Why We Should be Happy with the Health Care Bill

The shrillness of the contentious partisan debate surrounding the health care reform has truly drowned out any rational discussion of it (and here I am blaming all sides). In particular, I have to say I have been disappointed with some on the left who have reacted to Reid's stripping of the public option from the bill in such a knee-jerk reaction that they single handedly obscured many good things that are in this bill and that make liberals' threat to kill the bill sound like an act of lunacy. Here are some of the things that make this bill an historic attempt to reform the health care system in America, and that should make all of us progressives giddy as we await President Obama's signature. To quote Paul Krugman in today's NYT: "Count me among those who consider this an awesome achievement. It’s a seriously flawed bill, we’ll spend years if not decades fixing it, but it’s nonetheless a huge step forward."


Let me group the good things in this bill under three themes.

ACCESS AND AFFORDABILITY.
--The bill extends coverage to 30 million Americans by offering government subsidies to those who earn less than 400% of federal poverty level and by expanding both Medicaid and the CHIP (Child Health Insurance Program). Analysts estimate that some 94% of Americans will have access to affordable health insurance because of this bill. This fact alone should be enough for any progressive to support this bill.

--Many low-income people who previously have not been eligible for Medicaid, will now be covered. It raises the eligibility level to 133% of the federal poverty rate. It further expands the wonderfully successful Child Health Insurance Program.

--It mandates that every state establish an insurance exchange program which will be available on the Internet, and which will basically be a list of all insurance programs available in your area that you can buy into. The language has to be simple and uniform for all insurance programs with no small print. In addition it mandates that the Health and Human Services Secretary sign a contract with the Federal Insurance provider that currently insures our Congresspeople to create a national insurance program that we will all be able to buy into.

--It expands the age of dependent coverage to 26, so if you are fresh out of college, you can be on your parents' insurance until 26. (I could have used this after college).

CUTTING COST
The bill makes serious attempts at cutting health care costs.

A lot has been made of Senator Reid's stripping of both the public option and Medicare expansion from the bill in winning the support of the so-called centrist Democrats and the former Democrat Joe Libermann. Now, don't get me wrong, even a brief appearance of that sorry excuse for a human being named Joe Libermann makes me cringe, but it is far from certain that either the public option or the Medicare expansion would by themselves solve the skyrocketing health care costs. The New Yorker had a brilliant article about this a few months back in which it argued even with the public option, health care costs would continue to skyrocket, increase our deficit, bankrupt Medicare, etc, if we did not change our health care compensation system (by ending the disastrous pay-for-quantity rather than quality, system). The Medicare expansion proposal was even more problematic as it would saddle the government with an enermous bill and funding for it was far from certain, creating the potential for an even more monstrous deficit and the possible insolvency of Medicare. So, how does this bill attempt to cut cost?

First it recognizes that we don't really know how exactly to cut cost. It acknowledges there is no one silver bullet to solve our problem. European countries, including those who have a single payer system (France) or those who have a mixture of single payer and private insurance (Germany) have struggled to keep their costs down and their health care delivery systems functioning. So, there is no easy solution.

The Senate health care bill creates numerous pilot programs to test the ways of cutting cost. Most innovations come in Medicare. It establishes experimental programs for Medicare to pay hospitals in bundles rather than for each operation and hospital visit, thus providing incentives for doctors to share their evaluations of patients, effectiveness of medical procedures, follow up hospital visits to reduce the number of second-hospital visits for each patient. It establishes the so-called Accountable Care Organizations which would pool all these methods and share the savings that come from them.

It creates the Medicare Advisory Board which would conduct thorough evidence-based research on methods, procedures (including testing), all with the purpose of figuring out which health care delivery systems work, and which do not. Most importantly, the recommendations that the Medicare Advisory Board makes to Congress will become EFFECTIVE AUTOMATICALLY lest the Congress pass measures that would make savings equivalent to those proposed by the Board.

The bill also empowers the Health and Human Services Secretary to coordinate all pilots programs and report to Congress.

--It also establishes a number of community-level wellness programs and prevention programs that promote preventive care, including school based programs. And it makes all preventive care free by prohibiting insurance companies from charging out-of-pocket fees.

As an article in the last New Yorker argued, a pilot program is how the US reformed its troubled agriculture system in the early 20th century. There is no reason to believe that these pilot programs cannot do the same in health care. In fact, it is the only way we can figure out how exactly to tamp down these costs.

INSURANCE REGULATION
--The bill imposes serious regulation on the previously barely-regulated insurance industry. Starting in 2014, it prohibits insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, from upping premiums for people who get sick (or dropping them altogether), charging different fees based on gender, it limits the amount insurance companies can spend on their administrative costs, and the amount they can charge in annual out-of-pocket expenses; and prohibits them from setting up an arbitrary annual limit it will pay for individuals.
--It also mandates that each insurance company create an accessible appeals process open to every customer through which he/she will be able to contest a denied claim. (I could have used this back in 2003 when an insurance company refused to pay for an expensive medical procedure I had had, and because of which I had to incur some debt).

There are many more things in this bill that are good, but these are the main ones that caught my attention.

Considering all these things that are in the bill, I cannot understand how anyone can fathom voting against it (unless you are a heartless Republican of course). It does so many good things that us progressives should be happy about. And this is why I shall be opening a bottle of the bubbly when President Obama finally signs the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law sometime in January.

Calling on Mr. Abraham Lincoln. Pragmatism and Solving the Bosnian Impasse

As Bosnia-Herzegovina plunges into yet another constitutional crisis, and the threads of the very state seem to be unraveling, I have been thinking a lot about pragmatism. Americans and Europeans are once again secluded in a Sarajevo military base with all the political bigshots, trying to come up with a solution. I have been toying with some ideas that I wanted to flesh out. Some of them are provocative (for the domestic audience), but I wanted to think of radical solutions to these problems, and stir up some discussion. My main argument is that the country needs a radical pragmatic solution and that the words of the eternally pragmatic Abraham Lincoln are instructive in how to achieve this.

For those not familiar with the current political system of the country, let me give you a brief background.

BACKGROUND (*For those familiar with the region feel free to scroll down to the next paragraph).
Dayton Bosnia is a country with a constitution "worthy of a zen master" to paraphrase an anthropologist of the region. While enjoying some symbolic attributes of an independent, sovereign state, its internal sovereignty is non-existent. 49% of its territory is taken up by the Serb entity (Republika Srpska) and 51% by the Federation of Croats and Muslims. Each entity has a two-tiered parliament, prime ministers with entire cabinets, and each entity has the right to block any decision of the weak central government. The latter is mostly represented by the three-member presidency (Serb, Croat, Bosniak) whose constitutional powers are so minimal that makes the entire idea of a Bosnian state laughable; and the Council of Minister, but whose powers, are again, are limited and vulnerable to veto. The power is further devolved to the cantons (10 of them) and canton governments have jurisdiction over areas as important as educational policy. Then finally, the power devolution ends at the municipal level with the mayor and the city council. In short, Bosnia has 14 parliaments! The overlapping jurisdictions of power are so complex that the country needs a zen master to interpret the laws.

STALEMATE OF IDEALS
The Dayton Peace Agreement--which is the constitution of the country (oh yes, and we do not own a copy of it since the original one is in Paris!)--has cemented the hold of nationalist powers in each entity and each canton, and the result is a perpetual political paralysis. Besides making it impossible to ever enter into the EU, the structure reflects the stalemate of ideals which is the heart of the problem and which the war never resolved.

In short, Bosnia is an unwieldy conglomeration of (still) warring ideals.

The Serbs believe that the reason they spilled their blood was to create an exclusively Serb entity that can buffer them from any Muslim-Croat domination or worse, a repeat of the WWII-era massacres. They argue to the point of exhaustion that they never voted for Bosnia to succeed from Yugoslavia and never agreed to live in a single state with the other two people. This ideal is rooted in the early mid-to-late 19th century nationalist idea of peasant democracy, but is mixed in with the fears of genocide that came out of the WWII experience, and has then been filtered through the recent war which is seen as a delayed Serbian response to WWII.

The Croats, who make up the tiniest percentage of the population (17% or so), feel completely marginalized in the Federation. They point out that the constitution gave the Serbs and the Muslims their own entities while relegating them to the permanent minority status. As a constituent people they want their own entity and until then, they are holding onto the Herzegovinian capital Mostar as "the only Croat city" in the country. Their ideal is also rooted in the late 19th century notion of Croatianness, but mixed in with the feelings of guilt (due to the Croat role in WWII), and deep frustration with the failure of the Croatian state to absorb the Herzegovinian Croats during the last war.

The Bosniaks might be the most divided and the most embittered. As the last group in the region to emerge as an ethnic category (only in the mid 20th century) they are also the most divided. The right-wing is seething with revanchist urges and wants Republika Srpska destroyed, claiming it is the direct product of the genocide in Srebrenica. Seeing no need for any devolution of power, the Bosniak right-wing wants a unitary Bosnian state with the "one man, one vote" principle that does not recognize the ethnic complexity of the country and the history of violence. The left-wing would agree to some devolution, but still sees Republika Srpska as the main obstacle to a better future. The still fresh, daily narrated memory of the Srebrenica genocide is the unifying force between all the fractions within the Bosniak political establishment.

