[GranniesAgainstGeorge] Article from The Moscow Times - Global Eye

[Guest guest]

Damn shame that people in the US have to read Russian newspapers to

get some facts.

 

 

" Granny M

 

Wed, 2 Mar 2005 04:58:11 +0300 (MSK)

[GranniesAgainstGeorge] Article from The Moscow Times -

Global Eye

 

 

 

Dear Grannies,

 

one of your friends has been reading The Moscow Times online at

http://context.themoscowtimes.com !

 

Granny Mari thought you'd be interested in the following article and

has asked us to send it to you:

 

" Global Eye "

http://context.themoscowtimes.com/story/140322/

 

Granny Mari also wrote the following comment:

 

And with every loud splattering of fresh Bushflop, there`s a flurry of

hope that this time, the dirt will stick; this time, the stench of

corruption will be so overwhelming that the nation`s long-somnolent

conscience will be aroused. Yet each time, the rancid slurry just

disappears down the drain: The Bushists tell their butt-covering lies,

the " watchdogs " of the media wag their tails and all is well again in

the land that Gore Vidal so aptly dubbed the United States of Amnesia.

No scandal, no matter how outrageous, ever gains any traction.

 

 

 

 

Global Eye

 

Core Values

 

By Chris Floyd

Published: February 25, 2005

 

Day in and day out, patriotic American dissidents on both the left and

the right keep shovelling through the bloody muck of the Bush

Imperium. The filth is endless, Augean; Salon.com recently catalogued

34 ongoing major scandals, equalling or surpassing the depravity of

Watergate. Yet still the patriots bend to the task, tossing up

steaming piles of ugly truth before the public.

 

And with every loud splattering of fresh Bushflop, there's a flurry of

hope that this time, the dirt will stick; this time, the stench of

corruption will be so overwhelming that the nation's long-somnolent

conscience will be aroused. Yet each time, the rancid slurry just

disappears down the drain: The Bushists tell their butt-covering lies,

the " watchdogs " of the media wag their tails and all is well again in

the land that Gore Vidal so aptly dubbed the United States of Amnesia.

No scandal, no matter how outrageous, ever gains any traction.

 

But there is a simple reason why patriots on both the right and the

left are stymied: because the center is rotten to its well-wadded,

self-righteous, wilfully ignorant core. We speak here of the nation's

" great and good, " pillars of the community and stalwarts of the

established order, the " captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of

letters, the generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers,

distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees, industrial

lords and petty contractors, " in T.S. Eliot's words -- to which we

might add, as a modern gloss, the highly credentialed academics,

extremely well-remunerated corporate journalists, politically wired

churchmen and the innumerable massagers of public opinion and

commercial desire.

 

It is this center -- which prides itself on being sensible, moderate,

decent and respectable -- that has become morally corrupted beyond

measure, perhaps beyond remedy. Here, where there should be thunderous

denunciations of the Bush regime's rape of American honor -- a litany

of sins that includes aggressive war, the decimation of cities, vile

acts of torture, kidnappings, " renditions, " imprisonment without

charges, indefinite detention, assassinations, war profiteering and

the exaltation of presidential power above the reach of law -- there

has been only silent acquiescence, or the rare, decorous, timorous

murmur, or, increasingly, enthusiastic support.

 

An obscure news story from last week, buried in the back pages -- if

noted at all -- provides a vivid glimpse of the center rot. It was an

ordinary wire piece from Knight-Ridder, standard Washington wonkery

about a bureaucratic turf battle. It dealt with one of the

recommendations of the " 9-11 Commission " -- that assemblage of the

great and good whose " independent " investigation of the 2001 terrorist

attacks on America unearthed a vast tangle of criminal negligence and

fatal incompetence for which, miraculously, not a single member of the

great and good bore the least responsibility.

 

The commission issued a slew of recommendations for upgrading national

security, including the much-ballyhooed creation of a new " Director of

National Intelligence " to oversee the ever-spreading octopus of U.S.

" security organs " -- 15 separate spy agencies at last count (that we

know about). The wisdom of this advice was borne out by George W.

Bush's choice for the post: John Negroponte, the death-squad enabler

and atrocity manager best known for burying evidence of CIA-sponsored

murders, massacres and torture in Central America during the

Reagan-Bush I years. Fresh from not-dissimilar duties in Baghdad, this

distinguished civil servant is now bringing his dark arts to the

Homeland -- to general approval from the stalwarts.

 

But the sages had another, lesser-known recommendation: consolidating

" all secret U.S. paramilitary operations, whether clandestine or

covert " within the Pentagon. This would make such operations " more

robust, " the worthies said. But the CIA objected to having its own

secret armies taken away. After months of negotiation, it was decided

last week that the Pentagon and CIA would keep their separate

paramilitary capabilities.

