Did the Bush White House target professor/blogger/Iraq War critic Juan Cole?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Looks like it:

A former senior C.I.A. official says that officials in the Bush White House sought damaging personal information on a prominent American critic of the Iraq war in order to discredit him.

Glenn L. Carle, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush, said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information on Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor who writes an influential blog that criticized the war.

In an interview, Mr. Carle said his supervisor at the National Intelligence Council told him in 2005 that White House officials wanted "to get" Professor Cole, and made clear that he wanted Mr. Carle to collect information about him, an effort Mr. Carle rebuffed. Months later, Mr. Carle said, he confronted a C.I.A. official after learning of another attempt to collect information about Professor Cole. Mr. Carle said he contended at the time that such actions would have been unlawful.

Okay, it's just an allegation, but it rings true, doesn't it, given what he know of the Bush White House and how it dealt with critics (see, e.g., Plame, Valerie)? Here's Cole:

It seems to me clear that the Bush White House was upset by my blogging of the Iraq War, in which I was using Arabic and other primary sources, and which contradicted the propaganda efforts of the administration attempting to make the enterprise look like a wild shining success.

*****

What alarms me most of all in the nakedly illegal deployment of the CIA against an academic for the explicit purpose of destroying his reputation for political purposes is that I know I am a relatively small fish and it seems to me rather likely that I was not the only target of the baleful team at the White House. After the Valerie Plame affair, it seemed clear that there was nothing those people wouldn’t stoop to. You wonder how many critics were effectively "destroyed." It is sad that a politics of personal destruction was the response by the Bush White House to an attempt of a citizen to reason in public about a matter of great public interest. They have brought great shame upon the traditions of the White House, which go back to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, who had hoped that checks and balances would forestall such abuses of power.

They brought such shame in many ways. This is but the latest revelation -- though an awfully serious one, a Nixonian one. As Steve Benen notes, "[i]f Carle’s revelations are true, using the CIA to spy on Americans for partisan gain is a felony."

And there must indeed be an investigation.

Success in Libya

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I'm still wrestling with the military intervention in Libya. I don't fully support it, mainly because I'm still not sure what the longer-term objectives are, but at the same time I'm not against it, and in fact, if I had to choose, I'd say I support it despite my very serious concerns and reservations.

And, yes, that's because I believe that sometimes war can be an effective instrument of peace. Is there inconsistency in that there is intervention in Libya but not in, say, Bahrain or Yemen? Sure. Is there a possibility of "mission creep"? Of course.

But I suppose the arguments in favour of intervention outweigh the arguments against it. Specifically, there were, and remain, significant humanitarian reasons to act.

And not being able to intervene everywhere, and not being willing to intervene in places with similar problems, isn't an argument against not intervening anywhere. We have to pick and choose. And it seems to me that the right choice was made with respect to Libya -- which, let us not forget, was not made by the U.S. alone but by an international alliance and, perhaps most importantly, the Arab League. And it is not the U.S. leading the intervention but NATO. And Libyans, other than Qaddafi and his thugs, seem to be welcoming it. As the NYT's Nicholas Kristof, hardly a warmonger, reports:

This may be a first for the Arab world: An American airman who bailed out over Libya was rescued from his hiding place in a sheep pen by villagers who hugged him, served him juice and thanked him effusively for bombing their country.

Even though some villagers were hit by American shrapnel, one gamely told an Associated Press reporter that he bore no grudges. Then, on Wednesday in Benghazi, the major city in eastern Libya whose streets would almost certainly be running with blood now if it weren't for the American-led military intervention, residents held a "thank you rally." They wanted to express gratitude to coalition forces for helping save their lives.

Doubts are reverberating across America about the military intervention in Libya. Those questions are legitimate, and the uncertainties are huge. But let's not forget that a humanitarian catastrophe has been averted for now and that this intervention looks much less like the 2003 invasion of Iraq than the successful 1991 gulf war to rescue Kuwait from Iraqi military occupation.

