Psyche, Science, and Society

Obama praises liar as “patriot”

In his unending campaign to push forward the Bush 3 administration, and to sicken those who voted for him,  Barack Obama  praised George W. Bush as a “patriot” for lying his way into the Iraq war.

In the address, Obama said that although it is widely known that the two disagreed about the war, no one could doubt Bush’s support for U.S. troops, his love for the U.S. and his commitment to the nation’s security.

Obama said there are patriots who supported the war and patriots who opposed it.

Presumably the lying just goes with the territory.

Add comment September 1st, 2010

Hate begets hate

Harry Reid and Howard Dean among gallery of rogues:

Add comment August 26th, 2010

Pentagon lies and dissembles about Wikileaks contacts

Glenn Greenwald details Pentagon lying about Wikileaks’ attempts to secure Pentagon cooperation in removing from documents it released information that might identify Afghan sources. Just as it is doing currently, the Pentagon refused cooperation:

When the controversy first arose over the lack of redactions in the war documents released by WikiLeaks, the website insisted that, using theNew York Times as an intermediary, it had asked the Obama administration for help in removing names of Afghans before releasing the documents, a claim the Pentagon vehemently denied.  The New York Times, needless to say, sided with the Government — that’s what the NYTdoes — but they did so by simultaneously confirming the truth of WikiLeaks’ version of events.  From the Associated Press article, July 31, on that controversy:

Also on Saturday, a New York Times reporter who has been the newspaper’s liaison with Assange, dismissed Assange’s claim that WikiLeaks had offered to let U.S. government officials go through leaked documents to ensure that no innocent people were identified. Assange told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. in an interview that aired Thursday that the New York Times had acted as an intermediary and that the White House hadn’t responded to the offer.

Times reporter Eric Schmitt told the AP that on the night of July 23, at White House spokesman’s Robert Gibbs’ request, he relayed to Assange a White House request that WikiLeaks not publish information that could lead to people being physically harmed.

The next evening, Schmitt said, Assange replied in an e-mail that WikiLeaks was withholding 15,000 documents for review. Schmitt said Assange wrote that WikiLeaks would consider recommendations made by the International Security Assistance Force “on the identification of innocents for this material if it is willing to provide reviewers.”

Schmitt said he forwarded the e-mail to White House officials and Times editors.

“I certainly didn’t consider this a serious and realistic offer to the White House to vet any of the documents before they were to be posted, and I think it’s ridiculous that Assange is portraying it that way now,” Schmitt wrote to the AP.

On Friday, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said it was “absolutely, unequivocally not true” that WikiLeaks had offered to let U.S. government officials go through the documents to make sure no innocent people were identified.

Do you see what happened there?  Schmitt, wanting to side with his Pentagon friends, publicly suggested that Assange was lying when he claimed that he offered to allow the Government to suggest redcations, even as Schmitt himself acknowledged that “Assange wrote that WikiLeaks would consider recommendations made by the International Security Assistance Force ‘on the identification of innocents for this material if it is willing to provide reviewers’,” an offer Schmitt says he conveyed to the White House.  In other words, Schmitt defended the Pentagon’s denials that Assange made this offer even as he himself described the very events which proved Assange was telling the truth.  At the very least, WikiLeaks clearly indicated its willingness to have government officials review the documents and make recommendations about redactions — something those officials refused to do.

Greenwald then discusses the current Pentagon dissimulation regarding Wikileaks efforts to sanitize the remaining 15,000 documents. He then speculates on motivation:

Why would the DoD refuse to offer this assistance?  WikiLeaks — in response to Pentagon threats — has already stated emphatically that these documents are going to be released no matter what.  No rational person would doubt that they mean this.  Wouldn’t it be vastly preferable — from the Government’s perspective — to have those documents released with the names of Afghan sources redacted, rather than force WikiLeaks to guess at what needs to be withheld?  The Pentagon routinely conveys to media outlets preparing to release classified documents its views about what specifically ought to be withheld, notwithstanding its objections to the release of all information.  Why would they not do the same here?

