Ron's View

Change We Can Believe In: Illegal Drone Killings

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism , based at City University in London, released a report yesterday on our country’s covert drone war in Pakistan. The investigation, done for the Sunday Times, reveals that

since Obama took office three years ago, between 282 and 535 civilians have been credibly reported as killed including more than 60 children. A three month investigation including eye witness reports has found evidence that at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims. More than 20 civilians have also been attacked in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners.

As noted earlier in the report, “Obama claimed last week [drones strikes] are used strictly to target terrorists, rejecting what he called ‘this perception we’re just sending in a whole bunch of strikes willy-nilly’.” The meaning of the word “terrorist” stretches further with each passing year, but calling rescuers and mourners “terrorists” is a new low.

Glenn Greenwald followed up the report with some useful commentary, observing that

the Bureau is extremely scrupulous, perhaps to a fault, in the claims it makes about civilian drone fatalities. Its findings here about deliberate targeting of rescuers and funeral attendees are supported by ample verified witness testimony, field research and public reports, all of which the Bureau has documented in full. As [Bureau member Chris] Woods said by email: “We have been working for months with field researchers in Waziristan to independently verify the original reports. In 12 cases we are able to confirm that rescuers and mourners were indeed attacked.”

We can’t have an open discussion of our drone war because it is secret and Obama won’t provide details. Not that there’s evidence that Congress welcomes such a discussion. And the Republican candidates (other than Ron Paul) criticize Obama for not doing even more. American exceptionalism indeed.

[Recent post from Dogs Against Romney]

Thanks to Joel, I’ve been a regular reader of Robert Paul Wolff’s blog, The Philosopher’s Stone. Two days ago, in one of his occasional notes on the Republican presidential race, Wolff took a brief look at Mormonism, suggesting that it is no odder than any other religion. Wolff concluded by wishing that the religious aspect of Romney’s life be looked at more closely as a clue to Romney’s essence, rather than Romney’s financial dealings or penchant for strapping the family dog to the roof of the station wagon: “As the political season unfolds, I am looking forward to some searching examinations of the [religion] that constitutes the essence of Romney’s most deeply held beliefs.”

But this isn’t my quote of the week. The quote is the preceding passage, in which Wolff suggests that the focus on Romney’s work with Bain Capital and his tax status is mis-placed. After all, Wolff observes,

Who ever doubted that the super-rich get super-rich by writing favorable tax laws for themselves? What good is capitalism if it cannot even protect the 1%!

A healthy dose of reality, for sure, and a reminder that nothing about the economic policies of the Republican candidates should surprise us.

As it turns out, I had a quote of the week lined up for last week as well, but never got around to it. It was from Victoria Azarenka, the tennis player from Belarus who won the Australian Open last weekend for her first victory in a major. She has been one of the bright young stars of the women’s tour for a few years (still only 22), but also the worst offender among the corps of screamers that populates the tour.

What am I talking about? Have a look, or listen:

I was enjoying the ability to watch some of the matches live in the evenings during week two of the Open, thanks to the time difference between here and Australia. For example, two Tuesdays ago, I caught the end of the much-anticipated quarter-final between Kim Clijsters and Caroline Wozniacki. But when it came to watching Azarenka against Agnieszka Radwanska, forget it. The semi-final pairings were a disaster, with Azarenka against Clijsters in one and runner-up-for-biggest-screamer Maria Sharapova in the other against Petra Kvitova. The pity is, these were both interesting matchups, ones I would have liked to see, in principle. But no way was I going to subject myself to the screaming.

And the screamers both won! What a pity! Azarenka-Sharapova was an intriguing matchup (though Azarenka would go on to win easily), but unwatchable.

In the NYT two Wednesdays ago, just after Azarenka beat Clijsters in the quarter-finals, Ben Rothenberg wrote about the grunting. When asked, Sharapova responded, “You’ve watched me grow up, you’ve watched me play tennis. I’ve been the same over the course of my career. No one important enough has told me to change or do something different.” She makes an important point: Until the tennis authorities decide to do something about this, nothing will change.

Meanwhile, Azarenka wins the award for quote of the week:

It’s the way I am, the way I play, the way I used to play when I was a kid. As a child I was really weak, so I had to give that little extra power there. It kind of stuck with me, so that’s it.

Power? What do her shrieks have to do with power? What possible purpose do they serve other than distracting the opponent. And annoying all of us who might otherwise have an interest in supporting women’s tennis.