The problem is that the war did not DEFEAT any of these ideals. All of the ideals are inherently democratic expressions of the majority of the people who vote (and keep voting) for the same parties. Despite criticizing the Communists for giving people utopian promises, all of the nationalist ideals are essentially utopian in that they promise a never-reached future in which the national being will be fulfilled. But these ideals are incompatible with one another, making the daily political life a zero-sum game that has to end either in a stalemate, or another war. So, rather than being conniving self-interested politicians (and they are), these nationalist politicians are also idealists many of whom genuinely believe they are representing "the will of the people." The sense of grievance--that goes back to WWII, if not earlier--and that is powerful within all three ethnic establishments is truly the most dangerous result of the Dayton stalemate.

PRAGMATISM. So, what this country needs is to reject utopian idealism and embrace pragmatism. Pragmatism is the only way we can push ourselves through the stalemate, and create a workable everyday solution. The practical consequence of a pragmatic approach is to look at the country not the way we want it to be (whoever "WE" are), but the way it is, and then come up with the best workable solution, which would entail the following two steps.

1) Stop talking about the war! All the politicians have to agree to separate the memories and narratives of the war from any political solution. This entails a painful acceptance by many that the country is basically ethnically clean in most places. But it would also mean that politicians need to stop using the word genocide. Used as a negotiating card, the memory of the war will always inevitably block any agreement.

2) Offer Republika Srpska the Presidency of Bosnia in return for meaningful, irreversible constitutional changes that would empower the central state. This sounds like the most outrageous claim, but I think it offers a real shot at preserving the state of Bosnia. What is the reason Bosnia fell apart as a state? It is because over 90% of the Bosnian Serbs did not accept its legitimacy and instead organized themselves into what became known as Republika Srpska (the Croat and Bosniak separatist projects were a response to this and came later). So, the Americans and Europeans need to go to Milorad Dodik, the Prime Minister of Republika Srpska and the most powerful politician in the country, and offer him the first mandate as the President of Bosnia if he would accept constitutional changes. Besides pleasing the ego of Mr. Dodik, the offer would also enfranchise millions of Serbs who would have something to identify with at the highest levels of the Bosnian state. It would also alleviate fears of the state's encroachment on Serb interests, the underlying cause of the war in the first place. Further, it would inject Dodik's political capital into the institution. Before accepting the newly created position, Dodik would have to agree to: 1) never again challenge the legitimacy of the Bosnian state; 2) never again to bring up the massacres. In return, the international community would also grant him a lifetime immunity from prosecution for his previous financial crimes (not future ones in case he commits them) in return for his service to the state. The immunity could be revoked in case he reneged on the deal.

Now, I know this is impossible. For this to happen, Bosniak and Croat politicians would have to convince their constituencies that this would be in their interest. They would have to be convinced that this would offer a long-term solution that would create a viable Bosnian state way past Dodik's time. The problem in this country is that there has been too much focus on personalities without looking at the institutions. Dodik will go away sooner or later and it is what he leaves behind that is more important. There is also a possibility that Dodik would not agree, but his ego, his fear of prosecution for his financial crimes, and his desire for more power, would definitely make him think twice before rejecting such an offer. Given that he is undeniably popular with the Serbs this would also boost their view of the state in its abstract. Dodik's nemesis, the leader of the one of the largest Bosniak parties, Haris Silajdzic would be picked as the VP with substantive powers (while at the same time making sure that these could not cause a paralysis of the central government).

For such political experiments to happen, this country needs a politician(s) like Abraham Lincoln. At his Second Inaugural, after some 620,000 American soldiers had lost their lives, entire South laid in ruins, and the North had emerged triumphant, Lincoln said:

"The will of God prevails — In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God cannot be for, and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is somewhat different from the purpose of either party — and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect this."

It is hard to imagine today how shocking these words must have sounded to many in the US. Both, the South and the North having been convinced in the righteousness of their cause must have been disappointed, the former with a military defeat and the latter with its leader's attempt to reconcile both narratives into one. With that speech alone, he did just that.

Bosnia needs an Abraham Lincoln.

My Take on the Gates Arrest Controversy

I cannot help but think about the Gates arrest through the prism of my own experience. While I do not wish to imply that I understand what it feels like to be a black man in America during an encounter with a white cop, after reading about the arrest, I was reminded of my own experience in encountering an authority that once upon a time thought of me as a threat.

In late summer 2001 I was wrapping up my vacation in Mostar and was on a bus to Zagreb, along with my grandfather, from where I would fly back to the US. The southern border at Vinjani, between Croatia and Bosnia, is a primary target for all kinds of smugglers and the EU has been pushing Croatia and Bosnia hard to crack down on this border if they were ever to join the EU club. As our bus made its way along the rocky, nausea inducing winding roads of Western Herzegovina I was beginning to fall asleep next to my grandfather who was wide awake. It was my grandfather who woke me up from my hazy sleep, saying: "We are at Vinjani", the border crossing. A polite Croatian police officer walked into the bus and asked everyone to take out their passports. At this time I still carried my Bosnian passport along with my recently issued American Green Card. I handed the police officer the passport and the Green Card. After staring at it suspiciously, he asked me to step off the bus. At this point, I immediately became furious.

Now, an outsider looking at the situation could say "Well, he was disrespectful to the police officer. The officer has a tough job, blah blah blah." But the only reason an outsider could not comprehend my response if he/she did not know the history of my encounters with the Croatian police in general and in particular, my interaction with the border police at this particular border crossing.

In the scorching summer days of 1993--as the war between Croats and Muslims in Mostar exploded into a daily face-to-face, street by street combat--the Vinjani border crossing became both, a symbol of hope for Mostarci who wanted to escape the fighting, and a menacing obstacle for Muslim men trying to secretly pass into Croatia and escape the Bosnian Croat army concentration camps which had popped like mushrooms all over Herzegovina in the early summer of that year. In June 1993, my mother and I were leaving the city on a bus a day after my brother and my father had escaped the city in a cab of a known smuggler. Our original plan was to meet up in Split but we did not know if my brother and my father had actually made it the night before. Our anxiety about their fate was mixed up with our fear, if not panic, about the Vinjani border crossing. We had heard stories of Croat police taking all Muslims off the bus and then taking them in an unknown direction, probably to concentration camps, or worse. At the border, the Croat police took everyone off the bus, and then proceeded to rummage through everyone's baggage, take everyone's IDs and hoard us into the small police station under the scorching sun. A Muslim man begged an officer to let him pass as his son was suffering from epilepsy and looked like he was about to pass out. The soldier laughed at him (in front of my very own eyes) and called him a "pussy" for crying. The man, along with his son was hauled away in a police van. When it came our turn, my mother produced her birth certificate which showed clearly her Croatian heritage: her father was born in Split and her mother in Zagreb. The officer looked at the birth certificate and laughed at the Serbian spelling of my mother's name (Snezana as opposed to the Croatian version "Snjezana") shouting "Oh you are not a real Croat, look at your name." At this, my mother (a tiny woman) snapped the certificate out of his hands and told him that "I am a bigger Croat than you will ever be!" At this, the officer asked her to accompany him to a separate room in the police station at which I immediately pushed my way between him and my mother and followed them at the annoyance of the officer. I was terrified of what might happen in that room. As soon as we walked into the room, the officer changed his demeanor apologized to my mother justifying his behavior by saying he "didn't know you were Croats." My mother demanded he let us through. At this, he sighed, stamped our documents and we were on our way (on a much emptier bus this time) to Croatia where we re-united with my father and my brother.

So when I was asked to step off the bus almost exactly 8 years after this nightmarish incident, the first memory that popped into my mind was of the thug who treated us like dirt and worse of all who might have harmed that man and his epilepsy-stricken son. But this time, I had a green card and felt empowered. I told the police officer that I will not step off the bus until he tells me the reason for this. At this my grandfather politely told the police officer that I am a student in America and that I am on my way "home." The officer persisted: "this bus will not leave until you step off and follow me to the police station." I kid you not, but this was the same police station from the summer of 1993. But I honestly could not feel any fear probably because I was so angry. In the station, I demanded to know why I was taken off the bus. Then I realized that the incident arose out of the officer's confusion regarding the Green Card. He kept asking me what this document meant. In my attempt to clout myself into a more powerful status, I told him it meant that I was "under the protection of the US government" and that the document was tantamount to a US passport. He then proceeded to make small talk asking me why and for how long I had been in Mostar. I told him, in a very rude manner, that I was there for two months and the reason for it was because this was "the only home I will ever have and that I can go there any time I'd like." He wrote down my green card number and instructed me that I was now free to go back to my bus. I snapped the green card out of his hands, like my mother had done the same with her birth certificate eight years earlier, and stormed out of the station. I remember the sound of the door slamming behind me. Actually, I remember regretting the slamming the moment I stepped out as I was afraid it might have given him an additional excuse to hold me. I climbed on the bus to find my grandfather absolutely terrified as to what might have happened to me. The entire bus was staring at me. Then and there I vowed I would get my American passport and next time would immediately ask to see US consular staff if I were hassled again. I was too upset to talk to my grandfather and only told him of what had happened once we got to Zagreb.

I could not help but think of this experience when reading about Gates' arrest. In my mind, the professor was completely justified in his reaction and it is the police officer who has to apologize.

