The Dish

You can read it here, by clicking through the site and downloading it. It’s the Southern District of New York, before Judge Hellerstein and the case number is 04 cv. 4151. From a brief review, the judge has allowed a stay of his decision for another twenty days to allow for appeals from either side, which means the actual release may still be months ahead. I’m glad if also chastened that we will eventually get to see the reality of the consequences of the relaxation of Geneva protections – and the confusion down the ranks generated by that policy change. Most interesting is the judge’s decision to order the CIA to release documents emanating from the Justice Department on how to interpret the traditional ban on torture. Hmmm.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Our nation does not surrender to blackmail, and fear of blackmail is not a legally sufficient argument to prevent us from performing a statutory command. Indeed, the freedoms that we champion are as important to our success in Iraq and Afghanistan as the guns and missiles with which our troops are armed,” – U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein.

I don’t think most Americans are aware of what really went on at Abu Ghraib, and the depth and extent of the brutality. The reason is that the administration did everything it could to prevent the full record being made public; and its fawning acolytes in the right-wing media did all they could to protray what happened as “frat-house” hazing by “bad apples.” That was patently untrue then; and is patently untrue now. Now, a judge, after months of government delays, has bravely upheld the release of the remainder. His argument? “My task is not to defer to our worst fears, but to interpret and apply the law, in this case, the Freedom of Information Act, which advances values important to our society, transparency and accountability in government.” Maybe now, we will begin to get accountability for what has been done and is being done in our name in Iraq, with regard to abuse of detainees and violation of the Geneva Conventions. I repeat: Rumsfeld must resign.

“Because the interrogators were using coercive techniques, physicians and other healthcare personnel, in some circumstances, could not avoid becoming involved in decisions concerning the intensity and duration of the pain and harm to be inflicted, or whether it was to be inflicted at all. Moreover, the involvement or presence of physicians and other healthcare personnel in the guise of protecting detainees can have the effect of legitimizing the infliction of harm in the eyes of interrogators and security staff … U.S. military officials’ efforts to promulgate ethical guidelines that enable physician participation in coercive interrogation practices are inconsistent with international principles of medical ethics and, if unanswered by the medical community, establish a dangerous precedent. We believe that the vast majority of military physicians support international principles of medical ethics and do not wish to practice under untenable circumstances. The physician’s duty to promote health and human dignity requires unity and action among military and nonmilitary physicians to maintain the integrity of medical professionalsethics and to earn the trust of those served.” – the editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association, September 28, 2005. In my view, military doctors who are being dragged in to the torture and abuse of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere need to resign if they are to maintain basic ethical standards. Just because the administration has abandoned ethics, it doesn’t mean we all have to go along. Resistance is not futile. It’s now vital. (The full editorial can only be read if you pay a small amount of money).

“Art 13. Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention. In particular, no prisoner of war may be subjected to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are not justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the prisoner concerned and carried out in his interest.

Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity … No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.” – Geneva Conventions, which even Donald Rumsfeld concedes apply in Iraq.

“Why babble about brutality and get indignant about tortures? The masses want them. They need something that will give them a thrill of horror.” – Adolf Hitler.

One of them testified only recently that photographing or mistreating the corpses of the dead on the battlefield violates the Geneva Conventions. Eric Muller wants a statement from him on the “corpses-for-porn” scandal, now swept deep, deep, deep under the rug of Pentagon denial.

Look, I despise him for all the usual reasons: his ruthless partisanship, his fusion of conservatism with corporate cronyism, his proud gerrymandering, his homophobia, his view of ethics as things to get around rather than enforce, and on and on. But I’m still unsure why he’s been landed with a criminal indictment rather than something a little more appropriate for what he appears to have done. Here’s a must-read WaPo editorial:

This was an obvious end run around the corporate contribution rule. The more difficult question is whether it was an illegal end run — or, to be more precise, one so blatantly illegal that it amounts to a criminal felony rather than a civil violation. For Mr. DeLay to be convicted, prosecutors will have to show not only that he took part in the dodge but also that he knew it amounted to a violation of state law — rather than the kind of clever money-trade that election lawyers engineer all the time.
Mr. DeLay’s spokesman said this month that “to his knowledge all activities were properly reviewed and approved by lawyers” for TRMPAC. If so, the criminal law seems like an awfully blunt instrument to wield against Mr. DeLay.

We’ll see, I guess.

Those are two words you are apparently not allowed to write at Bucknell University.

Here’s some disturbing news about the tactics the anti-gay forces are now reduced to in Massachusetts.

We really are in a new church. A priest who had differed from his own church’s stance on a political matter – the Massachusetts state constitutional amendment to ban marriage rights for gays – was yanked from mass last Sunday, and replaced by a bishop who reprimanded him to his parishioners. Message: no political deviation allowed.