I remember several months ago reading about a bi-partisan group that had been set up to make recommendations about what the United States could be doing differently in Iraq that would improve the situation.

The Iraq Study Group appears to be a little more than that. In fact, my Washington sense tells me that the group is not set up to see how things could improve but rather what would be the least painless way to leave Iraq for US domestic and foreign policy interests.

First, there are the group’s affiliations:

The United States Institute of Peace is facilitating the group with the support of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Center for the Study of the Presidency (CSP), and the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.

The pedigree of each of these groups is impeccable. Largely non-partisan, their ranks of experts have filled positions in the White House of both Democratic and Republican Administrations as well as the rest of the national security establishment.

Indeed, in some ways they are the national security establishment. And a glance at their boards of directors reveals the heaviest of hitters in both government and industry. Check out the board at CSIS for a good example of what I mean.

Another tell on what the real agenda of the Iraq Study Group is can be found in their mission statement:

At the urging of Congress, the United States Institute of Peace is facilitating the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, led by co-chairs James A. Baker, III, former secretary of state and honorary chairman of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, and Lee H. Hamilton, former congressman and director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The Iraq Study Group will conduct a forward-looking, independent assessment of the current and prospective situation on the ground in Iraq, its impact on the surrounding region, and consequences for U.S. interests.

Was this group set up to try and forge a bi-partisan consensus on how to win the war? Here’s the Washington Post take:

The group has attracted little attention beyond foreign policy elites since its formation this year. But it is widely viewed within that small world as perhaps the last hope for a midcourse correction in a venture they generally agree has been a disaster.

The reason, by and large, is the involvement of Baker, 76, the legendary troubleshooter who remains close to the first President Bush and cordial with the second. Many policy experts think that if anyone can forge bipartisan consensus on a plan for extricating the United States from Iraq —and then successfully pitch that plan to a president who has so far seemed impervious to outside pressure—it is the man who put together the first Gulf War coalition, which evicted Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991.

It’s no secret that most of the pundit elites in Washington abandoned any hope of victory in Iraq long ago. Conservative defections have included such luminaries as George Will, Bill Buckley, and Bob Novak. And if you read the Op-Ed pages of the Washington Post and New York Times religiously, you probably have noticed that a strong, bi-partisan consensus has already emerged among our foreign policy elites to exit Iraq.

Baker, of course, is the key. His job will be to sell the President on the coming draw down of American forces. What Baker thinks of his job was made clear in the WaPo article:

But in an interview in the current issue of Texas Monthly, Baker dashed the idea of “just picking up and pulling out” of Iraq. “Even though it’s something we need to find a way out of, the worst thing in the world we could do would be to pick up our marbles and go home,” he said, “because then we will trigger, without a doubt, a huge civil war. And every one of the regional actors—the Iranians and everybody else—will come in and do their thing.”

The study group appears to be struggling to find some middle ground between such a pullout and the administration’s strategy of keeping a heavy American troop presence until the Iraqi government can maintain security on its own.

In other words, no “cut and run” but rather the slow, inexorable drawdown of US forces whose exit will not so much reflect the ability of the Iraqi government to defend itself from internal enemies but rather how the pull out will be perceived by the rest of the world – including how it will play domestically.

Cut and run – even if it’s done slowly – is still cut and run.

The immorality of this strategy is shocking in its implications. The foreign policy elites have apparently decided that the war is unwinnable but that it would harm American interests if we simply up and left. Therefore, they are going to ask young American men and women to risk their lives not for victory, but…for what? To save face? To keep politicians from looking bad? To fool the American people?

In fact, any exit from Iraq that doesn’t leave a stable government capable of maintaining a modicum of peace on the streets would be seen by the entire world as a crushing defeat for the United States. How we get there by “extricating” ourselves is a fairy tale I’m dying to hear.

What the Washington Post sees as Bush stubbornness – the President is “impervious to outside pressure” – is actually the only rational policy for Iraq.

Not “staying the course.” There absolutely must be changes to our force structure including additional troops sent immediately to try and secure Baghdad. Other important alterations in strategy (not policy) would help with some of the other challenges faced by our troops. But the policy of helping the Iraqis until they are capable of defending themselves must be the correct one. Anything less and we might as well leave now. We simply cannot ask our troops – even if they are professional soldiers – and their families, to make the kinds of sacrifices they have already made for some kind of nebulous outcome in a conflict that has already cost more than 3,000 American lives and 20,000 wounded not to mention almost 50,000 Iraqi lives.

Another indication that the Iraq Study Group is not interested in even trying to redefine victory:

The administration’s more hawkish supporters, meanwhile, are nervous about Baker’s involvement, counting him as one of the “realist” foreign policy proponents they see as having allowed threats against the United States to grow in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Gary J. Schmitt of the American Enterprise Institute voiced concern that the Iraq group was not listening to those advocating a more muscular military strategy to defeat the insurgency.

But Schmitt added: “People can worry about what Baker is going to say, but the president has a way of doing what he is going to do. There could be a lot of wishful thinking on the part of the older Bush crowd that the son got into trouble and now he’s going to listen to Baker the strategist.”

Our foreign policy elites want to abandon Iraq without appearing to do so. They apparently won’t offer any advice via interim reports until after the November elections. When they do, I expect their recommendations won’t offer anything new as far as a strategy for winning.

For that, they should be condemned because they are unwilling to face the unpalatable alternative that would place our soldiers in harms way in order to satisfy something less than victory.

UPDATE

Evidently, Rudy Guiliani resigned from the group several months ago citing “time considerations.” You don’t think it could have anything to do with the fact that he knows the group’s recommendations will not sit well with conservative hawks? And that Rudy may need the hawks come 2008?

Just wondering…

The New York Times says of the debate over detainee rights: “It is one of those rare Congressional moments when the policy is as monumental as the politics.”

Indeed. And the fact that the debate is taking place almost solely and exclusively among Republicans and conservatives says volumes about the cynicism and lack of courage on the part of Democrats in both houses of Congress.

Perfectly content with throwing rhetorical bombs on the issue of detainee rights for months, not offering any solutions but rather tossing exaggerated epithets at the President and Republicans, Congressional Democrats are cowering on the sidelines as the most important debate in the War on Terror unfolds on the Hill:

At issue are definitions of what is permissible in trials and interrogations that both sides view as central to the character of the nation, the way the United States is perceived abroad and the rules of the game for what Mr. Bush has said will be a multigenerational battle against Islamic terrorists.

Democrats have so far remained on the sidelines, sidestepping Republican efforts to draw them into a fight over Mr. Bush’s leadership on national security heading toward the midterm election. Democrats are rapt spectators, however, shielded by the stern opposition to the president being expressed by three Republicans with impeccable credentials on military matters: Senators John McCain of Arizona, John W. Warner of Virginia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. The three were joined on Thursday by Colin L. Powell, formerly the secretary of state and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in challenging the administration’s approach.

If Democrats think they are being clever by not falling into the Republican “trap” of engaging in a debate on this issue, they have outthought themselves once again. All they are doing is being made to appear as weak and vacillating on matters related to the war as Republicans say they are. They are proving to the American people that they are unworthy of ascending to power this November by sitting on their hands while some of the most important issues relating to both our national security and national identity are decided.

What kind of country do we want to be? How much is our view of ourselves tied up in how others see us? Can we still protect ourselves while desiring to be a “good citizen” of the world? Can our Constitution be stretched in order to recognize the rights of those who wish to destroy us? How much power should be granted the Executive during a time of war?

These are not “political” questions in the traditional sense. And I doubt very much whether any nation in history has had such a unique and soulful argument about many of these issues that go to the heart of our sovereignty as well as the core of our Constitutional form of government.

At issue is the law – international and domestic – and how it should apply to prisoners who fall into our hands. On one side is the President and an obedient Congressional leadership who seek to have the broadest possible interpretation of international statutes relating to torture and the incarceration of prisoners. The President wants to give the CIA the authority to use “enhanced” interrogation techniques on high value prisoners while adjudicating the cases of other detainees using the rather blunt judicial instrument of Military Tribunals.

The problem with the former is that those lining up in opposition – notably Senator McCain and Colin Powell – fear that any deviation from a relatively strict interpretation of the Geneva Convention protocols will place captured American military and intelligence personnel in greater danger of being abused (although it is hard to imagine no matter what our policy about interrogations, how much more danger our people would be in if captured by al-Qaeda or a state that supports the terrorists).

