marccooper

Pinochet. And Me. And Abu Ghraib.

Great news hearing this weekend that former dictator Augusto Pinochet has been stripped of his immunity by a Chilean appeals court. The 88 year-old former military dictator was narrowly spared a certain prison sentence a few years back when another court ruled he was too infirm to stand trial on murder indictments. Pinochet may once again slip the noose when the Chilean Supreme Court rules on this latest decision, but for the moment he's back on the hot seat -- just where he belongs. Having recently been seen galavanting around some Santiago dinner clubs and having recently given a lengthy TV interview to an American reporter, Pinochet might find it difficult, however, to argue that he's too sick to spend some quality time in the dock.

Those of us who have a direct stake in Pinochet’s fate were frankly delighted and somewhat surprised by this turn of events. I was a translator to the president of the democratically-elected government that was overthrown in Pinochet’s 1973 coup and had numerous friends who were arrested, tortured and murdered by his regime.

Yesterday's ruling comes as a great victory for the tenacious Chilean investigative magistrate, Juan Guzman Tapia. When virtually no one else had the courage, Judge Guzman began criminal proceedings against Pinochet a handful of years ago. Guzman not only indicted Pinochet but has also helped jail more than a dozen top ranking Chilean military officers convicted of barbaric acts. It was my privilege two years ago to offer testimony before Judge Guzman in his investigation of the murder of Charlie Horman, my fellow American (and friend) who was immortalized in the 1982 Costa-Gavras film, Missing.

The latest ruling against Pinochet stems from his master-minding of “Operation Condor.” As described by authors John Dinges and Peter Kornbluh in separate works, Operation Condor was a sort of Latin American Murder Inc. that Pinochet cobbled together with other authoritarian regimes of the era.

There’s an important lesson for all of us in this saga of Pinochet, one that relates directly to the current debate over Abu Ghraib. The systematic torture deployed by the Pinochet regime was felt by hundreds of thousands of Chilean families for nearly two decades but couldn’t be publicly discussed or even recognized in any form until the dictator was forced to step down in 1990. By then the collective trauma had been so devastating to the Chilean national psyche that broad swaths of the population (including the justice system) still wouldn’t admit to its existence. I need go no farther than my own mother-in-law who, till this day, is loathe to recognize such abuses even though her own daughter was forced into exile.

For thirty years now the Chilean people have been struggling to come to terms and to find justice for the crimes of state torture and murder. And we see from today’s events around Pinochet, that issue is still far from resolved.

The torture employed at Abu Ghraib (and it now seems in numerous other U.S. detention facilities) comes nowhere close to what transpired in Chile. And as testimony to the virtues of an open society, our response (with all its flaws) has been light years ahead of the Chilean reaction. What we have been debating the last month is what took the Chileans 25 years to achieve. Only two weeks ago did Chile convene its first official commission to take testimony from the survivors of among an estimated 30,000 or more victims of Pinochet's torture chambers. Two weeks ago!

That’s why it is so important that we not give in to the bullies and demagogues who now claim that it is time to move on, that any more media coverage of the Iraq prison scandal undermines the war effort.

Take a look at Chile and the Pinochet case and you’ll find quite the opposite. What distinguishes us from closed societies is not only our ability but also our willingness to face up to and ultimately to punish those who undermine our moral and ethical standing by committing abuses and atrocities in the name of some Greater Cause.

Gone Fishin'

In Baja. Light posting (in case you haven't already noticed) until Memorial Day weekend subsides.

Analyzing Bush

Or at least analyzing the president's Iraq speech this week. Here’s my latest
L.A. Weekly column just posted.

A Liberal Nightmare: Moderate Republicans

Radical right-wing Republicans are good for business—especially if your business is being an Official Liberal. Look no further than The Nation magazine whose circulation now hovers at an all-time high of 160,000. That’s more than twice that of its long time and more moderate rival The New Republic and almost three times the size of the conservative mouthpiece, the Weekly Standard. Many of us associated with The Nation know very well that the growth spurt comes in direct proportion to the real (and imagined) zealousness of the Bushies.

Go to any cocktail party or political fundraiser nowadays on the Westside of L.A. or Manhattan’s Upper West Side and the assembled liberals seem to take an almost masochistic relish in claiming just how right-wing the Republican Party has become. You know the drill: “The Christian Coalition has seized the party…Jerry Falwell calls the shots…The Neocons have staged a coup… Diebold has cooked the election thru the voting machines...the Ashcroft fundamentalists are in charge…This is the most radical administration in the history of the country, the world, the universe!”