This is also one of the few times in history when outside forces have intervened militarily to save the lives of citizens from their government. More commonly, we wring our hands for years as victims are massacred, and then, when it is too late, earnestly declare: "Never again."

Yes, American troops were welcomed in Iraq, too, before things went horribly wrong. But Libya is not Iraq and this intervention is not that war. Could it become something like that? Yes, perhaps. But there are always risks. In the wake of the Iraq War and Occupation, should the military never be used this way? Is any and all intervention wrong?

Yes, I know. What about not just Bahrain but, say, Burma and North Korea? Well, again, we have to be realistic about when and where intervention for humanitarian purposes can succeed, as well as when and where an international coalition can be put together. Sometimes other measures are called for, like sanctions. I do not support military intervention in Iran, for example, which would likely be a disaster. But sometimes, just sometimes, you need to use force. With Qaddafi threatening mass murder of his own people, at a time of historic pro-democracy movements throughout the Middle East, this would appear to be one of those times.

And, so far, there has been significant success. Check out Juan Cole's list of the top ten accomplishments of the U.N. no-fly zone, which concludes:

The liberation movement at the moment likely controls about half of Libya's population, as long as Misrata and Zintan do not fall. It also likely controls about half of the petroleum facilities. If Benghazi can retake Brega and Ra's Lanouf and Zawiya, Qaddafi soon won't have gasoline for his tanks or money to pay his mercenaries. Pundits who want this whole thing to be over with in 7 days are being frankly silly. Those who worry about it going on forever are being unrealistic. Those who forget or cannot see the humanitarian achievements already accomplished are being willfully blind.

I appreciate the very persuasive arguments against this intervention and I respect many of those making them, including the likes of Glenn Greenwald and many Democrats in Congress. I wouldn't go so far as to say that they're being "willfully blind." In the end, they may be proven right. But we don't know how this will end, and, as of right now, even without a sense of what the longer-term objectives are, it is undeniable that a great deal has been achieved, much to the credit of those who have taken the risk to intervene with force.

Is Libya the antidote to Iraq Syndrome?

By Nicholas Wilbur

When President Obama announced on March 18, 2011, that he would deploy the United States military in order to enforce a United Nations resolution, there was little doubt that the intervention on behalf of the Libyan people was not solely dedicated to their protection, even if that was the primary justification for the mission.

Nobody's jaw dropped when Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) told MSNBC three days later, "We are in Libya because of oil."

With the Arab world in chaos, anxieties over the future of oil production spiked gasoline prices by 20 percent in a matter of weeks. On par with the economy and the unemployment rate, gas prices determine elections. Unfortunately, high gas prices do not justify military intervention. Luckily, the potential for mass murder does.

The American people already have abandoned their aversion to yet another military endeavor, mainly because the administration and the media have joined forces to reassure the public that Libya is not an invasion, a war, or an occupation. 

Unlike "Operation Enduring Freedom" in Afghanistan, which was an eye-for-an-eye assault on the elusive mastermind behind Sept. 11, 2001, and unlike "Operation Iraqi Freedom," which was sold to the American people based on false pretenses and hyped fears of mushroom clouds over major U.S. cities and weapons of mass destruction – and an invasion/war/occupation orchestrated by a millionaire oil company CEO who also happened to be the vice president, no less – Libya, conversely, has the potential to become the antidote to "Iraq Syndrome," an engagement that not only unifies the American public but that also reverses the reputation of the United States as a war-mongering, war-profiteering world police force.

The Libya intervention is not only a "just" mission, it is also "just" a mission. The president has promised both America and the international community that no ground troops will be deployed. 

In Afghanistan, there was an evil terrorist roaming around the hills laughing about his attacks on the World Trade Center. In Iraq there were (allegedly) chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons of mass destruction.

In Libya there is a dictator, Muammar al-Qaddafi, who has authorized aerial bombings of his own cities and deployed the army to hunt down and kill civilian rebels unsupportive of his regime. "Any Libyan" who "undermines the sovereignty of the state," who commits crimes against the army, or who opposes his reign "will be punished by death," Qaddafi said.