As for the latter, the President wants Military Tribunals to be able to withhold evidence of a classified nature from detainees during their judicial proceedings. McCain & Co. want rules of evidence more in keeping with American Constitutional protections.

On this issue, both sides have strong arguments. Given the nature of the war and how it is being fought, oftentimes the only evidence gathered against a prisoner is via other interrogations or informants whose lives would be placed in danger if their identity were revealed. On the other hand, unless a detainee attorney can assess the evidence against his client, it becomes virtually impossible to defend him. And if the purpose of the Tribunal is to establish the guilt or innocence of the prisoner – a process desperately needed given the uncertainty surrounding the circumstances where many detainees at Guantanamo were captured – then one would hope that the more rigorous standards of evidence would be adopted for the proceedings.

The good news is that the President seems willing to compromise:

“The most important job of government is to protect the homeland, and yesterday they advanced an important piece of legislation to do just that,” Bush told reporters. “I’ll continue to work with members of the Congress to get good legislation so we can do our duty.”

The re-interpreting of Geneva Convention protocols against torture has drawn the most fire from McCain and his supporters. What the White House calls a “redefinition” many experts on international law say is an attempt to circumvent the Geneva articles while immunizing American personnel (especially the CIA) from any charges of war crimes. This is extremely shaky legal ground for the Administration and it has apparently not sat well with lawyers at the Pentagon:

Senior judge advocates general had publicly questioned many aspects of the administration’s position, especially any reinterpreting of the Geneva Conventions. The White House and GOP lawmakers seized on what appeared to be a change of heart to say that they now have military lawyers on their side.

But the letter was signed only after an extraordinary round of negotiations Wednesday between the judge advocates and William J. Haynes II, the Defense Department’s general counsel, according to Republican opponents of Bush’s proposal. The military lawyers refused to sign a letter of endorsement. But after hours of cajoling, they assented to write that they “do not object,” according to three Senate GOP sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were divulging private negotiations.

It is likely that this “redefinition” will be altered or even jettisoned in any final version of the bill.

The Republicans certainly had ulterior political motives in bringing this legislation to the fore 6 weeks before a mid term election in order to highlight the Democratic party’s unfitness and irresponsibility on national security issues. But the fact remains that the heartfelt opposition to the President’s proposals by conservatives carries far more weight in this debate than anything the politically motivated Democrats could muster. McCain, Powell, and the rest have proven that they are not only good Americans. They have also proven that they are good Republicans as well. This despite the probability that their opposition to the President will not win Republicans any votes in November nor advance their personal ambitions with core Republican supporters.

It proves to me that there are still people of conscience in the Republican party. In that respect, it may be worth it even if their opposition costs the party control of one or both houses of Congress in November.

UPDATE

James Joyner is in basic agreement (and makes the same comment I did about McCain’s rational regarding torture):

On the merits, I agree with McCain and company, although not necessarily for the reasons they give. It is patently absurd to argue that our terrorist enemies are going to abide by the Geneva Conventions if we do so.

Graham is right that abiding by international law and our living up to our ideals sends the correct message. I’m more skeptical than he is about our ability to persuade Muslims that we’re the good guys, given that their information is filtered through al Jazeera, the mullahs, and others hostile to us. Still, every documented American attrocity fuels the propaganda fire against us with very little offsetting advantage.

McQ at Q & O:

I agree. Now there are certainly appealing arguments to be made on both sides of the issue, but to this point, that’s really not happened. It is indeed refreshing, as Taylor points out, to see a policy discussion happening which isn’t completely driven by politics. It is equally refreshing to see the president go to Congress to discuss the issues.

So for the time being ignore the press characterizations of this being a rebuff for Bush or a rebellion in the Republican ranks. It is something, had Congress been doing its job, which should have been settled long before this. And in this case, better late than never.

Sullivan (Hysterical as always but his heart is in the right place):

The sight of so many Republican senators and one former secretary of state finally standing up against the brutality and dishonor of this president’s military detention policies is a sign of great hope. It turns out there is an opposition in this country – it’s called what’s left of the sane wing of the GOP. Slowly, real conservatives are speaking out loud what they have long said in private. The apparatchiks of the pro-torture blogosphere can vent, but it is hard to demonize the new opposition as “leftist” or “hysterical.”

Andrew seems a little vexed that the President will use the issue as a club to beat the Democrats with. It is moronic to think the President would do otherwise. With the kind of opposition Republicans face – exaggerated and hyperbolic charges like those contained in Sullivan’s post – what does Andrew and the rest of the unhinged opposition think the President and Republicans are going to do? Sit back and let their opponents have an open field? Allow them the luxury of remaining quiet while they spout their nonsensical and unfair rhetoric?

As I point out in the post, Bush is in fact playing politics with the issue – any President of either party would do the same if placed in his position. To pretend otherwise is to ignore the major electoral dynamic that has been with us since Jefferson was elected: The best defense is a good offense.

Many conservative commentators, including yours truly, have recently come out in favor of sending more troops to Iraq to deal with the increased levels of sectarian violence as well as the continuing insurgency. Most recently, two high profile hawks have done a 180 degree turn and called for an infusion of troops to get a handle on the security situation in Baghdad. Rich Lowry and Bill Kristol wrote in the Washington Post that their previous stance on the “small footprint” in Iraq was mistaken and that only a substantial increase in our military presence can bring order to the Iraqi capitol and its immediate environs:

The bottom line is this: More U.S. troops in Iraq would improve our chances of winning a decisive battle at a decisive moment. This means the ability to succeed in Iraq is, to some significant degree, within our control. The president should therefore order a substantial surge in overall troop levels in Iraq, with the additional forces focused on securing Baghdad.

There is now no good argument for not sending more troops. The administration often says that it doesn’t want to foster Iraqi dependency. This is a legitimate concern, but it is a second-order and long-term one. Iraq is a young democracy and a weak state facing a vicious insurgency and sectarian violence. The Iraqis are going to be dependent on us for some time. We can worry about weaning Iraq from reliance on our forces after the security crisis in Baghdad has passed.

This is all well and good – if there were indeed additional troops to send. And if this piece in The New Republic is to be believed, the problem isn’t only in the numbers of combat ready personnel that are available for deployment to Iraq (or anywhere else we might need them) but also the quality of those troops and the condition of the equipment they would be using on the battlefield:

Combat-readiness worldwide has deteriorated due to the increased stress on the Army’s and the Marines’ equipment. The equipment in Iraq is wearing out at four to nine times the normal peacetime rate because of combat losses and harsh operating conditions. The total Army—active and reserve—now faces at least a $50 billion equipment shortfall. To ensure that the troops in Iraq have the equipment they need, the services have been compelled to send over equipment from their nondeployed and reserve units, such as National Guard units in Louisiana and Mississippi. Without equipment, it’s extremely difficult for nondeployed units to train for combat. Thus, one of the hidden effects of the Iraq war is that even the troops not currently committed to Iraq are weakened because of it.

[snip]

But the decline in equipment readiness is nothing compared with the growing manpower crisis. The Army is trying to keep the dam from breaking, but it is running out of fingers and toes. After failing to meet its recruitment target for 2005, the Army raised the maximum age for enlistment from 35 to 40 in January—only to find it necessary to raise it to 42 in June. Basic training, which has, for decades, been an important tool for testing the mettle of recruits, has increasingly become a rubber-stamping ritual. Through the first six months of 2006, only 7.6 percent of new recruits failed basic training, down from 18.1 percent in May 2005.

Alarmingly, this drop in boot camp attrition coincides with a lowering of recruitment standards. The number of Army recruits who scored below average on its aptitude test doubled in 2005, and the Army has doubled the number of non-high school graduates it can enlist this year. Even as more allowances are made, the Government Accountability Office reported that allegations and substantiated claims of recruiter wrongdoing have increased by 50 percent. In May, for example, the Army signed up an autistic man to become a cavalry scout.

These are extremely troubling figures, especially boot camp attrition and the lowering of educational standards. Part of this is surely the result of a roaring economy as the military has to compete with private industry for soldiers to fill the ranks. And the good news is that retention is still excellent – especially in theaters of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Apparently, those who have served in the war zones feel they have a personal stake in seeing the job through to the end.

But dedication, bravery, and the will to win – something our military has demonstrated time and time again are attributes they have in abundance – get a modern army only so far. And if what Korb et al are reporting is true – and I have no reason to believe otherwise – our military is not ready for the challenges it will almost certainly face in the very near future.

