Michael Mukasey

Mukasey's Excellent Idea: War All the Time, Enemy Combatants Everywhere

dlindorff — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:55:16 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

Attorney General Michael Mukasey has caught some flak for
proposing, in an address to the American Enterprise Institute, that
Congress should declare war on Al Qaeda.

Instead, he should be applauded for his brilliant idea.

First of all, Mukasey is admitting, whether he wants to admit it or
not, that the Bush/Cheney program of capturing alleged terrorists and
holding them for years as enemy combatants without charge in detention
centers in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and various
undisclosed locations around the globe, and of torturing many of them,
are illegal actions that violate US law and International Law. So let’s
give him credit for that.

Second, he wants to make these criminal acts retroactively legal
and future such acts legal, by declaring Al Qaeda to be some kind of an
entity and to declare America to be at war with that entity. Of course,
doing this wouldn’t exactly solve the torture problem, since the Geneva
Conventions are fairly clear about the fact that you just cannot
torture. You can’t even treat captives in a war in a degrading manner,
which pretty much rules out things like stress positions and
waterboarding, unless perhaps conducted by polite men in butler
uniforms who address the victims as “sir” and deliver hors derves and
wine spritzers during the process.

But what’s brilliant about Mukasey’s idea is that it could be so easily expanded beyond just terrorism.

Once you accept the idea that a gang of armed men can be declared
war on like a country, it opens up a whole universe of enemies against
which the US could declare war.

Start with the war on drugs. Remember that one? It was never a war,
and no one ever really thought of it as one, but we could now make it a
real one, and have Congress declare war on drugs. Then, using Mukasey’s
war on terror model, we could just have cops grab drug dealers and
suspected drug dealers, and maybe even users, and just lock them up
without charge to be held for the duration of the war, like he wants to
do with terrorists.

But why stop there?

Congress could declare war on drunk drivers. Now there’s a scourge
that is killing Americans at a frightening rate. With a war on drunks
behind the wheel, we would no longer see people hiring lawyers and
getting their charges reduced to some trivial moving violation that
allows them to get back behind the wheel. We’d just lock ‘em up and
hold ‘em until the war was over.

Next we could have a war on littering. I, for one, am sick of
seeing our streets lined with soggy used soda cubs, balled up used
diapers and shriveled wet condoms, and all those plastic shopping bags,
If we could just start locking up enemy combatant litterers, the whole
country would look a whole lot better in no time.

Finally, Congress could declare a real war on poverty. We had one
of those back in the mid-‘60s, but we lost. Not for lack of trying, but
poor people kept getting poor again and dragging the rest of us down.
If Congress would declare war, the government could start rounding up
the enemy combatant poor, and locating them away for the duration. I
understand Halliburton is already building camps around the country
which could be used for this purpose.

Now I admit Mukasey and the Bush/Cheney administration are a bunch
of heartless bastards, and I wouldn’t want to see them treating the
enemy combatant poor the way they treat drug dealers or hardened
litterers, but with the poor, it could be a humanitarian kind of thing.
I mean, the enemy combatant poor would certainly get treated better in
those camps, with three squares a day and schools for the kids, than
they are doing on their own right now.

So I say let’s move forward with this idea. The Founding Fathers
couldn’t have been so blind that they were only referring to nation
states when they talked about Congress having the power to declare war.
They were a bunch of creative, forward-thinking men, and I’m sure they
would have liked the idea of broadening the meaning of war a bit to
include things like international criminal gangs, domestic criminals,
litterbugs and the poor.

