It Gets Worse

According to today’s New York Times, the CIA subjects its “high profile” torture victims to such medieval practices as “waterboarding”–strapping the subject to a board, then repeatedly dunking him under water to make him think he’s going to drown. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, one of the many #2 Al Qaeda guys we’ve captured, was apparently subjected to this treatment. The FBI, meanwhile, has been ordered to avoid such CIA torture sessions to avoid impugning their future prosecutions.

Anyone who knew about this, condoned it or allowed it to happen, Democrat or Republican, deserves the same treatment. The same goes for ordinary Americans who vote for these cretins this fall.

Cognitive Dissonance

“I share a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the way they were treated. Their treatment does not reflect the nature of the American people.”

—George W. Bush, May 4

“[The beheading of Nick Berg] shows the true nature of the enemies of freedom. They have no regard for the lives of innocent men, women and children.”

—White House spokesman Scott McClellan, May 11

When we commit crimes, in other words, they’re aberrations. When they commit them, they reveal exactly who they are and what they’re about.

There I go again, talking treason!

Oh, and here’s an AP story that sheds new light on how Berg fell into the hands of his murderers. Bush’s Colonial Provisional Authority, it seems, locked the guy up for nearly two weeks with nary a phone call:

FAMILY LASHES OUT AT BUSH OVER BEHEADING

May 12, 2004 – 9:22AM

The father of an American contractor whose beheading was shown on an Islamic militant website lashed out at the US military and Bush administration today, saying his son might still be alive had he not been detained by US officials in Iraq.

The video, posted today, showed Nick Berg, 26, slain by an al-Qaeda-affiliated group. The video said the killing was to avenge the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers.

Berg, a small telecommunications business owner, spoke to his parents on March 24 and told them he would return home on March 30. But he was detained by Iraqi police at a checkpoint in Mosul on March 24.

Berg was turned over to US officials and detained for 13 days.

His father, Michael, said his son was not allowed to make phone calls or contact a lawyer.

FBI agents visited Berg’s parents in West Chester on March 31 and told the family they were trying to confirm their son’s identity. On April 5, the Bergs filed suit in federal court in Philadelphia, contending that their son was being held illegally by the US military. The next day Berg was released. He told his parents he had not been mistreated.

Michael Berg said he blamed the US government for creating circumstances that led to his son’s death. He said if his son hadn’t been detained for so long, he might have been able to leave Iraq before the violence worsened.

“I think a lot of people are fed up with the lack of civil rights this thing has caused,” he said. “I don’t think this administration is committed to democracy.”

Berg’s family said US State Department officials had told them yesterday that Berg’s decapitated body was found on a highway overpass in Baghdad on Saturday.

When told about the website, Berg’s father, brother and sister collapsed in their front yard.

“I knew he was decapitated before,” Michael Berg said. “That manner is preferable to a long and torturous death. But I didn’t want it to become public.”

Berg’s mother, Suzanne, said her son was in Iraq as an independent businessman to help rebuild communication antennas. Berg owned a communications equipment company, Prometheus Methods Tower Service Inc, she said.

The Bergs last heard from their son on April 9, when he told his parents he would come home via Jordan. Suzanne Berg said that the family had been trying for weeks to learn where their son was, but that US federal officials had not been helpful.

“I went through this with them for weeks,” she said. “I basically ended up doing most of the investigating myself.”

Berg had gone to Third World countries several times to help spread technology, his family said. He had previously been to Kenya and Ghana, where they said he had bought a $US900 ($A1,300) brick-making press for a poor village.

Michael Berg described himself as fervently anti-war, but said his son disagreed.

“He was a Bush supporter,” Berg said. “He looked at it as bringing democracy to a country that didn’t have it.”

Suzanne Berg said she was told her son’s body would be transported to Kuwait and then to Dover, Delaware.