The war in Afghanistan continues. But why? President Obama campaigned four years ago in part on the basis that Bush was pursuing the wrong war — Iraq rather than Afghanistan. Obama vowed to reverse priorities, and indeed he has, withdrawing troops from Iraq while building up in Afghanistan. But to what end? Al Qaeda would appear to be defeated, and in any case, to the extent that they’re still around, they’re next door in Pakistan. US troops don’t seem to be welcome. See for instance Matthew Rosenberg’s piece in the NYT a week and a half ago, which opens:

American and other coalition forces here are being killed in increasing numbers by the very Afghan soldiers they fight alongside and train, in attacks motivated by deep-seated animosity between the supposedly allied forces, according to American and Afghan officers and a classified coalition report.

A decade into the war in Afghanistan, the report makes clear that these killings have become the most visible symptom of a far deeper ailment plaguing the war effort: the contempt each side holds for the other, never mind the Taliban. The ill will and mistrust run deep among civilians and militaries on both sides, raising questions about what future role the United States and its allies can expect to play in Afghanistan.

According to the NYT six days ago, “The Department of Defense has identified 1,868 American service members who have died as a part of the Afghan war and related operations.” And today I learned of one more Afghan war death, that of my friend’s dear son Will, a Marine, who was the same age as my son Joel. I wish I knew why.

As far as I can tell, domestic politics is once again driving the war’s prolongation, without the counterweight of a draft. If the politics of this country were at all sane, our president would have a lot of explaining to do. Instead, he’s sitting back while the truly insane warmongers of the other party call for yet more war, chomping at the bit to accuse him of losing Iraq.

Meanwhile, people die. My sadness is laced with anger.

[Jen Sorensen, from Slowpoke Comics*]

David Brooks appears alarmed by the treatment Mitt Romney is getting, so much so that Brooks devotes today’s NYT column to defending him:

Mitt Romney is a rich man, but is Mitt Romney’s character formed by his wealth? Is Romney a spoiled, cosseted character? Has he been corrupted by ease and luxury?

The notion is preposterous. All his life, Romney has been a worker and a grinder. He earned two degrees at Harvard simultaneously (in law and business). He built a business. He’s persevered year after year, amid defeat after defeat, to build a political career.

Romney’s salient quality is not wealth. It is, for better and worse, his tenacious drive — the sort of relentlessness that we associate with striving immigrants, not rich scions.

Gosh, who knew? Two Harvard degrees simultaneously! A worker and a grinder! And here I thought the problem was that Romney is a liar. Brooks never gets around to that. He’s too busy recounting the hardships endured by Mitt’s ancestors. “Where did this persistence come from?” Brooks asks. “It’s plausible to think that it came from his family history.” Brooks spends the remainder of the column reviewing that history.

Who gives a darn about Romney’s persistence, or his family history? How about his long-time willingness to say whatever he thinks needs saying to get elected, whether as senator, governor, or president? How about his campaign being based on slandering President Obama? (See for instance this account of Romney lies by your fellow columnist Paul Krugman, who asks, “is there anything at all in Romney’s stump speech that’s true?”)

That’s what disturbs me.

*The cartoon alludes to the 1983 Romney family vacation, which began with a drive to Canada for which Mitt put Irish setter Seamus in a crate and strapped the crate to the top of the station wagon. NYT columnist Gail Collins has referred to this incident throughout the primary season whenever writing about Romney.

Above is Ted Rall’s cartoon from today, with the title “More Coffee” and the question, “What will be Obama’s sales pitch for 2012?”

If I were choosing, I’d go for the one on the left. It’s irrefutable. Can you imagine a McCain presidency?  Would we already have begun a war with Iran?  I’ll give Obama that. He has tread carefully, ignoring the war-mongerers.  

Then again, Obama has signed a law allowing indefinite detention of US citizens; he has claimed and exercised the right to murder US citizens; he has waged undeclared war on Libya, not to mention Yemen and Pakistan (if you consider killing people with unmanned drones an act of war); he has institutionalized domestic spying.

I could go on. But however long the list, one can’t escape the logic of the argument that it could be worse, an argument the Republican candidates reinforce every time they speak. A winning sales pitch for sure.