"We will show no mercy and no pity to them," he warned.

This "mission" is a political win-win for President Obama. However involved, however bloody, however defined by historians, the first phase of bombing the military facilities of a dictator is sure to give Obama a boost in the polls.

Beyond quelling fears of ever-higher gas prices, the use of military force against a world enemy has the potential to erase the image of Obama as a weak leader and an inexperienced and incapable commander in chief.

By framing the engagement as a humanitarian relief effort aimed at protecting the civilian rebels being targeted, incarcerated, and murdered by Qaddafi's troops, the administration can win the hearts of both the pro-military conservatives and the foreign policy isolationists on the left.

Conservatives are easy. They love a good fight against a bad guy, and Qaddafi is about as bad as it gets (worse, or at least on par with, Saddam Hussein). What's the point in having the greatest military on earth – and spending more on defense than every other developed country combined – if you don't flex a little military muscle every now and then? Furthermore, if we justified the dethroning of Saddam, Qaddafi, given his latest antics, should be no question.

Obama's announcement of military force in Libya:

"Let me be clear. These terms are not negotiable.

These terms are not subject to negotiation.

If Qaddafi does not comply with the resolution,

the international community will impose consequences.

The resolution will be enforced through military action."

Many liberals, on the other hand, prefer that America keep to herself. But they have a weakness for peace missions. With the support of France and Britain, the United States – by far the most militarily equipped for the initial strikes on key air force facilities – is leading the surge. But the intention is to turn the mission over to NATO, which would brand the intervention not as another U.S. war but as a unified international coalition fighting as one in order to ensure peace and democracy in the Arab world. By promising that no U.S. ground forces will be deployed, Obama has tried to turn the hearts of his own base. By employing the rhetoric of past commanders in chief – the "reluctance" to use military force, the pursuit of peace, the refusal of a dictator to agree to the terms of resolution drafted by an international coalition – Obama has earned a nod of approval from the entire world.  

As for the apolitical majority of American citizens, strong rhetoric about the coalition, about the humanitarian crisis, and about the potential of mass graves come second, third and fourth, respectively, to the bottom line. If gasoline prices fall in America because of the U.S. military's involvement in Libya, the ends will justify the means.

If Obama is lucky, historians will document the "mission" in Libya through a lens that focuses not on the political intentions or the casualties it caused, but on the national and international support it garnered.

_______________________________________________________

The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force.

All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people.

 – Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf –

• Libya poll: 70% of Americans back no-fly zone resolution in Libya, CNN poll finds – L.A. Times

• "No time for doubters" – The Economist

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

Woodward slams Rumsfeld

By Michael J.W. Stickings

For writing a memoir that is essentially one big steaming pile of dishonesty:

Rumsfeld's memoir isone big clean-up job, a brazen effort to shift blame to others -- includingPresident Bush -- distort history, ignore the record or simply avoid discussingmatters that cannot be airbrushed away. It is a travesty, and I think therewrite job won't wash.

The Iraq War isessential to the understanding of the Bush presidency and the Rumsfeld era atthe Pentagon. In the book, Rumsfeld tries to push so much off on Bush. That isfair because Bush made the ultimate decisions. But the record shows that it wasRumsfeld stoking the Iraq fires -- facts he has completely left out of hismemoir.

*****

When all the records are available, the othermemoirs written and the history complete, this failure to accept responsibilitywill likely be his legacy.

Woodward has his own failings -- he too often trusts his sources unthinkingly, his analysis is often lacking, or non-existent, and he rarely connects the dots in any satisfactory way -- but he is undeniably a well-respected and generally non-partisan reporter of the historical record. There is still much blame to go around -- Cheney deserves his fair share, too, along with the various other warmongers in and around Bush's bubble, as well as those pushing for war generally -- but clearly Rumsfeld was a key architect of the disaster that was (and to a certain extent still is) the Iraq War and Woodward should be applauded for holding him to account.