After the last release, the Pentagon very flamboyantly accused WikiLeaks of endangering the lives of innocent Afghans, even accusing them of having ”blood on their hands” (despite the absence of a single claim that anyone was actually harmed from the release of those documents).  If Pentagon officials are truly concerned about the well-being of Afghan sources identified in these documents — rather than exaggerating and exploiting that concern in order to harm WikiLeaks’ credibility — wouldn’t they be eager to help WikiLeaks redact these documents?  That would be the behavior one would expect if these concerns were at all genuine.

Instead, the Pentagon is doing the opposite:  first lying by denying that WikiLeaks ever sought this help, then refusing to provide it in response.  In the conflict between the U.S. Government and WikiLeaks, it is true that one of the parties seems steadfastly indifferent to the lives of Afghan civilians.  Despite the very valid criticisms that more care should have been exercised before that first set of documents was released, the party most guilty of that indifference is not WikiLeaks.

In an Update, Greenwald points out that Sean Paul Kelley, who had been very critical of Wikileaks, has made a mea culpa:

I’ve found in life that when I am wrong the best thing to do is just come right out and admit it.

Here goes: I was wrong. Wikileaks, based on the evidence that the DoD has presented, did its level best to work with the DoD to redact any names that might harm innocent Afghans. The Pentagon not only lied about it, but has even refused to cooperate going forward.

The blood, if there is to be any, is on the Pentagon’s hands. It’s that simple. [Emphasis added.]

Meanwhile, this morning brings the rather suspicious news that Julian Assange of Wikileaks has been charged with rape and molestation in Sweden.  While no details are available, Assange has denied the charges:

The charges are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing.

It would not be surprising if this was an attempt to shut down, or at least discredit, Wikileaks.

UPDATE: More information on the Swedish accusation (apparently not actually “charges”) from the AP is here.

Add comment August 21st, 2010

Obama administration distoring science to protect BP

Remember when the Bush administration was distorting science to support their policy preferences? Well, the Obama administration, in this area as in so many others, is mimicking the Bush administration’s worst habits. They are issuing rosy “analyses” of the oil in the gulf, supposedly “reviewed” by scientists within and outside the Federal government. Strange thing, all of the named “reviewers” deny ever reviewing the report. Meanwhile the reports conclusions re being disputed by independent scientists. Dan Froomkin reports:

In responding to the growing furor over the public release of a scientifically dubious and overly rosyfederal report about the fate of the oil that BP spilled in the Gulf of Mexico, NOAA director Jane Lubchenco has repeatedly fallen back on one particular line of defense — that independent scientists had given it their stamp of approval.

Back at the report’s unveiling on August 4, Lubchenco spoke of a “peer review of the calculations that went into this by both other federal and non-federal scientists.” On Thursday afternoon, she told reporters on a conference call: “The report and the calculations that went into it were reviewed by independent scientists.” The scientists, she said, were listed at the end of the report.

“What we were trying to do was give the Incident Command something that they could at least start with,” said Ed Overton, an emeritus professor of environmental science at Louisiana State University. “But these are estimates. There’s a difference between data and estimates.”

Overton said NOAA asked him: “How much did I think would evaporate?” He responded with some ideas, but noted: “There’s a jillion parameters which are not very amenable to modeling.”

He said he didn’t know what NOAA did with his input. “I pretty much did my estimates and let that go,” he said.

And Overton bridled at the way the report was presented — with very precise percentages attributed to different categories. For instance, the report declared that 24 percent of the oil had been dispersed.

“I didn’t like the way they say 24 percent. We don’t know that,” Overton said. “They could have said a little bit more than a quarter, a little bit less than a quarter. But not 24 percent; that’s impossible.”

Michel Boufadel is on the list, but told HuffPost he did not review the report or its calculations. And the Temple University environmental engineer also said its specificity was inappropriate.

“When you look at that dispersed amount, and it says 8 percent chemically dispersed and 16 percent naturally dispersed, there’s a high degree of uncertainty here,” he said. “Naturally dispersed could be 6 or it could be 26.”