The (Im)Probability of Getting a Good Night's Sleep in Champaign, Illinois

Waking up at 6:00 AM, two hours before my alarm clock, for the third morning in a row, I thought I'd ruminate out loud, actually rant, about the infinitely minuscule probability that one can have a decent night of sleep in Champaign, particularly on the intersection of one of the many many many insanely and logic-twisting traffic-congested streets in this small town.

So, if I am woken up by the sounds of NPR's Morning Edition at 8AM refreshed after eight hours of sleep, this means that a series of events completely out of my control did not happen the previous night:

1) No insanely obese, sexually frustrated, and mentally challenged motorcyclists revved their penis-substitutes outside of my house, particularly between 1-2AM, which for whatever reason seems to be their favorite time slot.

2) The girl who lives next to me did not spend only a part of her night at her boyfriend's (or boyfriends') house only to be dropped off at 3 AM, literally outside my window, after which she almost ALWAYS proceeds to do her laundry while talking incessantly on her cell phone. Oh yes and the laundry is in the basement so close below my bedroom that I can see the laundry machine from a hole in my floor (I am not even kidding!). So, getting a good night sleep also means that she did not turn the drier off and on either putting her clothes through many cycles or doing a year's worth of laundry in one night!

3) The neighbors upstairs did not drag their furniture in the middle of the night, vacuum, or have an argument. By the way, I can hear them sneeze not to speak of other noises, which are (unfortunately for them and fortunately for me much rarer). It also means that my neighbor did not literally stamp on the floor as he was preparing for work only to slam the door behind him as if turning his anger for having to go to work at the poor wooden door and by extension, at the disgruntled Bosnian living beneath him.

4) The neighbor in the house next to mine did not start with the construction way before sunrise nor did he rev his own motorcycle which he keeps parked in a giant mobile garage right outside of my door (which blocks my sight as I am pulling out of my driveway--thanks a lot asshole!).

5) My soft-spoken and generally nice landlord did not come at 7AM (I guess before going to work) to do some shoveling and gardening (oh I forgot the mention, both the gravel and the garden are right OUTSIDE MY BEDROOM WINDOW)!

6) Finally, it means that it is not Tuesday and the garbage truck did not pull into my driveway at 4AM incessantly beeping and taking for God knows how long to empty the giant trash container outside my window.

So as you can see, in order for me to get my eight hours of sleep in this town all these six conditions have to be met. And honestly, what are the chances of that? Slim to none, says the sleepy, cranky me.

Stop saying Obama is just like Bush!

There is one thing that the right-wing and the far-left in this country agree on these days: President Barack Obama is much like President Bush in fighting the war on terror. Whatever your disagreement with Obama may be--and I have many, particularly on the so-called doctrine of prolonged detention--to compare his approach to Bush's is not only patently false, but it betrays a breathtaking lack of understanding of a long-running contest over the meaning of the Constitution.

From the internal memos, memoirs, and transcripts from the Bush administration--leaked in interviews, books, and Bush himself--it has become clear that Bush's approach to fighting terrorism was guided by one principle: unitary executive. The greatest advocate of this principle was of course Vice President Dick Cheney and his legal adviser David Addington who believed that at times of war (actually at all times, but particularly during a war), the President of the United States had an unchecked authority to abrogate any law the Congress made if the protection of the American people was the motivating factor of his decisions. This is the American version of Louis XIV's infamous creed: "L'etat, c'est moi." The Cheney crowd consisted of angry right-wingers who still felt slighted by the Congressional oversight of the Presidency instituted after the Watergate fiasco. They believed that in the aftermath of Watergate, the Presidency had made way too many concessions to Congress. The main real-life repercussion of this was the infamous "enemy combatant" doctrine.

According to the "enemy combatant" doctrine, the President of the United States had an unchecked, oversight-free, Constitutional power to declare any single human being on the planet--even if he or she was a US citizen--to be an enemy combatant and as such, could be imprisoned indefinitely as long as the "war on terror" goes on. The example of this was of course the case of the so-called "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla who was held for years in an army brig, and Al-Massari, who was held in isolation until this year when President Obama transferred him to a federal court where he plead guilty and got a long-prison term.

Obama's right-wing detractors and his supposedly betrayed left-wing critics lament his supposed continuation of Bush's policies, pointing to his doctrine of "preventive detention" and his continuation of military tribunals, to argue that other than being an eloquent defender of the Constitution, Obama is doing pretty much the same amount of damage to it as Bush had done, and is continuing his policy. FALSE!

The Obama approach to terrorism is guided by the respect for the Constitution. In every instance where he has to judge how to approach fighting terrorism, he has bent over backwards to stay as true to the Constitution as possible, and more importantly, to completely ABROGATE THE IDEOLOGY OF UNITARY EXECUTIVE! The last point is key to understanding how Obama's approach differs from Bush's. In every matter--from detaining terror suspects, to trying them, to attacking other countries in self-defense--President Obama has disputed the idea of unitary Executive. Instead, he has delegated many of the powers Bush claimed for himself to the Congress. For example, in the so-called preventive detention policy, Obama has set out clear and multi-layered oversight by the US Congress and the courts so that no one single man or a woman--even if they are the President of the US--can pass such profound judgment on the life of a human being. The same rule follows in military tribunals--while they are still not the same as our civil courts, they will be under the oversight of courts and many constitutional obligations are still in effect--such as the prohibition against torture-extracted evidence and the right to habeas corpus for the detainees.

Thus, Obama's complete abandonment of the term "war on terror," is more than a semantic exercise. It shows Obama's contempt for Bush's view of "unitary executive." By avoiding this term, Obama is also giving up the claim of the US Executive to some extraordinary "war" powers. In fact, this is exactly what many of us on the left wanted from the President: to treat our efforts to protect the US from terrorists more as a legal battle, than a war which would automatically authorize the President to use some unconstitutional powers. The closure of the GITMO, which will happen by January 2010, will be a powerfully symbolic, and also practical, proof of President Obama's continuing dismantling of Bush's illegal unitary executive doctrine.

Sometimes I think some on the left are unable or unwilling--or both--to recognize a good thing while we are experiencing it. And Obama's Presidency has definitely been a great thing for this country. Again, it is a healthy thing that many of us still disagree on him on many issues-including the preventive detention-but to argue that he is the same as Bush, is simply not true!

Republicans' failed experiment with sexuality

The "disappearance" of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford this week shows the failure of the long-running GOP experiment with sexuality.

Mark Sanford's Danielle Steele-like romance with an Argentinian woman is an interesting human story not only due to the saucy details it contains, but also because it serves as another illustrative example of the never-ending hypocrisy of human beings. During his stint in Congress, Mark Sanford in 1999 called on President Bill Clinton to resign immediately following his own (less geographically adventurous) trip with Monica Lewinsky, because the President had, according to Sanford, betrayed the office by lying about his affair. When it became revealed (courtesy of Larry Flint) that the incoming Republican-Speaker of the House Livingstone, the main henchmen of the witch-hunt against Clinton, had also been in an affair, Sanford came down hard (pun intended) against his own Republican colleague, once again throwing his weight on the side of marital, and moral, purity. It was the same Sanford who, every time the issue of same sex marriage came up, defended his bigotry by arguing that he only wanted to "protect" traditional marriage.

Governor Sanford's blatant hypocrisy shows not some weakness that is endemic to the governor, but rather, the Republican instinct to deny reality in all circumstances. By trying to fit sexuality into neat, black-and-white, moral rubrics, the Republican right, particularly the religious wing, has always distorted reality in order to make their own sins sound better in their own heads. That is, seeing their own sexual impulse as some sort of "weakness," they immediately externalize it by painting it as a "sin," and then proceed to beat down their opponents with the stick of morality, hoping that this would not only offer them a cover from their own "weakness," but that it would help them deal with it internally, as if they are saying to themselves "I might be an adulterer, but at least I am fighting adultery in the society at large."

The Republicans will not become relevant in our political discourse until they stop distorting reality. Sexuality is an immensely fluid (pun intended) human experience where moral categories of "right" and "wrong," and "weakness" and "strength" and "purity" have always, inevitably, collapsed when confronted with reality. By trying to stuff these categories onto their own unwieldy sexual experiences, the Republicans will always, every single time (no exception), come off as idiotic, self-destructive hypocrites. And for this, they need to stay as away from our political discourse as possible! Because in this hypocrisy they have also become tiring.

But the reason why Governor Sanford should resign is not due to his hypocrisy--albeit, it has been fun to watch--but due to the fact that he has been a horrible governor and, umm, how shall I put this, well an asshole! This is the man who wanted to reject President Obama's stimulus money, to be used for the skyrocketing unemployment in the state, arguing, get this, that it would obligate the state to expand its unemployment requirements after the stimulus money runs out. Again, abstract, mean-nothing, principles trumping reality. Not once, did the governor think about REAL LIFE consequences of his actions before getting on the worn soap box and shouting nonsense to everyone who would and wouldn't listen. Oh, yes, and I forgot to mention, that the stimulus money he rejected, he would later use to fund his trip to Argentina (some $12,000) and was thankfully, rebuffed by the more sensible state legislature which overturned his veto, and accepted the money.

So, Governor, please let us all be, and just go away!

The Revolution Will be Televised

Battle w/ Police - Tehran, Iran - June 20th 2009
by mightier-than

The Ongoing Iranian Revolution and the Obama Effect

There are two indisputable facts about the events in Tehran: 1) we are witnessing a Revolution, the country's second in 30 years; and 2) the election of President Barack Obama and his subsequent overtures to Iran are inextricably linked to the events. Let me address these two main points in more detail.