A certain succor is derived from the endless recitation of these articles of faith. It’s a great way to rationalize not only the relative political impotence of the liberal left, but it also justifies the often palpable moral superiority of the collective Volvo-driving People In Black who fancy themselves as disenfranchised in the Age of Bush (notwithstanding their balooning home equity and upper bracket tax relief).

Against that backdrop I find it tantalizing to wonder what would happen to the American political debate if the Republicans were about to move to the center? Writer Ben Smith of The New York Observer tackles that question head-on this week. He notes the recent rise of a knot of decidedly moderate Republicans – McCain and Giuliani; Pataki and Bloomberg; former New Jersey Governor Tom Kean who has led his September 11 Commission into some scrapes with the White House; Arnold Schwarzenegger (whom the L.A. Times noted last week was busily avoiding campaigning for Bush; and the quartet of Republican Senators (including McCain) who are currently blocking a new round of tax cuts:

In the public eye, in the Senate, and in a handful of key primaries around the country, it’s the moderate Republicans’ moment—though whether this is a renaissance or a death spasm remains to be seen. At its core is a handful of men loosely grouped around Mr. McCain. The Arizona Senator and Mr. Giuliani, who returned to the front page during his testimony before the Sept. 11 commission, are long-time friends. Secretary of State Colin Powell, apparently ascendant after a series of debacles at the Pentagon, and his deputy, Richard Armitage, are close to Mr. McCain. And New York’s newly feisty Mr. Bloomberg supplied Mr. McCain with a private jet when the Senator’s wife suffered a stroke last month

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Smith then quotes a moderate Republican beltway strategist saying: "The hard right within the party has reached its apex and is on decline. After 2004, regardless of the outcome of the election, you’re going to see a major battle within the Republican Party for its heart and soul. This is all about 2008. This is the coming Republican division.

"The moderates’ apparent revival runs counter to a well-documented trend toward polarization in American politics, and it may not last. The closeness of the Senate, Mr. Bush’s current political weakness, and the election-year tendency to move to the middle are all lending strength to the centrists.

But the real question for the Republicans will arrive after the November election. If Mr. Bush loses, the party will face an internal crisis. If he wins with Mr. Cheney as his running mate, he will have no obvious successor. Loyal conservatives, like Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, Governor Bill Owens of Colorado and Governor Jeb Bush of Florida, are angling for a future Presidential nomination, but two New York moderates also have their eyes on that prize. Mr. Giuliani has denied that he has any office in mind, but he certainly hasn’t allowed the spotlight to leave him for long. Mr. Pataki spent the evening of May 21 at a Lincoln Day dinner in Belknap County, N.H., a hint of his own aspirations.

"The party is fraying, it’s cracking," said the moderate Republican strategist. "It’ll hold through November, but not long after that."

Imagine what all this might mean for next year’s cocktail chatter. What’s the point of being a liberal if you can’t moan any longer about living under "fascism?"

Bush On War: What Me Worry?

Will Saletan of Slate offers a mordant take on Bush’s Monday night speech on Iraq. Bush fails to see his own error-filled role in shaping recent history, Saletan says. And blind to the past, he says, Bush can hardly see the way forward:

Bush's ignorance of his part in the tragedy infects everything he says. "The swift removal of Saddam Hussein's regime last spring had an unintended effect," he observed tonight. "Instead of being killed or captured on the battlefield, some of Saddam's elite guards shed their uniforms and melted into the civilian population. [They] have reorganized, rearmed and adopted sophisticated terrorist tactics." Note the passive construction. The mistake isn't that Bush failed to prepare for guerrilla tactics commonly adopted against occupiers. It isn't even a mistake; it's an "unintended effect." The cause of that effect is Saddam's "swift removal," not Bush or anyone in his administration who engineered the removal.

Is Bush embarrassed that a year of occupation has failed to substantiate his claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and links to global terrorism? No. He hasn't even noticed. "I sent American troops to Iraq to defend our security," he repeated tonight, adding, "Iraq is now the central front in the war on terror … This will be a decisive blow to terrorism at the heart of its power and a victory for the security of America and the civilized world." Never mind the emerging evidence that North Korea, not Iraq, was engaged in the kind of WMD proliferation that Bush attributed to Saddam. In his speech, Bush simply repeated that Iraq was the headquarters of terrorists who "seek weapons of mass destruction."