Ron Goodman, a 30-year veteran of Exxon’s Canadian affiliate who now runs his own consulting company, was incorrectly listed on the report with an academic affiliation: “U. of Calgary.” He is only an adjunct there. He said he responded to a series of questions from NOAA — “and that was it.”

And once the report came out, he said, “I was concerned that the amount dispersed was very low. I think it was higher by maybe a factor of two or three.”

But all the scientists on that list contacted by the Huffington Post for comment this week said the exact same thing: That although they provided some input to NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), they in no way reviewed the report, and could not vouch for it.

The skimpy, four-page report dominated an entire news cycle earlier this month, with contented administration officials claiming it meant that three fourths of the oil released from BP’s well was essentially gone — evaporated, dispersed, burned, etc. But independent scientists are increasingly challenging the report’s findings and its interpretation — and they are expressing outrage that the administration released no actual data or algorithms to support its claims.

HuffPost reached seven of the 11 scientists listed on the report. One declined to comment at all, six others had things to say.

In addition to disputing Lubchenco’s characterization of their role, several of them actually took issue with the report itself.

In particular, they refuted the notion, as put forth by Lubchenco and other Obama administration officials, that the report was either scientifically precise or an authoritative account of where the oil went.

The Obama officials officials copied the Bush officials in respect, the loaded their “independent reviewers” with individuals with close links to the oil industry:

Also worth noting: Four of the “independent scientists” listed on the report work for the oil industry, have until recently, and/or work for consulting companies that do business with the oil industry.

Strange, isn’t it, that the Obama administration wants to run the fall campaign against the Bush administration?

Add comment August 20th, 2010

Cleared in 2004, yet still imprisoned at Guantanamo

Despite the Obama administration’s claim that they wanted to close Guantanamo, they are still fighting tooth and nail to retain people who should never have been in US custody in the first place. The Miami Herald’s Carol Rosenberg reports on one prisoner who the Pentagon wanted released six years ago in 2004.Despite this, and despite his sever psychological symptoms, the Obama administration still refuses to release him:

U.S. still holds detainee Pentagon wanted freed in 2004

By Carol Rosenberg

An emotionally ill detainee still being held at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was first recommended for release by the Pentagon in 2004, according to a federal judge whose ruling ordering that the man be freed was made public this week.

Despite the Pentagon’s recommendation, it wasn’t until 2007 that the Bush administration adopted the military assessment and put Adnan Abdul Latif, now about 34, on an approved transfer list. By then, however, the issue of transferring prisoners to Yemen, Osama bin Laden’s ancestral homeland, was mired in a diplomatic standoff over whether the Arabian Peninsula nation could provide security assurances and rehabilitate suspected radicalized Guantanamo detainees.

U.S. District Court Judge Henry Kennedy disclosed the timeline in a heavily censored 28-page ruling made public on Monday night that ordered Latif set free. Latif is the 38th Guantanamo captive to be found by a federal judge to be illegally detained at the remote U.S. Navy base.

Kennedy first ordered the Obama administration to arrange for Latif’s release “forthwith” on July 21. But a Justice Department spokesman, Dean Boyd, said government lawyers were still deciding Tuesday night whether to appeal to a higher court.

“Why they continue to defend holding him is unfathomable,” said David Remes, Latif’s free-of-charge attorney. “Adnan’s case reflects the Obama administration’s complete failure to bring the Guantanamo litigation under control.” (more…)

Add comment August 20th, 2010

Steven Reisner & Patricia Davis discuss psychologists and torture on GRITtv

Steven Reisner and playwright Patricia Davis discuss psychologists and US torture on GRITtv with Guest host Esther Arma:

Add comment August 20th, 2010

Cockburn and Fisk: The empire’s defeat

As US “combat troops” leave Iraq, leaving only 50,000 troops there for combat, both Robert Fisk and Alexander Cockburn point out that the US suffered a massive defeat in this major test of its ability to “shock and awe” the world into submission.

