Once again, Mark Justice Hinton has won the
grand prize in the Alibi’s Ridiculously Short Fiction Contest. Mr. Hinton will receive $1,000,000 per week for the rest of his life.
Reached at his home in Tibet, Lord Hinton, as he prefers, said, ”I never imagined this.” Fans are reminded to dress warmly when
standing vigil outside his castle. Please don’t feed his pack of wolves. mjh
—–
Alibi Short Fiction Contest (Deadline is
Friday, June 11, at 5 p.m.)
USATODAY.com – Bush: ‘Bring on’ attackers of U.S. troops
Posted 7/2/2003 11:47 AM
”There are some who feel like that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring them on,” Bush said.
This would make a powerful 10 second commercial. In the year since he said ”bring them on,” 800 US soldiers have died; tens of thousands have been injured. mjh
The CIA asked for it; Ashcroft’s department delivered it; White House counsel read it; Rumsfeld’s Pentagon reviewed it. Oh, but only ”a few bad eggs” engaged in torture.
The President of the United States can declare anyone an ”enemy combatitant.” As such, you will be held incommunicado without any rights. You can be tortured and killed. Just what is Bush protecting us from? mjh
Memo Offered Justification for Use of Torture
Justice Dept. Gave Advice in 2002
By Dana Priest and R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writers
In August 2002, the Justice Department advised the White House that torturing al Qaeda terrorists in captivity abroad ”may be justified,” and that international laws against torture ”may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations” conducted in President Bush’s war on terrorism, according to a newly obtained memo. [mjh: re-read this — ANTI-torture laws may be UN-constitutional.]
If a government employee were to torture a suspect in captivity, ”he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the Al Qaeda terrorist network,” said the memo, from the Justice Department’s office of legal counsel, written in response to a CIA request for legal guidance. …
The memo seems to counter the pre-Sept. 11, 2001, assumption that U.S. government personnel would never be permitted to torture captives. …
[The memo] was later used in a March 2003 report by Pentagon lawyers assessing interrogation rules governing the Defense Department’s detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. At that time, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had asked the lawyers to examine the logistical, policy and legal issues associated with interrogation techniques. …
[T]he 2002 and 2003 memos reflect the Bush administration’s desire to explore the limits on how far it could legally go in aggressively interrogating foreigners suspected of terrorism or of having information that could thwart future attacks. …
”It is by leaps and bounds the worst thing I’ve seen since this whole Abu Ghraib scandal broke,” said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch. ”It appears that what they were contemplating was the commission of war crimes and looking for ways to avoid legal accountability. The effect is to throw out years of military doctrine and standards on interrogations.” …
At the time, the Justice Department’s legal analysis, however, shocked some of the military lawyers who were involved in crafting the new guidelines, said senior defense officials and military lawyers. …
”It’s really unprecedented. For almost 30 years we’ve taught the Geneva Convention one way,” said a senior military attorney. ”Once you start telling people it’s okay to break the law, there’s no telling where they might stop.”
A U.S. law enacted in 1994 bars torture by U.S. military personnel anywhere in the world. But the Pentagon group’s report, prepared under the supervision of General Counsel William J. Haynes II, said that ”in order to respect the President’s inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign . . . [the prohibition against torture] must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his Commander-in-Chief authority.”
The Pentagon group’s report, divulged yesterday by the Wall Street Journal and obtained by The Post, said further that the 1994 law barring torture ”does not apply to the conduct of U.S. personnel” at Guantanamo Bay.
It also said the anti-torture law did apply to U.S. military interrogations that occurred outside U.S. ”maritime and territorial jurisdiction,” such as in Iraq or Afghanistan. But it said both Congress and the Justice Department would have difficulty enforcing the law if U.S. military personnel could be shown to be acting as a result of presidential orders.
mjh’s Weblog Entry – 02/13/2003: “Bush Endorses Assassination”
President Bush in his 2003 State of the Union speech:
”All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. And many others have met a different fate. Let’s put it this way, they are no longer a problem for the United States and our friends and allies.”
