Torturers R’ Us: Moral Hazard Pardoned

In response to the devastating Senate Report on Torture, President Obama stated, I’m paraphrasing, “litigating the past will do us no good. We must look to the future.” At first glance this approach may sound reasonable enough, however, this course, a guiding principle of Obama’s administration, is fraught with thinking errors and inconsistent with our supposed legal ethos. Imagine prisoners serving time in prison grappling with such impotent language? “The government certainly litigated my past. I wasn’t convicted of future crimes, but rather, those committed in the so-called past.” Two other issues are evident in this injurious way of thinking: By not prosecuting the crimes, the American people assume the practices were necessary. By not prosecuting the crimes, moral hazard is vacated, assuring a repeat of the same crimes by future administrations.

Along comes President Elect Donald Trump. A man who stated, and I quote, “we’re gonna bring back waterboarding and a whole lot worse.” He actually campaigned on a promise to break the law, going so far as to suggest he’d place former CIA agent Jose Rodriguez in charge of the agency. The same Rodriguez who birthed the practices then burned the video cassettes containing contemporaneous visual evidence of the monstrosities. If you want to blame someone for the future practices of a Trump Administration look no further than Barrack Obama.

I’m not writing this in a political sense. This is important to me because I was on the front lines of this fight while serving in the army during the Bush years. I can barely live with the fact that I bear my own responsibility for prosecuting these policies, unwittingly or not. The men I served with did not torture or abuse those we detained. I did not know the extent to which our policies supported these brutalities. I’m also not sure what I would have, or could have done had I known? Our unit was commanded by officers who stressed the rules of war and the mission to protect and support civilians caught up in between those we sought and our mission to protect the man on either side of you in battle. Brutality was not completely absent, nevertheless, it was acknowledged and addressed in its aftermath.

The things I’ve learned since leaving the Army from excellent journalism and reports like the Senate’s report on torture are as astonishing as they are abhorrent. The treatment many of these detainees were subjected to can only be described as felonious and un-American. That these practices were not only encouraged, but US government official policy, seems the definition of criminal. Just because your lawyer says a law is no longer justified, doesn’t make it legal. Just because you believe the Geneva Conventions are “quaint,” doesn’t mean you can table the agreed upon rules of war. Remember, Nixon once said, “if the President does it, it’s not illegal.” That’s the language of an autocrat. That’s not the Constitutional principles we ascribe to as American’s. The fate of Richard Nixon and most of his henchmen bears this truth out.

What does any of this mean for the ordinary veteran, or for that matter, the ordinary American? It’s impossible to say or even predict. In a binary world, the choice between Trump or Clinton feels a bit pathetic. Our country faces a moral crises overtly under Trump just as it would have quietly under Clinton.

My own struggle with the wars we continue to fight goes on regardless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CATASTROPHIZING @realDonaldTrump: Hissy-Fit/Armageddon Edition

President Donald Trump.?! WTF? It’s the age-old question: Times make the man or, man makes the times? Is Trump simply at right place, right time, or, more troubling still: Is it Trump and his like that will transform the time? My best thinking results in a simpler answer to his win. The bottom rung of this theory is Clinton the candidate. I will try to explain.

Like some Hitchcock film, Obama and Trump lunch as equals…

My first thought after listening to one pundit after another sob with abject fear of the Trump Presidency is: “Are these folks a little bitter and a lot paranoid? Are they “catastrophizing,” as we used to say in group? It’s the end of the Republic, the world even, according to most news folks, liberal pundits and ancient elitist’s. Maybe? And maybe we should take a deep breath, put down the pumpkin spice lattes, and consider our history?

We survived the British Empire’s anger after declaring our independence. We survived the Civil War. We survived the Great War, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam and Richard Nixon. We survived the Cold War, a steady tension over 40 years, with thousands of thermonuclear weapons addressed USA, able to be fired in minutes, wiping out the entire modern world, if not human beings themselves? We survived 9/11 and the Bush Administrations lawlessness. And we survived several epic financial crisis including the Great Depression and the 2008 Great Recession. So???? Pump your brakes already.

I have said this many times: I would not vote for Trump, but I wouldn’t vote for Clinton either. An overwhelming number of voters had a similar outlook, with just enough of them saying “fuck it,” why not? The crazy part for Dem’s is that the numbers exposed this truth early on.

To say Trump voters, in general, are stupid or uninformed is exactly the analysis that resulted in the Clinton machine loss. It’s the bubble and the echo chamber that rings with terms like “white/uneducated” “working class whites” & “altright,” talking points for 5 minute news segments that drip with condescension and hubris. Polls are worthless anywhere outside of a campaign’s strategy session. They are worse than news, they are simplistic, targeted, and biased.

