Loose Nukes

"We have to recognize that terrorists networks have relationships with terrorist states that have weapons of mass destruction, and that they inevitably are going to get their hands on them and they would not hesitate one minute to use them." — Donald Rumsfeld, 2002.

So I've been kind of hoping for the last eight years that somebody would do something about the loose nuke problem. I'm glad it's finally reached the top of the todo list.

At the unprecedented 47-nation nuclear security summit held earlier this week in Washington D.C., world leaders pledged to secure all vulnerable nuclear material within four years. Russia and the US also signed an agreement to dispose of 68 tons of surplus weapons-grade plutonium. Incidentally, Russian President Medvedev made some sly comments about how nice it was to work with a US president who "thinks when he speaks."

Sam Nunn, a former senator and former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, was quick to defend President Obama’s weapons reduction strategy:

"What is the mission that you can’t accomplish with 1,500 warheads?" Nunn asked with a derisive laugh in an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast. "There was a recent report in Scientific American that 100 warheads used by India and Pakistan against each other would kill 20 million people immediately, and would cause so much blockage of the sun with the debris in the atmosphere that over a period of several years, there would be as many as a billion people starving to death."

Of course. But wait. Why would anybody have to defend this policy? I mean, who would be against a revived commitment to nonproliferation? Well, round-up the usual bunch of hyperventilating idiots: Fox News, Rudy Giuliani, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, and Sarah Palin.

Daily Kos has already tackled the list of nuke policy myths you're going to hear, and The Federation of American Scientists has written a careful report on the Nuclear Posture Review. Unsurprisingly, it's a bit more complicated than Sarah Palin's dimwitted playground metaphor, yet not impossible for the average American to understand.

Some facts: the new treaty does not limit US missile defense systems, the US will still consider the use of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstance, and President Obama does indeed have support of top military brass.

Finally, reducing our arsenal does not make us more vulnerable.

However, if you're one of the frivolous few who LOVE nuclear warfare, then relax. Nuclear warheads will be around for a long, long time, and who knows? One day McCain's dream may come true and we'll bomb Iran.

(atomicarchive.com)

The Doomsday Clock is still ticking.

True Believers

The above picture is one of eleven cover sheets featured in the GQ article And He Shall be Judged, a damning exposé on former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The amateurish cover sheets adorned top-secret intelligence briefings approved by Rumsfeld and featuring triumphant images from the Iraq war effort. But it's the quotes above the images that reveal way too much about Bush's crusade. Straight from the Bible they came: "Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand."

I can only see this as a cynical and crafty move by Rumsfeld:

The Scripture-adorned cover sheets illustrate one specific complaint I heard again and again: that Rumsfeld’s tactics—such as playing a religious angle with the president—often ran counter to sound decision-making and could, occasionally, compromise the administration’s best interests. In the case of the sheets, publicly flaunting his own religious views was not at all the SecDef’s style—“Rumsfeld was old-fashioned that way,” Shaffer acknowledged when I contacted him about the briefings—but it was decidedly Bush’s style, and Rumsfeld likely saw the Scriptures as a way of making a personal connection with a president who frequently quoted the Bible. No matter that, if leaked, the images would reinforce impressions that the administration was embarking on a religious war and could escalate tensions with the Muslim world. The sheets were not Rumsfeld’s direct invention—and he could thus distance himself from them, should that prove necessary.

So this is why I never again want a "true believer" as president. Bush was too easily manipulated. Convinced he had a calling from God, he shunned diplomacy, rushed to war, and was simply reckless.

It's a miracle we didn't all die in a big mushroom cloud.

The Guantánamo Testimonials

I just finished watching Rachel Maddow interview Spc. Brandon Neely. Neely served as a guard at Guantánamo and voluntarily gave his testimony to The Guantánamo Testimonials Project (if video doesn't show, click here):

After watching this video and reading Neely's detailed testimony, I'm struck by one part that reveals the young soldier's initial naivety and lack of training:

After waiting a couple hours we got the call that the detainees were at the air strip and being loaded up to bring to the camp. I started getting really nervous; almost scared. I keep thinking "Here it comes; I am fixing to see what a terrorist looks like face-to-face." I remember my escort partner saying over and over "I got your back, man, if anything happens." I could tell he was as nervous as I was. Everyone in the camp that day was nervous and scared; you could literally hear a pin drop moments before that bus full of detainees arrived.

I know one intended effect of war propaganda is to dehumanize the enemy, but what could he have been expecting? Glowing eyes? Fangs? I guess Rumsfeld's rhetoric about the "worst of the worst" really worked on these guards.

So I take that into account when I read the rest of the testimony. Neely was a good person in an evil environment with orders coming down from Rummy. He has, by coming forward, demonstrated his conscience.

I am fine with this being part of my testimony. I want it to be told no matter how it makes me look. I believe it's very important people know what happened there. I am sure there were (and are) a lot of detainees in Guantanamo that are guilty of something. But, on the other hand, there are a lot that are not guilty of nothing at all other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And no one, guilty or innocent, should be treated in the manner they have been.

But his accounts of the psychological and medical abuse he witnessed was more shocking and evil than I expected. That medics can laugh while stretching injured limbs and giving rectal exams is sickening. I was raised to believe that only Nazis did this shit and we're better than that. Not true. Not true at all.

Who's going to be held responsible?

No Coincidence

Image via I Can Has Cheezburger.

Is it just a coincidence that a few weeks after hiring Samuel Wurzelbacher (aka "Joe the Plumber," aka leftover baggage from the McCain campaign), Pajamas Media is shutting down its blogger advertising network? Apparently the blog advertising market is crashing along with everything else.

