A-hunting

A-hunting we will go
A-hunting we will go
We'll catch a little fox
And put him in a box
And never let him go!
So take 500 plus or minus in Guantanamo, and add to them 100 or more spread around the globe in the CIA's prison system -- and of course don't forget the thousands and thousands now jailed in Iraq.
Almost none of them can be proven guilty of anything at all, at least not according to the standards of law that you or I would want to be judged by -- like in a trial, with admissable evidence or witnesses, and a defense attorney, and a judge. But neither the military nor the spooks are willing to let any of them out.
This story describes what has happened in the CIA:

. . . The CIA program's original scope was to hide and interrogate the two dozen or so al Qaeda leaders believed to be directly responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, or who posed an imminent threat, or had knowledge of the larger al Qaeda network. But as the volume of leads pouring into the CTC from abroad increased, and the capacity of its paramilitary group to seize suspects grew, the CIA began apprehending more people whose intelligence value and links to terrorism were less certain, according to four current and former officials. The original standard for consigning suspects to the invisible universe was lowered or ignored, they said. "They've got many, many more who don't reach any threshold," one intelligence official said . . . the debate over the wisdom of the program continues among CIA officers, some of whom also argue that the secrecy surrounding the program is not sustainable. "It's just a horrible burden," said the intelligence official.

So what did they think was going to happen -- that their CIA officers were going to show restraint? That they would give some priority to determining whether these people were guilty or innocent, and then let the innocent ones just go home?
Nope. No more restraint than the military has shown in Iraq or Guantanamo, where the guiding principle seems to be that the only trustworthy Arab is the one on the other side of the barbed wire.
So you have people who are supposed to be in charge of US national security, who are quite willing to imprison people they KNOW are innocent, just because they cannot figure out what else to do with them.
And someday it will be 2010, and then 2020 -- and are we still going to be reading stories about Guantanamo and secret prisons?
Or will all the journalists be locked up by then too?

Hubris

Those whom the gods would destroy they first make all powerful.
Those whom the gods would destroy they first make proud.
Hubris is the description for just about all political administrations who have been in power long enough to believe their own press releases. Occasionally, that happens in about three days (ie, the Bush administration), but usually it doesn't happen until at least one successful reelection, maybe two.
When Hubris strikes, it ain't pretty.
Chretien obviously had a bad case of it before he (finally!) left. As witness the Gomery inquiry report today -- the key paragraphs in this Globe story are these:

. . . Judge Gomery said Mr. Chrétien must shoulder at least some of the responsibility for the program's problems. Mr. Chrétien, he said, chose to run the program from his own office and to have his own staff take responsibility for its direction. For those reasons, he said, Mr. Chrétien "is accountable for the defective manner in which the sponsorship program and its initiatives were implemented."
"Good intentions are not an excuse for maladministration of this magnitude," he said. "The Prime Minister and his Chief of Staff [Jean Pelletier] arrogated to themselves the direction of a virtually secret program of discretionary spending to selected beneficiaries, saying that they believed in good faith that those grants would enhance Canadian unity." Each, Justice Gomery said, had testified during hearings that they believed the program would be administered responsibly by Mr. Guité, who ran the program from its inception until 1999. But they also did not verify that assumption "even though they had created a program lacking all of the normal safeguards against maladministration."
"The assumption was naïve, imprudent and entirely unfounded," Justice Gomery said. Similarly, he said, Alfonso Gagliano, who was public works minister from 1997 to 2002, chose to continue with the "irregular manner" of directing the sponsorship program adopted by Mr. Pelletier, when he took office. "Contrary to his testimony to the effect that his participation was limited to providing political input and making recommendations about events and projects to be sponsored, Mr. Gagliano became directly involved in decisions to provide funding to events and projects for partisan purposes, having little to do with considerations of national unity." Just as Mr. Chrétien must accept responsibility for the actions of his exempt staff, so must Mr. Gagliano, Justice Gomery added.
The Quebec wing of the Liberal Party, Justice Gomery also said, "cannot escape responsibility for the misconduct of its officers and representatives." He said two successive executive directors "were directly involved in illegal campaign financing and many of its workers accepted cash payments for their services when they should have known that such payments were in violation of the Canada Elections Act."