There are several reasons why I see the events in Tehran and other major cities in Iran (esp. Shiraz) as a Revolution:

a) the demands of the protesters have escalated from a simple demand for an investigation into the election, then to a recount, then to the election annulment, and finally, to the open challenge of the Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei's authority. Yesterday's riots were a brazen defiance of the Ayatollah's demand that there would be no more riots and his coronation of Ahmedinejad as the winner of the election. As the Ayatollah is supposed to be a stand-in for the "hidden Imam,"--who according to Shi'a Islam is supposed to re-appear at any moment (something akin to Jewish' awaiting of the Messiah, or the Christian second coming of Christ)--the brave Iranians who took to the streets yesterday, with some shouting "death to Ayatollah," something that would have been unthinkable just a few months or even days ago, openly questioned the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic. We have to keep in mind that the Revolution of 1979 was an explosion of genuinely democratic energy and while eventually overtaken by the mullahs, led by the immensely charismatic Ayatollah Khomenei, the Islamic revolution promised to many of its detractors, including many Communists whom it initially brutally suppressed, that while Islamic, this indeed would be a democratic Republic. Elections, while not free according to our standards, were at least seen as expressions of popular will. No more. In what has become a profound seismic shock to the leadership of the Supreme leader, the people of Iran (at least a significant number of them) have challenged his interpretation of the election result. This in turn has shook the foundations of the mullahs' promise to the Iranians that the Islamic state would be a republic. If this promise is now seen as a sham, or a betrayal, then the whole consensus of the state has to be re-worked.

What we are seeing in the streets of Tehran is the unraveling of the consensus established not only by the Iranian Revolution of the 1979, but the brutal Iraq-Iran war of the early 1980s, about what Iran should look like as a state. Thus, the protesters' demands are no longer about the annulment of the election, but about the authority of the Supreme Leader and his Grand Council.

b) The other piece of evidence of a Revolution in the making is the broad support the Moussavi people seem to be enjoying. While initially a mostly urban, student-based movement, the enemies of Ahmedinejad seem to have grown in numbers and include many middle-class, lower middle-class people, including many housewives. The presence of thousands of conservatively dressed (in black hijab) middle-aged women on the streets of Tehran, with some of them goading the men to fight the police, is a truly remarkable development. The broad support for the Moussavi wing of the Iranian political elite is shown also by what it seems to be a growing rift within the cleric wing. Last night's arrest of Rafsanjani's--the richest and one of the most powerful men in Iran--relatives, who had been playing a prominent role in the background of the protests, shows the extent to which the Iranian clerical elite is divided.

2) Now to my second argument that the Revolution has something to do with Obama. While it is indisputable that the Revolution has more to do with the internal dynamics of the Iranian society (the disappointment with the policies of Ahmedinejad, crumbling economy, staggering unemployment, the proliferation of educated women demanding more freedoms, etc) it is also indisputable that most of these protesters are Internet-savy people who have, like the rest of us, been glued to the screens in following the election of Barack Obama. Obama's post-election statements, his speech to the Iranian people, and his more recent Cairo speech seems to have also split the Iranian political elite as to how to respond to Obama's message. Should they "unclench their fist," to use the parlance of the Obama administration, or should they follow the example of Ahmedinejad and keep "death to America" facade alive. The global reach of technology and the liberalization of the Iranian youth (who compose the majority of the Iranian society by the way) seems to have given the momentum to those like Moussavi who want to seize the opportunity and talk to Obama and the US. A sign of this is the fact that many protesters wave English-language symbols to theirs friends' Iphones which they later submit to the CNN newsroom.

What we are witnessing is truly historic, but as Thomas Friedman said in his op-ed this morning "we should have no illusions about the bullets and barrels they are up against."

Shame on the Serbian Government!

The popular Bosnian investigative show "60 Minutes" aired an extraordinary episode tonight moving from its usual slot on Mondays, in order to air the breaking images of the war criminal General Ratko Mladic who has been on the run from the Indictment for Genocide, issued by the War Trimes Cribunal in the Hague since 1995.

These highly disturbing videos show the banality of evil: the man accused of murdering in cold blood 8000 young boys and men in Srebrenica, shelling Sarajevo on a daily basis and murdering over 10,000 civilians during the siege, and orchestrating the biggest campaign of murder in Europe since the Holocaust, smiling, attending his son's wedding, singing Serbian songs. What is particularly remarkable is the extent to which these clips show the criminality of every Serbian government since Milosevic who has claimed that they did not know where Mladic was. If you have the stomach to watch this murderer, you will see that he is moving in open sight and is guarded by the Serbian and Bosnian Serb army (and sometimes is not guarded at all!), as it had been reported all along.

Now, Serbian President Boris Tadic is to be commended for his bravery in arresting Mladic's political henchmen the lunatic poet Radovan Karadzic: as a result, President Tadic has been surrounded by heavy security including a professional sniper squad due to threats against his life. His predecessor Zoran Djindjic had extradited Milosevic and paid with his life. I am glad that President Tadic is taking more precautions.

But this is still not enough. The crimes of Milosevic's Serbia are simply too grave to be ignored and Mladic has to be arrested immediately. Please join me in emailing the Serbian government to arrest Mladic immediately. The videos shown by the brilliant "60 Minutes" team ensure that the Serbian government, under any administration, can no longer prolong its legal--international and national--as well as moral responsibility to arrest this butcher and extradite him to the cells of the Hague.

The email of President Tadic's Secretary is: jzivanovic@predsednik.rs

It is also not coincidental that these clips were aired at the time the EU is mulling whether or not to allow Serbian citizens to enter Europe without visas. I am an enthusiastic supporter of open borders and bear no grudge against any individual Serbian citizen, but still believe it would be a crime if the EU accelerated Serbia's application for the EU membership, ahead of Bosnia's, while Mladic was still at large under the noses of the very government that is claiming to belong to the club of the EU.

With this in mind please email the EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, urging him to pressure the Serbian government to arrest General Ratko Mladic now that we all know where he is.

Until this happens, Serbia should not be allowed to join the EU or even begin the membership process.

An Insider to Islamic Reformation

President Obama's speech in Cairo cannot be deemed historic based on his frank criticism of all sides--the West, Israel, and the Arab world at large--as much for Obama's ability to insert himself, quite shrewdly, into a brewing war within the Islamic world, the war that the scholar of Islam Reza Aslan has likened to Islam's Reformation.

In his wonderfully articulate book "No God but God," Aslan argues that the rise of political Islam--and its most radical branch, the Wahabbism--rode the tailwind of the post-colonial movements in the Muslim world. The messages of the extreme wing of political Islam--the unconditional and irrational hatred of the West, rabid anti-Semitism, and an apocalyptic political platform--are directed not so much towards the West, but towards the Islamic world at large, Aslan insists. Thus, the burning towers of the World Trade Center and the gaping hole in the Pentagon building were the ultimate symbols of the Orthodox fundamentalism which seemed to say, again not to the West, but to its fellow Muslims: "See, we are winning, and God is on our side."

The brilliance of Obama is that he understands the intricacies of this internal fight within Islam and is not only not afraid, but relishes, straying into this political and literal minefield. In particular, Obama's ability to insert his own biography as a child of mixed marriage, of two worlds gives him the credibility to not only speak to the Muslims, but be an integral part of the Islamic Reformation! It doesn't really matter that he is a professed Christian as most Muslims seem him as essentially Muslim. In this regard they are not that different from the right-wingers in this country who see our President the same way the only difference being that this perception on the part of the Islamic world is tremendously positive.

Specifically, the most resonant part of his speech was his narration of his biography, his Muslim ancestry, and his memory trip to his childhood in Indonesia when he would wake up to the sounds of ezan. A particularly shrewd move on his part was to pepper his speech with eloquent verses from the Qur'an and his impeccable use of Arabic terms to denote uniquely Arabic experiences (the the hijab, zekat, etc. Criticizing Israel was a sideshow, albeit a significant one, but not necessarily historic. President Barack Husein Obama speaking to the Muslim world, not from the outside, but from the nooks and crannies of that world's own metaphors, dreams, images, and visions, was truly historic and seismic.

The Cairo speech will thus become a part of history for it has certainly tipped the balance in favor of the Reformation within Islam. With a few of those words, President Obama has lifted up women like Wedad Lootah, a 46 year old woman author from the United Arab Emirates who has written a wonderful little sex manual titled "Top Secret: Sexual Guidance for Married Couples," in which she offers frank advice to women (even guiding them through the ways to discover the ultimate pleasure in life, orgasm!), and informing the Arab men that while anal sex might have been their first sexual experience, due to the Arab world's intense gender segregation, that this should not be the expectation they have of their wives. What is interesting about this remarkable woman is that she wears the burqa and has never revealed her face and uses, get this, the Qur'an(!) to explain her views on sexuality. Needless to say, her work has prompted a fierce reaction from the sexually repressed Wahabbis, although it has achieved the bestseller status among many women. A 52 year old woman, with grandchildren, reported that she finally discovered orgasm: "Imagine, all that time she did not know," Lootah commented matter-of-factly.

