Pruning Shears

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

Carol Rosenberg reported (via) on the military commission of Omar Khadr. He rejected a plea deal because doing so would “give an excuse to the government for torturing me and abusing me as a child.” Since most of the detainees at Guantánamo are innocent and not the worst of the worst the government can either warehouse these people without charges until they die or admit to heaping grotesque injustices and abuse on them. This is why we ought to have used our existing legal system from the beginning.

Jerrold Nadler on not investigating crimes by high level officials because of a need to look forward: “By that standard you’d never prosecute any crime.” Since he’s the chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties he would seem to be better positioned than most to remedy that problem.

Fox News personality Andrew Napolitano condemned the crimes of the Bush administration. Sure would have been nice to hear that when the criminals were in the midst of their spree instead of after they rode out of town.

Among the many reasons to oppose Arizona’s “papers, please” racial profiling law is that it encourages the most virulent racists to express themselves in the most hateful ways possible.

Steve Benen:

Would the Tea Party crowd be more popular if they seemed less insane? Well, sure. But we’re talking about a confused group of right-wing cranks working off nothing but blind rage.

BREAKING: Supply side economics is bunk. Oh, and every time the possibility of higher taxes on the rich comes up conservatives begin screeching about class warfare. For the record, America’s wealthy have been engaged in class warfare against the rest of the citizenry for decades now. As Yves Smith writes, “It isn’t merely stunning, it’s destructive.” If the middle class takes up arms (metaphorically) in the battle it will merely be to finally, at long last, return fire.

I thought I was going to use this in a post so I haven’t linked to it yet, but better late than never. “Stability operations” is your new euphemism for combat:

What soldiers today would call combat operations - hunting insurgents, joint raids between Iraqi security forces and United States Special Forces to kill or arrest militants - will be called “stability operations.” Post-reduction, the United States military says the focus will be on advising and training Iraqi soldiers, providing security for civilian reconstruction teams and joint counterterrorism missions. “In practical terms, nothing will change,” said Maj. Gen. Stephen R. Lanza, the top American military spokesman in Iraq. “We are already doing stability operations.”

[snip]

Beyond August the next Iraq deadline is the end of 2011, when all American troops are supposed to be gone. But few believe that America’s military involvement in Iraq will end then. The conventional wisdom among military officers, diplomats and Iraqi officials is that after a new government is formed, talks will begin about a longer-term American troop presence.

I WISH I COULD WRITE LIKE Mel Brooks: “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.” See Jay Bybee.