May 2004

There were 54 posts published in May 2004 (this is page 4 of 9).

A Few Bad Apples

This sheds more light on Abu Rhraib:

The White House’s top lawyer warned more than two years ago that U.S. officials could be prosecuted for “war crimes” as a result of new and unorthodox measures used by the Bush administration in the war on terrorism, according to an internal White House memo and interviews with participants in the debate over the issue.
The concern about possible future prosecution for war crimes–and that it might even apply to Bush adminstration officials themselves– is contained in a crucial portion of an internal January 25, 2002, memo by White House counsel Alberto Gonzales obtained by NEWSWEEK. It urges President George Bush declare the war in Afghanistan, including the detention of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, exempt from the provisions of the Geneva Convention.
In the memo, the White House lawyer focused on a little known 1996 law passed by Congress, known as the War Crimes Act, that banned any Americans from committing war crimes–defined in part as “grave breaches” of the Geneva Conventions. Noting that the law applies to “U.S. officials” and that punishments for violators “include the death penalty,” Gonzales told Bush that “it was difficult to predict with confidence” how Justice Department prosecutors might apply the law in the future. This was especially the case given that some of the language in the Geneva Conventions–such as that outlawing “outrages upon personal dignity” and “inhuman treatment” of prisoners–was “undefined.”

Props to Newsweek for more investigative work on this–I wonder who’s been leaking. At any rate the evidence is growing of a systematic U.S government effort to skirt or even disregard the Geneva Convention.
So much for moral authority.

Olympian Celebrations

Last week the U.S. Olympic Committee told Olympians to tone down post-event celebrations:

In a series of unprecedented meetings, the U.S. Olympic Committee is urging prospective Olympians to mute their celebrations, refine their behavior and refrain from public criticism during the 2004 Games in Athens in an effort to avoid provoking anti-American passions.
USOC officials fear unruly, taunting or inappropriate behavior by U.S. athletes during the Aug. 13-29 Games in Greece would at best evoke embarrassing condemnation from other athletes or international officials and at worst retaliation from anti-American groups.

I think this recommendation is warranted on grounds of general sportsmanship, but do we really need to make a political issue about it? If I was a Middle Eastern terrorist type, I don’t think I’d need a prancing sprinter to stoke the anti-American coals. There’s already plenty of fodder out there. Like 150,000 warring troops parked in the fertile crescent.
But I’m not the Middle Eastern terrorist type. So perhaps I’m not looking at it the right way.

Small Town Loss

According to Re. Ike Skelton (D-MO), 47 % of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan and 44% of those killed in Iraq come from “small town and rural America.”
I’m not sure how that area is defined for this statistic, but undoubtedly it’s paying a disproportionate price in the military campaigns.

Quaint Provisions

First came Seymour Hersh’s article, which links the prison abuse at Abu Rhraib to a Pentagon strategy against al Qaeda.
Now there’s this:

By Jan. 25, 2002, according to a memo obtained by NEWSWEEK, it was clear that Bush had already decided that the Geneva Conventions did not apply at all, either to the Taliban or Al Qaeda. In the memo, which was written to Bush by Gonzales, the White House legal counsel told the president that Powell had “requested that you reconsider that decision.” Gonzales then laid out startlingly broad arguments that anticipated any objections to the conduct of U.S. soldiers or CIA interrogators in the future. “As you have said, the war against terrorism is a new kind of war,” Gonzales wrote to Bush. “The nature of the new war places a high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians.” Gonzales concluded in stark terms: “In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.”

It’s not yet clear who planted the seeds which lead to Iraqi prison porn. But if you believe this was merely a handful of troops engaging in frat house fun, I’ve got some Niger yellowcake to sell you.
It’s interesting that under the administration’s “war on terror” paradigm, basic human dignity is now a quaint notion. This is all typical of what we have seen on a number of policy fronts. The administration declares itself not bound to old, pesky standards. They obfuscate lines of authority so when things get screwed up they can simply assert plausible deniability, benign neglect, or bureaucratic disarray (thanks to Clinton) so no one at the policy level ever gets held accountable. And thanks to a media which is generally unwilling to take stories to a degree of complexity beyond the picture-level, the ineptness continues.