One just wonders if this isn't part of some anti-Rumsfeld smear campaign conducted by those on the right -- those in or around Bush's bubble -- who see him as an easy scapegoat, a convenient fall guy for all that went wrong. You wouldn't think it could be Rumsfeld's pal Cheney, but what about someone else?

Okay, maybe not. Maybe Woodward just had to respond to Rumsfeld's blatant dishonesty? Maybe. (It is, after all, at the estimable Tom Ricks's blog.)

Either way, he makes some excellent points. Read the whole thing.

Curveball throws a change-up, Bush swings and misses

By Michael J.W. Stickings

But Bush wanted so badly to swing that it didn't really matter who was pitching and what the pitch was. Any evidence of Iraqi WMDs, even the fabricated testimony of a largely discredited "source," would do:

The defector who convinced the White House that Iraq had a secret biological weapons programme has admitted for the first time that he lied about his story, then watched in shock as it was used to justify the war.

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, has told the Guardian that he fabricated tales of mobile bioweapons trucks and clandestine factories in an attempt to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime, from which he had fled in 1995.

"Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right," he said. "They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy."

Well, he got what he wanted, but at a pretty high cost, and of course in the process Bush and the American warmongers squandered pretty much the entirety of America's credibility, something Obama has worked to win back, if not entirely successfully so far.

But it wasn't all about Curveball. He was just willing to lie at the right time and conveniently provided the unsupported "evidence" the warmongers (and the intelligence community) were looking for. The decision to go to war had already been made, shortly after 9/11 but really long before in the minds of Wolfowitz et al., and the warmongers were going to find something, anything to support their reckless cause. It didn't really matter.

Bush and the rest were duped, yes, but they were willing to be duped, that's the point, and they either allowed themselves to believe that this was incontrovertible evidence or knew it wasn't and built their public case for war on it anyway. Either way, the American people were misled by leaders who had their own not-so-secret agenda, a terrible and terribly mismanaged war was launched, and the rest, as you know, is disastrous history, even if Saddam is no longer in power.

About those "Seeds of Democracy"

By J. Thomas Duffy

Well, this isn't exactly a Captain Renault moment:

Defector admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war

The defector who convinced the White House that Iraq had a secret biological weapons programme has admitted for the first time that he lied about his story, then watched in shock as it was used to justify the war.

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, has told the Guardian that he fabricated tales of mobile bioweapons trucks and clandestine factories in an attempt to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime, from which he had fled in 1995.

"Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right," he said. "They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy."

Since Obama has chosen not to look in the rearview mirror, we can only hope that history will not be so kind and place the Bush Grindhouse and its legacy in the appropriate light -- The President of Shitdom.

And the Flying Monkeys over at the Right Wing Freakshow still want to headline that it was all that "planting seeds of democracy" bullshit.



Bonus Riffs

John Cole: You Told Me you Loved Me, But I Don’t Understand

Adam Serwer: Conservatives keep hogging credit for Mideast protests

For The Want Of A Lie

It Will Never Be A Happy "Mission Accomplished" Day

"Son of A Dog!"

(Cross-posted on The Garlic.)

McCain slaps Rumsfeld

By Michael J.W. Stickings

McCain takes a swipe at Rumsfeld:

Sen. John McCain said he "thank[s] God" that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stepped down from the post in 2006 and didn't lead the Pentagon's strategy in Iraq during the last two years of George W. Bush's presidency.

"I respect Secretary Rumsfeld," McCain said Thursday on ABC's "Good Morning America," before quickly changing his tone. "He and I had a very, very strong difference of opinion about the strategy he was employing in Iraq, which I predicted was doomed to failure. Thank God he was relieved of his duties and we put the surge in. Otherwise, we would have had a disastrous defeat in Iraq."

A swipe of retaliation:

McCain's comments came in response to a question about the depiction of the Arizona senator in Rumsfeld's memoir, "Known and Unknown," in which he's described as having a "hair-trigger temper" and "a propensity to shift his positions to appeal to the media."

Not terribly juicy -- besides, does anyone really care what either of these two has to say these days?