Fisk:

Instead, the millions of American soldiers who have passed through Iraq have brought the Iraqis a plague. From Afghanistan – in which they showed as much interest after 2001 as they will show when they start “leaving” that country next year – they brought the infection of al-Qa’ida. They brought the disease of civil war. They injected Iraq with corruption on a grand scale. They stamped the seal of torture on Abu Ghraib – a worthy successor to the same prison under Saddam’s vile rule – after stamping the seal of torture on Bagram and the black prisons of Afghanistan. They sectarianised a country that, for all its Saddamite brutality and corruption, had hitherto held its Sunnis and Shias together.

And because the Shias would invariably rule in this new “democracy”, the American soldiers gave Iran the victory it had sought so vainly in the terrible 1980-88 war against Saddam. Indeed, men who had attacked the US embassy in Kuwait in the bad old days – men who were allies of the suicide bombers who blew up the Marine base in Beirut in 1983 – now help to run Iraq. The Dawa were “terrorists” in those days. Now they are “democrats”. Funny how we’ve forgotten the 241 US servicemen who died in the Lebanon adventure. Corporal David Breeze was probably two or three-years-old then.

But the sickness continued. America’s disaster in Iraq infected Jordan with al-Qa’ida – the hotel bombings in Amman – and then Lebanon again. The arrival of the gunmen from Fatah al-Islam in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian camp in the north of Lebanon – their 34-day war with the Lebanese army – and the scores of civilian dead were a direct result of the Sunni uprising in Iraq. Al-Qa’ida had arrived in Lebanon. Then Iraq under the Americans re-infected Afghanistan with the suicide bomber, the self-immolator who turned America’s soldiers from men who fight to men who hide.

Anyway, they are busy re-writing the narrative now. Up to a million Iraqis are dead. Blair cares nothing about them – they do not feature, please note, in his royalties generosity. And nor do most of the American soldiers. They came. They saw. They lost. And now they say they’ve won. How the Arabs, surviving on six hours of electricity a day in their bleak country, must be hoping for no more victories like this one.

Cockburn:

No, the Empire Doesn’t Always Win

By Alexander Cockburn

“The US isn’t withdrawing from Iraq at all—it’s rebranding the occupation…. What is abundantly clear is that the US…has no intention of letting go of Iraq any time soon.” So declared Seumas Milne of the Guardian on August 4.

Milne is not alone among writers on the left arguing that even though most Americans think it’s all over, Uncle Sam still rules the roost in Iraq. They point to 50,000 US troops in ninety-four military bases, “advising” and training the Iraqi army, “providing security” and carrying out “counterterrorism” missions. Outside US government forces there is what Jeremy Scahill calls the “coming surge” of contractors in Iraq, swelling up from the present 100,000. “The advantage of an outsourced occupation,” Milne writes, “is clearly that someone other than US soldiers can do the dying to maintain control of Iraq.”

“Can Iraq now be regarded as a tolerably secure outpost of the American system in the Middle East?” Tariq Ali asked in New Left Review earlier this year. He answered himself judiciously: “[Iraqis] have reason to exult, and reason to doubt.” But the thrust of his analysis depicts Iraq as still the pawn of the US empire, with a “predominantly Shia army—some 250,000 strong…trained and armed to the teeth to deal with any resurgence of the resistance.”

The bottom line, as drawn by Milne and Ali, is oil. Milne gestures to the “dozen 20-year contracts to run Iraq’s biggest oil fields that were handed out last year to foreign companies.”

Is it really true that, though the US troop presence has dropped by almost 100,000 in eighteen months, Iraq is as much under Uncle Sam’s imperial jackboot as it was in, say, 2004, even though US troops no longer patrol the streets? If Iraq’s political affairs are under US control, how come the US Embassy—deployed in its Vatican City–size compound, mostly as vacant as a foreclosed subdivision in Riverside, California—cannot knock Iraqi heads together and bid them form a government? Those 50,000 troops broiling in their costly bases are scarcely a decisive factor in Iraq’s internal affairs. Neither are the private contractors, whose military role should not be oversold, unless the Shiites are supposed to quail before ill-paid Peruvians, Ugandan cops and the like. (more…)

Add comment August 20th, 2010

Krugman: The cult of human sacrifice sweeping our elites

Paul Krugman on the cult of human sacrifice sweeping our political elite:

As I look at what passes for responsible economic policy these days, there’s an analogy that keeps passing through my mind. I know it’s over the top, but here it is anyway: the policy elite — central bankers, finance ministers, politicians who pose as defenders of fiscal virtue — are acting like the priests of some ancient cult, demanding that we engage in human sacrifices to appease the anger of invisible gods

After explaining, he poses this question:

So here’s the question I find myself asking: What will it take to break the hold of this cruel cult on the minds of the policy elite? When, if ever, will we get back to the job of rebuilding the economy?