– AP

Even conservatives have stopped defending the war in Iraq. The sane ones, anyway. Yet the belief persists, even among the thinking/liberal half of the population, that the war against the Taliban was somehow more just, more honest, a more logical reaction to the 9/11 attacks.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

As Bob Woodward writes in “Bush At War,” Afghanistan was a dry run to Iraq in every respect–marketing, strategy, weaponry. The Bushies did Afghanistan first because they knew that, no matter how many mistakes they made, they could defeat the Taliban. At least at first.

The justifications for the war, however, were every bit as fraudulent as the WMD claims about Iraq. Pakistan, not Afghanistan, was and is the world’s HQ for Al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden wasn’t in Afghanistan at the start of the war. And the Taliban repeatedly offered to turn him over in exchange for evidence that he was involved in 9/11. Bush turned them down.

Like Iraq, there’s an energy connection. The Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline project, as the industry trade journal Oil & Gas noted on May 3rd, is scheduled for groundbreaking in 2005:

Petroleum minister Nouraiz outlines foreign investment needs in Pakistan

 By an OGJ Correspondent

KARACHI, May 3 — Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Nouraiz Shakoor, at a press conference, invited foreign investors to participate in a $1 billion oil refinery proposed for Pakistan, in exploration blocks, and in gas storage facilities at Gwadar for Balochistan Province and in storage facilities for the hilly areas of the country.

Saying there was a need for both upstream and downstream investment in Pakistan’s oil and gas sector, Nouraiz said he hoped in fiscal year 2004-05 to surpass the record $800 million provided by foreign investors in all sectors of oil and gas in Pakistan during fiscal year 2003-04.

He said the feasibility study for the $3 billion Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan oil pipeline would be completed by June, and the project would begin by yearend 2005. Nouraiz said that a consortium of companies would be formed later this year to fund the pipeline.

The consortium is said to be led by Unocal Corp., former employer of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and pet Bush Administration ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.

Because the details are obscure and the story complex, I wrote a whole book–GAS WAR: THE TRUTH BEHIND THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION OF AFGHANISTAN–to tie it all together. And I vetted it the best way I know how: by sending it to all of the right-wing media that loves to to attack me. Interestingly, neither The Weekly Standard nor The National Review nor The Washington Times deemed this “consipiracy” title worthy of review, or trashing.

As Joe Bob Briggs says, check it out.

“Why do you even bother?” That’s a question numerous Friends of Rall have asked me during the last few days. During the Pat Tillman cartoon controversy, I appeared on Fox TV’s “O’Reilly Factor” and “Hannity and Colmes,” as well as Hannity’s and Colmes’ syndicated radio talk shows to discuss the cartoon and the wars.

To be sure, I didn’t get a fair hearing. A lot of people don’t know that O’Reilly’s show is taped a few hours earlier; any real zingers on the part of a liberal guest get edited out. And Hannity is partial to yammering on and on and on so long that you can’t get a word in edgewise.

Still, I have to hand it to the conservatives: they’re willing to confront ideas and people they find uncomfortable. Which is a lot more than I can say for the so-called liberal media, which generally has nothing to do with true progressives. I’ve been listening to Air America for the better part of a month, every day, and have yet to hear them interview anyone to the left of Al Gore. MoveOn.org didn’t even invite me to their big shindig in New York City, where I live, a few months back. And I can’t even get The Nation to review one of my books.

So there’s the answer. I’m willing to be treated rudely by right-wing hosts for the chance to share progressive ideas with the American people. Liberals, after all, don’t give other liberals exposure.

Return of the Neo-McCarthyite Censors

The same anti-American pro-war/Bush bloggers who led the charge to get me banned from The New York Times.com are at it again. Now they’re deluging MSNBC.com with hate mail about my cartoons. Why? Because the last thing right-wingers want is someone who attacks them with the same ferocity as they attack Democrats.

I’ll keep drawing cartoons whether or not MSNBC drops me, but it’s important to send a message to these neo-McCarthyite censors that their campaign of intimidation won’t work. Whether you agree with everything I write or not, please e-mail MSNBC to ask them to keep giving you the option of reading my work.

