Debating Glenn Greenwald on Twitter seems impossible. It’s like trying to defend your master’s thesis on Twitter. Or, maybe it’s more like trying to compose your master’s thesis on Twitter. In any case, pointless. Better to do so in a column. For the record, I endorse Bob Cesca’s argument in full. But I particularly endorse this:
What I and many others are demanding and, in my case, have demanded for quite some time going back to the Bush administration, is that via an act of Congress and a presidential signature, the commander-in-chief give up a practically limitless (some would say “bottomless”) well of latitude in hunting down terrorists. That’s no small deal, and he will absolutely be attacked for doing so. However, a potentially endless war can’t carry with it endless war powers for the sole reason that these powers would become permanent and dangerous — even in the hands of an otherwise benevolent leader.
Beyond that, what more could possibly demanded? What else do these hyperkinetic bloggers and writers want? Should I be shaming the president’s character? I could spend lots of time hectoring the president for being a blood-thirsty homicidal maniac — a baby killer who eats terrorist livers with fava beans and a nice Chianti. But I doubt that would make much of a difference. I doubt the president would react well to personal attacks and, in fact, everything I know about his character leads me to believe that he responds best to pressure that’s based on factual, rational and tenacious arguments. This is my intention.
We all have our tactics and strategies. This is mine.
Yes, maybe the American Fascist Movement could get behind injecting some, um, legal process into our imperial military operations, like perhaps having, say, a secret court that could hear the executive’s story, find probable cause to act and issue warrants, sort of like the esteemed FISA court! Liber-servatives should support that time-honored approach! oh, wait…
Well, of course in a reason-based society with a functioning gub’mint of separated powers we would craft a new statute to deal with the global (and domestic) terrorism problem (that we helped to create with our imperialist Middle East policies of the past 30 years). But we don’t have a functioning gub’mint or a reason-based society, so we can’t accomplish too much in dealing with pressing national problems, especially via proposed legislation. 12 years on, and our whole “terrorism” operation is based on the Goddammed AUMF, our new Ur-statute that accomplishes (and authorizes) everything!
Despite Rand Paul’s theatrics about US citizens somehow gettin’ Obama-ized over their triple meat omelet at Denny’s, American “conservatives” are not in any way opposed to the Infallible Commanderer-in-Cheef having the power to do whatever he wants with the US military and intelligence assets overseas. Our jingoism and militarism are still in ascendance in the American junkbrain. We are not a serious or responsible people.
It would be amusing to see what new Liber-servative Superstars Paul and Cruz would say about ACTUALLY trying to inject some “due process” into certain operational decisions of the global commander in chief—like say, the use of drones for military strikes. My guess is that they’d pretty quickly come down on the side of makin’ sure those evil muzleems in some drought-striken hamlet on the other side of the earth gets killed ASAP by our heroic troops for whatever reason was imagined (or invented) at the time. The whole focus of their latest braindead filibuster rhetoric was on (hypothetical) use of drones against US citizens (in America!). Yessir, that’s really the nub of this problem, Mister Rand. You really got right to the heart of the matter!
Obviously, this isn’t a serious issue for our New Liberturdians, it’s just another gameplaying moment for preening and prancing to their base of mouthbreathers. We don’t have any serious legislators on the American Right—Fascists hate legislatures, when you get right down to it.
That is it. Well done.
Well Booman, they say that a stopped clock is right twice a day. Say 2 seconds out of every 86,400. I would gladly bet you at those odds…1 to 43200…that nothing like what you are describing will happen as long as the current PermaGov fix remains in place. It would take a revolutionarily new approach from a party or politician combined with an almost total collapse of the current system…political system and/or social system…for the current war-based government to change. Further, if anyone managed to even begin to get to a point in the public consciousness where he or she threatened to actually win enough power to start such a change in motion…began to beat the massive non-personing power of the PermaGov media complex…the great and powerful engine of said PermaGov would simply shift down into a lower gear…you know in your heart of hearts, that good ol’, reliable ol’ JFK/MLK Jr./RFK gear…and take the motherfucker(s) out the old-fashioned way.
Blow ’em up real good, as they used to say on Second City.
So please…endorse whomever’s argument you want “in full,” but unless you begin to turn against the very system that you now fully endorse with every post, then all of the “fully endosring” in the world is just more empty liberal posturing. Having your cake and being eaten by it too.
Please.