Regardless, it's hard to disagree with Rummy on this one, and I suppose McCain's quite right as well that it was better not to have Rummy at the Pentagon anymore, even if he overstates the "success" of the surge.

Why, oh why, can't all the warmongers just get along?

Rumsfeld goes with the lies he wishes he had

By J. Thomas Duffy

Who knew? 

Lenny Bruce used to do a bit where he offered this advice:

Whatever happens, deny it. Flat-out deny it! If you really love your wife, deny it. If they walk in on you, deny it. Even if they got pictures, deny it. Even if she catches you with a chicken, deny it.

 I just can't picture Old Snowflakes being into Bruce, so he must have just taken his own advice and said, "You go to write a book with the lies you have, not the lies you might want or wish to have at a later time."

Yes, yet another of the Bush Grindhouse, one of their most prolific warmongers, has penned a "Not Me, Not My Fault" book, hitting the streets this week.

UGH!

From the NYT: 

“Two weeks after the worst terrorist attack in our nation’s history, those of us in the Department of Defense were fully occupied,” Mr. Rumsfeld recalls. But the president insisted on new military plans for Iraq, Mr. Rumsfeld writes. “He wanted the options to be ‘creative.’"

[snip]

His biggest mistake, Mr. Rumsfeld writes, was in not forcing Mr. Bush to accept his offers to resign after the abuse of Iraqi detainees by American military jailers came to light in early 2004. Mr. Rumsfeld insists that the abuses were the actions of rogue soldiers and that they did not reflect any approved policies, but nevertheless he offered to step down.

[snip]

While generally defending the Bush administration’s counterterrorism legal policies, Mr. Rumsfeld expresses some regrets. He suggests several times that some criticism and setbacks could have been avoided if the administration had gone to Congress for legislation authorizing the policies instead of relying on the president’s war powers. 

"Oh, if we only didn't didn't have contempt and scorn for our critics (you know, the "appeasers... the morally and intellectually confused" ), and only if we didn't piss on the Constitution and make up our own laws, maybe things would have turned out better."

Will Bunch over at Attytood doesn't mince words: 

Heh, that's funny. Of course, since there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and in fact there apparentrly had not been any for a number of years, the reason that Rumsfeld would like to take "that one" back is because he was lying. Maybe someday someone will free the Washington Post from the tyranny of the inverted pyramid and they can actually say that. 

Donald Rumsfeld lied.

Jack Stuef at Wonkette weighed in as well: 

America’s Grandpa of Death Donald Rumsfeld is having his memoir published on Tuesday, serving as an addendum to George W. Bush’s book in that it has actual, alleged facts, opinions, and memories in it. So: Abu Ghraib? Not his fault, but he really wanted to resign over it and feels very emo that big meanie Bush wouldn’t let him. Initial troop levels? Not his fault, nobody in the military ever asked him for more troops. Guantanamo? Not his fault the jail existed, and actually he made sure there was less torture and fewer prisoners. Hmm, anything we’re forgetting here? Oh, that one war. What was it called again? Anyway, not his fault, Bush came to him about Iraq before the U.S. even invaded Afghanistan, but at the same meeting, he also talked about Rummy’s son’s drug addiction, so all Rummy could do was cry about that. Whoops! 

And this: 

Ah, there you have it. Rumsfeld could have said, “What the fuck are you talking about going to war with Iraq for? Our country was just attacked by a foreign terrorist organization we need to go try to destroy. Iraq has nothing to do with this. Aren’t you more concerned with winning this war we haven’t even begun yet?” But instead, his son had done some drugs. Sure thing, Rumsfeld. Perfectly good excuse. You should drop some leaflets on the families of people, American and Iraqi, whose children have died in that war. “Sorry, my son was doing drugs. I was emotional at the time. Not my fault.” 

Stuef also had a suggestion for those plans to invade and occupy Iraq to be "creative" that "Rummy says Defense was preparing for offense on Afghanistan at the time, but Bush asked him to be “creative.” Creative! Perhaps the military could stage a production of Grease for the people of Iraq before taking a bow and dropping a bomb on them?