For a still more airbrushed version of history, consider Bush's account of his relationship with the United Nations. "At every stage, the United States has gone to the United Nations to confront Saddam Hussein, to promise serious consequences for his actions, and to begin Iraqi reconstruction," the president asserted. Forget the part where Bush reneged on his pledge to call a Security Council vote on the use of force. Forget the part where he invaded Iraq against the wishes of a majority of the council.

Saletan is not alone in his cold reaction to the Bush speech. Much of this morning’s press spin turns against Bush. And snap polls are showing something like a 2 to 1 majority of Americans who saw the speech say they saw no real plan being offered.

What intrigues me is how Bush is going to have to deliver five more of these rhetorical suckers in the next five weeks. He ought to be careful. He could talk himself right out of his re-election.

Rapid Response to Bush Speech: Ker-plunk!

I’ll be looking at Bush’s Iraq policy in depth later this week. My rapid response to his first of five major speeches on the subject tonight is… in one word… ker-plunk!

I heard nothing that will significantly shift the devastating poll numbers that came in over the last 24 hours.

The CBS News Poll:

Bush’s overall job approval rating has continued to decline. 41 percent approve of the job he is doing as President, while 52 percent disapprove -- the lowest overall job rating of his presidency. Two weeks ago, 44 percent approved. A year ago, nearly two-thirds did.

As concern about the situation in Iraq grows, 65 percent now say the country is on the wrong track -- matching the highest number ever recorded in CBS News Polls since the question was first asked in the mid-1980’s. Only 30 percent currently say things in this country are headed in the right direction. One year ago, in April 2003, 56 percent of Americans said the country was headed in the right direction.

The last time the percentage that said the country was on the wrong track was as high as it is now was in November 1994, as Republicans swept into control of both houses of Congress for the first time in decades.

And for those who have underestimated the American people, arguing they are willing to give the administration a pass on torturing Arabs there’s this striking poll finding:

The scandal over U.S. troops abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison remains a serious concern in the minds of more than four in five Americans. There is more suspicion of a cover-up today than there was two weeks ago, and 81 percent now say the behavior cannot be justified.

The Washington Post / ABC News Poll contains equally bad numbers for Bush also showing him at an all time low in handling of the war.

A full 58% of self-identified “independents” gave Bush negative ratings on managing the war. That’s factoid is perhaps the most significant. Independents are that 10-12% of the electorate most likely to decide the November election.

In short, Bush appears to be losing the center. As one friend put it the other night: “How many new votes is Bush going to get in November that he didn’t get last time?” That's a thought that must now haunt the White House.

Two Friends Write...

Two must-read pieces today from two friends of mine.

Journalist and old buddy Frank Smyth was arrested by Saddam’s regime in 1991 and tossed into Abu Ghraib prison. Some of us gave him up for dead and even started putting together a scholarship fund in his name. Frank, fortunately, survived to tell the tale. In Sunday’s L.A. Times he draws some eerie parallels between Abu Ghraib then and now:

“Then, as now, the authorities who governed Abu Ghraib wanted information from suspected insurgents, and the methods they used to extract it weren't pleasant. Hussein's official interrogators questioned prisoners during the day. If the answers weren't what they wanted, the guards punished their Iraqi subjects. I saw one questioner repeatedly poke a crying man on the side of the head with a long, thick dowel like a pool cue.

I saw another interrogator hose down a man standing outside on an overcast spring day. As the prisoner stood shivering, the official asked him questions, and when unsatisfied with the answers he zapped him with a hand-held electroshock device…

One night [the guards] took [another] victim to the second floor and placed him behind a steel railing. All through the night, the prisoner made a strange noise, as if he was trying to bleat like a sheep. A guard yelled at him to do it louder, and when the man failed to bleat loudly enough the guard swung at him with a long, flat board.

