Regular readers know all about our nation’s not-so-slow slide into the “dark side” (see, for instance, our interview with former Guantanamo (GTMO) Army Arabic linguist Erik Saar, where he (more or less) confirms (albeit by qualifying that it is “his hunch”) that so-called “SERE” (“Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape”) training methods, i.e. abuses designed for our members of our military to prepare for the exigency of being captured by hostile forces, were used by members of our military against detainees at GTMO.) Well now… via Bruce the Veep and Andrew Sullivan, we give you this Time report confirming that the Pentagon,...

The mirth and merriment coming to us from the Super-Max Pleasure Palace we have created to satisfy our paranoia (and throw a few bucks to Kellog, Brown & Root) down Guantanamo-way continues… with this story that Canadian detainee Omar Khadr has decided to fire his American lawyers. While the story mentions Lt. Col. Colby Vokey (USMC) by name, we suspect the firing also includes Rick Wilson, who we interviewed here. There may be an issue that Khadr wants a Canadian lawyer… though who really knows? Our friend Candace also brings our attention to this piece (also in the Globe and...

So far, no flippant responses from the Defense or Justice Departments to the latest news that yet another GTMO detainee, this time a Saudi national, has managed to kill himself at our gulag beach resort at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (Around this time last year, when three detainees killed themselves, GTMO commanding officer Rear Adm. Harris insisted that this was some kind of gesture of “asymmetrical warfare”.) While we do get the usual explanation of a detainee “found not responsive”, we get no details such as the name, or whether the detainee was one of those scheduled for release (because they’re...

WaPo reports that the Senate Intelligence Committee is releasing some details from key pre-Iraq-War intelligence assessments (performed at our taxpayer expense) which demonstrate that the Bush Administration was flat-out warned about a lot of the post-invasion consequences that have come to pass vis a vis an insurgency and post-invasion chaos; indeed, if the reports are glaringly wrong in anything, it was in their somewhat optimistic assessment that Iraq rebuilding could be well underway and hence the insurgency should be subsiding by now. Well, no plan is perfect, as they say. Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo) is not incorrect by pointing out...

Thus sayeth Monica Goodling, during testimony before a House committee yesterday. She was referring to her service as a loyal Christianist soldier-bot, duly vetting out well-qualified applicants to the Department of Justice for such crimes as contributing to Democratic candidates, or not being bat-shit right-wing enough to satisfy her Pat Robertson-honed political (though clearly not legal) skills. She also appears to be trying to throw former Deputy Atty. Gen. Paul McNulty and Gonzales aide Kyle Sampson under the bus, by contending that they attended key meetings (along with Gonzales himself) discussing the U.S. Attorney firing scheme with the White House...

And so, handing the President a more or less complete victory in the inter-branch urinating contest associated with funding the Iraq war, it seems that the Democratic Congressional leaders have removed provisions for troop withdrawal from the new proposed Iraq war supplemental bill, retreating from what had been significant Congressional victories in holding together on a war funding . Well, well. Polling does show that a substantial majority of Americans oppose the Presidents handling of the Iraq war, and indeed, a substantial majority favor a troop reduction. But in practical terms, there really are only two choices with Iraq: (1)...

The Grey Lady gives us this discussion of former Deputy Attorney General (and U.S. Attorney in Manhattan) James Comey, notably Comey’s tendency to do things that bite the Bush Administration on the tushy, including appointing Patrick FitzGerald as special prosecutor, praising a group of fired U.S. Attorneys, and of late, testifying before the Sentate Judiciary Committee as to the extraordinarily poor taste shown by Andy Card and (yes!) Alberto “Abu” Gonzales, who showed up in a hospital intensive care unit to try to cajole then Attorney General John Ashcroft into signing off on a warrantless eavesdropping program that even Ashcroft...

We’ll probably not get to know what, if anything, the after-life will hold for the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who passed away today at 73. Falwell’s legacy will be… conroversial. He was extremely instrumental in helping to forge the [toxic] alliance between right-wing religious extremism and right-wing business extremism that has become “the base” of the modern Republican Party. Extreme… is a pretty good description of him, love him or hate him, whether attacking purple purse-carrying children’s character Tinky Winky of the Teletubbies for being, you know, gay, or for blaming America first (he and his fellow Virginia-based toxic-religio-extremist Pat Robertson...

While the American Constitution doesn’t officially have a “liquidate the enemies of the State” provision, nor does it have a suspension clause when politically expedient… apparently, the “spirit” of the Constitution is such that, Vietnam War style, we must destroy our civil liberties in order to save them. Hence, we give you exhibit A, as the opening statements were given in the “new and improved” trial of former “enemy combatant” and alleged “dirty bomber” Jose Padilla in Miami. You will recall that U.S. citizen Padilla found himself in a Kafkaesque conundrum, held in solitary confinement and psychologically tortured and abused...

That, of course, is retired Army General John Batiste, profiled here by the Grey Lady. Batiste, commander of over 22,000 soldiers in the First Infantry Division in Iraq, left the Army after that experience, and has been quite critical of the Bush Administration’s handling of the war. After previously joining the (thereby safer) near unanimous chorus of calls for the ouster of former SecDef Rumsfeld (a chorus so loud that eventually, even George W. Bush heard it), the former General is now playing with fire, by appearing in an ad by VoteVets.Org that is (heavens) actually critical of Our SaviorTM,...