No, instead we just got greasy lies at the time and more polished greasy lies now, with the book.

I wonder if his Lie Tour will interfere with his and his former Shadow President's Armageddon weekends?

Like we said above, Ugh!

Bonus Rummy Riffs

Top Ten Cloves: What Would Be Different If Rumsfeld Was A Dog, But Still Secretary of Defense

Leave It to Rumsfeld ... There's Not Enough Lying Going On!

“They’re coming here for the American experience” ...Rumsfeld Weighs In On Immigration Battle; Won’t Tie It To War With Iran ...Suggests Army Recruiting Woes Could Be Solved With Mandatory Service By Illegal Aliens

Rummy On The Run? ... Let's Give Him Some Chase Music!

(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

I'm Pat f***king Tillman — why are you shooting at me?

By Edward Copeland 

That post title is the last words the former NFL star turned Army Ranger said before he was killed in Afghanistan by his own troops in 2004.

We are living in the Golden Age of Nonfiction. I thought it silly when the Oscars expanded best picture to 10 nominees, but I could live with them doubling the number of documentary feature nominees because documentaries get better and better. I have a difficult time cutting it down to five. I've only seen one 2010 documentary that I've given a negative review. More importantly, this meant that Oscar finalist The Tillman Story didn't make the final cut and it's the second-best 2010 documentary I've seen (so far).

For the Bush Administration, the wars in Afghanistan and later in Iraq weren't just campaigns for whatever reason they chose to give on any particular day, they also were part of a re-election strategy and whenever there was a chance to sell a positive story to the lazy eager-to-echo-anything press, they took it. So, when Pat Tillman, who earned millions in the NFL for the Arizona Cardinals, decided to give up his football career to join the fight against terrorism after 9/11, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told his subordinates to keep special watch on him. This was an American hero in the making that would make for great P.R.

Things didn't turn out that way exactly, though the government and high-ranking Pentagon officials did their best to keep their heroic scenario when Tillman was killed April 22, 2004, the initial story was the he died from enemy fire in an ambush, going so far as to credit him for saving the lives of some of his fellow soldiers and Gen. Stanley McChrystal awarded him the Silver Star posthumously. Just one problem: That was all a lie. Tillman died as a result of friendly fire and it took years and the persistence of his family to get at the truth.

Director Amir Bar-Lev gives a detailed portrait of who Tillman was both before and after his enlistment and with testimony from others who served with him, evokes a sense of outrage at the coverup, misguided accusations and fall guys the government used because their desired tailor-made American hero failed to pan out the way they envisioned. Ironically, during his unit's Iraq deployment Tillman was even there to witness the lengths they went in setting up the false tale of Pvt. Jessica Lynch's rescue. They were kept waiting 24 hours before retrieving Lynch to allow time for the camera crew to arrive. During his time in Iraq, Tillman also turned against Bush and the war effort, commenting to fellow soldiers that the Iraq war was "so fucking illegal." Bar-Lev keeps the focus moving with complete clarity and this documentary is quite a change-of-pace from his previous one, 2007's My Kid Could Paint That.

Narrated by Josh Brolin, The Tillman Story shows the true Pat Tillman, one that defied all stereotypes one would lump on the star athlete. He was a well-read man (Chomsky and Emerson; most religious texts, despite his atheism) who graduated from Arizona State with a 3.8 G.P.A. While the administration and the media were eager to wrap Tillman's decision to forgo his lucrative NFL career with a simple patriotic motive, Tillman himself refused interviews on the subject.

Even though both he and his very close younger brother Kevin joined up as Army Rangers, Tillman was determined to keep his reasons private. However, before he'd ever made the decision to enlist, various NFL players were filmed giving reactions to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and this footage was usurped by the Pentagon in their P.R. efforts to define Tillman's motive, be it true or not.