What can be done? Simply throwing money at the problem is not the entire solution. A redirection in spending priorities would help alleviate the material problems in the long term. But a question to be asked is Donald Rumsfeld the man to lead this effort? I have been blunt in my criticism of the Defense Secretary, mostly for his myopic and disingenuous pronouncements on our progress against the insurgency in Iraq. But this kind of criticism goes directly to the heart of Secretary Rumsfeld’s philosophy of a “leaner more agile” military that he brought with him to the office in 2001. This was before Iraq, before Afghanistan, before 9/11 and before the forces of Islamic fascism have been emboldened to regain lost ground in the Pakistan-Afghanistan theater as well as the election of a certified fanatic in Tehran.

The cost and technical sophistication of our weapons and equipment were largely designed to meet the Soviet threat of the 1980’s. Most our our primary weapons platforms today – tanks, armored vehicles, air craft – are improved and enhanced versions of systems designed in the 1980’s. Indeed, war planning at that time envisioned a short, violent confrontation with the Red Army where we would use up our pre-positioned stocks of war material in one huge effort to beat back the Soviets. Anything else was unthinkable in that the longer a conflict went on, the more likely one side or the other would go nuclear. Better to quickly and decisively defeat Soviet arms and forestall such an eventuality.

By necessity, we sacrificed durability for sheer technical battlefield dominance. It goes without saying that the more complex a machine, the more chances there are for something to breakdown. This is apparently true in Iraq where weather and overuse may be stretching the design specifications of much of our equipment to the limit.

The equipment problems will not be solved overnight. A $50 billion shortfall cannot be made up in a year or two. And while it is worrisome, the problems with material pale in comparison to the difficulties in attracting the quality and quantity of personnel needed to fight the war effectively. Whether the problems can be rectified with increased incentives and other monetary enticements is not the issue. The issue is that if these problems do indeed exist, precious little has been done to address them to date.

If it’s broke, let’s fix it before these problems become so severe that the military will be unable to respond to the many challenges that hover ominously just over the horizon.

It’s “My Kind of Town.” It’s the “City of Big Shoulders.” It’s “The City That Works.” It used to be “Hog Butcher to the World” until the hogs left and allowed their cousins on the City Council to wallow and feed at the public trough – much to the amusement and entertainment of its citizens. For, in truth, before there was television, or radio, or talking pictures, there was the endless diversion and riotous comedy offered by the antics of one of this country’s most colorful and peculiar legislative bodies; the City Council of Chicago.

Recently, one of this body’s more colorful and peculiar members, Alderman Joe Moore, apparently decided that the City Council had been maintaining too low of a national profile of late and sponsored a couple of colorful and peculiar pieces of legislation that changed the image of the Council from “colorful and peculiar” to “overbearing and ludicrous.”

The so-called “Big Box” ordinance, passed in July, requires stores with more than 90,000 square feet of retail space and $1 billion in annual sales to pay their employees an absolute minimum wage of $10 per hour plus $3 an hour in benefits. The economic geniuses on the Council, including Ald. Moore, actually believed that Wal-Mart, Target, and other giant retailers would shrug off the nearly doubling of an entry level workers’ wage and gladly continue with their expansion plans within the city.

“There is a buck to be made, a lot of bucks,” asserted Moore. “If they are to continue to remain profitable, they must expand.”

Wal-Mart had a rather bemused reaction. They were in the process of opening their very first “Superstore” within the Chicago city limits in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. They promised that they would open that store but “[P]ut more time and effort in the suburbs, in particular focusing on those close to the city in order to draw shoppers across city lines. It would stand to reason that we would ring Chicago with Supercenters,” according to Michael Lewis, Wal-Mart’s VP of Store Operations in the Midwest.

Making the city an economic graveyard was apparently not in the re-election plan of Mayor Daley who vetoed the legislation yesterday:

Three aldermen, including one hungry for the jobs that a new Wal-Mart store would bring to her impoverished South Side ward, said they will switch sides and support Mayor Richard Daley’s veto Monday of the “big-box” minimum wage ordinance.

It was his first veto in 17 years as mayor, and he obviously knew he had the support to make it stick.

Indeed, if Daley’s opponents thought the Mayor may have been wounded by the charges of corruption in hiring practices swirling around his office, Daley disabused them rather quickly. All Hizoner had to to was crack the whip and he immediately peeled away three Alderman that made sure his veto would be upheld.

The business community breathed a huge sigh of relief:

“I think that this encouraging news is not only good for the business community,” said Gerald Roper, president of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, “it’s equally good for parts of the city that need economic development and jobs.”

“I understand and share a desire to ensure that everyone who works in the city of Chicago earns a decent wage,” Daley said in the letter. “But I do not believe that this ordinance, well intentioned as it may be, would achieve that end.

“Rather, I believe it would drive jobs and businesses from our city, penalizing neighborhoods that need additional economic activity the most,” Daley said. “In light of this, I believe it is my duty to veto this ordinance.”

But Daley’s sudden spasm of rationalism didn’t end there. Going on the offensive against another one of Alderman Joe’s nanny state phantasms, the Mayor attacked the recently passed ordinance banning the sale and serving of foie gras and may have some allies on the Council who are having second thoughts about being made to look like nursemaids to their constituents:

As Mayor Richard Daley vetoed a controversial ordinance on Monday, two aldermen said they are seeking to repeal another: Chicago’s ban on foie gras.

Ald. Bernard Stone (50th) and Burton Natarus (42nd) originally voted in favor of the measure when it was approved by the City Council in April. But both since have had second thoughts.

Stone contended that Chicago has become a national laughingstock since outlawing the delicacy, which is made from the livers of geese and ducks.

Daley, who enjoys foie gras, referred to the ordinance as “the silliest law to come down the legislative pike at City Hall.” And the backlash against the city may be causing other aldermen to rethink their original position:

“Hallelujah!” declared Chris Robling, an industry spokesman, after hearing of the repeal attempt. “This is wonderful.

“My fingers were crossed,” said Robling, who speaks for Artisan Farmers Alliance, which represents North America’s foie gras producers and some distributors. “That’s great news.”

Copperblue executive chef and owner Michael Tsonton, who last week became the second restaurateur cited by the city for serving foie gras after the ban went into effect, also cheered the move by Natarus and Stone.

“The foie gras thing was beyond silly,” Tsonton said. “It was irresponsible.”

One of my commenters on this post where I highlighted the foi gras ban gave the lie to the animal rights nutter’s claims about goose torture in force feeding the birds:

This comment is about food animal welfare. I sell cattle for a living and used to have hogs as well. Food animals ARE NOT TORTURED OR MADE TO SUFFER in any way. An animal that is suffering and/or is ill will not grow, will not gain weight and will not make the producer money. This is true across the spectrum, regardless of species. What animals want is 1) a steady water & food supply 2)a dry place out of the wind to rest and 3) a desire to breed (if they haven’t been neutered. They don’t want anything else.

This thought is echoed by one of Chicago’s finest chefs:

“Some of my friends, chefs outside Illinois, have named Chicago the `Nanny City’—nanny, like the person who takes care of your children,” said Allen Sternweiler, executive chef at Allen’s—The New American Cafe, 217 W. Huron St. “I’ve gotten a few letters, with people saying, How would you like a tube stuck down your throat?

“My throat is not like a duck’s throat. If you have some tragedy like an oil spill or a fire around a wetland, they would be using an exact same feeding tube to feed those injured ducks.”

Alderman Joe seems unbowed by the fact that his campaign to make Chicago a socialist nanny enclave seems to be falling victim to an outbreak of clear thinking and rationality:

Ald. Joe Moore (49th), who sponsored the foie gras measure, said Monday that it “is simply an ordinance that tried to stop the practice of animal torture, pure and simple.

“My reaction is the City Council had a vote,” Moore said. “It was 48-1 in favor. Time to move on.”

My own theory is that the reason the Council debated and passed these ordinances is that they simply don’t have enough to do. Idle minds are the devil’s playground and all that. Maybe we should design some kind of jobs program for them.

Anything to keep them away from the Council chambers. They seem to be doing a lot of damage there lately.

Via Little Green Footballs, we discover perhaps the greatest idea the far left has ever had in their rather checkered history:

Why Can’t America Have Human Rights?

Thursday, September 14th, 2006, 6:30 pm

The Nave at The Riverside Church, 490 Riverside Drive, New York

www.breakthrough.tv

An evening of performance and talks on Human Rights in the United States, including the death penalty, detentions and deportations, poverty, and violence and discrimination on the basis of sex, race, religion, and sexuality. The Forum will work to strengthen our connections and raise our voices to build an America that supports human rights instead of violating them.