Not only should they have known better, its quite likely that somebody TOLD them not to do it this way. Somebody said, this isn't right. Somebody said, you should be following the rules. And they ignored that aggravating bureaucrat, that stick-in-the-mud, that useless twit who couldn't get with the tour, that annoying naysayer who wasn't 'onside' with the program. So they remained secure in the comfortable belief that their cause was just and their aspect noble, so pure were they that they could not possibly be doing anything wrong, just cutting a little unnecessary red tape . . .

Oh, great -- now its war with Cuba

For crying out loud.
Isn't it enough that the US wants to go to war with Syria, Iran and North Korea? Now Cuba is being added to the list -- as soon as Castro dies, mind you. This new story writes "The inter-agency effort, which also involves the Defense Department, recognises that the Cuba transition may not go peacefully and that the US may have to launch a nation-building exercise."
So its not called a war anymore, its called a "nation building exercise".

"Of course he's against abortion"

Raw Story links to this news story -- Bush Nominates Alito for Supreme Court -- which lays it out clearly:

Alito's politically conservative views were not in dispute. 'Of course he's against abortion,' his 90-year-old mother Rose told reporters at her home in Hamilton, N.J. Despite the unguarded comments of a proud mother, Sen. Arlen Specter, who will chair Judiciary Committee hearings, told reporters in the Capitol, 'There is a lot more to do with a woman's right to choose than how you feel about it personally.' The Pennsylvania Republican cited adherence to legal precedent in rulings over 30 years upholding abortion rights.

And if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you . . .
The pressure now will be on state legislatures to pass a large number of anti-abortion laws, which will then be challenged and hence will work their way up to the Supreme Court in the next year or two.
Likely not before the congressional midterms, but certainly before the next presidential election, Roe V Wade will be TOAST in the US.

More photos from the Aboriginal Spiritual Journey

Here are some more photos from the Aboriginal Spiritual Journey ceremonies in Europe:


This is the Native Women's Association of Canada wreath. The photo cutline says "these flowers were laid during a remembrance ceremony at Hill 62 Canadian Memorial in Zillebeke near Ypres [Friday] . . . The Calling Home Ceremony, to call home to Canada the spirits of Aboriginal soldiers who died in the two World Wars, will be held over four days in Belgium. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir "


"Ceremonial dancer Harvey Thunderchild sits near the Colin Gibson sculpture, Remembrance and Renewal, at the Juno Beach Center in Courseulles-sur-Mer, France on Sunday . . . Thunderchild is participating in the Aboriginal Spirtual Journey, a visit by Aboriginal veterans to battlefields in Europe. (AP Photo/CP, Andrew Vaughan) "


"Canadian Gov.General Michaelle Jean dances with ceremonial dancer Lorne Duquette, from Mistawasis First Nation in Saskatchewan, as she visits the Juno Beach Centre in Courseulles-sur-Mer, France on Sunday . . (AP Photo/CP, Andrew Vaughan) "


"Canadian Inuits reflect in front of an Inuksuk Memorial during a Ceremony of Remembrance next to Juno Beach Center at Courseulles-sur-Mer [on Sunday] . . . REUTERS/Franck Prevel "


"First Nation dancer Lorne Garpydie (L) and Harvey Thunderchild (C) perform a spirit dance in front of a Canadian Memorial during a Ceremony of Remembrance at Beny-sur-Mer War Cemetery, France . . . REUTERS/Franck Prevel "


"George Horse, from the Thunder Child First nation in Saskatchewan, hold his ceremonial eagle over the grave a Canadian soldier at the Beny-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery in Reviers, France . . . Horse . . . landed on Juno Beach on D-Day . . . (AP Photo/CP, Andrew Vaughan) "'


"Members of the 'Cri' tribe Harvey Thunderchild (L) and Lorne Garpydie (R), reflect in front of the Canadian War Cemetery's graves before a Ceremony of Remembrance at Beny-sur-Mer, France . . . REUTERS/Franck Prevel "


"A Canadian veteran comforts his daughter at the Canadian War Cemetery before a Ceremony of Remembrance at Beny-sur-Mer . . . REUTERS/Franck Prevel"