[From http://schoolworkhelper.net/2010/12/the-law-and-the-covenant-moses/]

In an op-ed piece this weekend in the Washington Post, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley offers “10 reasons the US is no longer the land of the free.” It’s a handy list. You should read his article for the details. I’ll content myself with the list itself:

Each year at the Passover Seder, we read the list of the ten plagues God visited on Egypt to persuade Pharaoh to free the Israelites. As I read Turley’s article, I wonder why the Bush and Obama administrations have seen fit to visit these on us.

Here’s Mitt Romney talking with Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today Show this morning. You’ve probably seen the clip already. If not, check it out.

What with all my criticisms of Obama, you may have gotten the wrong impression that my failure to comment on Romney might mean I like the guy. In fact, I despise him. I’m having trouble remembering which Republican presidential candidate I’ve despised more. But maybe I’m just forgetting how I felt about McCain three years ago or Bush seven years ago, or good old Dick Nixon.

What’s so troubling about Romney is how comfortable he is about lying. There’s the foreign policy lie, the one about Obama apologizing for America. And the domestic lie, about Obama hating Wall Street. For someone who hates Wall Street, Obama has the odd habit of filling the White House and Cabinet with its members.

And now we see Romney so eager to attack Obama for hating Wall Street that he spouts utter nonsense. Or worse. Listen to Romney at the 38-second mark, explaining that “those people who’ve been most successful will be in the one percent.” Here he is equating success with money. Simple as that. If you don’t have money, you’re a loser. Well, okay, I shouldn’t put words in his mouth. But then, I don’t have to. What he says is more incredible than anything I would have dreamed of putting in his mouth.

Yet, millions of people whom he has called losers will vote for him. Unbelievable.

[Mr. Fish, Harper's Magazine, January 6, 2012]

I saw this two days ago and couldn’t resist adding it to my Change We Can Believe In series. Perhaps it should become the new graphic for future installments. I was slow to warm to Mr. Fish, but in the last half year I’ve become a big fan. You can find more of his work by following this link and selecting the “Creator of” tab.

Change We Can Believe In: Indefinite Detention

It’s almost two weeks since I promised a Change You Can Believe In post in which Obama “trample[s] on civil rights by signing into law the right to detain US citizens indefinitely.” The only problem is, he waited until today to sign the military spending bill, so I had to delay my post.

As I have said in many posts, and others have said better, through his eager and unexpected continuation of Bush administration civil rights violations and his further willingness to enshrine them in law, Obama has succeeded in turning what once appeared to be the mad acts of a group of zealots into bipartisan procedure. From an ACLU press release:

President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law today. The statute contains a sweeping worldwide indefinite detention provision. While President Obama issued a signing statement saying he had “serious reservations” about the provisions, the statement only applies to how his administration would use the authorities granted by the NDAA, and would not affect how the law is interpreted by subsequent administrations. The White House had threatened to veto an earlier version of the NDAA, but reversed course shortly before Congress voted on the final bill.

“President Obama’s action today is a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law,” said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director. “The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield. … Any hope that the Obama administration would roll back the constitutional excesses of George Bush in the war on terror was extinguished today.”

See also a lengthy post today by Glenn Greenwald that, some ways down, gives an overview of Obama’s policies. Here’s an excerpt. (The original has many embedded links that I have not taken the time to reproduce.)

The candidate supported by progressives — President Obama — himself holds heinous views on a slew of critical issues and himself has done heinous things with the power he has been vested. He has slaughtered civilians — Muslim children by the dozens — not once or twice, but continuously in numerous nations with drones, cluster bombs and other forms of attack. He has sought to overturn a global ban on cluster bombs. He has institutionalized the power of Presidents — in secret and with no checks — to target American citizens for assassination-by-CIA, far from any battlefield. He has waged an unprecedented war against whistleblowers, the protection of which was once a liberal shibboleth. He rendered permanently irrelevant the War Powers Resolution, a crown jewel in the list of post-Vietnam liberal accomplishments, and thus enshrined the power of Presidents to wage war even in the face of a Congressional vote against it. His obsession with secrecy is so extreme that it has become darkly laughable in its manifestations, and he even worked to amend the Freedom of Information Act (another crown jewel of liberal legislative successes) when compliance became inconvenient.