It is quite plain that Barack Obama and Congress are not going to do jackshit in terms of effectively limiting the powers of the
executionary…err, ahh, sorry…executive branch to do whatever it thinks it needs to do in order to continue the militarily enforced economic imperialist policies that prop up what remains of the American Dream, not least because they fear (quite rightly) that such an action would result in a rapid economic meltdown which would in turn produce chaos in this society and perhaps even worldwide. They are making bad medicine in fear of worse medicine that might follow. The smart ones…and I definitely include Barack Obama in this group…are perfectly aware of what they are doing and why, and the dummies just clomp clomp clomp along behind them in one or another form of dreamstate.You think that “via an act of Congress and a presidential signature,” Barack Obama (or any other permaGov-fixed winner) will voluntarily give up his limitless well of latitude in hunting down terrorists and creating other military actions?
Oh.
I got your own dreamstate, right there!!!
Please.
Wake the fuck up.
Or…dream on.
Or…and I sincerely hope that this is not true…quite coldly and cynically continue to toe the line that the PermaGov draws and redraws daily in the hope that it will reward you.
I guess that’s your set of choices. Number three is quite common…almost the entire media is run by people who precisely that…so don’t get all het up about my inclusion of that in your choice set. Sometimes it occurs to me that they may be right in this imperfect world. Maybe it’s me that’s in the dreamstate.
The United Dreamstate of America.
Long may it snooze.
But we all have to make our choices.
Don’t we.
Later…
AG
Most people have no idea what you mean by “reliable ol’ JFK/MLK Jr./RFK gear.” But I do.
And you can trace it back and look at the characters, and while the origins are murky, it never gets more than six yards away from the Bush family and, for the last thirty years at least, the neo-cons that clustered around Reagan.
Those two cabals have worked together politically even as they have competed on policy.
So, you start out with catfish like Bill Harvey, James Angleton, David Morales, David Atlee Phillips, Richard Helms, Ted Shackley, Richard Secord–that’s takes you from the 1954 coup in Guatemala, through the assassinations, the ’68 election, to the Laotian poppy fields, to Watergate, to the arms program with the Shah and Poppy in as DCI. Then in comes Casey for the October Surprise, and the neo-cons get sprinkled in with McFarlane and Wolfowitz opening the Israel-Iran weapons line, to Iran-Contra, to Poppy as president, to playtime in Azerbaijan to stolen 2000 election to war in Iraq to Jeb.
I’m keeping it simple here, but it’s a straight line with a few branches, and their record of butchery is only surpassed by the closeness with which we came to nuclear annihilation both during the Cuban Missile Crisis and in the aftermath of the JFK assassination.
Here’s two things to remember:
So, when you tell me about the PermaGov, you are missing half the story. What we have is a truly malicious and persistent force that has followed us our whole lives and which must be combatted. It isn’t the government as a whole, and the fix is never in because these folks don’t always win. The skinny ex-state senator from Illinois has no connection to these folks, but he’s keeping them at bay while he attempts to clean up their messes.
I don’t dwell on this stuff because it is just a bunch of rabbit holes. I mean, once you start looking at something like the Nugan-Hand Bank, you may never resurface and join the rest of humanity in their blissful innocence. Robert Parry knows.
I sincerely hope that you are correct here, Booman. I really do.
But I fear that you are not.
I fear that both the Clinton and Obama administrations made their (at least partial) peace with these forces and cooperated in the massive ongoing scam. The plain fact that not one of the criminals guilty of prosecuting the Iraq War boondoggle and/or the financial scam system that ultimately broke this country down have been fingered let alone brought up on charges by the Obama administration is proof enough of the pudding as far as I am concerned. The ongoing ramping up of the security state by the Obama administration is just a few little pastel sprinkles on top of that pudding made of shit.
I too was optimistic when Obama was elected.
I am not, anymore.
On the evidence.
Is he a well-intentioned man just trying to be practical in the face of enormously powerful opposition?
I think that this is most probably the case.
I also think that it is no longer enough. Not by a long shot.
My evidence there?
Obama’s re-election. The media re-elected him and the media is owned lock, stock and rotten barrel by the same forces that you describe above. Had Obama actually shown signs that he was going to attempt to effectively reform things, he either would not have been re-elected or he would have died. Simple as that.
If we do not get out from under the control forces that you describe we shall simply sink a little deeper each into the morass of criminality that has brought us so far down now, and in the end we will hit bottom and things will go just as Directly-To-Hell, Do-Not-Pass-Go here as they have in all other governmental Monopoly games in the history of mankind, That’s why I supported Ron Paul, see good in what Rand Paul just accomplished and will continue to support anyone in politics who shows some awareness of the root problems of this country and a desire to take drastic measures to fix them.