President Obama's boost to the Reformation will certainly benefit the hundreds of thousands of Shari'a scholars who have been openly calling for the re-opening of the "gates of ijtihad, or the Shari'a consensus. The Shari'a law, and its all four mainstream schools of thought, is based on the consensus among scholars and jurists that was reached as early as 10th century after which the gates closed. Consequently, there can be no reopening of discussion on how Islam should view things such as homosexuality, adultery, theft, and gender relations. Some of the world's leading Shari'a jurists have been arguing, quite convincingly, that due to the modernity draped face of our world today, the ijtihad had been outlived, the gates have to be re-opened, and a more fluid, flexible, and pragmatic ijtihad established.

Finally, in not using the word "terrorism," or "good vs. evil," a single time, President Obama struck another deadly blow to Wahhabism: refusing to take up their apocalyptic language, he rooted them out of the debate, if only temporarily.

Let us remember that in getting to the point where it is now, modern Europe had to go through the horrors of Thirty Years' War, the Hugenot persecutions, and the brutal Vatican-inspired Crusades with the end result of making religion more meaningful and tolerable.

The Islamic world is engaged in this struggle at the very moment. And the fact that President Obama not only understands this, but can be an insider to this conversation (taking all of us with him), is simply remarkable!

Email to Bill O'Reilly

Dear Bill,

Well you finally did it. With your cruel incitement to violence against Dr. George Tiller, now a victim of a gruesome act of domestic terrorism, you finally might have blown up your career into bits and pieces.

You are right when you say that people have the right to speak their mind without fear of reprisals, but what you forgot to mention is that public figures like yourself also have an ethical responsibility to think through the ways in which their words might impact the likes of Mr. Scott Roeder.

Until your corporate bosses decide to let you go--or you resign effective immediately--Fox News will be the one forgotten dial on our remote controls and we will be asking our favorite local bar owners to avoid turning the channel on.

A concerned American
Fedja

Sonia Sotomayor: An Echo of Obama's America

What is left of the Republican Party has come out swinging against President Barack Obama's pick to the Supreme Court, a judge on the Second Circuit Appeals Court Sonia Sotomayor, a woman who symbolizes Obama's vision of America, his character, and reminds me why I became so fascinated with this man and voted so enthusiastically for him.

A child of Puerto Rican immigrants whose father died when she was 9, only a year after she was diagnosed with diabetes, grew up in the Bronx projects and went on to graduate summa cum laude from Ivy League Schools entering into the creme of the crop of the country's jurists, Sotomayor echoes the American dream of the post-WWII era: her parents moved to the US in order to participate in the emergence of the United States as an economic superpower. Sonia does not represent the American Dream ONLY because of the things she did, but MOSTLY because of the things she was ABLE to do in this country. Anywhere else on this planet, as a child of immigrants, living in a poor neighborhood, a single parent-home, she would have been faced with so many barriers that she would have not have been able to become a fully integrated national citizen. In America she did. This is not to say that most individuals who face adverse circumstance in this country make it. On the contrary, most do not and not because of some genetic flaws but because economic and the consequent social adversity is almost impossible to overcome. But, her life does mean that at least some, even if only a few, do make it in this country precisely because of what this country means to them. And in this respect, Sonia Sotomayor is a shining beacon of the American dream.

From the moment I read her short bio as she emerged as one of the finalists, some weeks before Obama finally picked her, I was convinced it would be her. Anyone who has read "Dreams from My Father," or even the "The Audacity of Hope," or listened to Obama's marvelous speech on race in Philadelphia would have been able to make the same prediction. Obama's genius lies not in some Messiah gene, but in his uncanny ability not so much to read the mood of the country as to shape this mood. How does he shape it? By cleverly rummaging through the disparate narratives that make up this country--slavery, immigration, racism--and picking out not only those that suit his background, but ALL of the strands, tying them together, and presenting the unified quilt of THE American narrative to the American people. This is why he picked Sonia Sotomayor. It has nothing to do with her specific Supreme Court credentials and has everything to do with Obama's vision of America. And it is for this reason, I am still an enthusiastic supporter of this man.

In nominating her to the Supreme Court, Obama has also brilliantly exposed the intellectual exhaustion, xenophobia and plain stupidity of the far-right in this country which is what is left of the GOP. Their character assassinations of Sotomayor show just how out of touch they are with the self-perception of America in the year 2009.

First: the GOP has a static vision of America that is stuck somewhere between mid-late 19th century. Their claim that Sotomayor's "empathy" is detrimental to her ability to make "objective" decisions would be funny if it were uttered by a five-year old, but is otherwise tragic since it is uttered by adult men (and few women) in suits. There is no such thing as "objective" decision. Our Constitution is not the Shari'a, or God's revelation, but man-made law that is necessarily continuously re-interpreted to suit the changing demographics and mood of the country. If it were up to the likes of Mitch McConnell and Rush Limbaugh we would still be interpreting "all men are created equal" to mean that blacks and women are not human beings.

Second criticism from the far-right has been that she will be a policy maker. Newsflash: judges are policy makers. As a judge on an appeals court, Sotomayor was necessarily a policy maker. If the Republicans bothered to learn how the law actually worked in reality (and not their wacko minds), they would realize that an appeals judge rules on specific cases and thus elaborates a previously general law into the minutiae of everyday life, and in doing so, every judge will necessarily tap into their previous experience and yes (gasp) emotion to make a judgment. The judges deciding Brown Vs. Board of Education did not use a footnote in a law ruling but their common sense to declare that black kids are as human as the rest of us.

Finally, the third and the most upsetting criticism has been that she is simultaneously, a racist and a man-hater. As evidence, the nutjobs who belong in a mental institution and not Wolf Blitzer's "Situation Room" (although sometimes I honestly cannot tell the difference between the two) claim that because she has emphasized her Latina identity and has served for Latina advocacy groups that she is a racist. The same goes for her gender identity. This criticism again would be funny if it did not echo the tragic intellectual depravity of the so-called Republican opposition. If these children in suits would bother to read a single book on racial and gender identity they would quickly realize that when a minority racial group claims its identity that is not the same thing as whites claiming their own race. This is simply because in a formerly "white" country where non-whites were considered less than human, it was non-whiteness that had been marked for centuries and whiteness had been seen as normal! The same goes for gender identity. Thus, nobody questioned Samuel Alito or Roberts about how their "whitness" might impact their rulings. Precisely, because whiteness is tragically still seen as the standard of racial normativity. In terms of gender identity, I know that Republicans are terrified of intelligent women (lest they confirm their own intellectual cowardice and ineptitude), but at least they should not be honest about it if they ever want to be anywhere near the corridors of power in this country.

In conclusion, the shrillness, the stupidity, and the plain meanness of the far-right attacks on Obama's vision of America--echoed by Sonia Sotomayor's life story--almost guarantee that the Republicans will remain in wilderness for some time and when they finally re-emerge they will necessarily have to be a better party. And we will all be better for it.

"Prolonged detention" is un-American

President Obama has really been impressive in reversing some major Bush-era blunders of this country's approach to fighting the scourge of terrorism: his insistent commitment to close down the Gitmo concentration camp, his ban of torture and the re-institution of the Army Field Manual in guiding interrogation methods, and his genuine desire to bring back the rule of law to the US' fight against terrorism. He has consistently tried, often bending over backwards, to resolve the mess inherited from the Bush-Cheney regime. But while I do not doubt that he is a genuinely decent, thoughtful, and honest man, I do think President Obama has disappointed many of his hardcore supporters, such as myself, in completely reversing the Bush course. I have written about his intention to revive the illegal military tribunals. His proposal for the so-called "prolonged detentions," however, represents the most gut-wrenching disappointment.

President Obama vowed during his campaign to revive the rule of law that had been so mercilessly stamped upon by the Bush-Cheney regime. Now he is arguing that at Gitmo there are about 100 prisoners who are so dangerous that they could never be released, but also cannot be tried. Why? How is it that we know that they are dangerous if that cannot be proved in a court of law? Obama has never made this case persuasively and has instead, asked us to trust the government when it tells us that these people are dangerous. The main difference between a democracy and a totalitarian regime is the fact that in a democracy people do not blindly trust the government's arguments--particularly in incarcerating people--but that the government has to PROVE its case. This is why we have the court of law. In a totalitarian regime, the people are either terrified to question the government's motives or are blinded by the leader's charisma and the national security interests to question these motives. As a result, many innocent people inevitably end up on the receiving end of these policies. What guarantees can President Obama give us that his successor(s) will not apply/extend the policy of "prolonged detention" to US citizens? What if a few years from now, a different group of people--say, Bosnians--become isolated as a security threat. I am screwed! While this hypothetical case might seem ridiculous to us now who would have thought ten years ago that our President would be arguing that he had the right to incarcerate people indefinitely on the basis of some secret evidence that he/she cannot reveal to the US citizens?! This after the previous administration authorized torture in order to sell an unpopular war to the American public!

If we are indeed holding people who are dangerous to be released, the government has a constitutional duty to prove this! If so, put them in a max-security prison for the rest of their lives. If they cannot prove, you have to let them go. You can track them and make sure they do not pose a threat, but you cannot hold them indefinitely.

While I have complete confidence in this President and have no doubt that he would not misuse this power, I strongly object to him making the policy of "prolonged detention" the bedrock of American justice. It is actually a betrayal of the American ideal of justice.

Religion or prejudice

Religions are political ideologies. They are based on historical myths, stories, messianic prophecies, and are supposed to provide blueprints for everyday behavior. This is why religion is as open to criticism and public debate just like any other ideology. Which brings me to the Notre Dame controversy.