Of course, there is also the possibility that companies didn't want to advertise on wingnut blogs. The free market is funny like that.

I guess PJM saw themselves as some kind of superhero in tights (err Pajamas) exposing liberal bias and stomping out the traditional media. Instead, they got Joe the Pretend War Correspondent ranting about how reporters shouldn't report, the media should be abolished, and everything would be better if Americans kept on cheering. Funny how the antiquated liberal media handily discredited him.

PJM is still trying to define a future for themselves. Their lineup of webcasts looks like remnants from Bush's military analysts program... but on second thought, no military analyst was as stupid as Joe the Shlump... except, well that Rumsfeld guy had some insane moments.

But I digress. Many Americans don't know much about news outside the US, and PJM might find their niche in making those average Joes feel smart.

Heckuva Job, Rummy

It seems that Bush is on a "Save My Legacy" tour. As he worked the crowd at West Point on Tuesday, he gave a shout out to his old pal and former defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld:

Finally, we are transforming our military for a new kind of war that we're fighting now, and for wars of tomorrow. This transformation was a top priority for the enterprising leader who served as my first Secretary of Defense -- Donald Rumsfeld. Today, because of his leadership and the leadership of Secretary Bob Gates, we have made our military better trained, better equipped, and better prepared to meet the threats facing America today, and tomorrow, and long in the future.

Wars of tomorrow, Mr. President? Exactly how many did you and your criminal friends plan? And although I won't question the skills and training of our military, I will question any statement that they are somehow better off because of these wars. By many accounts, our military is stretched, strained, and suffering. They deserve better!

But Bush's speech leaves me with a sense of deja vu. While Bush praises Rummy, a government report blames Rummy for detainee abuses:

A report released Thursday by leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee said top Bush administration officials, including Donald H. Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary, bore major responsibility for the abuses committed by American troops in interrogations at Abu Ghraib in Iraq; Guantánamo Bay, Cuba; and other military detention centers.

The report was issued jointly by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the Democratic chairman of the panel, and Senator John McCain of Arizona, the top Republican. It represents the most thorough review by Congress to date of the origins of the abuse of prisoners in American military custody, and it explicitly rejects the Bush administration’s contention that tough interrogation methods have helped keep the country and its troops safe.

The report also rejected previous claims by Mr. Rumsfeld and others that Defense Department policies played no role in the harsh treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 and in other episodes of abuse.

Heckuva job, Rummy.

And because Christmas is coming, I'd like to offer you this fine stocking stuffer. Imagine the fun you and your children can have with this Donald Rumsfeld talking action figure!

Another Attack

The New York Times recently investigated the Pentagon's Military Analysts Program and successfully sued the Department of Defense to gain access to 8,000 pages of e-mail messages, transcripts and records describing years of private briefings, trips to Iraq and Guantánamo and an extensive Pentagon talking points operation. You can explore the documents yourself here.

One of the more noteworthy -- and, for me, infuriating -- discoveries is a December 12, 2006 clip of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggesting that America, having voted the Democrats back into both houses of Congress, could benefit from suffering another terrorist attack. You can listen to the hour long clip here, but this is one portion everybody should be talking about:

DELONG: Politically, what are the challenges because you're not going to have a lot of sympathetic ears up there.

RUMSFELD: That's what I was just going to say. This President's pretty much a victim of success. We haven't had an attack in five years. The perception of the threat is so low in this society that it's not surprising that the behavior pattern reflects a low threat assessment. The same thing's in Europe, there's a low threat perception. The correction for that, I suppose, is an attack. And when that happens, then everyone gets energized for another [inaudible] and it's a shame we don't have the maturity to recognize the seriousness of the threats...the lethality, the carnage, that can be imposed on our society is so real and so present and so serious that you'd think we'd be able to understand it, but as a society, the longer you get away from 9/11, the less...the less...

Yes, that's our former Defense Secretary fantasizing about another 9/11-style attack on the United States (the country he is suppose to be defending)... He's probably just upset because the American people have the temerity to ask for their civil rights back, the guts to vote for people who will represent their best interests, the balls to demand that the troops come home alive, and the wisdom to know torture is beneath American dignity.

Whatever the reason for Rumsfeld's disgusting antipathy towards the American people, some people think this slip-of-the-tongue is evidence of a 9/11 conspiracy theory.

Personally, I don't believe that 9/11 was a conspiracy of our own government to attack us. I'd like to believe they're not that smart. I'd like to believe that they can't keep secrets for long.

Then today I read an article in Radar Magazine about the secret government database code named "Main Core." The database contains a list of an estimated 8 million Americans, who, "often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived 'enemies of the state' almost instantaneously."

Radar Magazine describes the possible road map to martial law:

With the population gripped by fear and anger, authorities undertake unprecedented actions in the name of public safety. Officials at the Department of Homeland Security begin actively scrutinizing people who—for a tremendously broad set of reasons—have been flagged in Main Core as potential domestic threats. Some of these individuals might receive a letter or a phone call, others a request to register with local authorities. Still others might hear a knock on the door and find police or armed soldiers outside. In some instances, the authorities might just ask a few questions. Other suspects might be arrested and escorted to federal holding facilities, where they could be detained without counsel until the state of emergency is no longer in effect.

So now I understand Rumsfeld's craving for an attack. He wanted to test out his new toy! Of course, Rumsfeld has since resigned as Defense Secretary, but shouldn't somebody ask the current Presidential candidates if they will continue these domestic surveillance programs?