Tough love

Clinton says to Democratic politicians: "'If you don't want to fight for the future and you can't figure out how to beat these people, then find something else to do.' "

Aboriginal Spiritual Journey

I thought this was a wonderful idea -- as part of Canadian Rememberance Day tributes in The Year of The Veteran, Veterans Affairs arranged an eight-day tour for a delegation of 300 First Nations and Metis veterans and youth to travel to Ypres, Vimy, Juno Beach, and Courseulles-sur-Mer to pay tribute to Aboriginal veterans and to do a "calling home" ceremony.
Our new governor general, Michaëlle Jean, joined the group during the Juno Beach portion of their trip.

Canadian Press photo


First Nations and Metis ceremonial performers outside the Kemmel school in Belgium. Veterans Affairs photos.


Veterans and representatives from Veterans' organizations stand at attention during the Last Post, at the "calling home" ceremony at Hill 62.

Last week, the Globe and Mail gave us one warrior's story -- from Elmer Sinclair, now 84:

When Elmer Sinclair last trod on European soil, he did so as a warrior. Sixty years later, he is returning to pay tribute to comrades buried in ground he helped liberate. Mr. Sinclair, a Cree from Manitoba who lives in Nanaimo, spent much of his adult life in uniform. He served in the Canadian Army for all but the first nine months of the Second World War. Later, he re-enlisted to fight on the frozen hills of Korea before spending a year in the desert as a peacekeeper in the Gaza Strip. Those were assignments for a young man. He was not much more than a boy when he signed up as a regimental signaler with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. He then transferred to the Signal Corps as a radio operator.
Mr. Sinclair was born to a family living just outside Selkirk, in a home in the woods. His carpenter father belonged to the Peguis band, but his son would never live on the reserve. Young Elmer spoke English at home, and his parents saved their native tongue for their private conversations. The family moved to Pine Falls and seven-year-old Elmer was sent to Fort Alexander Residential School, operated by Oblate priests more interested in corporal punishment than celestial reward. "It wasn't heaven," Mr. Sinclair recalled in an interview. "They were mean to us and cruel. They prayed like hell in church, then beat the hell out of us afterward." After leaving school, he worked in a sawmill. Canada declared war on Germany two days after his 18th birthday. He enlisted in Winnipeg nine months later.
His expertise at transcribing and transmitting Morse code kept him out of the front lines, and he was assigned signal security. Mr. Sinclair landed at Gold Beach with the 50th British Infantry Division about a week after D-Day. He has never forgotten the scene. "All the pillboxes and the obstructions in the water. Pillars of cement. Barbed wire. All flattened out. It was an awful mess." After rejoining the Canadian Army, Mr. Sinclair tramped through France, Belgium and the Netherlands. He was in the port city of Bremen, flattened by years of Allied bombing, when Germany at last surrendered. Other soldiers' weapons went rat-a-tat-a-tat. His went dit-dah-dit dah-dit . . . Mr. Sinclair re-enlisted after the outbreak of the Korean War, rejoining the Princess Pats. At 29, he had a greater knowledge of the horrors of war than did younger recruits. "We were marching along a valley toward the hills to take over a position at the front," he said. "We saw a village ahead of us on fire. Burning. We got up close and started seeing bodies of American soldiers. They had been on a patrol the night before and gone to sleep there. "The Koreans or the Chinese came down off the hill, surrounded the village and burned it. The Americans started running back toward our lines and there must have been patrols of North Koreans or Chinese along the road. They killed them all. "Our men had been going forward laughing, having a good time. The sight sobered them up." Mr. Sinclair left the army in 1964 with the rank of Warrant Officer 2. During his trip to Belgium, Mr. Sinclair hopes to offer a final salute to a classmate from Selkirk, Sergeant O. D. Smith of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, who was killed on Oct. 12, 1944. To pay homage to his friend, Mr. Sinclair will need to visit the Adegem Canadian War Cemetery midway between Bruges and Ghent on Highway N9. In the southeast corner, in Plot No. 8, Row G, Grave No. 10, he will find the final resting place of Sgt. Smith, one of 1,144 war dead buried in the cemetery. If he finds the grave, Mr. Sinclair said, "I'll just stand there and have a look." He knew the sergeant as Orville. He was just 23 when he died.

