Obama appeared to represent the best hope for alleviating problems caused by American detention policy. Can you comment on that?
Wesley Powell: Of the Presidential candidates, I was already supporting Obama's candidacy anyway. The habeas attorneys have done a lot of lobbying of members of Congress, and Obama's office has been the most supportive, about understanding the conditions necessary to improve matters. While she has come around of late, Hillary Clinton was much more resistant, at least intially, though as I said, she has recently appeared to be more receptive to our position, she seemed not particularly eager to go out on a limb on this. I do note that a large percentage of the habeas lawyers are involved in these lobbying efforts.
The Talking Dog: Can you comment on media coverage of matters Guantanamo and "war on terror" detention policy, local, national, international as applicable?9
Wesley Powell: I think there are several reporters who have followed these matters and done a very good job. William Glaberson at the New York Times, or Carol Rosenberg at the Miami Herald, to name two. But by and large I am quite disappointed that there hasn't been more of a media focus than we have seen. Maybe Guantanamo would have been resolved sooner if more people found about it-- if there were broader press coverage or even interest. As important as other stories are-- and there are a lot to report-- such as what is going on in Afghanistan and Iraq (and even those stories seem to be getting less coverage of late)... important stories like Guantanamo take a back seat. There has been some good reporting to be sure, but I wish there were more. There is a certainly a lot going on in the world-- a whole lot of messes clamoring for press attention, and that presents a problem for getting more and better coverage.
The Talking Dog: Is there anything else I should have asked you but didn't, or anything else that my readers and the public need to know about the matters we've talked about?
Wesley Powell: There are so many angles, particularly for those of us who have been so involved in Guantanamo and war on terror related matters. I never thought of myself as a naiive person, and I would certainly take what public officials said with a grain of salt. But there was a time that when the President of the United States talked about issues like Guantanamo, I would have given a greater benefit of the doubt. On these issues, we have just seen so much official dishonesty-- and having had an inside look myself in the prison and knowing who the men we are holding there are, how they are treated, how and under what circumstances they were captured, compared to what the Administration has said in public, it has just been an enormous disappointment to me, and I hope we can cure this disconnect with reality soon.
The Talking Dog: : On behalf of all of our readers, I'd like to thank Mr. Powell for that informative interview.
Readers interested in legal issues and related matters associated with the "war on terror" may also find talking dog blog interviews with attorneys Martha Rayner, Angela Campbell, Stephen Truitt and Charles Carpenter, Gaillard Hunt, Robert Rachlin, Tina Foster, Brent Mickum, Marc Falkoff H. Candace Gorman, Eric Freedman, Michael Ratner, Thomas Wilner, Jonathan Hafetz, Joshua Denbeaux, Rick Wilson,
Neal Katyal, Joshua Colangelo Bryan, Baher Azmy, and Joshua Dratel (representing Guantanamo detainees and others held in "the war on terror"), with attorneys Donna Newman and Andrew Patel (representing "unlawful combatant" Jose Padilila), with Dr. David Nicholl, who spearheaded an effort among international physicians protesting force-feeding of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, with physician and bioethicist Dr. Steven Miles on medical complicity in torture, with law professor and former Clinton Administration Ambassador-at-large for war crimes matters David Scheffer, with former Guantanamo detainees Moazzam Begg and Shafiq Rasul , with former Guantanamo Bay Chaplain James Yee, with former Guantanamo Army Arabic linguist Erik Saar, with law professor and former Army J.A.G. officer Jeffrey Addicott, with law professor and Coast Guard officer Glenn Sulmasy, with author and geographer Trevor Paglen and with author and journalist Stephen Grey on the subject of the CIA's extraordinary rendition program, with journalist and author David Rose on Guantanamo, with journalist Michael Otterman on the subject of American torture and related issues, with author and historian Andy Worthington detailing the capture and provenance of all of the Guantanamo detainees, and with Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch to be of interest.
April 22, 2008, McCain wins in PA primaries
That's right: the winner this evening by Hillary Clinton's likely single-digit margin of victory (now 8 points with 51% of precincts reporting at around 21 00 EDT) is none other than Republican nominee John McCain (who FWIW won the PA Republican primary itself). Why?
Because once again, thanks to race-baiting which played well among Whites (some of whom have behaved in a charming manner), and Clinton-favoring demographics (PA being an older and Whiter state than most of the country-- the two factors that have consistently favored Sen. Clinton in other states), and some the first big misplays by Team Obama (that "bitter thing," and ongoing fallout from seeing the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, i.e., White people confronting an angry Black man on t.v.) and the media that Team Clinton keeps complaining about handing her a big one from the all-gotcha-fest debate... [I mean, where's your school spirit, Stephanopoulis?] Obama has been once again unable to drive a stake into the political heart of the Clintons, and the Dems' disarray train (a/k/a the Hillary Clinton campaign clusterf***) rolls on.