They read my mind.

I too, have always wanted human rights in America. I too, wish we could dispense with all this constitutional nonsense which states that government’s derive their power from the consent of the governed. After all, that idiocy is more than 200 years old - time for a change. It would be so much easier if the government was able to tell us which rights it was willing to grant and which ones, well, we had no business worrying about.

That’s the practical effect of what this grouping of unbalanced, emotionally unstable, ignorant, and dangerous people are advocating. Because in order to achieve their nirvana of a “human rights” paradise, a radical altering of the relationship between the people and their government would have to take place.

Want to get rid of discrimination? It’s already illegal, of course. There are remedies in place to address the grievances of individuals who feel they have been denied opportunity based on their race, sex, or religion. (Many states also have remedies for those who feel discriminated against based on their sexual orientation). What these mountebanks are talking about is reaching down into the very heart of the personal and making it political. They wish to legislate the way that citizens think. In their version of the United States, even if you are unaware that you are discriminating against someone in a protected group, you would be held liable anyway. This is because what matters is the result of your hiring practices (or lending practices or any other decision made by private citizens affecting the protected classes). Intent is thrown out the window. If you don’t have enough members of the protected groups in your workforce, your hiring practices are discriminatory period.

This nonsense has been advanced by the gaggle of goosebrains who will be gathering later this month to lecture, to harangue, and to pontificate about what a human rights nightmare the United States of America has become.

Never mind that the death penalty is supported by a majority of the American people and that it is regularly reviewed by the courts. Will we someday get rid of the death penalty? Probably. But it won’t be because a bunch of blowhard moralists try and shame us into following their lead?

How about getting rid of poverty? First, it is an interesting construct that living in poverty is a violation of someone’s “human rights.” Ostensibly, the radicals believe that discrimination and racism by the government is the cause of poverty. The fact that these lickspittles don’t bat an eyelash when you point out that 48% of people who live in poverty are white makes their critique ring a little hollow. Why slow them down when they’re on an ant-American roll?

This discrimination and racism manifests itself in the inferior education offered to those in poverty stricken areas. No one seems to care that most of these school districts are in cities run by people of color and where school districts are managed (or mismanaged) by same. And you better keep your mouth shut about tax policies formulated by the racists who discriminate against people of their own race that drive businesses and hence jobs away from the cities. Practical economics tend to give the moonbats a headache.

Making America a human rights paradise will also apparently include doing away with jailing people for their crimes and amending our immigration laws to end the deportation of anyone not here legally. The latter would mean that we would do away with immigration laws entirely which would be a boon to the poverty bureaucrats in that no one seems to care about a massive influx of instant citizens who would be either unemployed or unemployable. And since their human rights paradise would demand these people be taken care of until they can get on their feet (and beyond), one would hope that there would be enough rich people to soak so that the requisite amount of tax monies could be raised for the poverty industry to enrich themselves.

As for ending violence, (another invented “human right”), it would be interesting to see how the Bierkenstock sandal wearers would go about that massive undertaking. Censorship of violent programs on TV and the media? Perhaps making alcohol and drugs illegal? Maybe require the burning of incense and chanting 3 times a day in order to soothe the souls of us savage beasts?

Deny people access to drugs and alcohol and the violence problem in America is reduced substantially. As for the sociopaths, one supposes that the technological innovations of the future will include some kind of conditioning regimen a la A Clockwork Orange. While they’re at it, it would not surprise me if this group of proto-authoritarians would be in favor of using that conditioning to address other “human rights” problems we have here in America such as racism, sexism, and other personal demons that the government currently discourages but under the lefties tender loving care would be banished via brainwashing.

The bottom line of all this moralizing and America bashing is that the prescriptions that will be offered up by this rogues gallery of galoots will look a lot like efforts of every other utopian schemer – including Lenin – and that realize a top-down, authoritarian society to force people to adapt is the only way to achieve their goals.

I wonder who will be on top telling us what’s best for us to think, to believe? Better question: Who do you think that committed group of radicals thinks will be on top when the revolution is over?

A couple of weeks ago when that Dutch airliner returned to the Amsterdam airport following an incident involving 12 men who, after boarding the plane late, began to pass around cell phones and walk up and down the aisles, I asked on my radio show “What is going on here?”

In the last several months there have been numerous incidents involving suspicious behavior of passengers or threats that have been phoned in or found scrawled on air sickness bags. And counterterrorism experts say that even though most of these incidents are explainable because of heightened security fears, there are just too many of them to dismiss out of hand. In fact, these experts believe that some of these incidents could have been “feints” by terrorists:

“We are constantly being probed by terrorists,” Mr. Hagmann said. “We are going to have a limited number of incidents that are just a ploy, a nonevent as a result of misunderstandings or innocuous activity. You can expect that and factor that in. But the extent we are seeing today—the numbers are well beyond the norm.”

At least 23 incidents worldwide since the Aug. 10 arrests of two dozen suspects have led to 11 emergency landings or flight diversions, four of them escorted by military jets, and 16 arrests. The majority of disruptions occurred on domestic and inbound international flights. The number of publicly reported security incidents peaked on Aug. 25, with eight incidents on that day, Mr. Hagmann said.

Judging by that shocking number of incidents on August 25 as well as the other reported events, one would have to conclude either we have the biggest bunch of bedwetting scaredy cats running our airline security or that something very, very bad may be in the offing. And, of course, those numbers don’t include incidents that are not publicly reported.

This kind of speculation is not new. Annie Jacobsen of the Womens Wall Street Journal has written a series on her own experience in a flight where 14 Syrian men behaved in an extraordinarily strange way – moving about the cabin, making sudden moves toward the cockpit, going in and out of the bathroom frequently among other noticeable activities. Jacobsen has also kept track of a few other similar incidents. Her tussle with DHS over getting them to investigate the incident is indicative of either a dysfunctional counterterrorism system or bureaucratic laziness.

Are we being paranoid?

Laura Mansfield, a counterterrorism consultant and Arabic translator, says many of the incidents involve terrorist sympathizers hoping to divert attention from actual terrorists moving forward with real plots.

“There is a combination of things going on. They are trying to get the threat level reduced by creating a bunch of false alarms so people will be complacent. It’s also a strategy of red herrings and disinformation,” she said.

The aviation threat level in the U.S. went to Code Red, or severe, after the Britain arrests and today remains on Code Orange, or high.

Miss Mansfield said that although the terrorists pay no attention to anniversary dates, recent activity and the release of several tapes indicate that Islamic militants want badly to strike the U.S. before this upcoming September 11.

An example of sympathizer involvement Miss Mansfield cited is a 2004 campaign in which in an Islamist Web site urged Muslim tourists to distract law enforcement by videotaping landmarks, nuclear plants, water-treatment facilities and infrastructure on their vacations.

According to many on the left, there is very little to worry about, that the War on Terrorism, alert levels, arresting people who are plotting terrorist acts, and spying on terrorists is all part of a gigantic conspiracy by the Bush Administration to make political hay out of terrorist threats by using fear as a political club to force the American people to vote for Republicans.

Yes it is true that terrorism as a political issue is a huge plus for Republicans. But instead of seeing straw men in the wind perhaps Democrats should be asking themselves why that is so? Is it because Americans are a bunch of cowardly lions with no courage and, as John Dean speculates in his best selling book “Conservatives Without Conscience” a predilection to follow authoritarian politicians?

Or could it possibly be that Americans are an eminently practical people and prefer a political party that takes terrorism as seriously as they do and worries less about “understanding” terrorists as putting them 6 feet under?

Don’t look for an answer any time soon on that score. There is no place on earth where there is less introspective analysis than on the left wing of the Democratic party.

That same Islamist website encouraging ordinary Muslim tourists to distract our counterterroism efforts added this chilling message:

“The distractions are going well,” the site reported. “The Americans are chasing those with video cameras believing them to be terrorists. That permits us to do our preparations undetected.”

Another piece of the same puzzle from a mosque in Georgia:

Last year, Miss Mansfield visited a mosque in Georgia that advertised an English and Arabic session on God and family. She attended the Arabic session where a man identified as Khaled recounted a New York flight. He and his friends acted suspicious and made simultaneous restroom runs to frighten passengers.

“He laughed when he described how several women were in tears, and one man sitting near him was praying,” Miss Mansfield later wrote in an account of that meeting on her personal Web site.