Here’s something you may have heard? If a site like 538.com -the Mauri Povich of political news- or others say candidate x has a 90% chance of prevailing, we still know nothing useful. Zero! In elections, two things, you win or you lose. Percentages are for blackjack and slugging averages. The fact that all the topical programs rely almost exclusively on polling to present the news, leads me to believe, it’s not the voters for either candidate who are stupid, it’s the news industry and its mouthpieces.

I have more about Trump, but this has exhausted me. He is worrisome on many levels. That’s for later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHANGE THEY CAN BELIEVE IN: #GOP #ELECTION2016 @realDonaldTrump

The world is awash with election analysis, mostly bullshit. As a true believer and political sadist I downloaded a few podcasts last night to get a better understanding of the anger and sorrow sweeping through the Democratic Party. The only reason I’m wading into the pedantic underbelly of this issue is the truly apocalyptic visions most of these hosts, and guests, were predicting come late January, 2017. Wow! Donald Trump brings a worrying set of character flaws to the job, but damn, the suicide hotline?

If liberals can learn anything from this election, it’s gotta be that the Democratic Party must be blown up and reborn, finding new faces to lead ahead. The programs I listened to today, minus The Young Turks with Cenk Uygur, offer little hope for change. These pundits and operatives cannot seem to wrap their minds around a simple concept? So if anyone in that bubble is listening I will type slow so you can keep up:

The #1 reason HRC and the Dem’s lost the election is HRC and the Democratic Party. Not Russia. Not Julian Assange. Not Gary Johnson or Jill Stein. Not the Electoral College. Not Obama. Not white people. Not women. Not Trump’s free media blitz. Not even Trump! She lost because ordinary voters dislike and mistrust her. Many also dislike Donald Trump, but there is possible chance he could upend the status quo. With Hillary there is no chance of change: she is the status quo. 

Are the several points of blame completely irrelevant? Of course not, however, every one of those hurdles were low enough to clear had Mrs. Clinton, or another Democratic candidate, reached out to the electorate with authenticity and a coherent message beyond: Vote for me; I’ll work to keep it business as usual. Even Hillary could have squeaked out a victory with an open, authentic candidacy. Bet. What the party wouldn’t accept from the jump, was those things, being authentic and unguarded, are not within her capability in the context of addressing the public writ large. She is who she is: “a public and private” face that’s beyond modification after 40 years under the hot lights.

Liberals do like Obama, warts and all. He offered a message of change that I initially believed in too. I still remember that 2008 campaign well. The enthusiasm was electric just about anywhere you went that year. I wrote a few weeks ago how this entire campaign I never saw a single HRC bumper sticker, hat or t-shirt. Anecdotal, I know, but the contrast is stunning.

Bernie Sanders may have lost too? It’s a counterfactual that’s unanswerable. He did generate tremendous vigor in the electorate similar to Obama, all minus meaningful media coverage, unlike the Obama campaign. Who knows how many he could have reached with the establishment behind him, however reluctantly? I say, despite being a fellow Jew and democratic socialist, he would have won states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. The numbers suggested as much back in May-June. And that’s without mainstream media airtime. He had a message. I would have voted for him. I knew others who would have. Clinton though; nobody ever told me in person they were voting for her…so?

I suppose after sharing all this amateur gibberish, a short piece on Trump is only fair and balanced? That could cost a whole lot of energy? What about Biden? You think he is kicking himself? Whatever!

Clinton was deeply flawed in a time of populism and fear driving the vote. I wish her well. I do believe she IS a good person under the masks of public opinion. She’s damn tough, that’s undeniable. Making it this long in what is still a man’s world takes true grit.

Peace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#MICHIGAN? A Fitting Finale For Democracy

What if Michigan was the State that ends up swinging the election to Donald Trump? Is there a more manifestly iconic city in the United States than Detroit to exemplify the destructive forces of globalization and neoliberalism upon this economy? The heartbeat of the rust belt, once the 5th largest city in America, now the 5th biggest in the State of Michigan. A city that resembled the Middle East at times post-2008, as fires raged unchecked in once prosperous neighborhoods, along Oak lined streets with names like Cambridge, Eton and Dartmouth. A city that declared bankruptcy and was forced to auction off precious works of art and culture once displayed with pride in its modern, glamorous museum. A world-class theatre and opera, basically gone. Several of the largest manufacturing factories ever built, now poked and in ruin, labyrinths of crime, narcotics and temporary homes for the distant relatives of a once proud citizenry. A destination for black families escaping the Jim Crow south, -the great migration, or, the great chase, as it were- offering well-paying union jobs that helped build slivers of wealth within a once indigent community of dedicated, hard working, families simply looking for a chance to shine.