The guards took turns holding the board and ordering the man to make the animal outbursts, punishing him with another swat after each bleat. Hours into the game, the prisoner was so exhausted that he could no more than gasp, but the guards kept swinging. As dawn broke, after a long, sleepless night, I could see that his feet were flat on the ground while his wrists were tied to the ceiling. Soon after, a rooster crowed somewhere in the farm country outside Abu Ghraib. Only then did I realize which animal the guards had wanted him to imitate. They all broke into laughter, and a few were guffawing so hard that they fell to the floor. I feel certain the torture we witnessed was tame compared with what transpired elsewhere in the prison. Occasionally, we heard faint but chilling cries coming from deep inside the large prison: These were not the sharp cries of pain we heard so often in our area but, rather, sustained wails of agony I hated to contemplate.”

The other piece today comes from Roger Morris, who served on the National Security Council under Presidents Johnson and Nixon until resigning over the invasion of Cambodia. An award-winning investigative journalist and historian, he is the author of several books, including "Richard Milhous Nixon: The Rise of an American Politician."
In today’s piece for Salon, Roger calls upon American diplomats to resign over the disastrous Bush foreign policy:

“You know that showcase resignations at the top -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or flag officers fingered for Abu Ghraib -- change nothing, are only part of the charade. It is the same with Secretary of State Colin Powell, who may have been your lone relative champion in this perverse company, but who remains the political general he always was, never honoring your loss by giving up his office when he might have stemmed the descent.

No, it is you whose voices are so important now. You alone stand above ambition and partisanship. This administration no longer deserves your allegiance or participation. America deserves the leadership and example, the decisive revelation, of your resignations.”

New Report: Top Brass "Present" At Abuse

Bad News for the Big Brass. This breaking news just in from the WashingtonPost.com. A lawyer for one of the soldiers accused in the Iraq prison abuse scandal testified that an officer at Abu Ghraib said the top-ranking U.S. Army General in Iraq was present during some “interrogations and/or allegations” of the prisoner abuse. The WaPo cites the recording of a military hearing as its source:

The lawyer said he was told that Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez and other senior military officers were aware of what was taking place on Tier 1A of Abu Ghraib. The lawyer, Capt. Robert Shuck, also said a sergeant at the prison was prepared to testify that intelligence officers told him the abuse of detainees on the cellblock was "the right thing to do."

Shuck is assigned to defend Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II of the 372nd Military Police Company. During an April 2 hearing that was open to the public, Shuck said the company commander, Capt. Donald J. Reese, was prepared to testify in exchange for immunity. The military prosecutor questioned Shuck about what Reese would say under oath.

"Are you saying that Captain Reese is going to testify that General Sanchez was there and saw this going on?" asked Capt. John McCabe, the military prosecutor.

"That's what he told me," Shuck said. "I am an officer of the court, sir, and I would not lie. I have got two children at home. I'm not going to risk my career."

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the senior military spokesman in Iraq, said General Sanchez was unavailable for comment on this story but would "enjoy the opportunity" to respond later.
Sure, sounds like barrels of fun.

Torture Coverage: The Chuck Norris Backlash

The backlash has begun. Now that there are fresh reports of prisoner deaths while in U.S. custody and as the WaPo has secured scores of new prison abuse photos, some videos and new sworn testimony from victims detailing sodomy, ritualized religious desecration and sexual humiliation inside Abu Ghraib, there’s a rising chorus from the Right demanding a pull back of coverage.

Look no farther than Fox News pundit and columnist Morton Kondracke’s (who spent most of the 80’s flakking for Reagan’s covert wars in Central America) latest essay titled “Congress, Media Could Talk U.S. Into Iraq Defeat."
It’s the usual tiresome ahistorical Chuck Norris-like clap trap: the soft-headed media made us lose the Vietnam War because it supposedly mis-reported the 1968 Tet Offensive… and now we are about to do the same in Iraq by obsessing over Abu Ghraib.

Puh-leeze!

In fairness, I’ll refer you to my friend Roger L. Simon for an immensely more generous view of hack Kondracke.

Thank heavens for John McCain who has the cojones and the integrity to continue standing publicly for full disclosure on the scandal and who shows no sign of capitulating to the sort of bullshit that Kondracke peddles. (Why, by the way, is this task left to McCain? Where’s John Kerry??).

McCain was on CNN’s Larry King Show tonight and I recommend you read the entire transcript. Here are the money graphs:

MCCAIN: … I believe it was, when this first broke, in our conversation, I said, look, one of the things you've got to do is get this all out, because if you don't, then it's going to dribble out and we're going to be subjected to this for a long period of time.

