Hello, Jack’s readers. This is my second time guest-blogging here. I’m surprised Jack asked me to return, considering my own blog’s lack of quality lately, but someone has to throw some quotes out now and then. May as well be me, I guess.

First I’d like to let you know that you will not get any thoughtful or visionary political commentary out of me. I find that sort of thing is best left to those with good blood pressure medication.

Now, how about a quote or two to bid Jack a bon voyage?

“A vacation is what you take when you can no longer take what you’ve been taking.”

-Earl Wilson

“A vacation should be just long enough that your boss misses you, and not long enough for him to discover how well he can get along without you.”

-Unknown

Enjoy yourself, Jack!

“Fixed” means Fixed!

From Blue Collar Politics

Michael Smith, the Sunday Times reporter who broke he story thinks he knows what “fixed” means. On June 16, he told the Washington Post:

“There are a number of people asking about ‘fixed’ and its meaning. This is a real joke. I do not know anyone in the UK who took it to mean anything other than fixed, as in fixed a race, fixed an election, fixed the intelligence. If you fix something, you make it the way you want it. The intelligence was fixed…the head of MI-6 has just been to Washington. He has just talked with George Tenet. He said the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. That translates in clearer terms as the intelligence was being cooked to match what the administration wanted it to say to justify invading Iraq.”

I contacted a number of British friends who are close observers of the political scene, to get their opinion. Here is one recent email reply:

“Nobody that I have come across here in London interprets the term ‘fixed’ in this context as other than cooked/manipulated/selected. Fixed refers to trickery—as in ‘the fix is in.’ What Woolsey and Co. may think…that is completely irrelevant. It is what we British think that counts. The memo was written to be read by us British, not by Woolsey. It appears that he and his “neoconservative” friends are getting a bit desperate. He would probably be one of the people to go to jail at the end of this, given the key role he has played.”

Or, from VIPS colleague Col. Patrick Lang, USA (ret), who tends to be more succinct:

“Fixed is fixed, man.”

And Spin means Spin…

And lies my friends… Are lies…

We are not going away…

Crossposted to ISOU

I had seen some posts earlier today on this, but combined with my host problems along with the lack of confirmation regarding the assertions in the news releases, I chose not to try to write about this issue at the time. Now, with confirmation, it provides a starting point for a post that I lost when my hard disk for my PowerBook died, so I will attempt to reconstruct it now.

The news story:

US acknowledges torture at Guantanamo and Iraq, Afghanistan: UN source

Fri Jun 24, 9:23 AM ET

GENEVA (AFP) - Washington has for the first time acknowledged to the
United Nations that prisoners have been tortured at US detention centres in Guantanamo Bay, as well as
Afghanistan and Iraq, a UN source said.

The acknowledgment was made in a report submitted to the UN Committee against Torture, said a member of the ten-person panel, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“They are no longer trying to duck this, and have respected their obligation to inform the UN,” the Committee member told AFP.

“They will have to explain themselves (to the Committee). Nothing should be kept in the dark.”

UN sources said it was the first time the world body has received such a frank statement on torture from US authorities.

The Committee, which monitors respect for the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, is gathering information from the US ahead of hearings in May 2006.

Signatories of the convention are expected to submit to scrutiny of their implementation of the 1984 convention and to provide information to the Committee.

The document from Washington will not be formally made public until the hearings.

“They haven’t avoided anything in their answers, whether concerning prisoners in Iraq, in Afghanistan or Guantanamo, and other accusations of mistreatment and of torture,” the Committee member said.

“They said it was a question of isolated cases, that there was nothing systematic and that the guilty were in the process of being punished.”

The US report said that those involved were low-ranking members of the military and that their acts were not approved by their superiors, the member added.

The US has faced criticism from UN human rights experts and international groups for mistreatment of detainees — some of whom died in custody — in Afghanistan and Iraq, particularly during last year’s prisoner abuse scandal surrounding the Abu Ghraib facility there.

Scores of US military personnel have been investigated, and several tried and convicted, for abuse of people detained during the US-led campaign against Islamic terrorist groups.

First: I take no joy in this. I feel shame for my nation.

Second: My nation has indeed done the right thing and admitted that individuals that were representing the United States engaged in behaviors that could be called “torture” under a reasonable interpretation of the word.

Third: This admission should NOT be read as anything more than what it is; an acknowledgment that certain individuals did not act in accordance with the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Going against this Convention is not a stated part of United States policy.

After all of the above, can we finally look at this issue?