“As the meeting drew to a close, the imam gave a brief speech calling for the protection of Allah on the mujahedeen fighting for Islam throughout the world, and reminded everyone that it was their duty as Muslims to continue in the path of jihad, whether it was simple efforts like those of Khaled and his friends, or the actual physical fighting,” Miss Mansfield wrote.

Please note the “simultaneous restroom runs” and compare it to Annie Jacobsen’s experience. Coincidence? Or part of a mis-direction playbook authored by jihadists?

And another little tidbit of information to chew on; Federal Air Marshall’s have been forced to reveal themselves twice in the last two weeks. They have done so only once previously in the 5 years since 9/11.

I am not asking you to connect any dots. There are no dots to connect so don’t bother. What I am asking is “What is going on here?”

And the terrorists may not even need to bring down a plane to accomplish their goal:

We have to keep in mind the terrorists want to strike at our economy, and the airline industry is very weak. These diversions and cancellation of flights cost the airline industry a lot of money, and we have to look at that,” Mr. Hagmann said.

Dave Mackett, an airline pilot and president of the Airline Pilots Security Alliance, says the diversions are costing airlines millions and leaves the industry vulnerable to lawsuits.

“This cannot be the new norm,” Mr. Mackett said.

And whatever happened to those 12 Indian Muslims on that Amsterdam to Mumbai flight that was escorted back to the Amsterdam airport by F-16’s?

They were released within 48 hours after enormous pressure was applied by the Indian government. And when they returned to India?

“It was a misunderstanding on the part of the airline. We were treated well and want to forget it as a bad experience,” Mohammad Iqbal Batliwala, one of the passengers told reporters on arrival at the airport.

Batliwala refused to comment further saying that he was tired.

Another passenger Shakeel Chotani said that the ‘misunderstanding has been sorted out’.

Meanwhile, the remaining passengers refused to speak to the waiting media and were taken away by their relatives.

The passengers took over an hour to come out of the terminal building after their aircraft landed.

A “misunderstanding by the airline?” A refusal to say anything else? The other men running off without saying anything?

One question; how would you feel if you were innocent and rousted in such a manner? I know I would be screaming bloody murder to the press the first chance I got. And I wouldn’t chalk it up to a “misunderstanding” by anybody but rather a clear case of profiling.

Extremely odd. And one more puzzle piece to put off to the side until we figure out where it might fit – if it even belongs to the terrorism puzzle at all.

Bully for the US government!

Not content with letting the moonbats, the freaks, the paranoids, and the ignoramuses who spout 9/11 conspiracy theories get away with their nonsensical idiocies any longer, the government released two separate reports debunking several major claims of the 9/11 fantasists in an effort to keep the record of that horrible day from being hijacked by crazies.

And as a bonus, in the process of answering the reports, two major 9/11 conspiracists have revealed themselves to be laughable, hopelessly moronic nutcases.

Kudos also to New York Times reporter Jim Dwyer whose brilliant summary of the evidence includes his own debunking of the “implosion theory” of how the towers fell. Dwyer’s piece should be required reading for every school kid in America so that future generations will see these 9/11 fantasies for what they truly are; pathetic mouthings of desperately unbalanced people whose “evidence” depends more on wishful thinking than empirical proof.

Nevertheless, federal officials say they moved to affirm the conventional history of the day because of the persistence of what they call “alternative theories.” On Wednesday, the National Institute of Standards and Technology issued a seven-page study based on its earlier 10,000-page report on how and why the trade center collapsed. The full report, released a year ago, and the new study, in a question and answer format, are available online at http://wtc.nist.gov.

About a dozen researchers produced the new study over the last two months by assembling material from the longer report that addressed the conspiracy claims.

“With the fifth anniversary coming up, there seemed to be more play for the alternative viewpoints,” said Michael E. Newman, a spokesman for the institute. “We have received e-mails and phone calls asking us to respond to these theories, and we felt that this fact sheet was the best means of doing so.”

The fact that it took a dozen people two months to condense the evidence for the tower’s collapse down to 7 pages should make you angry. This waste of time and resources is the direct result of people who should (or actually do) know better but whose ignorance and inability to grasp reality (or who choose to believe otherwise for political purposes) have infected the gullible, the shallow thinkers, and out and out loons who have spread their laughable theories on the internet and elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Dwyer easily demolishes the implosion theory with the help of a couple of experts:

The demolition theory has managed to endure what would seem to be enormous obstacles to its practicality. Controlled demolition is done from the bottom of buildings, not the top, to take advantage of gravity, and there is little dispute that the collapse of the two towers began high in the towers, in the areas where the airplanes struck.

Moreover, a demolition project would have required the tower walls to be opened on dozens of floors, followed by the insertion of thousands of pounds of explosives, fuses and ignition mechanisms, all sneaked past the security stations, inside hundreds of feet of walls on all four faces of both buildings. Then the walls presumably would have been closed up.

All this would have had to take place without attracting the notice of any of the thousands of tenants and workers in either building; no witness has ever reported such activity. Then on the morning of Sept. 11, the demolition explosives would have had to withstand the impacts of the airplanes, since the collapse did not begin for 57 minutes in one tower, and 102 minutes in the other.

Professor Steven Jones, a physicist at Brigham Young University and a God in the 9/11 tin foil hat community, makes an utter fool of himself trying to answer several of the simple questions Dwyer raises above:

In an e-mail message yesterday, Professor Jones did not explain how so much explosive could have been positioned in the two buildings without drawing attention. “Others are researching the maintenance activity in the buildings in the weeks prior to 9/11/2001,” he wrote.

He said his investigation was finding fluorine and zinc in metal debris and dust gathered from near the trade center site, and argued that those elements should not have been found in the building compounds. “We are investigating the possibility of thermite-based arson and demolition,” he wrote, referring to compounds that, under controlled circumstances, can cut through steel.

The federal investigators at the National Institute of Standards and Technology state that enormous quantities of thermite would have to be applied to the structural columns to damage them. Not so, said Professor Jones; he said he and others were investigating “superthermite.”

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? “SUPERTHERMITE?”

What’s next? Invisible “maintenance workers?”

Also making a himself look like an idiot was that gadfly of the 9/11 conspiracy bozos Kevin Ryan whose online publication www.journalof911studies.com, has been filled with some of the most uproariously funny takes on who or what brought down the towers including this gem: “The Flying Elephant: Evidence for Involvement of a Third Jet in the WTC Attacks.”

Here’s Ryan vainly trying to challenge the existence of the nose on his face:

The report brought to light one little-known detail about the morning: a private demolition monitoring firm, Protec Documentation Services, had seismographs at several construction sites in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Those machines documented the tremors of the falling towers, but captured no ground vibrations before the collapses from demolition charges or bombs, according to a separate report by Brent Blanchard, the director of field operations for Protec. It is available online at www.implosionworld.com.

Asked for comment, Mr. Ryan said that his online 9/11 journal would soon publish an article on those seismic recordings. He also maintained that the Protec paper did not adequately address why puffs of smoke were seen being expelled from some of the floors. However, the federal investigators said that about 70 percent of a building’s volume consists of air, and what looked like puffs of smoke were jets of air — and dust — that were pushed ahead of the collapse.

Maybe it was Howard Dean. He certainly blows a lot of smoke and do we know where he was on 9/11?

The other report was issued by the State Department’s PR department and contains simple, easy to understand counterpoints to the top ten conspiracy theories about 9/11:

The State Department report, which officials said was written independently of the new institute study, is titled, “The Top Sept. 11 Conspiracy Theories” and says, “Numerous unfounded conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11 attacks continue to circulate, especially on the Internet.” Produced by an arm of the State Department known as a “counter-misinformation team,” the report is dated Aug. 28 and appears as a special feature on the department’s Web site, at http://usinfo.state.gov/media/misinformation.html.

These reports, as Dwyer points out, will not convince any of the true believers among the 9/11 conspiracy crowd. It does something much more important; it halts the momentum that was being generated by the fact that the 9/11 fantasists had the playing field pretty much to themselves. They were able to advance their stupidities and begin gaining acceptance for their cockamamie theories because the effort to debunk them was not half as organized as the effort to hijack the narrative. In the game of public relations, those who are most organized usually win. In this case, the government has taken it upon itself to expend the resources necessary to give the lie to the conspiracist’s notions of what happened on 9/11 while publicizing its findings nationwide as only the government can. At the very least, there is now another source – one more accessible and easy to understand – that people who are truly interested in the subject can turn to for information.