And what I said, unfortunately, is true. And I'm sorry to say I'm sure that there's more out there, and there's more that the military has that we just need to get it out, get it to the American people, let the shock be over, and then start the healing by holding those responsible accountable, and showing everyone in the world that America will punish those who are transgressors, and then move on. But I'm sorry to say, this is very predictable.

KING: Has the Pentagon told you everything you need to know?

MCCAIN: No, and I found out today that the Taguba report may not have been completely sent over to us. If that's the case, I'm disappointed in that. There's...

KING: What do you mean?

MCCAIN: It's our assessment that the entire report by General Taguba was not sent over to the Senate Armed Services Committee. And we need that complete document, and I'm disappointed if we haven't gotten it, and I hope we get it soon.

KING: Was "The Washington Post" correct in printing it?

MCCAIN: We live in a free society and we have freedom of the press, and those judgments are made by the editors of "The Washington Post," and the subscribers. They don't have to buy the newspaper…

I hope Kondracke reads that last line about freedom of the press. If that’s too much to handle, he can always consider relocating to Syria or Jordan. You can bet those regimes never let their media “lose” their wars.

The Soprano-Bush Axis: Chalabi? You Won't See Him No More

With barely two weeks left in The Sopranos fifth season, it’s now an even money bet. Does the Tony Soprano-Johnny Sack alliance destroy itself in internal warfare before the Bush operation does? Just as sure as Tony’s 21-minute onscreen reverie last Sunday meant that he now has no choice but to whack butt-buddy cousin Blundetto, so was Ahmed Chalabi’s fate sealed the same morning when Colin Powell told NBC that some pre-war intel (provided by Chalabi) had been “deliberately misleading.”

First the Pentagon cut off the 350 G's that Rummy was kicking down monthly to Chalabi. Then this morning, U.S. troops, Iraqi police, and the usual squad of Americans dressed in civilian clothes, kicked in Chalabi’s door, smashed up his furniture, and seized his papers and computers.

They did everything but hand him over a dead fish wrapped in a flak vest.

It’s a big fall for a guy who just yesterday, it seems, was top consigliere to Cheney, Wolfowitz and Feith. This is the guy for whom we went to the mattresses. Oh, well, Chalabi? You won’t see him no more.

The cover story for the raid is that his crew was involved in theft of state vehicles. CBS News, however, suggests, that Chalabi’s well-known friendship with the Iranians was more like an espionage operation.

Most likely, Chalabi had to be muscled out to make way for the new Iraq governing team being pieced together by the UN’s Lakhdar Brahimi. It’s easy to imagine that any Iraqi agreeing to participate in the post-June 30 government demanded as a pre-condition that Chalabi, the most pro-American, most discredited of politicians had to be pitched overboard.

The former Iraqi darling of the Neocons did not go gently into obscurity. "My message to the [Coalition Provisional Authority] is let my people go, let my people be free. We are grateful to President Bush for liberating Iraq but it is time for the Iraqi people to run their affairs," he told a press conference.

Much like Tony Soprano must now survive the Sack-Carmine Jr. rivalry, the recklessness of cousin Blundetto, the resentment of nephew Christopher Moltisanti, and the disloyalty of Paulie Walnuts, so does George W. Bush now face a chorus of internal Republican dissent and disarray. Bush’s first task is to shut down the runaway Congressional investigations of Abu Ghraib captained by fellow Republicans John Warner and John McCain.

Bush button-man and draft-dodger Denny Hastert tried to wing McCain yesterday lecturing the war hero and ex-POW on sacrifice and war. That move backfired. Then, today, a trio of GOP Senators fired back at their White House boss.

Trent Lott said the administration is no longer “advancing ideas.” Leadership is fine, he said. “But leadership to do what?"

Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel publicly mused that Boss Bush is “particularly isolated" and ought to get closer in touch with reality.
And when Senator Dick Lugar, Republican of Indiana, was asked in a telephone interview on Wednesday whether the White House had a solution for the June 30 transfer of power, he bluntly replied, "Not yet."

What’s Bush to do? He's not about to go see Dr. Melfi. One theory is that with Chalabi’s demise, Bush is now showing the same sort of decisiveness that Tony Soprano is exercising in planning the hit on his favorite cousin. A major policy course correction should not be ruled out. With Chalabi out, might Rummy and Wolfowitz and the whole Neocon family be next? A new era of Brahimi? The UN? A rehabilitation of Colin Powell with an eye toward winning in November?

Stranger things have happened. Stay tuned.