He has entrenched for a generation the once-reviled, once-radical Bush/Cheney Terrorism powers of indefinite detention, military commissions, and the state secret privilege as a weapon to immunize political leaders from the rule of law. He has shielded Bush era criminals from every last form of accountability. He has vigorously prosecuted the cruel and supremely racist War on Drugs, including those parts he vowed during the campaign to relinquish — a war which devastates minority communities and encages and converts into felons huge numbers of minority youth for no good reason. He has empowered thieving bankers through the Wall Street bailout, Fed secrecy, efforts to shield mortgage defrauders from prosecution, and the appointment of an endless roster of former Goldman, Sachs executives and lobbyists. He’s brought the nation to a full-on Cold War and a covert hot war with Iran, on the brink of far greater hostilities. He has made the U.S. as subservient as ever to the destructive agenda of the right-wing Israeli government. His support for some of the Arab world’s most repressive regimes is as strong as ever.

Would I rather have seen McCain elected? No, of course not. But that’s not the point. The point is, Obama has been a surprise and a disappointment in so many policy areas, areas where it seems we are powerless to effect change. I don’t doubt for a moment that Hillary Clinton would have supported or implemented essentially the same policies. The only candidate daring to suggest alternative ways of thinking — and he has his own problems — is Ron Paul. What to make of Paul’s candidacy? (This is the starting point of Greenwald’s post.) I sure don’t see myself voting for him, and I find many of his positions disturbing. But I am thankful that at least one candidate is questioning the bipartisan consensus laid out in the passage above.

President Obama and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of Iraq at Arlington National Cemetery, December 12

[Doug Mills, NYT]

One of the most disturbing features of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign is his constant emphasis on the importance of American exceptionalism, with concomitant dishonest attacks on Obama for his failure to recognize this exceptionalism and his “apologizing” abroad for our behavior. Dishonest? See, for instance, Glenn Kessler’s Washington Post article earlier this month, in which we learn:

Romney likes to say that President Obama apologized overseas for the United States. He even titled his campaign book “No Apology.”

Even more, Romney suggests, Obama does not believe in American strength and greatness. The assertion feeds into a subterranean narrative that Obama, with his exotic, mixed-race background, is not really American in the first place.

[snip]

In a lengthy article on the Fact Checker blog, we tracked down every statement Obama uttered that partisans claim was an apology, and concluded that each one had been misquoted or taken out of context.

But I’m not here to complain about Romney’s dishonesty. If I started, how would I stop? Instead, I wish to complain about Obama’s own emphasis on American exceptionalism. The irony of Romney’s distorted attacks is that Obama stands side by side with him in declaring how special we are, and I find this disturbing in its own right.

Yes, a mixed message here. I don’t like Romney’s attacks on Obama for not appreciating America’s uniqueness. And I don’t like Obama’s claims of America’s uniqueness. But that’s the case, and the larger underlying issue is the impoverishment of moral and political discourse in this country, especially in the context of war.

Which brings me to Jim Rigby’s powerful Christmas Day piece at Truthout on Obama and the Iraq War. Rigby is pastor of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas. Rather than exceptionalism, he speaks of “narcissistic delusion.” Below is the relevant passage. Please do take the time to read his article in its entirety.

What have we learned as a result of the war? That was answered by Obama’s words to the returning troops:

Because of you – because you sacrificed so much for a people that you had never met – Iraqis have a chance to forge their own destiny. That’s part of what makes us special as Americans. Unlike the old empires, we don’t make these sacrifices for territory or for resources. We do it because it’s right. There can be no fuller expression of America’s support for self-determination than our leaving Iraq to its people. That says something about who we are.

Looking back at my earlier Christmas article, I feel pain, not pride, at what the president said. His speech to returning troops could have been taken from any leader, of any nation, from any period of history, simply by changing the names and places. It is the kind of speech every leader has given since the emperors: brave and noble words, written in someone else’s blood. This president, who ran, in part, against this war, has come to repeat the party line. This president, who once spoke of respect for all people of the world, has now deported more immigrants than Bush.

Hearing another speech expressing our nation’s narcissistic delusion made me physically ill. I could not help but think of the bloody wake such rhetoric leaves behind when put into action. The fact that we are leaving Iraq at this point says nothing about the purity of our initial motives. Even bank robbers don’t stay around after the crime has been committed. I appreciate trying to make our young soldiers not feel like they were pawns in someone else’s parlor game, but for the sake of future generations, we must painfully remember and affirm that that is exactly what happened.

We, from the United States, are not like the people in our nativity scenes. We are like the Romans looming ominously in the background of the story. Christmas is about the little people of the world who find joy and meaning while living under someone else’s boot. We from the United States can only celebrate Christmas by ending our cultural narcissism, renouncing empire, and making room for the poor and the weak of the world, such as Joseph and Mary.