The release of these two reports should not have been necessary. Not that people shouldn’t question the government’s investigation but rather they should believe the integrity of the scientific process as well as the mountain of evidence that the government used to come to the conclusions it did about 9/11. There comes a point where even skeptics have to give in to the weight of evidence and common sense. These reports help that process enormously.

Today is a good day for the truth. And it is a good day for those of us who are fighting to make sure that 9/11 remains as a reminder of who attacked us and why rather than a day that Americans will be forever confused about the nature and origin of the pain and trauma we suffered.

UPDATE

Ed Morrissey doesn’t believe the reports will do much good:

As I wrote a couple of days ago in relation to the nut who thinks Stephen King killed John Lennon, one cannot counter insanity and paranoia with sweet reason. King himself tried to do so with Steve Lightfoot, the paranoid who has pursued him for over twenty years, and his effort got paid off by Lightfoot’s insistence that King’s kind message constituted a death threat in code. Reason doesn’t enter into it. Mental illness does not respond to reason, and this impulse reflects a sickness that all of the scientific studies and review of facts will never cure. It’s a belief that all evil begins in America and that everything wrong in the world has its source in Washington DC —combined with an unhealthy dose of Bush Derangement Syndrome.

Don’t expect a cure for this insanity any time soon. If anything, these reports act as a vaccine for the unafflicted—and a warning for those who may be tempted to stare into the abyss.

I agree with Ed’s analysis, especially that the best we can hope for with the release of these reports is that fence sitters and those with an open mind can be convinced.

See also this Reuters article I got from Blue Crab Boulevard whose own take is well worth the read.

There are times like today that I feel like a voice in the conservative wilderness, crying out with a futility akin to a lion roaring his challenge to an empty forest. Or perhaps (more aptly) the feeling of being just an innocuous blogger, a small fish in a very large sea whose views neither deserve nor will ever garner a wide audience.

So be it. “Injustice anywhere,” Martin Luther King said, “is a threat to justice everywhere.” If that be the case, then raising my voice to chastise my government, my friends, and my ideological soulmates for the strange, willful blindness to an injustice staring them in the face is more than worth the disapprobation and anger directed my way.

I am speaking of the injustice of our detainee policy, specifically as it relates to the approximately 445 men being held at the Guantanamo Detention Camp. Our government, on more than one occasion, has referred to these prisoners as “enemy combatants captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan.” This is a lie. It simply isn’t true. The Pentagon’s own investigations into the status of these men shows otherwise. The brutal fact is our government is not telling the truth about the detainees at Guantanamo Bay and as a result, a monstrous injustice is being perpetrated in our name.

Are there terrorists being held at Guantanamo? Undoubtedly yes. But the question of justice that should concern us is not necessarily the guilt or innocence of a particular prisoner. What should make us hang our heads in shame and agitate for change is the process by which it is determined which detainees are a genuine threat to the United States and which were innocent bystanders caught up in the confusing aftermath of the War in Afghanistan.

Because despite what our military and government officials have been telling us for years, the majority of prisoners at Guantanamo were not “captured on the battlefield” but rather were handed over to the American authorities in Pakistan and areas of Afghanistan far removed from any of the battlefields of that war:

One thing about these detainees is very clear: Notwithstanding Rumsfeld’s description, the majority of them were not caught by American soldiers on the battlefield. They came into American custody from third parties, mostly from Pakistan, some after targeted raids there, most after a dragnet for Arabs after 9/11.

Much of the evidence against the detainees is weak. One prisoner at Guantanamo, for example, has made accusations against more than 60 of his fellow inmates; that’s more than 10 percent of Guantanamo’s entire prison population. The veracity of this prisoner’s accusations is in doubt after a Syrian prisoner, Mohammed al-Tumani, 19, who was arrested in Pakistan, flatly denied to his Combatant Status Review Tribunal that he’d attended the jihadist training camp that the tribunal record said he did.

Tumani’s denial was bolstered by his American “personal representative,” one of the U.S. military officers—not lawyers—who are tasked with helping prisoners navigate the tribunals. Tumani’s enterprising representative looked at the classified evidence against the Syrian youth and found that just one man—the aforementioned accuser—had placed Tumani at the terrorist training camp. And he had placed Tumani there three months before the teenager had even entered Afghanistan.

Any idea you might have that these “Combat Status Review” proceedings are fair, thorough, and speedy is incorrect. The released documents prove otherwise. In fact, these military boards move at a snail’s pace and, as the Pentagon’s own records show, are an evidentiary travesty:

Many of them are not accused of hostilities against the United States or its allies. Most, when captured, were innocent of any terrorist activity, were Taliban foot soldiers at worst, and were often far less than that. And some, perhaps many, are guilty only of being foreigners in Afghanistan or Pakistan at the wrong time. And much of the evidence—even the classified evidence—gathered by the Defense Department against these men is flimsy, second-, third-, fourth- or 12th-hand. It’s based largely on admissions by the detainees themselves or on coerced, or worse, interrogations of their fellow inmates, some of whom have been proved to be liars.

In their defense, the military denies all of these accusations while making the astonishing claim that there are no innocent men unjustly imprisoned at the facility This interview, conducted by my brother Terry on a June 27th Nightline with Admiral Harry Harris, Commander at Guantanamo shows that either Harris is being disingenuous at best or that he is truly in the dark about how many of his prisoners came to be incarcerated at his facility:

MORAN: So no man who ever came to Guantanamo Bay came there by mistake was innocent?

You know, it’s a recognized principle in international law that belligerents can hold enemy combatants. And we certainly have these folks that we’ve taken off the battlefield that have gone through these processes we just spoke about.

(As an aside, I have rarely been prouder of my brother professionally as he continuously challenged Harris throughout the interview).

At the moment, according to the government’s own count, there are approximately 130 men, some of them clearly innocent, still being held in legal limbo waiting to go home. One of them, Murat Kurnaz, was just released on August 24. His crimes?

Shortly before March 27, 2005, apparently through an administrative slip-up, the evidence against Kurnaz was declassified. Much of the evidence therein was exculpatory, but an unsigned, unsupported memo suggested guilt.

One allegation was that he was traveling to Pakistan with Selcuk Bilgin, who was a suspect in a bombing, possibly the 2003 Istanbul Bombings. It appears that Bilgin did not travel, having been stopped at the airport for an unpaid fine. In any event, no case was made against Bilgin.

According to a December 22, 2005 story by United Press International, a brief stay at a Tablighi Jamaat hostel lead to the decision to capture Kurnaz.

Kurnaz was caught in a legal quagmire where it is clear that because he was not vouchsafed even the minimal rights of a prisoner granted under the Geneva Convention, he was unable to overcome just the suspicion of guilt:

The United States recently responded to pressure from the German government and released detainee Murat Kurnaz from Guantanamo Bay. Although he spent four years in the U.S. prison there, Kurnaz was never charged with a crime, and there are no indications that he was involved in any terrorist-related activity. Had he been afforded his constitutional right to due process upon detention, it is highly likely that this innocent man would not have wasted four years of his life in prison.

How many more Murat Kurnaz’s are there? Does it matter to you that there may be dozens, perhaps hundreds of men in captivity who are no more a threat to the United States than my pet cat Snowball?

It does to me. And the fact that the tribunals set up to adjudicate these men’s cases was inadequate to the task of discovering the truth should outrage every one of us who cares about American justice.

Harris dismisses the various studies done in response to FOIA requests as “incomplete:”

MORAN: One more on this general legal topic. The Combat Status Review Tribunals that you’ve mentioned, they were studied by lawyers. And that study found that the military’s own records show that 55 percent of the detainees here never committed a hostile act against the U.S. or coalition forces. Only 8 percent were found to be, by the military, al Qaeda fighters. And only 5 percent were actually captured by U.S. forces, many of the rest sold into captivity.

So the basis, the underlying premise of that study is based on less than half of the information that was obtained. And if they draw a conclusion from that, I mean, a solid, serious conclusion from that, then I believe that any reasonable person would agree that that’s a faulty conclusion.

Are they “faulty conclusions?” Lawyers for some of the detainees have described most of the evidence as “hearsay” which is admissible in these CSRT’s but would be thrown out of most any court in any free country of the world. This is important because the debate over detainee’s rights is now over not whether they will be given any of the rights you and I take for granted under the Constitution, but which rights will be granted consistent with maintaining the safety and security of the United States while living up to a minimum standard of justice that would reveal the guilt or innocence of prisoners.