And here's another priceless piece of Canadiana -- in the Comments section to the Globe and Mail article on the Jean visit, was one remarkable contribution from David Hawyard of Nanoose Bay, BC, who sent in this moving piece of poetry

We, the Descendants...
We, the descendants of Canada's Aboriginal, French and English founders,
and of all others who later arrived to help build this nation,
stand in unity as witness to this pledge.
Remembering that Canada's provinces and territories have been settled
by peoples whose mother tongues, heritage and values differed,
we pledge in the name of Canada, and to one another:
To recognize, to respect, and to celebrate Canada's diversity,
lest a loss of identity suffers unto our descendants;
To embrace tolerance, equality, sharing and compassion
as the moral cornerstones of our great nation;
To bond together as one in the pursuit of dignity, health,
prosperity and happiness for all Canadians;
To forever preserve and promote this mission
that we so proudly share.

Great line of the day

The Smirking Chimp quotes Huffington Post's Trey Ellis column 'President Cheney's goose is cooked' about the Scooter Libby indictment:

. . . Republicans keep saying that Democrats looked at the same intelligence briefings they did when they overwhelmingly voted to go to war. That is true. They all saw the same books, but what this indictment should bring to light next, is that those books had been cooked.

More torture chronicles

Hmmm -- this is interesting: Reuters is reporting that "The United States on Friday invited three U.N. human rights investigators . . . to visit the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in a bid to show 'we have nothing to hide'." The investigators cannot, of course, actually speak to any of the Gitmo prisoners -- apparently only the International Committee of the Red Cross can do that -- but at least the UN will get a look at what is going on. (And boys, make sure you get them to open ALL the doors.)
Maybe this sudden smasm of conscience is in response to this story about the abuse of the prisoners who are involved with the Guantanamo prisoner hunger strike, or this story about how the US State Department is trying to convince the UN that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the US signed in 1992, actually doesn't apply to US military prisoners outside the US.
At which the UN is shaking its head and rolling its eyes . . .

One more Aboriginal woman gone every month

I've blogged about this issue before, and undoubtedly I will blog about it again. Amnesty International continues to try to raise awareness of a terrible issue -- the disapparance or murder of Aboriginal women, about 500 in the last 20 years -- one a month, every single month.
Amesty asks "How many more sisters and daughters will be lost before the government of Canada takes real action?"
Good question. Amber Redman's mother spoke out at the Amnesty press conference on Monday: "Yuzicappi's daughter, Amber Redman, vanished July 15 after a night out with friends in Fort Qu'Appelle, Sask., northeast of Regina. The shy, 19-year-old who dreamed of going to university and becoming a teacher hasn't been seen since. Family members, volunteers and police searchers have found no trace of Redman, a member of the Standing Buffalo First Nation. "My daughter had limited media coverage in Saskatchewan."
Limited? I'll say -- like, zero.
Here is her photo:

and here is the FSIN website with information about Ms. Redman and other missing Aboriginal people.

Great lines of the day

D r i f t g l a s s writes:

Bush is a bolt of convenient winding cloth to hide the moral leprosy of the Right. Bush is the Halloween Costume Rove dresses up in when he goes abroad in the land to slander and defame and destroy. The math is simple:
Bush+Rove = Swift Boat Liars, gay-bashing ballot initiatives in 2004, smearing Max Cleland, John McCain's Black Baby.
Bush-Rove = Katrina, 'Brownie', Harriet Miers, the First Debate, Cindy Sheehan.
As we on the Left of Crazy have always known, Rove is our Domestic President in charge of dividing and destroying the country from within, and Cheney runs the Foreign Plunder division, tasked with pissing away our reputation abroad, while lining the pockets of his shareholders. And as long as he sticks to the script, Bush -- the feeble-minded codpiece used to cover up their crimes and betrayals -- gets to play at being President.
But now, despite all of the insipid rhetoric on the Right about Bush the Wise, Bush the Sage, Bush the Brilliant, their own hysteria gives them away . . . . the Party of Morality and Personal Responsibility is compelled to admit to itself that treason and treachery in the Oval Office is, by their own lights, No Biggy. And by their shouting they own up the the fact that it's the Real President that's under the hammer.