OTOH, Sen. Clinton's winning margin is not likely to make a significant dent in delegate counts... or close the overall popular vote lead held by Obama...as if details like that matter. As Kevin has observed, this may be simply the effects of life-support efforts in the campaign ICU rather than any kind of actual recovery or real rally by Team Clinton.
Which is why Talking Dog Election Central has projected Arizona Sen. John McCain as the winner of tonight's Democratic primary. Just the possibility of Sen. Clinton being the Dem nominee-- a uniquely divisive figure who will once again take the Iraq war issue off the table should she somehow secure the nomination-- has got to be a huge shot in the arm for a McCain campaign that can otherwise get no media traction (or fundraising) while the Democratic Titans keep clashing among themselves.
And so the Hillary Clinton campaign lives on another day. As if it even could be killed. The Clintons have always been a hurricane rolling through people's lives-- and now it seems, all of our lives, as they continue their high-winds of destruction through the ranks of their own party. What else is new? I've said it before: never bet against a Clinton. And God help the rest of us.
Update: With about 70% of precincts counted (around 23 00 EDT) it looks like that margin of around 8% is where it is... oops, make that a 10% margin with 83%... make that 86% 93% reporting...; it may come in at 9 or 10%, but that will still leave Obama with a lead of well over 100 pledged delegates, going into North Carolina, which he will almost certainly win and win big, and Indiana, where he might do very well... but it's starting to look as if Indiana might be a must-win for Obama, even though the PA result (given Obama's likely NC win) mathematically eliminates Clinton from winning with pledged delegates. Stay tuned. Hillary is now saying that the purpose of her run is "to fight for you". Where have I heard that before? (Apparently, Bob Shrum can't be killed either.)
Morning After Update: The Unseen Editor sends us this dead-on analysis from Rich Lowry of NRO (yes NRO), referring to Hillary as "McCain's stalking horse," and citing to this Grey Lady editorial all but begging Sen. Clinton to call off the dogs, if not get out of the race, lest she do what she fully intends to do, i.e., destroy her opponent, destroy her own party, and undermine the integrity of the coming election.
April 21, 2008, Tortured reasoning
Robert sends us this link to a lengthy Vanity Fair piece by Philippe Sands, discussing the genesis, thesis and synthesis of various American torture policies in the aftermath of 9-11, including the role played by GTMO JAG officer Lt. Col. Diane Beaver, to wit, "brainstorming" to come up with clever torture ideas derived from the Fox sitcom 24. (It's on the tube, right? So it must be real. Beaver also wrote a troublesome memo later lambasted by Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora, as noted by Jane Mayer here.) Of course, in the current Administration, whether it be the-out-of-the-loop-commanding-general at Abu Ghraib, or a-hung-out-to-dry-JAG-officer at Guantanamo Bay Naval Air Station, Cuba, somehow a high-ranking woman in the military seems to invariably get blamed for the failings resulting from the outrageous policy of this Administration. Go figure.
Sands' piece is far-reaching, touching on the "trickle-down" approach to torturing a detainee named al-Qahtani (belying the premise that the military officers on the ground somehow suggested this), to Douglas Feith's parsing America's compliance with the Geneva Conventions out of existence, to the famous and less famous roles played by torturers-of-the-law to enable torture in the field, such as John Yoo, Robert Delahuhty, (good old Cheney's-man)David Addington, Rumsfeld himself, his general counsel William "Jim" Haynes, Fredo Gonzales, Jay "I have Lifetime Tenure Now, so Nya!" Bybee, and others, with various degress of moral (and in an even remotely just world, legal) culpability.
Sands' article culminates in a discussion of "the Justice Trial" at Nuremberg with the son of the lead defendant, a conversation that took place at Nuremberg (where Lt. Col. Beaver visited earlier in her career.)
All of this is a little too close, methinks, particulary when one thinks of, oh, the recent decision in the case of al-Ghizzawi, Candace's client at GTMO (the one in which I invariably take more than a rooting interest in.)
Well, this is where we find ourselves, as of 21 April, 2008. Someday, and I suppose I hope to live long enough to see that day, we will look back at these times, and be very ashamed of what has been done in the name of our security. VERY ashamed.
April 20, 2008, Could it be... Satan?
In polite liberal circles, just about the closest one can get to defining, well, the antichrist, is Pittsburgh newspaper publisher, financial-empire-scion and right-wing propagandist Richard Mellon Scaife, who has spent decades and untold millions financing various right wing propaganda, and in the process, undermining any semblance of responsible, sane government. Indeed, Scaife famously funded much of the movement that led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton.
Naturally, less than 48 hours before his own state's potentially make or break Democratic primary... he and his paper (the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review) are endorsing Hillary Clinton. I mean, we already have her posing with Rupert Murdoch... and she'd been courting Scaife for a while... so why not this?
Strange bedfellows doesn't begin to cover this.
