Politics

Not to belabor the point but now the top U.N. human rights official has criticized the U.S. for its alleged torture of prisoners. The Washington Post has this report: U.N. Official Faults U.S. Detentions. From the article you can see that John Bolton is living all the way down to my very low expectations of him when he feebly argues that a U.N. human rights official, on Human Rights Day no less, dares to tell poke at American policy. He would prefer that she speak about rogue nations such as Burma, Zimbabwe, or Cuba.

That’s exactly the issue John! America can now be mentioned in that august company thanks to the Bush administration. Burma, Cuba, Zimbabwe, America …. it sickens me.

So just why is it that the U.S. has fewer friends than before. Condi Rice’s waffling provides a clue. According top the New York Times she clarified the picture on the American torture scandal: Rice Clarifies U.S. Interrogation Policy. But I come away from this article, and from her speech, more than convinced that the U.S. condones torture.

She delivered a weasel worded, lawyer sanctioned speech. She completely avoids rendition and speaks only about what U.S. citizens can or can’t do. Piffle! That’s not the issue. What we want to know is whether the U.S. sends people elsewhere to have them tortured by surrogates. Which is morally equivalent to allowing U.S. citizens to torture someone.

America already has its hands dirty in the infamous Khaled el-Masri case. He is a German citizen abducted by the U.S. in Germany, flown to Afghanistan, tortured for five months and then released because the Americans realized they had the wrong guy! Now he is suing the CIA and various senior officials. How does he fit Rice’s careful world?

And: if the U.S. doesn’t condone torture by its citizens, why is Cheney still trying to get the CIA excluded from the McCain anti-torture legislation?

Either Rice is a Cheney stooge or she is overwhelmed by him. Neither offers a flattering picture.

America is justifiably proud of its free press. It even brings in foreign journalists from places like Iraq to give them U.S. government sponsored classes on how a free press should act. Like: don’t be taken in by, or print, government propoganda. The Iraqis are reportedly impressed by the classes. I wonder what they’ll make of the fact that the Pentagon has hired an agency to write ‘upbeat news stories’ to place in the local Iraqi press to put forward a ‘more realistic’ view than the [apparently not free enough and presumably inaccurate] local press is already doing? I guess they won’t be upset that the agency sub-contracted the writing to someone else who, and this is just a coincidence, happened to be a former bigwig of the Republican Party. Do as I say, not do as I do? Anyway, as I said, America should be proud of its free press.

For those of you who missed it: Governor Arnie of California has just appointed a new Chief of Staff to help him repair the disastrous damage he did to himself when he put forward those four propositions that were all resoundingly defeated in last months polls. No surprise there: he needs all the help he can get. But. Well the issue is that the new staffer is … well … a Democrat. Yes you read that correctly. The new staffer is none other than Susan Kennedy [no not one of those Kennedys] who held a top post in the former Governor Grey Davis’ administration. You know, the Governor Davis that our Arnie rose up in revolt against. Well now there’s a thing. No wonder Repubilcans throughout the country are aghast. Wasn’t Arnie spoken of as a potential presidential contender? Not now I imagine. Not now that he’s brought in one of the enemy to help fix his problems! Whatever next … raising taxes to pay off the deficit? Surely not! Arnie the heretic … I like that.