The same Catholic bishops who are protesting President Obama's visit to the campus and the university's decision to honor him with a degree are the ones who did not say a word when the same school awarded President George W. Bush an honorary degree in 2001 despite the fact that Bush had signed over 140 death warrants while the governor of Texas. The same Catholic clergy did not say a word about withdrawing this honor from Bush after the information about torture camps, Gitmo, and illegal wars came to light. Why didn't they say anything? Because Catholic bishops use their robes to hide their deeply seated prejudices from the public eye. The cloak of religion is supposed to awe us into giving the Catholic Church immunity from exposing their silly and prejudiced beliefs to public scrutiny like we do with any other political institution/ideology.

In the case of abortion, the Catholic Church espouses the worst kind of misogyny--old gray-haired men (most of whom have never engaged in sex supposedly) deciding the fate of women's wombs. Their obsessive desire to control human behavior, and in particular, sexual behavior of women, should be condemned at every step of the way. Their quotations from the Bible in support of their prejudices should make us even more eager to confront their hate and call it what it truly is: superstition. The hypocrisy that the Catholic Church (just like every other institution of every other organized religion) has displayed with the hiding of pedophiles, turning the Pope into the biggest stock investor in Europe, to mention a few, is simply due to the fact that to repeat again, the Vatican is a political institution.

So these Catholic bishops cannot hide behind the cloak of religion and expect us all to cower in awe and not criticize their stupidity and resist their hate-mongering.

Obama is wrong again

In a stunning reversal of his previous commitment to the rule of law and transparency President Obama announced that he would fight the Second Circuit court ruling to release some 2000 Pentagon-owned photos showing prisoner abuse by our troops. In justifying his decision, President Obama said that the airing of these photos would endanger our troops in combat zones and further aflame the anti-American opinion in the Arab world. This argument makes absolutely no sense.

First, the Arab world has already seen the kind of torture the Bush administration approved at the highest levels: Abu Ghraib, Guntanamo, CIA dark sites. All of this is old news. What has been the refreshing piece of good "new" news was Obama's promise to uphold American values and the rule of law. The beginning has been promising: the order ending torture, closing Guantanamo, publishing torture memos, leaving the door open to prosecutions of Bush officials who approved tortured, etc. Obama has done more for the safety of our troops and our image in the world in his first 100 days than both Clinton and Bush had done during their two terms. This is why his reversal of this policy is so disappointing.

Given the fact that the world already knows these photos are pretty bad covering them up only makes things worse and makes a mockery of our rule of law. As Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington university said, it is not up to the President to release or not release the photos. This is a court order, issued in a response to the ACLU lawsuit under the freedom of information act, telling the Pentagon that it HAS to release the photos. In its ruling, the 2nd Circuit court answered the very argument that President Obama uses now to block the release of these photographs: the public interest in seeing these photos and airing the past crimes outweighs the vague notions of inflaming anti-US opinion. In other words, it is Bush administration's policies that have ALREADY made our troops less safe and not Obama's intention to reverse these policies. Keeping the photos secret only prolongs the cancerous growth around our image and it is the secrecy that continues to inflame the anti-American sentiment.

What is particularly important about these photos--and I suspect is the main reason Obama reversed his decision--is the fact that 2000 of these images show that rather than being the result of a "few bad apples," the torture and abuse of detainees in Iraq was a widespread POLICY among the soldiers directly authorized and inspired by those torture memos drafted at the highest levels of the US government. So not releasing these photos is also a disservice to our men and women in uniform, most of whom are honorable and courageous individuals who have dedicated their lives to this country. The photos would put to rest once and for all the argument--cynically put forward by Cheney and Bush--that it was a few deranged soldiers who committed these abuses. No, it was Bush's abrogation of our commitment to the Geneva Conventions and the subsequent drafting of torture memos by Bush lawyers that led to this type of behavior. According to anonymous sources, the photos show many of the very same techniques that Yoo, Bybee, and Bradbury approved at the Office of Legal Counsel.

I still think that the Obama administration will lose this case because the argument they are using is so flimsy and has already been rejected by a court. I also think this is a very politically clever ploy of Obama to make it seem like it was forced to release the photos: in other words, they might be expecting to lose the case but then they have political cover against the backlash.

But in the process of this political game, Obama is hurting the rule of law by making the argument that the government can block the Freedom of Information process from taking place simply because the information released might embarrass the government. That's the whole point! The Freedom of Information Act is an invaluable tool the public has to air our government's policies and shame the government into respecting the rule of law in case law has been violated. And in the case of the Bush administration, the law had been not only violated, but our very Constitution was defecated upon repeatedly.

Democrats' complicity in a war crime

In their forceful (and admittingly, successful) campaign to block any torture investigations, the Republicans have made their point: some of the leading Democrats were implicated in Bush's torture policies. They released outlines of CIA briefings of top Democrats on the intelligence committee, including the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, in which it becomes fairly clear that she--along with other Democrats (Rockefeller of W. Virginia and Harman of California)--was told that CIA would use waterboarding. The fact that the briefing took place in September, while Abu Zubaydah had been water boarded in August, shows that the Bush administration did not care one bit about following the law or informing the other branches of the government BEFORE committing this war crime. But the brief also shows that Pelosi said nothing--not a word!--about these techniques. Her explanation really insults the intelligence of the average American: "we were told that these techniques could be used and not that they were going to be used or that they had been used"!!! Even if this was the case--which I highly doubt--Pelosi should have raised objections to this and threatened to go public if this continued. Yes, this would be a great political risk, but what good is power if you do not utilize it for the common good.

And Pelosi, as well as most of the Democratic mainstream establishment, (with the fine exception of Russ Feingold of Wisconsin among others), went along with everything that Bush wanted them to go along with. Arguably, it is this complicity that allowed Bush to plunge our country into the abyss of war crimes, deep recession, and to tarnish our image abroad. Pelosi should come clean to the American people about her role, her knowledge, of torture techniques, or otherwise, resign!

Now it becomes clear to me why the Democratic establishment is using "let's be united" baby talk to obstruct the course of justice in holding those who tortured accountable. As one of my favorite constitutional scholars Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University, has consistently and passionately argued, a criminal investigation of torture is not A CHOICE, but a CONSTITUTIONAL OBLIGATION of our government. The investigation should hold everyone involved accountable: whether they are Democrat, Republican, or Marsian for that matter. The future of our democracy and our rule of law is truly at stake in this case.

The Times report about the Pelosi role in all of this is even more worrying in the light of the leak from the Justice Department that Holder might not appoint a special prosecutor instead, referring the case of the lawyers who drafted the torture memos to the American Bar Association, for possible disbarrement. As Professor Turley has argued, the Bar Association has no authority to investigate fully their criminal enterprise, only to the extent to which it affected their professional conduct and the worst punishment it can mete out is to disbar them.

Yes, disbarment for a war crime, that is certainly the penalty that fits the crime! If this proves to be the outcome, then the international community, the Hague Tribunal, and the United States should apologize to Serbia for holding their former President in the prison for war crimes when they could have just disbarred him, instead of letting him die in prison.

Obama and the rule of law

There is a growing concern among those of us who believe in the rule of law that Obama will retreat on the central promise of his campaign to restore the rule of law in trying the Gitmo detainees. The NYT is reporting this morning that the administration is increasingly leaning towards keeping the military commission system that Bush had set up and that Obama criticized harshly during his campaign. Anonymous sources within the administration say that the reason why they might keep the commissions is because our federal court system would make it difficult for the government to convict?

Obama is kidding right? What kind of an argument is this? The government thinks the cards are stacked up against it in the court of law, so it will create its own more favorable law universe? This is completely unacceptable! The federal court system IS our rule of law and the government has no legal authority to shortcut the law in order to win a case. I mean, this is what the rule of law is all about!

The administration's increasing disenchantment with the idea of the federal courts trying the Gitmo suspects is due to two main reasons: 1) federal judges do not allow evidence obtained under torture; and 2) hearsay evidence is not permitted. Both of these supposed weaknesses of our federal court system is what makes our rule of law uniform for all human beings no matter what crimes they are accused of! So, if we tortured the suspects in order to obtain "evidence" from them, we committed a war crime and if we do lose the case, then we lose the case. The consequent release of the suspects would be the result NOT of the supposed weakness of our courts, but to our own crimes! Secondly, when it comes to hearsay: this only shows the weakness of our government's case against many of these detainees. Keep in mind that according to a study done a few years back (and which I cited on this blog before) only 5% of Gitmo suspects had known Al-Q links and most of them were captured by Pakistani warlords in exchange for generous bounty our soldiers were offering. So, admitting hearsay evidence in this case is a total betrayal of the very ideal of the rule of law of which we boast so often.

Obama would be betraying his oath of office if he allowed these commissions to continue and would seriously undermine our claim to be the nation of laws. Military commissions should be disbanded, and all suspects tried in the court of law, not some made up "court of law," but our federal court system.

The government has NO CHOICE but to follow the law come what may!

