I am betting here that, should this Act reach Obama's desk in its current form, he will veto it or issue a Bushian signing statement. Come to think of it, it's probably going to be the latter, nicely tucked away somewhere in the Federal Register. He would then tout his advocacy of "the most transparent administration" ever while defending the use of signing statements as consistent with his campaign promises (see link under sig).

Lieberman not only said that there "very, very strong signs" that the killings at Fort Hood were "terrorism", but he also adds later about the crime: "You've got to see it as if 12 American troops were killed in Afghanistan." -- Regardless that neither would that be terrorism.

The U.S. is an empire in decline, according to Niall Ferguson, Harvard professor and author of The Ascent of Money. [...]

Given its massive deficits and overseas military adventures, America today is similar to the Spanish Empire in the 17th century and Britain's in the 20th, he says. "Excessive debt is usually a predictor of subsequent trouble."

I don't buy his last argument. The U.S. had a much higher debt-to-GDP ratio in the early 1950s, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USDebt.png . Then it was hardly an empire in decline, and in fact was able to substantially reduce its debt from 120% (!) of GDP to about 40% of GDP. Currently we're again at about 65%.

It STILL doesn't explain the genocide in Afghanistan

The Hazaras didn't have anything to do with Israel. So why did the Taliban target them for extermination?

The little girls whom the Taliban kidnapped and raped and handed out to their soldiers as wives probably didn't have much of an opinion on Israel either.

And it doesn't explain why they tied women into sacks and pelted them with stones until they were dead, or why they did this in a crowded soccer stadium as a form of entertainment.

Were the Buddha statues in Bamiyan guilty of supporting Israel? Is that why the Taliban destroyed them even in the face of pleas from all over the world for their preservation?

And how about the musicians who were killed by the Taliban for playing music? Were they playing pro-Israeli songs?

Glenn, maybe they hate us because they're just plain hateful people, period.

Silenced, do you believe for a minute that the US and NATO are fighting for human rights in Afghanistan? Furthermore, you are conflating the Taliban's motivations for perpretrating crimes against their own people (and invaluable cultural artifacts) with the motivations of the Taliban for fighting the US and NATO troops there, and more generally the reason why anybody would sympathize with "the terrists".

NPR/WBUR may be calling Jawad's treatment torture because it may only be only be referring to interrogations conducted by Afghans, not the torture regime he was likely subjected to by U.S. personnel. So this doesn't conflict with the rule that "it's not torture if we do it".

http://www.aclu.org/safefree/detention/40095prs20090701.html

That was an interesting post and probably about right in regards to what Obama and the 'military industrial complex' are up to. Except for one thing: it ain't workin'. The mothuf'ers are busted. Both of them, Obama and the MIC.

I don't see any evidence for the military-industrial complex being busted. I mean, did you see how Congress was pusing HARD to get Gates to order more of those useless F-22 fighter jets (at $140 million a pop), despite them never having been used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The US accounts for 43% ($660B) of the world's spending on "defense", according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation; it is fair to assume that a large part of this money goes to U.S. companies. Therefore, don't you think it would be naive to assume those companies would just fold their cards instead of fighting tooth and nail for this huge market? For comparison, the combined 2008 revenue of the ten largest retail stores in the Fortune 500 was about $568 billion, including Walmart. Don't you think those companies would throw their weight around if their market was threatened?

Forbes also reported that the defense and aerospace industry had a 10% growth in profits (!) last year. As Chalmers Johnson said in Why we fight, "If war is this profitable, you're going to see more of it."

http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/policy/securityspending/articles/022609_fy10_topline_global_defense_spending/

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2008/performers/industries/fastgrowers/

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2008/industries/149/index.html

In Monday's Guardian, CAP's associate director Ken Gude also shamefully argues to let the torturers go scot-free because prosecutions don't convince the pro-torture crowd that it's wrong, and he's against the Spanish indictment of the Bush Six because it's politically inconvenient for Obama and the Spanish government:

The opposite is true, and we need to rely on the revelation of the facts that would come from a non-partisan, non-adversarial investigation to help change their minds and recognise that torture has cost American lives. A criminal prosecution is the worst way to achieve such a consensus, as it would harden the beliefs of the antagonists making agreement more elusive.

That would be especially true of a foreign prosecution, and it would probably force the Obama administration to resist the Spanish prosecution, giving Bush officials the undeserved veneer of government protection and harming relations between Washington and Madrid.

Despite his protestations, Bolton would probably relish such a standoff, as he would once again be able to take to the airwaves and rant against both Obama and the Spanish. That's too high a price.

I can see an argument that prosecutions may not bring everything to light, but I don't get why, say a new Church committee led by Sheldon Whitehouse or Russ Feingold would preclude prosecutions.

And I find it particularly shameful that Gude is opposed to justice for torture victims because it may be inconvenient for Obama.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/may/08/john-bolton-obama-torture-spain