 

What exactly are these " paramilitary operations " which the commission,

the U.S. Congress and all our stalwarts think we should have more of?

As Knight-Ridder notes, they are actions " conducted by armed units

that do not belong to conventional military formations " -- in other

words, terrorist groups, according to the Bush regime's own

definition. Those designated as terrorists by Bush should not be

covered by the Geneva Conventions, we are told, because they are not

part of a " conventional military formation. " They're outlaws, Bush

says, fit to be killed or locked up without charges. Yet of course he

commands the largest collection of such " outlaws " in the world.

 

And " outlaw " is no metaphorical term here. As Knight-Ridder explains,

specifically " covert " operations are those " in which the U.S.

government wants to be able to deny any involvement " because they " at

times violate international law or the laws of war. "

 

Here we come to the crux of the rot. Not a single Establishment

stalwart involved in the matter -- not Congress, nor the Commission,

nor the President, nor the press -- objected in the least to this

horrifying reality: that the U.S. government routinely violates

" international law and the laws of war " in secret terrorist actions by

" unconventional " forces, including CIA operatives, local proxies and

hired killers. It's simply accepted, across the board, as standard

practice. In fact, the only concern about these admittedly criminal

actions -- directed by unrestricted presidential fiat, with their true

ends (Counterterrorism? Personal enrichment? Political power games?

Ideological zealotry?) forever hidden from public scrutiny -- is how

to make them more " robust, " more efficient and more deadly.

 

The great societal bulwarks that should mitigate the abuse of power

have instead embraced the barbaric ethos of brute force in order to

maintain their own comfort, privilege and self-regard. For them, law

has become a pretty sham and honor is a fiction, while respectability

and decency are fairy tales for fools and children. Truth will never

hold where the center is so murderously corrupted.

 

Annotations

 

 

CIA, Pentagon Reject Recommendation on Paramilitaries

Knight-Ridder, Feb. 16, 2005

 

A Wave of Torture and Murder in Honduras: Did Washington Know? Yes

Baltimore Sun, June 11, 1995

 

Promoting the Ambassador of Torture

Democracy Now, Feb. 18, 2005

 

History of Guatemala's Death Squads

Consortiumnews.com, Jan. 11, 2005

 

Guatemalan Death Squad Dossier

National Security Archives, May 20, 1999

 

The CIA in Latin America

National Security Archives, March 14, 2000

 

Negroponte's Dark Past

The Nation, Feb. 17, 2005

 

Negroponte's Blind Spots

Consortiumnews.com, Feb. 18, 2005

 

Alberto Gonzales' Tortured Arguments for Reigning Above the Law

LA Weekly, Jan. 14-20, 2005

 

Torture Treaty Doesn't Bar `Cruel, Inhuman' Tactics, Gonzales Says

Knight-Ridder, Jan. 26, 2005

 

The Secret World of US Jails

The Observer, June 13, 2004

 

The Torture Memos: A Legal Narrative

CounterPunch, Feb. 2, 2005

 

CIA Takes on Major Military Role: 'We're Killing People!

Boston Globe, Jan. 20, 2002

 

Reagan and Guatemala's Death Files

Consortiumnews.com, May 26, 1999

 

Death, Lies and Bodywashing

Consortiumnews.com, 1996

 

US Wants to Build Network of Friendly Militias to Fight Terrorism

AFP, August 15, 2004

 

Pentagon Plan for Global Anti-Terror Army

Sydney Morning Herald, Aug. 11, 2004

 

America's Amnesia on Torture

The Progressive, July 2004

 

U.S. Arming Baathist Militia's to Combat Shiite Cleric Rule

Asia Times, Feb. 15, 2005

 

Bush's Death Squads

Ratical.org, Jan. 31, 2002

 

Bush Has Widened Authority of CIA to Kill Terrorists

New York Times, Dec. 15, 2002

 

Special Ops Get OK to Initiate Its Own Missions

Washington Times, Jan. 8, 2003

 

Coward's War in Yemen

Spiked, Nov. 11, 2002

 

Drones of Death

The Guardian, Nov. 6, 2002

 

Memo Regarding Presidential Executive Order on Interrogations

Federal Bureau of Investigation, May 22, 2004

 

Rumsfeld's Dirty Little Secret

Center for American Progress, Jan.

 

Pentagon's Secret Spy Unit Broadens Rumsfeld's Power

San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 23, 2005

 

Pentagon Files Reveal More Allegations of Abuse in Iraq

Los Angeles Times, Jan. 25, 2005

 

America's Death Squads

Antiwar.com, Jan. 10, 2005

 

Gonzales Excludes CIA from Rules on Prisoners

New York Times, Jan. 20, 2005