I have stated repeatedly both here and in comments at other weblogs about how the prison at Guantanamo stains our national honor.

I want to clarify for those who do not get it exactly how this prison is wrong upon its very basis.

However, this explanation is perhaps too long for the modern short attention span, much less for the time I have available to reconstruct the coherent whole of the foundation of my beliefs.

So instead I will try a melange of my thoughts that perhaps might provide a better perspective, even if being less satisfying from a logical viewpoint.

I have grown very angry recently when I have seen defenders of abhorrent statements from prominent representatives of BOTH sides of the political spectrum, namely Karl Rove and Dick Durban.

Am I equating what they said?

No, I am not.

But I am indeed equating much of what I have read in defense of what they said.

Typically, the defense follows the pattern of “Yes, but the other side has said this…” followed by a listing of more egregious offenses than those presented by the offensive statements of the representatives of their preferred side.

In other words, relative morality at its apex.

When I was young and I wanted to do something, I would try to persuade my parents (mainly my mother) by saying something along the lines of “But Jimmy is able to do it!!!”

Consistently, the response I received was, “If Jimmy jumped off a bridge, would you jump off it, too?”

That lesson stuck with me.

The cries of defense when Durban or Rove say something idiotic, cries of “Well, the other side said…” ring hollow in my ears.

Should we base our statements and behavior on what our opponents do?

I do not think so.

I was tempted earlier to write a post entitled “Can someone show me the memo” that was followed up by the statement, “you know, the memo where we can justify any behavior by saying that someone else, usually our opponents, behave worse, so our bad behavior is just fine because it is not as evil.”

I do not know if it was fortunate or unfortunate that due to a mistake on my part my weblog was offline while I was mentally composing that post.

The residue of the feelings that provoked those thoughts remain, however. I am disgusted by the relative morality expressed by those who are more than ready to call foul on anyone who does not adhere to their own point of view, but defend to the point of unreasonable incoherence statements equally morally egregious from those “on the same side”.

To put it simply, no situation is evaluated on whether or not that person behaved in a manner right or wrong, independent of the acts of others. Instead, everything is brought to the appeal of “someone on the other side did worse”, regardless of how representative of the “other side” is this so-called archetype chosen by the opposition.

Let us take this to the extreme then. By this logic, I can rape whoever I want as long as I don’t kill them, because there are more than few out there I can point to who did worse than just “merely rape” someone.

I can essentially do or say whatever I want because I can always find someone whose behavior is worse.

Is that truly the mode of thought we want to follow?

This is the system we are setting up with the unreasoning, unreasonable defense of those who are behaving badly by any standard, but are defended by those who cannot see beyond their own partisan gain or loss.

What happened to “look at each situation to determine the right or wrong of it; do not let others determine your standards…”?

Apparently that baseline has disappeared.

This sums up why I call the prison camp at Guantanamo dishonorable:

A nation, or a person, the honor of either is shown by how they treat those whom they have in their power, those with no defense.

The foundation of the Untied States is in a nation of laws, not of men.

Yet…

We deliberately create a prison at Guantanamo to imprison people beyond the reach of law.

We do not set up a realistic, reasonable system to review the imprisonment of those held with consistent standards of evidence.

We created an environment where bad actors could carry out their bad acts with the belief they would not be caught.

Added to the mix: The President declares he has the power to name any US citizen an “enemy combatant” who upon being imprisoned cannot have any access to counsel, nor any appeal.

Are you seeing a pattern here that is a wee bit hypocritical compared to what we say we want to do, which is destroy dictatorships such as that of Saddam Hussein in Iraq?

Is there a distant but still dimly reflective mirror present here?

Answer honestly.

The defense of these actions is of the “Yes, but…” genre, which does not speak well of these actions in and of themselves.

In other words, honorable behavior does not depend upon the actions of others but instead is recognized on its own.

If your first defense of any act, whether perpetrated by Democrat or Republican, military or civilian contractor, starts with “Yes, but…” then the behavior you are defending is NOT honorable.

Honorable behavior stands on its own.

Honorable behavior does not need to be compared to atrocious acts to be held in high regard.

Honorable behavior has its own standards that are independent of the bad acts of others.

Honorable behavior does not depend upon relative morality.

Do the math.

When you cry, “Yes, but the terrorists are worse,” or, “Yes, but the Democrats (Republicans) have said worse,” consider what exactly is the behavior you are defending. If these acts were committed by someone on “the other side”, would you give them a pass on it? How does this behavior seem when evaluated independently, based solely upon its own merits and flaws rather than upon who “wins” or “loses”?