This is the delicate balance that Congress is trying to strike as they seek to comply with the recent Supreme Court decision that ruled the present system unconstitutional. Very few (except the usual civil liberties absolutists) are arguing that these men should be tried like any American criminal. What Congress is looking at is some kind of modified Courts Martial proceeding that would grant detainees at least some of the protections guaranteed under the Constitution.

Progress on the bill is slow. Meanwhile, men whose captivity came about as a result of bounties offered by the military, collected by warlords and Northern Alliance commanders and whose “crimes” may entail nothing more than their being Arabs caught in the war zones await vindication:

But the largest single group at Guantanamo Bay today consists of men caught in indiscriminate sweeps for Arabs in Pakistan. Once arrested, these men passed through several captors before being given to the U.S. military. Some of the men say they were arrested after asking for help getting to their embassies; a few say the Pakistanis asked them for bribes to avoid being turned over to America.

Others assert that they were sold for bounties, a charge substantiated in 2004 when Sami Yousafzai, a Newsweek reporter then stringing for ABC’s “20/20,” visited the Pakistani village where five Kuwaiti detainees were captured. The locals remembered the men. They had arrived with a larger group of a hundred refugees a few weeks after Qaeda fighters had passed through. The villagers said they had offered the group shelter and food, but somebody in the village sold out the guests. Pretty soon, bright lights came swooping down from the skies. “Helicopters … were announcing through loud speakers: ‘Where is Arab? Where is Arab?’ And, ‘Please, you get $1,000 for one Arab,’ ” one resident told Yousafzai.

“The one thing we were never clear of was where they came from,” Scheuer said of the Guantanamo detainees. “DOD picked them up somewhere.” When National Journal told Scheuer that the largest group came from Pakistani custody, he chuckled. “Then they were probably people the Pakistanis thought were dangerous to Pakistan,” he said. “We absolutely got the wrong people.”

I realize we are at war. I realize mistakes are often made in war. I realize the necessity of being as sure as humanly possible that anyone released from Guantanamo will do the United States or its citizens no harm. I realize that some of the evidence gathered by the military is of a classified nature and cannot be released to the press or even sometimes to the prisoner and his lawyer. I realize we cannot offer these detainees all the rights guaranteed to American citizens under the Constitution.

I realize all these things. And I am not insensate to the dilemma this issue poses both legally and politically to our policymakers.

But the fact that 4 years after the Guantanamo facility was opened there still may be dozens of innocent men being held in captivity by the United States government is a singular blot on our honor and a stain on the principles we hold dear as a liberty loving free people.

You cannot be unmoved by this issue. You cannot dismiss the evidence as the rantings of leftists or of the enemies of the United States. You cannot chalk it up to MSM bias or to Democrats playing politics. The evidence of our turpitude is convincing and cannot be denied.

This issue must be resolved finally and completely. Congress must get off the mark and pass a detainees rights bill before the election.

To wait any longer only adds to our shame.

When the government of a free people is flush with almost two trillion dollars of its citizen’s monies, the very smell of all that largess draws the hucksters, the flim flam men, the fakes and phonies in addition to the virtuous to Washington.

The city is awash with cash money. Cash for campaigns. Cash for lobbying. Cash for fat federal contracts. Cash for government consulting. Cash for consulting with businesses doing business with the government. Cash for showing businesses how to get fat federal contracts in the first place. Cash for the native guides who, like the Himalayan Sherpas assisting climbers of Mount Everest, shepherd the bewildered yokel through the maze of federal regulations and the dizzying array of alphabet soup monikered bureaucracies, all manned by self important little people with an agenda and a fiefdom to protect so that their clients can reach Nirvana; the federal teat.

Like some kind of out of control pyramid scheme, the cash moves up the chain from bottom to top with the most lucrative business going to the small cadre of lobbyists who can grab the brass ring – your very own, personal earmark or tax exemption, or legislatively friendly line hastily written in the dead of night into some innocuous bill worth millions of dollars to your company.

Whose keeping track? A few million here. Several hundred thousand there. Since no one sweats the small stuff, the game continues and it adds up somehow to billions coursing through the cracks in the system opened by greed, apathy, and a cynical belief that no one cares because no one is really paying attention.

And the physical manifestation of this rape and sodomy of the taxpayer is on display in the conspicuous consumption of the inhabitants who live, work, play, and spend their money in the surrounding suburbs of Sodom:

The three most prosperous large counties in the United States are in the Washington suburbs, according to census figures released yesterday, which show that the region has the second-highest income and the least poverty of any major metropolitan area in the country.

Rapidly growing Loudoun County has emerged as the wealthiest jurisdiction in the nation, with its households last year having a median income of more than $98,000. It is followed by Fairfax and Howard counties, with Montgomery County not far behind.

That accumulation of suburban wealth, local economists said, is a side effect of the enormous flow of federal money into the region through contracts for defense and homeland security work in the five years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, coming after the local technology boom of the 1990s. “When you put that together . . . you have a recipe for heightened prosperity,” said Anirban Basu, an economist at a Baltimore consulting firm.

The result is that the Washington area’s households rank second in income only to those in San Jose, eclipsing such well-heeled places as San Francisco and the bedroom suburbs of New York.

Of course, not all of this is the result of ill gotten or undeserved wealth. In fact, I would hope that the overwhelming portion of it was skimmed legitimately from the government. It’s just that it should be very distressing to anyone who loves liberty and its necessary companion of honest government to stand on a hill and look down on this scene feeling absolute horror and frustration at the place that the American government has come to rest in the early 21st century. Viewed from afar, one feels helpless, almost catatonic when contemplating the enormous effort that goes into devising ever more elaborate and inventive ways to separate the taxpayer’s money from government.

Certainly there are necessary and vital expenditures and businesses that cater to government in a variety of ways and serve the nation honorably in that respect. But then there are the shysters, the gimlet eyed lobbyists like Abramoff who, given enough money, can work miracles with politicians and bureaucrats. Those miracles can take the form of tax breaks geared specifically to your industry or even your individual business; earmarks that crowd legislation with unnecessary expenditures; and even re-arranging a few words or sentences in bills that could spell the difference of millions for a wealthy contributor or golfing buddy.

But the Ambramoffs of Washington are unimportant in the larger scheme of things. It’s the Duke Cunninghams with their reach into the bureaucracies where the real moneychangers operate. The discreet call from a hometown Congressman to the government contracts bureaucrat. Perhaps an invite to lunch or dinner. The shuffling of a few papers. And voila! Not quite illegal. Not entirely unethical. But the deed is done and the constituent is served.

They call it “taking care of the home folks.” What the taxpayers would call it if given the chance is unknown.

I am very happy for the people who live in those three counties around Washington that have now been declared 3 of the wealthiest places to live in the United States. And like good little capitalists, the denizens of those counties have recognized opportunity and grabbed for it. The overwhelming majority of them are blameless, only wanting success and to take care of their families the best way they know how.

But who do you blame? The system? Jesus Christ himself may have thrown up his hands in frustration at doing anything about these defilers of the temple of liberty.

Too much money. Too many compromises with ethics. Too much skirting on the edge of legality. Too many with their hands out and too many with their hands in the cookie jar.

Something has got to change. And the depressing thing is, I don’t even know where to begin.

TO ARMS! TO ARMS! The forces of darkness are gathering to strike a blow against liberty, justice, the American way, and…and…THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE!

The Electoral college?

Yes, it’s true. Not content to simply posit conspiracy theories about how Republicans steal elections, liberals have now set their sights on stripping America of one of her oldest and most cherished institutions. Now, gentle reader, before you scratch your head and ask the obvious question of who cares if we give the Electoral College the heave-ho, perhaps a little history lesson is in order. And who better to give it than I, Professor Moran, BFA, MS, and VAH (Very Amateur Historian).

WHAT IS THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE AND DO THEY HAVE A FOOTBALL TEAM?

I’ll take the second question first, Mr. Trebek. Not that I’m aware of although I understand they’ve had some pretty wild keggers over the last 217 years. And starting in 1920 when the college went co-ed, it’s rumored that Toga Parties became all the rage.

Notwithstanding such juvenile shenanigans, the Electoral College is a product of one of the more divisive debates that took place during the Constitutional Convention. For a very educational and thorough examination of this history, I recommend you go here since I’ll be dealing with only the bare bones of what the institution is all about.

The College consists of electors, chosen by the states in various ways, that (ideally) reflect the outcome of the popular vote for President in that particular state. The number of electors is what’s important. That number is determined by how many Senators (2) and Congressmen (proportionally awarded based on most recent census) the state has. So Pennsylvania has 21 electoral votes because they have 2 Senators and how many Congressmen? Class? CLASS? WAAAAAKE UUUUP!. Thank you. Nineteen Congressmen is the correct answer.