I say, declare war and bring ‘em on!
____________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a journalist and columnist based in Philadelphia. His
latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and
now available in paperback edition). His work is available at
www.thiscantbehappening.net

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digg_bodytext = "By Dave Lindorff\r\n\r\n Attorney General Michael Mukasey has caught some flak for proposing, in an address to the American Enterprise Institute, that Congress should declare war on Al Qaeda.\r\n\r\n Instead, he should be applauded for his brilliant idea.\r\n\r\n First of all, Mukasey is admitting, whether he wants to admit it or not, that the Bush/Cheney program of capturing alleged terrorists and holding them for years as enemy combatants without charge in detention centers in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and various undisclosed locations around the globe, and of torturing many of them, are illegal actions that violate US law and International Law. So let’s give him credit for that.\r\n\r";
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Spitzer Bust Provides a Warning Regarding NSA Spying

dlindorff — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 06:15:53 -0400

I have no sympathy for New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, the hot-shot prosecutor of call-girl operations who was hoist on his own petard, as it were. I mean, what a jerk! And aside from the hypocrisy, what a fine message he was sending to his three teenage daughters about the role of women.

Having said that, Spitzer's bust should give pause to those in Congress who are ready to hand President Bush a free pass to continue his six-year campaign of warrantless spying on Americans.

We now know from yesterday's Wall Street Journal article that the spying Bush has been doing through the National Security Agency since early 2001 has included vast computer sweeps of not just internet and phone activity, but also bank and credit card transactions. These are sweeps of ordinary everyday people, with computers looking for odd transactions, or for codewords, or for transactions involving specific targeted organizations or addresses.

What nailed Spitzer, we now learn, was a series of bank transactions he had with the bank account of the Emperor's Club VIP callgirl operation.

Now reportedly, this particular investigation was being conducted by the IRS, which allegedly was investigating the Emperor's Club. Once the IRS discovered it had caught the New York governor in its web, it forwarded the case to the US Attorney General's Office, where it was pursued by the FBI, apparently on the instructions of AG Michael Mukasey. The investigation moved from monitoring the bank to monitoring phones, and Spitzer was captured talking to the Emperor's Club dispatcher. Bingo. Promising Democratic political career ruined.

Now the monitoring of the Emperor's Club was reportedly done with a court-ordered warrant. That's fine.

But this case shows us how people can get caught up by this kind of investigation really quickly.

Now imagine that instead of a call-girl operation, this had been a mosque or an international charity organization, and suppose you were someone who had made a call to ask about making donations to help the victims of the last earthquake in Indonesia? If that mosque, or charity, happened to be on the list of outfits being monitored by the NSA's computers, your call might well have been picked up. Then the focus would shift to your phone and your internet server, and conceivably every communication you made would be watched.

This is the America we now live in. According to the Wall Street Journal, after a wave of national outrage forced the Bush administration to shut down its Total Information Awareness project at the Pentagon, Bush and Cheney simply moved their scheme to subject all telecommunications and bank transactions to computer monitoring over to the NSA.

Since none of this spying activity is subject to court supervision and warrant requirements, we are left having to trust the personnel at the NSA, the so-called Justice Department, and the president and his administration, not to abuse it.

Right. And think of the temptations!

Want to know what the House leadership strategy is regarding renewal of the NSA wiretap authorization? Want to know whether the Congress is serious about imposing a time limit on troops in Iraq? Just start monitoring their emails and phones.

Want to make sure Democratic members of Congress go along with a war on Iran? Just monitor their phones and emails and catch them in conversations that are suitable for a little blackmail.

Is this kind of thing happening? Well, I keep marvelling at the cowardly behavior of leading members of Congress like Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Judiciary Chair John Conyers. Maybe something is being held over their heads.

We know that the prosecution and conviction of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman was an administration hit on a popular Democratic official. Siegelman is now in jail. Ditto Wisconsin state employee Georgia Thompson. These blatant political prosecutions certainly weigh on the minds of all Democratic elected officials.

Who, after all, is safe in this kind of environment, where the Bill of Rights has been set aside?

Spitzer, who no doubt made use of phone taps himself in his day, and who was ruthless as New York's attorney general in bringing down many of his own targets, may well deserve what he is getting. But the way he was ensnared, via the secret monitoring of a bank's activity, and via phone taps, should put us all on guard.