Honor knows no relative morality, and I am surprised by those who appear to have forgotten this basic lesson.

I am going on vacation for two weeks.

What does this mean?

On vacation means I likely will not post, even if I have internet access, which I am not sure I will have given both my lack of plans for my vacation accompanied with the death of my favorite laptop.

So, to prevent the slow death of Random Fate, I have arranged for a variety of guest posters to keep Random Fate alive while I try to recover my perspective and regain my sanity, which has been strained by numerous sources, none of which I will go into here.

The guest posters range quite widely in viewpoint, but I have found ALL of them to be reasonable as opposed to knee-jerking in their responses to the events and the politics of the day.

In addition, ALL of them are engaging and entertaining to read, which is why they are all on my blogroll along with being at the top of my RSS news reader list.

So, please click on their names when you read their posts here, for that links you to their own, personal sites where you can get more of their original thoughts. The quality and tone of what they have posted on their own sites is indeed why I asked them to post here.

Their thoughts are their own, not just a rehash of the talking points from a particular party.

They each have their own point of view, and they all deserve to be heard, for they are willing to consider other viewpoints as well.

I hope you can follow their example and do the same.

First let me say to any of Jack’s sensitive readers, I appologize for the tone of this post. But I feel this has got to be said!

Same tired arguments, Byrd, KKK, Durbin Traitor, what the fuck ever…

Bottom Line…. And I am going to keep this short to avoid any misunderstanding or interpretation.

I am Black, I am from Virginia, I care as much about one of our old farts running around in a sheet 40 years ago, as I do about one of YOURS fucking 16 year old black maids and then denying his daughter for 70 years or whatever. So piss off on the bullshit righteous indignation over an issue you really don’t give a rats ass about. Because to be honest the whole idea of conservative outrage over the racist past of a Democratic Senator is simply bullshit. (Oh my goodness, did I fart in the living room among civilized people… Forgive me!)

Conservatives in both parties have a long history or race baiting, appealing to racism and clandestine associations with Racist organizations.

The bullshit with some on the Right running around questioning people’s patriotism, calling up the ancient past to condemn people who challenge them, etc. Is nothing more than a smokescreen to divert attention from a deteriorating “Last Throes,” situation, and MASSIVE Problems worldwide that are not being addressed by the most incompetent Administration in recent history.

I love this bit of Disingenuous bullshit:

“And here’s a major difference: Karl Rove, while he may be a political genius and the architect of many of Bush’s successes, is only officially the Deputy Chief Of Staff — an appointed position. He’s a political operative at his core, not a leader. Durbin, however, is the #2 Democrat in the Senate. Rove may not exactly be a pawn and Durbin a Queen in the grand scope of things, but Durbin holds a far greater position of public trust — and can withstand a lot less heat than Rove.”

Eh Jay… Last time I checked, Durbin is a Senator from Il. He gets paid to represent his State. Rove gets paid by ALL of us, including us filthy, beatnik, Klan loving, peacenik Libruls…. Ya know? And I don’t want to pay him any more.

Crossposted to ISOU.

When the presidents chief advisor, Karl Rove, has no expertise on anything outside of politics it should be obvious that politics is a primary driver when it comes to decision making. It should also be no surprise that in an administration full of representatives from the defense industry pork barrel projects would also be a driver. Both of these come together in the bastard child of Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars missile defense program.
Star Wars’ Political Bull’s-Eye

A Pentagon panel of outside rocketry experts was too polite to use the phrase “pie in the sky,” but they might as well have in excoriating the rush to deploy an unworkable antimissile system in time for President Bush’s re-election campaign. Although clearly bedeviled by test failures and unproven components, the first antimissile stations in this fantastic $130 billion-plus windfall for the defense industry were officially deployed on the West Coast last fall - just in time to cover Mr. Bush’s vow in 2000 to have the system up in four years.
Predictably, the re-election was soon followed by more embarrassing test failures along this Potemkin battlement, and the Pentagon asked independent experts to examine the program. According to a Washington Post report on the classified study, the experts concluded that the rush to deployment only compounded long-running technical problems. The badly flawed system remains unable to detect or destroy an incoming missile despite the continuing billions spent on complex problems with booster rocket, radar and satellite systems.

Most scientists outside of the defense industry said that Reagan’s Star Wars missile defense would never work. It still won’t work and now it’s not even addressing the real threat. Billions being spent on what is nothing more than corporate welfare while the security of the nations ports goes under funded.

