Ryan Lizza of TNR on the Terrorism Czar and Spinal Tap
Secondly, Townsend’s move was a reminder that the White House counterterrorism job is the bureaucratic equivalent of the drummer in Spinal Tap. Bush has now gone through five of them since 9/11. (Clinton had one.) Like Spinal Tap’s drummers, who often choked on their own vomit or spontaneously combusted, Bush’s counterterrorism aides all seem to disappear under unusual circumstances.
Read the whole thing.
Something reasonable from the NY Post:
ACCORDING to his handlers, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld went to Baghdad to “boost troop morale.” The best way the SecDef could improve morale would be to resign.
In Operation Iraqi Freedom, Rumsfeld and his apparatchiks boldly defended Washington while our troops fought overseas. Now that the battle’s shifted to Capitol Hill in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal, the SecDef’s in Iraq.
It’s like all those press briefings in which he answers the questions when things are going well, but defers to those in uniform when things are going badly.
Should Rumsfeld resign over the prisoner abuse by rogue MPs? No. He should resign for the good of our military and our country. Those twisted photos are only one symptom of how badly the Rumsfeld era has derailed our military.
Click link above to read more.
(Via Atrios)
The Bush administration pledged yesterday for the first time that the United States will not torture terrorism suspects or treat them cruelly in an attempt to extract information, a move that comes as the deaths of two Afghan prisoners in U.S. custody are being investigated as homicides.
“All interrogations, wherever they may occur,” must be conducted without the use of cruel and inhuman tactics, the Pentagon’s senior lawyer wrote after members of Congress and human rights groups pressed the White House to renounce abusive tactics reported by U.S. government officials.
On a day when President Bush asserted that his administration intends to lead by example in a global fight against torture, Defense Department general counsel William J. Haynes II said that anyone found to have broken the law in the Afghanistan deaths will be prosecuted.
Human rights organizations welcomed the announcement, which went further than the Bush administration had gone before. An earlier letter from Haynes, for example, had mentioned the prohibition against torture without citing the broader category of mistreatment that is against the law in the United States.
While neither Bush nor Haynes cited specific tactics, human rights activists said the administration appeared to bar such techniques as depriving prisoners of sleep, withholding medicine and forcing them to stand at length in painful positions. U.S. authorities have used each technique against captives held abroad in the war on terrorism, according to current and former national security officials interviewed last year by The Washington Post.
From Patriotboy (via Atrios.)
Dear Dr. Laura,
I was saddened to read that Our Leader won’t be attending his daughters’ graduations because he was worried that the security precautions would inconvenience the other parents. Then, I learned that he will be Louisiana State University’s graduation speaker. I found that a bit confusing. Why would he miss his daughters’ graduations, but attend LSU’s? The security situation would be the same.
Then it struck me. Louisiana is a battleground state. He’s doing it for political reasons. He understands that the parents of graduating LSU students won’t mind the extra security because they’ll be helping him on his quest to provide us with another four years of his bold leadership.
Dr. Laura, I hate to see him miss his own daughters’ big day. I hope you’ll consider asking him to request to be the speaker at their graduations. That way, it’d be a political event and he could attend.
I bet he’d listen to you. I know you’ve been a big supporter of his and that you’re very respected in conservative circles–especially now that you’re no longer a Jew.
Please consider it.
Heterosexually yours,
Gen. JC Christian, Patriot
We’ll see. Why do I doubt it? (via xoverboard)
And all Iraqi military and civilian personnel should listen carefully to this warning: In any conflict, your fate will depend on your actions. Do not destroy oil wells, a source of wealth that belongs to the Iraqi people. Do not obey any command to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone, including the Iraqi people. War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished and it will be no defense to say, “I was just following orders.”
-George W. Bush, 3/19/2003I expect them to be treated, the POWs, I expect to be treated humanely, just like we’re treating the prisoners that we have captured humanely. If not, the people who mistreat the prisoners will be treated as war criminals.
-George W. Bush, 3/23/2003