Please note the word ”suspected.” In what used to be America, a suspect was presumed innocent until proven guilty. Now, suspicion is a death sentence.
”One by one, the terrorists are learning the meaning of American justice.”
Aren’t we all. mjh
I first met August Two Moons in 1993 in an arroyo seco in Denazin. August was crouched, looking for geodes and finding only coprolytes. We both paused in the paltry shade of a piñon. “Always be ready to meet your new best friend,” he said. I was put off by that.
In the twenty years since that meeting, our paths have crossed many times. A2M (as he signs his email) spends every moment he can outside. In the desert, on the mountain top, everywhere, we’ve shared water, gorp, poetry and stories. More than one of his stories has involved poor Etaoin Shrdlu, the unluckiest man either of us has ever met. Or, as Tink describes him, “this hero so suffused with tragic flaws.” Etaoin Shrdlu (aka Tao) inherited his name, and his misfortune, from his grandfather, who was killed by someone he smiled at.
A2M has more nicknames than anyone else I know. “Gus,” of course, but also “Auk.” They include many obvious variations on “Moon” and the more obscure “Teller” — my favorite. Indeed, it seems that each person who knows him has a variant; that’s how personal his relationships are.
August speaks 47 languages, at least the essential pleasantries and obscenities (which are one and the same in most languages). I’ve only seen him at a loss for words once, after Etaoin Shrdlu fell off a cliff. When we finally found Tao in a heap, he glowered at August and spat out something in Hungarian (along with blood and teeth). August was speechless. Much later, over whiskey and cigars, Teller told Tink that Tao said he felt like punching Jesus.
On a card by a case in an unvisited corner:
We don’t know much about this male, other than that he died of old age around
2100 CE at an age between 120 and 150. Analysis indicates he ate copious peanut butter. The brown teeth indicate frequent consumption of
a beverage called ”coffee.” There is really only one noteworthy attribute: his hand appears to have frozen in a gesture years
before his death. We speculate the extended middle finger is a ritual greeting of his people. We salute him in return. mjh
—–
Alibi
Short Fiction Contest (Deadline is Friday, June 11, at 5 p.m.)
My sincere sympathies
go to those who mourn Ronald Reagan. Grief, sorrow, and misery are emotions each of us must feel more than once in life. I wish them
peace.
I, for one, however, do not mourn Reagan. He did much to shift this country further to the Right. His staunchest supporters
demonize and dismiss the Left. Yes, he was personable. His followers are much less so.
It was Reagan who popularized the notion that
the government is the enemy, a beast which must be starved. His genuine philosophy has simply become slogans for a White House as Chamber
of Commerce. The libertarian facade might be easier to take if the ”new conservatives” weren’t stuffing their pockets and sticking
their noses in our bedrooms.
While I absolutely appreciate the humor behind ”we begin bombing in five minutes,” that joke is the
lighter side of American absolutism and unilateralism. Less funny, but more lasting, was the casting of our enemies as simply
”evil.” We nearly bankrupted ourselves to bankrupt the soviets. How much must we spend to defeat a tiny enemy who uses box cutters
and donkey carts?
It is easy to see the breakdown in ”intelligence” even 20 years ago, when the former head of the CIA, Daddy
Bush, was ”out of the loop” on the Iran-Contra Scandal (ignorance is an excuse, it seems). Henchmen like Ollie North connect the
dots from Watergate to today’s dirty tricks. Yes, these are noble and honorable men who have serviced our nation.
Reagan lives
on as the model for the current administration (which borrows equally from another great Republican, Dick Nixon). In unilateralism, in
casting others as ”evil,” in bankrupting the nation, Bush honors Reagan, who, as Cheney said, ”showed us what we can get away
with. It is our due.” Inspiring leadership.
Still, even with huge mandates from the voters, Reagan didn’t seek to change
everything as completely as Bush has, without any mandate at all. And yet, Reagan did change everything forever, opening the door wide
for the truly Radical Right and American Fundamentalists.
It’s mourning in America for all of us. mjh
John Stewart is my oldest friend (since second grade). We were pleased he could visit us, if only for 32 hours, in May.