The entire Tillman family could be viewed somewhat as iconoclasts, compared to most Americans, so as far as I'm concerned that's what endears them to me all the more. When his family first learns of his death, they were given the false story of the ambush and the enemy fire. Still, even at the large, made-for-television memorial service Washington assembled (despite the fact that on his enlistment papers Pat Tillman specifically said he wanted no military funeral. Military officials even tried to take advantage of his grieving wife Marie to get Pat buried at Arlington.), while speakers spoke of God's blessings, etc., ignoring Pat's quite vocal status, like most of his family, as an atheist, his youngest brother Rich thanked the previous speakers for their thoughts but said, "Pat isn't with God. He's fucking dead."

Once soldiers on the scene spoke out and the Pentagon was forced to admit that Tillman was a victim of friendly fire, D.C. realized they picked the wrong family to screw with as his mom began a years-long campaign to get at the truth about the coverup. The story as told proves both inspiring and frustrating, as the Army drops so many documents, most redacted, upon Dannie Tillman, that she and another veteran start approaching them like some sort of crossword puzzle to decipher what names and words are blacked out.

In one of the most infuriating incidents, Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, who Tillman served under in Afghanistan, went on ESPN and made comments to the effect that the reason the Tillman family wouldn't let it go and just accept the Army's story was that because they were atheists and didn't believe in God, it would be hard for them to accept any truths. Eventually, after they finally got a congressional inquiry, Kauzlarich was demoted in retirement and remains the only person who received any sanction for the coverup.

On the other hand, the soldiers who did speak to the truth, were all punished in other ways for essentially being whistle-blowers.

Credit for the excellence of The Tillman Story should also be given to Mark Monroe for compiling this massive amount of information into a workable script for Bar-Lev to direct into such a coherent, compelling and, yes, chilling film. It almost makes me want to synopsize the entire documentary, but it's better to see it for yourself.

The ultimate irony about Pat Tillman is that the Bush Administration wanted to mold him into a hero for their own cynical, political purposes but by the covering up of the way he died, it enabled us to see who the real Pat Tillman was and he was more patriotic and a hero on a far grander scale than any P.R. flaks could have dreamed up. It's tragic that he died the way he did, but it's reassuring to know that men like him still exist in the first place.

(Cross-posted at Edward Copeland on Film.)

Glenn Greenwald and the "climate of fear"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Much of the political world has been talking about the Arizona shooting the past few days, but there remains a larger and more troubling development, namely, the U.S. government's manufacturing of a "climate of fear" that allows it to advance its interests both at home and abroad.

I highly recommend this essential post from Glenn Greenwald. Key passage:

So much of what the U.S. Government has done over the last decade has been devoted to creating and strengthening this climate of fear. Attacking Iraq under the terrorizing banner of "shock and awe"; disappearing people to secret prisons; abducting them and shipping them to what Newsweek's Jonathan Alter (when advocating this) euphemistically called "our less squeamish allies"; throwing them in cages for years without charges, dressed in orange jumpsuits and shackles; creating a worldwide torture regime; spying on Americans without warrants and asserting the power to arrest them on U.S. soil without charges: all of this had one overarching objective. It was designed to create a climate of repression and intimidation by signaling to the world -- and its own citizens -- that the U.S. was unconstrained by law, by conventions, by morality, or by anything else:  the government would do whatever it wanted to anyone it wanted, and those thinking about opposing the U.S. in any way, through means legitimate or illegitimate, should (and would) thus think twice, at least.

That a large percentage of those brutalized by this system turned out to be innocent -- knowingly innocent --  is a feature, not a bug:  that one can end up being subjected to these lawless horrors despite doing nothing wrong only intensifies the fear and makes it more effective. The power being asserted is not merely unlimited and tyrannical, but arbitrary. And now, the Obama administration's citizen-aimed, due-process-free assassination program, its orgies of drone attacks, its defense of radically broad interpretations of "material support" criminal statutes, and its disturbing targeting of American anti-war activists with subpoenas and armed police raids are all part of the same tactic. Those contemplating meaningful opposition to American action are meant to be frightened. The anguished, helpless cries of 18-year-old American Gulet Mohamed, after a week of being disappeared and brutalized by America's close ally, serves an important purpose.