With that kind of power, unchecked in the hands of an intensely political administration, it's almost a certainty that it is being used and used inappropriately for political ends.
____________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006 and now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Neo-Cons Demand Mukasey's Criminal Complicity

Chip — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 04:09:25 -0500

Harper's Scott Horton just dropped da turd in da tank. Seems as though a few "movement conservatives" got some "private time" with the "independently minded" Judge Mukasey. They made two offers he couldn't refuse. First, don't appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the US Attorneys scandal - that's essential to protect the Bush toadies Rove and Miers. Secondly, they wanted Mukasey's assurance that he would continue the protection of the authors of the waterboarding torture program.

Welcome, folks, to the world of Alice in Wonderland, as we peer down into the rabbit's hole, reading Senator Schumer's (ir)rationalization for endorsing Mukasey:

"...the job will not be finished until we get a strong and independent attorney general. I believe Judge Mukasey is that type of person. Should we reject him, it is almost certain that an acting, caretaker attorney general will take office without the advice and consent of the Senate. Inevitably, that would enable those in this administration, who do not believe in the rule of law, and have done things that caused even former Attorney General Ashcroft to threaten resignation, to have the complete upper hand.

Only a strong and independent attorney general can return the Justice Department to what it once was and should always be. Under this administration, that nominee will certainly never share our views on issues like torture and wiretapping.

Wake up, you're not going to get a strong and independent attorney general. You're going to get another puppet whose primary function will be to hold the damn mess together for another year, until the corporate fascists can bail out to their K Street golden parachutes. If Mukasey has an ounce of integrity and a lick of sense, he'll bolt for the door.

But the really startling admission in Schumer's statement is his defeatist handwringing: "When an administration, so political, so out of touch with the realities of governing and so contemptuous of the rule of law is in charge, we are never left with an ideal choice..." Schumer must be tone deaf to his own words to be so accepting of the administration's lawlessness.

But, sadly, it gets worse. Mukasey either is waffling (hardly the stuff needed to manage the in-disarray DOJ) or he's scamming someone. Which is it? Or, Who is it? Schumer or the neo-cons? Here's what Schumer says Mukasey promised:

The judge made clear to me that were Congress to pass a law banning certain interrogation techniques, we would clearly be acting within our constitutional authority. And he flatly told me that the president would have absolutely no legal authority to ignore such a law, not even under some theory of inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution. He also pledged to enforce such a law and repeated his willingness to leave office rather than participate in a violation of law.

But according to Scott Horton, Mukasey also shined on the neo-cons. "Mukasey, I am told, gave vague reassurances on both points, 'without completely giving away the shop.'”

Strong and independent? Or vague and waffling? And isn't conspiring to cover up crimes - even at the highest level - also a crime? Maybe not, down in Wonderland's rabbit's hole.

Schumer Supports Torture

Bob Fertik — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 08:07:41 -0400

Here is Chuck Schumer's justification for supporting Mukasey:

This afternoon, I met with Judge Michael Mukasey one more time. I requested the meeting to address, in person, some of my concerns. The judge made clear to me that were Congress to pass a law banning certain interrogation techniques, we would clearly be acting within our constitutional authority. And he flatly told me that the president would have absolutely no legal authority to ignore such a law, not even under some theory of inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution. He also pledged to enforce such a law and repeated his willingness to leave office rather than participate in a violation of law.

Congress did pass a law banning "certain interrogation techniques" - it banned all forms of torture.

What is torture? Under international law it is

"any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person."

Congress explicitly prohibited torture twice.

First, the Senate ratified the Third Geneva Convention (GCIII) on July 6, 1955, which protects prisoners of war against torture. And those who say Al Qaeda is not covered by the Geneva Conventions are wrong. GCIII includes Common Article 3, which protects all prisoners, including "enemy combatants." According to the Center for Defense Information,

The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 29, 2006, decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld applied Common Article 3 to a global conflict with a non-state actor, al-Qaeda, taking place within the territory of a country that is a party to the Geneva Conventions, Afghanistan. Its implications are that Common Article 3 applies to the global conflict with terrorists anywhere on earth involving the territory of a party to the Geneva Conventions.

Second, in 1996 Congress (then led by Republicans Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott) enacted the War Crimes Act of 1996, which defines a war crime to include a "grave breach of the Geneva Conventions," specifically including torture.