The time for compromise is over. We need action, before it’s too late.
Sorry…I wish it were otherwise but there it is.
Station WTFU once again signing off.
Gotta go play some music tonight that isn’t part of the scam.
Bet on it.
AG
I beg to differ. Obama and his supporters reelected him, not the media.
Beyond that, Obama made his peace with the group we’re discussing in an interesting way.
It’s too deep to cover in a comment, but his rise was fueled by an anti-Clinton political cabal led by Tom Daschle, who was supposed to be his Health Secretary before it turned out that he didn’t pay for his limousine rides or something, I forget exactly. In other words, his initial “handlers” were not intelligence officers or shady types looking to influence our foreign policy, but people with much more domestic focus and, while certainly pro-business, not in the Clinton model.
So, that’s for starters.
Second, Obama’s success against Clinton was a tactical triumph executing a brilliant strategy (for delegates) that took the establishment’s breath away and defeated them before they knew what hit them. He owed less to big donors than any president in history because he did most of the work himself or through his organization of whip-smart staff and passionate supporters.
Third, he co-opted the realist branch more traditionally associated with Poppy. Most obviously, this included William Casey’s number two, Robert Gates, who kept on Defense Secretary, but also Colin Powell, Chuck Hagel, Brent Scowcroft (unofficially), Dick Lugar (unofficially), even down to the Eisenhower kids and the son of William Buckley Jr.
He deftly moved Panetta around to clean up messes first at CIA and then to replace Gates. He sidelined Huntsman in China and moved Petraeus to Afghanistan and then inside the tent at CIA just until the exit polls confirmed his reelection, and then out the door in disgrace.
He’s been extremely deft in these actions, and it’s telling that he has arranged things now so that Kerry, who knows from The Enterprise and The Octopus like few others, is at State, Clinton’s out, Gates is out, and Hagel is in as an opponent of extending the war to Iran. And a guy he truly trusts (hope he is justified in trusting him) is now running the CIA.
He might pop Susan Rice up to National Security Advisor.
He’ll have a team that has variously battled the Bush line or the Neo-Con line, and he’s done it while keeping the Realist school fairly contented.
We got bin-Laden, we’re out of Iraq, getting out of Afghanistan, Iran-hawks are sidelined, and with his domestic agenda blocked, we can expect most of his effort to go foreign policy achievements which will probably focus on nuclear disarmament and managing our affairs in the Middle East, which may require doing something about the Arab-Israeli conflict for real this time.
You see only the problems, and not how they are being addressed.
No, Booman. I am sorry, but this is simply not so. Had he…and his opponents, both in the 2008 primaries and the 2008 and 2012 elections…been portrayed differently in the media:
A-Hillary Clinton would have won the primaries in 2008 and most likely the election as well.
and
B-Romney…portrayed fairly accurately as a stumbling fool during the primaries and the (
s)election, but in reality not nearly the stumbling fool as was the man who was lionized by the selfsame media in 2000 + 2004, George Bush II…would have won. No number of “supporters”…dedicated workers…can overcome the media picture drawn of a given candidate as was evidenced by the media assassination of Ron Paul in 2012 despite his hundreds of thousands of involved supporters.“We”…the sleeple voters of the United States of Omertica…(
s)elected the following driveling fool to two terms of office over two fairly respectable candidates. (Well…maybe 1+1/2 respectable candidates. Kerry is a horse’s ass too.)Why?
Because Bush was represented as some kind of western hero to the sheeple multitudes by the media while Kerry and Gore were portrayed as liberal assholes.
He was branded and sold, just like a truck or any other consumer product.
And so was Obama.
Bet on it.
Do you actually think that the so-called “liberal”supporters of Barack Obama could have overcome a massive media campaign that was directed against him if said media was instructed to do so by their intelligence-connected corporate controllers?
Please, Booman.
If you do I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn that I would love to sell to you at bargain prices!!!
Please!!!
WTFU.
AG
You are showing your ignorance.
The key point about 2008 was that there was a split between those who wanted a Clinton restoration and those who saw in Obama something more promising. McCain had spent his career making enemies. Outside of neo-con circles, no one wanted him to be president, especially after they saw how he handled the financial meltdown. It wasn’t that the media helped Obama. The media had had a boner for McCain for a decade by the time he ran against Obama. Obama won on the merits. He won over at least half of Wall Street, satisfied the military folks, pulled in the internationalists/UN types/State Dept., and the progressives. He did that. They didn’t do it to him.