Send your email to:

GeneralComments@feedback.msnbc.com with a copy to letters@msnbc.com.

The right is on the ropes; they’re terrified that they’re about to lose big in November, so big that the Republican Party may never again be trusted with the White House. Until then they’ll be more dangerous than ever. Hold firm for our endangered democracy!

GENERALISSIMO EL BUSHO: Essays and Cartoons from the Bush Years

Hot on the heels of my political wake up call to America and the Democrats WAKE UP, YOU’RE LIBERAL: HOW WE CAN TAKE AMERICA BACK FROM THE RIGHT comes my collection of essays and cartoons about George W. Bush, GENERALISSIMO EL BUSHO. I just received my first advance copy from the printer and it looks awesome!

Available in hardback and paperback, order now if you want to get yours within a few weeks, before it starts showing up in stores.

Unhinged We Stand

Worth noting, as another week of horrifying revelations of torture in American gulags in Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba and here in der Homeland, is an interesting comparison.

Escaped hostage Thomas Hamill reports having been well treated, fed and “watered” throughout his captivity by Iraqi insurgents. At no time was he tortured; except for the captivity itself–admittedly terrifying–he was just fine.

Pfc. Jessica Lynch, despite spun Pentagon reports at the time, has also repeatedly said she was well treated, even given medical care in priority to Iraqis, by Iraqi doctors in a hospital during the war.

In other words, our treatment of POWs compares unfavorably with that given kidnapping victims and prisoners of both Saddam Hussein and the current Iraqi resistance movement.

[Start singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” now.]

Cool Mail

I received some great email from readers during last week’s Tillman hubbub, and wanted to share it with you. Here’s a small sample of the more than 4,000 positive emails I ultimately received. These people deserve anonymity from the right-wing blogger freaks, and so they shall have it from me.

I just read through your selection of emails concerning the death of Mr. Pat Tillman.

My thoughts on his death mirrored what you described in your cartoon even before reading what you had created. My opinion at the time was that the right wing morons and mainstream press, including ESPN would make this idiot out to be the greatest hero since Audie Murphy. And they did, while totally ignoring the 700 or more other soldiers killed in the Middle East. To top it all off when Nightline dicided to honor the soldiers Ted Koppel was made out to be a traitor!

Having read some of the thought provoking missives from your fellow countrymen; who make up roughly 50% of the population, I find that I am more worried about Bush and his followers than I am of any terrorist. The odds of Bin Laden or some other Arab striking me is quite remote, but the odds of Bush and his crew causing great harm to my freedom and my way of life is exactly at 50%, plus or minus 3%.

Keep up the good work.

Yo Ted! I’ve seen you on Bill Maher’s HBO show, and I have enjoyed your

work on the (Washington DC) City Paper for years. Great stuff, always!

The writing is vicious (like I like it) and funny as hell, and your

drawing style is raw, but stylized, and I dig it immensely.

I was just checking out your blog, and the emails you’ve gotten from

the angry right-wingers. Some of those are hilarious, or WOULD be, if

they weren’t so scary! How can people be so freakin’ misguided? I am no

Noam Chomsky, but I am somewhat literate and educated. These people, on

the other hand, are just out of their minds!

Is this how life is going to be in Bush’s “post-9/11-era”, life in

complete and utter denial, an absolute refusal to even GLANCE at what

is really going on? Thanks so much, Ted, for having the nerve, the

guts, the balls to speak up!

We know you are getting a lot of heat for the Tillman cartoon, but please know that some of us understand the purpose of political commentary and completely agree that the HERO label now means nothing. From the thinking half of the American public, keep up the good work!

Thank you for saying what many of us know and try to say, but can’t, due to

censorship. In particular, your column of May 4, 2004 was excellent. In

fact, America HAS committed genocide, but the American people have been

indoctrinated into dismissing as “Marxist lies” any and all evidence of

American war crimes.

Keep up the good work, Ted.

