Month: October 2007

Bush’s America: The Higazy Case

You think coerced confessions are only part of Third World justice systems? Not under this US president. Check out the full and bizarre account of an arrest and conviction of a man subsequently proven innocent of alleged ties to 9/11 terrorists. The case was written up by the US Court of Appeals in New York. The case hinged on the FBI’s threat of torturing a man’s family in Egypt:

Higazy alleges that during the polygraph, Templeton told him that he should cooperate, and explained that if Higazy did not cooperate, the FBI would make his brother “live in scrutiny” and would “make sure that Egyptian security gives [his] family hell.” Templeton later admitted that he knew how the Egyptian security forces operated: “that they had a security service, that their laws are different than ours, that they are probably allowed to do things in that country where they don’t advise people of their rights, they don’t – yeah, probably about torture, sure.”

Higazy later said, "I knew that I couldn’t prove my innocence, and I knew that my family was in danger." He explained that "[t]he only thing that went through my head was oh, my God, I am screwed and my family’s in danger. If I say this device is mine, I’m screwed and my family is going to be safe. If I say this device is not mine, I’m screwed and my family’s in danger. And Agent Templeton made it quite clear that cooperate had to mean saying something else other than this device is not mine.”

The Court tried to keep this part of the judgment classified, yanking it from the official site after mistakenly posting it – but not till the interrogation details were exposed. Higazy’s false confession – that he was using a radio transmitter in his hotel room to converse with terrorists in airplanes – was rendered moot by the owner of the transmitter, an airline pilot who had also stayed in the room, subsequently claiming it from the hotel as his own. But that didn’t stop the threat of torture. And that didn’t stop the conviction. This is how we get intelligence in the Bush-Cheney era. Here’s Higazy’s explanation for cracking under pressure:

The Egyptian government has very little tolerance for anybody who is —they’re suspicious of being a terrorist. To give you an idea, Saddam’s security force—as they later on were called his henchmen—a lot of them learned their methods and techniques in Egypt; torture, rape, some stuff would be even too sick to . . . . My father is 67. My mother is 61. I have a brother who developed arthritis at 19. He still has it today. When the word ‘torture’ comes at least for my brother, I mean, all they have to do is really just press on one of these knuckles. I couldn’t imagine them doing anything to my sister.

Higazy added:

[L]et’s just say a lot of people in Egypt would stay away from a family that they know or they believe or even rumored to have anything to do with terrorists and by the same token, some people who actually could be —might try to get to them and somebody might actually make a connection. I wasn’t going to risk that. I wasn’t going to risk that, so I thought to myself what could I say that he would believe. What could I say that’s convincing? And I said okay.

Yes: this is America. And what Higazy claims was done to him is a war crime.

Betrayal

More confirmation of how deeply Bush, Cheney and Rove have destroyed core conservative principles:

Bush’s super-spending is about far more than defense and homeland security. Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group, points to education spending. Adjusted for inflation, it’s up 18 percent annually since 2001, thanks largely to Bush’s No Child Left Behind act.

The 2002 farm bill, he said, caused agriculture spending to double its 1990s levels. Then there was the 2003 Medicare prescription drug benefit — the biggest single expansion in the program’s history — whose 10-year costs are estimated at more than $700 billion.

And the 2005 highway bill, which included thousands of “earmarks,” or special local projects stuck into the legislation by individual lawmakers without review, cost $295 billion. “He has presided over massive increases in almost every category … a dramatic change of pace from most previous presidents,” said Slivinski.

Generation Overwhelmed

Courtney Martin responds to Tom Friedman’s concern about the next generation and politics:

We are not apathetic. What we are, and perhaps this is what Friedman was picking up on, is totally and completely overwhelmed. One of the most critical questions of our time is one of attention. In a 24-7 news climate, it is all but impossible to emotionally engage all of the stories and issues you are taking in, and then act on them in some pragmatic way. So instead, young people become paralyzed …

My generation tries to create lives that seem to match our values, but beyond that it’s hard to locate a place to put our outrage.

We aren’t satisfied with point-and-click activism, as Friedman suggests, but we don’t see other options. Many of us have protested, but we — by and large — felt like we were imitating an earlier generation, playing dress-up in our parents’ old hippie clothes. I marched against the war and my president called it a focus group. The worst part was that I did feel inert while doing it. In the 21st century, a bunch of people marching down the street, complimenting one another on their original slogans and pretty protest signs, feels like self-flagellation, not real and true social change.

When Friedman was young and people were taking to the streets, there were a handful of issues to focus on and a few solid sources of news to pay attention to. Now there is a staggering amount of both. If I read the news today with my heart wide open and my mind engaged, I will be crushed. Do I address the injustices in Sudan, Iraq, Burma, Pakistan, the Bronx? Do I call an official, write a letter, respond to a MoveOn.org request? None of it promises to be effective, and it certainly won’t pacify my outrage.

Ezra Klein approves:

I’ll just say that it’s the truest analysis of activism and apathy amongst my generation that I’ve seen — and I’ve seen a lot of navel-gazing on the topic.

Huckabee and The Founders

Like many other Christianists, Huckabee has invented history to suit his zeal:

During the Republican debate, Mike Huckabee said he believes one of the defining issues facing the country is the sanctity of human life. Arguing that the issue is of historical importance, he invoked the Declaration of Independence’s rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and said that most of the signers of the declaration were clergymen.

Er: no.

Want To Defend The Constitution

Only one candidate will really do:

While the Democrats are caving in to Bush’s demands on FISA and refusing to put a stop to warrantless wiretapping and much more, Paul is putting out bills like the American Freedom Agenda Act of 2007 (PDF).

This bill would repeal the Military Commissions Act of 2006, restore full habeas corpus requirements, prohibit the use of secret evidence under all circumstances, and end the practice of rendition to other countries to torture terrorism suspects. It also would grant standing to Congress to sue the President over any signing statement that proposes that the President may ignore any provision of the legislation for any reason. An extraordinarily important bill that, sadly, has no chance of passing.

Absolute Power And Conservatism

Bushpauljrichardsafpgetty

"John Yoo works at one of the most prestigious think-tanks in the United States: the American Enterprise Institute. He is absolutely sincere in believing that the executive branch can over-ride any domestic law, Tcs2 any international treaty and any moral boundary if necessary to protect national security. In a war on terror that stretches decades into the future, the new conservatism allows for a president with no checks at all on his own power as commander-in-chief. What might have once been a theoretical debate became a pressing reality. And within weeks of this new legal doctrine being expressed, military detainees under the control of American forces were being tortured – consciously, with pre-meditation, with legal cover provided. America went from being a constitutional republic, under the law, to an imperium of one man, answerable only to an election every four years, empowered to break any law and violate any moral law if he believes it is necessary for national security. If conservatism had begun as a political philosophy designed to check power, to ensure individual liberty, to protect individuals from lawless government authority, it ended in a dark room, with a defenseless detainee strapped to a board, terrified beyond most of our imagining. " – The Conservative Soul, Chapter Four, now out in paperback.

(Photo: Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty.)

Defending Islamo-Fascism II

Larison is less impressed than Hitch:

What is the more specific purpose of the Awareness Week? It is aimed at confronting “the two Big Lies of the political left: that George Bush created the war on terror and that Global Warming is a greater danger to Americans than the terrorist threat.”  So it isn’t really very much about “raising awareness” about anything as it is an obvious effort at pushing pro-administration spin.  The phrasing they use is also a bit confused, since the “war on terror” is officially the response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and presumably they do want to credit Mr. Bush with that response.  What they probably meant to say was that Bush didn’t “start” the war with jihadis, but that isn’t actually what they said.