Emphasis mine.

Spineless toadies

Well -- one down, dozens to go.
On Countdown tonight, John Dean said the Nixon White House actually considered whether they could use the secrecy of a grand jury proceeding to try to hide the Watergate crimes. Instead, Congress held public hearings and down came the Nixon administration.
Digby writes: "If the Republican leadership of congress weren't spineless Bush toadies and insane religious fanatics they would do their job and investigate this honestly for the good of the country. But they won't. They are nothing more than braindead fatcats gorging at the pork barrel with a fistfull of C-notes in one hand and a bible in the other . . . We are left with a timorous press and an honest prosecutor to get to the bottom of what these people have done to us."
Only if the democrats take the House or the Senate in 2006 will the Bush administration get the kind of public investigation it deserves.

DBK was right (updated)

Columbus, Ohio newspaper The Free Press reports that the Government Accounting Office "now confirms that electronic voting machines as deployed in 2004 were in fact perfectly engineered to allow a very small number of partisans with minimal computer skills and equipment to shift enough votes to put George W. Bush back in the White House. Given the growing body of evidence, it appears increasingly clear that's exactly what happened." Hoo, boy. Forget Meirs -- THIS is a story. Frogsdong DBK always said that the 2004 election was stolen, and now the GAO shows how it was done.
UPDATE: Frogsdong is now DBK -- sorry, Frog, I missed the announcement until today.

Yes, we should be ashamed of ourselves

I have been waiting to blog on the Milgaard Inquiry until it was a little clearer what direction the inquiry was taking.
Was it going to pin down some responsibility for sending an innocent 17-year-old kid to jail for 23 years for the rape-murder of nurse Gail Miller. Or was it just going to whitewash all the good old boys (police and prosecutors) involved -- several of whom, it appears, cannot actually remember much if anything all now about one of Saskatoon's biggest murder cases ever -- oh, sure, guys!
There were some bad signs early on -- I don't have the details at my fingertips anymore, but last spring a couple of the lawyers started flinging around comments to the effect that, really, David Milgaard actually could have killed Miller after all. And I thought, what the heck is going on here? -- this is supposed to be an inquiry into a conviction which has already been proven to be wrongful, where another man has already been proven guilty. Its not supposed to become a forum for inventing new fantasies about imaginary evidence.
Finally Judge MacCallum put a stop to this kind of speculative and suggestive questionning and the inquiry got back on track. But it left me concerned that this inquiry risked letting the lawyers try to exonerate their clients by demonizing Milgaard.
Now, once again, I am starting to wonder.
Milgaard, quite justifiably, doesn't want to testify at the inquiry. He says the prospect of testifying makes him sick.
And I can understand it -- he was victimized by the Saskatchewan justice system once before. So now, does he really have to sit in that witness chair again? Once more at the mercy of bunch of lawyers, who will try once again to victimize him, to sneer at him and trip him up with trick questions and make him look like such a sneaky, unstable, unlikeable liar that of course anyone would have thought he was guilty -- they couldn't help themselves because you just looked so guilty and anyway you were just such an asshole , weren't you, MISTER Milgaard?
Well, the judge now is saying that Milgaard may have to testify if he wants his lawyer to continue to be able to question the other witnesses at the inquiry. Yet the evidence so far has been that it was not Milgaard's personality nor actions which contributed to his conviction -- rather, his so-called friends, dumb and dumber and dumberer, helped over-eager police put together a very loose, circumstantial case, and everyone happily rushed to judgement, so glad to get such a monster off the street that it took Joyce Milgaard two decades to make a dent in the public's perception of his guilt.
This story says that Milgaard's mother "told reporters she felt 'intimidated' by [Judge] MacCallum and thought 'Canadians would be ashamed' with the way her son is being forced to testify."
Well, here's one Canadian who is ashamed.

Think about it

Miers withdraws Supreme Court nomination -- so now Bush is going to nominate the person who was originally his SECOND choice, someone who he felt was LESS qualified than Miers. Jenna, perhaps? Or Barney?