I think you cartoon about Tillman was disturbingly accurate. Keep up the

good work.

Air America Follow-up

Air America, the almost left-of-center radio network originally meant to challenge the hegemony of the right on AM, is in trouble. This from the AP:

Air America Radio Chairman Resigns

Fri May 7, 1:06 PM ET

By SETH SUTEL, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK – The chairman and vice chairman of Air America Radio have resigned, dealing the latest setback to the fledgling liberal radio network headlined by comedian and author Al Franken.

The departures of Evan Cohen and his investment partner Rex Sorensen came just one week after the company said that co-founder Mark Walsh had stepped down as CEO to take a smaller role at the company. Last week the company also said it had forced out David Logan as head of programming.

Cohen declined to discuss the reasons for his departure Friday but confirmed that he was stepping down both as chairman and as a member of the company’s board. News of the departures, which occurred Thursday, was first reported in the Chicago Tribune.

Cohen also said Sorensen was leaving the company’s board. He declined to say what he and Sorensen planned to do with their stakes in the venture. Jon Sinton, president of the company, did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

The continued management turmoil marked the latest growing pains for Air America Radio, which launched on March 31 with a slate of left-leaning political satire and current affairs commentary.

Just two weeks after the network went on the air, a dispute with a business partner led to the network’s signal being pulled from stations in Chicago and Los Angeles. The signal was later restored in Chicago, but the company said it was looking for a new business partner there.

In addition to Franken’s show, which is dubbed “The O’Franken Factor” in a jab at Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, the network also carries shows hosted by Janeane Garofalo (news), Florida radio personality Randi Rhodes and Lizz Winstead, a co-creator of “The Daily Show.”

As something of a pioneer of leftie talk radio (on KFI Los Angeles from 1998 to 2000, and then again during the fall of 2001), I’ve taken more of an interest in most in what I feel to be a much needed idea and, if carried out correctly, a potentially profitable business. I’ve spent the last few weeks listening to Air America pretty much every day, and I think I know what ails them.

First and foremost, the central conceit of using comedy to counter right-wing vitriol doesn’t work. When I started on KFI, I wanted to do comedy bits too, and I did have segments–Brooklyn Traffic with Dave Eggers (for a station in L.A.), the San Francisco Fog Report with Jesse Kalisher, Cinema is Dead with Cole Smithey, Wade Hamilton’s Celebrity Watch with Ruben Bolling–but I quickly learned that on radio humor is the icing on the cake, not the main meal. People listen to feel informed, to hear ideas and arguments they can use at work the next day around the water cooler. You don’t get that stuff on Air America.

Second, most of the hosts have no talk radio experience. It’s embarrassing beyond belief for a talent the caliber of Al Franken to have to have a co-host to push the buttons and issue formatics (“This is the O’Franken Factor…”). Franken should have gone it alone after training at small station somewhere first.

Third, Air America is reacting to what the Republicans and the right does and says. They don’t set their own agenda. Successful political talk requires men and women who, were they appointed president by a rogue Supreme Court, would already have a list of policies to enforce and cabinet members to appoint. You don’t get that sense on Air America.

Finally, the editorial content is mushy. A few days ago, I heard Franken try to defend John Kerry on charges of waffling. Look, Kerry IS a waffler. It goes back to Vietnam, when he tried to be a war hero AND a peacenik, a game he’s still playing. My old program director David Hall, who has forgotten more about talk radio than I’ll ever know, used to harp on credibility. A host without credibility won’t be listened to. Anyone who tries to defend Kerry as a man of integrity is kidding himself but nobody else.

It sounds like AA is reshuffling its management. That’s good, if it leads to a clean sweep on the programming side. The only host I’d keep is Randi Rhodes, a veteran of San Francisco talk radio. I’d hire hosts ranging from radical left to centrist Democrat, all with balls out personnas and credible arguments to defend their points of view. And I’d lose the whole Comedy Central thing. It sucks and it’s boring.