In 2012, Romney was the best the GOP could muster, so there wasn’t any interest within the power corridors of government/military/intelligence in undermining their commander and working for his defeat. That was left to the usual suspects on the oil/gas industry who don’t seem to have their old influence anymore after the Iraq catastrophe. In any case, David Petraeus didn’t own soda bottling plants in Cuba or the United Fruit Company. Things were different.
Sorry, Booman. I think our entire democracy is an empty shell of what it once was.
It is now a media-produced fiction.
On what evidence? On the evidence of my own eyes and brain.
The media have deselected every even remotely dangerous…dangerous to the PermaGov…presidential candidate since Howard Dean. I include Hillary Clinton in that even though she is part of the Clinton cabal. The right feared her, and probably with good reason after the nasty honeytrap coup they pulled on her husband. They have also participated in coverup after coverup, from the assassination years right through the Nixon coup, 9/11 and God only knows what else that we have never even heard about.
The game continues today and it will continue in 2016.
The final word belongs not to “the people” but to the media that leads them by the nose, and at the top that media is totally controlled by corporate interests and their CIA controllers.
Bet on it.
Welcome to 1984.
Permanent Government.
Bet on it.
AG
P.S. I don’t believe in Santa Claus, either.
The problem is that throwing that blanket over the entire political landscape obscures the factions, the infighting, the dueling interests, and the uncertainty of how it all plays out.
It’s one thing to argue that the media acts as an enforcer that limits the scope of debate. That is certainly true. It’s quite another to argue that the only things that matter are the things that both parties agree about.
What you are most concerned about is U.S. foreign policy, but even there you can see an enormous difference between what Bush did to our country in his first four years and what Obama has done. Yes, some things have not changed or even grown worse, and you’re justified to raise holy hell about those things. But what you are refusing to recognize is that the really malignant forces in our country, the forces behind the Bay of Pigs and escalation in Vietnam and the heroin trade and the October Surprise and Iran-Contra and, ultimately, the election of Bush…those forces are sidelined. Do they still have influence? Yes. But they are being held at bay at the moment. Do they still have influence on the bipartisan consensus? Yes, that is why we have kangaroo courts and indefinite detention and can’t close Gitmo.
It’s important that we don’t have people like John Bolton and Michael Ledeen and Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz and Scooter Libby making foreign policy decisions. It’s critically important. Those people are butchers, Arthur.
You can’t take your eyes off of them for a second, or they’ll be back.
“They”…or equally nasty critters…will be back no matter what we do say say, Booman. In fact…they have never left.
Watch the Iran hustle for more.
Soon.
Watch.
It’s already in process.
Watch.
AG
OT, but national security related.
Booman have u read the articles saying that POTUS will prob be appointing Susan Rice as National Security Advisor?
IDK How everyone feels about Susan Rice, but seeing as how his is an appointed position & not a confirmatory position. Politically this seems like great way to piss in Lindsey Graham & McCain’s eye
Susan Rice as National Security Advisor IMO would be a demotion and sideline Rice from an area in which she has performed admirably. Domestic political gamesmanship should not take priority over good diplomacy.
If the President needs to consult with Rice about an issue, it isn’t that far from New York to DC.
But the NSA is a Czar. Don’t Czars outrank mere ambassadors?
Only in their minds.
It’s the classic difference between a line position and a staff position. Guess who gets rif’d first.
I guess it would depend on what she wants to do, she may want to move on from the UN.
I’m not familiar with the idea of job reassignments being about what the direct report wants to do. There are jobs that need to be filled and people with skills to do them. I think that it’s more a question of outsiders thinking that she needs to be promoted and thinking that national security adviser is that promotion. The question for the President is where is it that she can best serve the country.
Everything’s a choice and for your good people you often ask their input as to what they’d like to do next if you know they want to leave their current position.
The President definitely has the most say as to what her next position is, but she does have some too.
We don’t know what she thinks, because she hasn’t said and I don’t expect her to say anything. We’ll find out what they’re all thinking when the decision is made and announced, if there is a change at all.
Marcy Wheeler is bulldogging the selective leaks issue with regard to drones and the Awlaki case. Today’s update.
The Author of the White Paper, Stuart Delery, Argues Selective, Misleading Disclosures Should Not Be Checked by FOIA
Dropping the whole conspiracy theory thing and returning briefly to Earth . . .
So the idea is to end the state of war by a congressional resolution concluding the authorization for the use of force that began it?
OK, but that really doesn’t remove his authority to use drones, bombs, or whatever he prefers in military actions short of war, or to kill Americans actually part of the forces he is attacking.
And the party that let Truman fight the Korean War without ANY form of congressional OK is not likely to try to stop him.