Arlen Specter abandons GOP

The defection of Arlen Specter from the increasingly schizophrenic GOP is truly good news for the future of this country. With his presence in the Democratic Senate caucus, and the inevitable addition of Al Franken to the Minnesota seat, the Democrats will have the filibuster-proof 60 seats in the Senate. While this doesn't mean that Specter will always vote with the Democrats it does mean that it will be very difficult, if not impossible, for the Republicans to block Obama's agenda. This is crucial because it is also the time when Obama is pushing through the Congress two major initiatives of his presidency and the Democratic party's agenda in general: health care reform, and an energy bill. Both of these bills are essential to the fulfillment of Obama's campaign promise to provide affordable health care to all Americans and weaken our dependence on foreign oil while at the same time crafting a sound environmentally-friendly energy policy. Obama's rock-star popularity even in the heartland of the country, the increasing signs of the economy's stabilization (or at least moderate thawing), and the filibuster-proof of Senate majority for the Dems means that Obama will get his way on almost all of his agenda items. And this is good news for all of us, even the Republicans who will benefit from getting more affordable health care and breathing less polluted air.

At the same time, GOP's response to Specter's defection shows the depth of their insanity and points to the probability that the Republicans are going to stay in the crazy wilderness for election cycles to come. The GOP commander in chief, Rush Limbaugh said "good riddance" to Specter and told him to take McCain and his daughter with him. The GOP nominal chairman Michale Steele said that Specter was doing this for self-preservation and that somehow his defection was inevitable due to Specter's "left voting record." And finally, this morning in his WashP op-ed Bill Kristol (the venerable ideological "brain" behind the GOP and who has been wrong on every single issue!) said that this is good for the Republican party!

What this collective response shows is the GOP's continuing belief in some imagined "purity" of the party's ideology. Reacting to any challenge to their right-wing narrow-mindedness with aggressiveness that reminds one of middle-school gym locker fights (even if the challenge comes from McCain's daughter), the Republican ideologues have really resigned themselves to being the far right-wing party of the South. Their argument that Specter is doing this for survival is so blatantly shallow that it really merits now comment, but I can't help it: of course he is doing this for self-preservation! He was facing an impossible Republican primary challenge in Pennsylvania and running on that ticket against a Club for Growth far-right winger (a man who I think truly needs medical attention) would have been insane and politically stupid. Specter has always been treated like an outcast by the Republicans especially with the recent descent of the GOP into the far right-wing nuttery. After all, Specter entered politics as a Democrat and switched to the GOP in order to win a District Attorney seat on a Republican ticket. But this is what politics is all about! And instead of figuring out how to reshape their party's platform in order to keep people like Spector and draw millions of Americans to their party tent, the GOP reacted with such stupid, shallow aggressiveness that it really makes one concerned for the future of our two-party democracy.

The resigned criticism of Specter also shows that the Republicans have lost their mind if they think they can win on their ideology alone: this country's demography necessitates that the party in power support: gay rights, abortion rights, more activist government, and less belligerent foreign policy.

For their part, the GOP operatives keep railing against Obama's "socialism" (or fascism, depending which side of his bed Glen Beck got up that morning), roaming the dense inhospitable jungle of their wilderness increasingly resembling rabid dogs and not mature political opposition!

I really don't mind them staying in the wilderness for as long as it is humanly possible, but I do worry about the Democrats having unchecked power. Not because of their agenda: in fact, this is one reason we all should be happy right now, in fact thrilled! The Democratic agenda is good for this country and we should make no secret that we want it. But what I worry about is Democrats' lately dormant but inevitable propensity for infighting and the possibility of several camps being established within the Democratic caucus in both houses. The simmering fight over investigations of Bush's torture policies might present the first opportunity for the Democrats to start dividing. But even these divisions (if they are over substantive policy differences) might be good for this country because they fill the never satisfied need of this country for a true multiparty system.

Grading Obama at 100 days

Let me also jump on the 100 days bandwagon even though the White House has called this a "Hallmark holiday," they themselves seem to be readying for it with a prime time news conference scheduled for Wednesday night preceded by a town-hall meeting with the President in St. Louis. The 100 days mark also matters because it allows us to gauge what kind of President Obama promises to be. This is how I would grade him--you are welcome to chime in.

Economy: A-
In the first 100 days he has passed the biggest stimulus bill in the American history and the stimulus is already having affects. Just yesterday, the NYT reported that the people in the small economically depressed Indiana town Anderson are feeling more optimistic about the overall economy, and the city's mayor can begin many reconstruction projects. Our own university budget is not being rescinded 3% (a standard operating procedure during the disastrous Blago tenure), but it is actually being increased 1%. The reason I would give him a - is because the stimulus was stripped of considerable punch by the so-called "moderate Republicans," and the President necessarily had to go along with this. At the same time, however, the plan to fix the housing market seems to be working: the home sales are up, the cost of refinancing mortgages is at its historic low and has triggered a flood of refinancing and seems to have slowed the rate of foreclosures. Further, Giethner's long-criticized plan to save the banking system also seems to be working: Wells Fargo posted its best profit last month and many banks seem to be doing much better. The rallying of the Wall Street in the past few weeks suggest that we at long last may have reached the bottom of the recession.


Foreign Policy: B
Obama has drastically shifted gears from the horrors of the previous administration. He has followed through on his campaign promise to do more listening than talking in the world, to talk to our enemies, and to be more respectful of other points of view. Our relationship with both Cuba and Venezuela seems to be thawing: there are major discussions in the works between the US and Cuba and Hugo Chavez is going to send the Venezuelan ambassador to the US. Obama's popularity in the world, particularly in Europe, has done wonders for our relations. His performance on the world stage has been superb. However, I am very worried about his decision to escalate the fighting in Afghanistan: it seems that Afghanistan is becoming his Iraq and I just can't see what good can come out of it. At the same time, Iraq is almost destined to spiral down into violence once we leave: already the violence is ratcheting up as Maliki is becoming increasingly sectarian, provoking a reaction from the disaffected Sunni exiles who are funding the insurgency. In short, the Iraq quagmire remains just that: a horrible quagmire out of which I see no exit.

Changing America's image in the world: A+
I really think Obama has done a superb job on changing the image of our country in the world. On the second day in office, Obama banned all "enhanced interrogation" techniques (read: torture) that the Bush administration had used with impunity; he has ordered the closing of Guantanamo, and has re-instituted the rule of the Geneva Conventions in our treatment of detainees. His performance on the world stage (as I said above) has been nothing short of superb and he has followed through on every single campaign promise in terms of changing America's image in the world.

Restoring the Constitution: C
I am afraid this is where he gets lowest marks from me. While he did change the direction of our country, Obama has also been lukewarm at best and politically cowardly at worst in reversing the serious damage the Bush administration had done to our Constitution. In particular, he has been very disappointing with restoring the habeaus corpus to detainees, arguing that those at the Bagram prison in Afghanistan do not have the right to due process that our Constitution guarantees. Further, his continuing defense of the wiretapping program that he voted for while a candidate is really worrisome. He needs to completely restore the habeus corpus to everyone and outlaw warantless wiretapping. Finally, probably the most worrisome thing about his restoration of the Constitution has been his lukewarm support for holding the torturers-in-chief accountable for their grave violations of our laws. His support for a "bipartisan Commission" is a transparent political ploy to push the issue out of the White House. He needs to step back and allow Eric Holder of the Justice Dept to appoint a Special Prosecutor who will investigate these potential war crimes. Obama's mantra that he is interested in "looking forward, not looking backward" drives me nuts because it doesn't mean anything! Looking forward is impossible without looking backward because it would mean that the words in our laws and our Constitution mean nothing and can be violated at will.

Restoring America's confidence: A+
This is another area where he gets the highest marks. The polls show the country is generally optimistic about the direction we are taking (compared to only 28% who thought we were going in the right direction during the last thralls of the Bush regime). Obama's approval rating stands at the historic high of 69%, which is higher than Reagan's at this time, and all of his predecessors, with the exception of Eisenhower. This morning the NYT also reported that Obama is changing the perception of race relations in this country with more than half seeing the conditions of race relations improved and the number of black Americans who think so has nearly doubled since July! The mood of the country is extremely important not just for our economy, but for the very soul of our country. What is particularly a positive development of Obama's young presidency is the shift in the public perception of the role of government in our lives. People increasingly view the government as the solution and not as the problem (as Reagan idiotically claimed!). Obama's budget priorities coupled with the stimulus are making the government cool again. This might give Obama the necessary public support to push through the long overdue health care reform and move the country to the left.

So for the most part, Obama has kept his campaign promises. His personal favoribility ratings are also at a historic high: 74% and Michelle Obama's are 85%! The image of the first family in the White House has also done wonders for America's image in the world.

Ali Soufan: The American hero

As the fallout from the torture revelations continues, there are several officials of the US government who emerge as true heroes who resisted the impulse of the moment to engage in brutal tactics, and instead, passionately defended American values. The star of these brave souls is the former FBI agent Ali Soufan who, seven years after, is speaking out in this Newsweek article. Ali Soufan was a veteran FBI interrogator and a student of John O'Neill, the famous FBI agent who had warned about Bin Laden and was ignored of course. A son of Beirut immigrants who moved to Philadelphia as a child, he was eventually recruited into the FBI anti-terrorism unit and spoke fluent Arabic. His knowledge of the Kur'an was legendary according to his former colleagues: during interrogations he would cite Kuranic verses, and argue with terrorists about the meaning of certain passages, the legacy of Muhammad, etc. Eventually, he would gain their trust and information would start pouring out. He was a lead investigator of the USS Cole bombing.