In the wake of the Supreme Court's Hamdan ruling, Congress adopted the Military Commissions Act of 2006 to remove habeas corpus protection from "alien unlawful enemy combatants." It also amended the War Crimes Act of 1996

so that only actions specificly defined as "grave breaches" of Common Article 3 could be the basis for a prosecution, and it made that definition retroactive to November 26, 1997. The specific actions defined in section 6 of the Military Commissions Act include torture, cruel or inhumane treatment, murder, mutilation or maiming, intentionally causing serious bodily harm, rape, sexual assault or abuse, and the taking of hostages.

So despite MCA, torture is still a crime, and the definition of torture has never been changed so it still covers "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person."

And does this include waterboarding? Here's a description by Malcolm Nance, who trains American soldiers how to resist waterboarding.

“Waterboarding is slow-motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of blackout and expiration. When done right, it is controlled death. When performed with even moderate intensity over an extended time on an unsuspecting prisoner – it is torture, without doubt. Most people cannot stand to watch a high-intensity, kinetic interrogation. One has to overcome basic human decency to endure watching or causing the effects. The brutality would force you into a personal moral dilemma between humanity and hatred. It would leave you to question the meaning of what it is to be an American."

If Chuck Schumer doesn't think waterboarding is covered under current law, he needs to resign from the Senate immediately.

Mukasey Judiciary Whip

Bob Fertik — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 08:40:24 -0400

Update 11/08: Mukasey was confirmed 53-40 with 6 Democrats (Evan Bayh, Tom Carper, Dianne Feinstein, Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson, Chuck Schumer) voting with 47 Republicans. A filibuster would have been successful but no Senator was willing to lead it.

Bush's nominee for Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, refuses to acknowledge that waterboarding is torture, even though it was used for torture by the Spanish Inquisition, the Japanese in World War II, and Cambodia's Khmer Rouge. He also insists the President can ignore the law to wiretap American citizens without a warrant. He has thus proven his contempt for the Geneva Conventions, the Rule of Law, and the Constitution itself.

If the United States Senate confirms him as Attorney General, they will become fully complicit in the Bush-Cheney policies of torture and dictatorship.

Of course every single Republican Senator (including Arlen Specter) supports the Bush-Cheney dictatorship and will vote to confirm him.

So we must insist that every Democrat oppose him, starting with the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who can defeat his nomination in committee - as they should have done for John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales, not to mention Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Sam Alito.

Actions: Our message is simple: No waterboarding, No dictatorship, No Mukasey. Post the responses you get in the comments below.

1. Sign our petition to your Senators and Representative:
http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/122

2. Call every Democratic Senator [(800) 828 0498 — (800) 459 1887 — (800) 614 2803)] who has not declared opposition with this simple message: No waterboarding, No dictatorship, No Mukasey

3. Sign our petition to all the progressive Senators urging them to lead a filibuster:
http://www.democrats.com/filibuster-mukasey

Answering GOP Talking Points

11/1/07 Bush said it was unfair to ask Mukasey about interrogation techniques on which he has not been briefed. Then brief him, you blithering idiot! Or let him read Wikipedia or watch this video.
11/1/07 Bush said "It doesn't make any sense to tell the enemy whether we use those techniques or not." Are the American people "the enemy"?!?
10/31/07 Karl Rove's replacement Ed Gillespie told CNN "we don’t know that [waterboarding is] used by the government." But as John Roberts pointed out, Republicans brag about the use of waterboarding on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ibn al Shaykh al Libbi.
10/31/07 NY Times analysis: If Mukasey declared waterboarding to be torture, those who authorized it would have to be prosecuted as war criminals. Then impeach Bush and Cheney and prosecute them!
10/31/07 Lindsay Graham said the Senate voted against outlawing waterboarding so it's legal. There was never an up-or-down vote on waterboarding, but a vote on 9/28/06 to require oversight of CIA "programs" was defeated on a 53-46 party line vote, with all 46 Democrats in favor and all 53 Republicans opposed. As Harry Reid says, "It's already against the law. I don't know we have to ban something that's against the law. If we ban waterboarding, do we next have to ban thumb screws?"