The world is seeing (too much of) a new Tom Cruise — one seemingly feeling liberated from the chains of publicitists. Are we overdosing? Here’s the latest escapade (complete with a link so you can watch it and judge for yourself).

I picked up on Ann Althouse’s observations here.

Jack asked me to guest post, and I’ll pop in from time-to-time.

Oliver wrote a passionate piece today on what I will call the War for America. In part he said:

The Republican party stands for nothing if they aren’t demonizing the Democratic party as anti-American. They did it when Bill Clinton was President, and they’ve done it since the moment George Bush obtained the White House. That is what they’re doing now. They’ve got nothing more than passing legislation that does nothing to actually help America, preferring instead to gin up the slack jawed folks who are their most ardent supporters with a neverending river of bigotry, hate, and bile. To date the left has become their enablers, preferring to play to some form of mythical “moderation” while these idiots defecate on our national foundations. Many Democrats (including myself in the past) have preferred the path of least resistance, trying to appeal to the mythical center while at the same time ignoring our core values.

We have to stop this now. In order to preserve this nation, we must stop giving in to the Republicans and their hatred of America’s diversity of race, thought, ideology, and values. In the early part of the 20th century, those who championed racist hatred were in the majority. For many, the “right” thing politically would have been to walk in lockstep with the klan and their ilk. But they were wrong, and the people who supported them were wrong. We have to stand up for the right things, even if you’re in the minority, even if you’re not doing the politically expedient thing, because standing up for what’s right is the moral thing to do.

And there are many things in his post I agree with. One of them is that we do need to fight. We need to refute the obscenity of statements like the one Rove made about Liberals. We need to STAY Focused on the DSM and its implications not only for the War in Iraq but for our international reputation as a company that believes in the rule of law. We need to speak loudly and in a unified voice against the abuses and arrogance of this administration. We need to present a vision for America that relies not on demagoguery but on a vision for all Americans, including those who we may disagree with on a variety of issues. We will NOT win this war by repackaging Republican Rhetoric with a Blue Spin. Our Approach needs to be more Obama and less Dean.

I have in the past and will continue to speak out against
“Whale,” Lefty Blogs who are more concerned with their TLB Rank and advertising revenue than with supporting a unified message. Despite the fact that big lefty blogs have more traffic than Right Wing ones, it is the Right Wing Whales like “Instapundit” and “Captains Quarters,” who facilitate rapid dissemination of message by creating effective Swarms.

Even though ISOU took a hit as a result of losing my archives and being offline for a month, As a top Liberal Blog I made an effort to promote smaller blogs and still do through guest blogging and Liberal Linking, (No pun intended).

Oliver is right, we do need to fight back, but we need to first unify and learn to work together, despite any differences we may have on individual issues. The fact that most of the BIG Lefty Blogs are missing from the BBA is a testament to my statement about egos in the Lefty Blogsphere. Yes I know many of them are covering the DSM, but not choosing to participate as part of a team, instead taking a KOBE (See LA Lakers) mentality. We can not fight a war when the so called ELITE of our troops choose not to join the campaign, or to fight apart from the main force.

Lastly I must add:

“Many Democrats (including myself in the past) have preferred the path of least resistance, trying to appeal to the mythical center while at the same time ignoring our core values.”

Bill Clinton won two elections appealing to the “mythical center.” And I don’t believe the answer lies in us emulating Rabbid Dog tactics. I believe that Rhetoric is counterproductive. Instead we need to get focused on WHY our solution is better.

Update: I found this trackback from Pennywit to O’s post. I find myself very much in agreement with it, especially this part:

But a couple notes of caution.

1. Willis calls the center “mythical,” but it’s really not as mythical as he thinks. While the political cognoscenti are certainly drifting toward the margins, Willis might find that when the political non-cognoscenti wake up for a quadrennial vote, they might not be so happy about parties that have drifted toward the margins, and they might make their displeasure known. The center isn’t “mythical.” It’s just not discernible in non-election season, when the only audible voices emanate from paid political pros and those who are pathologically obsessed with politics.
2. If Democrats age going to be tough, that’s fine, but Democrats (and I’m talking about Dean in particular) need to remember the line between “tough” and “psychotic,” just like the line between “passionate” and “scare the women and horses.” If Democrats cross that line often, they will go from “wimp party” to “crazy-guy-down-the-street-with-a-hundreds-of-guns-and-fifty-cats party.” It’s about threading the needle.

Crossposted to ISOU