In the spring of 2002, Ali Soufan was thrown in the middle of the brewing conflict between the CIA and the FBI over the methods for interrogating terrorism suspects. The subject of contention this time was Abu Zubaydah a fiery and borderline szchizophrenic Palestinian who was seen as a chief logistics chief of Al-Q. He was badly wounded in a firefight in Pakistan and was transferred to US custody by the Pakistanis, and was taken to an unknown location (probably Thailand). He was turned over to Ali Soufan and his fellow FBI interrogator. Together, they nursed the terrorist's wounds: Soufan held ice to his bruised lips, and his colleague nursed his buttocks! Eventually Abu Zubaydah opened up and started telling them valuable information. In the meantime, Soufan had poured through his FBI file and started addressing him by the nickname that his mother had used for him, shocking Abu Zubaydah into talking! In fact, they even started arguing about US influence, and globalism, after which Abu Zubaydah asked for a Coca-Cola a request which had them both laughing. In any case, Abu Zubaydah soon identified Khalid Sheikh Muhammad as one of the plotters of 9/11 and told them in detail valuable information about terrorists training camps.

However, the FBI agents were soon interrupted by CIA contractors, led by James Mitchell who became the architect of the interrogation program. Soufan became alarmed when he saw a coffin-like box outside of Zubaydah's cell, saw him naked, and even heard Mitchell talk about waterboarding him. Furious, he phoned his headquarters and soon the FBI director Muller became involved. After CIA interrogators repelled Soufan's advice that this was illegal (arguing that they had Gonzales' authorization), Soufan threatened to arrest them! At which, he was told by his headquarters to leave CIA premises, and Muller ordered his agents to stay clear of the CIA.

Ironically, the whole episode re-opened the deeply entrenched rift between the FBI and the CIA regarding anti-terrorism struggle with the latter seeing FBI as weak and too patient with terrorists. As the 9/11 Commission report pointed out, it was the FBI-CIA rivalry that had caused serious missteps in the prelude to 9/11. And now, the rift was greater than ever before.

Ali Soufan must be feeling pretty good about himself right now as does the FBI director Muller. As they all should. These are the true American heroes.

Conspiracy established

The flood of information on Bush administration's torture policies has clearly established a well-organized conspiracy that will definitely hold up in the court of law. It all started when President Bush signed the Executive Order of Feb 7, 2002 ordering the suspension of the Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions in our treatment of detainees. This triggered a chain-reaction of flurry of legal activities within the Office of the Legal Counsel of the Justice Department, the Pentagon's legal counsel office, as well as Vice President's Legal Counsel David Addington. What is particularly important in this case is that it has been clearly established that those who drafted the torture memo KNEW they were violating the law at the time those memos were drafted.

The clear evidence of this is the fact that as early as December 2001, the Dept of Defense asked the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA), which had devised the interrogation training of our own servicemen0--the similar methods were to be used against the detainees--to comment on these interrogation methods and if they were successful. Not only did the advice from the JPRA refer to these methods--including water-boarding--as "torture," but they were confused as to why the DoD wanted to use these interrogation methods to obtain intelligence in a fast manner. The whole point of these methods--initially used by North Koreans and the Chinese--was to extract FALSE information from our servicemen. This is why our PoWs were captured on camera saying that they believed in Communism, that the US was bad, etc. You know "The Manchurian Candidate" kind of staff. (The movie was actually inspired by these methods). So, for the administration to argue that they used these methods to gather information fast in order to prevent an attack is completely ridiculous. This is further confirmed by the memo of the former legal counsel to Condi Rice, Philip Zelikow who warned the administration that this would violate the US law and would be ineffective. Of course, both Zelikow's memo and the dissenting opinions of the JPRA were quashed, ignored, as the administration frantically proceeded to implement its torture policies. In fact, just a few days after a high-level visit to the GITMO by high officials of the Bush administration, GITMO started using the same methods. Once the war in Iraq started and Abu Ghraib became a US prison, the methods were employed there, as it was confirmed by the shocking photos we all saw in 2004.

So, why would the administration do this? It turns out that the torture of Abu Zubayda started when someone from the administration asked the CIA to probe him about Iraq-AlQ links. After the CIA interrogators said he did not know anything about such a link, they pushed the CIA to employ the tougher methods. Yes, the administration used torture for political purposes! In order to drum up the fake case for the war in Iraq!

This stuff is simply unbelievable. Attn General Eric Holder needs to appoint an independent and credible and respected Special Prosecutor, give him free reign, and allow him to follow the trail of evidence. What we have, from what we have learned in the last week or so, is a clear conspiracy to violate the law. This, in a nutshell, is a war crime.

I am increasingly confident the Obama administration will let its Justice Dept. do its constitutional duty.

Another Torture Bombshell

If anyone had any doubt as to the absurdity of the Bush administration's argument supporting torture, they should read the article in today's Foreign Policy issue written by a former Bush official. The official in question is a man by the name of Philip Zelikow. He was appointed as Secretary of State's Condolezza Rice's counsel and was the executive director of the 9/11 Commission. But because he had a high security clearance he vowed to secrecy (even though he had seen the memos) and spoke out only today after the memos became public knowledge.

It turns out that Zelikow wrote an alternative memo at the time Gonzales and his clan were writing their torture memos. The memo offered an alternative view of their interpretation of the US and international law. In particular, Zelikow argued that their interpretation of "cruel, human and degrading" was not legally sound: and in fact, that those methods clearly violated Article 16 of the Convention against Torture, as well as the Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. By the way, the violation of Common Article 3 is a federal offense, a war crime, punishable up to life imprisonment! In addition, this bureaucrat argued for moral standards to be evaluated before approving these methods. In other words, what was the unique value of the information we learned from the terrorists? And what did that do to us? In other words, the question is not who these terrorists are, but who we are, as Zelikow eloquently puts it. In addition, he pointed out that the memo ignored the 8th amendment, "conditions for confinement," by approving the confinement of prisoners in small boxes. Finally, he also suggested that the methods would be legal if they would not "shock the conscience" of the American people and if the federal courts could impose the same methods on the American citizens in American jails if national security was at stake. This obviously would never be possible! Hence, the methods are illegal under US law in the opinion of Mr. Zelikow.

Ok, but even this damning memo is not the end of the story. It is what the Bush cronies did with it! Not only did they ignore it, but they tried to destroy every single copy. This sounds much like obstruction of justice and tampering with crime scene! I mean, this stuff just keeps getting nastier and nastier.

In the end, I was really heartened by President Obama's statement today that it would not be up to him to decide if those who drafted the memos would be prosecuted. This is up to the Justice Department! Well said, Mr. President. You truly make us all proud!

Torture Investigation(s) Imminent

There are some good news this morning on the possibility that many branches of our government might conduct special investigations of those who approved torture methods outlined in the memos President Obama released. Despite Obama's reluctance to prosecute even those who drafted the memos (John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury), Eric Holder's Justice Department leaked the news late last night that Mr. Holder is seriously considering appointing a special prosecutor to look into the ways in which these torture methods were authorized at the top. At the same time, the White House went back on Rahm Emmanuel's slip on "This Week" that no one should be prosecuted, retracting that wide-ranging blank check by saying that President's Chief of Staff meant to say that those who carried out orders would not be prosecuted and not those who ordered them. This was an obvious move to leave the door open to these prosecutions. Furthermore, there is a growing pressure in the Congress on the Justice Department to investigate: the Judiciary Committee and the Armed Service Committee are both conducting their own investigations. Finally, the pressure from the international community is building: UN's chief torture expert said yesterday that the US is obligated under the Convention Against Torture to investigate.

The fact that our Attorney General Holder (who is emerging to be my favorite guy in Obama's administration) is seriously considering this, despite Obama's objections, shows the level of independence this Justice Department has from the White House, contrary to what it looked like under the Bush regime. It is also interesting that today we hear of the terrible scandal implicating Rep. Jane Harman (D-California) in a complicated scheme, involving indicted Israeli lobbyists and Attorney General Roberto Gonzales. According to the still sketchy reports, Harman was inadvertently picked up by NSA's wiretapping program as she promised to the Israeli lobbyists to push for the FBI investigation of their espionage activities to be dropped in return for their help in getting the chair of the Intelligence committee. At the same time, Alberto Gonzales pressured his department to slow down the investigation in return for Harman's cooperation on the Bush administration's desire to keep the wiretapping program secret. I mean, this reads like a depressing spy novel! And it shows the level of incest between Bush's White House and their Justice Department. And finally, it shows the need for Obama's Justice Department to assert its independence and this would be the issue to do it with!

That an investigation seems imminent is confirmed by the increasingly panicked Dick Cheney who rushed to the Fox News Channel yesterday and hysterically argued that Obama revealed "our national secrets," of course ignoring the fact that all those memos had been revealed by the leaked International Red Cross report in the New York Review of Books, including day to day interrogations of the suspects. He also (falsely) argued that during those interrogations, we got some useful information that saved lives, again ignoring the testimonies of many CIA agents that by the time the torture started, the suspects had already told them everything they knew. Yesterday's NYT report that one of the suspects was waterboarded 183 times in a month (!!!) shows the ineffectiveness of the method. Leaked interviews with those CIA interrogators shows that even before the torture started they alerted their headquarters that the suspect had told them everything he knew but it was from the higher echelons of power that the orders for those methods came.

Which brings us to why Cheney seems so panicky these days. As he should be!