And now, tonight, election 2016 may sow the seeds of a temporary revenge? An angry, proud, -white- forgotten people of privilege just may have pulled the pin on a political grenade of epic power, rolling it across the floor of this country, towards a Washington elite far too dismissive of this multi-generational perverse, reverse sort of gentrification.

But who knows, maybe she will win and everything will stay cool?

DEAD SOLDIERS: WHO GIVES A SHIT

How many people out there in America realize we suffered 6 casualties yesterday in the Afghanistan War? 2 Killed in action, 4 severely injured American soldiers fighting with partner Afghan forces. How is this not newsworthy? It really is shocking that in the midst of a heated Presidential campaign neither candidate bothers mentioning these ongoing war’s, let alone the US Forces giving their lives to wage them. Why? It is a sad state of affairs and portends a serious lack of leadership and vision from both camps in finally bringing these 14+ year long wars to a close. I’m afraid it signals an acceptance to the status quo with our current policy, or lack there of, as it were?

Would the death of two American’s, in addition to 4 seriously wounded, in a school, a fire, a traffic accident or a plane crash receive less attention by the election dependent, i.e, addicted, media? It’s “sad,” as Trump might end a tweet. Or as Clinton might say: “we need to care about all Americans, in all states, of every color…bla, bla,” bullshit.

From the moment I joined my unit and deployed to Afghanistan our leaders would endlessly spout shit about how “our sacrifices would never be forgotten,” or, “your country will not forget.” Clearly this is patently false. How can the country forget these soldiers who were never even counted? I’m sure the wives, children, mother’s and father’s getting knocks on their doors by a death notification team leader. Here’s what the US Army manual has to contribute

“The Next of Kin will be notified promptly in an appropriate dignified and understanding manner by a uniformed service representative. He/she will wear the Class “A” uniform and present a soldierly appearance when making notification.”

So, they’ll be counted by the family and the Army. The POTUS will likely phone the families of the deceased. As far as the wider public who bear the greatest responsibility for the continued actions go…a comfortable silence from the ignorant majority. 

If it seems like I’m angry, not exactly. I’m complacently irate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

YES SIR #MILITARY WILL VOTE #TRUMP

Military support for Donald Trump comes as no surprise to me, especially support from enlisted and NCO troops. Whether true or not, Republicans are thought to be more adept with foreign relations than Democrats, e.g., more likely to go to war. There’s also a pervasive current of sexism and homophobia that permeates the Hoorah Joe culture in the US Military, both of which are associated with the liberals. The math is therefore quite simple: Hillary Clinton is a woman, a liberal, LGBT friendly, and worst of all: an elitist politician.

The media largely promotes the idea that if you’re not comfortable with, or cannot stand Trump, you’ll most likely be voting for Clinton. This might hold water in the civilian world, but is definitely not true among active duty military. Plus, as an active duty soldier you are often not permitted to discuss politics in uniform, and if a television is tuned into a news station, 9 times out of ten, it will be FOX News. Add it all up and you get a consistent result: the military will be voting Republican no matter the nominee.

No matter the nominee. No matter the Democratic candidate. Period.

 

 

 

 

 

#Weiner compromised by #Russia?

Why do I feel as though we’re all living out a season of “The Americans,” the great show from FX that follows an undercover Russian family of spies, living near Washington DC, at the height of the Cold War? It would be just like these clever infiltrators to trap the spouse of a high level government operator in order to leverage the sharing classified material. We have former Congressman Anthony Weiner of New York who resigned his seat following revelations of his sexting issues. By chance, he is the husband of a longtime Hillary Clinton associate Huma Abideen. Then, coincidentally, this pervert finds himself caught up again, this time with an alleged 15-year-old kid. Further, a computer Weiner shared with his wife, used both to correspond with the likely next President of the United States, as well as a child in some pedophilia nature? Sounds like Hollywood to me, no?

I’m surprised this theory hasn’t been considered by the media? Or if it has been, the coverage missed me. Another way to look at this is, senior aides to Secretary Clinton thought it acceptable that they leave storage devices that almost certainly held highly classified information just lying around unsecured?

Clinton’s deliberate use of a private communication system, networked to many devices yet to be found, is a much bigger deal than the media, the FBI, the President or the Clinton campaign has been willing to admit. If this scheme had been carried out by a group of people not associated with Hillary Clinton, the FBI and the Justice Department would have come down on them like a sack of rocks. There would not be a basic blanket of immunity offered to the key players of the investigation. There would be no FBI press conference explaining in detail the results of the investigation. Oops I made a mistake isn’t a legal defense.

I cannot stand the thought of a Trump Presidency. I’m about there with a Clinton Presidency.