Add comment August 20th, 2010

President takes on Dr. Laura

A reminder of one President who had guts:

If only we had a President like Jed Bartlett. He wouldn’t have to say “Yes we can” because he would actually try.

Add comment August 20th, 2010

Democracy (Dean) for America breaks with Howard Dean’s craven mosque stand

The organization Democracy for America, founded by Howard Dean (formerly Dean for America) has broken with its founder over the New York mosque construction. DFA sent out the following email late today:

Stephen -

Over the last week we’ve heard a lot from DFA members around the country asking for action to protect the rights of religious freedom for all Americans and I couldn’t agree more.

I don’t get upset much. I mean, I get ticked off at Republicans and Democrats (and at really bad customer service!), but that’s why I work with you at DFA. Because when we get upset, we don’t stew in it and hope it goes away. We do something about it.

The controversy around the building of a Muslim Community Center at 51 Park in New York City should upset all of us. It definitely upsets me. Shortly after the tragedy of the 9/11 attacks, much of this country came together. But there were a number of other, smaller tragedies occurring all over the country as a result of the attacks. People who “looked like terrorists” were victims of harassment, intimidation, and outright violence.

That includes me, and every member of my immediate family in different instances. My response was to protest the coming wars. My family did something different, though. They started going to Mosque. It did more than renew their faith — it provided a sense of community and safety during a very dark time for us. But for the last nine years, at least, people have been trying to block the construction of mosques all over the country.

Now, let’s be clear, the subject of the highest profile Muslim structure, 51 Park in New York City, will have a basketball court and a culinary school. Two floors will have a prayer room. The other eleven will host movie nights, performances, group dinners, etc — it’s basically a Muslim YMCA, open to everyone. These moderate Muslims are doing everything we could ask of them. They’re trying to build a bridge in the communities they live in, trying to show the world that Muslims are cool and interesting and diverse, and proving that being a Muslim does not equal being a terrorist.

But they’re being thrown under the bus by our elected leaders, egged on by some of the ugliest elements of the right-wing. Well-intentioned leaders of the Democratic Party are getting caught up in the fray as well, some of them seeking to find common ground with an implacable opposition. It’s not helping.

This isn’t just a Manhattan problem. Right now, there is opposition to mosques in Staten Island, Brooklyn, Southern California, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Illinois, and dozens of other locations across our nation. Where would they move? If public pressure can be brought to bear to take down the most high-profile Muslim community center in liberal NYC, then these other places don’t even have a chance, Ground Zero connection or not.

Frankly, this isn’t about Ground Zero. This is about America. This is about freedom. This is about people and there seems to be no place that Muslim people can go without being harassed.

The harassment has to stop, and that starts with you and me.

I think most people agree that Muslims have the right to worship. But these efforts to harass Muslims are based in fear, prejudice, and ignorance. Removing a community center doesn’t solve these problems. But talking about religious freedom — really engaging people — can open people’s minds, and blunt the prejudice.

I pledge to do it myself.

I pledge today to stand up for religious freedom right now. We cannot wait another day to defend the rights of all Americans to worship if they want, where they want, and when they want. I will not wait for the conversation to come to me; I will start the conversation now. Please join me in making the pledge to fight for our universal American values of acceptance and respect for religious freedom.

I need you, in your community, to have those challenging conversations with people you know.

Take the pledge right now.

It’s time to be pro-active in support of the values that define what we stand for and who we are as Americans. After you take the pledge, please follow up and share the conversations you’ve had. I think we’ll all find them inspiring to share.

-Arshad

Arshad Hasan, Executive Director
Democracy for America

Add comment August 19th, 2010