The kicker is that it’s a winner take all competition. Whoever wins the popular vote gets all the electors from that state.

ISN’T THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE KIND OF ARCHAIC?

Depends what you mean by archaic. Given that liberals have voted against every major weapons system currently in use by the military (an exaggeration, but hey! We don’t call this site the RIGHT WING Nuthouse because we’re impartial!), perhaps they wants us to fight terrorism using bows and arrows…or spears. Do you mean archaic in THAT sense?

The answer is no. And like my sainted father used to say “Old things are best.” Many of the reasons for the electoral college are still valid today. Look at the election of 2000. Al Gore would have been President if he had carried one more state. That would have given him a grand total of 18 states voting Democratic. George Bush would have won 32 states and gotten nothing, nada, zip-i-dee-doo-da. This is exactly what the electoral college was set up to prevent. Al Gore, if he had won Florida, would have captured 8 of the 10 largest states and won the election by appealing mostly to urban and coastal constituencies. George Bush demonstrated broader support in the electoral college appealing to states in the north, south, east, and west. Bush, even though narrowly losing the popular vote, proved himself a much more national candidate.

And there are other issues to consider when thinking of ditching the electoral college:

First, the direct election of presidents would lead to geographically narrower campaigns, for election efforts would be largely urban. In 2000 Al Gore won 677 counties and George Bush 2,434, but Mr. Gore received more total votes. Circumvent the Electoral College and move to a direct national vote, and those 677 largely urban counties would become the focus of presidential campaigns.

Rural states like Maine, with its 740,000 votes in 2004, wouldn’t matter much compared with New York’s 7.4 million or California’s 12.4 million votes. Rural states’ issues wouldn’t matter much either; big-city populations and urban issues would become the focus of presidential campaigns. America would be holding urban elections, and that would change the character of campaigns and presidents.

Recently, California passed a law that would award the state’s 55 electoral votes to the winner of the most popular votes nationally rather than the winner of the state’s individual race for President. This is apparently part of a national movement to marginalize the electoral college and give the larger states (mostly liberal and Democratic) a bigger say in who is President.

To say this would be catastrophic to American democracy would not be overstating the case one bit. Done under the guise of the “one man, one vote” battle cry which is largely responsible for the permanent incumbency found today in the House of Representatives, the so-called “direct election” of the President would radically alter not only the way we choose a President but the presidency itself.

WHAT WOULD BE THE PROBLEM WITH DIRECT ELECTIONS FOR PRESIDENT?

Pete Du Pont sums up a couple of the major arguments:

Second, in any direct national election there would be significant election-fraud concerns. In the 2000 Bush-Gore race, Mr. Gore’s 540,000-vote margin amounted to 3.1 votes in each of the country’s 175,000 precincts. “Finding” three votes per precinct in urban areas is not a difficult thing, or as former presidential scholar and Kennedy advisor Theodore White testified before the Congress in 1970, “There is an almost unprecedented chaos that comes in the system where the change of one or two votes per precinct can switch the national election of the United States.”

[snip]

Third, direct election would lead to a multicandidate, multiparty system instead of the two-party system we have. Many candidates would run on narrow issues: anti-immigration, pro-gun, environment, national security, antiwar, socialist or labor candidates, for they would have a microphone for their issues. Then there would be political power seekers—Al Sharpton or Michael Moore—and Hollywood pols like Barbra Streisand or Warren Beatty. Even Paris Hilton could advance her career through a presidential campaign.

If we were to simply go by the popular vote to decide who’s elected President, several other major alterations would occur that would permanently change the landscape of our political culture.

• Candidates would concentrate on big states in their campaigns. Whoever the party nominees were, they would move to California, set up residence, and try to shake 40 million hands. An exaggeration of course. But a politician who already lived in California – say a Governor or Senator – would have an enormous advantage in any race for the Presidency. If such a candidate could run up a huge majority in California the task of getting 50.1% of the vote would become much easier. This begs the question; should one state have such an enormous say in who gets elected President? The state already supplies fully 20% of the electoral votes necessary to get to the magic number of 270. Can you imagine what a 5 million vote lead would mean coming out of California to a national candidate based on directly electing a President?

• Minorities would become marginalized. If you think candidates ignore the concerns of minorities now, you’ll love direct elections for President. More than ever, Democrats would take the minority vote for granted and Republicans would continue their half-hearted attempts at outreach. the rationale being, why spend time and money preaching to (or begging from)) the converted?

• Small states and rural areas would be slighted in national elections. Would a campaign that never visited Bucktooth PA or Watchoutforthatcroc FL be any fun at all? I doubt it. I think that we’d lose something if Presidential candidates only visited big states and big state TV markets. Somehow, watching a candidate interact with these simple folk gives you a handle on what kind of person they are, hence what kind of leader they’d make.

Finally, there is this to consider:

Finally, direct election would also lead to weaker presidents. There are no run-offs in the Interstate Compact—that would require either a constitutional amendment or the agreement of all 50 states and the District of Columbia—so the highest percentage winner, no matter how small (perhaps 25% or 30% in a six- or eight-candidate field) would become president. Such a winner would not have an Electoral College majority and therefore not be seen as a legitimate president.

So rather that trying to eviscerate the Electoral College, we should be embracing it. It was put in the Constitution to allow states to choose presidents, for we are a republic based on the separation of powers, not a direct democracy. And the Electoral College—just like the Senate—was intended to protect the residents of small states. As James Madison said, the Electoral College included the will of the nation—every congressional district gets an electoral vote—and “the will of the states in their distinct and independent capacities” since every state gets two additional electors.

What Mr. Du Pont doesn’t say and what the proponents of abandoning the Electoral College never tire of pointing out is that the Electoral College was put in place because our Founding Fathers didn’t trust Jefferson’s yeoman farmers any further than they could throw them – literally. They saw us common folk as rabble, a dangerous mob and in great need of guidance by men better suited to the task of governing by virtue of their superior breeding and education. The Electoral College was originally seen as a brake on popular passions and allowed for the wisest men in the country to gather once every four years to pick our national leader.

How the Electoral College has evolved over the years to reflect the will of the people in the various states in Presidential elections is one of the more fascinating aspects in studying the American government. In fact, since the choosing of electors is up to each individual state, the system is a hodge-podge of processes and procedures that functions largely out of respect for tradition:

Here is a list of how the different states have political parties choose who will be their electors. It also shows whether or not the electors’ names appear on the ballot in November. Finally, it indicates which states have passed laws to bind their electors. Not too many do, and even fewer have defined penalties for an unfaithful elector. Yet, of more than 16,000 electors in U.S. history, less than a dozen have ever voted contrary to the wishes of the people who elected them. Don’t you wish we could say the same about our other elected officials?

The evolution of the College from something akin to the College of Cardinals to a body that reflected the democratic will of the people didn’t take long. Electors running in each district usually made it clear who they would vote for President when the College convened. But the federalist impulse behind the invention of the college remains to this day, a demonstration of the recognition that we are indeed a federal republic. And getting rid of the Electoral College would go a long way towards destroying that idea.

WILL WE TOSS THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE ANY TIME SOON?

Not as long as the current political party situation remains unchanged. Republicans would be at enormous logistical disadvantage under such a system. Think of it like a war. Republicans have a lot more territory to defend than Democrats and thus, their resources would be stretched much thinner. To get to the magic number of 50.1% of the popular vote, Democrats would be able to expend a lot less energy and money to defend their own turf thus freeing them up to raid Republican strongholds. Republicans would have to fight off Democratic insurgencies in red states while carrying on an expensive battle in blue states to pick off a few voters here and there.

No wonder the idea is popular with liberals. It would maximize the influence of their strategic assets while diminishing the power of most of the people who disagree with them.

But hey! All for a good cause, right?

UPDATE

Good Lt. blogging a the Jawas:

Yes. The Democrats want the dense inner-city populations and their infinitely successful approaches to problems like education, crime and corruption to run the national government without regard to what anybody else outside of the large population centers might think.

Times have changed so much under the long dark night of Bushiburton fascism that the very democracy that was perfectly acceptable a decade ago has collapsed entirely and needs to be replaced with procedures favorable to urban liberal constituencies.

Du Pont puts the issue correctly. Mucking with the electoral college will basically disenfracnchise rural voters. Campaigns will not only ignore them but it is likely that Administrations will also give their concerns short shrift.