Opposed

Joe Biden (DE)

Dick Durbin (IL)

10/31/07 Senate floor speech: "If we are going to restore the image of the United States of America, the highest law enforcement officer should be clear, firm, unequivocal: that waterboarding and torture are unacceptable, un-American, illegal and unconstitutional."

Russ Feingold (WI)

11/4/07 "the country also needs an Attorney General who will tell the President that he cannot ignore the laws passed by Congress. Unfortunately, Judge Mukasey was unwilling to reject the extreme and dangerous theories of executive power that this administration has put forward. The nation's top law enforcement officer must be able to stand up to a chief executive who thinks he is above the law. The rule of law is too important to our country's history and to its future to compromise on that bedrock principle."
11/2/07 "He may be the best nominee we can get from this administration in this respect. But I am concerned about his views on executive power, and I am weighing whether his answers to questions in that area adequately demonstrate a commitment to the rule of law."

Ted Kennedy (MA)

11/1/07 floor spech (read/watch): "Waterboarding is torture. Torture is unacceptable. Period. If Michael Mukasey won't stand up to President Bush and tell him that, then he doesn't deserve to be Attorney General... Judge Mukasey's troubling views do not stop at torture. He has shown his support for broad Presidential powers, including the ability to detain U.S. citizens without charges and to collect illegal surveillance of U.S. citizens without a warrant... We should never approve a nominee for Attorney General who rejects the rule of law."

Pat Leahy (VT) - Chair

11/6/07 "The president says that we do not torture. But then his lawyers redefine torture, redefine it down, in secret memos, in fundamental conflict with American values and law."
11/2/07 "no one, not even the President, is above the law."

Sheldon Whitehouse (RI)

10/31/07 Senate floor speech (read/watch): "Will we join that gloomy historical line leading from the Inquisition, through the prisons of tyrant regimes, through gulags and dark cells, and through Saddam Hussein's torture chambers? Will that be the path we choose?"

Undecided

Ben Cardin (MD)

Herb Kohl (WI)

Support

Dianne Feinstein (CA)

11/5/07 announced support
11/1/07 still reviewing
10/31/07 to reporters: "I need to think more about it. I very much regret that he couldn't have just been clear and definitive."
10/31/07 to constituents: "I voted in favor of sending his nomination to the full Senate. I decided he has the qualifications that I mention to be a judge".

Chuck Schumer (NY)

11/5/07 announced support
10/31/07 to reporters: "I'm not going to comment on Judge Mukasey here. I'm reading the letter, I'm going over it."
10/18/07 Schumer asked Mukasey to brief him on a [waterboarding] study “should you become attorney general – and as you know, I hope you will be.”

Also opposed but not on Judiciary

Hillary Clinton

Chris Dodd

"Mr. Mukasey's position that the President does not have to heed the law disqualifies him from being the chief attorney for the United States. We have seen for too long, and at great expense to our national security, an Administration that has systematically attacked the rule of law and turned our Justice Department into a political wing of the White House. I'm afraid that Mr. Mukasey as Attorney General would be more of the same."

John Kerry

11/1/07 "Judge Mukasey's refusal to classify the barbaric practice of waterboarding as torture waves a red flag about his nomination to serve an Administration that has adhered to the Cheney doctrine on executive power and torture. I am not comfortable confirming anyone who cannot see that this method of interrogation is antithetical to American values and traditions – especially not to a position that is charged with representing our entire justice system. We need to reestablish faith in the Department of Justice. Many of us wanted to believe that Judge Mukasey could undo the damage of the Gonzales years. Unfortunately his lack of candor and his refusal to acknowledge this abuse of power suggest he is unable or unwilling to do so, and this is why I will be opposing Judge Mukasey's nomination to be the next Attorney General of the United States."

Barack Obama

Bernie Sanders

Advocacy Groups

Opposed

Democrats.com
American Freedom Campaign
Human Rights Watch

AWOL

People for the American Way

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