Make sure to read the whole thing. You'll notice that Greenwald is not engaging in demagoguery and is not using violent rhetoric to whip his readers up into a mouth-frothing frenzy. He is simply doing what the media are not, which is reporting on what is actually going on in the world, including what the government is doing, and encouraging people to educate themselves and to demand that their democratically-elected government not engage in undemocratic and illiberal practices that violate America's purported principles and ideals:

There has been much talk over the last several days, in the wake of the Arizona shooting, about attempts by some citizens to instill physical fear in elected officials. That's a worthwhile and necessary topic, but the fear that government officials are attempting to instill in law-abiding, dissenting citizens is far more substantial and sustained, and deserves much more attention than it has received.

Indeed.

And yet no one went to jail

By Edward Copeland 

Reliving the Valerie Plame affair in Fair Game, based on the books written by Plame herself and her husband Joe Wilson, if you didn't have any anger before over what the Bush White House did to a loyal CIA agent in the name of politics and a war they wanted no matter what the facts were, that old rage will well up once again. In Doug Liman's film, it comes up even more so because before we get to the events of the leak of Plame's covert status itself, we actually see what her job entailed and what the Bush politicos callously threw away for their own warped reasons and the cost it took in American lives, those of other intelligence sources and, of course, the truth. Still, no one who committed crimes (and crimes were committed) went to jail for their roles. It's outrageous and the film will make that outrage feel fresh again.

Naomi Watts stars as Plame and Sean Penn plays Wilson (in one of his least-mannered performances) and while many of the details of the film will be familiar to anyone who watched the episode unfold in the media, what makes director Doug Liman's film most interesting are the details that were left by the wayside.

Fair Game begins by showing us Plame at work for the agency, making frequent secret trips overseas making contacts and protecting sources in the battle against weapons proliferation. Her husband knows her real job, but her friends believe she works for a phony business service. Early on, at the behest of the Defense Department, her section gets contacted to check out stories on aluminum tubes supposedly sought by Saddam Hussein and the possibility that Saddam had tried to acquire yellowcake uranium from Niger.

Never mind that the aluminum tube story had been investigated and disputed long before since the equipment was horribly outdated and unacceptable for uranium enrichment, the Bush White House pressures the CIA to check it out again. As it happens, Wilson, the last American to meet Saddam face-to-face and someone who had strong contacts with high-ranking officials in Niger, is suggested as someone who could check out the African side of the story. Plame admits her husband's expertise in the area, but that's the extent of her involvement in his getting the assignment.

Wilson takes the trip to Niger and finds that it would be logistically impossible to remove that large an amount of yellowcake from the country without leaving physical or written evidence. He returns, issues his report that the story is a nonstarter and believes that it's the end of it. Unfortunately, the Bush gang, represented especially by the unctuous Scooter Libby (played to smarmy perfection by David Andrews) are ghouls who can't say no and, much to Wilson's surprise, President Bush says those 16 words that mean so much in his 2002 State of the Union speech about Saddam attempting to acquire quantities of uranium from Africa.

Just to be certain, Wilson calls a source of his to make certain that Bush isn't referring to a different African country than Niger, but no, that's the lie that's being spun, followed by the big p.r. push from Cheney, Rice and the gang about not letting the "smoking gun be a mushroom cloud." An outraged Wilson pens the infamous op-ed in The New York Times about what he didn't find in Niger and the White House declares war on him and his wife, including outing her identity as a CIA operative in Robert Novak's column, which still is a crime.

The rest of the story should be fairly familiar to anyone who followed it, but if you've forgotten some of the details, you are certain to get riled once again (and to question the wisdom of the Obama Administration letting sleeping liars sleep free for the crimes they committed).

Still, as well known as the tale is, Fair Game proves quite compelling thanks to a solid cast and Liman's solid direction. Of course, the true Bush believers will have no interest and partisans already will have been converted, but those who are fuzzy on the facts owe it to themselves to see this film. A little history never hurt anybody. 

(Cross-posted at Edward Copeland on Film.)